This morning, while driving my son to school, I experienced one of those spontaneous, welcome yet unexpected, luminous moments when Spirit floods my mind and everything is Light and Joy and clarity and sweet surrender. Fortunately it was more than a fleeting moment, many moments strung together really, carrying me safely across town to my next task. The brilliant beauty and gentle yet powerful shifting reflected in these moments mirrored the gorgeous Autumn day I breathed in all around me. And even while the wholeness, limitless and completeness of Spirit’s clarity filled me, I wanted to put it into words, to share it.
One lingering image I have, that has visited me often in similar reflective moments, is of a vast, multilayered woven fabric of complex and intricate patterns. This tapestry is the Mind, and each thread a series of images, or pictures, connected to similar, or matching, images that weave together, creating patterns of perception and experiences of reality. What holds all these threads together, what weaves them, is judgement. And what tightens the weave even more,
is resistance. Where the weave is dense, multilayered, complex and tight, no Light comes through, even though it is always there, shining beneath the thoughts and images that occupy the Mind. The less judgement and resistance, the looser the weave, the more Light filters through. Where we allow ourselves to be fully neutral–fully present, aware, without judgement or resistance–the threads unravel, then disappear, and only Light remains.
While I enjoyed the image of threads unraveling and more Light shining through, I was amused to celebrate being threadbare and full of holes! Maybe that’s what Holy is! 😀 😉 How often do we allow ourselves to celebrate unraveling? The default setting for the mind is to be identified with its contents. But if we are being the fabric, holding onto the threads and trying to figure them out, we will not allow them to unravel. When we think we are the mind and its contents, we desperately try to reweave, mend, repair, tighten, patch and fix whatever begins to unravel. We cannot allow ourselves to disintegrate. The loosening strands feel like we are losing ourselves. We feel grief, despair, panic, fear.
But, fortunately! (here’s where the celebration comes!), We are Not the Mind, nor its contents. (Yay!!) We are not the fabric, nor the threads that make up the fabric. We are the Light that eternally shines, on, in and through the fabric of the mind. So let the fabric unravel! Let it fray all over the place! Tear it up if you want! Or, be gentle, wash it frequently with laughter and love, until it becomes threadbare and disintegrates. And when the light shines into the darker areas of the tapestry, where tightly woven, intricate and colorful layers intertwine and seem to trap you, admire your handiwork, the creativity of the mind, the ingeniousness of making something out of nothing.