Releasing our Self


Once I sat with a teacher who had so dissolved her discrete self that there was nothing left except Everything.



Sitting with her was a lesson in fulfillment. We were having lunch, and our topics of discussion were as ordinary as they can get.
And yet -- due to the absence of history and programming on her plate, light danced on the table everywhere.



That was an enormous lunch.



I knew right then that this was the way, this was the work. To become transparent, to become a being of nocolor. To become
walking food.



Of course evolving into a human transparency is a slow process, one that occurs at a deep level of the heart. And no, it doesn't
mean that our surface self loses all opinions or all sense of savvy about living.



It just means that we reverse our priorities: where before smartness was our main card, our chief ace in the hole, and the soul a
buried treasure, now there is a switch. Now our opinions and history are like small harmless flowers in a buttonhole, and the Self is
the main garment.



Walk around with the Self unhidden and you are walking around with heaven's blood coursing through your veins -- and watering
all life forms around you.



You do have to give up a few things to do this. You have to give up thinking small. You have to give up thinking you are helpless.
You have to give up thinking you are something of any kind. You just kind of wear your personality over your shoulder like a loose
sweater, and stop taking it so seriously.



It takes great love to accomplish this. You must love the little self you carry along with you. Love it, honor it, humour it -- but
never let it drive the car.



Can we actually arrive at this point?



Oh, yes. We can be there, we can walk there, we can do there. But only after we stop viewing it as impossible.



If Brother Lawrence could reach the point where he actually loved washing his pots and pans for God (and he did), you and I can
love our pesky little mindsets. Show some compassion! Eventually they melt away.



Eventually they melt away, and you can still enjoy a crisp green fresh Caesar salad, sip fine wine, and sing your favorite rock and
roll tune in the shower. But underneath these discrete preferences you will notice the hum of No Color, No Thing, No Two.



The hum of heaven.

Elsa Joy Bailey
from ELSAJOY