The East

  Still in a body but desireless. What defined you to others before reaching the top of the mountain still defines you. You look the same, sound the same, have the same memories and exhibit the same personality traits. But you are not the same. Separateness is still experienced because you are still in a body but there is no reality to it. The only reality you are experiencing is the perfect unfolding of this creation we call the universe, and your part in this unfolding. You have nowhere to go and nothing to do other than whatever the energies at work in any given situation dictate. There is no longer any concern for how things are or should be. You have completed the journey around the Wheel and know that all of these levels are at play in the world around you. And moving from one level to the next only happens when you are done with the level at which you find yourself. And the universe only moves in one direction, from forgetfulness to remembering. Everything that has ever happened or will happen is a part of this movement because the experience of remembering has been the point from the very beginning.

  You may wonder why it would matter to you what happens in the world around you since you have reached the top and are done with the journey. And , in a sense, it does not matter, because you know it is all unfolding as it should. But one of the consequences of the death of separateness is the realization that who you are is that everything not you from which you once felt separate. Every person you see is you, and every time a child is born into the world, you are born again. If anybody is left behind then you are left behind. These are not thoughts you have, it is the reality you have become and this reality determines whatever actions you may take while still in this world.

  The Buddha spent his time in the East traveling across India and giving talks, to those who would listen, about what he had discovered about this world and the nature of suffering. Ramana Maharshi planted himself on a hill and stayed there for the rest of his life, and people would come to him seeking instruction or just wanting to experience the energy he would radiate from his chair. These were not choices they made. Ramana Maharshi was taken from the cave he was occupying thinking he was done with this life, but the people around him  were not done with him and built an ashram to house him so that he would be available to them in their own journeys. The same thing happened to the Buddha, except instead of an ashram, he was supported in his traveling from place to place across the continent as he was teaching people about the eight fold path. This is how it works if you are in the East. Given the opportunity be to a part of an awakening moment, you will come alive and contribute whatever you can to deepening this moment. And when the moment is ended, you will go back to being in the world and waiting for the next moment to present itself.

  There is tarot card called The Hanged Man that depicts this situation in which we find ourselves in the East. It is a picture of a man hanging upside down on a pole with his hands tied behind him and a halo of light around his head. This is the predicament in which we find ourselves. We have reached the top of the mountain and our journey is done, but we are still in the world and the world has no hold on us. There is nothing we want to posses and no place we long to be, and the only times we feel alive are when we can be a part of someone moving up the mountain toward that place at the top where we can be one with the beloved. We come alive because this is about who we are and, for a moment, we can be of service to that part of us that will be left behind when we are done with this incarnation.

  In the East, we are guides for a journey up the mountain that at this time not many are ready or willing to embark upon. Most of us are still rooting around in the lowlands and don’t even know the mountain exists, not yet done with the South on the Medicine Wheel. And so, those of us in the East live our lives waiting for the next opportunity to be of service to present itself. There is no going in search of these climbers because they will show up when they are ready, and we will need to be exactly where we are when they do show up.