Rumi woke up in the dark. It was 1 A.M.
The Friend had suggested what to do. “Simply be aware. It’s the subtle time. Become attuned to that subtle song I play for you until you go to sleep again.”
But invariably the thoughts would come.
There were regrets of course, enough to fill a stadium. But tonight the fears were out in front. The usual minor characters, one by one: The tax man and the creditors. Spiders, starvation, missing teeth. Rumors of war and plague and such. But the worst part was the bears.
Rumi had a thing about bears.
There hadn't been a bear seen in the nearby wooded hills in a long time. Even so he could imagine it. One getting into the house. Getting his food. Getting him.
Rumi was sure he’d never get to sleep again.
“Death is not a problem in the bigger scheme of things,” came the Friend's calm voice.
“It is if it means getting mauled by bears,” Rumi replied and pulled the covers round his head.
“Then why so busily creating it?”
“What?”
“You know how it works. Remember that time you wanted butter for your bread? You presented the desire. Set imagination into play. Engaged the machinery of feelings, so clogged with rust. Our observation overlapped and our intentions merged. And what happened then?”
“The butter arrived. From the dairy in the sky.”
“So now? You’ll manifest a bear.”
“No!”
“Why not? It’s the exact same process, isn’t it? Even easier with the fear, so efficient at the process of picturing the scene. And the feelings get so riled up! I’m surprised there’s not a bear here yet!”
Rumi wrapped a pillow round his head.
“You want the science? The intention and imagining and feeling sends a message to the DNA. ‘Want’ and ‘Don’t Want’ look just the same to it.
DNA sends a message to the Aura then, that is walking hand in hand with Source, that dotes on it and gives it anything it wants.
"‘I’m interested in bears,’ the Aura says to Source. And do you know what happens then?”
“Bears.”
“Of course bears! Even if there’s never been one nearer than five hundred miles. Source will arrange the near-impossible. A circus will arrive!
"A certain bear’s handler will get drunk for the bear to escape and . . .”
“I’m doomed.”
“Who is?”
“I am.”
“We need to have another talk about this ‘I’ of yours."
"Yes, yes, we've discussed all that before, how the self is only a mental construct, nothing more. How the body is a bamboo flute . . . How does it go?"
"The body is a flute that holds each note of Life, each moment new. Then the flute decides it is the song. 'My' song, composed of all the by-gone notes."
"Ah."
"But you’re not the flute, nor the song it’s sung. Nor the air that’s passing through. You are the sky!”
"It will make sense to me one day."
"Why do you think I wake you up at 1 A.M. so much?”
“Why indeed?”
“To contemplate the great ‘I AM’ of life. Bigger than the little one you think you are. So easy to practice pure awareness when the sounds outside are few. To watch the sensations of the body come and go, points of feeling blinking on and off. Awareness of the whole-body song, each moment new. Merging with the sky of Source, a greater self past thought and time!
"It's then Source sees your aura growing bright and knows it's ready to go hand in hand into the infinite. Source so willing to make manifest the any least desire. Bending low to hear.
'What is that you say you want, my cherished one?'"
..............
By James Saint Cloud
thealicecode@gmail.com
For the story about creating the butter for the bread, “Rumi and the Co-creation Art” see:
http://talkwiththefriend.blogspot.com/
