NAMASTE

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Whispering Rabbits and the Resonance of the Spirit of Love


When I was a small boy, my Mother used to read to me at bed time from one of the series of "Little Golden Books " called "The Sleepy Book " by Margaret Wise Brown. In that book is the story of "The Whispering Rabbit ". This story is about a rabbit that is very sleepy, and while yawning, swallows a bee, who promptly curls up and goes to sleep in the rabbit's throat. He could only whisper, and was still sleepy, so he asks the other animals for help on how to get the bee to wake up and go away.


The only advice he gets it that he should have kept his paw over his mouth when he yawned. Finally he comes upon the groundhog who tells him:

"You have to make the littlest noise you can possibly make because bumblebee doesn't bother about big noises. He is a very little bee and he is only interested in little noises"

So the rabbit goes through a series of attempts at small noises;

"...the sound of a bug breathing, a fly sneezing, grass rustling and a fireman thinking."

"A sound as quiet as snow melting, quiet as a flower growing, quiet as an egg. quite as - And suddenly he knew the little noise that he would make - and he made it.

It was a little click made hundreds of miles

away by a bumblebee in an apple tree full of bloom

on a mountain top. It was a very small click of a bee

swallowing some honey from an apple blossom.

And at that the bee woke up."


What wonderful ideas for a small boy! "the sound of a fireman thinking", "quiet as an egg" Why this is Zen for children, or adults too, if they take the time to see it. Margaret Wise Brown was a spiritual teacher, even if she passed as just a gifted children's writer and poet. Whether Ms. Brown knew she was writing spiritually charged words, or the revelations lie in the listener, the spirit is alive here.


We who dare to write about spirituality need to have an understanding, spoken or not, that we are but facilitators of the spirit. When we see the power of "bees and bunnies", we get a glimpse of how our words might have an impact and how indeed, they are not really "our" words at all.


I think one of the best constant meditations is on Time. While I have great respect for time in the relative world, I try to keep a constant awareness that time is a trick of the mind to organize and explain, and not a reality. As a writer, and a respecter of timelessness, I am aware that you are reading this right now, as I type it! You are responding to that which has brought about it's writing in me. In reality, there is no "you " reading, just as there is no "me " writing. There is just the flow of spirit/Love instantly unfolding as a "passing on " of Love.


Above I said that whether Ms, Brown knew it or not, she was passing on, not only spiritual information, but inviting thought that could lead to awakening. This is the point. We have no real control in this realm of "spirituality". If we, as writers or as readers, underestimate the play of the spirit here, we miss the whole deal!


I have written over one hundred blog posts in the last year. Most I wrote with a particular theme, or at least with an idea or direction. But that hasn't stopped readers from misinterpreting a number of them, sometimes taking them in a direction I had never considered. I find this fascinating; how one person can receive an "inspiration" (to fill with spirit ), and the reader (also a receiver ) can become "inspired ", but react or see the inspiration slightly, or even entirely differently. How wonderful is that?


If something "I " write finds "resonance " with "you ", it is not the "I " and "you " that are at play, but the "inspiration "; that infilling spirit that breaths life into this "shadow play " of you and me. These words are your words. Although they come from a "different form", the same spirit that forms the words in my head, forms them in yours. You may see the same light as the same color I do, or not. Perhaps you see it with no color. No matter. "We " communicate because "we " are communicationitself, not two separate "communicators ".


No matter what you read, remember that time is not a factor. Duality is not a factor. When you readRamana Maharshi, you are not reading the words of a past Master, but a living inspiration. The spirit that enlightens Ramana indwells and lives in you. No time, not one nanosecond, has past since Ramana spoke and you heard. When you read the Masters, even with hundreds of translations, the spirit unfolds anew, for the first time. The smiling eyes of Ramana live in your memory, but the "inspiration " of Ramana Lives in your heart. No, I am not Ramana. I am Ramana's Love.


Remember, whether you read Ramana, the Bible, the Upanishads or The Sleepy Book, the "inspiration " that speaks to the "authors " is that living spirit that flows through you, is you. The "resonance " you feel is not with the writer, although he or she may be a good "conduit " for you, the "resonance" is with the spirit of Love.

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