Returning Home: Every Face the Face of God

"Tenderness is the byproduct of the recognition of our oneness. Tenderness follows the direct experience that there is no other. We can’t force the experience of love. We can’t make it happen. We can only allow it to be the residual effect of recognizing and knowing the intimacy of our shared being."

Text by Caverly Morgan. Photos by Vineet Teames.

The silence is profoundly silent.

Perhaps it’s simply because I trained at a silent Zen monastery for eight years that silence is the context in which stillness feels most easily accessible to me. That’s not the case for my husband. He grew up in a large family and lived and practiced at a colorful ashram in which devotion is vividly expressed – often loudly – from the perspective of an ex-monk.

He can sleep anywhere and doesn’t flinch at the thought of meditating in the midst of bhajans over loud speakers and lots of movement. I watched him sleep in an Indian rickshaw that was dodging traffic so severely that I found myself holding on for survival. Apparently the grasping wasn’t needed. We both came out of the trip fine – only one of us was more rested.

For me, silence opens space for a wordless conversation with life that can be more difficult to access in the midst of noise.

And now here I am. Beloved dogs at my sides. Husband still in California. Silence abounds. Enveloped in stillness. Held.

It’s a particularly loud silence given the contrast of where we’ve been. While in India, not only did I grow accustomed to not having silence around me, I grew used to not having physical space. To be in this home – that I can’t, in good conscious, call ‘mine’ – for in this moment the concept of ownership seems absurd, is like being on an island. Not because I feel removed from the world, but because there’s nothing but space and silence extending in all directions. And because the house feels enormous, though by Western standards it is not.

In the stillness, tenderness arises. Tenderness for this body – I returned home ill. Tenderness for the love in the reunion with my four legged friends. Tenderness for the lives who have touched mine and who now, physically, are far away.

In the heart, they couldn’t be closer. These lives – lives that, may not even know that they’ve made such an impression – are swimming through me. Arising. Dancing. Dissolving.

It’s not that they are merely a memory now. It’s clear that it’s a fallacy to think that simply because we can no longer see something, we can no longer be present to it. Presence would be narrow if it could only attend to what is seen. Much more is possible.

Awareness does not exist as a single point in time and space.

It overwhelms the ego, the small illusory self, that awareness isn’t ‘mine.’ That it doesn’t belong to ‘me.’ (Me being this body/mind.) In fact, the ego can’t grasp that and spends its (apparent) existence fighting that truth. From the perspective that awareness is ‘mine,’ I can attend to what is in front of ‘me.’ (Again, ‘me’ in this context being this body/mind). It’s the perfect subject/object relationship. It’s controllable. Manageable. Tangible. Right?

For the ego, it is. For the heart, it’s absurd.

In the heart, all these lives that I’ve made reference to arise in this larger Me – this open, vast field of Awareness. These impressions, these experiences, they all appear and disappear in Me.

The honking horns of busy streets. The chickens in cages by the butcher’s block. Cows on concrete. Women in colorful silk saries hovering above dirt and shit. The laughter of children in school uniforms. The tears of a girl who has just met her new husband – about whom she had no choice.

Sweet little Sakshi and her family who took us in –- the first foreigners in their neighborhood –- and treated us like royalty. The frail old ladies wearing earmuffs because the temperature has dropped to 85 degrees Fahrenheit. All of this arises in Me. All of this is known by Me.

In this intimacy of knowing comes understanding. A deep tenderness for all that is You – this vast open field of Awareness. Of which nothing is excluded. From this recognition, acceptance of what is, is not a practice – it is the reality of the nature of Awareness itself.

The intimacy of our communal being is love. With love comes tenderness. Tenderness for the shop-keeper who works hard all day while her husband drinks. Tenderness for the man who has traveled for days from Delhi to have one timeless moment in his guru's embrace.

Tenderness for the twelve-year-old girl who wears a red band around her arm because her parents say it wards off evil. Though it is mere superstition to her, when asked about it she says, “It is my duty to please my parents and if this pleases them, I am happy.”

Tenderness is the byproduct of the recognition of our oneness. Tenderness follows the direct experience that there is no other. We can’t force the experience of love. We can’t make it happen. We can only allow it to be the residual effect of recognizing and knowing the intimacy of our shared being.

And so here, this morning, in silence, I bow to the shining and brilliant souls who have reminded me of this shared being. All who have opened the door to the remembrance of our oneness through their generous spirits and open hearts. You, beautiful beings of a continent now far away, couldn’t be closer to me in the stillness of the heart.

Thank you for your love. Thank you for your being. I see each of your faces so clearly in Me. Every face, the face of God.

Holi: Life Is Not Overwhelmed By Life

"What feels like chaos is only chaos to the mind of limitation that attempts to have control. Life is not overwhelmed by life."

Text by Caverly Morgan. Photos by Vineet Teames.

I had heard of it, but I didn't know what it was. It had always sounded celebratory. Involving colors. Dancing. Merriment. And, being a festival in India, it of course has a deep, religious, history.

Holi. How fortuitous that we arrive to Varanasi on the day before the celebration! What a treat! I begin to read about the history of the day. My husband gets his camera ready.

It is said that Holi existed several centuries before Christ. However, the meaning of the festival is believed to have changed over the years. Earlier it was a special rite performed by married women for the happiness and well-being of their families. The full moon was worshiped. Now many describe the festival to us as signifying the victory of good over evil, the arrival of spring, the end of winter, and for many a festive day to meet others, play and laugh, forget and forgive, and repair broken relationships.

After Holi.

As we wander through the city for the first time, we learn that there might be more to the street festival than Google relayed. We hear, first, about the colors that are thrown through the streets. Sounds playful enough. Beautiful images of this dot the internet.

Then we are informed about the cow shit that is sometimes thrown as well. There's even an account of motor oil flying through the air and damaging someone's face. The image of 'colorful festival' slowly begins to transform into 'Mardi Gras on crack' in my mind.

We sit down with an Indian friend, who hovers delicately between a boy and a man. It's when he brags about 'breaking clothes' that it sinks in that this might not be a party we're ready to attend. "Oh it's the best! People come out into the streets and drink. We drink all morning! We throw things and sometimes fight but it's all about how we make up in the afternoon. Last year, there was this European couple, and the guy got wild and broke my clothes. So I broke his girlfriends clothes!"

It takes me a minute. "So you mean you ripped her clothes in public?"

"Oh yes, it's all great fun!"

Colors from the day before Holi.

Call me a party pooper, but this is not sounding fun to me. When a few hours later I learn about the accounts of women being groped by indeterminable hands, it is confirmed, I'm staying inside for Holi.

The evening before the festival we sit on a peaceful ghat before the fun begins. As night falls, a monk makes his way down the steps for an evening puja on the Ganges.

"Where are you from?"

"The United States," I naïvely answer.

"No, where are you staying?" He continues in an English accent that is as thick to me as mine is to him. Again, innocently, my husband offers the name of our guest house on the other end of the Ghats.  

"Go. Go now. This is the night of Holi." The wise man directs.

At first I'm aghast that we've intruded on his sacred evening ritual on the riverside through our presence. Then it clicks. It's getting dark and Holi is approaching. He's letting us know we're not safe.

We bow in gratitude and begin the trek home. I feel unusually vulnerable as the first plastic bag full of colored water is thrown at me from an unknown hiding place. The edges around the vulnerability soften some as it becomes clear that only those under ten are doing the throwing. Little boys hiding behind crumbling walls and from the crevices of rooftops and dark balconies. The playful and mischievous raid has begun.

Stairs stained with color after Holi.

Each time I am struck there's a chorus of giggles. I'm able to find the humor and fun in it. It’s a game. I get it.

Simultaneously, I feel myself identifying with the women of the world as a whole. Who have had things thrown at us. All of us. All of us who have been groped. Our clothes broken, and worse.

So while it's easy to be a mirror for giggling boys, laughing along with the play, in the same instant I feel myself mirroring the uncertainty of the vulnerable women of the world. I feel our insecurity. Our doubt for our safety. Our fear.

And that is a theme for me on this beloved journey in this beloved country. Holding it all. Being with it all. Learning not to flinch in the face of the everything-ness of this wild and wondrous world.

It's one thing to sit in the comfort of an air-conditioned workshop in Portland, Oregon, and talk about being present to the dualistic world that the conditioned mind creates. It's another to be navigating 'color bombs' in an evening in which a monk has warned you that you'd better take refuge inside lest you avoid getting hurt on the eve of a sacred religious holiday. This occurring in the very moments that my Facebook feed lights up with sweet images of tame celebratory meals back at home to commemorate this meaningful day. Smiles. Waves. Plentiful and colorful food.

Holi.

And to be clear and fair, from what I can see, the majority of people in India have a peaceful and joyous time celebrating this historic holiday. Friends later show us photos of their families gathered in bright colors. Faces painted. Dancing limbs. Play. The joy is palpable. The color. The brightness. The love. Certainly most people do not take to the streets, get drunk, and grope women. I want to be clear about that.

This particular account is about the way in which, with the light, comes the dark. The wandering cows and dogs that don't choose to be part of the festivities and yet are covered in sometimes toxic color regardless. It’s about hearing how some people end up being thrown in ditches full of trash and sewage.

It’s about the way in which a sacred holiday that has been celebrated for countless years has become something that now draws partying tourists from all over the globe who are looking for the world's best bash.

There is no shortage to the contrasting nature of our dualistic world on this journey. Not just the journey of Varanasi during Holi, but the journey of our existence.

As we practice, we ask: how can I be with all of this? How can I hold it?

What's important to underline is that the ego cannot. When our attention is aligned with the illusion of separation, we are busy drawing one 'reality' towards us while pushing the other 'reality' away.

We like this, we don't like that. We want this. We don't want that. We agree with this. We don't agree with that. We crave. We resist. We suffer.

Colors on the stairs of a ghat after Holi

The duality worth truly exploring here is not merely the duality of what the intention of a holiday is versus what it has become. The true exploration is not on the realm of content.

The true exploration is on the realm of process. How do we align the attention with the activity of the mind that creates the illusion of separation? How do we become the 'I' that appears to be outside life?

When aligned with that small erroneous sense of self, these contradictions, on the realm of content, seem irreconcilable. The small 'I' busies itself with either trying to reconcile and make sense of the contradiction, or, it chooses one side (of any content) and resists the other.

Thoughts like, “This should look this way.” Or “This shouldn’t be happening in this way,” fill our small minds.

Meanwhile, who is doing all of that goes unnoticed. It goes unrecognized that the creator of that process is illusory. It’s the subject. Versus life as the object. The ultimate duality that creates all dualities.

Life, clearly, does not struggle to hold all of the seeming contradictions of the world. And when we're clear that we are life, we don't either. It doesn't mean that we don't still feel the pain and suffering created by our conditioned distortions. It does mean that, like life, we have room for it. We can hold it. We can even love in the face of what appears to be madness. The real madness is not what happens in the realm of content.

The real madness is the forgetting that our true nature is that love. The acceptance of the universe exactly as it is. With all of it's apparent contradictions. With the dualities of our conditioned creations. With the duality created by believing that we are separate from others. From life.

Life, awareness at large, is not bothered by any of this.

What feels like chaos is only chaos to the mind of limitation that attempts to have control. Life is not overwhelmed by life.

Awareness is undisturbed. When recognizing that we are that, we find ourselves, like life itself, unflinching in the face of it all.

I Am Not The Body: The Journey Beyond Life And Death

"We suffer when we are confused about the nature of our identity. We suffer when we believe ourselves to be our thoughts. We suffer when we believe ourselves to be our bodies. This distortion is only dispelled through clarity of true seeing."

Text by Caverly Morgan. Photos by Vineet Teames.

I am not the body.

Countless times on this trip my husband and I give each other that loving reminder. It's a playful way to remember what is true as I am vomiting. As he struggles with digestive issues and a fever. As my feet are blistered and covered in mosquito bites. As his knees ache and feet swell for unknown reasons. As we are overcome with bedbugs. It's good to remember:

I am not the body.

Nothing brings this truth more fully into the heart of direct experience than sitting at the burning ghats in Varanasi. Nothing. 

I have been to India before. I know that the holy mother Ganges is a river used for bathing. For prayers and religious rituals. For receiving the dead. Until now, I haven't seen it. Until now, I have not been to Varanasi.

The boats of Varanasi.

It's one thing to picture a funeral ritual in which a colorfully wrapped body is set to float down the holy river. It's another to be feet away from the dipping of the freshly deceased into the water. The ritual of then burning the body. To be present for the ceremony of pouring the holy Ganges water over a son's back after his father's form is gone.

My first visit takes place from a boat. Our Indian friend takes us to the ghat. It's night. We're told that once we reach a certain point, cameras must be put away. We oblige as the boat comes close to the shore. The boat stills. We listen. We see. We learn. Not through our friend's words as much us from our experience.

The burning ghats at night.

Pujus are underway. Fires hiss. Heat rises. Workers bustle about with purpose, as if choreographed. 

A man with bamboo tongues bows and throws a dark object into the water. It lands so close I'm splashed. 

We learn that the dark object is a chest bone. Those are given to the river. After the allotted three hours of burning a body, that is what's left of a man. "Chest bone. Strong. Can do hard work," says our Indian friend. 

Another splash. A hip bone. Those are given to the river. After three hours of burning a body, that is what's left of a woman. "Strong, can bear many children."

To the chorus of splashing bones in the darkness of the night, we learn more about this ancient custom.

People need to have been dead less than twenty-four hours to be burned at the ghats. If you can afford it, you can be burned with sandalwood. Most people cannot afford that. 

Stacks of wood for the burning ghats.

If you were murdered, committed suicide, had leprosy, or died of other "unnatural" causes, you are burned in a gas incinerator sitting above the piles of wood. Those who died of natural causes are given to the fires on the shore. 

Between the wood and the gas stands a small building containing a flame. We are told that it has burning for forty-five centuries. It is the flame that starts all flames. 

If you are a pregnant woman or a child under twelve, you are rolled in fabric, with rocks, and placed in the river. Children, we are told, have not had enough worldly experience to need to be burned. 

Cows, dogs, goats, water buffalo. They all are offered to mother Ganges. 

Man bathing as the body of a cow floats by.

Everyone is purified and prepared for the next life at the burning ghats. Hundred of bodies a day consumed by water or fire. Hundreds of spirits a day journey on.

My husband and I return the next day to be still and absorb the experience in a deeper way. This time from the shore. We sit on the stairs of the main burning ghat of Varanasi — there's more than one here — and become quiet.

The energy of the place is almost dizzying. A dislocation of body and mind and place. Death, so directly unfurled. So unabashedly exposed. Bodies hiss in the blaze. 

There are at least twelve fires burning. We notice feet and legs protruding from some of the flames. A worker see them too and with bamboo tongues, flips the legs, presses them into the heart of the fire, adds more wood. 

My husband turns to me and whispers, "That just happened."

On one level, for someone of our cultural background, it's almost too much to take in. Simultaneously, it's the most perfect and natural thing in the world. I notice a moment of relief even, as death is taken out of the shadows, only existing in the light. 

Consider how much we fear death. Consider how happy we are to hide away what gets deemed as gruesome. Consider how our habitual tucking away of death feeds our conditioned denial of its inevitability. 

Man at Assi Ghat after morning puja.

There's no hiding here. There's no confusion. There's no pretense or erroneous notion that we're going to get out of this thing we call life alive. There's only the backdrop that we are not the body. There's only the truth that we are more than that. 

Imagine throwing the chest bone of your father into the river. Imagine throwing the hip of your wife. Imagine, your son, tossing the last bit of your unburned body into the holy body of the Ganges. 

Sadhus and grieving family members having their heads shaved.

We suffer when we are confused about the nature of our identity. We suffer when we believe ourselves to be our thoughts. We suffer when we believe ourselves to be our bodies. This distortion is only dispelled through clarity of true seeing. 

In seeing clearly, we recognize our true nature as that which contains the mind-body, and yet is not limited to the mind-body. From this place of clarity, there is no need to resist the ending of a human form. No different than how we tend to not resist the wilting of a rose.

Morning sitting on the ghat.

From clarity, the perfection of life cycles — all occurring within the same vast field of awareness — are but shadows passing through the landscape of a dream. Each illuminated by the flame of the divine. Each dying into the flame of the divine. 

All things arising and dissolving in the same flame of the divine. The flame that ignites all flames. The flame that burns beyond time.

In prayer at a shrine behind the ghats.

Varanasi.

---