the soul of the whole

Posted on by miriam louisa simons

 

Photograph: Alan Larus

 

We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles.
Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE.

And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Photograph by Alan Larus

the eyeless eye

slipping a gear into oneness

Posted on by miriam louisa simons

On one unusually radiant day, I took a walk up the burn above the house and into a steep-sided corrie.  It was sheltered there and magnificent – mountains on both sides, and below, tiny stands of water which looked like handfuls of shiny coins tossed down.  I sat on a rock and ate cheese sandwiches.

And there, quite suddenly, I slipped a gear.

There was not me and the landscape, but a kind of oneness: as though the molecules and atoms I am made of had reunited themselves with the molecules and atoms that the rest of the world is made of.  It was very brief, but I cannot remember feeling that extraordinary sense of connectedness since I was a small child.

– Sara Maitland © 2008

From A Book Of Silence
saramaitland.com

Source – http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/nov/08/sara-maitland-silence-addiction

in total attention there is no center

Posted on by miriam louisa simons

I do not know if you have ever noticed that when you give total attention there is complete silence.

And in that attention there is no frontier, there is no center, as the “me” who is aware or attentive.

That attention, that silence, is a state of meditation.

– J Krishnamurti

Krishnamurti had quite a lot to say about nondual perception. There are several pages in this site with more of his observations about perception and creativity, including:

awareness, meditation and creativity

the act of seeing

the transforming mind