Felix put his cup down and looked at Orion.
"..but HOW ? How do I get into the NOW ?
I am running around like crazy, I have a 101 things to do and all I get is ONE more thing to do: be mindful of everything else. Geezz.
I don't get it."
Orion looked for something on his right, then held up a fresh pot of tea, a question on his face.
A spicy cinnamon and clove smell pervaded the cave.
Felix nodded and pushed his cup across the table.
Orion looked at him: "Oh my god, I should be doing the accounts but I'm surfing the net, I should be doing a thousand things and its all too much and I'm trying like crazy but I'll never get there.... arrragghhhh.
Is that about it ?"
"Yep that's about how it goes," Felix smiled for the first time since he had entered the master's cave.
He stood up, walked over to the ledge. The dusty wind from the great sea of sand, Umi-Jabour, blew strongly and whistled on its way up the cliff face where Orion's cave lay. He looked down, four hundred meters below him , rocks and white bleached twigs. The bones of those who had fallen.
Why was Orion the only one who didn't put in a window or a guard rail ?
He turned and faced Orion, "I'm sick of it. Sick of living like that."
Felix returned to his cushion, and the cup of steaming spicy tea, "how do you do it ?" he asked Orion, "you are the Abbot of the oldest tradition and you are always calm.
Are you just good at keeping it all inside ?"
Orion chuckled, "no, if I kept it inside I would have exploded long ago."
"So what do you do ?"
"Be honest."
"About what ?"
"About the moment you are in NOW."
"I am here with you."
"And you feel pulled to finish the work you promised Arthur, and you are in a hurry because you left your post to come here and talk to me and you don't want anyone to find out."
"Uhhmm.... yes, yes, exactly."
"That is the condition you are in NOW.
How can you be here," Orion tapped the table with his cup,"if you don't include all ?"
"Because I shouldn't even be here taking time to talk to you !"
"Ok so include that too... that's part of the NOW."
Orion leaned back looked out at the vast sand dunes stretching to the horizon and thousands of miles further on. Eagles soared past the cave.
"My master used to tell me, "acknowledge your condition in the NOW and you will have peace."
He looked at Felix, "I used to sit where you are now," he smiled, "and I used to argue with him even more than you."
Orion rarely talked about his master, Felix waited quietly, hoping he would say more.
"He used to tell me: It is not your problems themselves, it isn't the conflicts in your life, and it isn't even the misunderstandings which create this turmoil in your soul, it isn't any of those things.
Can you guess what it was ?" Orion looked up at Felix.
"... not facing the situation I am in NOW ?"
"Yes, true, but there is more. What does 'not facing' mean? "
"It means.... not looking at the truth.... running away."
"Exactly, ...... but .... running from ?" Orion looked at his visitor intensely.
"The problems and conflicts ?"
Orion shook his head, "can you go deeper ?"
"Myself."
"Exactly, running from ourselves."
Orion chuckled.
"Do you run from yourself ?"
"If you mean, distracting myself and never staying still ?"
"Yes, that's it. Good way to put it."
Orion narrowed his eyes and smiled, "Let's go even deeper: Why do we run from ourselves ?"
"Fear ? It would have to be fear."
"Yes. And what are we afraid of ?"
Felix looked out at the desert. Some of the windriders were training in the afternoon breeze.
"We fear ourselves."
"Why?"
Felix shrugged, "that's as far I got. I could never figure out the reason.
"You are almost there."
"Because there is a terrible thing within us ? is that it ?"
"Yes," Orion's smile was wide and happy.
"Is there ? Is there a terrible thing within us ?"
"What do you think ? "
"Yes, I think so. We need to keep a lid on it, keep things orderly and have rules and regulations, otherwise chaos will break loose."
"So then we really should run from ourselves, shouldn't we ?"
"I know, you have a better answer, " Felix knew the master well enough.
Orion leaned forward, "tell me, if we are basically terrible and fake, we have every reason to run from ourselves. Don't we ?"
Felix nodded, "ok, but what if we aren't ?"
"Yes, good point. If we aren't then we are running from a phantom, an illusion, a bogey man."
"So are we or aren't we terrible ? Is the real me really corrupt and terrible and needs to be restrained by civilization ?"
Orion shrugged leaned back and sipped more tea.
Felix likewise leaned back against the cave wall,"you won't tell me, will you?"
"There is no point."
"Why ? It would help me tremendously to know the answer."
Orion shook his head, "no, actually it wouldn't. You would walk out of here and think you knew something, and think you had the truth."
"But I would !" Felix said louder than he intended.
"No, you would have my truth, not your truth."
Felix sighed and rolled his eyes.
"I'm not playing word games," Orion smiled and stood up.
"Surely there is one truth, about this question."
Orion pushed at wall behind him, it was a long dividing wall that could be pushed into the rock behind.
"There is one truth about everything and that is: It is your truth, and your's alone.
That is the only truth that matters in this case.
Find it.
If you really want peace, find it."
Felix stood up and followed the master into the next room, a great hall. From the ceiling hung three large gliders.
Orion unfastened one of them from its suspensendors in the ceiling and gently guided it to the launching rail.
"How ?"
" The same way you get into the NOW.
That same path leads you to find the truth of your BEing."
Orion strapped himself in and grabbed the line that would open the sliding window of hangar.
He looked at Felix, waiting for him to speak.
"You mean 'acknowledge my inner reality in the NOW' ?"
"Yes exactly, and you will have peace."
"What if I find I AM terrible, and it is true that I am a corrupt cesspool of evil ?"
"That question is why most of us humans don't want to know."
"But you know."
"You have to know for yourself, deeply fully beyond what anyone else says. That is the path to your true self, to your BEing."
"I'm not sure."
"That is fine.
It is honest. Acknowledge it.
You can only find yourself if you really truly want to know the truth, no matter what it is, and you are determined to face it, regardless."
"If I want the truth within myself above everything else ?"
Orion smiled, "and if you don't, -- yet, -- then be honest... about that.
You cannot force yourself to desire the truth above all else, until you DO desire it genuinely from the depth of your soul."
"When, how can I ..... ?"
Orion shook his head, smiled and pulled open the door.
"It's a wonderful day to fly.... take the first step, the others will follow.... "
His glider shot forward and down, unclipped it itself and flew free into the evening breeze coming in from Umi-Jabour.
- Tengra Ngiam,
Xylantheum.
13.11.2017
The above was inspired by the writings: Love: Not a Commandment, But Spontaneous Soul Movement of the Inner Self --- in the Pathwork Lecture series number 133
Especially this article below (from Lec133) was seminal:
The acknowledgement of the immediate now is still not sufficiently understood and is often overlooked by the majority of my friends.
Whenever you acknowledge the truth of each moment, you will be in peace, regardless of how much disturbance and unreality still exist in you as conditions to be gradually eliminated.
Fully acknowledging your condition in the now must give you peace.
So please understand and do not forget: It is not the problem itself, nor the conflict, nor even the misconception which create turmoil in your soul, but it is your running away from yourself.
Your not being in the immediate now, your fighting and struggling against it in an unconstructive way, causes so much soul-hardship.
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