Among other places of course, but I figure all the wise teachers and preachers and sages alike have all been saying this for 1000s of years.
They call it:
Oneness
Presence
In the Moment
The Zone
Now
And that's just a fraction of words used from the English language.
Catch my drift?
So I figure God hangs out there
because I am of the opinion that God is infinite possibility and
because God gave us free will
we sit at the edge of change with God
and play a major role
in what each moment turns in to.
So this edge has many names, God has many names and consequently coming into this moment or practicing its presence has many paths.
Wise People say:
God is mountain
Religion is path up mountain
Many paths
God doesn't mind
Wise People joke:
"Find God at bottom of mountain, be home by lunch."
Whatever your path is, if you can dig the idea that there is a Capitol G out there then you recognize the mountain. If you have ever felt a moment of total love then u have stepped on the mountain. If you have ever practiced a religion you have been show a path by others who have walked it before. If you have ever been in love with your life you have experienced the mountain inside you.
Yeah more happy religious talk! Life should be a breeze, right? Full of periwinkles and picnic baskets!
It's hard to miss a mountain.
Not so fast fellow infinite soul.....
If Big G is infinite possibility and Big G made us in its likeness......to include free will I might add.....then our capacity for creating reality how we see it......or think it.....is infinite too!
There have been times in my life when I not only missed the entire friggen mountain, I actually dug myself into holes.
Without awareness
of my contribution
to my reality
I influenced the edge of change with
my rage,
my frustration,
my doubt,
my fear.
I looked for belonging in holes, cracks, and crevasses.
I followed ideas up what I thought were real mountains
until I realized
that mountains
compared to
THE MOUNTAIN
are just
mole hills.
Get it....turn a mole hill into a mountain.
So much has been written and taught about this Mountain that it used to frighten me. Worse still are the many teachers that claim u have to study for 40 years or devote your entire life to experience it.
I got caught in this for a while, studying yoga.
The Jesus figure in Yoga, or the great teacher who brought the practice of the Edge down from the top of the mountain, was a teacher named Patanjali.
P is credited with the creation of the Sutras which are like scriptures or guidance for how to use Yoga (not really how we know yoga today, more like meditation) to fully be present with and influence the edge of change.
Anyway P has been an authority for hundreds of years. Next time you are in a well used yoga studio look for this sutra tattooed on backs of wrists or backs of necks.
This statement, Yoga is the Cessation of the Modification of the Mind, is Sutra number 2.
This Sutra is big, like second commandment or second amendment big.
To climb the mountain I must NIRODHAH the modifications of my mind.
Like the right to bear arms this sutra is pretty clear. Nirodhah means cease, stop, end, limit. Catch my drift. There is no ambiguity here.
What P is saying is that you won't find the edge until you stop your mind.
Whether u have ever tried to stop your mind or not you should understand why the untrained mind us commonly referred to as the monkey mind.
Jumping around
Out if control
Unskilled.
A guy named Lorin Roche gave me the idea that maybe P doesn't speak for everyone or all paths up the mountain that involve meditation.
I imagine P, never conceiving of the speed of modern urban life, speaking within the context of his audience. They wrote the sutras years later and it's simply been embraced as a path up the mountain championed by many travelers.
To followers of P, my city mind, my monkey mind, is considered a bad thing. Something to be ceased if I want to climb the mountain.
I don't doubt that those who have achieved this cessation are well off and experience the edge all the time.
What I'm saying is that this edge can be achieved, not by destroying the monkey but taming it and then training it to bounce around inside itself.
What I'm learning from practice, in the gym no less, is that I can get the monkey to chill, and then train it to move through my body. This seems to settle it further and further until it seems to disappear. When that happens I often find myself doing an exercise that I've never seen before or imagined. It's like I've found the edge and just ran with it.
The experience is oneness, full presence, peace, strength, balance, fun and freedom. The gym is an adventure, a spiritual practice even. Each exercise representing, within that moment, a path up the mountain.
It all gives liven on the edge a whole new meaning.
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