The Pure and the Impure

The pure version of truth has to be taught, yet only the impure manifestation of it happens in the world. Make no mistake about that. Never think that a non-duality teacher has attained purity. That is my continuing beef with the non-dual professors found online. If you went home with them at night, you would find someone thoroughly human.

As someone that is thoroughly human, I know my limits and I find them appallingly similar to everyone else’s. Having been cut from the same cloth, we come from the same place, the same factory. Most of us are irregulars.

Love is in us as us and yet we cannot master it. Leonard Cohen’s body of work points to that. He studied with Ramesh Balsekar and with Roshi, but Leonard, too, was learning. As he learned, he shared his heart with us and no one can do more than that.

I sit here with freshly washed hair and in my robe. I noticed that there is an oatmeal stain on my robe as I stood before the mirror drying my hair. That stain is not who I am, nor are the deeper stains on my soul. I am here to come to know my imperfections and ultimately accept them.

There is always inner work to do. We want things we can’t have. We have things we don’t want. Such is life. Death should be kept over our left shoulder, as the old saying goes. I look at a photograph of Bob and wish that he had never died. Perhaps he didn’t, but I don’t know that. His body lies in the ground but the whereabouts of his spirit are beyond my ken.

I am a mystery to myself and others. I never know what any day will bring. I hope for the best and end up living just another long day of me keeping company with myself. I write notes as if I knew something definite. I don’t. That is why some of you keep coming back. I appreciate that….

Vicki Woodyard