The Secret of Intensity

Dear sincere friend, let us explore together the most glorious quality that can be found in this life, intensity. Intensity is the greatest endowment bestowed on us by the divine. When we are authentically filled with a passion to realize the ultimate experience, it is not just our own limited drive at work, but a force much higher then we can imagine that is working through us. Just by knowing this, that our authentic intensity is the intensity of the cosmos wishing to realize and express Itself through Itself in Itself as Itself, the scope of our seeking can instantly take on a whole new dimension.

It is the integrated force of intensity that rings the cosmic bell in our being and sends out shock waves to all concerned throughout the universe that we are serious about our eternal salvation. Intensity is the hall pass that takes us through the limited classroom of Maya or delusion. The attraction towards variety in life, towards the countless realms of multiplicity, towards the endless contours of emotion, towards the constant itching of identity built up by thought—all this has pulled our Cosmic nature into this limited frame of mind and body. If we seek to get out of it, we shall need an equal if not more powerful attraction in the direction of oneness, completeness, a love of dissolving all our wants and needs into the flame of totality.

Authentic intensity is spontaneous, and effortless although it appears to be filled with world shaking thunderbolts of effort. It is in essence effortless, since when you are integrated with intensity, there is no one doing something, gaining something, practicing something, learning something, healing something, surrendering something, sacrificing something, earning something, achieving something, finding something, becoming something- all these things are just bushels of delusion dressed in the guise of spiritual practice that are to be burned up in the bonfire of cosmic intensity.

It may appear as effortful since great things seem to be accomplished—with a limited view lightening seems to have a will of its own, such a powerful force, cutting through trees, burning down forests, lighting up the whole sky, yet expand your vision and you can see that each bolt is just the result of a conglomeration of forces, a mere fragment of a whirlwind of a storm stretching far beyond the eye can see. You should see your practice in this way, rather then obsessing on each moment of effort waiting for lighting to strike, merge yourself willingly into the total storm of revelation, let it follow you constantly day and night, let it rain down on your every action, let is soak through your every thought and imagination, let it expand beyond your furthest vision of infinite possibility, let it forever flood the levies of your limited mind, and you will see bolts of illumination happening all around you.

This raging steam engine of intensity brings the Guru or Master to you. His teachings are like train tracks that align your seeking, His grace is like the fuel that continually feeds the inner combustion, His touch is like having the conductor himself push the throttle to full steam ahead!

You may be thinking that so much intensity seems extreme, let us just drift kindly into Enlightenment like a leaf falling from a tree. Do you not see all the leaves falling around you? They are just landing in the cesspools of delusion, the puddles of world esteem, the ponds of consolation, the lakes of forgetfulness, the ocean of rebirths. Enlightenment is like a leaf falling from a tree in Nebraska ending up in the cup of an Eskimo who is sitting in a trailer imported into Mexico then sold ten years later to a logging company in Nebraska who cuts down the very same tree with the leaf on it causing it to fall, then they disassemble the trailer it into scrap metal, throw it into the ocean, which washes ashore on a beach in Haiti where the Eskimo vacations on weekends and assembles buildings out of what ever he can find, and sits inside them for one second before taking them apart, and in that second he sits in the trailer, the leaf falls in his cup which he nearly forget to bring that day. Some cosmic assistance may be needed dear friend to guide that leaf, who are we to question this mysterious flow leading to the Ultimate with out limited logic? If we are stuck in our limited views of the way it should go, then all hope will seem lost, but if we are courageous enough to merge ourselves with intensity into the whole of the flow, then we can be ready and able to make any situation into an opportunity for experiencing the highest possibility of existence.

Supreme intensity is the gateway to the infinite treasure of bliss. So much bliss that you wont know how to explain it to another. Imagine if you win a lottery ticket for two dollars, there will be no hesitation in telling your friend, “look, I won two dollars today, I will buy you a drink!”. Now imagine you win 100 million dollars, will you be able to be so casual with your friend? You will be thinking of all the excitement, disbelief, the overwhelming possibilities of what to do with all your wealth, all the ramifications of what they might think. But still, it is doable. Who will you share it with first? Most likely those dear to you, those you trust the most, the one that has always stood by you. Now imagine you win a lottery ticket for 1,000,000,000,000 Billion dollars, it is all there, you know for sure it is yours, but what can you say about it to another? Only with your most dear companion, who knows and feels in the core of their being that you have no interest in telling untruth, only with them will there even be the possibility of sharing the news of your new-found treasure. This is why intimate trust and connection with the Master is most essential, for when he tells you he is full of the most supreme treasure, the moment you trust fully that he has it, he starts to shower it on you.

Intensity with the Master begins with intense listening. Observe now how you listen deeply to beautiful music, how each note moves into you and tingles the fibers of your soul, how each movement carries you along beyond the shores of mundane life into illuminated realms filled with the most ancient mysteries of being, how you stay with the totality of the song despite its many variations, and how you are released into completeness by the conductors final graceful motioning of his baton. Dear friend, this is how we should listen carefully to the every expression of the Enlightened Ones, only their divine music will lead not just to a temporary expansion, but to a permanent release into the self-effulgent symphony of consciousness and bliss.

Listen carefully, allow me to share with you the secret of intense listening to the Master. You should let his every word hit you as if it was spoken just for you. If while he is walking outside somewhere far away from you, and from a distance you barely hear him say, “this tree here, look it is so ugly, let us cut it down,” then for that moment you should feel as if one with the tree, ashamed by your inability to please and surrender to your own demise. If he says while standing near you looking up into the sky, “this mountain, how nice it is, it is so full of life and strength” then you should in an instant stretch your every particle of being to embody every stone and crevasse of that mountain and stand firm in your glory. He may never say your name, but if you listen in this way every word spoken will be the most intimate treasure gifted directly to you. You will be swayed this way and that, up and down, left and right, and all the extremes shall melt away any resistance or shyness in your being until his one word can trigger a complete avalanche in your being. In this way, when he shares the highest most intimate truth, your whole being will be able to flow into it like a river meeting the ocean. When with the Master, you should be anxiously waiting every moment for this with utmost anticipation.

Let me share an example from my own experience to illustrate this point. Once I was in our beloved Master's hall listening deeply to a discourse, then we finished with a meditation, and he left his seat and entered an adjacent room. Everyone else got up and walked out of the hall. I remained seated, alone sitting in a chair, still reverberating with the echos of the Master's grace. I was listening, waiting deeply for something, even though there was nothing. Then after some time I could hear his voice sounding through the walls of the room from a distance. He was talking causally in a language I did not understand, but I kept listening to each word as though it was a sutra divulging the highest truths. Then, from out of nowhere, his voice took on a whole other dimension, like great thunder he resounded in the language I understand, “there is no Self, there is no mind, there is no consciousness!” Through his lips, through the wall, through my hears, through to the core of my being, I was instantly awestruck. My whole foundation of existence collapsed beneath me, I was left in absolute divine nakedness, even after getting up, his words were ringing in every particle of experience, for hours the impact made the whole of this Earth appear as but a trifling dream soaked in glowing ecstasy and bliss.

Dear friend, the power and possibility that comes to one who lives with intensity is beyond comprehension. Its aspects are endless. Intensity can be illustrated in billions of ways for billions of years in billions of stories. We have only scratched the surface here like taking one snowflake from the top of an iceberg. The miles of ice that run deep within the sea, as you already know, can not be made into words. If I can inspire an ounce of this divine gift of intensity in you, then this shadow of an account may be deemed infinitely worthy. OM