TRUE CENTER

~Robert A. Masters, The Way of the Lover

The 'natural' is what occurs when are are ALREADY happy, not depending on anyone or anything to produce our happiness.

The evidence of such a condition is not to be found in opinion, belief or emotional positioning but in THE QUALITY OF BEING--

there may be secondary signs such as

a luminosity and balance of eye,

a capacity for easily cutting through reactivity,

a depth of feeling that blends the powerful and the vulnerable,

a love that is at ease with passion,

a compassion untainted by sentimentality

but the primary sign is a CENTEREDNESS OF BEING, a consciousness abiding at one's core, that does not disappear with changes of mood or circumstances.

Such centeredness may initially be held in place by some method or inner ritual of concentrated attention, but can only become firmly established when

ENERGY and ATTENTION are 'naturally' devoted to, free of all techniques and without any overriding motive of spiritual ambition.

Being centered in the physical, as in martial arts, is not enough; the CENTERING IMPULSE must also permeate the psychic, the emotional, the mental and the spiritual.

This is not a about going within, as is the habit of the typical spiritual seeker, but about AWAKENING.

This is not the way of the introvert, the extrovert or the convert, but the WAY OF THE LOVER, the one who can only keep embodying all that he or she is,

regardless of the consequences.

The lover looks not for refuge [inwardly or outwardly] but for REVELATION.

The lover neither avoids suffering, nor unnecessarily reinforces it, knowing that to do either only drives one into compensatory activity.

The true lover is a candle burning at both ends,

solid as a pillar and transparent as a sigh --

in him or her, INDIVIDUALITY and SURRENDER to the Source go hand in hand,

flaming bright,,

merging deep,

in heartfelt communion with each other,

singing free the flesh of the lover,

winging free the mind of the lover,

saying nothing and teaching everything,

until there is only UNBOUND CENTER,

only Truth,

only Eternal Unknowableness,

forever inviting one and all

to recognize it, to feel it, to be it...

[ Excerpt - my format & most caps]