Rest and Be Taken

When there is deep abundance
there is nowhere to abide.
There is nowhere to rest
or grasp onto
and yet there is rest

The sky abides
yet it never rests.
Neither can we say that
the sky is not always at rest.
We talk about the sky
as if it were something
as if it actually exists -
and yet we cannot say that
the sky does not exist.
The sky is nothing but
coming and going.
Everything is perfectly spontaneous.
The coming and going arise mutually
instantaneously.
If the true I is asleep
you will miss the point entirely
and you will continue to dwell
in the world of opposites.

So see the two as one
and the one as empty
and be liberated
within the world of duality.

At first it seems
as if begoing follows becoming.
But look even closer
and you will see
that there are only
flashes of lightning
illuminating the empty sky.

Life and death
becoming and begoing
are only words.
In order to save your life
you must see that you die
instantaneously
moment to moment
instant to instant.

Now where are you going to abide?
And where are you not abiding already?

Indeed there is nowhere
to rest your head
and there is nothing but rest.
So let go of all ideas
about permanence and impermanence
about cause and effect
and about no cause and no effect.
All such notions are dualistic concepts.

The Truth of what you are
is completely beyond all duality
and all notions of non-duality,
and yet it includes duality
and non-duality alike.
Like an ocean
that is both waves and stillness
and yet un-definable
as waves or stillness.

The truth of being
cannot be grasped by ideas
or experiences.
Both waves and stillness
are the manifest activity
or your own self.
But self cannot be defined
by its activity
nor by its non-activity.
The truth is
all-transcendent
ungraspable, all-inclusive
and closer than your own skin.

A single thought about it
obscures its essence.
The perfume of true life
is right in your nose.
There is nothing you can do
to perceive it
and yet you must do something.
I say:
Rest and be taken.
Rest and be taken.

- Adyashanti, from My Secret is Silence: Poetry and Sayings of Adyashanti