Like the Ocean

It's evening. Someone is playing the piano, someone is talking, someone is browsing the internet, someone is doing the dishes. Life is moving. Life keeps moving, like the ocean. The urge to write is there. The topic unclear but words keep flowing, like the ocean. I had to connect to the internet to access this blog. I had to connect. I had to connect to an external source to get access to this page. This page is not available without the external connection. Am I available without the external connection? Where is that connection? The ocean and the trees? Another human? Another human activity? Even if that is established, what is the password to that connection? AUM? Thinking "Yes, I can and I will?"

If the teacher has no students, is he still a teacher?

And is his pride hurt when the students disappear? Is his identity lost? Is HE lost? Does his bubble of self-definition burst and the solid ground melt?

Everyone here, there, and everywhere is talking about self-love. Love yourself. I keep going back to this statement over and over. I have lots of friction with such a term. I keep searching for clarity. Here, there, and everywhere, it is defined as wrapping one's own arms around one's body, thinking of how great one is, how kind and generous, how awesome and whatever other adjective can be thought up. Really? Really?? That's the whole point? And then what? I can tell myself how I love myself all I want and even cultivate a loving feeling for some time, and then what? How is my life experience different with such thought process?

So I keep searching and I keep running into this: dissolution. Dissolution of oneself, a complete offering of oneself to life processes. This is love, this is devotion, this is surrender, this is trust, this is transparency, and this is living. And how scary that is! Riding the wave of life with ease and grace, without resistance or fight. How beautiful and utterly terrifying.

The piano man is gone. The dishes are done. The temperature dropped down. Life is still moving and flowing, just like the ocean at night. Ten minutes ago are different than the now and a few seconds from the now. I am in the writing mood, in the contemplative mood, and... intermittently connected.