A Good Place To Start
video | 3 min — a rhyming revelation about the nature of being
Read My Reflections About This Rhyme
A Good Place To Start
by Maja Apolonia Rodé
Look all around you. Take in the scene.
Can you say, for certain, that it’s not a dream?
Forget what you know; you can’t know it’s true,
except for one thing: the being of you!
And so, may I ask, with heartfelt intention:
What is this “you” that you always mention?
What is it that’s looking out from your eyes?
What might that be without its disguise?
It’s hard to pin down and words can’t convey it.
Even the masters can’t really say it.
It’s not that the matter is so complicated,
it’s simpler than all of the words that might state it.
So what do you see when you ask, Who am I?
To say “I don’t know,” would not be a lie.
And telling the truth is a good place to start
when you’re asking a question that comes from the heart.
But what do you do when you know you don’t know?
What do you look for? Where do you go?
The answer is here, and it’s here long before
the mind can begin to search and explore.
The task of self-knowledge is not for the mind.
There’s nothing to solve and nothing to find.
And the mind is a cheat and fraud without fail.
The more pious it seems the worse the betrayal.
The question of “Who?” is something you . . . feel
when you see what’s not you and remain as what’s real.
The question of “Who?” is something you . . . sense
when you are as you are, without pretense.
So, stop. For one moment.
Be utterly still.
Silence reveals whatever it will.
Vast and open, limitless being.
Awareness. Presence. Consciousness seeing.
Remain as you are, as you’ve always been.
Now this is a very good place to begin.
❤ 2008 | Maja Apolonia Rodé
Reflections
This rhyme, “A Good Place To Start,” includes echoes of the nondual teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj. There’s one line I sometimes include when sharing it aloud (included in the text above), which is an almost direct quote of this:
The mind is a cheat.
The more pious it seems,
the worse the betrayal.— Nisargadatta Maharaj
I fatefully discovered Nisargadatta one quiet day in 1995. He was patiently waiting for me on the library shelf at The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology where I was in the midst of my doctoral studies.
Through his big and bold orange-covered book, I Am That, he said to me: “The only fact you are sure of is that you are.” Everything else is up for debate!
He explained that it’s like a dream at night: In any moment of that dream, you could be 100% convinced that what you are seeing and experiencing is actually happening. It’s the same level of certainty you might feel right now in this moment as you read. You are likely 100% convinced that you are awake right now, what you are seeing is real, and that you are not in your bed, deep asleep and dreaming.
But who knows, maybe you are dreaming up this whole scenario! Maybe you are just dreaming up these words, this website, the space around you, and the entire world that comes along with it. You can’t be certain that this moment is what it appears to be. But you can be sure that you are. It is you reading these words; it’s not someone or something else. It is you.
The you-ness that is reading now, is the same you-ness that was present a moment ago. It’s the same you-ness that experienced your dream last night, and it’s the same you-ness that was experiencing your life when you were five years old. From your perspective, you might call it I-ness or I-am-ness. Nisargadatta’s invitation was to “rest as that I-am-ness.” It’s just that simple ordinary sense of “me” you have always known.
The profundity of this simple knowing has no bounds.
This basic knowledge of who we are (who we have been all along!) can come after a long journey of self-inquiry, and can thus be conceptualized as an endpoint. But really, it is just the beginning. It’s a very good starting place, better than best, to begin any creation, any moment of relating, indeed any moment of life. In truth, it is already always choicelessly the underlying starting place of every moment. But the magic gets more visible and alive and real when we know that we know it.
Here’s a line from an unfinished rap song:
Doesn’t matter what you see, hear, think, or feel.
When you can see that it is all a dream, that’s when it’s real.
So let’s get real. Let’s start right Here, where we already are, and see what Life makes of us.
❤ 2008-2021 | Maja Apolonia Rodé
Free Upgrade
To get a free printable PDF of this poem and more inspiration delivered to you, enter your name and email below:
You may also enjoy . . .
Tags
1MBC-020
275 words | 3 min. audio — on the call of your creative flow
This is the end of believing
that anyone else’s way is your way.
This is you getting out of the rut
of someone else’s river and returning to
your humble stream of becoming.