Sunday, I attended a bi-monthly non-dual group. Most of the people who come were students of Jean Klein, and have been meeting for fourteen years, since his death.

After a period of silence, we can offer a poem, piece of writing, or a response to the silence that arises. I read the post from May 15th, irreverence or blasphemy? One of the comments came from an elder of the group. He said, “Grasping is irreverent, isn’t it.”

Yes, it is. We show in our grasping that we are feeling separate from an object, belief, or person. So often this arises in our apparent relationships with others. We want their love, not understanding that we are love at the core. We think that they will fulfill us in some way, when the truth is that we are full, and filled, just as we are–that our very grasping is the source of our suffering. We believe that love is somehow in the other person, and this is a misunderstanding. Love is the falling away of separation, when we feel union with a supposed other. We experience in that moment that there are not two–but then we mistakenly believe that the other is the love that we feel we are missing in ourselves.

And we grasp until we see this truth. While I was caught in the clutches of this misunderstanding, it took twenty-two months of intense suffering before the truth was revealed.

© Amrita Skye Blaine, 2013
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