I Am That Nothing

We walk on the land.

The land floats on the water.

The water rests in the bowl of the earth.

The bowl of the earth floats on the ocean of the cosmos.

The ocean of the cosmos rests in the bowl of time.

The bowl of time rides on the back of the elephant of eternity.

The elephant of eternity stands on the back of the boundless turtle of being.

The boundless turtle of being stands on nothing.

I am that nothing.

- A Zen Poem

This picture was taken this morning at Flagler Beach, here in Florida.  This is one of the baby loggerhead turtles that emerged from it's nest.   It instinctively knows to head for the ocean and swim to a north bound current, which is a three day journey out into the ocean.  This current takes the baby turtle up the east coast, over to Europe, down the coast of Africa and eventually ends it's five to seven year journey in the Carribean.  Here it will grow to full size and at about 23 years old, it instinctively heads back up the current to the place it was born.  The female turtle will then lay her eggs at the exact place she was born.

I had adopted a turtle nest while here, but missed the emergence, so this was the first time I had been able to capture this delightful moment and watch a hatchling, no bigger than the palm of your hand, waddle feverishly through the sand onto the seashore and eventually swim through the surf.  WOW!  What an opportunity to directly experience nature at its finest.  This was such an awesome gift of wisdom, I wanted to share it with you.

This Zen poem was gifted to me, as well, as I sat down to write to you.  I just opened one of my books and here it was...

The elephant of eternity stands on the back of the boundless turtle of being.

The boundless turtle of being stands on nothing.

As this baby turtle swam out to meet the current, it came to me how there was nothing to stand on but  instinct or intuition to swim toward this current, and then to surrender completely into it and let it take her.  Having reached the current, this will be the first time to relax and eat since hatching three days earlier.  Nothing was more important and everything was relying on this nothing.

This reminded me of what Bhagavan Ramana said about following our "unerring intuition" and, letting go into the "I-Current" in every moment of now.  Haven't we seen how this Current will guide us entirely, step by step, in life itself?  

An investigative question comes up to check-in with... "Are we tuned into this unerring intuition and following this I-Current with the same faith and trust that this little being is?"  Or, is there still a tendency to try to work it out myself and not fully letting go into this Current with the same total faith and trust that is being demonstrated here?   Having nothing to stand on but Being itself.

We can have the understanding of Truth and even know how it works.  Yet, unless we have applied the truth in our life, in daily situations, what do we really have? 

We walk on the land.

The land floats on the water.

The water rests in the bowl of the earth.

The bowl of the earth floats on the ocean of the cosmos.

The ocean of the cosmos rests in the bowl of time.

The bowl of time rides on the back of the elephant of eternity.

The elephant of eternity stands on the back of the boundless turtle of being.

The boundless turtle of being stands on nothing.

I am that nothing.

Yes, "I am (we are) that nothing."  

As we tune into this marvelous example in nature, we can see that this "nothing" is the basis of everything and IT has a wisdom and intelligence that is absolutely awesome and beyond the thinking mind.  The gift from our baby turtle is ... don't think about it ... instead, if we follow our natural instincts, our unerring intuition, we will then take what comes as our first response in what is arising and have the courage, faith and trust to follow IT step by step, letting the Current take us all the way home...back to where we originally came from. 

This morning, as I followed this little one on his first journey to the sea, I was totally inspired by its one pointed attention and courage to go into uncharted territory with nothing to hold onto accept what was guiding him from within.  How much do we rely on something outside of us to guide us or even make our decisions?  It all comes down to our relying on total and complete IN-dependence, doesn't it?

Good to be with you again and have this opportunity to share another gift from the sea.