10th-16th February 2025: A love letter from me to you

UNIVERSAL LOVE

Before I am born, before I am 5 years old, 49 years old, 84 years old, before I die

Before I am a student, before I am a teacher, before I am an artist, a shopkeeper, a doctor, a monk, a priest, a farmer, a scientist, a spiritual seeker

Before I am a Christian or a Buddhist

Before I am good or bad, right or wrong

Before I am a success or a failure

Before I am enlightened or unenlightened

Before I am a man or a woman

Before I am this body or that body

Before I am anybody

Before I am "the one who knows"

Before I am “the one who doesn’t know”

Before I am this or that

Before I am something

Before I am anything

I Am.

This no-thing that allows every-thing

This wide open space,

Unlimited, incomprehensible,

In which every thought, sensation, feeling, arises and subsides,

Like waves in the ocean,

Ever-present,

Unchanging.

I Am.

Life itself.

This mystery.

Creation, destruction.

Like a cloudburst in the vastness...

I am born. Absolute is relative. Time. Space. Expansion. Contraction. I breathe in and out. I suckle my mother's breast. I am 5 years old, 49 years old, 84 years old. I grow and learn. I am a student, teacher, artist, dancer, shopkeeper, doctor, mystic, monk, priest, farmer, scientist, adventurer, murderer, thief. I am a man. I am a woman. I am gay, straight, black, white, rich and poor, loved and unloved.

I am every mother, every father, every son, every daughter. I am every slave in ancient Rome. I am every child on the streets of Calcutta. I am every dying sun. The birth of every star.

I cannot ever be something without being nothing at all.

I cannot be nothing without being all there is.

This is crucifixion and resurrection.

This is love beyond understanding.

This is the heartbeat of the cosmos.

I am That.

- Jeff Foster

(Excerpt from 'Falling In Love With Where You Are')