The Cloud of Unknowing Gate and the Gift of not knowing.

A humble junk gate serves as transition between 2 worlds of art and intention on Dandelion Farm. It provides passage through the deer fence from Enchanted Encampment to Dandelion Ballad, from playful mini natural building eco-village/campground to the center of Dandelion with its many ascending spires pointing to the Light and our highest intentions for Dandelion Farm to serve That.

Cloud of Unknowing Gate on Dandelion was named after a 14th century book by an anonymous Christian mystic. The experience of “unknowing” has come and relieved my being like a descending peace dove over a battlefield so many times. The first occurrence remains etched in memory forever. But after that it came more and more often,  releasing the mind while freeing the heart to simply feel.

This often happened as we drove away from home in the late 60’s and early 70’s before I found Adi Da. I would look back at the very familiar home of my daily life and that cloud of mystery would descend over me. My life would become inexplicable, a mystery to me, a total unknown. And HOW, I would wonder could I be that life I was so familiar with?

My mind’s limited knowledge and presumptions and self identity as a whole  came into question as being my actual reality. What is Reality? That is a most profound consideration, the unknowing initiated for me.  Perhaps I will share it’s inception, now that you have tread this trail so far with me in the shoes of my mind.

The unknowing began abruptly in 1994 as I was backpacking in the high Sierra’s, specifically as an effort to release a heart break and a painfully agitated mind that went with it. After days of backpacking,  I was descending out of the high country on a trail with many switch backs. As I came to the end of one of those switch backs  my mind simply fell away into utter PEACE as I gazed mindlessly off into wilderness space. It was a stark and very pronounced switch in my being that had never happened before. And what a wonderful relief!

Now I look back on that first “Unknowing” moment as the very first of so many premonitions of my life as a devotee of Adi Da Samraj to come many years away in the future.

Adi Da demonstrates His Gift of Unknowing to me.

In the early 1980’s  I was leading a group of devotees in garden service  within the walls of Adi Da’s residence, the Manor of Flowers. We had been given the opportunity to serve close to Him while He was living there and home at the time. But we had been asked to stay out of sight from in front of His house so He would not feel obliged to give us His Regard.

As we entered the servers’ back gate and looked around for what needed to be done where we wouldn’t be seen, I saw a 5ft. rock wall with weeds growing out of it right before us. I couldn’t see the front of the house off to my left so this was a perfect place to work. The group and I fell to our little service task of weeding the wall in this Blessed space so close to our Spiritual Master.

A few moments later, looking at the rock as I pulled weeds, my mind dramatically fell away. Ahhhhhhhhhhh relief! But then I  began to wonder if He could somehow see me from His front window. It seemed impossible, but I leaned my face smack up against the rock wall looking sharply back toward the house to my left to see if there was any way Adi Da could see me from His kitchen window.

And there He was with His face pressed up against His kitchen window smiling back at me!!!!!! What a special moment! Eventually I realized this was one way He confirmed to me He had been “meditating” me for many years, releasing the cramp of my verbal mind/ limited self identity over and over and over….until I could become a practitioner and begin to understand that mind/cramp mechanism and become more and more responsible for it myself.

One of the names Adi Da gave His Way is the Way of Divine Ignorance. I have come to understand the unknowing as release of mental self-contraction….or self created illusion with verbal “knowledge” and therefore metal bondage…not to mention  subtle and sometimes not so subtle pain! So I remember and celebrate this Gift of unknowing or Divine Ignorance with a little junk gate on Dandelion Farm, where I delight in the stories of others of unknowing in their lives when we pass through it together.