So yesterday (16th) I decided to do some "touristy" things in Melbourne city. Been a month I've been in Australia and had mostly been avoiding that.

I decided to make it a technology free day (i.e. to stay away from laptops/mp3 players/phones) ...a "planning free" day...and basically to allow joyful intentions to pave the way.

I actually had no clue what I'd be doing when I got to the city. Decided to just let the day unfold. Its a different quality of time and experience when we suspend planning and just open to the experience of being.

It was amusing to notice a slight impatience as I waited for the bus for 15mins...when I had nowhere to go or no one to meet!

Gratitude emerged for simple things like riding a bus / train. I had with me one of my favorite books "Awareness Itself" and just a few pages of it put me into an altered state of consciousness. Not even pages...just these lines put me into such a tizzy that I had to put the book down: "if it wasn't for my teacher, I would never have realized the brightness of life"

the brightness of life...
the brightness of life...

this phrase kept echoing in consciousness...and the world was seen with new eyes...fresh eyes...and it was so bright!

I got off at the central train station. Had a huge delicious salad for breakfast. Met a friendly man who was cleaning a glass door and asked him if he could tell me where I could find a tourist map of melbourne. He directed me to an information booth with a smile.

Met Ann, an enthusiastic and bubbly tourist officer who filled me up with all the amazing possibilities for a day in Melbourne in just 3 minutes...she grew even more enthusiastic when she discovered I was from India (her son loved Indian food she said, and invited me to join them for a meal sometime :)

I took the free tourist tram that circles around the city center. It had a PA system that told us everything we were seeing all around us, the history, queer facts, adjacent attractions etc.

I was with myself and the senses. Noticing everything around me with a degree of acuteness. I found I could easily strike up a friendly conversation with anyone I wanted and was also completely comfortable not saying a thing to anyone.

Decided to visit the tallest building in Melbourne and get a birds eye view of the city. They had something called "the edge" experience where they slide you out in a glass box suspended 88 floors above the ground. The views were spectacular. You can see the building here: http://www.eurekalookout.com.au/

Reflected on how ordinary reality can become so expansive and beautiful when we allow ourselves to take a bird's eye perspective.

Took another tram to "waterfront city" and had lunch there. Began feeling somewhat lonely and gloomy all of a sudden. Held the feelings with patient awareness.

Next I went to the IMAX theatre... a 3D cinema experience on a huge screen.
http://www.imaxmelbourne.com.au/index.aspx?PageId=25#

One of the things I have wanted to do for sometime is replicating the public meditation project.
http://publicmeditationproject.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HHSpBCUHUs

So once I got my ticket and while I was waiting for my movie to start, I just pulled out my shoes and sat meditation in public. Despite music and lights, it was a remarkably deep meditation for about 20 mins. I'm glad I did it, it paved the way for a remarkable awakening I was to have shortly.

Saw a 45min movie on Africa in 3D format. We were given special glasses to were which converted otherwise out of focus images into an almost real life effect. It felt like you could touch the leaves and elephants and were actually swimming in water. Extraordinary.

The whole time I was seeing this the Advaitic teaching of life being no more than a projected image lit up by consciousness and resting on the screen of undifferentiated "brahman" kept coming to mind. I went one step behind the movie and arrived at "me"...and then I went one step behind "me" and arrived at ...

free freedom
sweet suchness
beloved beingness
absolute awareness

I never expected to have a spiritual experience in an IMAX theatre! It wasn't spectacular, it was almost normal. And that is what made it remarkable.

Walking out of the theatre, life was the same, and yet just another comprehensive IMAX movie...this one with scents, feelings, tastes and reflective thoughts included. I was walking and also the space in which I was walking. I was apart from others and I was also a part of everything. The awareness of this has been radically awake since.

I visited the Old Melbourne Gaol...the prison where inmates were held for decades. I was the presence of compassion..."bearing witness" as Bernie Glassman would say when visiting Auschwitz with Zen students.
http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j19/glassman.asp

Returned home and promptly feel sick with a flu. When there is an upheaval in consciousness there is bound to be an effect in the body as well. The body was disturbed, but the mind kept stepping beyond the me, into the we, the oneness.

This morning I feel stronger, integrated.

All is well. Life is good.

Life is.