Every moment is an invite for no self

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a Guide from beyond.
(The Guest House, Rumi)

I always took Rumi’s Guest House as an instruction for mindful and judgement-free living. Yet, it is so much more. Rumi is effectively telling us how to experience ‘no self’ living moment by moment. A fear is creeping up inside, we feel ‘me-energy’ in motion, and realizing it, the energy is vanished as quickly as it came. We look in the mirror and see a self-aggrandizing posture or a deflated look and, once again, we see ‘me, myself and I’ energy in action. One giant smile and we are back at the center of our being. I wish I could communicate what brought about Consciousness, and I figure it’s the wearing off of ‘me, myself and I’ along the spiritual quest. Once the skin of the growing snake is punctured, it’s just a question of time before it falls off.