Dynamite Thought

Here’s a thought.

1. You are not who you think you are. What you think you are is just a thought. But when you think about it, you know you’re not a thought.

2. There’s a consciousness and an awareness that is there beneath your thoughts, even the thought of who you think you are. It’s the one thing you cannot deny, because it’s not a thought.

3. That consciousness is what you really are. Everything else is just a thought, a dream, a story. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Just this three-part thought alone is enough to change the dream forever, in fact, deconstruct the dream completely. That’s how thoughts work in the dream.

They come to you from someplace else and plant themselves. Whether their effect is great or small is determined by what other thoughts they mix with.

In the world of the dream, a single thought can be everything.

Think about it.

And That’s the (Unbelievable) Truth

Our so-called lives are as substantial as a thought. For our lives are exactly that: thoughts.

We have created our world with thoughts.

The natural world, although original within itself, is filtered in our perception by our thoughts; a tree does not call itself a tree. While the built world is a world of thought made physical. Even the world of culture and society is one constructed out of thought.

In this way, it can be said our lives are dreams.

Moreover, in this way, our lives can be seen as a string of thoughts, beginning with those of our parents, then teachers, friends, peers, and so on from Adam to ad infinitum.

In this way, it can be seen that not only is our life a dream, it isn’t even our own dream.

However.

There is a reality beyond this dream, one that cannot be said, one that cannot be contained by thought, but one that contains all thought and all.

By some act of grace, there has been a wisdom in this world of dreams which has pointed to this reality. It points because it cannot be said. It points with subtle thought.

That thought is this and only this: surrender.

Surrender all belief in any thought (especially in that thought of personal identity we call ego).

In this way, the dream deconstructs. Then it is understood there never was a dream.

And no thoughts. No grace. No pointers. No surrender. Even no deconstruction.

Only Being-Consciousness-Bliss. Only That. Or what some in the dream call God. And You Are That.

The Paradox of Doing

We pride ourselves on free will. But that’s an illusion like all illusion.

A tree grows in the direction of the sun and veers with wind and snow and a thousand other deflections.

Add a million thoughts to the brew, and there we are.

But nothing is random; everything is part of the overall pattern.

So there is nothing to do but surrender. Any other so-called doing only causes friction, suffering. And even that is part of the overall pattern.

Then we play our parts the best we can. We pay attention to intuition and influence, insight and signs, and guide our movements accordingly, knowing full well there’s nothing else we can do. In fact, there’s absolutely nothing we can do.

And so we do it. No regrets and no attachment: it’s all part of the the pattern after all.

Dreaming New Year Resolution

Skating on New Year's Eve

They're skating on this firm unwavering pond
inside a cemetery, between lush pines
and fields of gravestones. There's not much beyond
but pale horizon and some faint designs
created by a mist above the sea.
Still nothing in the air dampens their fun.
No worries freeze their blur of activity;
nothing required is setting with the sun.
Instead, maintaining balance on a small
knife's edge, they need make no new resolutions
except this one: not fearing their own fall.
So some are sketching circles in the ice,
figure eights, or other revolutions.
Others draw their straight lines once or twice.

~Son Rivers 2003

Taos Meditation: Frank Waters on Ramana

Here I stand, sniffing the early morning breeze and spying out the vast landscape like an old coyote, as if to assure myself I am in the center flow of its invisible, magnetic currents. To the sun, and to the two oppositely polarized peaks, El Cuchillo and the Sacred Mountain, I offer my morning prayers. Then, letting the bright warming rays of the sun engulf me, I give myself up to a thoughtless silence.

One, I suppose, could call it meditation. I don’t, for I’m not sure how one is supposed to meditate. Once, I attended an hour’s talk on meditation given by a noted esotericist from England. He carefully explained the best hours of the day to observe it; how to choose a corner of the room; what kind of a religious painting or photograph to hang on the wall with a burning candle beneath it; the choice of the proper incense to burn; the posture to assume. By then his hour was up. I left the hall, thinking of a question that Dr. Evans-Wentz once had asked Sri Ramana Maharshi, the famous sage of India.

“Is it helpful to sit on a tiger’s skin?” he asked. “Should one sit in the lotus position, or may the legs be kept straight? What posture is best?”

“All of this is unnecessary,” the Maharshi answered. “Let the mind assume the right posture. That is all.”

It is enough for me, as a prelude to a busy day, to attain for a moment at sunrise a measure of unbroken silence, of profound stillness within.

~Frank Waters from ‘Mountain Dialogues’

Jesus on Nonduality

When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom.

from The Gospel of Thomas

Peace for Christmas

In The Enchanted Circle

New England Sutra 2: Rivers and Ice

The river is covered
in ice and snow.

Beneath it though, the tide still rises
and falls.

While beneath the tide, the current flows.

But all I see is ice
and snow,

the material world within which
we think we know.

Beneath it, particles and waves of the quantum
universe show.

Beneath that is unmanifest though.

Some day the ice will melt and go; I'll see again
the tide rise and fall.

But only when I submerge myself will I know
the current.

Surrender, surrender, surrender, O!

Alan Watts Sutra: Expressions of Nature

We suffer from a hallucination,

from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms.

Most of us have the sensation that "I myself" is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body--a center which "confronts an "external" world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange.


Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. "I came into this world." "You must face reality." "The conquest of nature."

This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences.


We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.


As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.

This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated "egos" inside bags of skin.

from Alan Watts ‘The Book: On the Taboo of Knowing Who You Are’ xtremely formatted for this posting

New England Sutra: Nothing but Snow

There’s nothing anywhere here but snow.

The roads are covered in it and the air is speckled with it and every branch of every tree is frosted with it.

The world is turning white as if my ability to classify each and every thing has been suddenly found wanting.

Instead there’s one thing and one thing only.

It is holy with mystery and I catch it on my tongue like the host of some natural communion.

And now I know that I am snow too...

melting into nothing.

First There Is An Island Then There Is

No Island

As the tide decreases in Bar Harbor
twice a day, Bar Island, situated
opposite the town, across the harbor,
soon becomes no island, and the water
in-between the island and the village
soon becomes a narrow kind of isthmus
there instead, connecting town and headland.
Cars begin to cross the drying sandbar.
People walk their dogs along new shorelines.
Seagulls search for shellfish in the shallows.
Some nights, like tonight, the sun will lower
as the tide grows back into its fullness,
and the land transforms back into island
as the day returns into the darkness.

~Son Rivers 2002

Laughing at Reality

Attention to one's own Self, which is ever shining as 'I', the one undivided and pure reality, is the only raft with which the individual, who is deluded by thinking 'I am the body', can cross the ocean of unending births.'

Reality is simply the loss of ego. Destroy the ego by seeking its identity. Because the ego is no entity it will automatically vanish and reality will shine forth by itself. This is the direct method, whereas all other methods are done only by retaining the ego. In those paths there arise so many doubts and the eternal question 'Who am I?' remains to be tackled finally. But in this method the final question is the only one and it is raised from the beginning. No sadhanas are necessary for engaging in this quest.

There is no greater mystery than this — that being the reality we seek to gain reality. We think that there is something hiding our reality and that it must be destroyed before the reality is gained. It is ridiculous. A day will dawn when you will yourself laugh at your past efforts. That which will be on the day you laugh is also here and now.

~Ramana Maharshi in 'Be As You Are' ed. David Godman

Instant Karmic Enlightenment

I think Ram Dass (in 'Paths of God') has some important things to say concerning Jnana Yoga which are very translatable towards the Neo-advaita way or non-way, and what some call its fast food servicing of enlightenment.

The first thing is a general statement concerning intellectual spiritual practices in the west, that “we are coming out of a kind of sickness here... in the way in which we have overthought” so that “we have been intellectually way ahead of our hearts’ and bodies’ wisdom.”

I think this should serve great warning to any intellectual spiritual practice, and something that has made me stop and... think?

The second thing concerns Ramana’s practice of Self-Inquiry. He calls it a “beautiful method—if you can stand it!” Furthermore, he says, it’s a practice “that takes incredible intellectual discipline” and “the fiercest gyan method I know.”

Now, I see this as no critique of Self-Inquiry, but possibly a consideration concerning any method involving something like Instant Karmic Enlightenment.

I myself have benefited from both Sailor Bob’s method and Ramana’s practice. There have been times when I’ve known here and now what I am. But I have not yet experienced a carse-like disassociative new world order.

I’ve experienced moments. And I understand on an intellectual level. But this body-mind mechanism still feels separate most of the time, even though I know it isn’t.

So for me, these Ram Dass comments strike exactly to the heart of things.

Ram Dass and the Art of Karma Yoga

And today I read this, which in many ways states in other words what I've called the art of lucid dreaming.

So the karma yogi is the person who uses his or her life to come to God by listening for the dharmic act, acting without attachment to the outcome, all the while knowing she or he's not the actor, anyway. That’s the whole formula for turning our lives around and making them our spiritual practice.

Ram Dass in ‘Paths to God’

The listening is Attention; the acting is Guidance; and the knowing is Surrender.

So what that this was said more than thirty years ago. Actually it was said more than three thousand years ago.

Really it was never said, and there was no audience there to hear it.

The Art of Lucid Dreaming

There is an art to living that many point to. This summary is the result of months of query into the second dreaming that follows an initial waking, and to my mind, this is an important conclusion of sorts. Or rather a new beginning. The key elements are the following:

1. Surrender
After understanding that all is consciousness, surrender happens. Such surrender is the same as letting go the ego. But there are years and years of conditioning here, and the ego will still come and go, like a wayward thought arising in the mind. Simply not believing it is the active side of surrender.

2. Attention
Things happen in the manifest world in which we dream that invite our attention. Without, there are influences and signs (even synchronicities). Within, there are insights and intuitions (even clairvoyances). All of these are simply the foretellings of consciousness, ripples around the waves. Pay them attention. Or not.

3. Guidance
We appear to do within the dream. Like a canoe streaming in the rapids, we can attend to the insight and signs, guide our movement (this is where thought becomes our tool and not some mighty poor internal substitute for attention), and facilitate the journey. Or we can ignore them and suffer a rough ride. One way or the other, we are heading downstream the dream.

Surrender. Attention. Guidance. These are the three primary practices of lucid dreaming. Use them well when you find yourself outside the monastery, ashram, or cave.

Jed McKenna's Damndest Law of Attraction 3

erasing the line between dreamer and dream

It's not so much that someone ... can have what they want, but that their wants and needs are in natural harmony with their dreamstate circumstances. In other words. it's not that I can have anything I want, ...it's also that I wouldn't want anything I couldn't have. ...The difference between authentic and inauthentic desire is central to all this, but most people are completely cut off from their authentic desires.

(snip)

The way it really works is more of a seamless unfolding. It's not something you can improve, only impede. The only way you can make it work better is to remove ego from the equation.

(snip)

As soon as you start imposing your beliefs on the process, it necessarily begins to degrade. Even to impose your beliefs about time and space on the process, or your beliefs about causality and duality, is to diminish it. As soon as you start asserting your beliefs, you start closing it down to your level instead of opening yourself up.

(snip)

And since. furthermore, this process is really about conscious being, about who and what and where we are, developing a progressively deeper understanding of the process is synonymous with actual progress and growth.

(snip)

What we're talking about when we say manifestation is the true creative process wherein authentic desires become reality. Once you understand the desire part, then the becoming part takes care of itself.

(snip)

It's about taking control of your life and that means one thing: releasing it. Unconditional surrender. That's something to be done consciously and with clear intent, ...losing your life to find it.

(snip)

Unlike prayer, manifestation is a first and only resort. Once we understand what it really is and how it really works, it naturally becomes our sole mode of operating in the world: not just in getting what we want, but in knowing how to want and what to want: in knowing what to do and why to do it. Instead of a desperate plea for something we want, manifestation becomes our way of moving through life, of interfacing with the universe.

(snip)

But manifestation isn't specific. Its not just about getting what you want, it's about everything you do and how you do it and who you are and how you move through the world. It's about shaping the dreamstate and moving within it in this seamless confluence of self and not-self. Its the erasing of the line between dreamer and dream. You're not just manifesting a car or new shoes, you're manifesting yourself, and all the rest follows naturally and effortlessly from that.

Jed McKenna's Damndest Law of Attraction 2

trust the universe, not my little brain

We think miracles happen and prayers are answered only when it's something good: when it's in line with our hopes and desires which... are always fear-based. We don't acknowledge the same forces equally at work when the results are not in line with our hopes and desires. We're very selective in our perceptions. Good luck, bad luck, it's all the same: the ebb and flow of tides, it just gets interpreted differently.

(snip)

An ego-clad, fear-based being might use prayer or divination or manifestation to get the things they want... Once freed from egoic constraints. however. all such fear-driven wanting disappears and desire becomes very organic and non-specific. My prayer. if I were to utter one, might be for whatever's best, or that I should proceed without error, something like that.

(snip)

The Integrated State is seamless: it's without all these artificial boundaries and distinctions. such as one entity asking for something and another granting it. I want what's best and I trust the universe, not my little brain, to be the judge of what's best and how best to make it happen.

(snip)

When your eyes are open, you see everything and belief becomes irrelevant and forgotten... My point is that what people see in these occasional glimpses, by all these various names and explanations, is this ocean of being working in tireless, errorless perfection. That's what the dreamstate is, that's what we are, that's what consciousness is. You are nothing but consciousness, everything that tells you more than that is like a built-up crust of hard-packed emotional energy that has formed around you like a shell.

All true growth and development is first and foremost a process of chopping away this crust. Ego sends us searching in the direction of learning, of becoming more and adding on to ourselves, but everything we claim to seek lies in the opposite direction: of unlearning, of letting go, of reducing. We think the goal is to become someone. but the universe can only be ours when we become no one.

~Jed McKenna from 'Spiritual Warfare' xtremely edited for this posting

Say the Truth

One Thing

If I have to say one thing
I guess I have to say the truth,
but then again the truth is something
you can’t say. But poetry
is something said that cannot be

so said. So let me say this truth
that can’t be said in poetry
and so be said. The truth is this:
yes, nothing in the world is true.
The grass is green; the sky is blue.

~Son Rivers 15-Jun-2008

Jed McKenna's Damndest Law of Attraction 1

an imperceptible tendency toward rightness

Central ... is the element of trust, of patience, of non-meddling(,)... no ego making demands and insisting on ways and means, so events unfold in ways ego could never imagine or achieve.

(snip)

That's what the whole thing really is—life...—a free-flowing. dynamic, creative process.... Your whole life becomes a creative process, a nuanced allowing, an imperceptible tendency toward rightness and away from not-rightness, as refined and subtle as your mechanism of balance.

(snip)

(T)here are a bunch of books (that) promise ways of manifesting your desires, getting everything you want, but that's really the least of it, more like a pleasant side-effect.

(snip)

Everyone has some direct experience..., where they sense that there's more to life than meets the eye, that there's something going on that they don't see.

(snip)

Manifestation is the visible part ... (L)ittle successes ... aren't the exception, they're the rule, and when they don't come as requested. it just means you didn't understand the rule. But you can.

(snip)

Understanding it conceptually doesn't matter much.... Practical application is what matters.... The rest takes care of itself through natural processes of experimentation and observation and play, just like you developed your balance as a toddler. You weren't born with a finely-tuned balance mechanism: it developed over time as you got up and started using it.

(snip)

Your thoughts and emotions determine your dreamstate reality. That's where you start. From there it's just a matter of simplifying the equation and eventually seeing that your thoughts and emotions are your dreamstate. It's all just consciousness, you are just consciousness. There is nothing else. Once that goes from thought-level concept to full-immersion awareness, you naturally merge with the currents instead of being tossed about by them.

~Jed McKenna from 'Spiritual Warfare' xtremely edited for this posting

It’s All In The Intuition

There’s an interesting comparison of the Christian Trinity and the Hindu Sat-Chit-Ananda (Being-Consciousness-Bliss) in David Carse’s ‘A Perfect Brilliant Stillness’, in which God is Being, the Son is Consciousness, and the Holy Spirit is Bliss, or that untranslatable Transcendent Love.

God or Sat or Being, Unmanifest,
vibrates into the Son or Chit or Consciousness, Manifest,
and the bond between them is the Holy Spirit or Ananda or Bliss,
that Quantum Energy that science sees, or Quantum Spirit.
Of course all of this is One.

And it’s all that is. Our human lives are only dreams within that reality. But they are dreams that need to be lived. And that is my segue into a section of the Katha Upanishads, here translated (or transcreated) by Alan Jacobs:

Know the Self
As your own Consciousness, Awareness,
Vital Spiritual Life Energy,
Source of your own Being.
God in your Heart,
As if to be sitting as a passenger
In a golden chariot.
Your body, and object in Consciousness-Awareness,
Is the chariot,
Your subtle intellect
Is the charioteer,
And the reasoning power
Inherent in the brain is the reins.

The five wild rampant horse are the senses,
The objects they perceive
And the roads down which they rush headlong.
When the chariot and charioteer
Are in Union, that is Yoga
Of the body,
The senses,
The mind.
Wise people call the Self
The Enjoyer.

You, the dream, are the chariot, not the charioteer. And the Self, God, who you truly are, that Sat-Chit-Ananda, is the passenger riding in your chariot. But note that your reasoning mind is only the reins, the tools of the trade so to speak, and the actual charioteer is that subtle intellect called intuition.

In the dream, it’s intuition that should be doing the driving, not thought. And when you and your intuition are in harmony, well, God enjoys his Son or Daughter. Being Enjoys Consciousness. And your dream will live in the Holy Spirit of Love. Bliss.

Amen Svaha Quark

All You Need is Consciousness

...There is functioning in these body/mind organisms. There is physical functioning and there is mental functioning.

Physical functioning is experienced as bodily activity of various kinds.

Mental functioning is experienced as thoughts and mental activity.

And it is because of these activities, what the Buddhist tradition calls the skandhas, the thought processes, sensory perceptions, and so on, the functioning of the body/mind organism, that there is an assumption made that there is something, someone, here doing these things.

But that’s an unfounded assumption. To perceive that the skandhas are empty of an individual self doing them, is to awaken.

All there is, is Consciousness.

(snip)

That’s why we call this the dream; everything, including the body/mind organism you call yourself, does not exist as something separate in itself, but only as an apparent functioning in Consciousness.

There is no separate self or mind, only dream characters in Self or Consciousness.

There is only thinking happening in this apparent organism, in these dream characters. We experience this. We experience thoughts happening; but the assumption that they originate inside these heads in something we call a mind is an unwarranted leap.

It’s the basic misperception from which everything else, all of dualism, all of the illusion of separation, all samsara, follows.

David Carse in 'A Perfect Brilliant Stillness' (paragraphs re-formatted and portions italicized for this posting)

4 Way Dreams: Van, Thoreau, Ruiz, & Ramana

1. Disconnecting

There comes a point inside the dream when you start to see that the true vantage point is actually outside the dream.

But first you need to question the dream itself.

It might start slowly with some seeing of some disconnect. A long strange trip indeed.

For me, it started in the late Sixties with the Viet Nam war, and an understanding that things weren’t what they had been sold to be. So of course it took on a political counter-cultural tone. Lennon. Dylan.

Working Class Hero Tangled Up in Blue...

Moreover there was poetry and song. Walt Whitman and Van Morrison were my lyrical gurus: Song of Myself Into the Mystic. And there was lots of American literature as well, including a degree.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. So life happened for me, and conformities beckoned.

Until I fundamentally broke down.


2. Thoreauvian Interlude

Nature was prescribed and Thoreau became my doctor.

One summer I reread Walden, and I can’t tell you how many times I heard it said that Thoreau was fine for idealists, but not practical enough for the real world.

But he made more sense to me than anything I had ever come across in that world.

His genius resided not only in his common sense, but in his connection to a spiritual sense rooted in the earth itself. It wasn’t idealistic at all. It was truly grounded, and not lost in some rarified dream of lace and gold.

And then I decided to see how this country got to be what it was, and went back to school for a Masters in American History. I was sure something went wrong somewhere, until I realized it was wrong from the very start: I sided with the Anti-federalists.

The disconnect was increasing.

It wasn’t conformity this time that beckoned, but merely so-called responsibilities. While Acadia kept my sanity.

Until I was laid off, went Native, traveled to Arizona and experienced the eternal now in the Canyon del Muerte.


3. Awakening

Arriving back home I read Miguel Ruiz, and for the first time I knew a metaphysical explanation for that disconnect involving not only social conditioning, but more importantly the virtual reality of belief and the ego.

I felt as if I had discovered the meaning of life.

The disconnect was now not just some philosophical disagreement; it was as clear as the divide between sleep and waking. It was obvious that life was but a dream. And I was waking up inside of it.

Soon after I read Eckhart Tolle, and then quickly found myself in a world of Sacred Wisdom and Advaita, all the way from the Desert Fathers to Ramana Maharshi's most valuable all-important Who Am I, with folks like Adams, Adya, Jed, Sailor Bob, and many others, mixed inbetween.

And something recently has clicked. There’s more of a real understanding, as I remarked in a recent posting, of that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin quote: we are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

In other words, we are not living in a dream. That still gives the dream the vantage point. Despite all the mystical experiences and feelings of unity with the divine, you are still in the dreaming.

Rather we are dreaming within eternity. I see the vantage point is not inside the dream. It’s outside the dream. It’s in eternity. There is no vantage point. There is no me. There’s only here and now and Being-Consciousness-Bliss.

The disconnect is disappearing.

Jed McKenna: Xtreme Spirituality

If you need a jolt in the battle that rages inside your head, try this out. If you dare! (You know who You are.) I really don't have much more to say about him than the title of this posting.

Jed McKenna on Amazon

.

An Unbelievable Blow-Out

The clock is running down, the batteries are dying, the car is running out of gas. I am surrendering to That which is. (No lie, just after writing that sentence, my cell phone sounded its low-battery warning.)

After all, ego is the big lie, and surrender is the only lie detector.

All my life I felt as if there was something better that I should be doing. But despite all my thinking, I couldn’t figure it out. So life happened.

But whenever I began to lose sight of that something better, whenever I was on the verge of going with the status quo, something rebelled within me (and without).

Ultimately, it was OK with delaying something better until the time was right, until certain responsibilities had played themselves through.

The time did come, but something better really didn’t. Instead something completely different did.

Surrender.

It’s unexplainable to those who may not understand, but let me quickly do so anyways. An energetic organization of consciousness; after evolving through processes of sense, memory, and instinct; and thereby becoming sensitive to the various forms and patterns of energy all around it; developed an ability to think; that is create a virtual reality within its mind. And in so doing, it created a separate sense of itself within that virtual reality. And at some point, it began to see that virtual reality as truth (belief), and that virtual self as itself (ego).

In turn, of course, there arose a continuous conflict between the actual reality and the virtual reality, or Consciousness and the Belief/Ego construct. This conflict can be called suffering. Suffering is like friction, in time may wear away the ego, and blow out! This is called an act of grace.

(Or, through the active grace of Self-Inquiry, asking Who Am I?, the same blow-out can occur.)

Then things begin to slow until surrender occurs. Stop.

The virtual reality and all its beliefs, and its sense of self, the ego, are seen through, and disappear. Reality returns. And action happens through intent or influence, desire or synchronicity.

It’s unbelievable.

The Secret of Manifesting Deuces

All this talk about the secret, manifestation, or intuition really requires one thing and one thing only. It’s that same old spiritual thing. And without it, all that talk is meaningless.

It’s like playing poker in a tennis match. It doesn’t really matter what is wild unless you recognize your side of the score has always been love.

In other words, lose the ego. See the dream for what it is. And be nothing. Now.

Otherwise, any intuition or intent will be lost in the noise of thought.

And rather than responding to the pull of the universe in the present, your action will be based on thought, which is really the pull of the universe from the past stored in memory, which means everything you do is based on a reality (or a dream) that doesn’t exist any longer.

So everything in your life is in a time delay, constantly rubbing against the current, the friction being what’s called suffering.

It’s like this. The universe might be telling you turn left, but you’re still reacting to some time in the past when you should have turned right. So this time you go right. Taking that turn one block way too late. When there isn’t even a road there on the right.

The result, of course, isn’t very pretty.

That, In Fact, In Truth, I Am

The Womb of Livelihood

I am an embryo
in uterus, secure

within four walls of books,
ten thousand objects, and

a few select divine
relationships with other

lovely embryos
in uterus as well.

I am an ultrasound
of solar winds. I am

a worshipper of worry
wrapped in fetal-like

position praying to
the amniotic fluids

and securities exchange.
I am unborn to that

celestial and quantum
energetic wonder

that, in fact, in truth,
I am, indeed, unborn.

~Son Rivers 04-Jul-08

Surrendering to Surrender

Surrender is a difficult if not dirty word inside the dream. Outside the dream it’s a joke.

A woman is falling from an airplane without a parachute. Does she surrender to the air?

There is only surrender. Any other option is a dream within a dream.

Start with the big things and then work backwards. Surrender to the inevitable process of aging and the unavoidable destination of death. There, that was easy.

It’s easy because it isn’t true. You are not really you. You are deathless, without beginning and without end and always now. There is no such thing as surrender. Always remember this.

So there is only surrender.

When I was a little child, I played with toy soldiers. Now that I am a grown man, I am the toy soldier. The Spirit that I really am, the I Am that I am, surrenders me.

I have no choice. I’ve been surrendered. Surrendering has happened. Pieces are moved. It’s either desire or demand. My orders are clear. I move.

To sum this up. The real You is Spirit. Spirit surrenders your dream character. Spirit moves the pieces on the game board. Some pieces are inside you. We call these pieces desire or intent (not to be confused with egoic want thoughts). Some pieces are outside you. We call these pieces influence or synchronicity. When it’s your turn to move, Spirit does so according to intent or influence, desire or synchronicity. And so the dream happens.

Suffering is caused by a futile opposition to this happening, resulting from a complete ignorance of everything previously stated in the previous paragraph. And then you die. Do not pass go.

Peace of mind is surrendering to the surrender. Go.

The Whole Enchilada

The world of spirituality is full of sayings that sound neat, and make you feel good, but mean much more than one is sometimes able or willing to understand. They are hand grenades that are treated like apples.

One of these is an oft-repeated maxim by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: we are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Sounds good and tastes right to any seeker. Yes, we are indeed spirit, one with the universe, eternal and full of light. Amen.

But for a moment, let’s think of the implication here. Really grasp the implication here. Understand completely, without any Disney-like coloring, the implication here.

We are not human beings!

We are spirit experiencing a dreamlike illusion called the human experience. The complete thing, the whole enchilada, is not real or true. Including many of the so-called spiritual beliefs and practices we play with. Especially those.

Society, culture, politics, religion, economics: all not real. And the you, you think you are. Not real. In fact, that’s the most unreal thing in your particular life.

And the only thing that needs to be addressed in any true spiritual practice.

That’s the thing, that thing called ego, that all the great and true spiritual traditions speak to. Lose the ego, see through the illusion of the ego.

In other words, know that you are not a human being. It’s all a dream, illusion, Maya. It’s the curtain behind which resides the truth: you are, and have always been, Spirit.

You’ve just been having a bad dream.

All Roads Go to Morocco

We talk about the spiritual path we’re on as if it’s something special and unique, and traveled by few. It isn’t and it isn’t, and it isn’t.

Whether we know it or not, we, each and every one, have been walking the spiritual path since time can remember. Just as if we know it or not, we are already at the final destination. We were born there.

Stop for a moment. Here and now. Look where you are.

Every moment of your life has brought you to this moment. Yes, that appears to be an innocent, and quite obvious. statement.

But I mean it in a much more radical way. The universe, call it Consciousness, God, Self, Atheistic-Randomizer, Spirit, has paved every step of the way for you to be exactly right here and right now. You weren’t aware because you didn’t know it at the time. That’s why it appeared so random and often so difficult.

Or as if there was no path at all.

But now that you’ve stopped, now that you’ve looked, now that you know What you really are, you can see that the Self has made this road for itself.

It might be a dream, but you're not the only one dreaming it.

So stay stopped. Surrender to your Self. Pay attention to the signs and messages the Self creates for the self, and then, dream on. Walk on.

Follow. Intend.

And like Bogie and Rains at the end of Casablanca, it shall be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

What Micro Assumes, Macro Shall Assume

1.

Our bodies are self-intelligent. They breathe, beat heart, circulate blood, and a myriad of other functions on their own, with no action needed from ourselves. It is an intelligence beyond our doing.

As in the microcosm, so in the macrocosm.

Therefore, as previously stated, the manifest world, Quantum Spirit, is sentient with Divine Intelligence.


2.

To clarify, Quantum Spirit is one with Spirit. To repeat, the unmanifest becomes manifest as Spirit vibrates into different forms and patterns in order to cognize itself.

Now, there are two basic types of forms and patterns in Quantum Spirit.

First is the Universal Organization of Quantum Spirit. These are the basic building blocks of the universe ending in the atoms and molecules we know and love. Take carbon or water, for examples.

But secondly, there is the Local Organization of Quantum Spirit. On Earth, this is basically what we call life, be it vegetable or animal (or other).


3.

For all intents and purposes, this Local Organization results in a wondrous amplification of Divine Intelligence, the Human Being being a particular local apex at this time and place of that amplification in the human point of view.

But again, it is important to remember that an organization is merely a temporary gathering of that elementary substance, which is itself an organic unity, One.

As in the microcosm, so in the macrocosm.

We know ourselves to be one organic body despite the myriad organs and muscles and bones etc (forms and patterns). As in our body, so in the universe.

Moreover, every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you (Whitman).

Thoreau and I Am the Damndest Thing

Put aside all opinions, beliefs and theories for a moment and address this one simple question: What do you know for sure? Or. as Thoreau put it:

Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion. and appearance. that alluvium which covers the globe... through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place. which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake: and then begin...

In other words, let's cut the crap and figure out what we know for sure. The cogito does exactly that, and it's very simple. The question is: What do you know?

The answer is: I Am.

All other so-called facts are really non-facts and belong in the category of consensual reality and relative truth, i.e.. unreal reality and untrue truth.

~Jed McKenna in 'Spiritual Warfare'

Quantum Organization One

There is the seen and the unseen, the physical world and the spiritual world, the manifest and the unmanifest.

Both worlds are sentient with Divine Intelligence. For this reason, for my own Understanding, I prefer to call the seen and the unseen, Quantum Spirit and Spirit.

(Sailor Bob Adamson describes the unmanifest becoming manifest as Awareness vibrating into different forms and patterns in order to cognize itself. I so love that description.)

Quantum Spirit consists of an elementary organic substance that we see as individual particles or waves, depending on one’s viewpoint, that have organized (through Divine Intelligence) to form the manifest world.

It is important to remember that the physical world is a world determined to be so by the subjectivity of our five senses, in combination with our nervous system and brain.

In other words, rather in William Shakespeare's words, there are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies.

The Self of Love

Me

You must accept the fact
there are no facts except
that fact, before the truth

begins to dawn on you
that you are not the true
authentic you, but one

who suffers through a life
conducted from a view
untrue. It’s love that’s you.

~Son Rivers 05-Aug-06

The Lion of Now

A woman is about to be married. As was normal for someone in this condition, her head was filled with thoughts and plans and ideas for the future. She was walking from her village through the forest to the next village when a lion jumped into the middle of the road.

In that moment where is her mind? Where is her past? Where are her thoughts and plans for the future?

The future is dependent on the past. The mind is a grave-yard digger! Digging up old bones from the past to chew on! So welcome the lion in your path.

~H. W. L. Poonja (Papaji) in 'Wake Up and Roar'

Speaking in Tongues

Speaking in Tongues

Imagine tongues
that learn to think that
they are separate
entities.

I am not
an entity
but yes I am
the tongue of God.

There are no words...
No words will ever
delineate
the taste of love.

Sat-Chit-Ananda:
Being - Pure
Awareness – Bliss.
The taste! The taste!

~Son Rivers 27-Nov-2008

Ramana First Paul Brunton Finale Thanks

“Will the Maharshi express an opinion about the future of the world, for we are living in critical times?”

“Why should you trouble yourself about the future?” demands the Sage. “You do not even properly know about the present! Take care of the present; the future will then take care of itself.”

Another rebuff! But I do not yield so easily on this occasion, for I come from a world where the tragedies of life press far more heavily on people than they do in this peaceful jungle retreat.

“Will the world soon enter a new era of friendliness and mutual help, or will it go down into chaos and war?” I persist.

The Maharshi does not seem at all pleased, but nevertheless he makes a reply.

“There is One who governs the world, and it is His lookout to look after the world. He who has given life to the world knows how to look after it also. He bears the burden of this world, not you.”

“Yet if one looks around with unprejudiced eyes, it is difficult to see where this benevolent regard comes in,” I object.

The Sage appears to be still less pleased. Yet his answer comes:

“As you are, so is the world. Without understanding yourself, what is the use of trying to understand the world? This is a question that seekers after truth need not consider. People waste their energies over all such questions. First, find out the truth behind yourself; then you will be in a better position to understand the truth behind the world, of which yourself is a part.”

~Paul Brunton, 'A Search in Secret India' 1934

Robert Adams on the Last Words of Ramana Maharshi

I was awakened about 5 o’clock. It was Ramana again. He came by himself and he brought me food. Can you imagine that? We spoke briefly; I ate and I slept. The next morning I went into the hall. After the morning chanting there was breakfast, and everybody sat around just watching Ramana as he went through his routine. He would go through the mail and read it out loud, talk to some of his devotees. I just observed everything. His composure never changed. Never did I see such compassion, such love.

Then people started to come over to him, asking him questions. His replies were very succinct. They weren’t like you read in a book. Apparently, what you read in a book is his reply to three or four people. They condense it all into one question and answer. But people usually asked a question or made a statement. If he agreed, he would nod or say, ‘Yes. That’s it’. If he didn’t, he would offer an explanation in maybe one or two sentences.

******************

Six months prior to his leaving his body, I went to Bangalore to see Papa Ramdas. While I was there, I was informed that he [Bhagavan] had left his body. I went back to Tiruvannamalai. The crowds had already started to come, thousands and thousands of people. So, I climbed the hill and went into one of the caves. I stayed there for five days. When I came down, the crowds had dispersed. Ramana had already been interred.


I enquired of the devotee who saw him last, ‘What were the last words he spoke?’


The devotee said, ‘While he was leaving his body a peacock flew on top of the hall and started screeching. Ramana remarked to his devotee, ‘Has anyone fed the peacock yet?’ Those were the last words he spoke.

******************

What Ramana taught was not new. Ramana simply taught the Upanishads. ‘Who am I?’ has been around since time immemorial. If a teacher always tells you he has something new to teach you, be careful, because there’s nothing new under the sun. Ramana simply revised the ‘Who am I’ philosophy and made it simple for people in the twentieth century. But what did he teach? He simply taught that you are not the body-mind principle. He simply taught that if you have a problem, do not feel sorry for yourself, do not go to psychiatrists, do not condemn yourself. Simply ask yourself, ‘To whom does this problem come?’ And of course the answer will be, ‘The problem comes to me’. Hold onto the ‘me’. Follow the ‘me’ to the source, the substratum of all existence.

******************

A devotee went to Ramana and said, ‘I’ve been with you for twenty-five years, doing “Who am I?” and nothing has happened yet,’ so Ramana said, ‘Try it another twenty-five and see what happens’.

******************

Self-enquiry is the ego trying to find itself as the Self, so the effort is brought on through your karma so that you may become Self-realised. It is a privilege to have been able to find in this life the method of self-enquiry. Therefore, it’s been predestined that you should make the effort to find yourself.

******************

(Thank Me this Thanksgiving [ed. note])


~Robert Adams, from a beautiful blog posting by David Godman on his blog, Arunachala and Sri Ramana Maharshi

A Ramana Thanksgiving Continues

“You say I. ‘I want to know.’ Tell me, who is that I?”

What does he mean? He has now cut across the services of the interpreter and speaks direct to me in English. Bewilderment creeps across my brain.

“I am afraid I do not understand your question,” I reply blankly.

“Is it not clear? Think again!”

I puzzle over his words once more. An idea suddenly flashes into my head. I point a finger towards myself and mention my name.

“And do you know him?”

“All my life!” I smile back at him.

“But that is only your body! Again I ask, ‘Who are you’?”

I cannot find a ready answer to this extraordinary query. The Maharshi continues:

“Know first that I and then you shall know the truth.”

My mind hazes again. I am deeply puzzled. This bewilderment finds verbal expression. But the Maharshi has evidently reached the limit of his English, for he turns to the interpreter and the answer is slowly translated to me:

“There is only one thing to be done. Look into your own self. Do this in the right way and you shall find the answer to all your problems.”

It is a strange rejoinder. But I ask him:

“What must one do? What method can I pursue?”

“Through deep reflection on the nature of one’s self and through constant meditation, the light can be found.”

~Paul Brunton, 'A Search in Secret India' 1934

Adyashanti on Ramana the Flame

Ramana Maharshi's gift to the world was not that he realized the Self. Many people have had a deep realization of the Self. Ramana's real gift was that he embodied that realization so thoroughly. It is one thing to realize the Self; it is something else altogether to embody that realization to the extent that there is no gap between inner revelation and its outer expression. Many have glimpsed the realization of Oneness; few consistently express that realization through their humanness. It is one thing to touch a flame and know it is hot, but quite another to jump into that flame and be consumed by it.

Adyashanti from 'Selling Water By the River' in Inner Directions Journal, Fall/Winter 1999

Ramana's First Words to the West

I add that I regard the question of diet as being far less important than the quest which has brought me to his hermitage.

The Sage listens intently, his face calm, imperturbable and non-committal.

“It is a good object,” he comments at length.

This encourages me to enlarge upon the same theme.

“Master, I have studied our Western philosophies and sciences, lived and worked among the people of our crowded cities, tasted their pleasures and allowed myself to be caught up into their ambitions. Yet I have also gone into solitary places and wandered there amid the loneliness of deep thought. I have questioned the sages of the West; now I have turned my face towards the East. I seek more light.”

The Maharshi nods his head, as if to say, “Yes, I quite understand.”

“I have heard many opinions, listened to many theories. Intellectual proofs of one belief or another lie piled up all around me. I am tired of them, sceptical of anything which cannot be proved by personal experience. Forgive me for saying so, but I am not religious. Is there anything beyond man’s material existence? If so, how can I realize it for myself?”

The three or four devotees who are gathered around us stare in surprise. Have I offended the subtle etiquette of the hermitage by speaking so brusquely and boldly to their Master? I do not know; perhaps I do not care. The accumulated weight of many years’ desire has unexpectedly escaped my control and passed beyond my lips. If the Maharshi is the right kind of man, surely he will understand and brush aside mere lapses from convention.

He makes no verbal reply but appears to have dropped into some train of thought. Because there is nothing else to do and because my tongue has now been loosened, I address him for the third time:

“The wise men of the West, our scientists, are greatly honoured for their cleverness. Yet they have confessed that they can throw but little light upon the hidden truth behind life. It is said that there are some in your land who can give what our Western sages fail to reveal. Is this so? Can you assist me to experience enlightenment? Or is the search itself a mere delusion?”

I have now reached my conversational objective and decide to await the Maharshi’s response. He continues to stare thoughtfully at me. Perhaps he is pondering over my questions. Ten minutes pass in silence.

At last his lips open and he says gently:

“You say I. ‘I want to know.’ Tell me, who is that I?”

~Paul Brunton, 'A Search in Secret India' 1934

Eckhart Tolle via Ramana and Krishnamurti

And there were other teachers who were just as meaningful whom I never met in person that I feel a very strong connection to. One is [J.] Krishnamurti, and another is Ramana Maharshi. I feel a deep link. And I feel actually that the work I do is a coming together of the teaching "stream," if you want to call it that, of Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi. They seem very, very dissimilar, but I feel that in my teaching the two merge into one. It is the heart of Ramana Maharshi, and Krishnamurti's ability to see the false, as such and point out how it works. So Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi, I love them deeply. I feel completely at One with them. And it is a continuation of the teaching.

~Eckhart Tolle in an Interview from a book called 'Dialogues With Emerging Spiritual Teachers' by John W. Parker

In Ramana's Presence, No Words

There is something in this man which holds my attention as steel filings are held by a magnet. I cannot turn my gaze away from him. My initial bewilderment, my perplexity at being totally ignored, slowly fade away as this strange fascination begins to grip me more firmly. But it is not till the second hour of the uncommon scene that I become aware of a silent, resistless change which is taking place within my mind. One by one, the questions which I prepared in the train with such meticulous accuracy drop away. For it does not now seem to matter whether they are asked or not, and it does not matter whether I solve the problems which have hitherto troubled me. I know only that a steady river of quietness seems to be flowing near me; that a great peace is penetrating the inner reaches of my being, and that my thought-tortured brain is beginning to arrive at some rest.

How small seem those questions which I have asked myself with such frequency? How petty grows the panorama of the last years! I perceive with sudden clarity that intellect creates its own problems and then makes itself miserable trying to solve them. This is indeed a novel concept to enter the mind of one who has hitherto placed such high value upon intellect.

I surrender myself to the steadily deepening sense of restfulness until two hours have passed. The passage of time now provokes no irritation, because I feel that the chains of mind-made problems are being broken and thrown away. And then, little by little, a new question takes the field of consciousness.

“Does this man, the Maharshi, emanate the perfume of spiritual peace as the flower emanates fragrance from its petals?”

I do not consider myself a competent person to apprehend spirituality, but I have personal reactions to other people. The dawning suspicion that the mysterious peace which has arisen within me must be attributed to the geographical situation in which I am now placed, is my reaction to the personality of the Maharshi. I begin to wonder whether, by some radioactivity of the soul, some unknown telepathic process, the stillness which invades the troubled waters of my own soul really comes from him. Yet he remains completely impassive completely unaware of my very existence, it seems.

Comes the first ripple. Someone approaches me and whispers in my ear. “Did you not wish to question the Maharshi?”

He may have lost patience, this quondam guide of mine. More likely, he imagines that I, a restless European, have reached the limit of my own patience. Alas, my inquisitive friend! Truly I came here to question your Master, but now ... I, who am at peace with all the world and with myself, why should I trouble my head with questions? I feel that the ship of my soul is beginning to slip its moorings; a wonderful sea waits to be crossed; yet you would draw me back to the noisy port of this world, just when I am about to start the great adventure!

But the spell is broken. As if this infelicitous intrusion is a signal, figures rise from the floor and begin to move about the hall, voices float up to my hearing, and wonder of wonders! — the dark brown eyes of the Maharshi flicker once or twice. Then the head turns, the face moves slowly, very slowly, and bends downward at an angle. A few more moments and it has brought me into the ambit of its vision. For the first time the Sage’s mysterious gaze is directed upon me. It is plain that he has now awakened from his long trance.

The intruder, thinking perhaps that my lack of response is a sign that I have not heard him, repeats his question aloud. But in those lustrous eyes which are gently staring at me, I read another question, albeit unspoken:

“Can it be — is it possible — that you are still tormented with distracting doubts when you have now glimpsed the deep mental peace which you — and all men — may attain?”

The peace overwhelms me. I turn to the guide and answer: “No. There is nothing I care to ask now. Another time ”

~Paul Brunton, 'A Search in Secret India' 1934

Ramana Calls the West

“Well, Mr. Subramanya, I am waiting for an explanation of your whispered remark in the house of the Silent Sage.”

“And I have been waiting all this time to give it to you! Take your questions to my Master, for he is the wisest man in India, wiser even than the yogis.”

“So? And have you travelled throughout all India? Have you met all the great yogis, that you can make such a statement?”

“I have met several of them, for I know the country from Cape Comorin to Himalayas.”

“Well?”

“Sir, I have never met anyone like him, he is a great soul And I want you to meet him.”

“Why?”

“Because he has led me to you! It is his power which has drawn you to India!”

This bombastic statement strikes me as being too exaggerated and I begin to recoil from the man. I am always afraid of the rhetorical exaggerations of emotional persons, and it is obvious that the yellow robed yogi is highly emotional. His voice, gesture, appearance and atmosphere plainly reveal it.

“I do not understand,” is my cold reply. He falls into further explanations.

“Eight months ago I came into touch with him. For five months I was permitted to stay with him and then I was sent forth on my travels once more. I do not think you are likely to meet with another such man as he. His spiritual gifts are so great that he will answer your unspoken thoughts. You need only be with him a short time to realise his high spiritual degree.”

“Are you sure he would welcome my visit?”

“Oh, Sir! Absolutely. It is his guidance which sent me to you.”

“Where does he live?”

“On Arunachala — the Hill of the Holy Beacon.”

~Paul Brunton "A Search In Secret India' 1934

World of Waves

Waver

The winds are waves
and the dunes are waves and the sea
is waves. The clouds
are waves in a sky of waves,

and seagulls are wings
of waves in a world of waves.
My blood is a wave

flowing from the wavelength
of my heart; my breath is a wave
passing through
the waveform of my lungs.

And I know my soul
is just a waver
in the mystery of the whole.

~Son Rivers 2005

Ramana Work

Q: Is it possible to enjoy samadhi [awareness of reality] while busy in worldly work?

A: The feeling 'I work' is the hindrance. Ask yourself 'Who works?' Remember who you are. Then the work will not bind you, it will go on automatically. Make no effort either to work or to renounce; it is your effort which is the bondage. What is destined to happen will happen. If you are destined not to work, work cannot be had even if you hunt for it. If you are destined to work, you will not be able to avoid it and you will be forced to engage yourself in it. So, leave it to the higher power; you cannot renounce or retain as you choose.

~Ramana Maharshi in 'Be As You Are', ed. David Godman

Some Notes from Radio Adyashanti

decision-making

from being to doing

from being rather than thought
more intuitive
and not awakened to the intuitive yet
from silence, the divine

stop trying to figure it out
let go of figuring it out, to solve, to know on the level of mind
and awaken deep intuitive intelligence

get out of the driver’s seat

willingness to be still and know

be still first
then know

be still

let go of solving in mind to allow consciousness to go deeper
consciousness will move out of the mind into being
into an intuitive wisdom
heart wisdom
the wholeness of wisdom

bubbling from the unknown, the silence

relinquish control
you really don’t have control anyways
still you struggle for control
and blind yourself of the intuitive wisdom

enlightened action
action coming from the unknown
only can happen when you let go

to be still and know

mind relaxes into something it doesn’t understand
because mind isn’t the only intelligence

but sometimes you have to allow yourself to not know

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Belief

When you go to see a movie, it’s advisable to suspend all disbelief.

So you can believe the absurdities that may arise within the film. And in so doing, you may become enmeshed in the reality that the film presents. And enjoy.

Spirituality is a little bit like that.

Things in this world, this dream, involve belief: the thought of you investing itself in the thought of something other.

But in the world of Spirit, there are no thoughts. There is no other.

So, as a practice, suspend all belief itself.

And discover there never was any belief to begin with.

And no thought. And no other. And no you.

Getting Ready for Here and Now

Wash thoughts (Love)

Rinse ego (Compassion)

Repeat (Forgiveness)

Chop Truth, Carry Compassion

I am.

Even that is not the whole truth, of course. No word, no thought, can be the truth. They can only represent the truth, point to the truth.

The more words used, the easier the truth is misrepresented, although the more times you point at something, the possibility exists that what’s pointed at will be finally seen.

But there’s nothing to represent. There’s nothing to be seen.

So why bother pointing?

Because, contrary to what some might say, that’s what is done in the dream.

It’s not just chop wood and carry water. It’s also seek truth, teach truth. Although there’s nothing to seek, nothing to teach, and no one to do either.

But before awakening, compassion; after awakening, compassion.

( )

The Primitive Square Roots of Unity

Despite traditions to the contrary, there simply cannot be true jnana without true bhakti, there cannot be the ultimate understanding without the ultimate surrender. Certain personalities will try to avoid one or the other under the guise of some higher wisdom, but always at the cost of wholeness.

There is a tradition that jnana is the higher path because the bhakta relies on a belief in someone or something to be devoted to, whereas the jnani knows there are neither. But true bhakti knows no object; and the true jnani knows nothing.

Jnana and bhakti, knowledge and devotion, understanding and surrender, inseeing and outpouring, mind and heart, cannot be divided or opposed; because they are the same.

~David Carse from 'Perfect Brilliant Stillness'

The Tao of Word

(SSP-4)

The Tao of Duality

Tonight, which is the opposite of day,
I wish to think about duality,
while typing letters which create these words
in Word, a Microsoft word processor.

This personal computer is a perfect
metaphor for that, now come to think
about it. Everything within its world
becomes a binary determination.

Mind is that as well. Except its speed
exceeds ten thousand Buddhas times a Mega
Hertz that’s measured in a God knows what.
In other words, it’s really wicked fast.

But still, despite the engine underneath
the hood, the neighborhood is black and white.
There’s not a thought that’s not a mathematical
equation from a string of ones and zeroes.

But reality is not that way.

29-Dec-2007

The Midnight Train to Dharma

What do you have to do?

Pack your bags,

Go to the station without them,

Catch the train,

And leave your self behind.

Quite so: the only practice—and once.


~Wei Wu Wei

The Damndest Thing

Enlightenment isn't when you go there, it's when there comes here.

It's not a place you visit and then remember wistfully and try to return to. It's not a visit to the truth, it's the awakening of truth within you. It's not a fleeting state of consciousness, it's permanent truth-realization - abiding non-dual awareness. It's not a place you visit from here, this is a place you visit from there.

You will never achieve spiritual enlightenment.

The you that you think of as you is not you. The you that thinks of you as you is not you. There is no you, so who wishes to become enlightened? Who is not enlightened? Who will become enlightened? Who will be enlightened?

You cannot fail to achieve enlightenment.

Enlightenment is your destiny-more certain than sunrise. Were you told otherwise? Irresistible forces compel you. The universe insists. It is not within your power to fail.

There is no path to enlightenment: It lies in all directions at all times.

On the journey to enlightenment, you create and destroy your own path with every step. No one can follow another's path. No one can step off the path. No one can lead another. No one can turn back. No one can stop.

Enlightenment is closer than your skin, more immediate than your next breath, and forever beyond your reach.

It need not be sought because it cannot be found. It cannot be found because it cannot be lost. It cannot be lost because it is not other than that which seeks. The paradox is that there is no paradox.

Is that not the damndest thing?


selections (some I've re-formatted) from Jed McKenna 'Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damndest Thing'

Five Ways In, Not of, the World

Don't pull on the past.

Don't invite the future.

Don't alter your innate waitfulness.

Don't fear appearances.

Nothing more than that.

~a Tibetan woman via Ram Dass

Reality Dancing

The other day I was thinking of the potentiality of Pure Awareness, and the spiritual practices that allow one to tap into it, when I suddenly realized that particular thought was completely backwards.

I cannot emphasize enough the word, realized.

It was as if the thought of ‘me thinking’ was turned around, seen through, disappeared, terminated with extreme prejudice, and the realization of the Self was here and now.

Now this wasn’t the first time such realization has happened, but when it happens as it did suddenly and unexpectedly from the perspective of the Dream, it brings a rush of understanding.

And I understood in truth, there is nothing I, in the Dream, can really do.

Adyashanti describes the Dream’s experience of Emptiness in two ways. The first is the emptiness of emptiness, a cool emptiness. But the second is a deeper experience of Emptiness as if your being is dancing.

I felt as if my being was being danced, and everything was vividly alive.

But this happened while driving, so thought reappeared relatively quickly, so as to avoid any appearance of an accident.

But that realization was no accident; it was intent itself. And it really didn’t happen the other day; it’s happening now.

Just Wait and See

The invitation to stop is a radical invitation. It is the invitation to stop only in this moment. It is not the invitation to stop for the rest of your life, to never leave your house, to never tell a story, or to never think again. It is the invitation to stop everything and, just for this moment, be.

One of Papaji's most profound teachings is to "wait and see." To "wait" is active and open, and the seeing is the waiting. It is to see the impulses of mind, to see the ancient programming embedded in the cellular structure to know what to do, what action to take. Just wait and see. Rest nakedly in not knowing. True lasting discovery is not something you have heard or read about. It is your own direct experience.

Until now, we have opted for trusting our minds, language, images, and ideas, rather than trusting the spaciousness from which all arises. What an opportunity is available now to trust the unknown spaciousness of the heart. What a time.

from 'The Diamond in Your Pocket' by Gangaji

The Crossroads of Uncertainty

There may be a period of insecurity and uncertainty. What should I do?

As the ego is no longer running your life, the psychological need for external security, which is illusory anyway, lessens. You are able to live with uncertainty, even enjoy it.

When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life. It means fear is no longer a dominant factor in what you do and no longer prevents you from taking action to initiate change. The Roman philosopher Tacitus rightly observed that “the desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.”

If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity.

~from ‘A New Earth’ by Eckhart Tolle (new para and bold formatting not in original)

Loony Sutra

(SSP-3)

Eh, What Am I Doc?

Perfection is a diamond
in our carbon-based
reality. Perfection

hurts and there’s no crying
in perfection, Joe.
Perfection is a carrot

Bugs Bunny never wanted.
Elmer Fudd desires
that silly rabbit though.

13-Jul-2006

Rendering the Dream in Sweet Surrender

~surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life

~to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation

~surrender is perfectly compatible with taking action, initiating change or achieving goals

~surrender reconnects you with the source-energy of Being, and if your doing is infused with Being, it becomes a joyful celebration of life energy

~call this "surrendered action"

~it is not work as we have known it for thousands of years

For example, if you were stuck in the mud somewhere, you wouldn't say: "Okay, I resign myself to being stuck in the mud." Resignation is not surrender. You don't need to accept an undesirable or unpleasant life situation. Nor do you need to deceive yourself and say that there is nothing wrong with being stuck in the mud. No. You recognize fully that you want to get out of it. You then narrow your attention down to the present moment without mentally labeling it in any way. This means that there is no judgment of the Now. Therefore, there is no resistance, no emotional negativity. You accept the "isness" of this moment. Then you take action and do all that you can to get out of the mud.

~from ‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle

Rhythmic Patterns

Energetic patterns rising from the silent stillness

And evolving towards a greater realization

Where the energetic patterns recognize another

Energetic pattern as a little something other

Than an energetic pattern, something in translation

Solid, colorful reflection, sounding energetic,

Then creating something inner in a dreamlike

World of things called thought affecting

Energetic patterns in a way it calls emotions

Lost forever in illusions of that energetic pattern

Lost that is until it knows it’s not some dreamlike

Character but really energetic patterns rising

From the silent stillness one is knowing one

Fear and Suffering in Lost Wages

Granted that the Dream rests on Fear and Suffering, and therefore most social interaction revolves around that illusionary body, why should an awakening one want to interact with all that?

I know one has to chop wood and carry water, but in this environment that means marketing and sales. Before enlightenment, lie, cheat, steal. After enlightenment, lie, cheat, steal?

Third Thought, Scary Thought

Fear is then the third thought, following those of differentiation and identity.

On this third thought rests the Dream as we know it. It is the last leg of that proverbial three-legged chair.

Once that leg is locked into place, Suffering sits on its throne.

But see it for what it is, an illusionary thought, and the whole structure will come crashing down.

Thought World

The core of the Dream, aka Thought World, is duality, and the prime elements of that duality are fear and love.

In the beginning of the Dream, there was thought, and that thought, in order to remain in existence, identified with a second thought. And so on.

Fear is the first thought thinking it may lose its connection, i.e. identification, with the second thought, and as a result, cease to exist.

Love is the first thought sacrificing its connection with the second thought, and in so doing, actually touch reality, its forgotten essence, its Self.

Fear is the way further into the suffering dimensions of Thought World; love is the way out.

First Obama, Then Nobama, Then There Is

Actually it's: First there is Obama, then there is Nobama, then there is (you can sing it to Donovan if you prefer).

Before understanding the true nature of my thoughts, I believed in the life and death nature of politics. When John Kerry lost in 2004, I was devastated. I had always followed politics like a sports fan his home team. But I realized then that I had to detach myself from such passionate involvement. And I don’t think it’s just coincidence that my spiritual journey started to move into overdrive the very next year.

The Heart Sutra says that all form is emptiness. I say politics is the heart of American emptiness. It involves raw belief, almost belief for belief’s sake. In this country, the divisions between the parties run deep. There is very little understanding of the other. One is completely right; the other is completely wrong. Both sides think this way of course. Talk about duality!

During the primaries, my friend and I were discussing our preference for Hilary Clinton. She went on to criticize Obama in very harsh terms, and I warned her to be careful. If he ends up winning the nomination, you’ll be voting for him, I said. And you’ll be vigorous in doing so. She said she doubted it. But she’s been pretty vigorous in her support for him the past few weeks. I’m not saying I told you so; I’m just saying. The dream is like that.

Beliefs are just thoughts we invest with our identity, which, of course, are just more thoughts (illusions which result from our once and continuing conditioning). In politics, these beliefs become more than just individual identity. They become a collective identity in support of that even greater collective identity: nationalism (and often religion as well).

It’s an exponential growth of belief. That’s why things can get so ugly in a political campaign. It’s a life and death battle of identity (and its cousins, power and empowerment). Bring whatever thoughts you need to win the war. Just make them up out of thin air if need be. After all, that’s the nature of thought anyways.

But significantly the Heart Sutra also says that all emptiness is form as well. And that’s why I’m voting for Obama tomorrow.

Here on Gilligan's Isle

To a New Meta-Paradigm 2

Thought results in a separate virtual reality of knowledge, a world of duality created from the process of thought, and the Human Being's evolution of consciousness is detoured by and into that false reality of knowledge, wrongly believing it to be the true reality.

Because of this detour onto its separate and false way of thought, the Human Being dwells in its world of knowledge, its virtual reality, living in a dream of its own creation.

Therefore the Human Being has developed a false self called the ego (and the super-ego), and because of the essence of that ego's own falsehood and its ultimate void, it is required to acquire its identity in the world of matter, in both external forms and internals forms such as thought and belief.

But acquisition of identity through external and internal form is ultimately futile, becoming an unremitting cycle of wanting, leading to the madness of violence and suffering that is the human being's life on earth.

Never Mind (SSP-2)

The Summer Breeze Will

Each leave is like a thought
and every single branch
is action like an arm
that moves a cursive hand
drawing the pen across
an empty space of paper.

Some mistake it all
as something they have willed,
an animate display
of mind. But never mind.
We know there is a wind
that blows across the wood—

and makes the world just happen.

11-Jun-08

The Microcosmic Meaning of Life

In earlier posts (the first of a series), I discussed the song of the cosmos, that universal movement towards higher levels of consciousness, i.e. awareness, that in fact the universe is intelligent, sentient, aware, that the evolution of matter is always moving towards the amplification of its awareness, and that the Human Being (on Earth) has evolved to a relatively high level of awareness, amplified by its highly refined nervous system and brain.

While reading one of Sailor Bob Adamson dialogues in Braha’s ‘Living Reality,’ I came across a description of the perfect microcosm of this movement: from deep sleep to awakening.

In deep sleep, that sleep without dreaming, we are completely unaware of our awareness. We still exist. Awareness is still there. But we are unaware of it. Upon awakening we become aware of our awareness. In one night, maybe one moment, we migrate through the eons of evolution.

But why has this happened, inquiring dreams want to know?

Now this next part, the simple answer to that ultimate question, deserves direct quotes: “Awareness can’t know itself if awareness is all there is. (snip) Awareness vibrates into different forms and patterns and cognizes itself.”

And there it is. In order to know itself, awareness energized itself into the forms and patterns we call matter. And after what our limited dream sees as eons of evolution, we are here and now, awareness self-aware.

Awesome. Awestruck.

Whitman Sampler

We dream within a collective dream, and inside our dream homes, we are the software of dreams living within the dream hardware of that domestic dream.

The walls are adorned with the art of dreams. The bookshelves are filled with dream words about dreams within dreams ad infinitum.

Outside the picture window is the elementary energy we dream as nature.

I step outside and I am... reality.

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,

I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,

The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,

It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,

I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,

I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

~from Song of Myself; Walt Whitman

Act Two: Acting Oneness

I feel as if I’m in a boat, and I’ve just discovered that the oars I had been using to propel myself across the water aren’t in the boat any longer.

At first, I don’t know what to do. But the sun shines bright; the water sparkles.

“The livingness continues,” says Sailor Bob, and I agree.

So I raise a mast, unfurl the sail, but still, everything is still.

“Act as if you’re already that oneness,” Sailor Bob suggests. “You’ve already lived as if you’re a human, and you’ve won Academy Awards at that. Why not act as what you really are. You’ll find it much easier.”

Laughter happens and I feel the wind begin to stir.


Sailor Bob Adamson quotes from ‘Living Reality’ by James Braha (p. 108)

No Thought, Best Thought

Jack Kerouac famously said “First thought, best thought” in regards to his style of automatic writing (as practical evidence, there’s his typing ‘On the Road’ using a hundred twenty-foot scroll of tracing paper, way before the advent of the word processor).

Considering said "thought" is really intuition originating from the source of Quantum Spirit, and not some illusion coming from the mind, shouldn’t the saying go:

Third eye, best eye.

Awakening by Trinity

Just a few thoughts for what they’re worth (and we both know what thoughts are really worth). In truth, there’s nothing you can do to awaken: no practice, no matter how much and how long, will help (or is needed). On the other hand, in the dream, you must work hard at awakening. But ultimately, awakening only happens through Grace. I think that says it all.

After responding to a post titled "Practice Vs No Practice" on a blog called Anthro Yogini, and after reading said response, I decided I wanted to keep a copy of it here for further reference (although there is no reference point for referencing).

The Quantum Decider

This is only a translation from the Nothingness.

This life dwells in Quantum Spirit as a dream rests within sleep. Awake and there is no dream. Emptiness!

But “before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.”

So who’s the Decider? A sixth sense, an intuition, consciousness, awareness, Quantum Spirit: since all is one, One knows it all.

Thought only gets in the way.

Using all five senses in awareness is one-half. (Plus no thought.) The sixth sense is the other half.

Equals One.

As such, clairvoyance, astrology, all ESP and insight too: these too abide in the One of Quantum Spirit.

Reincarnation too.

Meaning of Life Unplugged (Parts 1 to 3)

1. GENESIS
In the beginning, consciousness (spirit) became matter.

2. EVOLUTION
On Earth, the evolution of matter is always moving towards the amplification of that consciousness.

3. HUMAN BEING
The Human Being has evolved to a relatively high level of consciousness amplified by its nervous system and brain, developing the instrument of speech, and in turn the implement of internal speech called thought, resulting in a separate virtual reality of knowledge.

(This was the original version of the previous posting.)

To a New Meta-Paradigm 1: From Not to Thought

In the beginning, consciousness appears as matter. Out of the Emptiness of Spirit, this universe came into being. And in essence, every quanta of the universe is thereby sentient; in other words, the universe is intelligent.

On Earth (and possibly elsewhere) the evolution of matter is always moving towards the amplification of its consciousness, its divine spirit. Evolution is not just survival of the fittest. It's a creative movement towards higher levels of consciousness. It's the song of the cosmos.

The Human Being has evolved to a relatively high level of consciousness amplified by its highly refined nervous system and brain, in time developing the instrument of speech, and in turn the implement of internal speech called thought.

On Native American Spirit

Vine Deloria, a Standing Rock Sioux, thought that whites in America should investigate the roots of their own spiritual traditions rather than adopt Native American spirituality. I would tend to agree (although I would not limit the quest in a parochial manner).

Not that Native American spirituality cannot provide direction. It’s earth-based rituals, its respect for all life, and its understanding of unity are all beneficial if practiced with an according respect for their origin and cultural possession, especially considering the history of horrendous atrocities made upon the American Indian.

But as practiced by American Indians, and especially by Pre-Contact Native Americans, they come from a pre-existing sense of unity, and a very different relationship with ego. In other words, before the fall.

To we who have fallen, such practices will not help in the rising. They certainly will not help eradicate the ego. In fact, they could become another set of beliefs and identities assisting in a further separation.

For those who are not native to it, Native American spirituality can be a beautiful window into the wondrous world of unity, but it seldom will be the door.

Sunday Son Rivers Poem

Loving Samsara

Tonight I call to Walt
invoking all that poet’s
spirit toward my own
as he already has
entreated mine. I stop
tonight to bless this dream,
illusion of creation,
unbelievably
variable, instilled
with photosynthesis
and playful respiration.
Breathe the present moment,
greenery and steel,
aware with every conscious
gulp that it’s not real.

23-May-08

Dreaming On with Soundtrack

Sitting by the river in the late October morning, soaking up the clear New England sun, sipping my Dunkin Donuts coffee, I hear a radio downriver. At first, I feel upset that somebody needs to play their music way too loud, but then I see that irritation as a thought, and understand I'm creating this disturbance in my mind, thought creating thought. To try to ignore it though would be to resist a thought that really doesn’t exist, thereby giving it more power. Instead, I let it be what it is: just a dream.

And begin writing in my journal. I’ve been practicing exactly that this week: being vigilant for any thought with which I had been identifying as me and therefore filtering the dream through it instead of letting the dream just be. And when such a thought is caught, I’ve been divesting it of any belief I may have been giving it. Not fighting it (although I may investigate it for its origin), I see it for the thought it is: illusionary ego stuff. And then I let the dream flow again from the source. Let the self be moved by Self. Like this river flowing from the White Mountains more than one hundred miles north.

Finished making an entry in my journal about this practice, I just sit beneath the sun and soak, feeling the energy of the manifest reflected in its warmth. Soon a song from that radio downriver begins to seep into my consciousness. I recognize the Aerosmith tune, smile at its felicity, feel the rhythm, and listen to the lyrics: “dream on, dream on, dream on, dream until your dreams come true.”

I know that’s not coincidence; this dream is not without design.

The Second Fall in Four Phases

Phase One: Doris Gets Her Oats

To caveat with that old Seinfeld-Advaita cliché, not that there’s any problem with this nor is there anyone to have one but—

There are many roads to the truth. Almost all contain a similar thread like a silver line running down their middle speaking to the illusion of ego with the suffering it engenders, and the underlying unity of the unmanifest universe.

Some call it Sacred Wisdom.


Phase Two: Watch That Second Step

Floyd Henderson in his blog writes, “Few will ever awaken (snip) Because six billion persons... have fixated at the religious (and/or spiritual) step” I’m not sure about the actual number, but I agree with the gist of the statement.

I feel it’s not as linear as Floyd thinks though. The religious effect is not a semi-permanent pause in some upwards momentum towards realization. Rather it is actually more insidious than that.

It is the second fall.


Phase Three: Giving You the Business

If the first fall is the belief in thought, the birth of the ego, and the resultant separation from unity, driving humans from their home in paradise and leaving them in a state of exile, the second fall provides a new home in hell.

The pointers of sacred wisdom have become misunderstood, and worse, transformed into the exact opposite of their intent. They have become hard thoughts, creeds and dogmas, that actually dualize unity and sacralize the ego.

Suffering is thereby a guarantee from their business (and I do not use that word lightly).


Phase Four: A Prayer

Sacred Wisdom addresses the first fall. No teaching really addresses the second. Instead, personal disillusionment is the universal means, and that only leaves the individual nowhere except back in exile. I know; I’ve been there.

I pray for a teaching that will point the way for those blocked in such a manner: a liberation non-theology and anti-proselytism. Because that second fall was a doozy.

Not that there’s any problem with this nor is there anyone to have one.

I Go, You Go, We All Go for Ego

Adyashanti says that spirituality is a surrender game. Certainly eradicating the ego and all its resultant suffering is. There are two chief ways of doing so.

The first involves some worship of a higher power, so that your self is humbled to a greater cause or being. The ego is ultimately sacrificed on that altar.

The second involves an intellectual quest, an investigation really, into the nature of the self. In so doing, the ego is discovered to be an illusion.

In both ways, the ego is surrendered. In the former, it is killed. In the latter, it never existed.

Still, they are radically different in their worldview. In worship, there is a Creation. In self inquiry, there is, at most, a dream. Beyond that, Nothingness.

Call me Ishmael. Call me Quantum Spirit.

Manifest Mutiny

(Having defined the infinite in the past three posts, this follows.)

If the world I sense is actually a mirage, an illusion, then in that way, the world is a manifestation of my mind.

And if I, ego, the self, am a thought, and therefore an illusion too, then I, myself, am a manifestation of my mind as well.

And if my mind is the sum of my thoughts, the grand total of all these illusions, then my mind is a manifestation of itself.

Therefore Everything is a manifestation of my mind, including itself.

And in that way, everything collapses, I let go of my mind, surrender myself, and the Self, unmanifest, is all that remains.

Then the Self, Quantum Spirit, provides all.

Giving the Infinite Definition: Truth

So then, let’s look at TRUTH.

How to say this? But even illusion is illusion. The manifest behind illusion is just more illusion. The self that senses the illusion behind illusion is illusion as well.

To paraphrase the 1992 Clinton campaign, it’s all about the unmanifest, idiot.

When the wise man points at the moon, the idiot looks at the finger. There really are no words to describe the truth. There are only pointers. Metaphors. Stories. Parables. Koans.

The truth is the unmanifest. And when the self realizes the truth, it knows that it’s not the self, but it’s the Self.

There are many words used to name the unmanifest: God is one. Self is another. I’ve been using Quantum Spirit (although confusing it sometimes with Quantum Energy, but I’ll try to avoid that error of definition in the future).

So to quote Edith Ann, “And that’s the truth.”

Giving the Infinite Definition: Thoughts

Let’s continue with ILLUSION.

My THOUGHTS are also illusions, especially opinions, beliefs, and judgments. They consist of binary evaluations (hence duality), just like that of a computer and lead to something more than just a virtual reality, but a virtual persona. Call this the EGO. It too is just a thought.

Some call this the self, with a small s. This non-capitalization, by the way is a very important distinction. There is another Self, with a capital S. They are definitely not the same. Much confusion can come in this regard. But more on that later.

The ego, the self, is just a thought. It too is an illusion.

Giving the Infinite Definition: Mirage

Let’s begin with ILLUSION.

The world we experience through our senses is one illusion. Let’s call this one MIRAGE.

High school chemistry taught me all about atomic structure. Kind of. And some surface reading of Quantum Physics taught me some more. In a way. It’s enough to know a few things about this world I sense.

First, it’s not solid; in fact it’s mostly empty space. Second, it neither consists of particles nor waves, but either, depending how and when we view it. Third, these particles or waves may arrive from nothing at any time, made manifest from the unmanifest. Lastly, although we attempt to experience the universe in discrete units, it is not; it is one energetic interaction.

The world we sense is therefore an illusion, like a mirage. But there's more to illusion than this.

After Awakening, Then What

Miguel Ruiz calls it the Dream of the Second Attention. You write your new story with love.

Eckhart Tolle calls it Awakened Doing. Consciousness flows through you and into this world in three modalities: Acceptance, Enjoyment, Enthusiasm.

Adyashanti speaks of a New Way of Being, resting in awareness, experiencing the ordinary as extraordinary, more like love than anything else, for no reason or purpose, knowing the story isn’t true.

Robert Adams says that the universe is a manifestation of your mind. And in that realization you become Self, which includes everything you need. The trees do not lack for leaves.

Jesus simply said to consider the lilies of the field. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today is enough for today.

Buddha held up a golden lotus flower silently before his listeners.

So I’m blogging.