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Ten Thousand Fireflies

Ten Thousand Fireflies

In a backyard in Pennsylvania
on a cool July clear evening,
I see ten thousand fireflies

rising from a well-kept lawn
like so many atoms taking leave
in sparks of transformation,

like the dissolution of the self,
like evaporation of a dream,
like the embers of a barbeque

I stoked on other summer nights
in another state, another time,
another world, another rhyme.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

After Twitter

One thing that I learned is the tendency of some in the nondual world who have accessed some understanding of truth of the absolute without much of a clue of the relative. In other words, it is their understanding (I almost wish to say belief) that the witnessing of the Self and the resting in the Self alone is enough to rid themselves of their previous delusion and illusion. And for those moments that they do I’m sure it is. But because of the path they have “chosen,” they have little understanding of the workings of illusion. For example, they bask in their emotions as something that just happens. True, but it basically comes down to this: emotions rise from thoughts of separation being thoughts of separation. In doing so, such thoughts of separation are free to multiply at will while they luxuriate in their belief of being enlightened. And thus, they’re an easy target for Maya. But of course everything is as it is. (please add scare quotes around any word that may appear too relative for your absolute)
~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Poem : Practice

Practice

The here and now
just isn’t always
here and now
but now and then
it’s there and then,

and that’s when thoughts
of then and when
become the rending
oxygen
of which we yen,

until the Zen
of here and now
again can lend
the transcendental
apprehension

it’s always been
that never-ending
regimen
right here right now
in one godsend.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers
twittered same day

Some Tweets on Action and Thought

Is action completely separate from thought?

But. Yes, thought is an action. Is a permutation of energy. But all action is not thought. Logical mindf*ck notwithstanding.

Maybe thought and action are types of energy (manifestations of the one). As such they interact with each other. Influence each other.

Some actions within this body-mind less influenced by thought than others. The circulatory system for example.

Motor skills are much more influenced by thought.

Yet it doesn't take thought to scratch an itch.

Our conditioned thoughts have usurped our motor skills. Grace is a revolutionary thought. Viva la grace!

In the end, energy influences energy, thoughts influence action and action influences thought. De-conditioning is a 2-way street.

Until it’s one way. Which it always was/is.

Suffering is mistaking the one-way for a two-way street.

De-conditioning is turning the car around. You still can get hurt, but now you should know why.

Well, they're "there" as long as I'm "there." And I'm there as long as I'm here. And I'm here if I'm not in samadhi. & I'm not.

All this ties into the Bhagavad Gita and its yogas of wisdom (thought) and works (action). It’s Effing Genius!

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

poem: Parker River National Wildlife Refuge in a Quiet Mist

Parker River National Wildlife Refuge in a Quiet Mist

The total quiet of this wildlife refuge finds
a steady oscillating cricket,
the intermittent chirp and warble of a red-winged blackbird,
some songbirds improvising certain notes,
three geese heard honking overhead,
and unseen now beyond the greenery of dunes,
a constant ocean-shore white noise
like one unmanifested spirit in our midst.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers
twittered on this same date

Some Tweets on Sacrifice

The manifest world from 2 perspectives: from self as one of survival based on destruction; from Self as coexistence based on self-sacrifice.

Life does not feed off of life; life offers itself to life.

Being a parent is such a Self-fulfilling thing because it’s a living lesson in the sacrificial ways of the manifest world.

I am not the executor or victim; I am the sacrifice. I am not the doer; I am the done.

Suddenly I understand the beautiful reality of Christ on the Cross: sacrifice as the natural way of the world.

Sacrifice is simply the Sacred doing.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

The Four EZ Platitudes

Don't know who you are? Try EZ Platitudes. Guaranteed to wake you up in less than 140 words or else we'll try another 140.

U R nothing. Everything U think U R is a bunch of lies U learned from someone else. Stop being so gullible. You're "God," so act like it.

OK, that one sucked, so let’s try another one. Why did you cross the road? The other side wanted to get to you. You got another answer doer?

So maybe third time’s the charm. You manifest nothing. You are manifested. At best, you’ll be given a heads-up. Otherwise, suck it up.

Stop being so pig-headed. After 13 billion years do you really think this here and now is all that special? OK, it is. Yeah, you too. Enjoy!

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers
twittered 13-Jun-09

Out of Darkest Nothing

Out of Darkest Nothing

Bamboo mountain rising
over green tea lake.
Rice white clouds above
a dragon-headed snake.

Wooden temple stairway
climbing to the sky.
Out of darkest nothing
lights a firefly.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers
twittered 12-June-09

Oh the Overcast

Oh the Overcast

Oh the overcast,
the blue-gray whipped parfait,
the steely waters underneath
a lowered ceiling just
about to fall into
one thousand silver pieces.

See the seagulls’ soaring
silhouette. And see
the sailboats anchored all
without a sail. And see
the distant sandy shore
and toy-like houses claiming

their monopoly
of narrow intercession.
All this and more is my
interpretation of
one moment, monument
in manifest to That

in which it is, and That
in which we rest, and That
to which I am in worship,
father, son, and holy
lover of this earth
and sea and sky. Oh my!

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Light

I saw the best minds of this generation destroyed by enlightenment ~transcreation of an Allen Ginsberg line

When all the lights went out,—I had no clue it was a branch—that fell across the power line;—I thought it was something I had thought.

It was nearing twilight. All the lights were off & traffic long rerouted. Red-winged blackbirds once again were powering an apparent world.

By the time I got to the scene, the tree that Shiva fell was cut and Brahma was working on the transformer. Everything would soon be Vishnu.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers
twitterings from 6/1

Over the Ocean

How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean. ~Arthur C. Clarke

The sea becomes a wave turns to the sea becomes a wave turns to the sea becoming me turns to the sea...

At the ocean, it all becomes very hydrological: I am water, and water is That.

Water is 71% of the earth’s surface & the ocean contains 97% of the earth’s water & the human adult body is 50% - 65% water. Do the math.

Water, water everywhere and not a drop is real; I have water on the mind.

A bolt of lightning over the sea strikes my immateriality...

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers
twittering from 5/31

Prayer to the Wordless

You cannot take the Wordless' name in vain; only every other name.

As they do with balsamic in Rome, I find it helpful to carry a little bottle of Bhakti with me to pepper upon the Wordless at times.

Holy holy Wordless, essence of an emptiness, virginal void, nothing not even not, hold me in your Self until I’m absolutely thunderstruck.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers
twitterings of 5/30

The Wordless (from Twittering)

There are no words to describe the Unmanifest that some call Spirit, Being, Self. It is beyond our world of words. It is... The Wordless.

In the beginning was the Wordless, and the Wordless became the pattern, and from that pattern we made the Word.

In time the Word became the World, the pattern became unknowable, and the Wordless became unspeakable.

But world know and speak this: You are That Wordless.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Twitter Me This: timeless no tomorrow

The moon. A diamond. One-thousand wings. And below the earth in tedious darkness.

Bamboo. Kachinas. A barrier island. Thunder coughing in the long uncertain non-negotiable horizon.

Guitars. A cornstalk. Pawns, knights, and kings. Lightning flashes in a full-length mirror.

A panther. Green temples. Convoluted driftwood. Rain creating writing on the white-washed walls.

Blue cup. Brass Shiva. A rough-hewn altar. The flood that washes all this said material away.

Nothing. But something. An always being now. The timeless no tomorrow staying in the once again today.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Yet Another Few Tweets that Made the Poem

Not the Not

It’s not the rock, the mottled
way of granite; not

the subatomic field
where energy informs

this pattern which the mind
calls rock; but wordless...

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Twitter Poem in Three Stanzas (rev to 4)

New

It’s as if I were
a tree connected to
the earth with neuron roots

and plugged into the sky
with leaves like copper plates
and through the heartwood came

a sunburst, came the molten
lava, and their meeting
made the nightly news

become white noise and empty
airtime broadcast to
an audience of no one.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Twiquintanka 2: That That

Hiking on this path,
I know the trees are That,
and rocks are That, and even
these legs that move because
that That impels are That.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Twitter Quintanka: Naming

White sky, green air, & earth
the color of the rain
await my eyes to write them so.
Before this naming, no sky, no air,
nor earth—universe.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Early Morning Late Night Twitter Holy Prose-like Prayer Poem in Five Full Tweets

I should worship the manifest universe as one would worship a god.

Out of the unmanifest emptiness arises this manifest field, out of Pure Awareness arises a conscious energy.

Mind interprets the patterns of this manifest energy into god-objects. Holy tree and holy leaf and holy oriole.

And holy couch and holy coffee table and holy blank screen of holy television set.

Holy gods of manifest illusion appearing from unmanifest pure emptiness, the holiest of holies only holy, here and now is praying.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

A Twitter Exercise in Chaos Theory (w/ soundtrack)

Quantum energy of the universe exists as one field with varying patterns. Thought names the patterns as if they were discrete. I’m paisley.

I once was plaid. Plaid was plausibly the pluperfect plan. Vertical integration and horizontal planes. But it was crossing everything up.

Trivia: Gerry Rafferty hailed from Paisley, Scotland. He formed the band called Stealers Wheel. Big hit: 'Stuck in the Middle With You.'

Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, Here I am, stuck in the middle with you. ~Stealers Wheel http://digg.com/u13H7j

ECS_Dave@sonrivers Stuck in the Middle... is a great tune, as is Baker Street... ♫ http://blip.fm/~689gk

@ECS_Dave Thanks for the link. Funny thing, I like both those songs, but never knew they were by the same person.

ECS_Dave@sonrivers Wow! Glad to be able to connect them for you... ;=)

ECS_DaveTo my followers... I just found a new friend via http://twitter.com/public_t... @sonrivers Ask Twitter to put that link back on homepage

More trivia. According to Wiki, there is some question as to whether Gerry Rafferty disappeared on Aug 1, 2008. Or is living in Tuscany.

Tuscany is home to the Chianti region. Chianti: one of my favorite wines. I do not believe you can buy a bad bottle. No matter how cheap.

I am presently drinking a glass of Red Rhone wine, another of my favorites. Holy grape, mother of France, forgive us our Tuscany trespasses.

La Société des artistes décorateurs introduced the patterns, Art Deco. This is a pattern of quantum energy in mathematical geometric shapes.

The manifest appears to have an affinity for mathematical geometric patterns aligned in the greatest design of all: chaos.

We the manifest appear to be random. But we are deterministic, defined by initial conditions. Nothing is random. The manifest has designs.

One can resist the designs of the manifest and try to be plaid. Or one can surrender to those designs and accept the paisley.

There is no choice of course. Don't worry. Be Paisley.

Sri Swami Satguru Bobby McFerrin http://digg.com/u13HFP

qjohn@sonrivers I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'll get totally stoned for your right to say it.

@qjohn Just an exercise in chaos theory

Think of it as performance art: A Twitter Exercise in Chaos Theory (w/ soundtrack) http://digg.com/u13HI2

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Full Moon Twitterka

A full moon rises,
surrounded by the silver
wisps of clouds, reflecting
in the stillness of the silent river,
its near emptiness inviting.

first tweeted on twitter here

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Poem Written on Twitter in Five Tweets

Swaths of newly green rivergrass on the far shore of this high tide current gives appearance that the river now begins to leaf as well.

Leafing river, laughing river, the river of life and the river of love, the river of springtime sings its manifestation of Pure May.

Beneath the leafing river, underneath the high tide currents, lies the living darkness of the ever-present never-knowing emptiness of all.

All the river, all this May and all the leafing loving living are reflections rippling from this deep and unknown silent undercurrent being.

And there’s nothing but this being, nothing known about this being, nothing one can do to be this being, but to be the being being being.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Orange and Red Energies

A Twitter 140 Drama: Adam's Trance

1 The stranger walked the muddy streets beneath a darkening sky. Not a soul could be seen. Neither were any windows lit.

2 The wind, though, appeared to be calling his name. He dared not answer in fears that someone invisible to him would hear.

3 He had no idea how he had arrived here. He had no idea where he was. And he had no plan on coming up with any either.

4 He heard a loose window-shutter banging against a wall in a kind of syncopation. A dog barked somewhere off to his right; left, nothing.

5 He was looking at the ground, fighting off exhaustion, when he heard his name spoken. Looking up, he saw a figure walking towards him.

6 The newcomer was clothed in an emerald robe, yet he couldn’t tell if it was a woman or a man. He stopped, but the figure kept approaching.

7 The wind stilled. All noise ceased. The skies began to brighten. The figure began to run towards him. Startled, he stopped in his tracks.

8 He had no time to react. His vision filled with green, and he felt an awesome power surging through his body. His eyes were forced shut.

9 When he opened them, he was in a warm lush garden. There was a woman with him. He spoke her name and kissed her good morning.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

poem from twitter posts: May Day Sea

May Day Sea
(blossoming sat-chit-ananda not necessarily in that order)

May Day! May Day! World
goes drowning in a sea
of green! Flowers swimming
all around! Am descending
to some procreative
void:
first forsythia
its dazzling yellow flirt
with everything thought dead
but now aroused in scalloped
shells of synchronistic
consciousness;
then cherry blossoms so
ephemeral they seem
to last forever in
a graceful local spray
of coral cosmologic
bliss;
last, these maple blossoms
going greenery
exploding fireworks
in seaweed strings an arcing
shrine for summer mirror
being.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Twitter Poem Again: Poem Without Thought

Poem Without Thought

First sign of thought this morning,
I turned into a left

onto a field of lively
actuality

residing here until
the cows of Mu come home:

space without a measure,
time without a moment,

next without preceding,
before without an after,

green void without one color—
adoring the God of No God,

an all without a one
and singularity

without a single compare.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Yet Another Twitter Poem: No Creed

No Creed

Within this land
of sense and thought,
Spirit is
the wildest seed.

At best, we do
prepare the ground,
but nothing grows
to meet our need.

The growth of Spirit
is Its grace
beyond our world
of word and deed.

In fact, this world
gets pulled away—
the fruit of Spirit
lifts that weed.

based on these 2 tweets:

Spirit is beyond all human understanding, is "experienced" beyond the senses and thought, and is not translatable by any human means.

It helps to prepare the ground, but Spirit is a wild seed. Its growth is its own grace. And its fruit is the destruction of your "world."

Poem tweets:

Intro
Title
Stanza 1
Stanza 2
Stanza 3
Stanza 4
Conclusion

later revision: S1;L1: substituted "land" for "world

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Twittering Another Poem (The Parking Space)

I can’t deny that Twitter is getting to me to write poetry again. I can’t argue for the quality as of yet, but it’s iambic pentameter, and that’s for sure.

Here’s the second twitter-caused poem, based on these two tweets:

Witnessed great Seinfeld parody on the streets of Cambridge today over pulling or backing in to parking space. But with HBO language.

Amazing how mind will crave a little piece of space for a short period of time and turn it into the most important situation in the universe

The Parking Space
(apologies to the TV situation comedy, Seinfeld)

On a street outside of Harvard Yard
we come across a madcap argument
about possession of a parking space.

It seems that one accomplice drove right in
despite the fact another was about
to back it in, turn signal clearly on.

Tempers go rising like these unseasonable
spring temperatures, and the language being used
is not exactly the academic kind.

It’s unbelievable how we can desire
an insignificant amount of space
for briefest interludes of metered time

and turn it to the ultimate essential
situation in the universe—
but that’s our unrealistic paradigm.

Seven tweets encompassed the entire twitter-life of this poem, including introduction. Here they are:

Introduction
Title
Stanza 1
Stanza 2
Stanza 3
Stanza 4
Stanza 5

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Twittering (tweeting) a Poem:Running Into Cherry Blossoms

It’s been awhile since I wrote a real live poem. But today, after seeing a cherry tree just beginning to blossom, I knew I needed to write something. So I did.

After completing the poem, I decided to tweet it line my line. Unlike Ben Okri who did the same, line by line, day by day, I decided to do this in one day, with intervals of maybe ½ hour or less. After all, I’m no Ben Okri.

In doing so, I discovered a benefit in such a project. I began to take an even closer look at each line. Of course, I should be doing this already. But nevertheless, such was the case in this event.

So here’s the finished work:

Running Into Cherry Blossoms

My mind was running like my car this morning
focused on some marginal pursuit
as well as breakfast and a mug of coffee,
when I caught a trace of cherry blossoms
like a coral-colored burst beginning
to descend in periodic sprays.
Gloria in Excelsis, the Manifest
approach of consciousness has materialized
in this imagining this morning. Just sensing
its presence with all my sight, I’ve disappeared
completely. All that now remains is one
abyss in blossom, fresh, unyielding, light.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Postmodern Kōan 2: wilderness canaries

Postmodern Kōan 2: Rin Tin Roshi serenades the wilderness canaries with a photocopy of an aloe vera. Astabula! Lemonade! Vacuum Cleaner! Yo!

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Postmodern Kōans

For posterity’s sake, I am posting here the Postmodern Kōans I’ve been twittering.

They are not in any way satires about the paradoxical nature of Kōans themselves. Neither are they attempts to highlight the absurdity of postmodern poetry. Rather they are my attempt to highlight the inability of words to convey the Truth.

That there is some method behind their madness may not be evident. But there is.

Postmodern Kōan 1: Banana me an apricot beyond the Appaloosa shore and what. And would you weather-proof your ghost machine as well?

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

NC-17: Twitterics 2: If Everybody Had an Ocean

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

NC-16: Twitter Call and Response 1

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

time out from comics 1:The Inner Light of Multnomah Falls04-April-09

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

NC-15: Apologies to Will

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

NC14: Believe It or Leave It

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Nonduality Comic Thirteen: Zen Donut

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

NC-12: Gita Seinfeld

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

The Sunday Son Poem On the Return

Canticle On the Return of the Peepers

It begins just like the squeaking of a wheel
somewhere in the wetlands. Earth is turning
slowly on its rusty axis. Listen to
the innocence behind the worn cliché though—
this is particle collision in its essence.

Ice has melted after being in the shadow
of the earth for much too long. Twice hydrogen
and oxygen alone is giving little carbon-based
amphibians such holy voice and psalms are pouring
from their gentle bodies filling night with April

glories: Sun, they sing, has been here; Sun, they sing,
will be here in the morning; Sun, they sing, the sun!
And here I listen to their song, reflecting on
its meaning, lectio divina, so translating
what I can for you: the mystic coming then

to light again; the once becoming future now;
the always in your heart; the being in your blood;
the everlasting taste; its conscious sound;
this sight; our life;
new found.

~Son Rivers 2008

NC-11: Going My No Way

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

NC-10: It's a Show About Nobody

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

NC-9: The Bizarro Seinfeld Show

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

NC-8: The Telltale Urge

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

NC-7: Abundant Beings

~Joy to All and One,
Son Rivers

NC-6: The "Who Am I?" Trinity

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

NC-5: Simulated Symposium

~Joy to All and One,
Son Rivers

NC-4: Instrument Clusterfolk

~Joy to All and One,
Son Rivers

NC-3: Comic of Myself

~Joy to All and One,
Son Rivers

Nonduality Comics #2

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Nonduality Comics #1

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

reverse reality

A Sideways Eight

Disaster movies compensate
popcorn kernels with butter and blood.
Financial times are changing daylight
into apocalypse and mud. Hosannas
in the highest sell for less
than nineteen-eighty-three. The dream
becomes reverse reality:
something falls to nothing. See?

~Son Rivers 2009

Full Circle, Pt. 1

Two years ago I discovered the writings of Eckhart Tolle. Having just finished reading and re-reading Miguel Ruiz’s ‘The Voice of Knowledge,’ I found that Tolle’s ‘The New Earth’ occupied similar ground. When that book had been read and relished, I went on to ‘The Power of Now’ and thought it similar, if not a little more concerned with practices. Both books were not only revelatory but intriguing. I wanted to know their sources. As is this body-mind’s wont, I decided to do some research.

Therapy has taught me two things about the foundation of this particular body-mind complex: its father never introduced it to the world while its mother taught it to fear it. So my mind has tried to learn things on its own by observation and research. Beginning with the immediate world around me, I soon discovered things aren’t what they seem. In time, I pursued a graduate degree in history where not only did I learn that power and money hid behind the patriotic curtain of America, but I honed my research skills as well. Spirituality was just a continuation of this need to know the world, this time in an even larger, universal fashion. Now I would use those skills in that as well.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Another Sunday Son Poem (# 19)

Rock Water Scissors

The consciousness of all
Creation isn’t
metaphysical, some
speculation,

philosophical
conceit or cirrus
cloud reflected in
my sweating glass

of lemonade, but rock
hard mineral
or vegetable
or animated water-

fall descending
in a galaxy of sentient
enlightened
splash.


~Son Rivers 2005

Slouching Towards Loserdom

Kathy Shaidle all 'Five Feet of Fury' churning in her poor mind gives compassion brand new meaning:

Today's "poor" are the rich Jesus warned you about: fat, slovenly, wasteful of their money and other people's.

Up is down. Poor is rich. 1984 is 2009.

God bless you Ms. Shaidle, and godspeed with your Truth.

It is easier for a bicycle to go through the eye of a sidewalk, than for a "poor" man with a cellphone eating risotto with brocolli (and, most likely, tattoos and drugs and booze and other crap) to enter into the kingdom of God.
~The Gospel According to Kathy, kind of

This is the disconnect we are dealing with in politics these days. Whether all of this is sincerely believed, or whether it's some kind of goof, doesn't really matter. It's the game of ends justifying the means. Actually, it may be worse than that. If the wisdom of Jesus and Buddha and Lao Tzu and Shankara and all and one point to the political truth of Gandhi and his means and only means action, then this kind of politics points to ends and only ends.

There's a reason why, to quote our last President, this sucker is going down, and Kathy and her ilk, be it Dems or GOP, are it. The Politics of the Ends. Means be damned, mocked, and ignored.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

On Means: Eckhart Tolle to Gandhi to Tolle

Coming full circle two years after reading 'The Power of Now.' Recently I've wondered about action in a world of surrender.

I thought Gandhi said it best in his commentaries on the Gita:

We should do no work with attachment. Attachment to good work is that too wrong? Yes, it is. If we are attached to our goal of winning liberty, we shall not hesitate to adopt bad means. If a person is particular that he would give coins to me personally, one day he might even steal them. Hence we should not be attached to even a good cause. Only then will our means remain pure and our actions too.

And then re-reading the first chapter of 'The Power of Now,' I came across this:

Instead of ''watching the thinker'' you can also create a gap in the mind stream by simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation. In your everyday life: you can practice this by taking any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and giving it your fullest attention so that it becomes an end in itself.

Full circle. Two years. Means with no attachment. Means as an end in itself. Amen.

There are times in one's spiritual life when serendipitous moments occur. This is not only that, but a new beginning as well. Maybe more on that aspect tomorrow.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Eckhart Tolle on Enlightenment

The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some super-human accomplishment and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible something that almost paradoxically is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and term. The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of separation from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive yourself consciously or unconsciously as an isolated fragment. Fear arises and conflict within and without becomes the norm.

~Eckhart Tolle in 'The Power of Now'

The Songs of Consciousness

1. No Beginning

In the beginning
there was no beginning
and Unknowable
became the knowable.

The source of all
that’s knowable is neither particle
nor wave, but no uncertain
principle called consciousness.

Evolution amplifies
the mind and senses toward
the realization
I am consciousness

become aware
that I am That.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

seeing American politics clearly

On Saturday, Barack Obama redefined the battlefield of American politics. After giving a quick detail of his budget proposals, he said,

I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they're gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:

"'So am I.'

"The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long, but I don’t. I work for the American people.

Al Giordano lets us know succinctly what actually happened here:

Okay, here's what I think just happened: The President has reframed the narrative from the stale dysfunction of Democrats demonizing Republicans and Republicans demonizing Democrats and stepped over that puddle of slime to create a more authentic narrative: The American people vs. the special interests (and note that the ones he mentions are universally from the corporate sector).

Truthful (right) action involves clarity of the situation. That’s what the Bhagavad Gita, after all, is all about. Arjuna cannot take action because he does not see the situation clearly. Krishna tries in many ways to explain that situation to Arjuuna so that he can see it and take right action.

For too long, American politics has witnessed a charade of a battlefield between Democrats and Republicans. Both parties have been beneficiaries of the “special interests.”

As Giordano entertainingly sees it:

This is the real "us against them" fight to be waged, far more important than the eternal and often childish skirmishes between Democrats and Republicans. He's just pulled the curtain to reveal those who are the real obstructionists behind the puppets. This is exactly to what I had referred to back on February 7 when I noted that bipartisanship is not all carrots, but is also a big stick to be wielded on Congressional Republicans and Democrats alike.

Tread carefully, oh members of Congress.

Meanwhile, I'm firing up the popcorn.

This is fascinating stuff. Not only is it watching history begin to turn towards a new direction, but we’re also witnessing spiritual wisdom played out on the stage of the world and its consensual reality.

Good stuff indeed.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

I love the love of love

A Nineteen Line Tetrameter Poem Written For My True Love Beverly AKA That Skye Who Not So Coincidentally Was Born On The Nineteenth Day Of The Same Month As Me, And So A Seventy-Six Beat Poem Like The Seventy-Six Trombones Which Led The Big Parade, And Our Hearts Like Copper Bottom Tympani In Horse Platoons Thundering, Thundering All Along The Way And Loving A Full Octave Higher Than The Score

I love your cells, especially
the ones that dwell within your blood,
the white, the red, the never-ending
wine I taste each time I sip
the love within your lovely lips.
Its sweet bouquet, your DNA,
is similar to mine in oh
so many ways, but in those ways
that differ, oh they differ in
a way I know is different in
a way I’ve known before I knew
myself. I love the fact that you
are love itself—I love the love
we make when making love, I love
the you I love, I love the love
we love, I love the love of love,
and most of all, I love the way
we love to help each other love
to say: “I love I love I love.”

~Son Rivers 11/2006

how dare he honor his campaign promises!

It seems the elite press corps was in a tizzy concerning Obama’s tax plans included in his recent budget. Basically, it’s the exact plan he campaigned on.

As FiveThirtyEight.com explains the back and forth between the press corps and Obama's Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs:

Why would Obama raise taxes on people making over $250,000 beginning in two years? If you tamper with trickle-down, the dramatic shift of income toward the wealthy that was the hallmark of George W. Bush's tax policy, don't you know it'll be disaster? It'll be "class warfare!" (The first questioner: Are you worried that the "class warfare" argument could sink the budget?)

In a remarkable scene, Gibbs patiently and repeatedly explained that, no really, Obama actually won the election, that he'd explained exactly what he was going to do during the campaign, the American people understood and voted on it, and now he's doing it. During the campaign, Obama had pledged to cut taxes for 95% of American workers and end the catastrophic non-workingness of George Bush's trickle-down tax policy. Now, among some questioners, there seems to be confusion and alarm that Obama intends to implement that policy.

(highlighting is my doing)

That is how low political action has come in this country. It is just assumed that your campaign promises are just campaign strategies (aka lies), and that if and when you win, of course you will not honor them, and in fact, do quite the opposite.

The icing on the cake is that the arguments being made against the promises to keep are, at best, deceiving, and at worst, lies.

They call it wealth redistrbution, socialism, class warfare. And they point to the fact that small businesses will bear the burden. Most of it is untrue. The plan merely returns levels to the Clinton years.

Joe Klein in Swampland puts it exactly right:

At the heart of the progressive movement, one hundred years ago, was the notion of taxation on a sliding scale, according to income--the belief that the more wealthy you are, the more you should pay as a percentage of your income. The progressive income tax was launched, via constitutional amendment, by Woodrow Wilson in 1913. It remains one of the clearest fault lines between the left and the right.

After discussing the details of Obama’s plan and an interesting Larry Summer’s story that sums up the issue with Reaganesque simplicity, Klein ends his post:

Over the coming weeks you will hear this described as a form of radicalism. It is not. It is liberalism--and more: it is purest bright line available to divide liberals from conservatives in American politics. Let the screeching begin.

Exactly. Let the real arguments about progressive tax rates be debated. But throw out the empty rhetoric that has become such an expected part of the dance between the media and politicians.

In other words, start telling the truth. The means, and only the means, matter. The ends will then take care of themselves.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

the republican party and the betrayal of means

Nonduality in politics is like playing Monopoly with real money. No matter the transaction, the houses are still plastic.

But using Gandhi’s precept that the means and only the means are important, there is some basis for discussion for politics as well as life in general.

For eight years, the Republican Party played it loose with the budget, taxes, and war (including torture). Now they find themselves on the outs, and suddenly they’ve rediscovered their “principles” of conservatism.

In other words, for eight years, the ends justified whatever means possible. Defending liberty through repression. Paying for tax cuts with deficits. The list could go on, but the point is one and only one. The means were sacrificed to the end.

The result was disastrous for both the party, and more importantly, the nation and world.

I am not arguing the worthiness of the goal. I am speaking only to the means.

Historically there was a time for the turning back of the liberal pendulum that had begun in 1932 and had for all intents and purposes lasted to 1980, and the election of Reagan. The Great Communicator didn’t lie; he tried to convince, using his own belief to convince others.

It appears the pendulum is swinging again.

But after eight years of malpractice, the Republicans are attempting to turn back the clock. But it’s not the time; the day has changed.

The result is now a hollow rhetoric, playing loose with the facts, and arguing for quiet when the house is burning down. Now is not the time to drink the Kool-Aid, but to hose the plastic houses down with water.

But when a life has been lived playing loose with the means, the soul will tend to atrophy. What remains is a zombie capable of nothing positive.

They need to go into the desert. Well, they’re actually there. They just need to recognize that fact, realize how they got there, and understand they can't go back the way they came. Before they can ever find their way out.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Will Obama Heed the Lessons of Gandhi?

As of today, I’m changing the direction of this blog towards a nondual view of politics. It might last a day. It could last longer. In so doing, the name on the masthead has been changed to The Nonduality of Politics.

When I began this blog, I had one question in particular I was attempting to answer. To a certain extent, in December, I did. As much as one can.

Now I have another question concerning the answer. As will always be in the this life. But given surrender, and paying attention to intuition and signs, what does action guided by universal flow look like?

I’ve been reading Gandhi's commentaries on the Gita. And that entails a good starting point as any. We all know his accomplishments and non-violent means. But his understanding of ends is possibly even more important.

We should do no work with attachment. Attachment to good work is that too wrong? Yes, it is. If we are attached to our goal of winning liberty, we shall not hesitate to adopt bad means. If a person is particular that he would give coins to me personally, one day he might even steal them. Hence we should not be attached to even a good cause. Only then will our means remain pure and our actions too.

This may be the opposite of any politics, never mind the American variety. Maybe in our lifetime, there is only Martin Luther King. And although it could be argued that his eyes were on the prize, his actions never cheated. For as Gandhi also said, God has told us “we may work if we wish, but that reward of work is entirely for Him to give.”

We find ourselves at a turning point in American history. The unmitigated greed of decades in financial markets has eaten away at its own core.

We have the party basically in charge for the last thirty years unable to recognize that global shift and trying to sell a dead vision with downright lies. That’s why Jindal was so bad last night. We have a new party in control looking at the moment as an opportunity to press its long dormant agenda. Pelosi was so enthusiastic to lead the rally around the new quarterback after years of being on a losing team. And we have a President who appears to be a pragmatist at heart.

Where will it all lead? And, yes, I know, nobody is leading no one nowhere. But I'm just playing in the game right now. Humor me.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

on compassion within an illusion

Understanding that your reality is an illusion, that your life is a story, and that none of it is true, does not mean that compassion is a part of the meaningless dream as well.

In fact it means that compassion is more central than ever, because Truth is one with Love.

Suffering is not real. Hatred is not real. Violence is not real.

Pain is real.

In ‘Emptiness Dancing,’ Adyashanti speaks to Meister Eckhart’s sense of the above:

If you are in a state of rapture meditating and your neighbor is hungry and needs a bowl of soup, it would be much more pleasing to God to give your neighbor the soup than to stay in the rapture.

Someone once said that God is a verb. In other words, there is no subject and object in Truth. There is only Spirit in motion, with attachment to no end.

In attachment comes suffering again, comes separation, comes the belief of ends justifying the means.

This in fact was the Gita-based genius of Gandhi: desireless Action: "means are after all everything."

Compassion for compassion’s sake.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

these four specific walls

Beauty Is In the Eyes

These walls, these four specific walls,
created by a crew of carpenters
encircle everything they swing
their hammer to: joint universe

no worse than highest mountaintop
or island ocean endless view.
Don’t let the mundane limit you.
There’s more to wonder than just 'the seven'—

even the manmade reeks of heaven.

~Son Rivers 2007

quantum spirit and Emerson

The world is quantum spirit and I know it best in nature.

When walking in the woods or even driving along the river, I begin to sense something other than this human-made world with its building blocks of concepts and words.

What I call the woods or river will not be contained by these words.

Here I need say no more for Emerson says more than enough:

Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, -- master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. (Nature)

Consciousness Being Bliss indeed.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

there and then

In the monkhood of my study, it is relatively easy to know the reality of quantum spirit.

But when interacting with others, I often lose myself within that consensual reality, no matter how illusory I know it to be.

One has to, as Gurdjieff said, self-remember. Yet it’s easy to forget; here and now becomes there and then. But like Ouspensky, after confronting his tobacco shop, I do return.

And I find myself, when asking, again, who am I.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

in this way

It is not that the world around me is not real.

It is not the world I think it is.

I think there is a world of objects surrounding me, the subject. But both object and subject are my own creation, made by the tools of senses and mind. Neither is real.

The world is neither object nor subject; it is quantum spirit, the manifestation of Spirit.

In this way, the world is real.

In this way, I am real.

In this way, there is only this way.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

so much smoke

Illusions are like the smoke of fog. One cool wind can clear it all away.

The mist of empire is such a fog; its global economy is so much smoke.

Do not identify with the phantoms it forms as it disappears. Like fear itself, they are illusions within illusion.

Bear Stearns... Lehman... GM?...

There is nothing you can do. There is nothing to be done.

There is no doer. 'Thy will be done.'

"Having realized that you cannot influence the results, pay no attention to your desires and fears. Let them come and go. Don't give them the nourishment of interest and attention." (~Nisargadatta)

There is a reason (a dream reason albeit) why the truth has been revealed. It is not an unidentified flying object. It is not a free pass to some heavenly afterworld. It is what you are. It is here and now.

Rest in Truth. Rest in Spirit. Rest in Love.

While another empire rests...

chop wood, carry water.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

reality we think is real

The Tao of Reality

Given that the mind can never
comprehend the essence of
reality, it generates
a virtual reality,

reality we think is real,
reality we designate
reality, reality
that’s actually afraid to death

of actual reality,
that hungers to identify
with any form but genuine
reality in order to

convince itself it’s real. It isn’t.


~Son Rivers
January 2008

whitman and dickinson meet the heart sutra

Like Walt, I look at this world of always increase and substance, and I’m overcome.

To think that all of this is now created in my mind, and that none of it is real is not just wondrous but liberating.

That I can release all fear and loathing and allow the light of love to let me just enjoy this dream!

To be in solitude, to be en masse, to be, like Emily, this nobody.

"Form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form."

gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

something is happening

Something is happening.

To disregard the manifest is just another fundamentalist belief in something one calls nothing.

‘Nothing is happening’ is just another metaphor, another myth; to make religion from it misses the mark.

Something is happening but not what we think it to be.

This life is illusion. It’s a dream we create from five senses, domestication, and a mind that’s learned to think.

Don’t think. But if you must, and you will, then at all cost, don’t believe.

Don’t believe nothing is happening; something is happening.

The unmanifest made manifest.

Light knows light.

Bliss.

Dream it as love.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

its core

This life is such a flower.

I am but a stem.

The petals of this life are strewn beneath the sky like stars, and form the constellations we call nations, every one a myth unto its own.

This stem is dearly thin, but full of earth itself.

This earth is fire, coated with a crust of ash but burning with the light of consciousness within its core.

I am yet no more.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

light and light alone

Darkness does not exist. Only shadows do.

There is only light and light alone.

Before there was light, there wasn’t any shadow to call darkness either.

There was only the unknown.



~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Decartes had it backwards

It’s a matter of time. Or, rather, it’s an illusion of time.

I look around me and see a variety of objects. I can identify them. I can name them. I can hold them in my hand.

They are thus because I am thus.

But if I were to approach some difference in time, in the perception of time, towards some slowing down of my own internal experience of time, these objects would rise and fall in less than a heartbeat.

Everything is in a state of transformation.

Nothing is truly still; nothing is an object. We only perceive it as such.

There are no objects. There is only transformation, states of flux, pure energy, pure Quantum Spirit.

And I am not an object, a body. I too am Quantum Spirit.

I only think I am a body, I only think things are objects.

The world is only my thought. Who I believe myself to be is only a thought.

What I really am is not a thought. I think, therefore I forget what I am. Decartes had it backwards.

I am Quantum Spirit. I am Spirit. I am their Love.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

for saints and lotus leaves

Coming to Awakening Near You

This summer consciousness
returns and turns the garden
green again. Forgiveness
grows on lilac trees.
Compassion dons the dogwood
with a grace reserved
for saints and lotus leaves.
Imagine what would grow
inside the human heart
and mind if what I am
was just allowed to be.
That sun would light my life
and soon eliminate
reality as I
have always thought to know it.


~Son Rivers 2008

still the witness

The Witness

At night, I dream, and in my dream,
there is a witness to its action.
There, a tiger roams these bare
New England woods; his yellow shadow
travels deriding the sun. The witness
watches. Then the tiger bounds
in lightning speed striking the woods
with silver flames. And still, the witness
watches. Suddenly the tiger
claws my face; a galaxy
of stars begins to bleed from out
my brain while thunder roars from deep
within. The witness watches, ever
aware and untouched. I wake in startle,
turn lights on in calming streams.
But nothing changes: still the witness
watches; still the dreamer dreams.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

points a finger

A Silly Little Finger Poem

He points a finger at the moon.
I ask him, what’s a finger?
He points a finger at himself.
I ask him, who are you?
He points a finger at myself.
I ask him, who am I?
He points a finger at the moon.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

its means alone will render meaning

Who Am I

I can’t think of any other
meaning to this dream called life
than love. It’s more than just some means
to justify an end—its means
alone will render meaning. Games
we otherwise are playing lack
all semblance of reality.
Pretending to be serious
about them beggars truth. (Although
I see no reason to convince
a being otherwise.) In fact,
just contemplating Spirit would
be bliss enough, but even what
we name Unmanifest became
this Manifest. I can’t explain—
but who am I to break the chain?


Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

we need dream a metaphor

Illuminati Inamorata

Begin with this, that nothing is real,
that everything we see is our thought—
but all is quantum spirit instead,
an energy—yet further—let’s call
it Consciousness—alive in a sense
beyond our wildest dreams, we need dream
a metaphor—so christen it god
in many names and ways, and devote
ourselves to him or her, even it,
like children, servants, slaves!—but in truth
just lovers candidly, devotedly mad
for contact with its incarnation unclad.


~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers 2009

licks you with its vast

The Trickster of Plum Island

The waves approach my footsteps like a pup,
Covert but playful, always moving in
With fearless leaps, then just as fast
Reversing that encounter with a spin
Of snout, a wag of tail, and then a jog
Around itself until it rushes past
The undertow, collects another swell
Of confidence, and rides the breaking surf
Again, repeating all in parallel.
But when at last it licks you with its vast
Infinity, you know you're on the turf
Of that coyote, trickster of this beach,
Inviting you to play with mysteries
Beyond the sweeping shorelines of your reach.

~Son Rivers 2002

the secret is being spilled

I’ve been watching The Secret, the Rhonda Byrne movie about The Law of Attraction. It’s an amalgam of “The Lord of the Rings,” “Trump—The Art of the Deal,” and “The Upanishads.” Given that ancestry, there’s some good and some bad and some special effects.

You can hear the ring whispering in the artwork, and although it’s a little overdone, it doesn’t get in the way of the interviews where the secret is being spilled. On the other hand, too much is given to the desires of the ego, as if that is something real and valuable. Still, I have no doubt that The Law of Attraction works.

It says that your thoughts attract a physical manifestation of themselves. If you think bad thoughts, you will attract bad things. On the other hand, if you ask for what you want, if you control your thoughts in so doing, and not only think good things, but also believe those good thoughts faithfully and persistently, you will manifest your requests in your life.

This is tricky stuff. There’s some truth in this revelation, no doubt. But it’s truth told from the perspective of the dream-state. So there is never any questioning that your life is absolutely real, and that your thoughts are essentially meaningful.

But thought is the actual stuff of our illusion. In that way, we do dream what we think, if we believe it. But the more you are aware of your thoughts and their illusory nature, the less you believe in them. As this happens, as you surrender belief in thought, as you begin to understand the nature of the dream-state and the nature of reality, you begin to understand that you are more a conduit than a creator. Spirit is working through you, manifesting bliss. All you do is pay attention and go with the flow.

Call one 'The Law of Attraction' and the other 'The Writ of the Current.' In some ways, it’s a variation of the Bhakti/Jnana, devotion/knowledge split all over again. In one, you worship good thoughts. In the other, you don’t believe thought. Both will lead to bliss.


Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

nesting in the womb of illusion

When I was younger and experimenting with various mind-altering substances, I sometimes would enter a state of panic and paranoia. It was probably the reason why I never lost myself in that particular culture; fear is sometimes your protector when young. But as I look back at that state, I realize now that I had been looking at things with a newly transparent eye. But what I saw was shaking me to the core.

What I was actually witnessing was the utter absurdity of things. But not having a foundation to understand the duplicity of illusion and the nature of reality, I saw instead the roots of insanity and it scared the ever-living bejesus out of me. Nothing appeared real. Everything seemed artificial. Especially me.

I remember the worst time, driving my father’s car, full of loud and relatively unaware fellow trippers, and trying with all my might to hold myself together. Luckily my cousin was with me. Unlike the others, she was sensitive to the situation, and led me to the home of some of her friends. I remember they had a room they called the egg. It was as if I had returned to the safety of the womb. I never wanted to leave.

And in some ways I didn’t—for more than thirty-five years. Sure, the sensation, even a subtle understanding, was always there. But I tried my best to accommodate myself to what everyone around me seemed to think was real. My compensation for this disconnect was thinking I was marching to a beat of a different drummer. After all, I was a poet.

So in some ways, I had been prepared for this movement toward awakening the past few years. There was something in me that had seen this already. And although I had fled from it with all my might, the vision had never left me. In fact, it was always pulling me towards it.

So this time, when I was ready, step by step, my eyes opened, and this time without some dangerous chemical push. I walked towards the understanding on my own time table. Illusion? Oh yes, I’ve met you before; you’re not such a bad bloke after all. The nature of my reality? Welcome, what a joy to finally meet you.

But I certainly sympathize with those who now have trouble when confronting illusion and reality for the very first time. Like me on that hellish trip, they are being shook. And their natural reaction is to run back to safety, nesting in the womb of illusion again. Who can blame them? This understanding is a thousand megatons stronger than that moment when first discovering there is no Santa Claus.

Except now the universe gives you the real gift, and it’s a thousand, no, an infinite megatons better too. There is no you! Don't be afraid; accept it with gratitude.


Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

the great recession gita

Arjuna was weary of industry. He was sure that business sapped the strength of all concerned, and he wished no part of that destruction. Instead he vowed to remain above the fray.

From his vantage point, he watched as banks defaulted and corporations declared bankruptcy. Even countries were failing. The world was going wrong while politicians fiddled their old tunes.

His old friend Krishna dropped by one day, and Arjuna asked him what he, himself, thought of this dire situation. Your dream has gone off-balance, Krishna replied. Your refusal to follow destiny, and dharma, has set your world adrift.

But Krishna, Arjuna answered, certainly I am not responsible for the daily news. Even I, the Great Arjuna, have limits to my ego.

Ah Arjuna, the daily news is only your present news. What is called global recession is only your depression. Do not waste your time considering all the dreams of others. You must act now only for yourself.

But Krishna, nothing really matters in the end. This dream is but a dream.

Krishna replied: do not think about what matters. That is not your duty. Consider this: you are not the dreamer. It is yours to act when acted, dream when dreamt.

But Krishna, even if that’s so, then my action to take no action is being acted for me.

Krishna looked Arjuna in the eye: your thoughts are very intricate, Arjuna. But they are not for you. Don’t listen. They are only thoughts of others you have gained in battle all these years. Listen instead to your heart. Then take action.

But I cannot hear my heart and therefore here I stand knowing no action to take at all.

Arjuna, of course you can hear your heart. Right here, right now, it's speaking to you. And you certainly have answered. Its name is Krishna. Get a job.


Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

our yawp who art in heaven

I was raised in a “democracy,” inculcated with the doctrines of freedom and equality, and therefore find it difficult to approach the spiritual with any sense of Lordship. Yet such devotion is not a worthless practice; that metaphor works well for some in this dream.

So do I instead pray to a Mr. President? Is that the correct metaphor for this land? Or maybe Your Honor? Or do we walk the scientific materialist path and speak to the Universe?

Many American Indians use the term Creator, but I have my doubts about the origin of that term. Does it originate in pre-Contact times? Or is it an adaptation from the missionary teachings of monotheism?

Of course there’s always The One, a term useful in referencing the nonduality of things. Using the Sanskrit terms of Brahman or Parabrahman works well too. Sat-Chit-Ananda says much. And the western quasi-religious terminology of Spirit rings divine. Or the more scientifically-bent term of Consciousness can do too.

There’s resting in the understanding and saying nothing. But I do like dreaming, and would prefer some trope in its artistry. God, of course, is out of the question. Too much heavy freight has traveled down that road. But Void? Unmanifest? The Unknowable? Too unthinkable.

Self? Too close to ego-infested waters. Presence? I remember reading that term in Eckhart Tolle’s writing, and, as most of his work, it is actually very good. But maybe a little distant for my purposes.

I’ll continue to use my present combination, Ever-creating Spirit, in my morning prayer. It still rings true for me with its sound of Quantum Heraclitean Native-American Divine dedication to it.

Still, maybe there’s something else out there. I do love the manifest variety of divinities the dream has to offer. In the end, it comes down to this Whitmanic expression. “I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”

Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

subreality

(sporadic web review 1)

I love writing. Such words. Such flights of imagination. Such leaves of reality. Such the microcosm for the world gone wrong. Hey, I do it all the time.

We like to lose ourselves in thought. Not that there’s any truth there, but who cares? There’s wine, women (or men), and song! Or maybe just alliteration, rhythm, and trope. But I like it, yes I do.

Here’s some good stuff though:

People come to the party and ask. Who subdued the dual? Where did I go? Am I doubley dual when I play the fool? The nature of the Known is always- always- the Unknown, and every great Truth, as for those, take a look at its opposite- another great truth. Damn.

Thus, I propose ‘soft duality’............the new duality with half the hassle; one less problem: Big You. ‘ you’ would still exist, but no Capitals, only far side ranges of snow mountains clear and present.

Or maybe Subduality...

Nicely written. And there's more. But is the nature of the Known really the Unknown? Or is it the Unknowable? Ah, semantics. You gotta love it. But there is a subtle difference. So let me riff and have some fun as well.

Maybe the Unknown assumes there is something out there that is knowable, but one just doesn’t know it. Or maybe even worse, there are some, you may believe, who profess to know it, charlatans all! Or maybe the Unknown is some secret conspiracy in league against your knowing. Or maybe you just think we know it all, so how could anything possibly be unknown?

But the Unknowable suggests that there are some things we can never know, because of the limits of thought itself.

It suggests that human thought is severely limited by what data the senses can provide and how the mind itself will process it. It suggests that a world has been created from such thought. And that when you restrict yourself to thought alone, you will never understand anything beyond that severely limited world. Que sera illusion. Cue the suffering.

Within that world of thought, you do, indeed, exist. Enjoy it if it satisfies your secret inquiries. (Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. If it doesn't sound true to you, it isn't true for you.) But I'd suggest that you only exist within that world of thought. You’re a figment of that world’s imagination.

It’s kind of a subreality.

Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

it’s all about the bliss

Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. But something is left unsaid in this aphorism. Before, these actions were believed to be real in and of itself. After, it is the Consciousness, or Spirit, we bring to these “actions” which is the true reality.

We are conduits of the unmanifest. We are tools of the unmanifest. We are hands of the unmanifest. We are the unmanifest. In the ever-lasting act of making manifest.

And yes, our life is indeed a dream, but we are not dreaming it. We are being dreamt. What matters is not the dream itself; that we know to be illusion. What matters is the Spirit with which the dream is made.

Do not deny the dream, because you know it to be illusion. But dream on. Dream on in Consciousness. Dream on in Spirit. Dream on in love and bliss.

The unmanifest is made manifest not for the presence of the manifest itself. That is the great lie of materialism. It is in order for Spirit to know itself. And in that knowing is bliss.

The dream is being dreamt not for the dream itself. It is the dreaming which is everything.

In this life, look for any situation that requires an act of love, and do so. And know that the unmanifest is making itself manifest. What is being made manifest though is irrelevant; it’s all about the bliss.

This is something you can’t think through. This is something where you need to follow your true bliss (and not the satisfaction of ego), and trust that where there is bliss, there is Spirit.

This is true transubstantiation.

Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

making matter’s transubstantiation

On Secular Immaterialism

We turn to science as if
the world discovered by
an observation of the things
we dream up in our lives
exist without our making.
We say the gods are dead,
that matter is the one
and only bread of life
and energy the wine
the engines of our world
create in making matter’s
transubstantiation.
Not that science dreams
Newtonian delusions
in quest for truth these days.
The facts are known: the world
is consciousness alone.

~Son Rivers 2006

My Jeremiad

It’s laughable really. As a species, which itself is a term we have created in order to classify and divide animate reality which is exactly the issue here at hand, we consider ourselves the epitome of life. We are the thinking animal. Woe to those other non-rational beings for they know not what they are.

But they at least do not think they are something they are not.

We have potential, no doubt. But we’ve wasted it on an illusion, burnt it up in thought, bought the marketing strategy we are individually unique and full of free will.

At least a hawk knows better. As does a rat for that matter. Or a newborn baby.

Everything we think, we’ve been taught. Not an ounce of who we think we are is true. Our senses create a world out of nothing and we create a dream out of thought. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, except we believe it all as truth.

We are blessed with awareness, but we’ve thrown it all away for safety’s sake.

In order to delay our death, we have chosen not to live. And in this limbo we call life, we fear and fear some more, and always suffer. We cry O what a God would treat its children thus. But we are the god that treat ourselves unkindly.

That none of it is true, that all is just illusion, is little comfort.

As a wise possum said, we have met the enemy and he is us. The kingdom of heaven is indeed at hand. Right here and right now. We have the ability to know God. For we are indeed the sons and daughters of God, the manifest. And in our recognition of the Father the Mother, the unmanifest, is that Holy Spirit, love.

And we are that: Consciousness, Being, Bliss; the self-realization of which is, indeed, our highest goal, and true epitome.

Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Prabhavanada's Crystallization

Or Spirit is...

God is;
he can be realized;
to realize him is the supreme goal of human existence;
he can be realized in many ways.

from ‘The Spiritual Heritage of India’ by Swami Prabhavananda

there’s no getting wetter

Some speak of the need for long hours of meditation to access Spirit. My limited experience differs.

When I stop and rest in the here and now, practice Self-Inquiry in that moment, and access that thing called Sat-Chit-Ananda or Being, Consciousness, Bliss, it doesn’t matter if I’m there an hour or a minute. When you get wet, there’s no getting wetter. Provided you breathe.

Now I’m not saying that if I were to renunciate and become a monk and meditate for extended periods or say the rest of this life, that I wouldn’t transform, say, to keep the metaphor, into a blissful angelfish, but as a functionary in the dream, time is not of the essence.

Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind on this.

just more universe being transformed

This thought has recombined itself after a short email exchange concerning the creative writing process. I believe it has some value.

Every thought we think is completely unoriginal. All of our thoughts are just recombinations of words we have read or heard from others. Sometimes the recombination is quite intricate and possibly revealing of a previously obscured truth, and there is value in that, but most often it’s not even a recombination, but an obvious copy.

Take writing. When writing creatively, when really writing in the moment, there comes a point when your mind is not involved in the writing any longer, but something other seems to be dictating the words to you. When finished, you marvel at what you’ve written.

In effect, you have surrendered your thought to Spirit. You are listening to the greater intuition. You (what you?) are being guided in the universal flow.

This could be called divine inspiration. There are some texts that claim to be divinely inspired, but aren’t. It’s a politically expedient tool to do so.

But there are others which reveal themselves to be so. You feel them in your gut. The consistent, thorough ones are great masterpieces. Read Walt Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself.’ Read the ‘Tao te Ching.’ Read the ‘Upanishads.’

They are not involved with illusion. They approach the eternal truth. In their own way, they are the unmanifest made manifest. When you read them, the bliss you feel emanates from that event.

Now not all divine inspiration need be a great masterpiece. There is room for the humble abode as well. A simple poem will do. Even a sentence could suffice. And that is the worth of such endeavor in this dream. You are a conduit for the unmanifest, and your poem, your word, is just more universe being transformed.

Actually, when aligned with Spirit, your life is a conduit, and that is the worth of any true and conscious endeavor, any impeccable word. Period.

Seeing Sees the Seen

Again, it was a fleeting recognition. An understanding that this thought called “I” was not what’s seeing. What sees?

It was as if the river was looking at itself. It was as if that tree was looking at itself. And yes, it was as if this body was also looking at itself. But it wasn’t what was seeing.

Let’s talk dreamtalk. When I look at my hand, I know it’s not the essence of myself, but just part of an emanation of myself. I see my hand, but I don’t see myself. Even when I see as much of myself as I can see, I don’t see myself. So when the river sees itself, it only sees an emanation of itself.

The unmanifest sees the manifest. Seeing sees the seen.

Dream It Out with Pride and Joy

Today there will be a brief shining moment when Barack Obama takes the oath of office of The President of the United States. Let’s appreciate that dream fulfilled.

Miguel Ruiz says the human being is a master in the art of dreaming. Of course, our liberation depends on the initial recognition that we are, indeed, dreaming. On the other hand, I’ve heard Adyashanti say that he would certainly rather associate with advanced egoic behavior than its opposite. And of course, there's the absolute query of who is really dreaming.

Nevertheless.

Forty-five years ago, Martin Luther King, 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, now famously said that he had a dream for all God's children to be free at last. Today is a day in which that personal dream becomes part of the collective dream, in that universal and inexorable movement to become no dream but self-realized.

Set within absolute reality, what happens today at noon is mere illusion. We know that truth to be self-evident. But this dream within a dream is a reflection of that bliss, that bond, between the manifest and unmanifest, and in that way it is a beautiful work of art.

In the coming years, there is no doubt that time will work its way with it, but at noon, its voice will ring across this nation, nay, this world, with the cry of a newborn, that moment when the unmanifest actually, mysteriously, amazingly, becomes manifest. And that is the thing we name love.

And it is absolutely audacious. And real.

Appreciate it like you would appreciate the greatest work of art.

Ask ev'ry person if he's heard the story,
And tell it strong and clear if he has not,
That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory
Called Obamalot!

On a Sudden Feeling About Thinking

Suddenly it came to me tonight, that guiding my conscious action through universal flow by paying attention to my intuition and all signs actually means more than surrendering all belief in thought. It means surrendering thought itself. Too often in an attempt to listen to intuition, I end up analyzing it with thought, which is a little like listening to music with my eyes.

I came across (in the flow we call the web) this by Gina Lake on the subject:

The egoic mind has difficulty seeing the flow in events because it is usually too busy planning for some future event or ruminating about the past. The need to do something arises out of the flow and the ego takes it on as its personal mission. Using the past as a guide and other information it has gathered for how it will proceed, it creates a plan for action. It decides exactly how and when it will do it, not realizing that the flow already has a plan. The ego assumes a plan is needed and that providing it is its job.

The ego doesn’t perceive that anything worthwhile is coming out of the flow. It discounts or disregards many of the insights, solutions, and urges to act that arise from essence. It assumes that it is the only player here, and it convinces you of this too.

It even seems this way because the flow’s timing is not what the ego would like. The flow has its own timing, which is not revealed before it happens. The ego assumes it needs to take control of life because it often seems like nothing is happening, and it is very unhappy with that. Almost anything seems better than that. The ego is at odds with the natural ebb and flow of life, and it pushes and tries to make life conform to its schedule. It is impatient with life as it is.

The flow has a plan, which unlike the egoic mind’s, will bring you the life you are meant for, but you don’t know what that plan is until it is time for you to know. The good news is that you don’t need to know before you do. The egoic mind wants to, of course, because knowing helps it feel safe, but you don’t really need a plan. You just need to wait for the next step to be revealed. There is nothing you need to figure out, although the egoic mind will not be convinced of this. Your job is just to give your attention to what is and allow the flow to show you what it wants next from you.

When you are in the flow, you are a responsive instrument of essence. You respond to the urges, inspiration, and knowing that come out of the flow. For this, you need minimal thinking. Far more important than thinking is listening because it puts you in a receptive state. Listening brings you into the flow, while thinking takes you out of it.

~Gina Lake from 'Return to Essence'

This feels exactly right, and I can tell you from my current life situation how difficult is is sometimes to reign in the egoic need for Something To Happen, and especially for not knowing the Timing of the flow, yet still Trusting in it. In many ways, this is where the rubber of awakening meets the road of the dream. You can almost smell the mind burning.

something undefined

Foggy Metaphysics

We see nothing; we call it fog.
Of course it’s something—we see
the fog. But what we cannot see
we cannot name. And so we call
it fog. Yet behind the fog is something
undefined—indefinite.

If one is careless one will see
what one just wants to see. Or one
will say it’s nothing. But it’s not—
it’s something else. It’s something that
is near, that waits there in the mist
for you to strike it. Then, you’ll see.

Son River 2005

Robert Adams Has a Dream

The answer is, sages do dream sometimes, and have visions. But they're aware of the dreamer. In other words, they realize that they are not the person dreaming or having the vision. But as long as there's a body there someplace, there will be dreams and visions. Even though there's no one home, there will still, once in a while, be a dream or a vision.

But this morning for the first time, I had a very interesting vision, which I'll share with you again. I dreamt I was somewhere in an open field, a beautiful field. There was a lake nearby, trees, a forest. And I was sitting under a tree, in this open field. And I had on the orange garb of a renunciate. I must have been a Buddhist.

All of a sudden, hundreds of bodhisattvas and mahasattvas come from the forest and start walking toward me. And they all sit down in a semicircle around me, in meditation. And I wondered what I was doing. Then I realized that I had become the Buddha. And we all sat in silence for about three hours. Then one of the bodhisattvas got up and asked a question. He said, "Master, what is your teaching?" It was not in English. I don't know what language he spoke. But I understood it quite clearly. And without hesitation I said, "I teach Self-realization of Noble Wisdom." And he sat down. We sat for about another three hours in silence, and then another bodhisattva got up and asked a question. "Master, how can you tell when one is close to Self-realization? How can you tell one is about to become Self-realized? How does one tell?"

I gave four principles, which I really never do in the waking state. I never have a teaching. But I was giving a teaching, so I'll share it with you. I explained four principles, where you know that you're close to Self realization. Of course, we're all Self-realized already.

(1) I understand, I feel, I perceive, that everything, everything-and emphasize the second everything-is a manifestation of my mind.
(2) I feel and understand deeply, that I am unborn, I do not prevail, and I do not disappear.
(3) I feel and understand the egolessness of everything, of all creation.
(4) I have a deep understanding of what Self-realization is by what it is not.

~Robert Adams in 'Silence of the Heart [extremely edited by myself]

Reflecting on this World

1.16 “The world you see is nothing but a reflection of reality. Reflection cannot be true.”

...Reality is absolute awareness, but it cannot perceive itself because it is One. In order for the absolute knowledge even to know that it exists, it must manifest itself and become two. The world is the mirror that the Absolute holds up in order to see Itself. The reflection has no existence in itself. This act of manifestation is the creation of duality, and in duality, the whole world appears.

~Andrew Vernon from 'You are He: Commentaries on the Teaching of Sri Ranjit'

How I Slipped, Fell Down, and Found My Mind

Cup of coffee in one hand and a bag with a bagel in the other, I stepped up on the snow bank, careful to place my boot in the deepening impression made my many other previous boots, and prepared to unlock my car door with the remote, when my boot began to slip and my balance began quickly to go unsteady.

That’s when my mind left its thoughts and went into the body, attempting at first to stop the fall, and when that became a futile effort, using the body’s right arm and shoulder and even the side of its head to lessen the impact of a body falling from a height of two feet almost head-first onto pavement and the side of a car.

After the fall, nothing was broken, but quite a bit hurt. My body sat up from the ground where it now lay. My mind returned to thought, but not all of it. What had returned was trying to respond to two good Samaritans who were asking if I was alright. They both were trying to get me on my feet. But my mind had not completely returned to thought; much of it was assessing the bodily damage and beginning the process of repairing things.

So I suggested to them that I just stay there sitting, waiting for more of the mind to return. What had returned was chagrined that the coffee had completely spilled and the bagel was now underneath the car. The things it thinks! It also was recognizing a stream of coffee headed for my blue jeans. Bad enough there was dirt and coffee all over them as well as the jacket. The body would have to rise.

At first, thoughts looked for another cup of coffee. Hazily, I entered the Starbucks, and stood, ready to wait in a long line. But more of my mind was returning. This is crazy, it thought. Time to get in that car, return home, and assess the injuries with some thought. And so I did.

Now that was quite a mundane story of an everyday New England circumstance in the dead of winter and snow. But there are some things, I think, to take note. First is the way the mind will leave its thoughts when under an immediate external threat. Second is the way it slowly returns to thought, leaving much of itself in the body taking care of that business. This is what we call the state of shock. Mine, of course, was an extremely mild one. Those with one more severe will be barely capable of thought, if at all. I was quite hazy myself.

Thought should be quite the luxury for the mind, something that it does only when the immediacy of the moment does not require its attention. Unfortunately the mind gets lost in thought, like a child in a toy shop, and it stays way past closing. The result is some ungodly contraption made out of the legos of thought and ego thought. The truth is that the mind should be completely conscious of the present most of the time, and enjoy thought in its leisure, or in strategic moments.

It was a mind lost in thought that led to the initial slip of the boot. Only when the balance of things had shifted did the mind return to the moment. There was practically no thought involved. Probably none. But now it can type this assessment of what happened. It can see the need for a better allocation of its resources. Meanwhile, my intuition is reviewing the signs around this fall. All it knows at this time: it’s not returning to that Starbucks until the coast appears clear. I had lost almost a whole cup last week to some outward contamination.

Something is afoot.