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

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

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

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