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

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

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.

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

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'

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!

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.