The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim: First to Last

First to Last

Five Hundred One Pages

The First Page

We are all created of the same source,

By whatever name you might wish to call it.

Our sense of individuality is merely a fleeting illusion,

Born of the attachment of consciousness to mind-body-spirit.

In reality, we are all equally the same awareness permeating all things.

All dualistic notions are vain delusion fabricated by imagination.

Yes, it all seems real and true enough at any given moment,

But if you fully contemplate the ever-present now,

You will discern that this state we call life,

Is really nothing more than a very temporary,

Touchy-feely, three-dimensional, sensory reverie.

The indivisible, absolute mystery, pretending existence.

* * * *

Everything comes and goes, appears and disappears,

Changes in each and every inexplicable moment.

A magical mystery tour of bewildering origin.

And to those many so full of themselves,

Unable to perceive the unfathomable,

That every moment beckons their attention,

How did the mindboggling become so mundane?

* * * *

Discern the indivisible awareness prior to all attributes,

All genders, all languages, all ideologies, all creeds, all geographies,

All families, all friends, all acquaintances, all antagonists,

All anything, all everything, under any given sun.

Discern that which is solely awareness,

Unblemished by any perception,

Born of conscious design,

Mortal or otherwise.

* * * *

Every existence is entirely unique,

In this grand, magical theater of time and space.

The unfolding of the song of mystery is a creation extraordinaire,

In every way, shape and form into which the mystery,

Has spontaneously, choicelessly unfolded.

You are one of countless dreams,

All witness to the totality,

That which is prior to all perception,

That which is absolute, both within and without,

That which is real, that which is true, that which is ever You.

No religion, no creed, no dogma in this world, or any other, speaks for that which is God.

They are all like blind men arguing over their limited perceptions of the elephant.

The dream is ever a mystery; none have ever owned it, and none ever will.

* * * *

The human paradigm is nothing more than a game of pretend,

A brief, mortal epic of seed lines strung like pearls,

Through a theater of consciousness.

And You, solitary witness,

To every possibility under the sun.

* * * *

The endless permutations of nature-nurture,

Of culture, of creed, of politics, of economics, of anything,

Are without conclusion, yet ever born, ever sculpted,

Of the same imaginary distillation of mind.

* * * *

You are neither the world nor the universe.

You are the indivisible that is witness prior to all creation.

You are the infinite awareness, the singularity,

Of all that is, and all that is not.

* * * *

Immortality is not found in the body,

Nor in the time-bound legacies of history books.

It is ever in the seamless awareness of the indivisible moment.

It is the eternal You, that peers out through the senses,

Into the dreamtime they and mind create.

* * * *

Every instant is an orchestrated streaming,

Of creation, preservation, destruction,

The trilogy of dreamtime’s ever-present dynamic.

Name it whatever you will, the source of this boundless mystery,

Is equally the same for the smallest as it is the greatest.

* * * *

To learn from history is one thing, to allow the past to dominate the present, another.

Every generation must play the hand they are dealt, in the time they are allotted.

Your ancestors had their time, you have yours, your progeny will have theirs.

The traditions, the patterns, that worked at one point, may not in another.

To grapple with the present with a mind that is present is the highest order.

That source, that origin, that fount, that nucleus, which is called by many names,

Is prior to any sensory theater, prior to all forms small to great,

Prior to any whimsical certitudes of imagination,

Prior to any notion of this or that,

Prior to all dualities,

Prior to every definition,

Inspired by the myriad other.

* * * *

This ephemeral awareness belongs to no one.

It is the ether that permeates all things, transcends all things.

There are no individuals but in the imaginary reveries,

Of the ever-changing theater of consciousness.

Prior to consciousness, there is only You,

In the greatest, most profound sense.

* * * *

There are no religious wars, only dogmatic ones.

There is only one source, and it cannot be bound,

By the confining definitions of human limitation.

* * * *

You are it, it is You, there is no other.

No need to pray or weep for forgiveness,

Or worship some symbol, carving, or concept.

* * * *

What is it like to live one’s life,

Unburdened by the worries of the world?

Simply look out into the garden in which children play.

* * * *

Those who can still their minds in detachment,

Are far more powerful than those who so many consider great.

For they do not fear death, they do not fear oblivion.

They are one with the source of all things.

* * * *

So many assertions, so many delusions, so many distractions, so many deceptions.

The spiritual quest is not about power, fame, fortune, or any vanity.

It is not about scriptures, edifices, or empires.

It is all about You,

The real and true and only You.

Our kind seems headed,

Toward an unprecedented cataclysm,

And in the grand schema of things, does it really matter?

Each of us answers that eternal question in the way we carry out our daily lives,

But it is synergistically, that the dice are cast and futures told.

So down the fated river we bob and weave,

All alone, all together,

Players in the history of mind.

* * * *

Humanity is a species fixated on the past,

On history, tradition, ritual, formula, this concept or that.

How challenging it is to view the streaming moment with fresh, clear eyes.

Our narcissistic vision is veiled by all we think we know.

We are blind to the mystery of Eden.

* * * *

Discerning the nature of truth,

Is not about comfort.

It not about pleasure diluting pain.

It is merely the essential point of eternal singularity,

From which all creation springs, and to which all creation succumbs.

Far too simple for all the thoughts, spinning ever again,

To decisively grasp the inexplicable.

* * * *

All purpose, all meaning,

Is the fabrication of consciousness.

The nothingness from which all things spring,

Is indivisibly absolute, with neither cause nor direction.

How can there be any permanence in manifest time and space,

In that which is no more than a sensory figment of temporal imagination?

* * * *

To declare yourself either believer or atheist,

Implies that you somehow know something to be true,

In the ultimate who, what, where, when, why, how conundrum.

Something that in reality cannot be known by anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Belief, faith, and hope are useless, delusional security blankets;

Vain pacifiers of the mind’s fear of the unknown.

An agnostic vision is the only truthful, accurate stance.

Even Self does not know how this amazing mystery came to be.

The nowness that is, has ever been, will ever be, is all any can truly know.

You can only see,

What you are capable of seeing.

You can only hear, what you are capable of hearing.

You can only taste, smell, and feel what you are capable of tasting, smelling, and feeling.

And in reality, you are truly seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling,

Your Self cloaked in every form, every disguise imaginable.

* * * *

History is about individuals and all their groupings,

The synergies of every blend of cooperation and competition,

All played out on an eternal stage, indifferent to existence or extinction.

* * * *

It is really all about patterns within patterns within patterns.

Infinitesimal, miniscule, tiny, small, medium, large,

Huge, immense, practically infinite patterns.

Patterns of all the swirling elements,

Of earth, air, water, and fire,

All grandly, indivisibly woven together,

Within the infinite quantum-ether-hologram-matrix-mystery.

Everything dancing its interpretation of Self away,

From every little way, unto the greatest.

* * * *

The quantum is the building block of the mind.

It is the nuclear cornerstone, the infinite creator,

Of the timeless, sovereign, immortal indivisibility.

* * * *

We each play out our little role,

In the unfolding dreamtime of future-past.

After the ending, it will be as it was before the beginning,

But for the unfolding now, it seems real enough to do whatever calls us,

In that which is, in the largest sense, the Song of God.

* * * *

What is existence but an entirely imagined script,

A genetic lottery, in which no one has ever had any choice, any voice,

In the body they are given … in their family, ethnicity, gender, constitution, mental acuity,

Geography, culture, caste, creed, socio-economic level, language, education,

And the capacities and limitations, all variables together play out.

To assert any have even a mere sliver of free will,

Is in itself a very dubious claim.

It is from the grass roots,

From those who recognize the only truth,

From those who see the oneness of all things small to great,

From those who distinguish the harmonic singularity stretching across all eternity,

The grand source that is prior to all dogmas, all creeds, all religions,

The many beliefs that are idolatrous and self-serving,

It is from that utterly effortless ground,

That true religion flowers.

* * * *

There is no deeper, there is no greater,

There is nothing but the ever-streaming awareness,

That has played out every fleeting moment that has ever passed,

Within and without the only observer, the only witness there has ever been.

You.

* * * *

All that wealth, all that power, all that fame, all those myriad things,

What good will they be, when the sack of weary flesh,

Succumbs to its last wheezing breath?

* * * *

We may baptize the source however we please,

Envisage it any way we are inclined.

The only genuine curiosity,

Is our believing it really matters enough,

To squander the rest of history, battling over the vanity of it all.

* * * *

Abandon ye all futures, all pasts, all wants, all dreams, all hopes.

Right here, right now, in the awareness of the ever-flowing present moment,

Is the eternal life you pursue, the only existence you will ever have.

But you must die, in the most figurative sense, to discern it.

* * * *

You might think thwacking someone over the noggin with reality,

Would at some point, somehow, break through the barricaded fortress keep.

But consciousness steeped in conditioning, indoctrination, mind control, brainwashing,

Clings to any given delusion with beyond-the-pale resiliency.

What galvanizes some to wake up, and others,

To go to their graves asleep,

Is a query to which,

Only speculation has answer.

It may not be politically correct to say it,

But the squarely-faced reality is that every human being,

Is a biological organism, as is every other living thing on this spinning orb.

We may function at a more complicated degree of consciousness,

But the fundamental rules of the game are ever the same,

And are applied equally for each and every one,

In every way, every singular moment,

Of every singular existence.

* * * *

The mystery creates all of us equally buck-naked,

Same as every other life form across the entire garden.

It is only our kind who get all vain and embarrassed about it.

* * * *

The senses are the windows to any given universe,

But it is the mind that unlocks the door to eternity.

* * * *

Strolling the infinity within,

Does not require anything special.

Wear anything, or nothing, if you prefer.

Sit, lay, stand, walk, or sprint anywhere you please.

Name it whatever comes to mind, if you must.

It is always the same, ever unchanging,

Ever here now, to delve or dive into,

The source prior to all dreams.

* * * *

The challenge is to grasp and release,

Any given moment, at the same moment.

To flow with the ever-streaming, eternal reality,

Rather than the erratic stop-and-go,

Of the mind chained in time.

Discern the no-mind,

The awareness prior to consciousness,

To clearly perceive the evolving creation with a divine eye.

* * * *

Tag the immeasurable, the indivisible, the unknown, however you will,

It remains forever untouched, untainted, immaculately eternal.

The dream of consciousness is but quantum vibration in the ever-present now,

An imaginary configuration of the human mind, snared in the web of its own sensory creation.

What would it be like to never see anybody, anything, ever again?

To retire forever into the abyss, and never re-emerge into consciousness.

No more desire, no more fear, no more dread, no more worry, no more sickness,

No more injury, no more caring, no more bother, no more death or taxes.

And, of course, no more beer, wine, drugs, sex, or rock and roll.

To die for all eternity, or come back for another round,

Will that yay or nay decision be the last box,

On some Pearly Gate questionnaire?

Or do you just sign in or out as you please?

* * * *

If you were the last two-legged on the planet,

To whom would there be, to justify or explain your existence,

But the same You, it has all along, really been.

* * * *

What there is to learn, what there is to impart,

Is prior to all the volumes ever written,

All the institutions ever concocted,

All the idolatry ever asserted,

All the rituals ever established,

All the temples ever constructed,

All the incalculable inanities, insanities,

Ever carried out in some imaginary god’s name.

* * * *

What there is ultimately to learn,

In this quickly passing dream,

Is well beyond any karmic notion.

It is the free, untainted, uncarved Youness,

That You truly are prior to any and all experience,

All that was immaculate before time began its sculpting.

None are required to conform to any state of mind,

But through the notions of consciousness.

* * * *

Though we are all of the same formless origin,

Each of us is snared in an individual narcissistic reflection.

No one will ever interpret the mystery through the same looking glass,

So even the choir quibbles over this and that, that and this.

Less painful just to remain alone, inwardly still,

But it would seem few of us are willing,

To be quite that anonymous.

Your proud, relatively brief mortal existence, is naught but an infinitesimal scratch on a linear timeline,

Born of an immeasurable mystery, by whatever metaphor you might choose to describe it:

Creation, genesis, big bang, or turtles all the way down, turtles all the way up.

Stardust playing out a paradigm, invoked by the happenstance of human consciousness.

* * * *

Assuming he even existed, what if Jesus had actually written down his thoughts?

What did he really say? What did he really do? What did he really mean?

Would it have even been close to what so many now believe?

And what would he say about all done in his name,

If he were somehow to show up again?

Probably be too disheartened,

Even if he could.

* * * *

What a challenge for the mind evolved of time,

To be completely attentive, totally engaged, to the given moment.

The moment that has always been, and will ever be,

Exactly as it is, right here, right now.

* * * *

Nobody learns but through discipline and diligence.

No teacher can teach a student unwilling to learn.

* * * *

Is a wave a wave, or is it water?

Is a beach a beach, or sand?

Is a bracelet a bracelet, or gold?

Is anything its ephemeral appearance,

Or the quantum matrix in which all forms dance?

* * * *

Forget everything, and the awareness is all that remains.

* * * *

Despite all your self-absorbed notions about being superior,

You and any given piece of shit are made up of the same star dust.

Pride is the cradle of great downfalls; humility, the modesty that endures.

* * * *

Why pretend to know what can never be known?

What point is there to faith in some imaginary deity, some heaven,

If you cannot even manage to perceive the eternity playing out before your very eyes?

Karmas and heavens and hells, are imaginary notions,

For those who believe they should feel dread or guilt or shame,

For being born into an existence in which they had absolutely no choice.

* * * *

Learn from your everyday world; learn from your everyday universe.

Learn from fear to be fearless; learn from desire to be desireless,

From destruction and death, grasp your timeless immortality.

* * * *

Why would you want anything less than a direct relationship,

With that which You are, have ever been, will ever be.

No intermediary can do more than point the way.

* * * *

So, you believe You are this body,

This mortal vat of bones and flesh and goo.

To be clear on this notion, are You the infant body,

The child body, the adolescent body, the young adult body,

The middle-age body, the senior body, or the one,

From which You peer, this very moment?

And how sure are You, really,

Of that fleeting, transitory novelty?

* * * *

You are this passing moment,

And it is here and gone, before You even know it.

It is that simple; all this is but a quantum dream, a quantum illusion.

There is nothing more.

* * * *

Everything before now, everything after now,

Is the ever-transitory movement of imagination.

The ground of awareness is still, ever watchful.

The eternal witness, watching its Self dream.

* * * *

It is the divide within, that You must make whole.

It is the war within, with which You must make peace.

Awareness is seamless; without rends, without adversaries.

It weathers the assaults of the mind-body in time, without effort.

Bound by no dream, it is indifferent to life, it is indifferent to its end.

It is You in the truest sense, permeating all that is, all that is not.

You can only know, You can only witness, the dreaming the mind-body perceives.

But realize, your version is but one reflection, one resonance, one facet,

Of this infinite, mysterious, ever-kaleidoscoping crest-jewel.

And of its unknown origin, You can only experience,

The infinite nothingness, at the core within,

And awaken to the clear certainty,

That it is really all You.

* * * *

Challenging to stay with the momentary awareness, the momentary nowness,

Without the movement of thought kicking back into overdrive.

The inner and outer chatter is ever an enticement.

Sages talk a great deal of detachment,

Of dying to the world,

But even they can be entranced,

By the sensory spin of the given day-to-day.

* * * *

There are really no masters, no disciples,

Only a dreamtime, chock-full of dreamers.

* * * *

Always a strange thing,

To wake up to another day,

To watch consciousness reboot,

To wander out into the ever-streaming,

Kaleidoscoping, sensory dream.

Will wonder never cease?

* * * *

There is absolutely no evidence of a distinct deity.

Hope, faith, conjecture, speculation,

Are born of fear and dread,

Of divisive, dualistic perceptions,

And only encumber the inquiry into the truth within.

* * * *

Who cares who wrote whatever?

What is most important is what was meant,

And what it unravels in the exploration of consciousness,

And the timeless inscrutability of awareness, from which it ever emanates.

Besides which, they were, after all, in the greatest sense, all You,

Belied by countless other disguises, as is yours to them.

To be solely the awareness, completely alone, effortless,

Is a suspension of thought, a disinterest in the ever-churning world.

A state of quietude, stillness, serenity, grace; interesting only if you are truly content,

To be done with all the many things your version of the universe offers.

No, it is not easy to let go, to be in the world, but not of it,

Even for the briefest of these mortal times.

* * * *

Ultimately, all sense of identity is absolutely meaningless.

Endure in the world of mind for as long as you will,

And then cast your Self free of all constraints.

* * * *

As fresh as the eternal moment forever is,

The memories which filter through it, are ever old.

The more we know, the less we see.

* * * *

You are the source of hell.

You are the source of heaven.

Poison or elixir, the choice for all.

* * * *

And does it matter to anyone but you?

This so-called spiritual quest,

Is in many ways,

More than a little silly.

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

The vapor of imagination’s rainbow.

And awakening is, so to speak, the last vanity.

* * * *

We are all limited in one way or another.

It is the unwitting nature of the manifest dream.

The uncarved block inevitably becomes a rutted road.

* * * *

All stories have their figurative moral

– Metaphorical, symbolic, metaphoric, allegorical,

Representative, not literal, emblematic, abstract, rhetorical –

Do you really need another tale, another fable, another yarn, another saga,

Another anecdote, another narrative, another account,

Another parable, to catch the gist?

The world-wide competition for resources of nearly every variety,

Has a very obvious conclusion that has been experienced,

In smaller scales, in many arenas across the planet.

Eight-plus billion overly entitled two-leggeds,

Being denied their innumerable excesses,

Will definitely not be a pretty sight.

Carry on in whatever way your time allows,

But get down-ready-set for some wide-ranging changes.

Never hurts to hope for the best, but best be prepared for the worst, too.

* * * *

The dreamy, romantic, clueless, quixotic idealist, might like to assume,

The dark age that will be setting its shadow upon this world,

Cannot help but recalibrate human consciousness,

Into some sort of transcendent paradigm.

But that supposes, of course,

A shift in the genetic make-up, as well.

Which is, indeed, an inspiring leap of imagination.

* * * *

Every civilization leaves behind mounds of residue,

Upon which the play of time builds anew.

Dystopian is a tepid word,

For what this era,

Will be leaving its progeny.

* * * *

No new sandbox, sorry.

We must somehow make do,

With the only one we will ever have.

* * * *

Dystopian future?

Perhaps you have not noticed,

But are we not already well down the trail?

A rape and pillage paradigm cannot rape and pillage forever.

* * * *

The conundrum with disparaging the path our kind has taken, however,

Is that you would otherwise not exist, experiencing all you have experienced,

Seeing all you have seen, hearing all you have heard, smelling all you have smelt,

Tasting all you have tasted, feeling all you have felt, and thinking all you have thought.

Alas, dystopian participants will just have to endure the descent as best the given day allows.

There will be no messiah, there will be no savior, there will be no redeemer.

There is only we, and our endless loop of limited, prideful thinking,

In a spinning garden world, that has only so much to give.

* * * *

Truth is truth is truth is truth,

Unbound by any fabrication of consciousness.

Awareness is, indeed, witness to the mysterious majesty of all creation,

But nothing that is conceived can ever be proclaimed,

As the truth only truth can be.

* * * *

Humanity did not get kicked out of Eden.

We just got so hornswoggled by our own imagination,

That most just stopped seeing that it was everywhere and everything.

And anyone who does not play along with the collusion,

Is considered a child, confused, or insane.

* * * *

How truly, curiously amazing,

That we have so thoroughly manipulated

And destroyed the irreplaceable endowment of Eden.

To trade such a magnificent, wondrous garden,

For a pile of gold, for a play of vanity,

Is, indeed, dumbfounding.

* * * *

Pride is the only real enemy.

* * * *

Forget your body, forget your life,

Your geography, your culture, your religion,

Your politics, your education, your friends, your family.

Forget absolutely everything, everyone.

Breathe in, breathe out,

The awareness before time.

* * * *

I am the Truth, the Life, and the Way,

And so are You,

And so is everyone and everything else,

And so is each and every part and particle of dust to the farthest shore,

And the infinity beyond all pales.

We are all awash in the immeasurable singularity of an imaginary matrix.

Nothing is separate, nothing greater or lesser, nothing mortal.

We are all birthed of the same inexplicable essence,

A kaleidoscoping dream of consciousness,

To which each alone is witness.

* * * *

This is what it is really all about.

It is all You.

There is nothing more, nothing less.

There is no greater state than the timeless simplicity of awareness,

The reality through which all dreams play out,

In any given dimension.

* * * *

This brief little dream is just a speck,

Of the totality which reigns all dreams, all forms.

It is merely a rippling of a distraction from your eternal nature,

The truth of which You are always, whatever the form.

* * * *

You are older than the stars, younger than the moment.

* * * *

All dogmatic belief systems are founded,

Upon the assumptions of one delusion or another.

It is ever the tale of the blind men arguing,

Over parts of the same elephant.

* * * *

You could be right, you could be wrong.

And why would it ever really matter?

* * * *

No one really knows anything about who,

What, where, when, why or how they are here.

Why pretend to? Why manufacture any belief system,

When vulnerable, agnostic wonder, is the most honest stance.

* * * *

The manifest theater is based on constant change,

Constant movement, constant consumption, constant evolution.

Only the ever-present indivisibility of the quantum essence remains the same.

You are but ocean waves crashing into consciousness.

Little more than the pitter-pattering of rain on a window sill,

Or a babbling brook, dancing across rocks, on its way to the sea.

* * * *

You are that which some call God,

Some Allah, some Brahman, some Buddha.

All sounds denoting the same source,

Cloaked in arbitrary dogma.

All You, in one shape or another.

* * * *

A different day,

A different life,

A different form,

A different world,

A different universe,

Same Soul.

* * * *

More pain and suffering ahead.

If not today, then likely tomorrow,

Or certainly in some fairly near soon.

Fear not, dread not, care not,

If you can manage it.

* * * *

All the trivial labels are laughable reminders,

Of how pointless words ultimately become,

In the earnest inquiry into the truth of it all.

* * * *

It is real enough while you are dreaming it.

We will all be evaporating soon enough.

* * * *

Gold is gold, no matter the form.

* * * *

That which you seek is within.

It is what You really are,

Have always been,

Will ever be.

At what point, did You begin losing your innocence?

At what point, were You drawn out into the manifest world,

Into believing it real, into believing You are this cloak of identity,

You have so diligently, and with such utter conviction, worn ever since?

The other has shaped You into believing You are an identity,

But it is only Your collusion which makes it so.

The key to real freedom,

Is discern the indivisible source,

And then surrender to that awareness,

The timeless witness prior to consciousness.

* * * *

Dreamtime … dreammind … dreamjourney … dreampath …

Dreampast … dreamfuture … dreamnow … dreamfate …

* * * *

The human epoch is really about pride,

About the emergence from the slimy pool,

Into an extemporaneous theater,

Forged in dualistic notion.

* * * *

Life is a maze we all wander alone,

In the given body’s sensory matrix.

* * * *

You are not what you know.

You are not what you do.

You never have been.

You are only what You are,

Have ever been, and will ever be.

* * * *

Imagination, in its capacity

To explore to the farthest reaches,

Itself becomes the creator of all limitation.

* * * *

Are we any more than recordings,

Playing our minds over and over and over again?

Try saying or doing something really outside your box, if you can.

No matter how great or small, profound or foolish,

Every frame of reference has a frame.

The drop is within the ocean, and the ocean within the drop.

The writing is within the writer, and the writer within the writing.

The painting is within the painter, and the painter within the painting.

The sculpture is within the sculptor, and the sculptor within the sculpture.

The garden is within the gardener, and the gardener within the garden.

All creation is within its creator, and the creator within all creation.

* * * *

Nothing can fundamentally change,

As long as the one percent and their brethren,

Decline to take much greater responsibility, on a global level.

A profound awakening to a vision of the true nature,

Is the reformation the future requires.

No real paradigm shift,

Is remotely possible, without it.

* * * *

You can only perceive the source You ever are,

By being the very motionless awareness.

Eternal life is right here, right now,

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

Imagine witnessing this garden world,

Before our two-legged shadow,

Came down from the trees.

* * * *

No sense of identity is needed,

For you to be what You truly are,

Have ever been, will ever be.

* * * *

What are all those mammon worshippers,

Going to do with those piles and piles of gold,

When there is no world left in which to spend it?

* * * *

Trying to meld a nondualistic view of this immeasurable mystery,

With the egocentric-ethnocentric-geocentric collusions born of time,

Requires way too many rationalizations, compromises, and contortions.

Just because some falsehood bears the authority of tradition means nothing.

Give no weight to what is unnecessary; travel the journey that calls You.

Probably relatively few,

Would harm those they know and love,

Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, acquaintances.

So, how is it so many so willingly murder, rape, or plunder complete strangers?

How is it the monkey-mind, cannot seem to transcend,

Its tribal beginnings?

* * * *

The human drama is really founded upon,

A monkey-mind, a larynx, opposable thumbs,

And a seemingly endless capacity for tool-making;

The sum of which wreak havoc upon the world,

And its myriad creatures small to great.

* * * *

All organized religions, cults, sects, creeds,

Are really about dogma, limitation,

One groupthink or another.

Even in a large gathering,

Real religion is a solitary act,

Unfolding each and every moment,

Unattached, without any care, any concern.

* * * *

How can anyone not be able,

To step in another's shoes,

When we have across the board,

Trod over each other so thoroughly,

So many times, so many ways.

* * * *

Your body is not really yours at all.

It is merely a temporary biological casing,

From which You witness the mystery of creation.

Consciousness is in charge; You are just along for the ride.

* * * *

Whatever game-changing events are unfolding in the human paradigm,

Have nothing to do with any convoluted dogmatic assertions.

Just good old biology doing what it has always done,

Until it reaches a limitation, a boundary,

That stops it in its tracks,

And sets the course a new direction.

This insight into the singularity cannot be forced; You either discern it, or you do not.

So, there is absolutely no point in creating any dogmatic belief system,

Except to continue playing out the meaningless theater,

To which all middlemen and followers defer.

* * * *

The body-mind is a product of time; it is not You.

It may feel great pleasure or pain, but it is not You.

It is but a mortal container, a shell; You are immortal.

It is only the many delusions of consciousness,

Which veil the truth of You from You.

* * * *

Dogmas are generally more about,

What you are not supposed say, think, or do,

Truth includes absolutely everything,

Ever said or thought or done.

* * * *

Why venerate anything imagined?

Why not just be in the here and now,

Free of all imaginary constraints?

* * * *

How can anyone settle for a lie,

When the truth is plain as day?

* * * *

If god is as petty and ruthless,

As some make him-her-it out to be,

Then what, pray tell, could be the point?

* * * *

Every moment is in itself absolutely effortless.

It is consciousness that manufactures all struggle.

* * * *

One wonders if Jesus,

Could ever have been the Jesus,

So many engineer to their own vain rationale.

Is there any believer who does not have an agenda set in stone,

For his oft-predicted, more than mythical return?

Is it any wonder he is still a no-show?

Every life is a one-time affair,

A kaleidoscoping outcome of the given seed.

And each and every seed is a blueprint, a pattern, a potential,

Which is ever filled with the same quantum source, the same dynamic essence,

From which the unfolding creation has ever been fashioned,

But none ever formed the same way again.

* * * *

This eternal moment, this stillness of awareness, is all there is,

No matter the form, no matter the time, no matter the context.

* * * *

What You really are, has absolutely nothing to do,

With any memory, any thought, any idea, any concept,

Any movement of imaginary notion, whatsoever.

* * * *

The grand theater, and everything in it,

Is the dream of the mind-body.

You are the awareness,

The witness,

Which discerns all,

But is none of it, all the while.

* * * *

You are not the body; the body is not You.

You are the eye, out through which eternity peers.

* * * *

Atoms, molecules, particles, quanta,

All just names for that which can never be seen,

But are nonetheless the building blocks, the underpinnings,

The bedrock upon which all creation is founded,

The infinite nothingness,

Upon which the manifest is spun,

The stage upon which You witness your Self,

Playing every form across the dream of time and space.

* * * *

We are all that which is of the elysian divine;

Merely moving about in different guises;

Identified by different names, speaking different tongues;

Playing out different realities, on different stages, of the same mystery.

The mortal body is the sanctuary, the temple, the portal, in which awareness immortally resides.

It is ever-changing, replete with every sort of irregularity, and fated to one day dissolve.

But for a relatively brief perception of time, always within the unending moment,

There is the opportunity for the temporal consciousness, the dream weaver,

To play out whatever capacity and limitation and inclination allow.

* * * *

What can true wealth really ever be, but a quality of mind,

And so many, with piles and piles of gold, so very indigent.

* * * *

The mind-body is but a transitory dwelling; chaff,

From which the kernel drops into the ground,

From which the drop returns to the ocean,

From which the self merges into Self,

From which the persona dissolves,

Into that which is timelessly absolute.

* * * *

To love thy Self is not some vain notion.

It is to discern your true essence,

At such a profound level,

As to expand into your splendor,

In whatever way consciousness allows.

* * * *

Awareness is prior to all things,

Born of thought, born of passion, born of time.

All naming is ultimately meaningless.

Even the greatest song of god,

Is fated to be forgotten.

* * * *

This manifest universe,

Can be nothing more than a reverie,

Because its makeshift foundation is quantum sand.

All dreams are marinated in vanity.

* * * *

Still searching here, there, everywhere,
For something that really, really, really matters,
When over and over, it is again and again, more than evident,
That nothing really does, nothing really ever has, nothing really ever will.

Picture this immense cosmos an immeasurable matrix,

And all we organisms, from small to great, wandering about,

Breathing in and breathing out, consuming and being consumed.

Earth, air, water, fire – indivisibly intertwined throughout the heavens,

Creating-preserving-destroying, through all beginnings, through all endings.

A God-eat-God creation, which all are equally witnessing, in every way imaginable.

* * * *

All that striving, all those memories, all those thoughts,

All those relationships, all born of the mystery’s quantum mirage;

You are not any of them, and You never have been, really.

You are the clear space, the heart of awareness,

Absolute, sovereign, beyond compare.

* * * *

You are not,

Have never been,

Will never be,

An idea.

* * * *

What is, is far greater,

Than any veil of imagination,

Can ever more than begin to realize.

* * * *

Some want to spend their lives,

Preoccupied with loving or hating others.

What difference, really, in the ultimate dream of it all?

Perhaps that which is the quantum source, both angel and demon,

Merely seeks to play out every possible experience,

The menu of consciousness offers.

Who knows, really?

Any of us can only extrapolate,

The given dream, to one speculation or another.

* * * *

You are solitary witness,

To the boundless source and all its play.

What else can there be, but this fundamental You, really?

Everything is nothing more than a kaleidoscoping dream of quantum design,

Inexplicably created by the grand mystery, to experience,

A manifest fling of the galactic dice.

Humankind has expended a great portion of its recent so-called civilized history,

Battling over the electromagnetic spectrum: wavelengths, frequencies, vibrations, light, sound.

Continuously struggling, arguing, destroying – over what is but a mere particle of the indivisible mystery,

That our sensory dwellings are capable of perceiving, in the patterning of all things manifest.

How baffling, that we have not fathomed a greater vision of our place in it all.

* * * *

Nature is what works,

And what does not, evaporates into oblivion.

Good and evil are nothing more than constructs of human imagination.

There was never any such thing in this whirling garden orb,

Prior to the emergence of dualistic notion.

* * * *

There is no such thing as time; birth, life, death, are but a dream.

There is only awareness; the You, that has ever, yet never been.

* * * *

For the earnest explorer of consciousness,

What bounds can there possibly be?

* * * *

Here now is the only religion.

We are all transience, all immortality,

Intertwined, in consciousness, in imagination.

* * * *

Esoteric as these thoughts may seem to many, if not most,

Intense, scrupulous examination, by any and all,

Will discriminate the same truth.

* * * *

Propaganda is the bedrock of any given meme.

Those who follow choose one camp or another.

Few stand back, and discern the relativity of all.

* * * *

No need to make pompous tripe about the mystery.

The challenge is merely to see, to comprehend,

That it, is everyone and everything, including you

And then decide how to play out the pretense of free will,

For whatever dreamtime remains, in this inexplicable mortal sojourn.

Death is merely evaporating, back into the nothingness, that nothingness ever is.

The passionate mind must be at rest,

To discern the vastness within and without.

There are many techniques, many means, many ways,

To approach realizing this attentive, vulnerable, state of awareness,

But the upshot, the bottom line, the bare essential, the brass tack, the nut and bolt,

The down-and-dirty-nitty-gritty-crux-of-the-matter, the sine qua non,

Is that the mind stills, until only the witness remains.

* * * *

It is only through the unremitting movement of consciousness,

That you separate yourself from the infinite upwelling.

A mystery brand-named by so many sounds.

Awareness is the same essence,

For all creation, from small to great.

* * * *

Once the genie is out of the bottle,

Once Pandora’s box is open, once the fruit is consumed,

What can be done by any, but stoically endure,

Whatever the winds of time blow.

* * * *

What sights would there be, if there were no eyes?

What smells would there be, if there were no nose?

What sounds would there be, if there were no ears?

What tastes would there be, if there were no tongue?

What sensations would there be, if there were no skin?

And how many other perceptions might there be,

Had we crawled out of a different puddle?

* * * *

Abiding in thought, in the metaphors of persona,

In the imaginary pretense of little self, is a form of death.

To die to all the fabricated concepts, all the notions of this or that,

To live attentive to the very present, timeless awareness,

Is to immerse in the eternal life you truly are.

* * * *

You must ultimately discern that which is unconditional, entirely alone.

There are as many ways to get there, as there are minds pursuing it,

But it is you who must quest in solitude across the panorama,

Until the truth of it, within and without, becomes apparent.

Success is not guaranteed, and the brass ring easily dropped.

Why worship, why adulate, why venerate, why elevate, why praise, why flatter, why glorify,

Why revere, why adore, why honor, why exalt, why idolize, why deify,

That which you are, have ever been, will ever be?

Surely just being it is enough.

* * * *

Looking back to the first rays of conscious memory,

Is it not apparent you were absoluteness from the very beginning?

But because you were immersed in a morass of delusion,

You fell into the snare, as the young ever do.

Illusion sweeps all into its net,

And only the rare few,

Free themselves,

And return to the open sea.

* * * *

Anything can be hijacked.

Anything can be twisted.

Anything can be altered

Anything can be usurped.

Anything can be manipulated.

‘Tis the nature of the beast within.

* * * *

This moment will have to be enough,

Because it is all you have got,

And there is no way,

It is ever going to be any more,

No matter how thick the layer of delusion.

* * * *

Just because the genetic lottery cast you,

Into a particular geography,

Culture, race, creed, politic, et cetera,

Does not mean you must forever abide the inanity.

The parochial limitations, any given mindset inevitably inspires.

* * * *

Existence is a countdown until your inexorable return to oblivion,

Until the complete and utter annihilation of your universe.

Death is just tapping the Ruby slippers, and going back to Kansas.

Charon transporting you across the River Styx, to the nothingness of Hades.

However storied, the void is from whence you came, that to which you inevitably return.

Realize it or not, you are a particle of the grand mystery,

Of that indivisible essence, which many call god.

Perhaps acting out some demonic role,

But a shard, nonetheless.

You have only to look within,

To discern the infinite awareness,

Prior to the dreaming of time and space,

From which all have, only in imagination, splintered.

* * * *

I am the truth, the life, and the way, and so are you.

And it is only through the me that is in you,

That you can discern what is true.

* * * *

Every group, large or small,

Harbors in its own unique mythology.

All myths, all legends, all allegories, all narratives,

All parables, all fables, all tales, all sagas,

All stories, all yarns, all epics,

Are equally imagined.

* * * *

Sometimes you create.

Sometimes you preserve.

Sometimes you destroy.

Such is the dream of it.

* * * *

And now, you are here …

And now …

* * * *

Avoid extremes.

Find the middle ground,

The one-for-all-all-for-one of it all.

* * * *

How bound up we are by all our mythologies.

To discern they are but veneer over the same source,

Is a challenge relatively few seem inclined to comprehend.

Ditch the superstition.

It has always been utter nonsense,

Garbage, baloney, gobbledygook, noise, bunkum,

Absurdity, rubbish, twaddle, claptrap, poppycock, balderdash, tripe,

Malarkey, babble, gibberish, drivel, doublespeak,

Bunk, hogwash, rubbish, hot air.

So to speak.

* * * *

Everything is a story.

There are no greater or lesser stories.

All are imagined in the movement of consciousness in time.

None abide in the eternal now.

* * * *

The real mystery,

Is how so many tolerate,

What took place tens, hundreds,

And so often even thousands of years ago,

To regulate their existence today.

What would you be doing,

If it was just you,

All alone?

* * * *

To understand death,

One must understand that living,

Is in the greatest actuality,

Very much the same.

* * * *

You have always been as near,

To that which is God, as any can be.

You just need to pay very close attention,

To fathom fully, that which has always been You.

* * * *

Do you truly know that for your Self,

Or is it just mindless repetition of balderdash?

Never be unduly swayed by another’s limited thinking.

Examine everything through the filter of your own discernment,

And then beyond that, if it is within your capacity.

Superstition and dogma, do not do it.

We may all be one at the indivisible quantum level,

But we are all still bound by the limitations of the mortal dream.

Confined in a container whose primary directive is to play the monkey-mind.

Some may completely give themselves over to perpetual agape,

But for most, it is ever a moment-to-moment challenge,

To resist all the passions mortal cuisine offers.

* * * *

We are certainly intoxicated by all our noise and busy-busy,

But zip up a few hundred meters, and stillness reigns.

The unknown is not bound by blah-blah or bling.

The mystery will spin on, with or without us.

* * * *

The universe is a touchy-feely mirage,

Inspired by the senses, wielded by imagination.

A momentary three-dimensional play.

Nothing more, nothing less.

* * * *

In a still mind, the end of time.

* * * *

Eternity is awareness now.

Time is the wake of memory.

The future is all possible paths.

Free will looking forward,

Fate looking back.

* * * *

Only you know your own narrative,

And even that is but a vague perception,

Of what may have really happened.

* * * *

Everything you have ever experienced

– People, places, things, and the myriad other –

Are all tributaries to the river down which you stream.

* * * *

An impromptu theater … nothing more … nothing less … nothing but.

The unknown playing its mystery out, in any and every way,

The dreamtime of imagination sets into motion.

The rutted mind cannot be made anew again.

The neuron grooves become too deep, too profoundly anchored,

In geography, culture, creed, language, sexuality, all the shaping of time’s meandering.

No different than an ancient, weathered, gnarled, craggy boulder,

A block fully carved unto its marbled end.

* * * *

Stardust somehow morphed into existence,

And it could never more than speculate, how it all came to be.

But rather than be happy and content, not knowing,

It managed to argue, to struggle, to battle,

Over everything imaginable,

Forever more.

* * * *

Awareness, the underlying formless.

* * * *

To have a reasonably civilized,

Perhaps even happy life,

All one needs to do,

Is moderate the passions,

Discipline the mind and body,

Gather in whatever needs to be known,

And live the life that calls to you.

What is so hard about that?

* * * *

The quantum mystery is you, and you are it.

You witness it, and it witnesses you.

You meditate upon its infinity,

And it, upon your temporal limitation.

How could the indelible indivisibility be else?

* * * *

Dogma is for those humble enough to faithfully believe,

They are the only ones, worthy of some deity’s blessing.

* * * *

Perhaps humankind will someday awaken when all its memes,

All its idolatries, all its imagined deities, have failed them one too many times.

But, then again, probably not, given that the monkey-mind genome,

Is so easily compromised, by every variety of delusion.

The daily challenge is just being in the ever-kaleidoscoping moment,

Experiencing, observing, processing the timeless immediacy,

Of whatever is streaming by, both within and without,

As clearly, as exactly, as acutely, as possible.

Eternal life is not for the inattentive.

* * * *

Why is it so many insist,

On such a limited, confined, narrow, vain,

Perception of a deity, that often does not even include them,

And may be more than a little happy to fling them,

Onto the rocks, or to the wolves?

Very curious, indeed.

* * * *

How bound humankind is,

By the deep dread of death and oblivion.

The movement of consciousness whirls every direction,

To avoid discerning the primal essence,

That is the source of all.

* * * *

We are all but reflections in each other’s universes.

Each a sovereign witness, ultimately very much alone.

* * * *

Another day of pretending, colluding, feigning,

This touchy-feely three-dimensional dreamtime real.

Another day of suiting up, in the sensory cloak of illusion.

* * * *

All you think has happened, never really happened.

Dreams are only dreams, no matter how real they seem.

What you truly are, is nothing mind can ever begin to know.

* * * *

When the engines of industry cease to run,

When the cloud of technology inevitably evaporates,

When resources can no longer sustain the advantages they have fostered,

Those who are prepared for the worst, are more likely to survive.

Hoping for the best, only takes any historical epoch so far.

And at some point, Old School will ascend again.

Not a question of if, but how and when.

A sensory theater, nothing more, nothing less.

Everything is founded on one assumption or another.

Still the mind, and the entire universe dissolves into nothing.

* * * *

Far more balanced, to take all transcendent metaphors figuratively.

Literal interpretations all too often, miss the point and purpose entirely,

And leave in their wake, endless absurdity and horror, suffering of every sort.

* * * *

Inhale … exhale … inhale … exhale …

Each breath streaming without break into the next.

Eternal, absolute, indivisible, complete, essential, every moment,

From the launching of temporal impermanence,

To its most certain conclusion.

* * * *

Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, eons,

What are they but constructs of consciousness,

Ensnared in its own imaginary net.

* * * *

Neither forward nor backward, toward nor away,

Space-time is but a flickering of imagination,

Born of the eternal now, forever unknown.

* * * *

In the end, it shall be as it was in the beginning,

All middles, and befores, afters, and durings, too.

* * * *

What does anyone fear but their own imagination?

* * * *

There is nothing, to which to worship or plead, really.

Here you are, the indivisible, trapped in a body, all alone,

Dreaming out the unfolding collusion of the human paradigm.

All religion is founded upon the ignorance of this fundamental fact.

* * * *

So many experiences, so much history, so much knowledge, so much blather.

Nothing more than the filter of imagination given daily reality,

Cloaking the ever-present now from its Self.

Human beings quarrel over this and that, and that and this,

As if anything anyone declares or does really matters,

Any more than whether a river trickles or roars.

The ineffable mystery is what it is, has ever been, will ever be,

And nothing can ever add or detract from its unfathomable, indivisible nature.

The only thing that is perhaps even the least bit relevant,

Is our relationship with the countless things,

Its indelibility has made manifest,

Including ourselves.

* * * *

What are the imaginary dualities to You,

Who is the fundamental awareness in all things.

You, who is serene witness to all creation.

Known or unknown, done or undone,

Oblivion is your singular nature.

* * * *

Your inquiry into the ultimate vision,

Creates ripples, in which others,

Are called to do the same.

* * * *

Who is the you who is born?

Who is the you who exists?

Who is the you who dies?

* * * *

For all its agony and ecstasy,

Existence is really come and gone,

In the merest blink of any given universe.

* * * *

The true believer is hooked and lined and sinkered.

The atheist is just as assured of his indefensible beliefs.

The agnostic wanders about freely, serenely, in all camps.

* * * *

Profound advice and counsel is really only of use,

To those relative few who possess the ears to hear and eyes to see.

And if not, what is the point and purpose of huffing and puffing, howling and growling?

All anyone can really do is toss a few seeds onto whatever ground is wandered.

And allow the deaf and blind to harvest in whatever way they will.

What is not to appreciate about the reality, that That from which you are created,

Is absolutely indifferent to your vain pretense of an existence.

Oblivion is the destiny of all creations.

So it goes, deal with it, get over it, move on.

* * * *

How small is small? How large is large? How real is real?

Science can only measure as much as it has gadgets,

To extend its feeble reach and limited vision.

* * * *

You are in the great reality no different,

Than a shifting grain of sand,

A mildly wafting breeze,

A crashing wave.

Or a flickering flame.

Earth … Wind … Water … Fire,

And the Ether in which they together dance,

They are you, and you, them.

* * * *

Through the ages,

You have awakened to Self,

In many forms, many places, many ways.

To believe only humankind capable of enlightenment,

Is the limiting ignorance of self-absorption.

Self is, without any bounds.

* * * *

Settle for creed, and you will live out existence,

According to the will of some other or another,

None of whom really know any more than you.

* * * *

This moment would know no other moment,

If not for the play of memory,

Founded upon a neurological mutation,

That began evolving when Eden was but a garden.

There is only past and future in the movement of consciousness.

* * * *

The measurement of all that is manifest in this vast theater of time and space,

Is really nothing more than a vain attempt to quantify the immeasurable’s sheen.

The senses pull you out into the world,

Into an inexplicable, seemingly inexhaustible universe.

You journey this way and that, entranced with all there is to know and do,

But the ultimate journey is into the source of all journeys,

Into the totality of the indivisibility within.

* * * *

In the ether of the quantum matrix, the four elements,

Stream all about the awareness you truly are.

They cannot bind nor compel but through attachment,

To the ephemeral, vaporous, mesmerizing reverie they inspire.

* * * *

So many games, so many intrigues,

So many vanities, so many twists and turns.

A journey through a winding maze,

All to simply discern,

What you were from the get-go.

* * * *

Your universe is you.

What point judging,

What you have created,

And every moment sustain?

* * * *

All differences are imagined.

Prior to consciousness,

It is all you,

One,

Eternally alone,

Free of all mortal constraints.

* * * *

Deeper and deeper, ever deeper,

Into the indivisible abyss of the primal source.

There can be no end, to that to which, there was never a beginning.

* * * *

If it is peace, tranquility, serenity, harmony, equanimity, stillness that you pursue,

It is not in these words, nor any others, in which it will be discerned.

Only in the sanctity of the awareness of your true Self,

Will you find that for which you long.

The reward for services rendered,

No matter for good or ill, is certain death.

Our fear-ridden, superstitious species manufactured,

Deities, heavens, hells, reincarnation, every conceivable notion,

Just to cope, to endure the unavoidable, intrinsic oblivion.

Too excruciatingly real to face it being all for naught.

* * * *

Most yearn for simple, clear, engraved-in-stone messages.

Canons, laws, rules, codes, policies, procedures that they can live by.

Not easy existing in a universe interwoven by relativity.

There are no absolutes but the absolute.

* * * *

What is emancipation but a quality of mind,

Free of any and all encumbrances, any and all notions.

Unfurl your essential, unconditional sovereignty,

Into the stillness of untainted awareness.

* * * *

The tree of knowledge,

Is a cacophony of imagination,

Allowed every direction and meaning.

The indivisible totality, that which is, and is not,

Is indifferent to all that is, and is not.

* * * *

What can a passing wave,

Know of its Self?

A swell, a whorl, a crash,

And foamy dissolution into the next.

Any given container is but a temporal instrument,

Out from which the solitary witness peers.

* * * *

Truth is not comfortable,

For those not comfortable with truth.

It has a way of becoming a lie when lost in translation.

* * * *

Happiness, sorrow, anger, hate, joy, love,

Emotions of any rhyme or reason, thoughts of any caliber,

Passions of any variety, what are they to the awareness you truly are, really?

Put behind you all the teachers and teachings in which time has played,

And discern the fundamental reality they reveal within you.

They are but ambiguous, imaginary ghosts;

You are the oneness abiding dreamtime’s here now.

* * * *

Take care, else you will find the Armageddon you seek.

* * * *

Truth is a state, a quality of beingness,

The momentary, timeless, ephemeral awareness,

Not a vain assertion of consciousness.

* * * *

No point in not trying.

Worst case, all you can do is fail,

Be seriously injured, perhaps crippled for life,

Or die a painful, meaningless death.

* * * *

For the want of any proof,

Any verification, any evidence,

Any rational, scientific corroboration,

Hope, faith, belief, mythology, superstition,

And every other form of conviction,

Are sustained across the board.

* * * *

What suffering to be attached to a dream,

No matter how real, how tangible it seems.

* * * *

It is ever and always the same awareness within.

Only the play of imagination cloaks it otherwise.

* * * *

For those earnestly subscribing to the scientific model,

Everything, every moment, is an on-going experiment.

* * * *

He with the most toys, wins what, actually?

Who owns anything really but a swirl of quantum dust,

Briefly patterned, briefly molded, into one temporal form or another.

When oil runs out, and trucks no longer roll;

When ozone dissipates, and radiation pours through;

When oceans are depleted of life, and only watery desert remains;

When chemistry has unleashed every fury, and no longer holds nature at bay;

When ice has melted, and millions must move where there is no room;

When humankind reaches its zenith, and into collapse spirals;

What will we two-leggeds do, but fall to our knees,

And perhaps, only perhaps, rise again.

* * * *

We must all play out the consequences of the given dreamtime.

Heaven or hell, same moment, just different qualities of mind.

* * * *

Put aside the filter within your cluttered mind,

Discern directly whatever is before you.

It is your narrative of the world,

Your story of the universe.

Witness it as clearly and simply,

As the given conditioned mind allows.

* * * *

I see your face, and you see mine.

Why is it, we cannot see our own?

* * * *

You are the sky, not the weather;

The awareness, not the elements.

All is just distraction from what is.

* * * *

Chew your liquids, drink your solids.

Create the sensory playhouse ever anew.

* * * *

Reshuffling the deck is not changing the game.

* * * *

Sooner or later, our little creation will crash and burn.

So it goes, deal with it, get over it, move on.

Just be ready to roll with the punches,

When Mother Gaia lays down her one and only law,

And proves beyond any doubt, what has always really been in charge.

How many forms has it been?

How many lifetimes? How many universes?

How many theaters? How many plays born of consciousness?

And before all time, who was there to say?

And after all time,

Who will there be to say?

* * * *

No doubt we can probably all afford,

To be a bit less pretentious, a smidgen more humble,

Considering the entire universe may well be,

About as significant as a grain of sand,

In the breadth and depth of it all.

* * * *

Neither male nor female,

Good nor bad, right nor wrong,

Light nor dark, high nor low, near nor far.

Awareness is without principle.

* * * *

Are you the dream, streaming?

Or the stream, dreaming?

* * * *

The you, you think you are,

Is not the You, You really are.

* * * *

Same old, same old,

Or same new, same new?

Just a quality of mind, an attitude,

Played out each and every fluid moment.

* * * *

All the pleasures of mind and senses,

Do they really even hold a flickering candle,

To the equanimity of pure, unadulterated awareness?

* * * *

Why would not the source permeate every part and particle?

How small-minded to even for a moment imagine,

Anything could be anything but indivisible.

How long are we going to quarrel,

Over which dogma is true,

Which version of the mystery is real,

When the only thing that has ever really been argued,

Are the imaginary notions born of one geographical assumption or another.

* * * *

The awareness at the source of all manifestation will ever wander along,

With whatever dream consciousness wishes to play out.

Creation, preservation, destruction,

You choose.

* * * *

History is a capricious thing.

It generally only reminisces the survivors,

And in the rise and fall of all things, everyone eventually loses.

So, what does that say about the whirl,

And all its ado?

* * * *

But what can you really want, expect, or hope from those,

Who do not comprehend the relativity of all differences?

* * * *

Any given religion was once a cult.

And every cult was a fabrication,

Founded on a pack of assumptions,

Likely concocted by a charismatic persona,

Willingly accepted by a small group prone to following,

Who conditioned their progeny to believe with little or no question.

And voilà, yet another organized religion is born,

To brew what havoc it surely does.

All too predictable.

* * * *

The ultimate reality is, that each and every one of us,

Has the opportunity to discern the mystery we all equally are.

But the conditioning, the mindsets, the traditions, the dogmas, the memes,

The identification of consciousness with the mind, the heart, the body, the world, the universe,

Have humankind locked in a stranglehold, entirely of its own imaginary creation.

We are on a sure and unwavering course toward self-destruction,

An unfolding well beyond the point of no return.

What will come of it, is the pulp of dystopian fiction.

What will it be like to never have to bother,

About this human or any other mortal condition ever again?

No meaning, no purpose, no desire, no fear, no pain, no suffering, no ego, no vanity.

No physical, no mental, no emotional concerns, one way or another.

Nirvana, serenity, bliss, call it what you will,

Just die to it all now.

* * * *

Long before it was ever said and done, you were on your own.

After it is said and done, you will be on your own.

And while it is being said and done,

You are on your own.

* * * *

Everything manifest,

And the time through which it wafts,

Is the complete and utter construction of imagination.

For in the nowness, there is only eternity,

And the witness abiding all.

* * * *

Any given scientist in any given field,

Can only offer as objective an observation,

As the relativity of subjectivity allows.

* * * *

Mother Nature will teach you,

Everything you need to know,

If you can survive the lesson.

* * * *

What is real? And what is not real?

And how real can real ever really be?

* * * *

What are the so-called chakras but nerve centers,

Hubs to vast universes born of sensory fabrication.

* * * *

Being untrue or unkind with your words,

Taking anything personally, making assumptions, not doing your best,

Not questioning all things profoundly, not listening;

What good ever comes of it?

Both believer and atheist,

Pretend to know there is or is not a god.

But that you are is really the only fact worth considering,

And of the source of this infinite mystery, no one can really know anything.

Of the ultimate truth, the most earnest remain agnostic.

* * * *

There is likely a fair-to-middling amount of history remaining,

For humankind to play out its ceaseless passions,

And, alas, there is not much money,

On it being very pretty.

* * * *

Ignorance has always worshipped one rock or another.

Intelligent design is a far more infinite source,

Than any dogma will ever ascertain.

* * * *

So many as affluent as anyone can possibly be,

And still they want more, more, more.

How do you run that hard,

On empty?

* * * *

Time being what it is, and what it is not,

How could it be, really, that any deity,

Was any younger or older than you?

* * * *

Who is the who, who does anything?

Question the doer-ship, question the who.

* * * *

Surely, that which is mystery, that which is truth,

Is far, far greater, than any vanity would ever allow.

* * * *

My story, your story, his story, her story, our story, the story.

All simultaneous; all absolutely, indivisibly, eternally imagined.

* * * *

Good and evil are dualistic, arbitrary notions, created by imagination.

They are nothing more than echoes across the expanses of the singularity.

The journey of awakening to the indivisible seems an individual struggle,

An awareness of the vast totality to which the human species,

May or may not be capable of collectively partaking,

Before the temporal dream of consciousness,

Reaches its inevitable conclusion.

Oh well and so it goes.

Never really mattered anyway.

* * * *

As many grooves, deep or shallow,

That one may have etched upon life’s soundtrack,

It is still nothing more than a brief collection of vague memories.

That is truly all it is, has ever been, will ever be.

In the dreamtime of any given universe.

Wishing vanity to count for more,

Will never ever make it so.

* * * *

If anything is sacred, everything is sacred.

If everything is sacred, nothing is sacred.

* * * *

Anything can be usurped.

Anything can be distorted.

Anything can be rationalized.

Anything can be obliterated.

* * * *

It has ever been the same.

Only the illusion changes.

* * * *

You must step back,

Very far, very deep within,

To discern the reality, You truly are.

* * * *

What is human history but ceaseless struggle,

Over whose imagination should reign the moment.

Who was the very first to come up with the fanciful notion,

That we two-leggeds might someday, somehow, all come together,

Into one big happily-dancing-Age-of-Aquarius family?

Out-and-out balderdash, to be sure.

How much attention can be focused on any given dream?

The senses furnish an all-but-infinite, ever-streaming, lightshow of a universe,

And from that, even the sharpest of minds, can only briefly harbor,

The vaguest perception, of a very finite existence.

* * * *

Most partake fully the agonies and ecstasies of consciousness,

But only the rare scrutinize its nature closely enough,

To discern its source far more interesting.

* * * *

The perceptions of any given moment,

Are quickly recorded into subjective memories,

Wherein time is contrived and projected,

Into what dreams may come.

This we call living.

* * * *

Existence is a smoky reverie,

Really nothing more than consciousness,

And the ever-churning elements,

Colluding themselves real.

* * * *

What moment is not creation?

What moment, not preservation?

What moment, not destruction?

* * * *

History, a bottomless grab bag,

In the vast immensity of imagination.

Nothing more than whatever comes to mind.

* * * *

It takes a great deal of mettle,

To doubt to the essential core of awareness.

Immortal fare is not for the meek who will inherit the earth,

And the dreaming it every moment inspires.

* * * *

Existence as it is known, is nothing more than a foggy swirl of perceptions.

Eternal life is timeless awareness, free of memory, free of known.

It is the end of passion’s craving for any form or concept.

There is tabula rasa, an uncarved block, an unrippled soul, within,

But the imaginary, make-believe you, formed of consciousness,

Must become very still, very quiet, for its awareness to reign.

* * * *

All creatures small to great are ultimately equal.

Pedestals and hierarchies only generate inequity.

We are all the same clay making different play.

* * * *

Break away from the security of the herd,

If you truly wish to be free of all claims.

* * * *

We attach concepts to sounds.

Sounds imprison, sounds free.

* * * *

Ignorance has a tendency,

To move much farther, much faster,

Than anything close to truth.

* * * *

No matter the worldly speck of universe,

In which you abide, explore, play, endure;

The essential source is forever the same.

* * * *

What is the word, love, but a sound,

A sentimental concept, a neurological condition,

An exclusively temporal human fabrication,

Projected upon an indifferent universe.

* * * *

If you are told there is an avalanche headed your way,

Is that negativity, or a warning to get off the mountain?

* * * *

Another story.

Stories, stories, stories.

All filled with the same this, the same that.

And what have we really created in our dreamtime ascendancy,

But unprecedented vanity and pathos.

Across the cosmos, everything is nature, and everything abides by the laws of nature.

Like any flower in a meadow, consciousness is but one of nature’s countless expressions,

And no matter how relentlessly it might try, it will never supersede or escape the natural bounds.

* * * *

The monkey-mind festers in its vain intolerance of any difference it cannot abide.

The wisdom of insecurity in the indivisibility of all things,

Is the abode of the rare few.

* * * *

You are not the body, the mind, the breath,

The thing, the experience, or any other.

You are the witness to all things,

None of them all the while.

* * * *

If you truly seek heaven on earth,

You must fathom it within and without,

The ever-streaming here and now.

* * * *

You cannot even see your nose clearly,

How could you possibly see your face?

* * * *

Who is the who, who wonders who is who?

What is the what, what wonders what is what?

Where is the where, where wonders where is where?

When is the when, when wonders when is when?

Why is the why, why wonders why is why?

How is the how, how wonders how is how?

* * * *

The universe is an absorbing dream.

Leave no stone that interests you unturned,

Until the novelty of turning of stones loses its sheen,

And you are at last content to merely be, whatever the weather.

* * * *

True science requires any given scientist, any given researcher,

To approach the question, the problem, the puzzle, the hypothesis, the experiment,

With as much objective, impartial integrity as can be mustered.

Damn the funding, full inquiry ahead.

So many heinous crimes against others committed,

For which no consequence is paid, no punishment is meted out.

Karma, heaven and hell, god’s judgment, or whatever else it may be dubbed,

Is the desolate despair of victims for a revenge, they themselves,

Have neither the power nor opportunity to exact.

* * * *

To keep on searching for something more, when all there is, is nothing,

Is like the mythical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,

And the rainbow, no matter how enchanting,

Always just another mirage.

* * * *

Most cultures tend to use religion to control the masses,

Framing the big punishment as some sort of hell.

What they all really are is just mind games,

Fear traps to get you to toe the line.

Practice karmic nonchalance,

And wander freely, however you will.

* * * *

How you engage in your dream,

Is truly your own affair, and always has been.

What any other may think about it,

Is only as important,

As the weight you give it.

* * * *

How old are you if you were never born?

How young are you if you will never die?

* * * *

The gambler,

Has an irrational hope,

The s/he can somehow master luck;

The weak, power; the poor, wealth; the sick, health;

The hungry, famine; the disturbed, sanity;

And the foolish, wisdom.

* * * *

To fathom complete and utter freedom,

One must be very at rest in the momentary awareness.

Eternal life is not for those still seduced by the dream of manifest time.

No collusion ever imagined by any group has ever possessed the truth.

All mythologies are but metaphors of every complexity,

Woven into every guise, every shape.

* * * *

The mind naturally stills when it is paying attention;

Observing closely, both within and without.

The restless mind requires hope;

The still one does not.

Hope fulfilled, is its residence.

* * * *

Everything you think you are,

Everything you think the world is,

Is all completely imagined.

Everything.

* * * *

Truth is not the Yahweh of Moses,

The Allah of Muhammad,

The God of Jesus,

The Tao of Lao Tzu,

The Brahman of Krishna,

Nor the Buddha of Siddhartha.

It is That, which has neither name nor face.

It is the source prior to all assertions,

Born of the capricious mind.

* * * *

You really do not even possess your life,

Much less all the material things,

With which you have surrounded yourself.

Temporary custody is the most anything can be had.

* * * *

The limitless, irrepressible, inquiring mind,

Meanders wherever, however, whenever it pleases.

It does not just ponder outside the stifling box, it dissolves it.

* * * *

Good and evil, right and wrong,

Are but the fabrications of imagination gone amok,

And in no way exists in anything but the delusions born of the human mind.

It is the rare mind that has the wit to examine anything and everything,

Without being befuddled by anything in particular,

Nor everything in general.

* * * *

Knowledge cleaves this unfathomable mystery of consciousness,

Into every sort of dualistic conception under the sun.

The forbidden was harvested, and Eden lost.

Fallen monkeys, indeed.

And this pillaged garden will hobble on,

For as long as humankind survives its memories real.

* * * *

What can the tabula rasa know of original sin,

Until the neuron trail is packed full,

Of monkey-mind blather?

* * * *

You could do this,

Or … you could do that.

Or that or this … or this or that.

Or you could just stay at home all alone,

And do absolutely nothing-nada-nichts-ikke noget.

It is your fate your dream, to play out,

However you will.

* * * *

You only think you exist.
You only think you are the body,
You only think you are the world, the universe.
Is anything born of the mind ever more,
Than a quickly passing dream?

* * * *
Noise, noise, noise, endless noise.

Empty vessels blaring, spewing cacophony,

Echoes of consciousness playing out such paltry dreams.

* * * *

Zen-ish riddlers abound in every moment,

Every corner of this temporal, worldly dreamtime.

For ignorance to awaken to their paradoxical irony, however,

Is too unlikely, to even bother imagining for more than a pittance of time.

Any Supreme Being must surely be an amalgamation of all the greats:

Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Superman,

Harvey, Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, and Captain Hook.

Much easier to accept any given phantasm,

Than to doubt to the nth degree.

* * * *

The obvious is what more than a few need to hear.

But how can anyone ever quest the truth,

Unless they really no longer have,

Any choice in the matter?

* * * *

The three vanities: power, fame, fortune.
About which the human paradigm has,
Since its rise in the jungle, revolved.

* * * *

This moment, this very moment,

Is all you really have.

Use it wisely,

For it is already gone.

* * * *

Immortal Soul, mortal body,

* * * *

So much quibbling over nothing.

* * * *

A cotton candy mirage of mind and senses.

* * * *

To gaze out into the sensory theater,

And recognize nothing,

And look within and discern the same.

It is to that, which all who hear the call, unknowingly aspire.

* * * *

The one thing of which You can be very certain, across all time, across all space.

Is that You are not at all separate from anything, in any way, at any moment.

How do You discern this? Because You are the dreamer dreaming it all.

You are the seamless, singular awareness, the one and only reality.

The atheist is as misguided as any believer.

All assertions are but the self-deceptions of imagination.

Agnostic |agˈnästik| noun: a person who believes that nothing is known,

Or can be known, of the existence or nature of God,

Or of anything beyond material phenomena;

A person who claims neither faith,

Nor disbelief in God.

* * * *

How is it so many expect others to be defined,

By the many limits to which they alone aspire?

* * * *

The quantum singularity is God.

All inclusive, including You.

* * * *

You are awareness.

The rest is imagination.

Life is surfing within a dream,

Until the wave crashes.

* * * *

Every life form,

That has ever lived,

Died that you might live.

And every life form yet to come,

Will flower from your ripple the same.

* * * *

If religions are all they claim to be,

Then there must be more than one god.

So, are they all warring with the same devil,

Or is there more than one of those bad boys, too?

And how many heavens and hells are harvesting souls?

Or how many reincarnations must one endure?

Ooh, ouch, ouch, ouch … brain freeze.

* * * *

All anyone really knows, is what they, or somebody else, thought up.

All things fashioned of consciousness are nothing more,

Than the effervescence of imagination,

In the stardust of mind.

Why be at all concerned or bothered,

About awakening smoke to its ephemeral nature?

Is it any wonder that those rare few who realize their true nature,

Become very silent, very still, even in the greatest din?

* * * *

Every life form that is born of this mysterious essence,

Creates and experiences its own finite universe,

With the same awareness inherent in all.

We are all That which never sleeps,

Is never born, and never dies.

* * * *

The world is teeming with every sort of absurd claim.

The only real marvel is that we cannot discern,

All are ultimately of the same mystery.

* * * *

You are human in form only.

A very temporary state,

To which you need not feel obliged,

But through the caprice of voluntary deliberation.

* * * *

Things just sort of happen.

To claim it is for a reason or not,

Is to miss that all is indivisibly seamless,

And cause and effect are nothing more than illusion.

* * * *

What difference between a moment ago,

And the one just before you were conceived?

All figments within the ether of an indivisible matrix.

* * * *

The body is not You; You are not the body.

You have no body, you never have, and you never will.

The mortal container is merely a fleeting means to one end or another.

A formless, indivisible infinity, without foundation,

Without beginning, without conclusion.

Awareness is the cradle,

From which all things rise into being;

The coffin to which all things are one day laid to rest.

Knowing You are solitary witness to Your version of the theater,

Discerning You are awareness manifest, how will You play out your role?

Will You be angel, or demon, or some spontaneous blend between?

It is Your reverie to do as Your desire, Your law, dictates.

Be it heaven or hell, or some purgatory between,

It is Your creation, and Your will be done.

* * * *

Every point and particle of this dream,

Is ultimately to fully perceive the singular truth,

That You are the eternal upwelling, that You are That I Am.

By whatever arbitrary sound You may describe it,

That Truth … that Life … that Way …

Is the awareness You ever are.

* * * *

A very ubiquitous, mysterious reality,

In which every life plays out a little dream,

On a maze of stage that meanders this way and that,

Until in the death of breath, do they part.

* * * *

Who cares if there is but one lifetime or many?

In reality, the ultimate source, the You,

You really are, has been all.

And this existence,

Is the one and only one,

To which attention need be given.

It is in this moment that all futures are created.

* * * *

Wrangling over which notion of divinity reigns supreme,

Is for those many who have not yet put away childish things.

* * * *

Oblivion is the end to all lies, all fabrications, all self-deceptions.

It is the vital source, the essence prior to all becoming.

It is the experiencing prior to all experience,

The intangible prior to all that is tangible,

The awareness prior to consciousness,

The actuality prior to all that is imagined,

The substantial prior to all that is insubstantial,

That which is prior to all context, prior to all manifest dreams.

The big lesson humankind is still hard-pressed to learn, hard-pressed to even begin to grasp,

Is that absolutely everything is connected at every level across the board.

Each and every particle working, playing, dancing together,

Every simultaneous, unrehearsed moment,

To create this grand dream.

That so many take it all for granted,

And deceive themselves and others in so many ways,

That we have become so absurdly disjointed, is folly beyond the pale.

* * * *

Any given group, any given alliance, evolves and maintains an equilibrium,

Between the needs of the individual, and the needs of the group.

Imbalance either way creates a tension in the dynamic,

Remedied either by the individual's departure,

Or a change in the group's dynamic.

* * * *

How many instances have you given heart and mind and spirit,

To one thing or another, only to watch it all go badly?

So it goes, deal with it, get over it, move on.

It is really only a mysterious dream.

Some get a pleasant reverie;

Others a dark nightmare.

Discern the greatest context,

And be content, be at peace, be in grace,

That it was your mystery-given destiny, to play it so.

* * * *

From the quietude of boundless slumber, awareness awakens,

And gazing into the pool of memories, stokes the dream into another day.

Dust to dust, a few breaths, a few thoughts, between.

Let the vanity have its way.

* * * *

It is a most curious thing how so many writers,

Feel required to leave some hopeful taste in the reader’s mouth.

The reality of it is that this garden world’s prospects are growing bleaker every day.

There is absolutely no precedent for this manifest mirage as it is unfolding.

Eight billion cancer cells could be nine billion in ten or twenty years,

Assuming it is not well into dystopian collapse long before that.

And, so sorry, there is no way our little two-legged brain,

Is going to keep things rolling forever, no matter,

How ingenious we believe ourselves to be.

When Jesus is rumored to have long ago asserted, “I am the Truth, the Life, and the Way,”

What seems to have been unheard, mislaid, or perhaps edited out, was … “And so are you.”

* * * *

Time-bound inner chatter is the consequence of inattention to the eternal moment.

A mind naturally becomes still when it is absorbed in whatever is happening.

There is no method, there is no how, merely a focus akin to a laser beam.

* * * *

We are all in the ultimate reality the same pure awareness.

It is neither yours, nor mine, nor anyone else's.

It is simply consciousness playing out,

The ethereal moment’s imaginary potential.

* * * *

To be born again into the source of all things,

Is to discard everything and just be,

The stillness of no-mind.

Be … still.

* * * *

Are you a body, experiencing awareness?

Or awareness, experiencing a body?

Or perhaps, both and neither?

* * * *

You are, in this aphoristic collection,

As well as in countless other handiworks,

Across this dreamy theater of time and space,

Made aware of your essential, indivisible nature.

Gifts, from its truest, most earnest witnesses.

* * * *

All wrapped up in our little pattern, are we?

Tch, tch, well, try to just slow down, try to just unwind,

To that pointless point, prior to all beginnings, and after all endings,

And you will muddle through, sally on, for the duration.

* * * *

In all the incalculable star systems strewn across whatever infinity entails,

There may be many worlds, many dimensions, packed with life forms of every variety.

And yet, ours may be the only one with consciousness as we perceive it,

And, much to our chagrin, we will very likely never know.

All dogmas discuss, debate, battle, over imagined facets of the same origin.

Different metaphors, different archetypes, different interpretations,

Different sounds, different principles, different speculations.

Different this … different that … different whatever.

All struggling over the same eternal source,

The same inexplicable fountainhead,

Over and over and over again.

* * * *

That You are one with all, is not something to be taken vainly, narcissistically,

But as something to be discerned at the very essence of Your being.

The kingdom is the sovereignty of the indivisible source,

Within all things both manifest and unmanifest.

The eternal matrix is all-inclusive,

Including even You.

* * * *

Here You are pretending this manifest existence,

That is so full of vanity, so unreal all the while.

You are That I Am, nothing more, nothing less.

* * * *

There is only one awareness,

There is only one consciousness,

Splintered into an endless array of forms,

Playing out every prospect imagination deigns.

A capricious ocean of surging tides and crashing waves,

But an ocean, nonetheless.

* * * *

‘Supreme Being’ is being, in the most,

Omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent way.

It is less about some imaginary, individual deity,

Than it is the austerity of pure, unadulterated awareness.

Agape is the indivisible, unconditional, impersonal indifference.

* * * *

Face it, one day, sooner or later,

The body is going to give that bucket a mighty kick.

But until then, get out there, and partake whatever living you can muster,

So that you can realize, without malice or concern,

It is all really no big deal,

Just worm’s breath in the making.

That which we call God, is the quantum essence which is never born, and can never die.

But if there were a personalized supreme divinity, that so many have imagined,

He, she, it – or whatever – would more than likely be bored to tears,

Having to daily endure the ceaselessly predictable inanities,

Of our two-legged, thumb-wagging, tool-making, monkey-mind kind,

And the ongoing devastation, of what is very likely one of eternity’s greatest creations.

* * * *

There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to suspect, much less believe,

There is some sort of supreme being outside your Self,

Or at least one that does not also include You.

How could any of this be happening,

Without Your participation,

To the very core of Your beingness.

Any duality is false, from all beginnings, to all ends.

* * * *

All of us doing whatever it is we want to do,

Is pretty much the human paradigm in a nutshell.

* * * *

The set and costumes change,

But the monkey-mind stays the same.

If it is some sort of paradigm shift you pursue,

It can only manifest in your mind, and your mind alone.

Be whatever change, You wish the world to be.

* * * *

In youth, life is full of vitality and learning,

But mortal reality – injury, illness, aging, death –

Gradually erode the many illusions of blissful ignorance.

Questions arise about the ever-changing light show of the universe.

And those who give it earnest and unwavering attention,

Discern the awareness, and its immortal nature.

* * * *

How is it anyone truly believes some sort of alien race was required to create our kind,

Or set us on some sort of long, winding, convoluted, evolutionary journey?

How is it anyone could gaze upon this astonishing garden planet,

And not assume it entirely capable of being the source,

Of all the innumerable life forms it sustains?

It is a curious thing that so many require the belief,

In some outside intervention, to explain the mystery they are.

All concepts are merely concepts, no matter how noble or corrupt.

They morph, they dissipate, they are all nothing more,

Than brief, transitory, imaginary whims.

* * * *

By the time you recognize and react to any given memory,

Awareness has already moved on to the next,

And the many nexts beyond that.

And on and on,

An eternal, immortal sprite,

You can never touch, never catch, only be.

* * * *

Sometimes it is heaven, sometimes it is hell.

Consciousness is flip-flop like that.

Awareness does not care.

* * * *

That which is mystery is within,

To whatever degree you feel called,

To discern the infinity beyond all pales.

* * * *

We are all given different destinies,

Through which we may discern,

The truth of our common essence,

If we leverage the mettle and veracity.

* * * *

Once all memories have dissolved,

Will anything have ever really happened?

All history is but a fleeting game of make-believe.

* * * *

It seems more than a little curious,

That so many would choose dogma and idolatry,

Over the infinite treasure in all things, in all places, in all times.

* * * *

It is suffering that compels us to scrutinize our universes more closely.

We were all immortal before the manifest dream inspired us to doubt otherwise.

What a master teacher, pain, in all its ever-changing ways and means,

For as long as its lessons can be endured, and survived.

Do not be at all intimidated by all that has been said, done, and written.

It has all been You from the beginning of all beginnings,

And will be until the end of all endings.

And, of course,

Before and after all that, as well.

* * * *

Life is really but a simple riddle,

The answer to which is nothing more than it is as it is.

There is really no should or should not,

Nor ought or ought not to be,

About any of it.

* * * *

What more do you really need to do, to experience,

That has not been played out in spades,

Times beyond counting?

* * * *

What is heaven but hope, and hell, dread.

The nectar of awareness is prior to both.

* * * *

You see only what you perceive.

You see only what you know.

You see only what you believe.

Everyone is but a frame of reference.

* * * *

What desire, what fear can there be,

If you are immersed in the awareness,

Of the unfolding ever-present moment?

* * * *

All dogma, all vanity, all everything,

Ripples from consciousness, not awareness.

From mind, not that which is witness to all creation.

* * * *

Time to get up, suit up,

Stoke up the will, put on the game face,

Head out the door, wander down the road less traveled,

And try not to make too much of an errant jester of yourself again today.

Who, what, where, when, why, how … does any universe come into being,

But through the awareness of the observer, the beholder, the witness.

All based on structure, sensory input, capacities and limitations.

Every creature small to great resides in a cosmos of its own weaving.

* * * *

Ultimately, there is no evil, there is no sin, there is no dark side.

There is only corrupted, twisted, perverted consciousness.

There is only the veiling, the muddying of awareness.

There is only ignorance and delusion and duality.

Evil does not truly exist in any way or shape or form,

But through the vanity-vanity-all-is-vanity of imagination.

* * * *

So easy to be caught up in dogma, especially your own.

These words are designed to unlock within you,

What is within all things small to great.

Do not make them the harbor,

Of some vain drama.

* * * *

What is within? A formless sea.

What is without? A formless sea.

The mortal container is but a dream,

Born of the sensory mind.

There is no other.

The formless,

Is source to all.

* * * *

History has never repeated itself.

It merely recycles the same patterns.

* * * *

In a world full of idol-worshippers,

Who are those who seek the truth within?

Many are called, few are inclined.

* * * *

All vanity is absolutely insignificant to that which is prior to time.

The entire quantum universe is but an immeasurable, timeless ocean,

In which all manifest forms appear and disappear in the smelter of what is.

You are simply one witness, playing out a mortal reverie, for but a brief while.

The senses offer an ever-kaleidoscoping, timeless universe.

Why be overly concerned about where it has been, or where it is headed,

When the ever-present nowness is in itself so extraordinary;

A mystery to be witnessed however any wills.

* * * *

The mountains of the so-called spiritual climb,

Are not really about any particular geography or time.

The metaphors of philosophers should only rarely,

Be taken as more than figurative wordplay.

* * * *

As challenging as it can be to recall,

When push comes to shove,

There is not much use,

Getting too upset about things.

* * * *

Imagination is the time machine.

Travel where you will, Pilgrim.

* * * *

Once a placid, winding river,

The roar of the falls is now very near,

And resounding nearer each and every moment.

Who will survive the chaotic mayhem,

In the harsh rocks below?

Who will journey,

The waterway of history,

Beyond the coming Great Fall,

And what stories will their destinies tell?

* * * *

Who will be the last historian,

The last chronicler of the human paradigm?

Who will be the last to discern, to set down all that has passed,

Since the first recording of humanity’s dream?

* * * *

Paradigms within paradigms within paradigms.

Paradigms of indiscernible proportion, dancing in the froth of consciousness,

Flowing with all the other paradigms about this earthly jacuzzi.

Paradigms within paradigms within paradigms.

Waking up to yet another dreamy day,

Trapped in a body racked with one bother or another,

The mind willy-nilly between agony and ecstasy, exasperation and rapture.

Curious how thought can play the gamut between amusing and tiring from one moment to the next.

What ceaselessly pointless vainglorious absurdity, this much ado about nothing.

The appeal of ever returning to this manifest dreamtime,

Has pretty much run its course.

* * * *

“Let us play a game of irony and paradox,” suggested one quantum.

“With every agony and ecstasy imaginable,” added another.

“And a slathering of absurdity,” suggested a third.

“But why bother?” moaned a fourth.

“Why not?” said yet another.

“Indeed,” agreed all the others.

* * * *

What a baffling, vexing, amazing, even astonishing thing,

To run into supposedly intelligent people who lack the doubt,

And are harbor to the critical thinking capacity of potato heads,

When it comes to superstition, and so many other absurdities.

How is it we have survived ourselves as long as we have?

* * * *

The free have no need for dogma.

* * * *

A different day, a different night,

A different container with a different eye,

But ever of the same indivisible essential nature,

No matter the given who, what, where, when, why or how.

* * * *

There is nothing more than this ephemeral now

That can be more than witnessed as a fleeting dream.

Consciousness may play out every distraction imaginable,

But it will never be anything more than the wind of its own design.

* * * *

Who first came up with the idea that God was a separate deity,

And that it must be feared and worshipped and kowtowed to daily?

Who else but someone craving the usual suspects: power, fame, fortune.

And that, along with a few other trifling details, is human history in a nutshell.

Rulers and middlemen and conmen, have since early on,

Observed how simple it is to manipulate the masses to their own ends.

Religion is merely one of the many ways and means,

To herd the sheep this way or that.

* * * *

Awareness has no bond to time and space,

Other than to witness its ever-kaleidoscoping nature.

How can that which is indivisibly eternal,

Ever be bound by any creation?

* * * *

Sometimes serious, sometimes absurd,

Sometimes intelligent, sometimes foolish,

Sometimes divisive, sometimes incisive,

Ever eternally, inscrutably indivisible.

A mystery no matter how long it is,

A mystery no matter how short it is.

* * * *

The knowledge and insights and skills,

You sponge in the early part of your existence,

Will be finely-honed by its middle,

And forgotten by its end.

Live and learn; die anyway.

* * * *

To catch the hungry monkey,

The coconut is baited for desire.

The searching hand goes so easily in,

But will not come out with the fisted delight.

The treat will quickly bring about death,

Unless the frantic creature discerns,

The paradigm of the open hand,

Is freedom's curious irony.

* * * *

Born into this world.

Told you should be someone.

That you should achieve great things.

That you should crave this or that, or that or this.

But what if you neither believe nor yearn nor trouble for any of it?

What if no “should” calls you, what then, Pilgrim? What will you do? What will you be?

Truth is so obvious.

mHow can any resist its simplicity?

How can ignorance be so intractable, so confined?

How can it always so closely, with such complete and utter conviction,

Link up with some propagandized, talking-head, forked-tongue, true-believer, doublespeak?

* * * *

How many worship some imaginary deity, praying for blessings, for forgiveness,

And then spend every other moment possible in one pursuit or another,

Lying, cheating, thieving, even plotting murder and mayhem,

Never discerning their hypocrisy and self-deceit, or just not caring.

* * * *

How much of your life do you worry over this or that?

How many problems do you spin from practically nothing?

How concerned do you get over everything from micro to macro?

To be free in the unruly mind, you must be utterly insecure,

Completely undisturbed, absolutely vulnerable.

* * * *

How is religious conflict even possible?

* * * *

See clearly how your many cravings,

Have molded your many fears,

And discover the vast peace,

In which they churn the suffering.

* * * *

The hedonistic narcissism of vanity,

Is the motivation, the impetus, the engine,

The raison d'être sustaining all attributes human.

* * * *

Sometimes the absurdity makes you laugh out loud,

And in other moments, you are so serious and sorrowful,

That you wail and curse to the vast quagmire of imagination.

* * * *

You need not participate in any mindset, any groupthink, large or small.

Cleanse your mind, your awareness, of all memes, all inventions, all fictions,

All contrivances fashioned of imagination’s perpetual collection of absurd notions.

Stand alone, and be as inwardly free, as the moment before you were conceived.

All the idolatry in the world,

Will not transport anyone any nearer to God,

Than they each and every single one already every moment are.

All scriptures, all dogmas, all images, all symbols, all intermediaries, all assertions,

Are but empty, meaningless, untoward, even tragic distractions.

* * * *

Truth is that which is prior to consciousness,

Prior to all the metaphors that create as many universes,

As there are seeds to sow their dreamy reality.

* * * *

For serenity within and without:

Good food, good water, good breathing,

A predisposition toward simplicity and tranquility,

And good will towards all sentient beings.

True wealth is a state of oneness.

* * * *

Change is the lie.

Truth is eternal, indelibly indivisible,

As still as still can be.

* * * *

All consciousness is of arbitrary design.

The only absolute is the eternal awareness,

Prior to all dreams born of a sensory nature.

* * * *

A drop alone is merely a drop,

But all together they compose a mighty sea.

Such is the nature of awareness, and the infinity of universes,

Made manifest in the ever-kaleidoscoping creation.

* * * *

You truly yearn to know, to touch that which is God?

Then just be very, very still, and in the effortless awareness,

You will discern the true nature permeating all from small to great.

* * * *

The foundation of any religious groupthink is one dogma or another;

All for the longing for something that is not, never was, and will never be.

It requires a timeless mind to discern the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

You who have discerned truth, know it to be you, know it to be me,

Know it to be everything within, everything without.

No need for words, no need for dogma,

The awareness is all.

* * * *

Another minute, another hour, another day, another week,

Another month, another year, another decade,

Another life, another whatever,

Well on their way to being long-forgotten.

* * * *

Peer beneath every pebble you stumble upon,

Until you perhaps someday see clearly,

They are, in the ultimate reality,

All very much the same.

* * * *

Everything changes.

Nothing remains the same.

* * * *

All the puny little labels,

All the sounds given concept,

Ultimately mean absolutely nothing,

But meanwhile, much ado.

* * * *

What a thing to spend an existence,

Locked in dogmas and idolatries;

Bound up in traditions, superstitions;

In fear of some god or gods or demons;

Concerned about heavens or hells or karma.

Why allow imagination to have such free reign?

Why give your Self over to such senseless absurdity?

* * * *

All great seers of the ultimate reality,

Are simply incisive knowers of themselves.

Anyone can apprehend it, if they have the insight,

And an unrelenting, unwavering, blade of discernment.

This is yet another conscious articulation of an age-old inquiry.

Indeed, there is nothing either new or old, under this or any other star.

Why would anyone look to the geocentric,

Ethnocentric, mythological, superstitious rationalizations,

Of mindsets forged thousands of years ago, in ignorance, in fear, in delusion,

Over the verifiable observations of the true scientist.

You, scientist.

* * * *

It really does not matter, one speck, one smidgen, one iota,

What anybody thinks or believes about anything.

You have always been nothing more,

Than the awareness of the eternal present,

Never the dream born of the mind bound in time.

* * * *

Those who ceaseless demand that others,

Conform to their laws, their dogmas,

Their limited, self-absorbed visions,

Is the source of all religious delusion,

The foundation of all political tyranny.

* * * *

Things come as they come,

And go as they go.

Change is.

That is the Way.

Practice benign indifference.

* * * *

Desire and fear are learned.

They are but habits,

Grooves of the rutted mind.

To be free, to discern what is real,

You must put aside fragmented knowledge,

And step lightly in the unfettered waves of beingness.

* * * *

Find a space where you can sit quietly, alone.

Ignore the ever-churning sensory theater.

Allow the thoughts to pass without interference.

Observe completely the beingness throughout the passing.

That simple awareness, that nowness, is the eternal, original nature.

To abide in the essential ever-fleeting moment, the mind still,

Is liberation from the fabrications of false identity.

Not everyone wants to play this silly little human game.

They are often called homeless, but some are more at home than most,

Accepting what is offered, witnessing what there is to witness, wandering as time allows,

Breathing in, breathing out, content to merely abide the dream.

* * * *

The realized state cannot be forced, it cannot be persuaded.

Wisdom and insight are obviously not for all.

There is no use seeking something,

For which there is not the catalyst of doubt.

* * * *

Any given body is merely the outcome of a seed,

A container to which so many become,

More than a little attached,

Despite the oblivion sourcing all.

* * * *

This fleeting, ever-changing dream of time,

Is just another space between the lines,

In history books yet to be written.

* * * *

You only imagine yourself an actual entity.

You were not, you are not, you need not care.

* * * *

Few things are as simple as either/or,

Black or white, right or wrong, this or that.

There is usually a spectrum of convoluted grayness,

To anything examined by the nuanced mind.

* * * *

Move prior to concept, to form, to struggle.

Be simple, carefree, serene, tranquil, absolute, sovereign.

For those lacking discernment, the ceaseless inventions of dualistic notion,

Are but the quagmire of knowledge, of opinions, of beliefs,

Absorption in the voracious mind-body identity,

In the ever-beckoning sirens of desire.

All merely distractions,

From the timeless awareness,

The every-moment one-and-only reality,

Within and without all creations small to great.

Nothing is forever.

Every moment is torn from your grasp.

Every form, every thought, every context, inevitably evaporates,

Into the oblivion of the timeless unfathomability.

* * * *

The whirl of delusion is much more enticing,

Than the rigorous starkness of the ultimate truth.

So, dance, monkeys, dance your time away,

It only matters as long as time allows.

* * * *

Why anyone would believe in a deity,

That wants them or others to suffer,

Is perhaps the only real mystery.

* * * *

Gaze out into the infinite vastness,

Until you discern it swirling,

Within your own eye.

* * * *

There is nothing to hold on to.

There is nothing to be.

Be nothing,

And you will be free.

* * * *

History is full of true believers,

Who every day in so many ways,

Spin time its mind-bound way.

* * * *

For any given life whose destiny it is,

To awaken to the infinite, indivisible nature,

The universe woven together by the mind and senses,

Is merely a means to the ending of time.

* * * *

The identity, the “me, myself, and I,”

Is a concoction, a complete and utter fabrication,

Of imagination’s attachment to the mind-body, its sensory play,

And its incessant penchant for every sort of delusion.

No one can more than point the way helping you see this.

All must discover absoluteness within themselves, very much alone.

Those who own it already can only say a few words,

And beckon you dare the journey.

* * * *

Always remember that all metaphors,

No matter how accurate or profound they sound,

Are not, have never been, will never be,

The reality of the given moment.

* * * *

With every birth, a universe created.

With every death, a universe destroyed.

Such is the nature of consciousness.

* * * *

Not a good idea to assume,

You are bigger, stronger, faster,

Or whatever else than everyone else.

It might be true some of the time,

But it is never true all the time.

* * * *

Without skin, what could you feel?

Without eyes, what could you see?

Without ears, what could you hear?

Without nose, what could you smell?

Without tongue, what could you taste?

Without all functioning simultaneously,

How could your dreamtime universe be?

* * * *

Awareness is not a belief system.

It is that which is prior to consciousness,

And requires nothing but unconditional attention,

For you to be both its master and its servant.

* * * *

Everyone has a view of normal,

From which they gauge their universe.

Being and allowing is an attitude, an equanimity,

For which relatively few possess the detachment and grace.

The human theater is fueled and driven by vain, limited thinking.

In the ultimate perspective of the essential nature, who can more than speculate,

Who was who, what was what, when was when, where was where, why was why, how was how.

To pretend to know anything, is nothing more than the arrogance of ignorance.

* * * *

However you manifest, is a unique outcome of the patterns of the elemental nature.

The existence you play out creates the lessons from which you must learn.

There is no use envying another's providence or decrying your own.

In the final analysis, they are all, of the same beginning,

And inevitably diminish, into the same end.

* * * *

Anything can become dogma for those seeking sanctuary.

That is how the cousins-of-the-same-puddle,

Two-legged-jungle-mind rolls.

* * * *

Wherever you go, whatever you do,

Whatever light show is played out in time,

The oneness You really are, is touched by none of it.

All forms are different containers, appearing to be so diverse,

Yet all filled and surrounded of the same infinity.

* * * *

If this orb was considered a small lifeboat upon an infinite sea,

The prophets, the mystics, the seers, are those who dive over the side,

Explore the unseen depths, and climb back aboard to share their discoveries,

With those clinging passionately to the vain, illusory safety of their berth.

Many, perhaps most, will very quickly turn away and refuse to listen.

Some will quarrel, scoff, or curse, praising imaginary clay gods.

Some will avidly listen, and then label themselves followers.

Some will timidly test the unknown and find it too cold,

Or, worse yet, misguidedly think they, too, have it.

Some, seeing what needs be done, will dive in,

Perhaps to one day also return awakened,

Emptied by the realization of the indivisible.

* * * *

The quantum matrix can indeed be in far more than two dimensions in any given moment.

In fact, it is capable of generating an incalculable number of permutations,

Of anything and everything, wherever consciousness abides.

Far more grand than any deity imaginable.

So many things true, so many things false,

In so many minds, in so many times, in so many spaces.

Yet, no matter how many differences this endless mystery may spawn,

All are, have ever been, will ever be, of the same origin.

* * * *

There is really no you but in the field of imagination.

Any given moment is absolutely indifferent,

To the dream of consciousness,

Streaming through it.

* * * *

We each have our story of agony and ecstasy,

Which we are more than happy to share,

With anyone who will bend an ear.

* * * *

If, the biggest small word around.

* * * *

The challenge for any listener,

Is to hear what was actually said,

And not what was thought in response.

* * * *

Something will eventually annihilate the body.

Large or small, within or without, harshly or gently.

From the ultimate vista; who, what, when, where, why, how,

Make absolutely no difference, whatsoever.

* * * *

A wealthy life is having the health, the means, the spirit,

To do whatever the mystery-given capacities and limitations allow.

Your destiny is already written in the dusty sands of time.

You just have to every moment scrawl it out,

In whatever way the dream calls.

* * * *

What do mothers and fathers think,

About their decision to bring children into this world,

When one day it occurs to them, the terrible suffering and eventual death,

They have, through a mindless, primal, instinctual drive,

Brought upon the spawn of their loins.

The never-ending absurdities of superstition and idolatry,

Are far too mindless to even begin to take seriously.

You are under no obligation to give them credence or play along.

Feel free to call it like you see it, if you have the courage, the spirit, to stand alone.

* * * *

What is the other but a novelty, a curiosity, intrinsic to consciousness.

* * * *

Attitude is about deciding which side to the bed to exit,

Should you happen to be roused once again,

And somehow muster the energy,

To face the inanity of yet another day.

* * * *

Hurry, hurry, hurry, rush, rush, rush,

So you can stand impatiently in another queue,

Or come to a press-the-floorboard halt,

At the stop light just ahead.

* * * *

You are a decomposer, too, you know.

* * * *

So, how is your meme doing today?

* * * *

In skirmishes born of time and space,

Sometimes it is necessary to dig a hole.

Other times to be shrewd with the tongue.

Still others to be as still as breath will allow.

And then there are the times, when all choices,

But one, quickly dissolve if you intend to survive.

Where immediacy is critical, the instinctual essence,

Swiftly exports ethical ideologies out of consciousness.

There are moments when compassion may not be an option.

* * * *

There is absolutely nothing that can or will ever hinder you,
From suffering as much or as long as you please.
Crave this, crave that, crave everything,
For as long as pain entices you,
Into its harsh embrace.

Even if every creature from small to great, were to cry out in unison,

The cacophonous eruption would amount to no sound at all.

This garden world is but a minuscule particle of dust,

Timelessly spinning in the immensity of space.

Really no different than any of the invisible particles,

Circulating about the space in which you are sitting right now.

Listen very closely, and you will be the deep silence of the universal mind.

* * * *

Just say no to the mumbo-jumbo of all superstition,

All the false, delusional authorities born of time and circumstance.

Discern that the source of the ever-present awareness,

Is the immeasurable, absolute You.

* * * *

We are the collective dice roll,

Of all our ancestors.

However that came to pass,

We are all cousins of the same unknown.

To endlessly squabble over this or that, or that or this,

Is about as meaninglessly futile as it gets.

* * * *

Peace on Earth, the only true revolution.

* * * *

Each and every seed, a unique blueprint,

A pattern in its snowflake of a universe.

* * * *

If you subscribe to only one book,

You have been deprived of the countless,

Prophets, mystics, visionaries, oracles and seers,

Who have peered into the same reflective pool of beingness,

And cast it in the mythos into which they were born.

Study the world and see the common thread,

With which this grand tapestry is spun.

* * * *

Who or what is anyone or anything but You,

Disguised in the wrappings of the streaming senses.

What duplicity You have over and over played with your Self,

Across the countless dreamscapes, of no one knows how many creations.

Sometimes the quest for knowledge should be waylaid for the sake of common sense.

Not all inquiry or invention is, or has ever been, in the best interest,

Of the greater good, or the more necessary whole.

Curiosity has killed many a cat,

And left ye old litter box in shambles.

* * * *

All the scientists, researchers and scholars,

Out there measuring, categorizing, graphing everything they possibly can,

With whatever technologies they can muster.

To what end?

* * * *

It is indeed more than a little curious, how so many,

So-called religious collectives all across this dreamtime world,

Truly believe their fabricated god favors only them.

As if any supreme being would really care,

Who wins a meaningless game.

* * * *

The wisdom of the ages, applies to any age.

* * * *

Either become your ideal,

Or stop pretending you someday might.

Better to be an honorable liar, cheat, thief, even assassin,

Daily plotting terror, mayhem and murder,

Than a dissembling hypocrite.

* * * *

The unspeakable dogmatic vanity,

That could arise from this body of work,

Is worth yet another caution to any future readers.

History is replete with an endless array of absurdities and horrors,

From many a well-meant and harmless intention.

And to use these many thoughts,

In any way dogmatic,

Would be to entirely miss the point.

* * * *

We are likely fulfilling the ancient prophecies,

Because we have not yet discerned that “me, myself, and I,”

Is ultimately an extremely dysfunctional paradigm for our continued survival.

Until that last wheezing breath,

You will have the opportunity to play out,

With whatever courage you have the capacity to muster,

The worldly fate for which you were born, and perhaps, just perhaps,

Even find more than a smidgen of contentment, before its most certain mortal conclusion.

* * * *

Why even for a moment think,

About struggling to be like everyone else?

To constantly try to blend in with any groupthink,

Kowtow to any tradition, imitate any mindset, abide any meme,

What complete and utter absurdity, to wallow in the quagmire of herd instinct.

* * * *

The ultimate essential nature is exactly the same within all creation,

And consciousness in any form is merely waves crashing,

Upon the shores of infinity’s grand theater.

* * * *

Get over what you believe others think about you.

Relatively few even know of your existence,

Much less ponder or care about you.

Ceaseless internal projection,

Is just the deep, insatiable insecurity,

Born long ago in the jungle of the tribal mind.

* * * *

What siren-like enticement it is, to believe memories,

Any more than dead things, when the only thing that is,

Is this very ungraspable moment of still, timeless awareness.

The actuality is that you are not, you were not, you will never be.

You need not care about the dreamtime in which quantum mind dwells.

* * * *

Sooner or later the given existence will reach its termination, as all dreams do.

May as well dance as best you can, for as long as the cadaver is able.

What any of us may endure as we head into our endgame,

Is a choiceless reckoning that all must face alone.

To cast off before your time may or may not be an option,

Depending on disposition, opportunity, or sense of obligation to others.

Not easy to let go of existence, when you have spent so much of it struggling to survive.

Yet, what point is there in allowing this three-dimensional dreamtime to meander into some nightmare?

What obligation does anyone have to live out a reverie, for which they did not volunteer?

Simply put, you are the indefinable, unfathomable, indivisible source;

Playing out the temporal reverie of one form or another.

Born into an ever-changing creation,

You move this way or that;

Nothing more than a dream of consciousness,

A streaming of imagination’s potential, inspired by the given senses.

* * * *

All any philosopher can do is reflect upon a window of time,

And extrapolate that for any given other,

It is ultimately the same.

* * * *

Is a drop its attributes, or is a drop merely a drop?

Is an ocean its attributes, or is an ocean merely an ocean?

What are any distinctions, to whatever scale,

But imaginary fabrications?

* * * *

What is this unfathomable mystery that some call God,

By many names, many sounds, many vibrations;

But a cloud of untainted, vibrant awareness.

The nothingness prior to consciousness.

The indivisible, enigmatic upwelling.

The oblivion before all patterns.

The stillness before all time.

The soul of all creation.

* * * *

Tranquility is the natural state of any mind,

That has transcended its ceaseless chatter.

* * * *

What is anyone but a crunchy-chewy-gooey body bag of vanity.

* * * *

All come and gone; so quickly come and gone.

* * * *

The capacities and limitations of any given form,

Interweave with other given capacities and limitations,

Into an immeasurable, synergistic, ever-streaming dreaming.

So beyond imagination, as to be utterly, ineffably incomprehensible.

Why would it possibly matter,

If anyone else discerns this one and only truth?

That you have realized you are the source, that you are awake, is enough.

Many are called, few are chosen, and fewer still volunteer.

You will heed the call if you are inclined.

And, if not, party on.

* * * *

The universe is but a dance of imagination.

You are the singularity, the witness that never sleeps;

Unborn, untainted by creation or destruction,

Or the ever-changing dream between.

* * * *

One drop in an ocean of indivisibility.

* * * *

You are the body; you are not the body.

You are the world; you are not the world.

You are the universe; you are not the universe.

You are the dream; you are not the dream.

You are everything; you are nothing.

Change is the way of all things.

Irony and paradox rule.

* * * *

I am That I Am … That I Am is Me.

You are That I Am … That I Am is You.

We are That I Am … That I Am is Us.

* * * *

An ever-changing quantum mirage of time and space,

Within a mind, within a form, within a world, within a universe,

A kaleidoscoping touchy-feely, three-dimensional dream,

In which you are every moment in, but never of.

* * * *

Eternal life is simply living in the awareness of the ever-streaming moment;

Oblivious to the space and time in which the manifest mind abides.

The state of being when the allure of the many attributes,

The countless fabrications of imagined identity,

Lose all meaning, all purpose, all concern.

When the magnitude of the singular present is all.

Since all creation’s unknowable beginning,

The clock of eternity has ticked away across the cosmos.

Every part and particle of every passing moment has been necessary

For the temporal dream of consciousness to reach this indivisible twinkling in time,

That which is both within and without the only You that has ever been.

* * * *

Rome is but an idea, as is every nation-state before and since.

The same is true for any grouping caught up in the process of identification.

All are merely patterns, habits, imitations, copies, memes;

To which conditioned the monkey-mind,

Cannot help but subscribe.

* * * *

Who is it but the very same You who has ever been reborn.

All identity is but the distraction of consciousness.

Do not delude your Self, there is no other.

* * * *

The senses are the readers of the quantum ether.

The mind the interpreter, the performer, the creator.

* * * *

Life can be long, and the mind-body endure a great deal.

If you wish to survive, abide, perhaps even thrive,

In reasonable mental and physical health,

You should never ever intentionally,

Put the container in the way,

Of potentially perilous permutations,

Of force, mass, vectors, and other indelible laws.

* * * *

You are the mystery, You are the awareness, You are the source,

You cannot disengage from the ever-present indivisibility.

To suppose that you are separate, that your personality,

Is any more than an invention of consciousness,

Is unutterably delusional from the get-go.

* * * *

Stars shine, sun blazes, moon reflects, earth blooms, life comes, life goes.

Purpose, meaning, belief, hope, are but imaginary concoctions.

Cling to them as you will, but know that any existence,

No matter how long, is for but a moment.

Nature is within and without everything, everywhere, including you.

It permeates garbage pits, cesspools and compost mounds,

As equally as oceans, rivers, valleys, mountains, forests and deserts.

It is the ceaseless play of the indivisible elements wherever, whenever, however.

If you do not care for your manifest reality, it is you, not it, who must yield to a larger vision.

* * * *

The first and last breath of all time and space is within each and every one of us,

A fluid infinity of swirling elements, an immeasurable quantum mystery,

Effortlessly flowing through all beginnings, through all endings,

From seed to seed, form to form, through all creation.

* * * *

The occupied, inattentive mind is always willing,

To waylay the stillness of awareness,

With its windy this or that.

Being in the moment,

Is not for the meek of spirit.

* * * *

Where is the center of the universe, if not You?

At least in your imaginary translation, anyway.

* * * *

How deep is deep? How shallow, shallow?

How wide is wide? How narrow, narrow?

How infinite is infinite? How finite, finite?

The definitions inspired by any eye, any mind,

Are but endless, arbitrary spins of me, myself, and I.

* * * *

When you yearn for more than is freely offered,

When the daily bread no longer quells your hunger,

Some deity does not have to kick you out of the garden;

Foolish arrogance merely blinds you into no longer seeing it.

You can only discern reality as clearly as you can detach from it.

Nothing is new under the sun without eyes that freshly see.

* * * *

The smidgen of free will that abides within intelligent minds,

Allows those who would awaken to put behind them,

All superstition, all tradition, all prejudice, all desire, all dread,

And comprehend to their innate capacity, the nature of the unmanifest within.

Suicide is only inexplicable to those who do not quite grasp,

Not everyone wants to exist, not everyone wants to play the human game.

Not everyone wants to experience the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows of consciousness.

Not everyone wants to engage in monkey see, monkey do.

Not everyone fears oblivion.

* * * *

Residing within each and every living thing, from the smallest to the greatest,

Is the same quantum upwelling, the same quantum intelligence.

To imagine otherwise, is but egocentric ignorance.

To respect all, is the highest order.

* * * *

The many filters of knowledge, are ever an alluring draw.

To reclaim the untarnished, untainted sovereignty,

You naturally every moment had as a child,

Is likely not possible, for any but the very rare few.

* * * *

Declaring independence, and being independent,

Are indeed two very different qualities of mind.

* * * *

God, if there is such an inexplicable deity,

Likely is not dead as much as just bored to tears,

And too god-damned immortal to end it all.

* * * *

It is only vanity that is chock-full of discontent.

Only vanity that yearns for it to be more than it is.

* * * *

Imagine knowing what every other,

You have ever encountered, really thought of you.

What a mad helter-skelter of everything-under-the-sun perception,

That angel-to-demon vision would more than likely be.

* * * *

When it is a child incoherently believing in Santa Claus, it is nod-wink amusing.

Too many years later, it turns into a shake-the-head joke.

Extrapolate that a bit,

And you have most of the world included,

With all the idolatry that is blathering around in so many minds.

The universe created by the senses,

Will draw you again and again into the grand illusion.

For the unsteady mind still mesmerized by the pitter-patter of time and space,

The waking-sleeping-waking of it, is ever a Sisyphean challenge.

It requires great discipline to weather the dream,

And be the momentary awareness,

Prior to consciousness.

* * * *

What is called evil is merely consciousness,

Twisted by its journey, into one harsh mindset or another.

Some hold to the inherent innocence, and some wander into a darkness, far afield.

So it goes, deal with it, get over it, move on.

* * * *

Leaders cannot lead those who will not follow,

And followers should be more than cautious,

About following those who yearn to lead.

* * * *

What petty gods these mortals weave.

* * * *

Doubt until there is nothing left to doubt.

* * * *

Interesting how uniquely every mind,

Moves in its play of manifest consciousness.

Why anyone would even remotely believe any other,

Could ever perceive anything at all the same,

Is an absurdity well beyond measure.

* * * *

It is a harsh, even cruel truth, that the little folk,

Who have no real say in anything, are so often forced to suffer,

While those who are truly responsible, remain unknown, untouchable, unconcerned.

It is the way it has always been in this abrasive, absurd little theater,

And the way it is, will not likely be changing anytime ever.

Even those who survive the inevitable Great Fall,

Will probably re-fashion this scarred world,

In the same petty win-lose paradigm,

To which our two-legged genre,

Has from its puddle of origin subscribed.

Woke up again this fine morning,

A dog-tired mind in an achy, battered sack of organized goo.

Like it or no, another day in the purgatory of human design, streaming its merry way.

All meaning and purpose, all rhyme and reason, lost and gone forever.

Son-of-Santa-Claus Jesus may be coming back to save us,

But you can bet this me-myself-and-I sure as hell,

Would not go to such troublesome bother.

* * * *

What is the loss of a small trinket, when it is your entire universe,

You must sooner or later, in just one breath, entirely relinquish.

* * * *

Why in some god’s name is it necessary to worship,

To bow and scrap to, to pray to, to fear, your Self?

* * * *

The road home is neither high nor low,

Nor is it a road, a path, or even one step.

It is just You, right here, right now, bam.

* * * *

So many imitating, repeating,

Dissecting, analyzing, cataloging,

Pursuing in countless scholarly ways,

What others have again and again shown,

When it could be they, who discern their own.

* * * *

Agnosticism is the only rational honest answer,

To any of the fundamental, unfathomable questions.

Neither you, nor anyone else, really knows diddly-squat,

About the who-what-when-where-why-how of it all.

* * * *

And one day, in the reflection of a steaming cup of coffee,

Or perhaps the bottom of a glass in some squalid downtown bar,

You realized you were only pretending to be a human being anymore.

* * * *

How bizarre it all is to be lobbed into an existence,

In which every sort of heaven and hell is played out within and without.

An ethereal, touchy-feely, three-dimensional, quantum-matrix of a dream, until death do you part.

It is through the play of consciousness that the mystery,

Witnesses your translation of manifest dreamtime.

The many mythological stories explaining creation,

Are simply tales attempting to explain the inexplicable.

How unfortunate so few are interested, much less capable,

Of perceiving beyond the attachment to one identity or another.

What an eternal garden this world might be if idealism was set aside,

And wisdom and insight, gained sway, in this theater of human invention.

* * * *

Today’s heroes, today’s villains,

Will be but food for worms in some tomorrow.

What histories they played out, what memories they inspired,

Are entirely at the whim of those with pen and paper,

And the inexplicable inclination to remember.

* * * *

The universe is but the gnashing of a morsel of dust,

In the reality of the mystery that You are, as well.

* * * *

All attempts to make life more than it is are futile.

One must be simple to discern the simplicity,

At the root of all things small to great.

* * * *

Newborns across the world,

Are cast into a swirl of concepts,

To which they must subscribe or perish.

In one fashion or another, the choiceless nature,

Is carved by the many choices, each and every one of us has,

Throughout the dream of time, been called to make.

* * * *

So many humans seem to wander,

From one hedonistic experience to another,

Seeking out newer diversions, more voracious highs,

Gradually becoming satiated by the dawning predictability of it all.

What happens to those rare few, who discern that all experience is born of mind,

And, peering through the illusory veil of its manifest inception in time,

Eventually discern the end within every moment’s beginning,

And walk sovereign in the eternal mist of oneness,

From which all appearances originate.

Discerning the indivisible, You realize,

That all manifest forms are of the same reckoning.

All are founded upon knowledge, all are shaped by concepts.

All are but appearances fashioned by the kaleidoscoping quantum theater.

And You, your Self, in each and every passing moment, are imagining it all real and true;

This temporal window of eternity, into which You have been involuntarily cast.

* * * *

If you are genuinely earnest in your inquiry into Self,

The unadorned fact that you have never seen,

Nor will you ever see, your own face,

Is surely evidence enough.

* * * *

You may as well judge the wind,

As believe what you think of anything,

Really matters even one tiny slice of an iota.

* * * *

Babble, it is all just a tower of babble;

Just a temporal manifestation of consciousness,

Playing out in a teeny-weeny little dust storm of eternity.

* * * *

When did anything ever happen, really?

You were not, You are not, You need not care.

* * * *

So what, if it is all one? is a valid argument,

For avaricious, hedonistic, sociopathic, psychotic narcissists,

And mothers weary of laundry, dishes, screaming children, and deadbeat dads.

* * * *

When You were young and innocent, the movement of consciousness,

Was like fresh sap flowing mightily through a spring tree.

As existence passed by with its many seasons,

There arose a vague awareness,

Of the vast, yawning expanse within.

Of the quietude that had always been present,

Since the ineffable walkabout in time and space began.

The indelible stillness that few are discerning enough to perceive.

Now, You are in that portion of life, when You make peace with the passions,

And quietly prepare for the end of space-time, and complete surrender to Your eternal origin.

Have you ever really existed as more than a figment of imagination?

Are you really anything more than a fleeting ghost of future past?

And what is history but a rolodex of memories soon forgotten.

* * * *

Another wretched soul living for some future grave,

Always caught in another time, another place, another existence,

Missing completely, the one and only eternal now.

* * * *

From the stillness of awareness, all potentials spring,

Into the stillness of awareness, all potentials subside.

* * * *

In a room filled with adults of all ages,

Imagine them as the children they once were.

And on a playground strewn with children,

Imagine the adults they will someday be.

* * * *

Hell hath no fury like an untamed mind.

* * * *

Instinct has never been a match,

For the will born of imagination.

* * * *

It is only consciousness,

That manufactures good and evil,

Right and wrong, compassion and brutality,

In an otherwise indifferent universe.

* * * *

Worship whatever, idolize whatever,

Wear whatever, label whatever, spout whatever,

Just do not believe you are superior to everyone else for it.

* * * *

Why is existing longer in the given container such a concern?

What is this dread of the end of consciousness, of the me, myself, and I?

This departure that is really nothing more than another concept.

A hypothesis to which there has never been a witness.

Can that which was never born, ever die?

Live for what neighbors think.

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

Tithe that which priesthoods ever demand.

Quibble over what was never anyone's to possess.

Purchase and consume until day is done, into night begun.

Fight ceaseless squabbles, the wealthy require the have-nots support.

Fulfill every obligation the given mind-body’s mythological concoction requires.

How wonderful, how glorious, how exultant, the absurd dreams,

Human kind, with incomprehensible conviction,

Has choicelessly chosen to play out.

* * * *

History is chock-full of potholes and pitfalls,

Into which those who follow in time,

Only occasionally sidestep,

For the very briefest of whiles.

* * * *

Ideas come and go,

As the play of consciousness,

Sustains interest in their current meaning.

* * * *

To really, really, really not care,

What would that be like, anyway?

* * * *

Along with the wanna-be’s, there are

Never-be’s, ever-be’s, may-be’s, will-be’s,

Are-be’s, must-be’s, should-be’s, ought-to-be’s,

And, naturally, the to-be’s or not-to-be’s.

* * * *

So many are crushed and twisted by their lives,

While others traverse unscathed by even the most bitter fates.

Who can more than speculate why or why not?

* * * *

It is not some imagined god or great fiend,

Who can be impugned for the hells of human concoction.

It is self-absorption that is the driving force of the entire human condition.

It is vanity and greed that has manifested the untold horrors,

We have all together in imagination contrived.

Do not be overly concerned that You are,

Less and less inclined to what the dream offers.

The traces of obligation are perhaps the last attachment.

It is akin to a child heading home, glancing back at the sandbox,

No longer needing, no longer wanting, the sundry lessons it has imparted.

* * * *

Practically hairless monkeys everywhere.

Mountain monkeys, valley monkeys, desert monkeys,

Forest monkeys, island monkeys, river monkeys, urban monkeys.

Everywhere, practically hairless monkeys, everywhere.

* * * *

You are (insert your name here),

You have always been (insert your name here),

You will always be (insert your name here).

How interminably absurd is that, really?

* * * *

So many distractions, so little time.

* * * *

Why would anyone walk on water?

Much more enjoyable to swim in it.

* * * *

To all who truly, earnestly doubt,

It is You, you truly pursue,

In that awareness, so matchless,

Where all trails end, at the end of You.

* * * *

The most sincere answer,

To inquiries about your date of birth,

Is that you are really not sure you were ever born.

* * * *

Personality is reaction to the sensory play.

It is the response of the mind-body to its environment.

The disharmony of duality dissolves as concern for mortality dissolves.

Attention shifts from the travails of imagination, to the awareness prior to consciousness.

From desire, fear, anger, sorrow, separation in any of it many forms,

To the indivisible serenity of the eternal witness.

You are not the body; You have never been the body.

And, no matter how you may wish it, You will never be the body.

It is but an illusory, temporal invention of consciousness,

To play out its unutterable time-bound theater.

A quantum dream, nothing more.

* * * *

Identity is born of the patterning of nature and nurture.

What you truly are is prior to all patterns, all designs,

All infatuations invented by any play of imagination.

* * * *

You are surrounded by many others,

Doing countless undertakings, for which You perhaps have,

Neither capacity, nor the whim of inclination.

Consciousness is like that.

* * * *

Flowers just flower; they need not ask how,

Or who or what or where or when or why.

* * * *

God may have sculpted you,

But the clayness is its own source.

That which is long before any beginning.

That which is long after any ending.

You are far more ancient,

And far more new,

Than any time,

Can ever measure.

* * * *

Everything is written, everything is erased.

* * * *

Free will is just as much a prisoner of patterning,

As the instinctual baseline of any other life form.

* * * *

Do with your given time whatever consciousness deigns.

It does not really matter how one’s life is spent,

For it is naught but a temporary dream,

No matter how real it at any given moment seems.

Savage impulses are potential within each and every one of us.

The choice to act or not on these passionate, desire-ridden, fear-ridden, instinctual drives,

Brings about an evolutionary reckoning that all must face alone.

* * * *

In the vast source of all creation, where logic does not rule,

There is only one way, and one and one is ever one.

In that timeless, elemental, indivisible ocean,

There is no requirement for the mirage,

That one plus one equals two.

* * * *

Call it God, call it Tao, call it Allah, call it Brahman,

Call it by whatever vibration you like;

I call it me-myself-I,

And discern in you the same.

* * * *

The world in which each of us is comfortable,

Is the world each of us calls normal.

It is a monkey-mind thing.

* * * *

Listen to elders from across the world.

There is no end to learning, there is no end to wisdom,

But in the end of all beginnings, to which the eternal moment is inclined.

* * * *

You are the mystery.

Forever unknown, forever indivisible.

One in all, all in one.

* * * *

Humankind has crossed its Rubicon.

The apex of this epoch is in the rear-view mirror.

The avalanche is very much underway.

* * * *

The ethical argument that those who have,

Should help those who have not,

Must be balanced, by those who have not,

Taking responsibility, to whatever degree they are able,

For the many choices they have made, in the jungle of their current time.

This plain and simple reality at the core of all things, requires no following, no imitation.

It is simply looking closely within, and discerning the awareness,

You truly are, have ever been, will ever be.

* * * *

It can be exceedingly tempting,

To use some substance, perhaps several,

To placate, to overcome, the suffering born of mind.

To use drugs as a tool of inquiry has legitimate purpose for seekers,

But unbridled abuse, brings out the caution flag, that there is eventually a precipice,

Around one corner or another, in some not too distant future.

* * * *

What a recording you each and every day are.

As predictably unpredictable as you might pretend,

You are little more than just another algorithm,

Another pattern within all the patterning,

In this fleeting play of consciousness.

* * * *

The mind is the theater of its own duration.

* * * *

What an absurd, even inane game it all is,

Yet how seriously we all together play it.

* * * *

Optimism is blind; pessimism torturous.

* * * *

Cannot crack a nut that will not be cracked.

* * * *

Of course, it is just arbitrary opinion; what is not?

* * * *

Be forewarned:

There will be vampires.

Best never ever, without question,

Foolishly trust any individual, or any group,

That will in any way benefit from your involvement,

In any given endeavor, any given scheme, any given intrigue.

It is a unhappy truth, but one well-documented in the annuls of our kind.

You cannot stop a wave headed for the shore.

You can only dive into it, stand firm and let it slam you down,

Or merge into the harsh, tumbling, swift journey,

Wherever the current takes you.

* * * *

What a tiny view of God, that does not include everything,

Equally, indivisibly, indisputably, of the same oneness.

* * * *

Yes, it is all meaningless gibberish,

The Tower of Babble, if ever there was one.

But what else can anyone in this madhouse do, really,

But play along with all the other inmates.

We are all just prisoners here,

Of our own device.

* * * *

Everything and nothing,

Converging within the eternal now forever.

How quantum is that?

* * * *

Existence is a profound meditation,

For them that have the wit,

To muster the view.

* * * *

Dreaming wherever you are,

You are witness to your universe,

The masks and costumes ever-changing,

But the clayness ever the same.

* * * *

Arduous, indeed, straddling the fence,

Between dreamtime and eternity,

Between mortality and immortality,

Between consciousness and nothingness.

* * * *

Why this need to believe anything, to follow anyone?

All belief systems are but the fantasia of one mind or another,

Providing answers to that, in which there has never been a question.

So, you win your little revolution, what will you really do differently?

Your mindset remains untouched; the vanities of power, wealth, fame, still rule.

Personas come and go, political correctness modifies, ever-changing cultures rise and fall,

But the central mindset remains unaltered; patterns evolved long ago still reign.

The only significant paradigm shift, the only profound revolution,

Would be in the dreamtime of consciousness itself.

And, ultimately, ironically, paradoxically, poignantly,

Even that would be no more than a temporal phenomenon.

* * * *

The body is a vessel.

How you protect it, how you decorate it,

Is subject to physical necessity, and the vanity of the given mythos.

There has never been a prescribed way of dressing,

Favored by the eye of some deity.

* * * *

No, it did not happen like that.

Even the most astute, all-powerful deity,

Cannot waylay the rubric of the given playing field,

To fabricate the mythological nonsense,

Whirling about in your head.

* * * *

What grace is within a truly serene breath.

* * * *

In the theater of time,

The present has always been,

At the mercy of its historical context.

* * * *

As challenging as it well is,

Try to remember what you truly are,

As often as your dreamy center stage role allows.

* * * *

How can a mind caught in lie after lie, ever discern the truth?

* * * *

The evolutionary mind, the mind wrought in jungles and plains,

Ever pursues a sense of security, a consistency, an orderliness, a sanctuary.

How that quest for well-being manifests, is the defining force of the human condition.

Life comes, life goes, ever-present like the wind, gone just as quickly.

What is it but an ephemeral reverie in the hourglass of time.

The sand falling sure and steady to the last grain.

The curtain falling when the show is done.

I am the Truth, the Life, the Way,

And so are you, and so is everyone else,

And so is everything else, and so is nothing else.

We are all the same essence, dreaming the theater of time.

How can there be an exit to a stage, that has no beginning, no end.

Even in that which is deathless, You are ever here now in formless disguise.

* * * *

Regarding cheerleading for the human paradigm’s future past,

We are assuredly well beyond the point of no return.

The game, once afoot, is now asunder.

* * * *

You quest that which you already are.

You desire that which you already own.

You discern that which is ever unknown.

You are you own worst imaginary enemy,

You are your own best imaginary friend,

Wonderfully, terribly, forever alone.

* * * *

No one really knows anything.

They just dress up kind of funny,

And say and do a lot strange things.

* * * *

The mind-body is both pleasure den,

And torture chamber of the soul.

Naught but a neurological phenomenon,

Temporarily weaving its illusion-delusion real.

* * * *

You have always been your own truth, your own law,

Whether of your own design or adopted of another’s mind.

Your dream has only ever meant whatever you imagine it means.

* * * *

The superstitious mind finds the pattern, for which it is in dread looking.

The scientific one, the answer that after discerning inquiry, stands apparent.

We are all the same indivisible, seamless, quantum matrix.

Synergistically creating and preserving and destroying it all together.

The source, the wellspring, and all the countless dreamers, are one in the same.

* * * *

Into an orifice, through a snaking alimentary canal, and out an anus.

What a boggling universe, that it can transmute food into shit, and shit into food,

Over and over and over again, in so many countlessly perpetual ways.

* * * *

What else can it possibly be, serenely peering out those eyes,

But the one and only You permeating the universe,

And the great whatever indivisibly beyond.

* * * *

A world that took billions of years to create,

And our kind has in such a brief time, with such ferocity,

Extinguished so much of its natural majesty,

Scarred so much of its face.

Could any cancer have destroyed,

So much, so quickly, with so little regret?

* * * *

A gold mine requires a miner.

A garden requires a gardener.

One thieves, the other nurtures.

* * * *

The truth of it is so much more,

Than just another fruitless concept,

Born of the stagnation of consciousness.

* * * *

Every assumption of dogma,

Every form of idolatry,

Every concoction of superstition,

Have their roots in the quicksand of imagination.

* * * *

Of course, the deity that is imagined does not exist.

How could that which is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent,

That which is infinitely, timelessly, indivisibly perfect,

Ever partake anything, as more than witness?

Within a mere hundred years, probably less,

Practically every person now living will be long deceased,

And waves of new generations of descendants will have taken their place.

Eight billion-plus, once living and breathing and causing mischief, now fertilizing flowers.

* * * *

Those capable of thinking outside their box, well know its every nook and cranny.

Every frame of reference inflates from one nature-nurture origin or another.

* * * *

Consciousness is the chaotic surf between eternity and shore.

Gravity gradually draws every existence back into its dusty origin.

Where exactly does the body end, and the universe begin?

* * * *

Adulthood is the levy,

Each of us pays for childhood;

Brief as it more than likely may have been

In the 24/7/365 purgatory we have all together fashioned.

What would You give for a day free of suffering,

For a day of youthful exuberance.

Simple, free, guileless,

Before You knew anything.

* * * *

It is a garden, and you and your vanity,

Are just more compost in the making.

* * * *

Self has no idea it is, but through you.

Witness to the otherness of manifestation.

Witness to the unknown made known.

* * * *

Existence for the rare few is an inquiry,

Into the mystery that is prior to consciousness.

For most others, it is every pursuit consciousness allows.

* * * *

What an every-moment daily challenge for those who are mindful,

For who would be content to endure, in harmonious simplicity,

To not be drug by the senses, back into the human melee,

And the "me, myself, and I" illusion-delusion of it all.

How free any given newborn.

Pure awareness, untouched, untrammeled,

By all the past events or future concerns, all the burdens,

All the baggage they will one day inevitably carry in dreamtime’s passing.

* * * *

For those fully imbibing the stillness before time, there is a return to wonder.

From the source within, from oblivion's rainbow, the song of awareness.

* * * *

To wander alone, anonymous, in a crowd of strangers,

No need for the politics of recognition.

Eternal witness,

As serene as a placid stream.

* * * *

It has always been a modern world.

All history is the make-believe,

Of minds bound in time.

* * * *

Be the totality of awareness.

The only way out is within.

* * * *

Nothing dreaming everything.

* * * *

A temporary guise, an ephemeral story,

That you are not, never were, will never be.

* * * *

Unrelenting and wretched absurdity,

Each and every moment across the board.

If there were some sort of supreme being out there,

Would it really be any wonder that it long ago abandoned us,

To our own implacably, absurdly irrational design.

* * * *

Why would any supreme being ever need to waste time judging you,

Or instigate any more anxiety than you do upon your Self,

And all the others you do so earnestly condemn,

On a daily basis, to one hell or another.

Born into this inexplicable, exquisite, beguiling garden world,

And all the temptations it so nonchalantly offers all who lack the restraint of self-discipline:

Pride … covetousness … lust … anger … gluttony … envy … sloth …

And the hedonism, narcissism, greed, and divisiveness,

Harbored within all who succumb.

* * * *

What bother to even for a moment care what others think of you.

* * * *

What does everyone do every morning they awaken,

But re-fabricate their imaginary narrative,

Suit up in the appropriate costume,

And walk out into their day.

* * * *

The sanctions of deities and tyrants, of any other,

Is meaningless to those who are sovereign within.

* * * *

Best to keep your wackiness to yourself,

Unless you enjoy the stares of strangers,

And the attention of the powers that be.

* * * *

Martyrdom, is there any greater vanity?

* * * *

So many things you might have parried,

Had it somehow come to mind at the time.

* * * *

From the beginning of time’s invention,

Deities have been concocted in every geography,

To moderate the mind’s dread of its inherent emptiness.

Humankind has distracted itself with every imaginable diversion,

And still the abyss of oblivion yawns forever eternal.

* * * *

Across all time and space, You have been called by many names, many sounds,

None any more true, any more real, any more meaningful, than any other,

And yet what monumental wars of mind and body have been fought,

Over the exalted concepts to which consciousness is so vainly attached.

When the mind is still, where is the yearning for continuity?

Where is the notion of duality that harbors passion?

Where is the player, the actor, the identity?

Where is the witness woven of time?

What is there but the awareness of emptiness?

What is there but that birthless-deathless creation of all?

What is there but eternal life, eternal oblivion, eternal redemption?

* * * *

Every witness taps into the unknown,

With a filtered vision, an incomplete frame of reference.

And thus dogma, and its seemingly countless mischiefs, so often takes root.

Ever a cautionary tale.

* * * *

You are only bound by mortal limitations,

While there is identification with the given mind-body.

Awareness is without imaginary attributes.

* * * *

How absurdly transfixed and bemused,

The multitudes are with one lie or another.

So much struggle and ado, for nothing.

* * * *

Humankind projects its ceaseless conceit,

Upon an infinite mystery, indifferent to its existence.

What is called death; that state, so many fear, in so many ways,

Is merely evaporation into the impersonal reality,

The oblivion of the ultimate nature.

* * * *

Complete and utter stillness,

Is the serenity in which all things small to great,

Play out their personal dreams in an infinite, indivisible, holographic matrix.

A universe in which creator and creation are one in the same.

* * * *

God as projected by the dogmatic mind is patently, woefully absurd.

That which is eternally omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient,

Cannot be confined in any way, any shape, any form.

The mystery is ever unknown, ever insoluble.

All assertions are but vain speculation and hearsay.

100

Imagine, if from your beginning,

You were among a modest, wise people,

Who clearly imparted that You were the mystery.

That You were the epicenter of your individual universe.

A guardian of this garden, and that the entire universe about You,

Was filled with teachers, each valued for their gift, whatever it might be.

And that You were also one of their teachers, likewise valued, likewise ordained.

Imagine that You were brought up with the certainty, that each and every fellow life form,

From the very smallest to the very largest, are all kin in the highest sense,

And that You are a solitary witness to the eternal song of mystery,

Never to doubt, even once, that You are truly of the One.

* * * *

We are all of the same awareness,

Etched by the diversity of consciousness,

Into untold assumptions of self-absorbed pretense.

It is only at the source that you will discern,

The vast, indivisible commonality.

There truly is no other.

Thou art God.

* * * *

It appears that You are ensnared for yet another day,

In this mortal scaffold, so profoundly temporal.

Yet, You are not a body, You are not a mind.

You are not, have never been, nor will ever be,

Bound by any manifest container, that any creation,

No matter how inexplicable, has ever, or can ever, muster.

* * * *

You are that which is brick and mortar, to all spaces, to all times.

That which is witness to every dimension, to every dream.

That which is awake, even during the deepest sleep.

That which is asleep, in even the most alert vigil.

That which is the tiniest, infinitesimal point.

That which is the most infinite expanse.

That which none can either claim to be,

Nor feign, except in delusion, not to be.

That which is, ever was, and will ever be.

That which is not, never was, and will never be.

The quantum matrix, prior to all imaginings born of mind.

The eternal nature, prior to all attributes formed of consciousness.

Indivisible, unblemished, singular, supreme, sovereign, absolute, without peer.

101

All religions, and the cults from which they rise into one stature or another,

Are founded upon the vain assumptions of one speculation or another,

And no conjecture will ever hold a candle to that which is truth.

* * * *

Prior to imagination … awareness … motionless, absolute, unconfined.

* * * *

Speculation: a malingering pastime engaged in far more often,

Than truth, had it any sway at all, would rationally allow.

* * * *

When you get your own act together,

Maybe you will be nominated to tell others,

What they should be doing with theirs.

* * * *

So what? No, really, so what?

* * * *

Words chain, words free.

It is all in how you listen.

* * * *

So much babble wherever you turn.

How challenging for consciousness,

To overcome its dread of tranquility.

* * * *

The harvest of a free mind is awareness:

The complete and utter stillness of oblivion.

* * * *

Santa Claus, the Eater Bunny, the Tooth Fairy,

Are as real as any deity to the child who believes.

* * * *

Freedom is within each and every moment,

You are simple enough to simply be.

To clearly discern true Self,

Merely set aside vanity, become very still,

And soully be the unvarnished, unblemished awareness.

The awareness, the upwelling, that is, has always been, and will ever be.

102

Would that this simple insight about truth were not such an uncommon commodity.

That it was an every-moment-every-man-woman-and-child awareness.

Something discerned at the marrow of each and every one,

Without any conflict, any confusion, whatsoever.

* * * *

There is ever a push and pull between the absurd and the profound.

Between the churning and crashing of the waves,

And the oblivion of the depths.

* * * *

The ceaselessly inconsistent zigzaggings of thought,

Are overcome by conscious full breathing.

Oxygen deprivation, do not do it.

* * * *

Past a sensible and very certain point,

What is the point of helping those,

Who will not help themselves?

* * * *

Every moment a new dreaming.

You are the awareness.

Stream on.

* * * *

Discern you are physician,

And then heal thy dreamtime Self,

Mend the myriad into one.

* * * *

Just another neurological recognition thing.

* * * *

In what field of gold can you ever truly harbor,

But the awareness, you have within always been.

* * * *

What are all the possessions we diligently pack away,

But a reminder of the many relationships and adventures,

We have parlayed in our brief sojourn through manifest time.

All for naught, ultimately, but gratifying enough while it is endured.

Helps us cling to the delusion that it was all real, perhaps even meaningful.

103

What makes anyone really believe some deity born of their imagination,

Truly wants this inane monkey-mind absurdity to continue?

A bad joke, a cruel hoax, a meaningless dream,

For which the only outcome is the ache of separation.

* * * *

The stirrings of vain self-importance are within each and every mind;

Confabulated in in its own unique, even delusional fashion.

All paths to glory ultimately find the same grave,

But meanwhile, the show goes on and on.

* * * *

We are all, each and every single one, ensnared,

In one odds bodkins reverie or another.

Consciousness is quantum fever.

Divine madness, if you will.

* * * *

Hey, listen up!

Put down your guns.

Stop breeding like maggots.

Stop being so narcissistic and greedy.

Get over petty self-absorption, learn to work together.

Plant some seeds, water and cultivate.

It is all one; very simple.

Figure it out.

* * * *

Nothing lost, nothing gained.

* * * *

To really not want anything,

To truly be empty of all desire,

Now that is a quality of Nadaville,

Far more singular than any assertion.

* * * *

Small lies are easily camouflaged in large truths.

Large lies often lounge in the majesty of audacity.

* * * *

Perception, sometimes vague and obtuse, sometimes clear and acute.

Yet always just perception; imagination playing its predictable game.

104

The deity moving about as a concept in the mind, is not the mystery You are.

Every breath in, every breath out, is of the entire universe.

There is really nothing that is not You.

* * * *

Yet another politically correct, predictably clichéd performance.

Monkey see, monkey do, from the jungle long ago,

“Ooh ooh ooh, eee eee eee, aah aah aah,”

Echoing through treetops,

Again and again and again, ever again.

* * * *

There are many things that might matter for a time,

But there are indeed many, many more,

That never have, never will.

If you really, really did not care,

Would it even occur to you to assert it?

* * * *

Idolatry is so passé.

* * * *

Eternal life is an enigma;

The myriad answers to which,

Are forever confined to speculation.

* * * *

Just how present can you really be,

But through the complete and utter stillness,

Of the pure, ever-streaming awareness.

Eternal life is as simple as it gets.

* * * *

The universe is but a vast sea of metaphors.

* * * *

All parts are but articulations of the same oneness.

It need not, it cannot, be made into anything more.

* * * *

The world of the human mind can be a harsh judge,

To those attempting to appease the demands of any other.

Satisfy your Self; cultivate the tranquility of contentment within.

105

Do you really believe the confines of your, puny, proud, sluggish imagination;

All the restrictive, dogmatic assertions, to which you absurdly lay claim;

Is as far as your perception of God, would, should, could, ever go?

* * * *

Are you really going to again and again, live in your collection of memories;

Replay all those medias, browse your compilation of trinkets;

Miss out on all that is happening right now?

Seriously?

* * * *

Birth and death cycle about throughout your existence.

And You, playing out your meager little part,

Witness to every sensory moment,

Of the dreamtime it is.

* * * *

The quantum nature,

Can only pretend to exist,

In a reverie of consciousness.

What is the creator but the creation.

* * * *

So many wandering here and there;

Seeking out others to accept, even embrace,

Their endless monkey-mind vanities.

* * * *

What would Jesus do?

Well, obviously he is not coming back,

So, it looks like you will just have to figure it out on your own.

* * * *

All the many things past,

As well as whatever is unfolding now,

Are long done and forever gone in the sands of time.

And but for the innumerable traces along any given neuron highway,

Did they ever even really happen?

* * * *

To see what there is to be seen,

You must look prior to the trivialities of the day-to-day,

And from that insight, that wisdom, that yearning, you will do whatever needs doing.

106

Every streaming moment within the awareness of every form, ever the same timeless oneness.

Not an easy truth, not an easy reality; not easy in any way, to wrap ye old gray matter around.

* * * *

All that is needed – if we want to get along – is the Golden Rule:

Treat others as you would like them to treat you.

Everything else is redundant.

* * * *

So many things not worth bothering about anymore.

* * * *

Consciousness can only be usurped by identity,

For as long as memory sustains the delusion.

* * * *

Guess you will just never know.

* * * *

Temporal vapor.

* * * *

How nothing is nothing?

* * * *

Only you, in pure, unsullied awareness,

Can cast your Self free of all constraints.

* * * *

What is the deity anyone imagines,

But a projection of their own absurd vanity.

What is there to save when zero-sum is ground to all.

* * * *

What is any word, what is any image,

But the delusional fabrication, the mass collusion,

That the time born of mind is real, and can somehow be captured.

* * * *

Nothingness is the only thing-less that touches you, the only thing-less you are.

* * * *

What is life for the pessimist but brief moments of serenity between great bouts of irritability.

107

Nothing You have ever imagined, are ever imagining, or will ever imagine, is ultimately real, except You.

* * * *

There must be more to life than this, s/he hoped, despaired, wondered, divined.

* * * *

Mother Nature just cannot seem to let well enough alone,

Ever sculpting, whittling, smashing her little ball of dust.

* * * *

Always rushing, rushing into the future.

Another goal, another finish line, come and gone.

What next, Kimosabe?

* * * *

Time, what a concept.

* * * *

Absurdity rules.

* * * *

Nothing lasts forever.

* * * *

It is You, You alone,

Who must discern your way,

Out of the jungle maze in your mind.

* * * *

What can you possibly know,

Beyond the confines of imagination?

All beliefs, all speculations, are meaningless.

* * * *

The point and purpose of so many existences,

Seems to be to ceaselessly bludgeon and bother others,

With all the bile of twisted anger and angst, life has dealt them.

How pointlessly, exhaustingly meaningless, is that?

* * * *

What about the human paradigm is worth saving even if You could?

Really nothing more than a malignance, compelled by vanity and greed,

Consuming, manipulating, destroying, anything and everything in its path.

108

If you must have a religion,

What better than tranquil wanders in nature;

The most heavenly ever-present church creation could offer.

Misspent as it is, what remains, is still the one and only Gaia You will ever imagine.

And what attachment can You really have to this temporal garden creation?

All it is, all it has been, all it will be, is but an ephemeral dreamscape,

In the vast cosmic dust storm in which You are all and none.

* * * *

The art of guardianship is one humankind will likely never master.

What can the tyranny of self-absorption ever know of compassion?

* * * *

As significant as humankind might believe itself to be,

What can indeed matter on the cosmic scale,

When nothing is as nothing does.

A major cataclysm in this tiny corner,

Does not even register as a trifle to a smidgen,

To the supreme totality, the greatest story never known.

* * * *

Death makes all history absurdly irrelevant.

All tradition is the delusion of imagination.

* * * *

Within the ocean, an infinity of droplets.

Within every mind, the infinity of the ocean.

* * * *

Sexuality is a force few ever master.

At all ages it continues to draw,

Even the most restrained in directions,

More rational minds would likely fear to tread.

* * * *

What a constant chore to cling to ideas of gain and loss,

Of wealth, of power, of renown, of permanence in any domain,

And all the other myriad idiosyncrasies of mind’s hollow concoctions.

* * * *

Words come to many who clearly discern the truth of this mystery.

There is no possession, there is no ownership of the song of mystery.

Nothing about which to manifest the unending mayhem of dogma.

109

How can any world infested by me-myself-and-I even begin to hope to survive?

* * * *

Life can be turbulent enough without ever making yourself a target.

* * * *

What does one finger snappin’ sound like on one hand clappin’?

* * * *

The high road is far less worn than all the lower ones.

* * * *

The longing for oblivion runs silent, runs deep.

* * * *

Another slice of the dream in the wake.

* * * *

So much to know, so much to let go.

* * * *

Just more yada yada dogma.

* * * *

Awareness is eternity’s teflon.

* * * *

The quantum matrix abides all things.

* * * *

METU: Mobile Energy Transmutation Unit.

* * * *

What point is there, really, to a huge pile of anything?

* * * *

Do not need no dumbphone to see which way the wind blows.

* * * *

Another chunk of change, for nothing you really desperately needed.

* * * *

Wanting to believe something so, will never make it so, if it is not, and can never be.

110

The absurdity of duality is obvious to anyone paying close attention to anything.

* * * *

Born to see it clearly or not, born to realize it beyond doubt or not,

Rest assured, rest content, rest absolute, in the good news,

That You are it, have ever been it, will ever be it.

* * * *

Every school of thought, every experience gleaned;

Yet another filter through which to witness,

The mystery of the unknown.

The matrix, now.

* * * *

Like and dislike, the harbingers of limitation.

* * * *

Can anything you project on others,

Be anything but a concoction,

Of your own vanity?

* * * *

Your fate is already assured.

You just have to play it out.

* * * *

Nothing new under the sun.

Nothing not new under the sun.

* * * *

The abyss is the ultimate freedom.

Give over to it as often as you dare.

* * * *

What is the tabula rasa of a newborn,

But complete vulnerability to all potentials.

As freely absolute as dreamtime allows.

* * * *

Knowledge is such endlessly piecemeal thing.

History has many faces, many flavors, many truths.

It is an arbitrary leviathan, from the first story to the last.

Only as accurate as the filters that shape it into words.

111

That You would not choose do so many things ever again, is the redemption.

* * * *

All belief is founded upon one absurd assumption or another.

* * * *

Any container by its nature must play out its limited role,

In whatever way the matrix of the moment has in play.

* * * *

What is death, but deep sleep, without the breathing.

* * * *

Where can kindness and compassion and contentment,

And gratitude and harmony and joy, dwell,

But in a very tranquil mind.

* * * *

You are in a universe, in a world, in a form,

In a time, in a mind, in a dream,

But never of it.

* * * *

How would that which is God.

Be omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent,

If it were not in everything,

Including You?

* * * *

The world is neither good nor evil.

It is neither gentle nor harsh.

It is at best, indifferent.

* * * *

Sit quietly, move silently, watch closely,

Be as inwardly still, as a calm, windless day,

And You will be the harvest of your temporal fate.

* * * *

You cannot free your Self without a healthy dose of doubt.

* * * *

You are the nothingness of everything, and the everything of nothingness.

112

What hollow, insufferable, absurd idolatry has been fomented,

In hearts and minds in all geographies in every epoch.

Discern and embrace the inescapable infinity,

In which You are both part and whole.

* * * *

To see the simple truth of eternity’s ultimate grace,

As clearly as momentary awareness allows,

Is to become inwardly, very, very still,

A shave, just a shave, mind you,

More than death its Self.

* * * *

All minds are sooner or later lost.

From oblivion and back again,

An inevitable, irrevocable fact.

You were long before any sun.

* * * *

What the future is going to endure,

Is likely so beyond the pale,

Even the pale blanches.

* * * *

In a win-lose world,

The dream evenly backs,

All the winners, all the losers,

In the zero-sum game that it really is.

* * * *

Only you care or not,

And at best for only for a brief while,

In the great infinity of the oblivion, You ultimately are.

* * * *

Science is a state, a quality of mind,

That examines the truth of anything and everything.

No belief system is required, other than a deep, abiding, verifiable acuity.

* * * *

Whether or not any other sees it as you do; why should that concern you in the least?

All this adversity, over the one and only truth, and the endlessly arbitrary notions about it,

Is as pointlessly hollow, as absurdly meaningless, as the vanity of it all, can possibly ordain.

113

No matter where you may be in this vast mystery of creation,

No matter how many ways you find to distract your Self,

You are ultimately and forever alone all the while.

* * * *

Must consciousness inevitably fall on its own sword,

For its inability to strike some sort of balance,

Amid all its self-absorbed absurdities.

* * * *

If you are bound up in the hell your own creation,

You may well be your own judge and jury;

Perhaps far more harsh with yourself,

Than any other would likely be.

Forgiveness begins within.

* * * *

You will always discern your Self,

In the nooks and crannies,

Of every existence.

* * * *

Do not worry, be happy.

Easier said than done.

* * * *

Only in utter stillness,

Can the You that is really You,

Be free of the you that is not really You.

* * * *

And if you had it to do over again,

Would you do it even harder and faster,

Than you have this little rehearsal of a soiree?

* * * *

That from which all existence emanates,

Will ever be an unknowable, enigmatic whodunit,

Far too vast to be constrained or explained by any creation.

* * * *

An un-papered, intelligent life, can go head-to-head any day of the week,

With all the diplomas and certificates hanging framed on so many walls.

114

Those to whom unconditional freedom is the highest calling,

Are likely nearest to discerning the all-encompassing nature.

* * * *

Despite all the countless flurries of imagination,

Playing out in every nook, every cranny of consciousness,

There is really nowhere to be, nowhere to go,

But right here, right now.

* * * *

Seal off the senses like a sovereign would castle walls,

Like a martial artist would five opponents,

Untouched, timeless, free, absolute,

A bubble unto thy Self.

* * * *

You never know what the Fates have in store.

Best be ready for anything dreamtime allows.

* * * *

You are left a meager trail of breadcrumbs,

That perchance you will find your way,

Through the darkness soon to fall.

* * * *

Impossible to be more, impossible to be less.

* * * *

Of a vast array of potentials this day offered,

Was there really even an iota of choice in it?

* * * *

Beauty can be the promise of any number of lies.

* * * *

If you really get down to brass tacks,

Real religion, if such a thing is even necessary,

Must surely be a moment-to-moment state of mindfulness.

* * * *

An absolute wellspring of irony, of paradox, of doubt, of absurdity;

Is what You must be, to wantonly, to brazenly, to fearlessly, to recklessly,

Peer prior to the sensory mind, behind the imaginary veil, of this vaporous Oz.

115

Garbage, chemical, and nuclear waste,

Ozone depletion, conventional warfare, terrorism,

Deforestation, exhausted fisheries, superbugs and unrelenting viruses,

Unnatural disasters, cancers, overpopulation, poverty,

Religious, political and economize rivalries,

Technology absurdly exponential,

And on and on and on.

Through it all, the compliant throng,

Wandered about, to and fro, as if nothing was wrong,

As if nothing was different, at all unusual,

As if utter madness was normal.

* * * *

Come and gone in the momentary twinkle of every eye,

A universe simultaneously created and destroyed,

In the fleeting dreamtime of imagination.

* * * *

How absurd it is to believe anything,

When the present moment,

Is all there really is,

And its essential nature,

Has absolutely nothing to do,

With any belief system, whatsoever.

* * * *

How many have realized,

That Jesus was an antichrist?

That what we call Christian religion,

Along with all the other creeds of this world,

Has become exactly what he died advocating against.

That which dogmas across this world fear most,

Are intractable individuals who point out,

That the only authentic religion,

The only true church,

Is the golden cathedral within.

* * * *

The warrior must be ever-vigilant to elude the arrow’s fell shadow.

* * * *

Carnival tricks are not required to win some seal of approval that never existed,

And are in reality no more than distractions of middlemen looking for a free vein.

116

When you are fully absorbed by that which is prior to consciousness,

All concern for the play of time and space is swallowed up,

By the everlasting nature, the one without second,

Known by myriad names, but truly known,

By only those indeed most rare.

* * * *

The immediacy of the ever-present now is just too impossible,

For most minds born of time and space to comprehend,

So they steadfastly adhere to whatever existence,

They are fated by dreamtime to perceive.

* * * *

The ability to weave concepts into manifest reality,

Carries with it an inherent responsibility,

To use them somewhat wisely.

Alas, would that it were so apparent to all.

* * * *

About as predictable as a thumbscrew.

* * * *

Your immortality is the streaming now.

* * * *

Instinct is the foundation,

Upon which consciousness is birthed,

Yet the jeweled crest of awareness is for few to discern.

Wisdom is the untainted journey of mystery,

A path to which many are called,

But few are chosen.

* * * *

By the end of your existence,

If you are not at least somewhat content,

Then what, pray tell, Pilgrim, what has been the point?

* * * *

How can you help anyone who lacks the wit and courage to doubt?

* * * *

It is not in time and space through which you have always believed you wander,

But in the dream of time and space inspired by imagination’s sensory hologram.

117

Forget what your eyes have seen,

Your ears have heard, your nose has smelled,

Your tongue has tasted, your hands and body have felt.

Forget everything the indivisible weavings of earth, water, air, and fire,

Have ever concocted in this temporary mortal container.

Allow the mind to become utterly still,

Timelessly present, completely anonymous.

You will, in those moments of absolute awareness,

Be what you truly are, have always been, and will ever be.

* * * *

Seriously, folks, what do you really think Jesus would say,

About all the horror and absurdity carried out in his name?

* * * *

Ensnared in a dream of time and space,

You must wander a maze that does not really exist,

And endure whatever fate it has in store.

* * * *

Heavens and hells are all merely,

Fabricated whims of imagination.

* * * *

So many things we believe matter,

Do not, never did, and never will.

* * * *

What a luxury knowing so much,

All the while understanding so little.

* * * *

The mystery you seek is within and without;

Pure, simple, free, perfect, absolute, supreme.

* * * *

The matrix bids you welcome to the Land of Ozurdity.

* * * *

Why did humankind evolve the way we have?

Perhaps it was just a Darwinian survival mechanism of consciousness,

As memory, imagination, and language fabricated time,

And then gradually colluded into it.

118

Always leave open as many options, as many avenues as possible.

Never burn a bridge that you may someday need to again navigate.

* * * *

If you would never again repeat some long unforgotten regret,

Then that is the penance, the atonement, the amends,

In which the forgiveness of grace is harbored.

* * * *

You briefly inhabit a body, not the other way around.

* * * *

Monkeys and their many trials, their many fates;

We must all reconcile to one branch or another.

* * * *

Nothing is happening all around you.

* * * *

Divine madness, yes, indeedy.

* * * *

When is enough, enough?

* * * *

There is ultimately but one destiny,

And it is everything and nothing.

* * * *

Death is really nothing more,

Than another ephemeral worldview,

With all the assumptions of mind and body,

Dissipating back into oblivion.

* * * *

What dogma does not fall short of discerning that,

To which it asserts so many patently absurd claims.

* * * *

Sometimes you are you, and other times you are You.

And at the end of imagination’s temporal reign,

It will not matter even one iota what you were or when.

It is a quantum dream, no matter the cards, or how they are played.

119

What need for any belief system, any dogma, any speculation, any meme,

Once you discern the awareness permeating all things small to great.

* * * *

Even narratives with the best of intention can lead some astray.

* * * *

Divvy up the universe into as many parts as you wish,

But never forget it always add back up to one whole.

* * * *

There is only essence, and every drop is of it,

No matter how great, no matter how small.

* * * *

It is what it is, and you are ever of it.

No belief system is necessary.

No fear is required.

* * * *

Men speculate, Truth laughs.

* * * *

Making up your mind, literally.

* * * *

Any determined middleman,

Can just about always find a choir,

To fund and support his or her little game.

* * * *

Half the world are “innies,” half are “outies,”

And with them, we do everything imaginable.

* * * *

There is nothing to be lost; there is nothing to be saved.

The everything and nothing, is unwaveringly indivisible.

* * * *

You have seen reflections of it.

You have seen photographs and drawings of it.

But you have never, and will never, see your face the way others see it.

Behind the given mask, we are all the same mystery.

120

What is this sometimes almost desperate need to be known;

To be recognized, approved, applauded by others?

Being more than what You have always been,
Is just not possible, nor at all necessary.

It is only imagination’s projection,

Dreaming out yet another sensory day.

* * * *

Why should sanction from any other be at all needed,

When simply being the ephemeral singularity,

From which all manifestation springs,

Is surely completeness in its Self.

* * * *

Everything consumable will be consumed,

And when what is left is all but gone,

And our kind runs hard aground,

In what will dreamtime’s future abide?

* * * *

And what can truth ever be but You?

* * * *

Mystery is not in the way You think.

* * * *

Stand alone, be free.

What tyrant can take away,

The freedom of those free of fear,

Those with the audacity to be sovereign.

* * * *

More egocentric, ethnocentric gobbledygook.

* * * *

No matter how badly anyone wants it to,

Nothing ever stays the same even for one moment.

Even the hardest rock is moving in its own imperceptible way.

* * * *

Look at ancient ruins across the world, and imagine in just a few thousand years,

The more-than-likely state of decay and mayhem of all the nuclear reactors and waste sites,

We have so mindlessly, foolishly, absurdly slapped across the face of time to come.

121

To the greatest questions: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?,

There can ultimately be no answers more than speculation.

Agnostic |agˈnästik| noun: a person who believes,

That nothing is known or can be known,

Of the existence or nature of God,

Or of anything beyond material phenomena;

A person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

* * * *

Why be bound by any geographical collusion?

Why be bound by any human concoction?

Why be bound by anything imagined?

* * * *

Why be bound by the limitations,

Of the frame of reference of any other,

When You are truly beyond all.

* * * *

So exceedingly insignificant,

As to make the definition of puny,

Gargantuan in comparison.

* * * *

It is all just one collusion or another.

* * * *

So simple as to be practically nothing.

Cotton candy sweetly wafting in a dream.

* * * *

What is the body, the world, the universe,

But a temporal infringement of agony and ecstasy,

An intrusion of mortality’s ephemeral nature,

A distraction from what You truly are.

* * * *

DNA suffers no ethical dilemmas, no moral quagmires.

Its only mindless concern is its genetic survival and continuity.

In that quest, no course of action endures any reflection, whatsoever.

“The end justifies any means” is its only true law, its only abiding directive.

Anyone living is only here now, because of every possible permutation imaginable,

Since the mystery of existence came into being, in the puddle of some long ago.

122

If there is any ultimate meaning and purpose to all this sandbox play,

Then surely it must be to realize that which You truly are.

What would be the point of anything less?

* * * *

Other than one contrived, arbitrary, vain notion or another,

How can there be any separation, between creator and creation?

You are it, and it is You, in each and every form imaginable,

And everything formless, through which all are bent.

* * * *

So many rushing inanely through the mists of time,

Rarely paying attention to the passing moment,

What kind of meaningful existence is that?

Pay attention while You can, Pilgrim,

You will not pass this way again.

* * * *

Individuality is the ruse of imagination,

Inspired by the lie of the senses.

You are the absolute total functioning,

Prior to the limited scope of time and space.

* * * *

Words are only as enduring as there are readers.

* * * *

Glimpses of truth,

Between all the worldly enticements,

Of countless Sirens singing from every nook and cranny.

Is any splintered Soul ever always free?

* * * *

What is now current will someday be considered ancient.

The flesh and bones of that to which we are all so attached,

Are already long since dissolved in the wafting sands of time.

* * * *

The ever-morphing universe, every moment,

Appears and disappears before the mind-body receptors.

What is existence but a few breaths, an assortment of experiences,

A succession of conversations, a collection of minutiae,

And the vaporous perception of relativity.

123

Every life form is shaped, wrought, conditioned, molded, sculpted,

By the ceaseless dynamic of its interweaving nature-nurture.

Ever an epic adventure, however long, however short.

* * * *

Discern your own law, and then keep it to your Self,

To avoid others fabricating some new silliness,

Likely just as dogmatic as all the rest.

* * * *

Strategy is where you are headed;

Tactics, how you will get there.

* * * *

A snowflake of stardust.

* * * *

Nothing is certain.

* * * *

How unbecoming of You.

* * * *

The final, most exact and truest answer,

Is the simplest, least dogmatic certainty.

* * * *

Gossip can be a poisonous, smoldering brew,

To which most, if not all, busy minds subscribe.

* * * *

Suffer well; suffer with all your being.

Suffer until You can smother the absurdity,

Of believing there is anything permanent enough,

Over which to suffer so much of your fleeting existence.

* * * *

If Jesus was somehow to return,

And tell his followers they had gotten it all wrong;

Should they, would they, could they, even listen, much less change?

And would he suffer the same agony at their intolerant hands,

As he did in the explicitly painful, original production?

Assuming it really, even happened, of course.

124

Vanity’s only destiny is a brief echo in the abyss of oblivion.

* * * *

Just because it was said long ago does not make it real or important.

* * * *

Hope is for those blind and deaf to the world in which they sleep.

* * * *

Those who seek peace must first unclench the fist in the mind.

* * * *

A well-turned bluff can be worth its weight in gold.

* * * *

A collusion of illusion, nothing more.

* * * *

Imagination on its daily sensory tour.

* * * *

Consciousness is an arbitrary agent.

* * * *

Anything can happen anywhere, anytime.

* * * *

Are you a human being, or a human becoming?

* * * *

Bet you cannot let go, as fast as the isness that is not, can.

* * * *

What you will endure depends, how badly you yearn to exist.

* * * *

Where is any knowledge anchored but the filament of imagination?

* * * *

No place to anchor in the nothingness of pure awareness.

* * * *

How trivial the life that requires applause.

125

Who was the real Jesus?

Everyone has a unique translation,

But no one can ever know the living, breathing man,

Long dead, long gone, nothing more than an idol, a figment in any mind,

As are we all.

* * * *

None of us are forced to participate in this existence.

At any time, You can refuse to budge, run away, or off the body.

The martyrdom of carrying on, no matter the price,

Is the finale of the great vanities.

* * * *

Vain notions founded on the quicksand of imagination,

Should never be confused with the truth of their origin.

* * * *

Privilege only entitles anyone so far.

Irrelevance is the course for all,

Lacking gumption and grit.

* * * *

Why argue the obvious?

* * * *

Yack-a-doodle-doo.

* * * *

The dead are at peace.

It is the living who choose,

To continue suffering their vanity.

* * * *

Some solutions appear quickly, effortlessly.

But sometimes you must ponder for quite a while,

For a given conundrum to wholly decipher its enigma.

* * * *

Plenty of mystical types babbling away these daze.

Now all that needs to happen, is for all the mean and nasty people,

Along with all the billions who are just plain oblivious,

To begin gazing into their bellybuttons.

Probably not a good idea to hold your breath.

126

When You were an infant, when You were a child,

Before You became attached to the body and the world about You,

Before You began fabricating a sense of identity,

What was the quality of mind,

In which the renaissance will be discerned?

* * * *

Like groups with like; only differences apart.

Instinctual or imagined, it is the nature of all small to great,

Born of this garden world, this theater, this mysterious dream of time and space,

In which enigmas of every variety, rise and fall,

In ephemeral grace.

* * * *

Before all beginnings, all endings.

After all endings, all beginnings.

* * * *

Those who speak do not know.

Those who know do not speak.

The great silence stills tongues.

* * * *

So much effort, so much ambition,

To attain that which You already are,

Have ever been, and will ever be.

* * * *

No one can ever know the future.

Every single moment unfolds seamlessly,

In its own profoundly, inexplicably synergistic way.

* * * *

It is all nothing,

And therein resides the meaning:

Infinitesimal, indiscernible, insignificant, immeasurable.

* * * *

Everything between You and Me,

Everything between this and that, and that and this,

Is completely relative in the manifest, time-bound, comparative sense.

But from the essential, ultimate, absolute perspective,

It is all seamlessly indivisible.

127

The eternal mind is simply paying very close, very still attention, to the passing moment.

Simply being present, without fanfare or dogma, without pretext or assertion.

Letting it all come, letting it all go, no vain notions, whatsoever.

* * * *

In the small, micro view, You are the center of a universe,

Created by the manifest sensory dreamtime, inspired by the body and mind.

But in the larger macro vision of all that is and all that is not,

You are but one, in a vast singularity of points.

* * * *

No need to fear or quake, no need to bow or scrape,

Nor is there need to bluster or foam,

Just be what You are,

All that is … All that is not.

* * * *

How still is still?

* * * *

Lesson learned, maybe.

Lesson unlearned, maybe.

* * * *

The sciences, however astute,

Must ever only flail at the windmills,

Of the unknown that permeates all creation.

* * * *

The elements can confound all,

But the most astute, in so many ways,

And even the most sendible, must be en garde,

For the chaos they can in any given moment encounter.

* * * *

As meticulously as the sciences,

May examine and measure all things manifest,

The rational mind must ever remain ignorant of its irrational origin.

* * * *

There is a great emptiness, a great solitude, a great silence,

Waiting within, when you are finished with all the noise of the world,

Playing its repetitive, hollow recording, over and over in the monkey-mind head.

128

In one way or another, in one place or another, in one time or another,

The you that is the ultimate real You is witness to it all.

Omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient,

Call it what you will.

* * * *

An unperturbed, anonymous existence, offers the greatest freedom,

To those not beguiled by the ceaseless absurdity,

Of monkey see, monkey do.

* * * *

Every day it becomes a tad more apparent,

What you are not, have never been, will never be.

What to do when the edifice dissolves entirely,

And the eternal witness is all that remains.

* * * *

Stories within stories within stories,

Woven seamlessly, effortlessly, timelessly,

In imagination’s onetime production.

* * * *

Fate is as fate does.

* * * *

You woke up again this morning,

The obituary notice still in the mail.

* * * *

So many peoples, so many languages,

Saying so much of the same across the board.

How can any neighbor ever be all that different, really?

* * * *

The church of awareness is in every moment of every day.

To attend only one sunrise-sunset a week, misses out on the other six.

And that is just in one week, of just one year, of just one life.

And do not forget about all the starry-starry nights.

* * * *

The so-called world, the so-called universe, the so-called every day,

Is nothing more than a touchy-feely, three-dimensional dream,

In which You may either wake up, or slumber throughout.

129

To you who were never born,

Who are your ancestors; who is your progeny?

Who is your father, your mother, your uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters?

Who are your friends, your acquaintances, your adversaries?

Who is any mortal creature, any manifest form?

But the one and only ultimate You,

Wandering yet another reverie of illusion.

* * * *

The sage is no different than anyone or anything else,

Perhaps just a little more Self-contained,

A little more Self-absorbed,

A little more You.

* * * *

How much more significant any action,

When done for its intrinsic nature,

Rather than some other gain.

* * * *

Truth is not something that can be attained,

In any imaginable way or shape or form.

It is merely source to the ever-fleeting,

Ever-mysterious, ever-indivisible moment.

* * * *

Just playing it out as best you can,

The first-and-last, one-and-only, never-again attempt,

At pretending to be a human being.

* * * *

If you wish to know that which is truly God,

Then observe within very closely,

Until you clearly perceive that the awareness,

Is the indivisible source, to which all are seamless witness.

Neither yours, nor mine, nor anyone else’s; immortal You, all the same.

* * * *

Other than in its human form, nature has no individuality, no character, no ego.

The human paradigm is but a happenstance-happenchance of this beyond-all-pales mystery theater,

Evolved absolutely, by the creative dynamic of quantum, witnessed by awareness.

Intentional or not, here our kind is, doing what vanity does,

In its mixed bag of mindful and mindless.

130

It is the same old patterns, played out ever again, since humankind,

Came down from the branches, and wandered out into the garden.

* * * *

What is life, but a countdown to one deadly end or another.

May as well make the Reaper your favorite drinking buddy.

* * * *

Paid a lot of dearly, for that little vice, you did, you did.

* * * *

Just a-spacin’ away; a-streamin’ with the dreamin’.

* * * *

Within the roar of applause, ever a hollow tone.

* * * *

What pathless is there to heaven,

But through the eternal within.

* * * *

There is only one Soul,

And it is that which is totality.

There is only one totality,

And it is the Soul in all.

* * * *

No one can truly see the real You,

Nor can You truly see your Self.

It is your fate to play it all so,

Again and again, ever again.

* * * *

That which is ever-changing is not eternal.

That which is eternal is not ever-changing.

* * * *

He with the most toys dies same as every other.

* * * *

It is all You within and without.

Nothing about which to get all pride-filled.

You are witness, nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

131

We are all merely monkeys here, an entire planet covered with monkeys.

Jesus was a monkey, and so were Buddha, Muhammad, Lao Tzu, and Nietzsche.

Your father and mother are monkeys, and your brothers, your sisters, your grandparents,

And your uncles and aunts and cousins and friends and acquaintances and strangers and enemies,

And even you, are all just two-legged tree-swingers, who one day climbed down,

And wandered out into the plains, and across the pale blue dot.

* * * *

The heart of awareness has nothing to do with romantic notion.

* * * *

How amazing that any so-called educational system,

Would not diligently labor to encourage all,

To strengthen the given capacities,

For the well-being of all.

* * * *

Truth is truth, however you may ponder it.

* * * *

Resisting change is pointless.

Embracing its ever-changing reality,

Makes it far more endurable,

Perhaps even interesting.

* * * *

Such a synergistic madhouse, what can you do,

But just inanely laugh out loud at the absurdities,

We have wrought in our very brief time in the sun.

* * * *

A perspective from which nothing freely comes and goes.

* * * *

The only thing permanent and everlasting,

About this ever-changing manifest dream of consciousness,

Is the indivisible quantum essence, that permeates its each and every strand.

* * * *

You are not your body, your mind, your relationships, your things.

You are not your likes and dislikes, nor the perceptions of all your memories.

You are not your world, you are not your universe, you are not anything under any sun.

You are naught but the awareness of totality, witnessing a magical mystery tour of quantum design.

132

Another soul twisted and turned by the play of time and space, as are we all.

How we engage the given nature-nurture dreamtime,

Is full of choiceless choices.

* * * *

You are in this particular form, by the caprice of the genetic lottery,

By a random role of the dice in your mothers womb.

Nothing to get all pride-filled about.

* * * *

History has never once repeated itself.

It is patterns that play out over and over again,

Across every time, every geography.

* * * *

Just because you were not raised in some castle,

Need not contrive you any less aristocratic,

In your own heart, your own mind.

* * * *

You think, therefore you are.

You think, therefore it is.

How could it be any other way?

* * * *

What need for dogma in a free mind.

* * * *

The ever-changing is but a sensory dream.

* * * *

In its all but ceaseless, time-bound pursuit of security,

Imagination sows the seeds for every dread imaginable.

* * * *

Today’s resolutions are never guaranteed to be the morrow’s.

* * * *

What would your face look like if you had never seen its reflection?

* * * *

And what if that which so many call God, is truly equally good and evil?

It is truly only the notion born of dualistic limitation that needs changing.

133

Individuality is a delusion, fabricated by consciousness, locked within a sensory dream.

Across the infinity of all dimensions, all creation shares the same Soul.

All are but shards of the indivisibly unfathomable.

* * * *

Enjoy your vanity, your hedonistic narcissism, why not?

Just do not be so deluded as to believe your existence,

Is any more than a breeze wafting through leaves.

* * * *

How can any rational mind forever pretend,

Anything it discerns not patently absurd?

* * * *

There is no separation in the awareness,

But through the play of consciousness,

And all its sensory-based differences.

* * * *

So treacherous as to be harmless,

So cruel as to be compassionate,

So rapacious as to be generous.

It is less about sordid beginnings,

Than it is about righteous endings.

* * * *

We are all addicts to the patterns,

Through which we daily wander.

* * * *

The minimum requirement,

For a moderately satisfying life,

Is just enough wit to appreciate genius.

* * * *

The only thing jealous about any god or gods,

Is in the minds of minions who busily scurry about,

Promoting dogmas entirely born of their imaginary vanity.

* * * *

Those many who harbor in hope,

Should beware the cynic whose light shines bright,

Upon the countless absurdities, that run amok in human mind and deed.

134

Yet another unique and novel experience.

Another current event, another occupation, another obsession,

Another relationship, another group, another role,

Another this, another that, another other.

And the point, minus all the vanity, again, was?

* * * *

We are all twisted up in one way or another.

No use getting all worked up or discombobulated about it.

It is not like anyone has been dealt a perfect hand.

Monkey faire across the board, so to speak.

* * * *

Can there be any without, without within?

Can there be any within, without without?

Is there any degree of separation, really?

* * * *

Dressed to the nines or stark naked,

We are all just a cluster of monkeys.

Genetics casts its shadowed fate in all.

* * * *

The sensory reverie draws the infant,

From the benign womb of beingness,

To a universe of incessant becoming.

Eternity is given over to imagination.

* * * *

The mystery of existence,

A few breaths, a few heartbeats,

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

Your world, your universe, expands in consciousness,

Until you at long last, realize fully, that it never really existed,

As anything more than an indivisible, ephemeral dream,

To which eternal awareness, is sovereign witness.

* * * *

This timeless, very present moment,

Is all that is, all that has ever been, all that will ever be,

Since long before imagination first began, to well after it last comes undone.

135

Stop believing you are this manifest sensory body, and all that is imagined,

And where else is there to go, what else is there to do,

What else is there to be,

But what you are, have ever been, will ever be.

* * * *

In a world, filled to the brim, with me, myself, and I,

Who is the me that me’s, the myself that myself’s, the I that I’s?

Without the given vessel, would thus ever be so?

Would thy, be anything, but That?

* * * *

The highest and mightiest dissolve into the same grave,

As quickly as even the lowliest and weakest.

The Reaper differentiates nothing.

* * * *

Life, an endless queue of things yet to do.

* * * *

The price of good is evil.

The price of right is wrong.

The price of wealth is poverty.

The price of pleasure is pain.

The price of white is black.

The price of life is death.

* * * *

This, too, shall be forgotten.

* * * *

Fair: The nicer four-letter F-word.

* * * *

This is all it is, has ever been, will ever be.

All else is vanity, nothing more, nothing less.

* * * *

Would that there were a supreme being that you could slap,

Or at least pull a nose hair as you are sneezed back into hell.

* * * *

What need would dust ever have to rise above the feet that tread upon it.

136

The grace of this unknowable mystery is within all small to great,

Discerned fully by the few granted the vision and insight,

And the inclination to peer eye wide open within.

* * * *

All paltry and meaningless; the idolatry of the Golden Calf.

To trade the treasure of Creation for a few gold coins.

What ignorance the many vanities hath wrought.

* * * *

It is all surface sheen to the underlying formless,

An opportunity to peek from behind the veil,

For brief moments dreamed in time.

* * * *

The truly homeless are always home.

* * * *

Reconciling nothing with its Self,

Is pretty darned absurd,

Yet, there it is.

* * * *

Whooooosh …

* * * *

Death becomes us all.

* * * *

You have always been alone.

It is your one and only nature.

* * * *

Yet another weary moment flowers,

Through the endless projection of vanity.

* * * *

The face is but a mask upon which character is written.

* * * *

Anything could be better; anything could be worse.

Gratitude for whatever has been offered, whatever has been given,

Is the one of the greater challenges of contentment.

137

Absolutely anything can be usurped.

Truth has been an unwitting collaborator to every sort of lie,

Ever since consciousness first parlayed the whimsical notions of irony and paradox.

What would existence be without their ever-brewing absurdities?

* * * *

Congratulations to humanity for transforming the world,

Into books, slideshows, video clips, vanity faire tweets,

And ungainly garbage dumps of every size and décor.

* * * *

What need or concern could God possibly have,

For the shenanigans born of space and time?

* * * *

If you were a king or queen, you would …

* * * *

Yet another reason to hang alone.

* * * *

A waking dream,

Nothing more,

Nothing less,

Nothing but.

* * * *

Stone cold still.

* * * *

Of nothing, ado alleged much.

* * * *

You were not, you are not, you need not care.

* * * *

Whether so-called alive, whether so-called dead, You are.

* * * *

The senses are ripples away from the awareness where You abide.

The eyes, the ears, the tongue, the nose, the flesh, all feeding into the mind;

How can they ever be the one and only You, but through attachment to assumptions?

How can they ever be more than distant devices, to be witnessed however nature-nurture allows?

138

It is not through words that reality is discerned.

Concepts are but the winds of sound blowing this way and that,

The awareness you are, utterly still throughout.

For that which you truly are,

There is no name.

* * * *

Aloof or in a crowd, aloneness is a state of mind.

* * * *

What that tattoo, piercing, or implant,

Is going to look like in twenty or so years,

Is not a very pretty thought to those,

Not lacking vivid imaginations.

* * * *

The expanses of imagination,

Are but the ephemeral filament,

Of the thunder perfect mind.

* * * *

Me, Myself, and I,

It loses interest in all of us,

And we few in it.

* * * *

Heeding sound counsel,

And parlaying aid to one’s advantage,

Is not the nature of fools.

* * * *

What is consciousness,

But the dynamic of imagination,

Playing itself out in the ground of eternity.

* * * *

There is really no mine, no yours, no theirs.

There is only consciousness, pure and simple,

Playing out every character imagination inspires.

* * * *

Avoid the turbulence inspired by the worship of Mammon,

If you might wish to live out a relatively tranquil existence.

139

Different time, different language, different face; pretty much the same conversation.

* * * *

Be so vulnerable, as to without hesitation, proffer the executioner your neck.

* * * *

What is ever new, but the ever-present You, under the ever-present sun.

* * * *

The sands of time are but the ever-shifting dunes of imagination.

* * * *

What is cause, what is effect, in the holography of if it all?

* * * *

The passions are but passing waves of imagination.

* * * *

Nothing, for as far as you can see.

* * * *

Awareness is all.

* * * *

What a vain, frail dream.

* * * *

Those who cannot comprehend, judge.

* * * *

No expectations known; what need for anything?

* * * *

And on the eighth day, God wept, sighed, and trudged on.

* * * *

The great Just-in-Case once again raises its precautionary head.

* * * *

The greatest demon may not necessarily be the one who looks the part.

* * * *

What narrow, limited, confining views of God are harbored by any given dogma.

140

The perfect crime is the one no one ever even suspects happened.

And many are likely guilty of who knows how many,

Heinous thought-crimes in any given day.

What sordid monkeys we are.

* * * *

The kaleidoscoping senses are the gateway to perception.

Without them, what is any universe,

If not nothing.

* * * *

Why would any deity worth a tinker’s damn,

Be a proponent of any dogma, whatsoever?

* * * *

Each and every snowflake is the first.

Every one must discern its own way.

* * * *

What an absurd idea,

To believe you are an identity,

Distinct from totality.

Sheer madness.

* * * *

You cannot be what you are not,

Nor teach what you do not know.

What is false is not of long duration.

* * * *

What to do when you look within,

And clearly discern your soul no different,

Than anyone or anything else’s.

* * * *

It is consciousness that steeps in passion and fear.

Awareness is incapable of knowing any difference.

* * * *

There is really only this ephemeral nowness,

Envisioned in the mind via the senses,

Filtered into your version of an imagined universe,

The mirage through which you daily wander your dream of time.

141

If your concept of a deity does not incorporate you as more than a sheep,

To be herded to and fro, in some groupthink-follower collective,

Then perhaps you need to incite some serious doubting,

For a very up-the-ante, worldview change-up.

Slap your Self, so to speak, very hard.

* * * *

Why do some so shudder at the thought of death?

Perhaps because they have never discerned it ever hovering,

Each and every within-and-without moment,

In each and every breath.

* * * *

The master is the one who sees how little he knows,

The journeyman has not quite figured it out,

And the beginner already knows it all.

* * * *

Just because you start off as a human being,

Does not mean you have to end up as one.

* * * *

It is said that in every mass movement,

There must be the first follower,

But what of That I Am,

To which one,

Neither leads nor follows,

At best, perhaps points, this way or that.

* * * *

It is only consciousness that is harbor,

To all the agonies and ecstasies of passion.

The eternal awareness is neither here nor there.

* * * *

In a few seconds, minutes, hours,

Days, weeks, months, years, lifetimes, eons,

It all will not matter even one iota to anyone or anything.

* * * *

Some things you can stare in the face your whole life,

And never even begin to perceive, never even begin to discern.

Irony and paradox loiter in every nook, in every cranny, at every turn.

142

That so many maltreat others, in so many cruel ways, is beyond all reckoning.

Some abide the barbarity through stoic cynicism and ironic repartee,

And others through compassionate, selfless, heartfelt service.

The human dreamscape finds time and place for all.

* * * *

To turn it off, You can either become very still, very detached,

Or You can, through a variety of means, off the body.

Suicide is the greatest philosophical question.

So, embrace the absurdity of it all,

Moniker yourself Sisyphus,

Abandon all hope,

Get ye shoulder to ye boulder,

And whistle while ye daily slog it up the hill.

* * * *

Universes come and go; quantum abides eternal.

* * * *

The human species has been migrating,

Ever since it crawled out of the puddle.

* * * *

Where is there to go? What is there to do?

What is there to see, hear, touch, taste, or smell,

That is not ultimately the one and only You?

* * * *

It is all just imagination’s attachment to this or that.

A sensory dream in the matrix of eternity.

You are untainted awareness,

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

Just putting in your time in whatever way the dream calls.

* * * *

The same seven deadly sins:

Pride, envy, gluttony, lust, wrath, greed, sloth;

Play out like a scratchy record over and over across time, across space.

There is really nothing all that new under any given sun.

* * * *

What need, really, for any who, any what, any where, any when, any why, any how.

You are, and that is more than enough for those immersed within, stabilized without.

143

History is replete with the ideals of truth, justice, and equity for all,

Being blown asunder by the mortal tempest of me, myself, and I,

From every crook and cranny of this swirling play of stardust.

* * * *

Even other dimensions viewed through different eyes,

Will not change the essential nature of all creation.

There is only one source, no matter the mooring.

It may have faces and places beyond counting,

But the underlying nature is ever the same.

* * * *

Of truth, much is said, nothing known.

* * * *

The great serenity has no bounds.

* * * *

More irony, more paradox.

Yawn, ho-hum.

* * * *

About nothing, I Am.

* * * *

You never were.

You are not.

You need not care.

* * * *

Truth is not partial to any notion.

* * * *

Ponder the eternal enigma you ever are.

* * * *

Everything is food to one set of fangs or another.

* * * *

In just one ephemeral moment, death rubs out an entire existence,

All its imaginary perceptions, completely undone for all of eternity.

And all your power, all your renown, all your fortune, all your beliefs,

Cannot even one moment more – command, influence, acquire, or hope.

144

In the lifelong inquiry into the one and only truth, the one and only reality,

Why on earth, vainly adhere to any particular school of thought,

When an entire universe is your dreamtime teacher.

* * * *

The burden of traditions across this magical garden,

Muddy the unfolding now with every sort of dualistic notion.

How can everyone be free to discern the greatest vision,

With so much hollow dogma weighing them down?

Only the rare have the courage to stand alone.

* * * *

Memory is but the wake of imagination.

* * * *

Path? What path?

Journey? What journey?

Fate? What fate?

* * * *

All, in a dream.

* * * *

Indelible awareness.

* * * *

It is whatever you think it is.

It is not anything you think it is.

All just pretend, all just make-believe,

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

Nothing, even a moment ago, ever happened.

Everything is devised of time-bound imagination.

You were not, you are not, you need not care.

* * * *

So much of everything within any given cosmos.

Nothing new, nothing old, everything the same, nothing the same.

On and on, the unknowable conundrum churns, ever creating, preserving, destroying.

The timeless in every mind’s eye, witness to a kaleidoscoping sensory mirage.

The awareness has awakened in so many dreams, in so many universes,

In so many paroxysms, in so many reflections of consciousness.

To the eternal, in which all small to great equally abide.

You are it, it is You, there is ultimately no other.

145

Existence is short no matter how long, and long no matter how short.

You are likely not as healthy as you were a year ago today,

Nor as unhealthy as you are apt to be a year hence.

Real wealth is a robust body and mind.

Spend your genetic allowance however you will,

With whatever intelligence and attentiveness you can muster.

* * * *

The truth of it, is, that not even one atom,

Across an entire cosmos indivisibly full of them,

Can for even one iota of an eternal moment, still itself.

And yet, the awareness within and without its ever-churning all,

Has never once, across all time and space, even stirred.

* * * *

Do faces shape the minds, or minds, the faces?

The winds of time sculpt in many ways,

And are by their many creations,

Blown many directions.

* * * *

The lonely love; the lonely hate.

* * * *

Try not to make that mistake again.

* * * *

Gaia’s inexplicable garden is forever undone.

The dystopian malaise is very much underway.

* * * *

The past becomes longer, deeper, fuller,

And the unfolding future ever more expansive.

That is, if You continue bothering to imagine it all real.

It takes a good deal of effortlessness to be right here, right now.

* * * *

For what, exactly, are you hoping?

Power? Fame? Fortune? Security? … Immortality?

You already have so much: sentience, health, food, water, air, space, time.

As austere as it may well sound, things so often taken for granted, are truly the greatest treasure.

After all, You only dream this manifest play for as long as mortal destiny allows.

Try not to squander the temporal window of beingness too lightly.

146

Only minds shackled to time and space, require meaning and purpose.

The sage wanders freely in the quietude of eternal awareness.

All meaning and purpose evaporates when you do.

* * * *

You are freest when you are not, and the great not knowing,

As effortlessly simple as it truly is, is not easily ascertained.

* * * *

What need for hope, when there is only birth and death,

And remorseless bouts of agony and ecstasy, between.

* * * *

So many imperfections, and the crest-jewel flawless.

* * * *

There are dilemmas enough in this dream world,

Without the upsurge of make-believe molehills.

* * * *

Time spent with a fool, is time absurdly lent.

* * * *

The human paradigm has become so yawn.

* * * *

Consciousness is the cacophony of nothingness.

* * * *

We are all wee little figments,

Of your idiosyncratic imagination,

And You in ours, and ours in each other’s.

Consciousness is but an ever-flowing dreamtime.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

You can easily spot those,

Who consider themselves an underclass,

Because all about their anguish and misfortune, they are.

* * * *

If you are not privy the source of this vast mystery, how can anyone else be?

An agnostic stance is the middle way, between the true believers of any assertion.

147

Each and every instant, across all infinity’s inexplicable indivisibility,

Seamlessly, timelessly, irrevocably blending into the next,

From rise and bloom, to decline and demise.

And it is all You, forever one.

* * * *

All dualistic notions are the hoax of consciousness,

Ever enticed by the kaleidoscoping play of the senses and mind.

You are this ephemeral, eternal, nonexistent moment,

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but,

No matter the fabrication.

* * * *

The nothingness of everything, awakens to another day.

* * * *

What need a simple mind, for such complex reasoning.

* * * *

To be deeply, truly content, is a gift beyond compare.

* * * *

And what is the Way, if not everything and nothing.

* * * *

Nothing matters, and nothing so does not matter, too.

* * * *

Keep on stepping, you will get somewhere, eventually.

* * * *

What cannot be misconstrued, once taken out of context?

* * * *

How intelligent does one have to be, to not be stupid?

How beautiful, to not be ugly? How good, to not be bad?

How correct, to not be wrong? How wise, to not be foolish?

Where is the line between any yay, any nay, any this, any that,

But some inflated, arbitrary formulation, of the given mind.

* * * *

When has nature ever been anything, but that which is called God?

How else would Self manifest, without one dream of time or another?

148

It takes no effort to be what you already are, have ever been, and will ever be.

* * * *

Pretending to know something you can never know, now there’s the rub.

* * * *

The selection process, individually and collectively, creates the future.

* * * *

The call of the wild, is but a faint echo, in the domesticated mind.

* * * *

How much pain will you endure, to maintain your little dream?

* * * *

Just another middleman, lurking in one tollbooth or another.

* * * *

How naive to believe, anything cannot happen to you, too.

* * * *

What creation can withstand its inevitable destruction.

* * * *

Nothing and something, both rumored impossible.

* * * *

Who is the who, who questions who is who?

* * * *

What is the universe, but a never-ending craps roll.

* * * *

In the ocean of metaphors, awareness abides indivisible.

* * * *

And where are you, when the world within and without dissolves?

* * * *

Straddling the fenceless fence, makes for a painfully splintered wander.

* * * *

Imagination, in all its vanities, can be a cruel taskmaster in this grand hoax.

149

This ever-streaming moment, is all You truly are, have ever been, or will ever be.

How can any thought, any experience, any passion, any notion, whatsoever,

Cleave to that which is flawlessly perfect prior to all that is imagined?

* * * *

Those who long for a serene existence, set aside their many passions,

And surrender to the awareness, in which all creation is harbored.

* * * *

What a challenging thing,

Not to be drawn again and again and again,

Into the human paradigm, and its incessant, raucous cacophony,

All its cares and woes, all its troubles and bothers,

All its confusion and disharmony.

* * * *

What is there to save, when there is nothing that can be lost?

* * * *

The proof is in the pudding, and you are the pudding.

* * * *

It is generally the followers, the true believers,

Who begat the absurdities and horrors.

Of all dogmatic thinking.

* * * *

How can anyone know that which is oblivion,

When nothing must be present to witness it?

* * * *

You are not apart from God, you are a part of God.

* * * *

To fully comprehend your many demons, is to realize,

That they are but ripples of vain consciousness, not You.

* * * *

All pronouns are but the narrowing assumptions of imagination.

* * * *

We must each wander alone, through the decline, toward the demise.

Coping can include cynicism, stoicism, fatalism, absurdity, conviction.

150

It has always been the same eternity, through which all dreams have streamed.

* * * *

Forget the world, forget the universe, forget everything, even your Self.

* * * *

Quantum body, quantum mind, quantum soul, quantum dream.

* * * *

We all gauge our given existence in many different ways.

To judge, to compare, to covet, is meaningless.

All are of the same indivisibility.

Being and allowing, is the road less traveled.

* * * *

You are not, you have never been, you will never be,

What you see or hear or feel or taste or smell or think.

* * * *

The figment of imagination is within all.

* * * *

In the dream, but not of it.

* * * *

Relish the aloneness of the eternity within.

* * * *

Why should you be a sheep to some shepherd?

Why should you kowtow or pray to what you are?

Why should you fear that which you have ever been?

Pfft on all dogmas devised by minds embedded in time.

* * * *

Just about everything human,

Sooner or later becomes all but immobilized,

By all the parameters and procedures of bureaucratic tomfoolery.

* * * *

We must all one day face an executioner.

The only questions include whether it will be large or small,

Animate or inanimate, quick or slow, conscious or unconscious, known or unknown,

By your own hand or by another’s.

151

The good teacher requires a good student, and the good student, a good teacher.

But no matter the subject, no teacher can more than point the way.

It is always the student, who must do the learning.

* * * *

How curious that those who spend their existence in scholarship,

Are never able to entirely examine all the knowledge,

The mystery ever-entices them to create.

* * * *

The first step in any religion, is fabricating a supreme being,

And the second, is dwelling in fear of its imaginary shadow.

* * * *

Quantum breathing:

Breathe in the universe, breathe out the universe,

Breathe in the universe, breathe out the universe.

Breathe in the universe …

* * * *

The monkey-mind races madly for the edge,

Of the terra firma’s petri dish.

Biology will out.

* * * *

No point judging something, You cannot change.

No point judging something, that does not matter.

No point judging something, that is the way it is.

* * * *

Reality is ceaseless and carefree, indivisible and inexplicable.

Only imagination ebbs and flows, starts and stops.

In reality, you are the You that You are,

Not the you that you imagine.

The soul of mystery exists, not in time,

But in the timeless nowness of eternal beingness.

To achieve full potential as human being, be a human … being.

* * * *

Intelligence is of such a relative nature, that to arrogantly assert superiority to any other,

Is to deny that all creatures small to great, entertain at least one genius or another,

Which has allowed evolutionary survival, since matter’s ascent into existence.

152

What are we but portions of quanta, playing out a three-dimensional theater,

Immortal at the essential level, yet mortal in whatever form played.

Birth, death, and the life between, are but an illusory dream.

In the ultimate eternal reality, prior to all creation,

There is no existence, there is no other, there is only You.

* * * *

Everyone, everything, and all the nothingness,

Within, between, beyond, during, before, after, forever and a day,

Is the You that is Me, the Me that is You.

So simple,

As to make anything else meaningless.

* * * *

The awareness is the ever-present witness.

The observer and the observed are indivisibly one.

It is only in imagination that dualistic notion finds lodging.

Consciousness, no matter how profound or creative,

Can never be anything more than imaginary.

* * * *

The mind, with all its patterns, is like a clenched fist,

Unable to let loose whatever attachments it fosters.

* * * *

We are all of the same mystery, the same awareness,

But the character, the personality, the identity,

Wears the cloak of whatever illusory dream,

The given nature-nurture has spawned.

Nothing about which to be inflated, really.

* * * *

What you know, is in reality, of so little consequence,

As to be for all practical purpose and meaning, nothing.

* * * *

Some harbor in lies and deceit, others in truth and service.

Following the middle path of the given day, is the surest way.

* * * *

The elements ever indivisibly combine, break apart, and re-combine,

In their inexplicable, immutable, mysterious, sovereign fashion,

And the given mind follows, in whatever meager way it will.

153

There is only this infinitesimal, ethereal moment,

Untainted by any creation consciousness, heart or mind, has ever invoked.

And you are it, and it is you, pure and simple, free.

There is nothing more.

* * * *

Abide and endure, perhaps even enjoy, the pride and prejudice of it all.

An inconstant dream of inconsequential heights and depths.

The challenge is not getting too attached to it.

* * * *

Another true believer, spewing the speculation, he asserts is truth.

* * * *

The sheen can never attain the reality, upon which it shines.

* * * *

It is dwelling upon differences, that brings about pain.

* * * *

The mind, collection of vague perceptions that it is,

Is no more than what has come and gone,

Even when imagining the future.

* * * *

So many things about which to care, or not.

* * * *

What need for anything,

When everything blows to and fro,

From here to there, there to here, and back again,

In the ever-changing, vagrant dreaming,

Of the ever-unfolding now.

* * * *

The pretense of all identity is entirely imagined,

A collective collusion passed on to every generation.

The blind leading the blind to a synergistic conclusion.

* * * *

To believe the awareness is yours or anyone else’s,

Is a misguided assumption, without any validity, whatsoever.

A complete misapprehension of the essential commonality of all creation.

154

It is all You,

Terribly, wonderfully, absolutely alone,

A vast stillness without measure, without rhyme or reason, without cause or effect,

Without purpose or meaning, without beginning or end,

What else would any mystery be?

* * * *

How pure, how simple, how free, the existential beingness.

What need for anything more, really?

* * * *

The ability to control, to manipulate, to destroy,

The many other life forms in this garden,

Does not make humankind greater,

At anything but arrogance and absurdity.

* * * *

There is nothing to save, nothing to spend.

What is, is, has ever been, will ever be.

Enjoy and endure it as best ye may.

* * * *

History is the play,

Of graven images of every sort.

Forget everything.

Be.

* * * *

All assertions born of mind,

Are meaningless worldly claims.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

You will always suffer when you believe,

You are this body, this world, this universe.

There is truly no other, and you will ever suffer,

Whenever you forget to remember that simple truth.

* * * *

What is it to be born again,

But to be the awareness of a newborn.

As still and silent and attentively timeless as the cosmos,

From whence all phenomena small to great have been immaculately woven.

155

It is only in human consciousness,

That the disharmony of dualistic notion takes place.

In whatever way you might observe this infinite, indivisible matrix of a dream,

Whether physics or chemistry or biology, everything is connected,

Without any separation, any otherness, whatsoever.

* * * *

Without the patterning, without the movement of imagination,

Without all the assumptions and assertions,

What are you, really?

* * * *

To be born is to stream a so-called life,

A so-called fate, a so-called death,

A dream, unborn all the while.

* * * *

Dear Diary, what a day it has been …

* * * *

You were never really born,

You have never existed,

You have no future,

You have no past.

You are the I in I,

The Am in Am,

The That in That.

You are That I Am.

The Truth, the Life, the Way.

Awareness, pure, simple, eternally free.

* * * *

What would it have been like to have witnessed this world,

Before the indelible ascendance of humankind,

With all its fences and roads and tracks,

Its countless inventions of every size and variety,

Its boxes of every shape and purpose, strewn across the land.

* * * *

Your first lesson that existence was going to be somewhat harsh,

May have been the exit-from-the-womb whack, that inspired your first breath,

A defining wake-up call, into what all that puzzling commotion,

Outside your mummy’s tummy, was all about.

156

The worldwide winds, to which all humankind have synergistically contributed,

Are daily growing far too strong for any to find a truly safe harbor.

The imminent is a cavernous, exacting, dystopian pit,

Into which all but the most resilient,

Must inevitably fall.

* * * *

The body is merely a means for the eternal quantum nature,

To experience mortality for a relatively brief while.

All patterning is but a temporary disguise.

* * * *

Whatever the source of the mystery, You are also.

How could You not be?

* * * *

What conclusion can there ever possibly be,

To a mystery capable of dreaming,

Without beginning or end?

* * * *

Agony and ecstasy are only as near,

As the attachment to the body.

Are you your best friend,

Or worst enemy?

You decide,

Every moment.

* * * *

Would you, could you,

Really play any other character,

But the one you have already been allotted?

* * * *

Once upon a time, it all seemed as real as real could be,

And then, the one and only reality, awakened your eternal mind.

It is a solitary, less traveled, winding yellow brick road,

Down which many are called, and few inclined.

* * * *

The awareness that transpires in this eternal now,

Is indifferent to this temporal theater born of time and space.

So, the good news, really, is that it can all be considered absolute bullshit.

157

You really do not know anything, and no one else does, either.

There is no need to be afraid; there is no need to worship false idols.

There is no need to make some meaningless, absurd, bad-theater game of it.

Wonder, ponder, speculate all you please, do with your existence whatever you will;

But the source that you and all things are, is an insoluble enigma,

In which merely being here now, fearless and free,

Is, indeed, more than enough.

* * * *

Mystery may splinter into an infinity of shards,

But in each and every one, the ultimate singularity is absolute.

Only in consciousness can duality be conceived,

And the many delusions of illusion,

Play their wayward daze.

* * * *

Suffering is the only outcome for those who cling,

To what was never really theirs from the get-go.

* * * *

Words are but the dust of memory.

* * * *

Nothing exists within.

Nothing exists without.

* * * *

What an amazing dream,

All that food and drink,

Has this moment created.

Even an ocean of absurdity,

Cannot undo the mystery of it all.

* * * *

To pretend human beings are not animals,

Biological creatures without instinctual urges,

Is an absurd assertion without any merit, whatsoever.

* * * *

The evolutionary reason for sex is procreation.

The gratification sought, whether alone or with another,

Is really nothing more than a fleeting, superficial, endorphin high.

After the essential physical needs, it is the defining force of the human drama.

158

The infinite ocean of totality, is in no way, no shape, no form,

Interested or concerned or involved, with any illusory fabrication of consciousness.

It is solitary witness, within and without, all phenomena small to great,

But untouched by any dream bound to space and time.

* * * *

True science is not a religion.

It is a quality of mind solely intent on rational,

Dispassionate, impersonal, accurate, lucid, measurable observation,

To whatever conclusion the quest for truth may bring.

* * * *

Every day you wake up and wander out into the dreamscape,

And pretend along with everyone else,

Knowing all the while,

That none of it is, was, or will ever be, real.

* * * *

The first step to sanity is ignoring the world.

The second is ignoring whatever is going on in your head.

Both the same thing, really.

* * * *

To imagine yourself real, significant, permanent,

Is inevitably the source of great suffering.

* * * *

Is what we call growing up,

Really any more,

Than firing up the imagination,

Into one nature-nurture caricature or another?

* * * *

Wisdom or foolishness, intelligence or stupidity,

Of what point are any states of mind to you, really?

Sooner or later, it will all be lost, it will all be forgotten.

Vanity, vanity – all it is, has ever been, will ever be – is vanity.

Enjoy the reverie as best you may, but best not cling,

To what is only matter, and does not matter.

* * * *

Why would you ever choose to be an adherent of any doctrine, whatsoever,

When you can just naturally be your eternal Self, as free as you dare to be.

159

Epiphanies are often like the sudden crack of jostling billiard balls,

That launch their recipients off, in new and unexpected adventures.

* * * *

What in consciousness, is not an arbitrary assumption?

* * * *

So many vast divides in the countless nuances,

Of the imaginary nature of consciousness.

* * * *

All gods, all religions, all dogma,

Are nothing more than vain projections,

Of the mortal mind born of time.

* * * *

Nothing is ever the same.

* * * *

This too shall pass.

Everything does and forever will.

‘Tis the fate of stardust.

* * * *

All imperfection is born of imagination.

* * * *

What never is, never was, and will never be.

* * * *

A golden age of plunder and narcissistic decadence,

A ceaseless smorgasbord of the same old seven deadly sins,

– Wrath and greed and sloth and pride and lust and envy and gluttony –

Played out over and over, in every way imagination allows.

* * * *

Nothing is more than a little absorbing, if you can abide the aloneness.

* * * *

For want of an audience, the choir endlessly chatters on and on and on to itself.

* * * *

What arrogant, meaningless, often squalid dogmas, crisscross this spinning ball of dust.

160

All moments in this inexplicable theater, are instantaneously come and gone.

Why waste the here and now pondering things already over and done;

All of them no more than the filament of imaginary perception.

Or feel unhinging trepidation, over unknowable futures,

That must manifest, before they can be faced.

* * * *

Jesus was not Jesus, Buddha was not Buddha,

Krishna was not Krishna, Lao Tzu was not Lao Tzu.

No one has ever been anyone other than the one and only You,

That You are, have always been, will ever be.

* * * *

There are some experiences,

You could repeat every day of your life,

And others, for which even just once, is more than enough.

We each alone, together, wander and ponder,

In very different universes.

* * * *

What seems so extraordinary to many,

Is nothing to those who partake,

Naught but divine grace.

* * * *

There is a world of difference,

Between powerful and controlling,

Creation and manipulation,

Within and without.

Intent is all.

* * * *

You must alone free your Self.

No one can do it for you.

It is ultimately a solitary journey,

For which relatively few have rhyme or reason,

Much less inclination and capacity.

* * * *

So many languages in this dream world.

What a mind it would take, to comprehend them all.

An intellectual reverie, well beyond the capability and pay grade,

Of anyone bound by the frailties of mortal capacity.

161

Smaller and smaller, infinitesimally smaller; or larger and larger, infinitely larger.

How can there ever be any end, any finale to this intractable mystery?

Be still, and know that which is all, that which is none.

* * * *

Many are muddled by thoughts such as these,

Because they are questing guarantees of consolation and security,

In a touchy-feely, three-dimensional dream world,

That can never offer any such thing.

* * * *

Why trouble trying to liberate those content,

With what would to you be a prison?

You cannot awaken the dead.

Many are called; few are inclined.

* * * *

The things we for vanity endure.

* * * *

And who has it ever really been,

But the ultimate, indivisible You,

That has perceived any of this?

* * * *

You are the ethereal moment,

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

To seek more, is to settle for less.

* * * *

The only solution for times ahead,

Will be the same, as it has always been;

To muddle on, as the given moment unfolds.

* * * *

Imagination is, within the vastness of awareness,

Both least and greatest common denominator.

* * * *

How much of what you do in any given day,

Is because of the countless others;

Most of whom you will obviously never encounter,

And, if you did, many of whom, you would likely not, be really all that fond.

162

How can awareness be thought to have either beginning or end,

When its momentary nature, is so ever-present, as to be unequivocally eternal.

Consciousness, however, is an entirely different bag of worms.

For all practical purposes, it is unable to hold still,

And is insatiably able and willing,

To distract itself and over and over,

With every antic it can possibly conceive.

* * * *

The activist sees the mystic and calls his way pointless.

The mystic sees the activist and calls his way pointless, as well.

So many ways to point out the pointlessness,

Of the same and only mystery.

* * * *

Truth is the ever-present, timelessly unfolding now.

It is what is, and can never be understood,

By the mind interrupted by time.

* * * *

Every restless seeker wanders until they realize,

It was within, they were searching for, all the while.

* * * *

What a curious thing that anyone believes,

They have the right, even duty, to dictate to others,

What to do, or not do, with their existence.

* * * *

What if you suddenly realized,

All your assumptions were entirely wrong,

Would you, could you, totally recalibrate, and start anew?

* * * *

The world is but a tiny particle, in the infinity of your true beingness.

Discern that what you truly are, and are not, is prior to and well beyond,

The farthest reaches, up into which your temporal eyes, every evening gaze.

* * * *

Consciousness will never do more, than speculate on how this mystery came to be.

All anyone can ever do, is be in the moment, however it is playing out.

Time is born of mind; it is nothing more than imagination.

You were not, you are not, you need not care.

163

Concepts upon concepts; minds chock-full of every sort of notion.

And in the grand scheme of this inexplicable whodunit;

Any given dream, nothing more than poof.

* * * *

Awareness, from cradle to grave, ever the same.

* * * *

To care, or not to care, that is the question.

* * * *

In awareness, all potentials reside.

* * * *

Slumbering in nirvana.

* * * *

So much done;

So little all the while.

The nothingness is like that.

* * * *

Suffering, the harshest teacher.

* * * *

No matter the form or time,

All are simultaneously witnessing,

The same inexplicable mirage.

* * * *

The truest mystery is without solution.

* * * *

Be content.

Die with a full breath,

Each and every moment possible.

It is, indeed, the most real, the most true state,

At the core of indisputable You.

* * * *

There is nothing rational about existence.

Here You are, stuck in dreamtime for the time being.

So it goes, deal with it, get over it, move on, as best ye are able.

164

Awareness beckons You awaken others, as it has been awakened in You.

Pass this on freely, without dogma, to those who are inclined,

And be cordial and kind and tolerant and open,

As much as forbearance allows,

Toward the many sleepers who are not.

* * * *

Why waste time in regret?

There are probably relatively few,

Who would not do many things differently.

But it is through everything you have ever experienced,

However intentional or unintentional,

That You are here now.

* * * *

Current times inevitably become ancient ones,

In the current minds of any given future.

Everyone is living in modern times.

* * * *

Through the patterning,

The blueprint of the given seed,

The essential, indivisible nature of mystery,

Molds itself into every form.

* * * *

Totality, so infinite, so alone.

* * * *

It is really all the eternal now,

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

Yet still you manage to awaken each and every day,

Believing your dream real and true.

* * * *

The most eloquent, powerful aphorisms,

Are instilled with wisdom and subtlety and wit;

Slathered with a liberal topping of paradox and irony.

* * * *

It is all still Eden, of course,

But for some reason, trudging through a landfill,

Will never be quite as enticing, as meandering an untrammeled garden.

165

True aimless wandering, is the art of surrendering to the unfolding moment.

* * * *

Soul gorp for those who doubt; those who fathom irony and paradox.

* * * *

Who will be the last historian, to chronicle the human paradigm?

Who will be the last witness, to the dystopian fall of our kind?

* * * *

A never-ending story, this play of consciousness.

* * * *

Self-loathing is not a healthy place to dwell.

* * * *

The stage onto which you are born,

Shapes this brief, mortal, time-bound play.

Anatomy is destiny, character is fate.

* * * *

You are a portal to the infinity of totality.

* * * *

In the fall of even the greatest mountains,

A stonecutter begins with a single swing.

* * * *

Why long for so many things that can never be?

* * * *

To hold out hope that humanity,

Will achieve some sort of utopian ideal,

Only shows how little is understood of the history,

Make-believe that it well is, into which we have all been cast.

* * * *

As much free will, as the genetic lottery and winds of time allow.

* * * *

We are all dreams in each other’s minds,

Different players kaleidoscoping across the same stage,

Dancing in the quantum matrix, in whatever way consciousness calls.

166

You will play out whatever fate the quantum matrix has allotted.

Whatever genetic lottery has been formulated, whatever stage has been erected,

Whatever dice have been rolled, whatever hand has been dealt.

So it goes, deal with it, get over it, move on.

* * * *

Most would rather cater to the endlessly delusional gratification,

Of mind-numbing tradition and fear-ridden superstition,

Than to explore for themselves, the truth of it all.

* * * *

When there is no attachment to anything,

You are every moment born anew.

You need not be burdened,

By the yoke of time.

* * * *

See it or not,

The truth has always been,

And will ever be,

The real You.

* * * *

Evolve or die.

* * * *

Passion is attachment.

* * * *

Just because you do not want,

To see or hear something true,

Does not make it any less true.

* * * *

Breathe in, breathe out.

Let the world go, and just be.

Easier said than done, but it is doable.

It is only real, if and when, you join the collusion.

* * * *

Science will always be restricted,

By the capacities of the devices doing the measuring,

And the dexterity and intentions, of the minds orchestrating the experiments.

167

Earth is earth, wind is wind, water is water, fire is fire.

Once you, without doubt, without equivocation, fully understand this,

And that these forces interact in every way imaginable,

And that you are eternal witness to it all,

What else is there to know?

* * * *

The challenge for any philosopher, if there is to be any serenity,

Before the given universe comes to its mortal end,

Is to somehow get prior all the words.

* * * *

If you make any mystical perception at all dogmatic,

Go back to square one, you got it all wrong.

Conforming to any other’s persuasion,

To any personal idiosyncrasies,

Is not sensible for you or anyone else.

* * * *

Enlightenment wanders many paths.

Liberation is the same for all.

* * * *

You go, infinity.

* * * *

Death unsuits us all.

* * * *

In every moment,

A new opportunity to discern,

The mystery streaming indivisibly within.

* * * *

Some who specialize in the study of literature,

Claim it can be distilled down to as few as seven plots:

The yearning for justice, love, order, pleasure, and validation;

The challenge of morality when choices have to be made;

And the fear of the unknown/unknowable and death.

A few basic narratives told over and over and over,

In different times, in different places, in different tongues,

With a likely never-ending array of nuances, for every inclination,

Yet permeating all, the human craving for life’s telling, so much the same.

168

Likely more than a few think they are the shit while they are young.

But live long enough, and you will sooner or later realize,

How insignificant and invisible, you truly are.

* * * *

It is the dust of stars and shit of dinosaurs, that has allowed You,

The vision and insight to consciously bear witness,

To this infinite mystery of a universe,

A creation entirely born,

Of your own imaginary design.

* * * *

And tomorrow morning,

You will likely once again wake up,

Quickly occupied with all the delusion and muddle,

You had managed to put into order,

Just a few hours before.

* * * *

A still mind is a translucent mind.

* * * *

In your mind, all creation.

You are the one.

As are all.

* * * *

Heed your call.

* * * *

Doubt until truth,

Becomes so Self-evident,

That all doubt dissolves into You.

* * * *

Discern Mother Gaia,

Within the home eternity built,

And carry her within, carry her without,

Each and every moment of your brief mortal play.

* * * *

Winning arguments with your Self, more often than not depends,

How many voices are struggling, perhaps even raging for supremacy.

169

Science must focus on small questions, because the big ones have no answer.

And philosophers on the grand scheme, so that they can fall short, as well.

* * * *

Conditioning, indoctrination, brainwashing, whatever it may be called,

When anyone gets told anything enough, it is pretty hard,

If not impossible, to ever un-believe it.

* * * *

Meandering time and space, is the daily Sisyphean task for all.

The dream pushing a boulder of its own making,

Up whatever hill comes to mind.

* * * *

Why would anyone ever imagine a deity,

That did not include them, everyone they know,

Or absolutely everyone and everything else,

In which creation obviously abounds?

* * * *

The seeds of the next dark age,

Likely a cataclysm beyond all reckoning,

Are blossoming across the board.

* * * *

Indifferent to agony or ecstasy,

Rest easy in the moment of origin,

From which both ascend into beingness.

* * * *

Now is the filament of quantum grace.

* * * *

Anxiety is an unpleasant state of anticipation,

Which transmutes into a predictable loop,

Playing dread of the unknown over and over,

Until the obnoxious moment has waxed and waned,

And the next all-too-predictable trepidation steps up to bat.

* * * *

Regarding the temptation to seek revenge for any given transgression;

Allowing another to play out their pathetic, miserable existence,

May, in the long run, be the most gratifying stage show.

170

There your parents were one night or day, messing around, all hot and heavy,

And suddenly, through no fault of your own, no choice of your own,

You were in the oven, baking your way into consciousness.

When exactly does fate begin its wayward trail?

* * * *

Science fiction can journey well beyond any pale,

But the limits of imagination are ever fixed,

By the physics of real-time invention,

And the moths lodged in the given wallet.

* * * *

Pain is your teacher, your friend.

Without it, you would not pay attention.

You likely would not have learned how to endure.

Perhaps someday you will be wise enough,

To no longer need its sharp reminders.

Not likely, but there is always,

The hackneyed notion, called hope.

* * * *

Whether you discern it or not,

You are it.

Die to the little self,

As often as the little mind allows.

* * * *

Have you ever experienced anything,

That could not be clearly illuminated,

By a rock-solid dose of Physics 101?

* * * *

Odds are you are as attached to the pain,

As you are the pleasure, perhaps even more so.

For which do you rummage when you daily awaken?

Which do you embrace as you fall into sleep?

* * * *

Every religion started off as a cult,

Until its followers put down enough spare change,

To construct impressive, daunting, holier-than-thou sanctuaries,

Filled with enough middlemen, to shield the sheeples from their crazed delusion,

And muster the potency to be a contender in the madhouse.

171

Be it long or short, smooth or rutted, all philosophizing eventually circles back to You.

Ever the same mysterious awareness, ever unknown, without beginning, without ending.

You are it, it is You, and all your profound speculations mean absolutely diddly-squat.

* * * *

Stoicism is daily putting on the game face, and keeping the whining to your Self.

* * * *

It is not the real, indivisible, sovereign, infinite You,

Who experiences the agonies and ecstasies of mortal existence,

But the movement, the stream of consciousness,

So attached to this or that.

* * * *

The genetic lottery can be a more than a little harsh.

Count yourself fortunate if you got a playable hand.

* * * *

You can bet you are all but done for,

When even the most freshly-minted experience,

Only seems like some sort of rehashed,

Déjà vu echo of a rerun.

* * * *

Why follow a Christ or Buddha,

When you could be a Christ or Buddha?

That is surely the intention of any earnest teacher.

* * * *

A snake may shed its skin, but not its nature.

* * * *

There is most definitely an omnipotent,

Omnipresent, omniscient God,

If you wish to call it that.

A state both infinite and finite,

Of which you are a sparkle of awareness,

A witness to the mystery of your most eternal origin.

* * * *

This world is your birthing ground, this world is your burial ground.

From dust to dust, and dust granted consciousness between.

The source is equal ground for all; eternal, absolute.

172

So many seeking meaning and purpose, without ever questioning the assumption.

The mind’s never-ending quest for significance, for justification,

Is merely an absurd perception of self-importance.

Absolutely unwarranted and meaningless.

A stupor that keeps one from seeing,

The incomprehensible, for what it truly is.

* * * *

There is only this singular, ever-present, timeless, quantum instant,

Which can always be counted on, to be inexplicably unknowable.

* * * *

Much of old age is spent processing whatever conclusions,

You have reached about your temporal dream.

The groove in which you wander,

Whatever daze remains.

* * * *

Neither zero nor one, much less two or more.

* * * *

Every one a snowflake of a journey.

* * * *

Home is where the mind is not.

* * * *

Immaculate conception,

Or immaculate deception?

* * * *

It is not out there that peace resides.

* * * *

Regarding time travel,

How can that which does not exist,

Ever be journeyed, except through imagination?

This streaming instant, born of senses and mind, is all there is.

To pretend otherwise, is just one delusion or another.

* * * *

The consequences of centuries of absurd breeding practices cannot be averted.

Corrupted DNA breeding madly toward an outcome only corrupted DNA can play.

173

At first a sensory riddle, the grand pattern gradually makes itself apparent.

This is the way all young grasp their newly-minted universe.

And within that kaleidoscoping dreamscape,

Each wanders a pathless path,

Very much alone.

* * * *

We are all steadily streaming toward our executioner.

In any of countless guises, the Grim Reaper, the Angel of Death,

Is patiently biding time around one corner or another.

* * * *

From the quantum dust of eternity, You take form,

And through the senses, a universe is imagined.

* * * *

Awareness is the moment, ever serene.

Consciousness starts, sticks, stops,

And confabulates without end.

* * * *

What will be, will be,

And it will all pass as gracefully,

As the given mind allows.

* * * *

The critical difference,

Between a mouth,

And an asshole,

Is one end has fangs,

Earthworms must crunch,

At a much more moderate pace.

* * * *

What do you want from existence?

This is it, this is all there is, right here, right now.

What else could it possibly be?

* * * *

The true voice is in all small to great.

To discern it, one must merely, with intention,

Observe prior to the passion, the fear, the false identity,

And surrender courageously, to the sovereignty of the timeless now.

174

The greatest view of the history of all manifestation,

Would be the synthesis of every universe born of conscious design.

It would include a seamless wander through the matrix, through every nook and cranny,

To which the mystery of imagination, is witness in every way possible.

All within the infinite, indivisible, timeless stillness,

Of that source prior to all naming,

That source prior, even,

To that which many call God.

* * * *

You who have brought children into this dream;

Your great grandchildren are likely playing hopscotch,

In a dystopian landscape of an irreversibly marred playground.

* * * *

Fate often seems designed keep you entranced,

To make you suffer in ways beyond counting.

Far easier to master the world than your Self.

* * * *

To be considered a failure in this world,

May be a distinction of great merit.

* * * *

The traces are not easily undone.

* * * *

You are not the chatty mind,

Any more than a brook,

Is the babbling upon the rocks,

Or the ocean, the crash upon the sand.

* * * *

What if your core assumptions are all wrong?

Would you be able to recalibrate,

To reconfigure your momentary perceptions?

Or is eccentric, bizarre, absurd delusion, the only trajectory?

* * * *

The given universe kaleidoscopes around the sensory body,

Consciousness ceaselessly fabricating every sort of this or that, or that or this,

But, in reality, the awareness merely witnesses a seamless stream.

Vibration, limited by the perceptions of imagination.

175

Every existence is a unique seed born of the same essence, the same mystery.

All are mortal portals, through which awareness witnesses,

The enigma of its eternal nature.

* * * *

The belief in one idol or another is certainly the easier row to hoe,

But for those whose fate it is to discern the truth,

There is no other course

But to delve deeply, remorselessly within.

* * * *

There is neither a superior or inferior dreamtime.

You may not be this vat of flesh and bones,

But it is, indeed, a constant distraction,

To which death is ultimate remedy.

* * * *

In the world and not of it.

Sometimes, sometime not.

* * * *

Sometimes even the village idiot,

Perceives things much more clearly,

Than those who caste themselves elite.

* * * *

Awareness.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

It is never easy being pulled off the stage,

By the cloaked Reaper-dude with the scythe.

* * * *

Lend heart and money and things to friends and family,

If you hanker to unconditionally, passionately experience,

The greatest sense of unfathomable betrayal and inner struggle.

* * * *

All imagination is illusion, samsara, the play of the quantum ether,

Earth … water … air … fire … in all its countless forms,

All its theaters of consciousness … across all time, across all space,

In however many dimensions this inexplicable mystery has deigned to create.

176

What is so arduous about realizing the truth,

That the awareness within all, that the witness within all,

Is completely detached, objectively indifferent, benignly disengaged,

To the countless dreamtimes of consciousness, in all its pursuits, in all its passions.

It is the ether, the mysterious spirit of totality; name it if you must.

Duality is but the splintering of imaginary perception.

You are it, it is You, there is no other.

* * * *

The mortal mind is transfixed

By the ceaseless permutations of limitation.

As for that which is immortal, well, find even one boundary, if you can.

After all, the indivisible is indivisible, much farther,

Than any eye will ever see.

* * * *

If you want world peace, still that busy mind,

And in awareness, take in a few deep breaths.

* * * *

What else do you possibly need,

Once simple awareness,

Is nectar enough?

* * * *

What is infinite?

What is infinitesimal?

And what is not?

* * * *

Persuasion is not a means to truth.

It is either clearly seen, or not.

No point, creating a belief system,

Established upon conversion or coercion.

* * * *

And you believe, because it is not a human being,

That even some dogmatic god would value it less?

How pathetically narrow and confined a view is that?

* * * *

Consciousness can be far more savage, than any beast has ever been.

Tyrannosaurus Rex might well be pissing on its tail at the sight of us.

177

As doubt seeps through the many cracks of the dike You have in mind erected,

You can run, but You cannot hide; like it or no, You are embarked upon an odyssey within.

You have the potential to be a Buddha, a Christ, a whatever-You-want-to-call-it,

If You can just get past the countless limitations of idolatry and dogma.

* * * *

Take away the basic necessities, the basic entitlements,

And you will quickly learn how civilized,

Your fellow man really is.

* * * *

What words can more than vaguely describe,

That which is prior to consciousness,

That which is prior to perception,

That which is prior to sound,

That which is prior,

To all illusions,

Inspired by the senses.

Be still, be absolute, be totality.

What greater truth can You possibly be?

* * * *

It is all an illusion, a dream;

Not just the parts you do not like.

You cannot cherry-pick truth.

* * * *

If there is any movement in mind,

Illusion and delusion are likely afoot.

* * * *

In the grand scheme of consciousness.

It is really not your awareness,

Nor mine, nor his, nor hers, nor its.

All living forms exhibit this sentience,

In whatever way nature and nurture allow.

None are truly greater, nor lesser, to any other.

All are equal players in totality’s quantum play within.

* * * *

Nobody is into you like you are, and why should they be, how could they be?

We are all nothing more than self-absorbed reflections crashing upon the shore.

Consciousness playing out the absurdity of attachment to one this or that or another.

178

A grain of sand, a swirl of smoke, a ripple of water, a flicker of flame,

Are as real as anything created of this manifest dreamtime.

Consciousness gives all things a sense of continuity,

But all are in reality merely fabrications,

That only candor can lay bare.

* * * *

It has never really been the résumé of experience,

In which any temporal existence has, from birth to grave, danced.

It is the indivisible, holographic matrix of awareness,

In which all creation has ever basked.

* * * *

Nothing lasts longer than memory allows.

All are as temporal as the dusty whim.

* * * *

There is no end to more.

One must simply stop.

* * * *

Mind games?

The mind is the game.

* * * *

You get what you breed.

* * * *

Infinity is not so far away, really.

* * * *

What is any given human being, really,

But a collection of protozoa with attitude.

* * * *

Despite the reality that it is all the same clay,

There are so many differences that we all feel drawn,

To unendingly measure and judge in every way imaginable.

* * * *

To move beyond opinion and judgment is to realize,

There is absolutely nothing ultimately right or wrong with anything.

The task is to gaze straight and true at everything: unblinking, unflinching, unconcerned.

179

How else would awareness witness the creation,

But through all its many eyes, ears, tongues, noses, skins,

And whatever other senses this quantum mystery may have concocted.

* * * *

The grand assumption in all this, is, of course,

That the universe and all the many others even exist,

As more than figments of your sensory-inspired imagination.

* * * *

To reach this very indivisible moment,

Has required the synergy of every quantum,

Since creation’s much-speculated-about beginning.

* * * *

Bringing together heaven and earth,

Merging duality into the singularity of all origins;

Now, there is the rub, so to speak.

* * * *

Be wary of those who appeal to your vanity,

To access either your wallet or your heart.

* * * *

Wisdom is the distillation of experience.

* * * *

The point of endless arrays of zeroes,

One direction or another, is what again?

* * * *

The only thing sure, the only thing secure,

Is the awareness of the ephemeral now.

* * * *

Humans across this spinning garden,

Have many names for its evolving mystery,

And not even one of them matters at all in the least.

* * * *

Of now and then, it can be said,

Show me the then to which you are referring,

And I will point to the now that just rippled through its marrow.

180

Speculation is speculation;

None really any different than any other.

The unknown ever remains unknown, no matter the notion.

* * * *

The play of light and sound and touch and taste and smell, what are they but sensory illusions,

Through which the omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent witness, discerns any and all and none.

* * * *

The only difference between night and day, is in your thinking.

* * * *

Science is only as true, as the mind in which it convenes.

* * * *

How callously indifferent a mind must become,

To harm any fellow earthling great or small.

* * * *

Why worry about heavens or hells,

Or karmic reincarnation?

Now is now,

No matter the who …

Or what or when or where or why or how.

* * * *

You cannot really know eternal life,

That moment where life and death are not,

Until the mind stills to the nowness of awareness,

Prior to all movement of consciousness.

* * * *

It is through the many reflections of the other,

That any given one awakens to truth.

Who knows how many ways, how many places,

The mystery has awoken to its Self throughout its eternal play.

* * * *

Any universe, or any given supreme deity,

Requires a conscious witness to be baptized real.

Without your myriad desires, your passion for existence,

Without the fuel of incessant pondering, it would all be nothing.

As it is, has ever been, will ever be.

181

Any given seed, any given kernel, any given spore, any given stone, is merely a temporal blueprint,

Through which the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, indelible awareness,

Witnesses all creation, all things from small to great,

Playing out their patterning,

As the matrix of manifest time dictates.

* * * *

The only place to arrive, the only place to abide, is right here, right now.

The truth-seeker is, has ever been, will ever be,

That which is sought.

* * * *

Hard to be afraid of things, in which you do not believe.

Seriously, what is the Tooth Fairy going to do?

* * * *

Another well-funded research project,

Once again stating the obvious.

Rome burns, Nero plays.

* * * *

Where does awareness begin?

And where can it possibly end?

* * * *

There is nothing to change,

Nothing to criticize, nothing to prove.

You are that which is absolute, and that is enough,

That is perfection in the most ultimate sense.

Everything else is just noise and bother.

* * * *

Is there anyone in this temporal theater,

Who is always happy, or always miserable?

Surely, the mind is far too intemperate a beast,

To maintain any state more than the shortest while,

In the ever-changing milieu of this unchanging mystery.

* * * *

What is all self-image, what is all “me, myself, and I,”

What are all perceptions of birth, of death, and all existence between?

What is everything known, what is everything unknown,

But the endless invention of imagination.

182

Travel among family, friends, and acquaintances, as you do strangers.

And among strangers as you do family, friends, and acquaintances.

* * * *

You, awareness, a voyeur watching creation through every eye.

* * * *

It is only in vanity, that anything does, or does not matter.

* * * *

The superficiality of words, cloaks the indescribable.

* * * *

Do you want the truth, or just another vapid lie?

* * * *

Blood is not that much thicker than water.

Curious what some will put up with,

In the waterhole of potentials.

* * * *

Everyone seems to know the answer.

Curious that it is rarely the same one.

* * * *

What need of pious worship,

When the totality of That to which you bow,

Is the unfathomable within.

* * * *

How big a statistical sample do you need,

To see it is all going nowhere very quickly?

* * * *

Love thy Self, and perhaps it will become apparent.

* * * *

Thoughts for those who are looking to wander all the way home.

* * * *

How can anyone believe real religion is dogmatic idolatry and carnival tricks,

When the whole manifest dream is really nothing more than hocus-pocus,

A sensory veil, a kaleidoscoping light show, of the most virtual kind.

183

No matter your sense of sin, of guilt, of remorse, of separation, of inadequacy,

The essence you truly are, ever remains pure, untarnished, immaculate, whole.

* * * *

It is in the neural stirrings of consciousness, that all bothers begin.

Such weight humankind has given to its indefatigable imagination.

* * * *

A tempest stirs in your shadow, and the sun in your light.

* * * *

Yet another day of pretending to be less than you are.

* * * *

Do you embrace the cutting edge or the wake?

* * * *

The photographs you really wish you had,

Are in the camera you managed to forget.

* * * *

Grasping just how alone you truly are,

Is a blow-the-breaker-switches moment.

* * * *

How can you ever hope to wake up anyone,

Who spends life pushing the snooze button?

* * * *

So many minds a-dithering here, there, everywhere.

* * * *

Religions must depend on false gold, because the real thing,

Begets no followers, fills no coffers, and requires no temples.

* * * *

Unreal expectations, are the harbinger of a dysfunctional relationship.

* * * *

Consciousness is stagnating into memes of its own invention.

All are petrified mindsets, groupthink, propaganda,

Which can only magnify the disharmony,

Over imagined differences.

184

Any given wave is the synergy of many drops,

The currents beyond, and countless more beyond that.

And of the infinite depths, one must alone merge into the totality,

To fathom the immeasurable indivisibility, unfathomable.

* * * *

What inquiry can there really be, without unquenchable skepticism?

* * * *

Given that consciousness is nothing more than a brief invention,

What heaven or hell, or any other fabrications of mind,

Can possibly endure in the ultimate sense?

* * * *

Yet another load of crock to muddle your mind even further.

* * * *

If everyone and everything were to suddenly wake up,

Nothing would be done, nothing would be undone.

* * * *

Forget all your problems as often as possible.

In fact, forget everything as often as possible.

* * * *

What a millstone any history, any memory,

To unfurling freely in the unfolding moment.

* * * *

You are everything, and everything is you.

* * * *

The witness to it all resides in the forebrain,

From which you alone, through the senses, peer.

* * * *

It is always intriguing, how truth can be so obvious to some,

And to others, as distant as the farthest reaches of the universe.

* * * *

When did you begin making assumptions, begin taking things personally?

When did you start lying, cheating, stealing, perhaps even destroying?

When did you cease taking responsibility, if you ever even started?

185

There is obviously too much knowledge for anyone to experience.

At some point, the accumulation process reverses,

And letting go becomes the default.

* * * *

You will play out your dream as you are most inclined.

It will seem like free will at the time,

And fate looking back.

* * * *

Blah, blah … blah, blah … blah, blah, blah.

You blah your blah; I blah my blah.

Everyone, blah-blah-ing.

* * * *

Muddy water, muddy fish.

* * * *

And the answer is …

* * * *

One and none all the while.

* * * *

When did you first learn to fear?

* * * *

How still can you be, for how long?

The monkey-mind, in its monkey body,

Is incorrigibly perseverant, to say the least.

* * * *

Indecision only musters inevitable consequences.

* * * *

Identification with the body has created all this absurdity.

No doubt, that it is a good idea, to take reasonable care of it,

Elsewise, it will cause you no end of distraction of a lesser kind.

* * * *

The theater calls you to center stage in an infinity of ways.

We are all just kaleidoscoping mirages of imagination,

Bouncing off each other in every conceivable way.

186

Still looking for some shiny new knick-knack, some exciting new distraction, are we?

More than a little challenging to be unknown inwardly for very long.

Must indeed be very over and done with the world,

To give yourself over to your Self.

* * * *

Consumed by outward appearances, by the movements of circumstance,

How inwardly bankrupt the pharaohs and pharisees,

Are, have ever been, will ever be.

* * * *

What is any existence but a thread of ever-kaleidoscoping moments,

Bundled into perceptions, stored in neuron configurations,

All of which, eventually dissolve into the oblivion,

From whence all notions, spring eternal.

* * * *

Why should any stone remain unturned?

What is there to fear, really,

But the arbitrary,

Twists and turns of imagination?

* * * *

A breath saturated with awareness,

Is an immeasurably more steadfast companion,

Than those unruly, insubordinate thoughts.

Attentive breathing, is a full embrace,

Of the Self, of the You, You are.

* * * *

To choose senselessness over meaning,

To choose speculation over reality,

To choose falsehood over truth,

What ceaseless confusion and conflict.

* * * *

Regarding the question of so many unconfirmed, unsubstantiated mysteries,

Mysteries that may even be asserted by prominent groups or individuals,

(e.g., God, ghosts, unidentified flying objects, abominable snowmen,

Vast conspiracies by unseen organizations, et cetera ad infinitum);

Any assertion that is, as yet, unproven in your own experience,

That you have yet to discern as being in any way authentic;

An agnostic stance is the only aboveboard state of mind.

187

You have climbed the mountain,

You have flown to the sun and fallen to the earth,

You have wandered the cosmos, you have witnessed all creation,

And you have discerned clearly the eternal absolute within each and every particle.

So, Pilgrim, what next?

* * * *

To ignore or deny the eternal life of the ever-streaming now,

Is to miss what is, both within and without,

In every moment apparent.

* * * *

Yes, No, Maybe, If … big words, indeed.

* * * *

Old School will rise again.

* * * *

Yabber on.

* * * *

How quickly time fades,

Into vague, blurred memories,

Gradually, inevitably, gone forever,

In the vast emptiness of eternity.

* * * *

So many minds, so many universes,

With which one may be totally enthralled,

Or, with the first few utterances, lose all interest.

* * * *

There is nothing not born of the same mystery,

But the real mystery is how we have made it this far,

How we have survived all our vain foolishness for this long.

* * * *

Mother Nature only allows each of us,

To play out this little reverie for the briefest of whiles,

And then one-by-one melts all down for another generation’s ascension.

To think of oneself as more than a fleeting piece of jewelry,

Is to miss discerning the essence you really are,

In this indivisible matrix of a theater.

188

Just say no to scriptures, dogmas, idolatry, crystal basilicas, dress codes,

All the absurd belief systems born of the conditioned mind.

You are it, it is You, plain and simple, absolute.

The one and only house of mystery,

Is the awareness within,

Sovereign, indivisible, complete.

* * * *

There is really nothing to do but whatever nothing calls.

* * * *

We are all spectators to each other’s dreams.

* * * *

To witness your brief existence,

As you would any other’s,

That is the real trick.

* * * *

Breathe deep, breathe full.

That is the born again-ness,

Of every eternal moment.

* * * *

I Am,

The Truth, the Life, and the Way,

And so are You.

* * * *

The smoke wafts an infinity of dreams.

* * * *

In ten years, one hundred years,

One thousand years, ten thousand years,

One hundred thousand years, one million years,

What etchings will be left of this dream of consciousness?

* * * *

Without a mirror, a photograph, a drawing, or any other reflection or memory,

Describe your face as the awareness sees it from within right now.

Eyes, nose, ears, mouth, chin, hair, teeth, skin, eyebrows,

And what of your neck, shoulders and back?

Cannot do it? Well, why is that?

189

And what of those beyond-control junctures, where you feel like a colliding billiard ball,

Spinning others in unintended directions toward painful, sorrowful lives,

That you might not wish even for the foulest of souls.

Not always easy to remember,

You were not, are not, and need not care.

* * * *

Fascinating that so many across this spinning pearl truly believe,

That going out in some sort of martyred, tortured fashion,

Is righteous in the eyes of their imagined god.

* * * *

A few breadcrumbs for those who feel the call.

* * * *

There is nothing to be, nothing to become,

For those without the ambition for more.

* * * *

Another dream easily forgotten.

* * * *

If it is forced, it is not the Truth.

* * * *

These thoughts are really all about,

Everyone and everything in general,

And no one and nothing in particular.

* * * *

How does it feel to fathom,

That you are just another shuffle,

In the random genetic lottery of eternity?

Do you choose your dance, or merely succumb,

To whatever paradigm the given nature has thrown you?

A speculative venture from the get-go.

* * * *

If this thing we call time really existed, would not you be able to halt it?

Or at least wander to and fro, in the manifest here and there?

As it is, imagination is the only time machine,

And all it has going, is the ethereal filament of perception,

Only as good as the wiring, and only for long as the gray matter holds fast.

190

Unassailably amazing what the mind-body,

Has been programmed through evolution’s long meander,

To see, to hear, to taste, to smell, to touch, and perchance to contemplate.

And every other life form from small to great across the theater,

Perceiving its sensory dream in its own unique way.

The vast singularity of it all is immutable,

And ineffable, beyond belief.

* * * *

Life does not come without some share of pain.

An inevitable fact to which the young,

With great kicking and wailing,

Only gradually defer,

Likely still kicking and wailing.

* * * *

The primary sin is pride.

All others follow suit.

* * * *

Eden did not disappear.

You just stopped seeing it.

* * * *

Into the great aloneness, You still.

* * * *

The matrix is the void filled with You.

* * * *

The you that you every moment believe you are,

Is nothing more than a fabrication of imagination.

* * * *

There is always somebody on the sidelines,

In the wings, in the rigging, in the trench, in the cubicle,

Who will be more than a little happy, to take over and run the show.

* * * *

You are that which is prior to the consciousness,

That contorts into the dream of little self in the frontal lobe.

You are the witness, the awareness, the source,

Through which all dreams dance.

191

Despite the miasma of consciousness, and its ceaseless portfolio of divisiveness,

You are ultimately neither superior nor inferior, to anyone or anything.

All creation is as indivisibly equal, as equal can indivisibly be.

The same indelibly ineffable intelligence resides in all.

* * * *

If you want to be afraid, odds are it should be of your own kind.

Zombies, vampires, aliens, and other monsters,

Will just have to wait in queue.

* * * *

The fleeting pleasures of mind and body come and go,

Desire is insatiable in its self-indulgent nature,

And in its wake, painful consequence.

* * * *

There are those whose destiny it is to create,

What everyone else mimics and regurgitates.

* * * *

Fight fire with fire; meet peace with peace.

Turn the other cheek if you can,

But it is not required,

That you submit to tyranny,

To know That which you truly are.

Follow your nature, wherever it may lead.

* * * *

What distraction vanity is, from what is real and true.

* * * *

We are all wandering the same stage in different universes.

No way anyone can ever perceive anything exactly the same.

* * * *

What is this magical-mystery-tour of a universe, but a vast ecosystem,

Of the, for-all-practical-as-well-as impractical-purposes, infinite kind.

* * * *

Being mindful of the source of consciousness, That which You truly are,

Is not a belief system, nor anything about which to be unbending.

It is simply an experiential awareness of the timeless now,

The observer inherent in all things small to great.

192

The frontal lobe is an ever-changing cloud of consciousness,

In which vast universes are created and preserved and destroyed.

A neural vapor in which all things are given form and name.

Still the movement, and what are You, what are You not?

* * * *

Go back, back, back,

To the beginning of existence,

To the awareness prior to the universe,

To the newborn’s eternal filled-with-wonder mind,

Before the patterning began sculpting itself,

Into the consciousness, You call you.

Dare again, to be completely,

And unutterably free.

* * * *

Everything is real, nothing is real.

Everything is good, nothing is good.

Everything is special, nothing is special.

Everything is mystery, nothing is mystery.

Everything is sacred, nothing is sacred.

Everything is God, nothing is God.

* * * *

The same magic,

The same mystery,

The same miracle,

The same wonder,

The same source,

Is in everything.

* * * *

The observer is the observed.

The observed is the observer.

* * * *

To really not care about anybody or anything,

Is really as much a fundamental right as any.

* * * *

There is nothing in which to believe,

Once you realize you are the heart of awareness.

The source of all things small to great; absolutely nothing at all.

193

This touchy-feely three-dimensional dream,

That you cannot stop, you cannot slow down, you cannot speed up,

You cannot change except as change allows.

All you can do is hope,

And of what use is that, really?

* * * *

Which is truly more in tune with the way it really is:

To believe you are something you are not?

Or to know what you really are?

* * * *

Your dream will carry on as all dreams do.

Oblivion is the nonexistent destiny of all.

* * * *

Cast out all that is time-bound,

All that is unreal, all that is imagination,

And you will discern your Self,

Very much alone.

* * * *

All made up from the get-go.

* * * *

Challenging to get a handle,

On a mystery beyond measure.

Too small to see, too large to carry.

* * * *

Non-issues abound in every realm.

What is truly essential? And what is not?

Need you ask anyone to tell you these things?

* * * *

If you do not educate your children to be self-sufficient,

Capable and disciplined and coherent, in every way possible,

How will they sustain their worlds when you are no longer around?

* * * *

We honor, commemorate, memorialize, celebrate, venerate,

The death and destruction wrought by war and conflict,

Because we so little appreciate the mystery of life.

194

Once you discern all history, not just some of it, is imagined,

What is there to do but wander through it,

Wondering all the while,

At all the much ado about nothing.

* * * *

Just because we are walking on two legs, babbling away,

Does not make us all authentic human beings,

At least in the idealistic sense.

* * * *

Where is the mind no longer abiding in memory?

The mind that has forgotten everything.

The hardest lesson never learned.

* * * *

It is all imagination, all make-believe.

We are all the Great Chameleon,

Playing out the Great Dream

In one form or another.

* * * *

Vanity marches on.

* * * *

The old is ever new,

And the new, ever old.

* * * *

Hard to do what does not call you.

* * * *

Not too many ways to stop a trainwreck.

* * * *

Now is ever-present.

Wrap your noggin around the actuality,

That everything is in reality, kaleidoscoping simultaneously.

* * * *

What your ancestors would think of these times, or you,

Is anybody's guess, anybody’s speculation, anybody’s projection.

And who cares, really; it is all merely the nature-nurture recreation of DNA.

195

At some juncture for many, if not all,

The body stops being as pleasing a place to be.

Playfulness is joined, if not replaced, by sense of endurance,

Tolerance, sufferance, forbearance, patience,

Acceptance, resignation, stoicism,

And whatever other words,

A meticulous thesaurus might convey.

* * * *

The only difference between a sage and anyone else

Is a talent for stepping back and observing,

The monkey-mind from within.

* * * *

If you do not think you are a monkey,

Then try to stop behaving like one.

* * * *

Truth is in the remembering.

Truth is in the forgetting.

* * * *

It is right there as plain,

As the nose on your face,

If you could see that, either.

* * * *

Gaze out upon what has become of Eden.

What is good, and what is not good,

Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?

* * * *

We are really not much bigger,

Than tiny gnats, or swirling specks of dust.

It is only pride-filled delusion that makes us pretend large.

* * * *

Your world is founded on the fabricated collusion of imagination.

* * * *

A globalized economy of uncivil civilizations, ever striving for supremacy,

Pervaded with vanity, greed, malice, mayhem, destruction.

What is the point of such malignancy?

196

Anyone, anywhere, anytime, the awareness you are, is.

* * * *

Anything can only be this or that, when another is in mind.

* * * *

Yet another mask, in the charade parade of dreamtime.

* * * *

Death is just not waking up the next morning.

* * * *

Pointless to argue with or judge a dream.

* * * *

Back where you began, ground zero.

* * * *

Live as if you have never been born.

* * * *

Divine grace is awaiting within.

* * * *

Nothing is not what it seems.

* * * *

A well-turned thought belongs to all.

* * * *

So many things about which to care, or not.

* * * *

Do you really know that, or just imagine you do?

* * * *

It is You, You are it, ain't no two or more ways about it.

* * * *

Nothing is nothing, no matter the facades slathered upon it.

* * * *

Yet another fleeting stain, in the swirling sands of time.

197

To be concerned what posterity thinks of you is meaningless.

It is absurd enough spending this temporal existence,

Endlessly mired in the muddle of the other,

Without projecting your narcissism,

Into the maze of delusion,

Long after your exit.

* * * *

Once you are no longer attached to pleasure or pain,

Once you are detached even from death,

What is there to fear?

* * * *

The yoke is light because there is not one.

* * * *

What a trip it is to exist,

And what a pointless stream,

Of nonsense and bother,

So many attach to it.

* * * *

It will absorb the you,

That has never been You,

Unto the depths you relinquish.

Easier said than done.

* * * *

Regarding some messiah,

Coming back to save anyone,

What, pray tell, is there to salvage,

But a mortal vat full of narcissistic notion,

And a world well afoot, into its dystopian calamity.

Far too ludicrous, too insane, too late, to even bother about.

* * * *

No need to burden this harried, scarred world with more dogma.

Think for your Self, wander where you will, live free of all claims.

* * * *

Serenity is just too much for most monkey-minds to bear,

Without pushing over one apple cart or another,

Just to create a little wanton drama.

198

No superstitious notion has ever, or can ever, even for one moment,

Change, alter, or modify the fundamental laws of physics,

That have been established since time began.

Anyone who pretends otherwise,

Needs to wake up,

And pay closer attention,

To what is going on around them.

* * * *

In the quest home, you must wander alone.

No one can more than offer advice and solace,

And perhaps hold your hand while pointing the way.

If anyone claims it will be easy, they are lying.

It is your choice whether to let them live,

Or bring their delusion to an end,

In one dastardly fashion or another.

* * * *

Intellectual silliness, that is all philosophy is.

A distraction until you are content,

To do nothing but be,

The awareness you truly are.

* * * *

Awareness is an infinite field.

It cannot be contained by any dogma,

Any creed, any belief, any faith, any philosophy,

Any ideology, any principle, any law,

Any thought, whatsoever.

* * * *

How can that which cannot die ever be born?

How can that which cannot be born ever die?

Ever an esoteric quantum conundrum, indeed.

* * * *

Fairy tales will always be nothing more than fairy tales,

No matter how hopefully, so many may imagine them real.

* * * *

If it is not one thing, it will surely be another,

So, you may as well face whatever is coming the best you can,

With whatever resources and gumption, you are in the moment able to command.

199

With every birth small to great, the mystery gets a new set of eyes,

A new reflection, a new paradigm, a new universe,

From which to witness creation.

* * * *

Unless you put aside everything you have been told,

And examine the mystery for your Self,

You will likely just become,

Another meme,

Smugly complacent,

With false gold and delusion.

* * * *

It is not your awareness, my awareness,

Nor any other’s awareness.

It is simply awareness,

And all are equally sentient.

* * * *

Across the world,

Babble, babble, babble,

Nothing but babble.

* * * *

Why have any concern,

Over mean-spirited pinpricks,

Of those who are unwilling or unable,

To tether their hostile tongues?

* * * *

No one can do or know it all.

All anyone can do,

Is inhale a statistical sample,

With which they may or may not be content.

* * * *

The seers, the mystics, the prophets, the philosophers,

Have always dealt out their many thoughts,

Strategically, tactically,

Shifting, shaping consciousness,

Attempting to mold it more manageable,

Within the milieu of the given time, the given space,

The given collective, the given mythology, the given potential.

200

It is the nature of all civilizations to rise and fall.

To transform from lean, agile, fruitful, to obese, inept, barren.

From a foundation of gumption to one of absurdity,

From one motivated, to one entitled.

* * * *

Make sense? Why should it ever have to make sense?

What need for sanity in an insane asylum?

That is the Catch-22 of it.

* * * *

If you truly realize you are that which is absolute,

Then what need is there to worship or pray,

To kiss your own ass, so to speak?

* * * *

A child has no history, no future;

Only the immediacy of the unfolding present,

To which he or she gives full attention.

Let go your world, your universe,

And rediscover your innocence.

* * * *

Nothing new under the sun?

Well, if it is new to you,

How much newer can it get?

* * * *

Whenever you totally surrender,

It always feels like the first time.

* * * *

Dimensions are merely different arrangements;

Gradations in the mystery’s dream.

Ho-hum, yawn, stretch.

How many layers before You discern,

That totality which is immeasurable, utterly boundless?

* * * *

There is an indescribable, eternal immensity,

In the innermost sanctum, to which you alone have access,

To which words cannot help but be caught, by the limitations of translation,

By the capacity for discernment, of any given listener’s ear.

201

The challenge is to discern the passing dream of consciousness,

The here and now, as it is; fresh, without preconception.

To detach the filter of the mind caught in time,

To see reality, not how you think it is,

But clearly, from the stillness of attentiveness,

Without concept, feeling, motive, stereotype, prejudice.

To fathom the mystery of Youness from oblivion’s point of view.209

* * * *

It is but a dream,

A streaming figment of imagination.

Abandon the quixotic mind and take up permanent residence,

In the sentience and heart of pure awareness.

* * * *

There is always going to be a middleman,

Ready and willing to take your hard-earned coin,

In exchange for allowing you to follow them.

* * * *

Where there is money to be made,

Power to be gained, fame to be had,

There is seldom a shortage of minions,

More than willing to do whatever it takes.

* * * *

For there to be good, there must be evil,

And that, my friend, is duality in a nutshell.

* * * *

Gurus in the traditional face-to-face sense,

Are no longer necessary the way they once were.

Penned thoughts are enough for those,

Whose fate it is to awaken.

* * * *

How can anyone not see what is before their very eyes,

But through the intuition of wisdom’s eternal future-past.

* * * *

When everyone is playing out their own version of normal,

All judgment becomes an unending lesson in absurdity.

The source of all this absurdity is beyond measure.

202

The oceans, sometimes deeper than mountains are high,

Are merely a thin ever-churning facade upon a spinning orb of dust,

Which is but a teeny particle in the vast infinity of a universe,

Which is truly nothing more than a speck in your eye.

* * * *

Where were You before sperm and egg,

Randomly merged within your mother’s womb?

Who is your mother, who is your father,

Who were all your ancestors,

Since life’s beginning,

But the same You that truly is,

That has always been, and will ever be.

* * * *

What is there in this kaleidoscoping mirage,

That can possibly sustain the real You,

For more than the briefest while?

* * * *

Amazing how many things do not matter,

Once You cease giving them attention.

* * * *

The point of endless arrays of zeroes,

One direction or another, is what again?

* * * *

Now You see it, now You do not.

Where would You be without recollection?

And where, pray tell, will You be when it dissolves?

* * * *

Only faces, names, places, and details change.

All the stories conceived throughout the human epoch,

Are essentially the same narratives, repeated over and over,

In every culture across the world, across all time.

* * * *

No one can aid anyone else, being truly happy or content.

Each is entirely on their own in discerning that which is eternal,

And it is more than a little unlikely, that anyone can ever truly manage,

The given monkey-mind, unperturbed, every single moment.

203

Once You accept the premise that you exist,

The belief that You are a body, the notion that You are this or that,

You are fated to play out whatever manifest context,

Whatever blend of agony and ecstasy,

Has You in its fell grip.

* * * *

In a mere blink of eternity, a life,

A figment of imagination, of vain notion,

A flurry of smoke in a gusty wind,

All the pleasure, all the pain,

All the understanding,

All the experience,

Perhaps even wisdom,

So quickly come and gone.

* * * *

So infinite as to be You.

Nobody is not it.

Reset.

* * * *

For You to be here now,

Everything that has happened,

Since time’s inception,

Had to happen.

* * * *

Those who would know totality,

Those capable of the greatest vision,

Must get over their imaginary little selves.

* * * *

What is this dreamy existence,

But an immeasurable, indivisible matrix;

A dynamic stillness, ceaselessly creating every patterning,

The essential nature, the source, can fathom.

* * * *

We all have the same monkey-mind,

But for whatever reason, some are able to pull back,

And meticulously examine, the unknown all creation has in common.

It is, indeed, a mystery beyond the pale of any reckoning.

204

Males are as unable, unwilling, to regulate their penises, as females are their wombs.

The biological imperative of the species sprints madly towards a finite wall.

Tick, tick, tick … eight billion … and counting …tick, tick, tick.

* * * *

The senses are provocateurs of the seven deadly distractions:

Pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth.

* * * *

There is an awareness, but it cannot be grasped.

There is an absolute, but it cannot be defined.

There is a mystery, but it cannot be solved.

There is a truth, but it cannot be known.

* * * *

It is what it is,

It was what it was,

It will be what it will be.

Pfft!

A dream,

Nothing more.

* * * *

No use bothering about or worrying,

That you are going to suffer,

That you are going to die.

Such is existence, and so it goes.

The destiny for all, in one fashion or another.

But the good news is that it will not be the real You dying.

Just another temporal apparition falling beneath,

The wheel of creation and destruction.

* * * *

That which is eternal, that which is by many called God,

Has never really been alive in more than an imaginary, figurative sense.

How can that which can never perish, have ever been born?

All existence is of the same quantum mystery.

* * * *

The body you believe you are, is really already departed in one dumpster or another,

Perhaps abiding in some lackluster purgatory, until the flesh and bones,

Slowly dissolve into the oblivion of the formless origin.

So it goes, deal with it, get over it, move on.

205

The nature of the scientific mind is to always be examining everything for oneself.

To accept no assertion that cannot be verified by one’s own observation.

Why should sovereignty of the given mind ever be relinquished,

To any haphazard tradition or superstition or dogma?

* * * *

Count yourself among those who do not know, do not care,

And abide as freely, as harmlessly, as aimlessly,

As body and mind and spirit allow.

Be captain of your ship,

And set sail,

Through the dream of time.

* * * *

Close your eyes,

Still your thoughts,

Dance around awhile.

Where is your mind-body?

What is it, really, but a memory,

A dream, through which You,

Like a burning fuse, pass?

* * * *

A conceited little theater,

On a tiny spinning sphere,

In a mere speck of a universe,

Floating in the bottommost corner,

Of an eternal eye, that is but a mirage.

* * * *

Imagination capers about an infinity of its own,

But just because some fiction can be etched on paper,

Or thrown up on a movie screen, does not make it possible.

Even the quantum source, is ultimately bounded by its own nature.

That is why it is called quantum mechanics.

* * * *

Death only implies an individual existence is all said and done.

But no life form can ever even know what is done is done,

Because consciousness requires some sort of edifice,

Some sort of sensory-awareness receiving unit,

Able to perceive whatever ethereal dream,

Those whimsical fates have in store.

206

The quantum essence has no divisions,

No partitions, no boundaries, no borders, no restrictions, no limits.

It is indivisible, inseparable, undividable, blended, united, conjoined, indissoluble, inextricable.

There is no time, there is no space, there is only imagination feigning itself real.

* * * *

From the ordinary day-to-day, all myths, all legends, are fabrications of imagination.

All creation is very much born of the same quantum mystery.

Keep the balderdash in perspective.

* * * *

Discernment of Self, has nothing to do with station or caste.

Some are high born, some low, some middle.

There is no limit put upon,

Those destined,

To discern That I Am.

Do not be waylaid by the vanity,

Of those who manipulate your subjugation,

To the twisting corruptions of their self-absorbed wills.

* * * *

… dust … creation, preservation, destruction … dust …

* * * *

To believe everyone is going to someday wake up;

Is even remotely capable of, or interested in waking up;

Has really always been a laughably absurd fantasy.

* * * *

What good fortune it is to enjoy learning for learning’s sake,

Without having to endure the bother of regurgitation or testing.

* * * *

And if there were no other to engage You, no other to distract You, confound You,

Where would You, could You be, but where You are, have always been, will ever be.

* * * *

Mystic, seer, hierophant, minister, priest, sanyasi, sage, prophet, priest, vicar,

Spiritualist, wizard, monk, soothsayer, clairvoyant, prescient, fortuneteller, forecaster, oracle,

Sorcerer, diviner, sibyl, augur, prognosticator, crystal-gazer, medium, herald, psychic,

Telepathist, mind reader, cleric, preacher, rector, parson, reverend, holy man.

All descriptions of those inquiring into that which is genuine and true;

That mystery which is the ever same, no matter the eye or ear.

207

Human beings are in reality, very much the same as every other life form on this planet.

We may be able to create and preserve and destroy in every imaginable way,

But all sentience is of the same mysterious, ineffable origin.

Absolutely, indivisibly, immeasurably equal,

Despite countless pride-filled,

Self-absorbed claims to the contrary.

* * * *

Rambling thoughts are the patterning of the rutted mind bound in time.

Complete, unattached attention, to the passing moment,

Returns the inner eye, to the tabula rasa,

Of the eternal witness.

* * * *

Every mind its own shifting quagmire of heaven and hell,

Based on a frame of reference, ever born of imagination.

* * * *

Why accept anyone else’s word for anything,

When you have your own insightful mind,

With which to discern truth for your Self.

* * * *

You have been played from before day one.

The collusion was forged in jungles long ago.

* * * *

Philosophy is bullshit that passes the time,

When you are not hungry or weary or slothful,

And ethics, a fun drinking game in the wee hours.

* * * *

One might aid in easing another’s existence,

But in this mortal theater of toil and woe and agony,

Laced with ceaseless narcissism and never-ending absurdity,

No one has ever, or will ever, save anyone else, much less themselves.

* * * *

In the times that are quickly advancing from the horizon toward us all,

Things across the globe will deteriorate and renew in every imaginable way,

From chaos to cooperation, from absurdity to sensibility, from agony to ecstasy,

As this world, fragmented by human pride, downshifts into a paradigm of a lesser way.

No one born into it can evade it, no one born into it, can do anything but abide it.

208

Whatever intelligence is manifested through You, is the synergy of the mind-body-spirit's,

Many experiences, many adventures, many victories, many defeats, many ecstasies, many agonies.

We all enact unique facets of the same monkey-mind, and likely all look back in wonder,

At whatever trail we have wandered in our journey through the mortal faire.

* * * *

Being around religious true believers of any rhyme or reason,

Is like listening to children go on and on and on about Santa Claus,

And all the presents and treats they will be getting on Christmas morning.

What an absurd species we have managed to become.

And some call it, evolution.

* * * *

Everyone is responsible for their own salvation,

Which means learning to surrender to this very moment.

Eternal life is right here, right now, not in some future incarnation,

Or sitting on a wafting cotton ball, taking harp lessons.

* * * *

In the regards to the spiritual quest,

All words, all narratives, are merely analogies,

Metaphors, concepts, symbols, ciphers, allegories, parables.

They are meant to be taken figuratively, not literally.

* * * *

Have not the same conversations been going on,

Ever since You first began listening way back when?

You think they are not the same, across all time, all space?

* * * *

You are, and are not, your ever-changing, imaginary universe.

It is within and without You, this dreamtime of an individual life,

That the endlessly beguiling Samsara of the senses has woven.

* * * *

The writer knows what is being written, but what are you reading?

The speaker knows what is being expressed, but is that what you are hearing?

Everything you see and touch and hear and feel and smell, is but a temporal, arbitrary translation,

Of the subjective nature-nurture mind-body, in which the sentience of awareness harbors.

The witness, before which, creation is filtered through the caprice of imagination;

In which observer is never the observed, and observed, never the observer.

True objectivity is an unattainable ideal, an unreachable brass ring,

Which even science can never more than pretend to attain.

209

You can attempt to run in any and every direction imaginable,

But no matter the way, the shape, the form, in which you are cloaked,

You can never ever, even for one single moment, hide from the witness within.

* * * *

Truth likely will not be too comfortable, if you merely want your vanity fondled.

* * * *

Despite all the many different languages and cultures across the world,

What, really, is the likelihood that almost every single conversation,

Is not essentially a derivative of the same human paradigm?

* * * *

Where does the you that you think is you begin?

And the me that I think is me end?

‘Tis a mystery,

Every moment a spin.

* * * *

Sometimes you live and let live.

Sometimes you live and let die.

Sometimes you die and let live.

Sometimes you die and let die.

* * * *

Many do not comprehend the savage depths,

To which any given human spirit can descend,

Until they face the choice of living or dying.

* * * *

Any given universe is but a neurological array;

An indelible mystery, no matter how it is framed.

* * * *

How many experiences will it take,

For humanity to quench the insatiable appetite,

For more, more, more from this mirage of space and time?

* * * *

Not much point in talking about serious things,

To those who have not learned to value, have not learned to trust,

Their own questions, their own observations, their own thoughts, their own intuitions,

And instead turn their minds over to one propaganda of time or another.

210

All this self-consciousness, all this self-imagery;

What a burden, to each and every moment, fabricate anew.

A complete and utter invention; an edifice of imaginary proportion.

Let go.

* * * *

Nothing to create, nothing to preserve, nothing to destroy.

* * * *

True Self-love is not narcissistic in the mortal sense.

It is the immersion into the incorruptible within,

And that is the ultimate goal of existence,

For those for whom consciousness,

And dreams of time and space,

No longer entice or delude.

* * * *

Yes, you will forget this, too.

Oblivion is the fate of all.

* * * *

A different day,

A different place,

A different face,

Same babble.

* * * *

Nothing before,

Nothing after,

Nothing all the while,

Despite all claims to the contrary.

* * * *

Perfection is your inherent nature.

Duality, the original flaw.

Your perfection was misplaced,

When the time born of consciousness,

Took root in the tabula rasa of your innocence.

* * * *

It is much easier to leave behind a long string of bodies,

Than it is to forgive those who take advantage, or seek to hurt us.

To forgive and forget, to do no harm, to be and allow, is ever a challenge.

211

Has any moment of your dream, really ever been any different than this one?

* * * *

What would you do, if you were not so fearful of your aloneness?

* * * *

Of time, nothing can be said, as often as space will allow.

* * * *

The mind is the cage, and the key hidden therein.

* * * *

Better to die growling, than whimpering.

* * * *

This, too, will be forgotten.

* * * *

Feel the herd.

* * * *

Time to move on.

* * * *

Personal identity is the lie.

* * * *

Good advice, if You can hear it.

* * * *

Distant ripples are heading your way.

* * * *

Irony and paradox, the keys to unraveling doubt.

* * * *

We are all making it up as we go; all faking it as best we can.

* * * *

This eternal now is no different, than any now has ever been, or will ever be.

* * * *

Are You really a who, a what, a where, a when, a why, or a how?

212

If You really are your Self, what words can possibly describe You?

* * * *

Now is the eye of the needle, through which consciousness, every moment threads.

* * * *

The essential You is no different than anyone or anything, anywhere.

* * * *

What can be sacred, when it is all nothing from the get-go.

* * * *

Nothing much was accomplished again today.

* * * *

That might makes right, is too often not.

* * * *

All in a dream, all in a dream.

* * * *

Nothingness is ever eternal.

* * * *

After the last domino falls, stillness.

* * * *

Absurdity blowing flowers helter-skelter.

* * * *

What is passion but temporal Self-hypnotization.

* * * *

No mound of gold can ever shine brighter than your Self.

* * * *

The quantum beingness, equally sustains all things small to great.

* * * *

Desire uses pleasure and pain to weave fear throughout the given container.

* * * *

Existence is but reflections rippling within the ocean depths.

213

The nothingness of awareness, fabricating every moment resoundingly clear.

* * * *

Irony and paradox are the needle, that weave the thread so sure.

* * * *

No inner, no outer, just you, the infinite oneness.

* * * *

Awareness can only be spoken of, not for.

* * * *

The distilling of the soul into Soul.

* * * *

The primal narrative will out.

* * * *

Imperfectly perfect.

* * * *

Be anonymous within.

* * * *

There is no time like the present.

* * * *

Nothing like interest to focus the attention.

* * * *

Few less teachable, than those who think they know it all.

* * * *

The endless array of carnivals, have always kept the masses occupied.

* * * *

Any language, is merely a unique set of sounds and symbols, with concepts attached.

* * * *

Here you are, where you have always been, where you will always be.

* * * *

The simplicity, that I Am is, is no match for vanity.

214

Allow the mind to stream, with the ethereal nature of the ever-changing now.

* * * *

How could it even be possible, that everything would not be created of the same source?

* * * *

The unreal you, must be bound by your words, for you can know nothing more.

* * * *

Nothing you could ever say or do, will ever really change anything.

* * * *

Organized religion is too absurd to even bother discussing.

* * * *

Irony and paradox weave all stories into one.

* * * *

Through these words, discern your Self.

* * * *

Enough with the idolatry, already.

* * * *

Awareness, pure and simple.

* * * *

Move beyond wisdom.

* * * *

All are born of the same Mother.

* * * *

It is for each to discover, very much alone.

* * * *

You do not have to like someone, to behave civilly.

* * * *

As a prism with light, insight rainbows the mind into its eternal nature.

* * * *

The ambition to become someone, what was that, anyway?

215

The death to all things imagined, opens the portal to eternal life.

* * * *

It is really just You, staring out the eyeballs, and the other senses following suit.

* * * *

Consciousness is movement, and it is no simple task, to reign in passion.

* * * *

What flaw can there be, in the crescent jewel of awareness?

* * * *

No sandbox can remain unsullied for long.

* * * *

Which lies will you believe today?

* * * *

Absurdity is the wordity.

* * * *

Imagine nothing.

* * * *

Now, that is freedom.

* * * *

Formless is, as formless does.

* * * *

A species strung out on its conditioning.

* * * *

So many ways to wake up, yet it is always the same.

* * * *

Oil is to humankind, what meadows of green grass are to deer.

* * * *

How can you ever expect of another, what you, your Self, cannot or will not do?

* * * *

There you go again, asking questions, to which there are no answers.

216

Creation would not be, without the language that gives it name.

* * * *

Look to the mysterious abyss within, and you will discern the You that is all.

* * * *

Within each and every twinkling, the potential for new beginnings.

* * * *

Vanity is the fuel of the human paradigm, and greed, the pedal.

* * * *

The axis of evil is nepotism and cronyism and favoritism.

* * * *

Imagination causes itself to tremble and preen.

* * * *

What is so normal about normal?

* * * *

All men count, but none too much.

* * * *

You need not be bound by any assumption.

* * * *

We would laugh at rats in suits and pigs in heels.

* * * *

Space and time are the make-believe of consciousness.

* * * *

No worries, cancers do not know what they are doing, either.

* * * *

The curtains to the portal, are opened anew, with each and every breath.

* * * *

Ignorance is a powerful adversary, in the struggle to attain the serenity of clarity.

* * * *

Why be so attached to a world indifferent to your existence?

217

Nothing done or said, is going to make it any less a mystery.

* * * *

Where is your brief existence really going, that you are in such a rush to get there?

* * * *

Too busy contorting to the fabrication, to be bothered with the truth of it.

* * * *

Resist a lesson, and it will haunt you, until it finally sinks in.

* * * *

One man's law, so easily becomes another's dogma.

* * * *

Martyrdom is just another word for vanity.

* * * *

You are the clay, not the sculpture.

* * * *

He who laughs first, wins.

* * * *

A mind unearthed.

* * * *

Life, death … pffft!

* * * *

Take nothing for granted.

* * * *

Even bliss is just another sensation.

* * * *

All you, no matter the vanity slathered up it.

* * * *

Knowing it all oneness, does not make it any less a jungle.

* * * *

That which is real and true, melts gold, and makes meaningless, the vanities.

218

Wandering down the road less traveled, is not for the shallow or meek.

* * * *

Yet another anonymous face in the mystery of dreamtime.

* * * *

In the infinity of all eyes, there is but one witness.

* * * *

Do you really want, or merely feel you should?

* * * *

The balm to suffering, is to discern its source.

* * * *

Not always easy to tell one from the other.

* * * *

Seriously, why take absurdity seriously?

* * * *

Let karma be the other guy’s problem.

* * * *

Even illusions have to consume and poop.

* * * *

Those who have awakened in awareness, flow.

* * * *

The answer is within the sincerity of the question.

* * * *

A strong inclination toward quality is the higher ground.

* * * *

In simplicity, humility, grace, contentment, the greatest strength.

* * * *

How can any who gaze out into the vastness of the cosmos, not see themselves?

* * * *

There ain’t no going back, once the Genie is out of Pandora’s Box.

219

Eternal life is the birth and death of awareness, streaming within every moment.

* * * *

The entire field of consciousness, is but a grain of sand, in the most expansive perspective.

* * * *

Within the heart, you will find the singularity, of the universe and beyond.

* * * *

God who straddles fence, gets splinters in unpleasant places.

* * * *

You are but a reflection of your imaginary world.

* * * *

So imperfectly perfect, as to be immaculate.

* * * *

And in the fog, the sun’s reflection.

* * * *

Ignorance is its own form of bliss.

* * * *

Caring about nothing; the last vanity.

* * * *

Arrogance is a minefield of self-deception.

* * * *

What form could be, without the formless ground?

* * * *

True friendship wants nothing, but what is freely offered.

* * * *

Angel or demon, or whatever between, you are the will of mystery.

* * * *

Everything is legal in the jungle, until you get collared by someone who says no.

* * * *

It is the fate of ignorance to ever dig deeper its rutted road.

220

A chemistry experiment, with all rational controls thrown to the winds of chance.

* * * *

Death will merely be the finale, to your unique translation of history.

* * * *

Philosophy means diddly-squat in the face of vanity and greed.

* * * *

It is perhaps less about seeking it, than it finding you.

* * * *

Humbling to realize how little you really know.

* * * *

A Self-made witness, if ever there was one.

* * * *

Immeasurable means immeasurable.

* * * *

Dogma is the kool-aid of history.

* * * *

You were born; you will consume.

* * * *

Playing the monkey card again, eh?

* * * *

The natural state is very, very, very still.

* * * *

There is no now to transcend because that is all it is.

* * * *

We all cling to ideas that have long since gone the way of all time.

* * * *

You can pretty much be sure, that once you are born, it is only going to get worse.

* * * *

Some choirs resonate as one, others fall into churning quibble.

221

The universe is but a time-bound maze, born of the given mind.

* * * *

The elements pass around and through each other, in a cosmic play of Ro-Sham-Bo.

* * * *

And what is freedom, but a mind that rests easy in the unfolding moment.

* * * *

A slave to craving, knows neither freedom nor serenity.

* * * *

Nothing is born, nothing exists, nothing dies.

* * * *

Truth, usurped by ignorance, yet again.

* * * *

It is a dangerous thing to be born.

* * * *

Knowledge is learned, wisdom earned.

* * * *

Behind every eye, a universe and beyond.

* * * *

No lie can long sustain an earnest truth-seeker.

* * * *

Same body parts, merely another inflated interpretation.

* * * *

Each of us expresses our true religion in the unfolding moment.

* * * *

Your destiny is wrought, by what you value enough to bequeath your time.

* * * *

Unnecessary drama, is the inevitable result of the lack of anticipation and poor planning.

* * * *

How can nothing be said, or not be said, but through complete and utter stillness.

222

We are all ultimately, about as individual, as drops falling back into an ocean wave.

* * * *

The bulk of suffering, comes from attempting to hold on to anything.

* * * *

What deity in its right mind would create this absurd species?

* * * *

Every form has a fate, to which it is inexorably linked.

* * * *

In stillness, you are the truth, the life, the way.

* * * *

A splinter of history, in every mind.

* * * *

Malthus postponed, yet again.

* * * *

Nothing, doing.

* * * *

Speculations abound.

* * * *

And despite all that, life goes on.

* * * *

Clueless looking forward, fate looking back.

* * * *

Angel to some, demon to others; ever the same You.

* * * *

Hate and revenge are the most bitter harvest of dualistic notion.

* * * *

Religion that despises, that destroys nature, is not religion worth any attention.

* * * *

Take off your face, put away your mind, and just be your Self.

223

Without one body or another, what attachment could there possibly be, to anything?

* * * *

Tread carefully, tread wisely, that is your mother you are stepping on.

* * * *

Every mind will twist consciousness to its own ends.

* * * *

What we together imagine, is what it will be.

* * * *

Another daily dose of dittohead froth.

* * * *

Your universe is your muse.

* * * *

Presume nothing.

* * * *

Quantum realization.

* * * *

Imagination, the only prison.

* * * *

The harvest of hate is a thorny patch.

* * * *

Maybe is only slightly less useless than if.

* * * *

To wander, or not to wander, that is the question.

* * * *

The theater calls You to center stage in an infinity of guises.

* * * *

We all quite often learn at each other’s expense, and often at our own, as well.

* * * *

Facts need not be translated as romantic or ethereal notions.

224

How can so much weight be given, to so many lies?

* * * *

So many things you need never experience again.

* * * *

No one changes their destiny; all only play it out.

* * * *

That certainly is a six-story “IF” carved in stone.

* * * *

How quickly everything becomes its memory.

* * * *

The dogmatic are the children of a lesser god.

* * * *

The unknown is ever the realm of awareness.

* * * *

A genetic lottery, nothing more, nothing less.

* * * *

Threats only motivate those who are afraid.

* * * *

All limits, are but attachment to imagination.

* * * *

Exceptions tend to prove one rule or another.

* * * *

Regurgitating inanity, does not for truth make.

* * * *

The ills of the world, need not be yours to bear.

* * * *

Death is just not waking up to another tomorrow.

* * * *

Your draw to power and fame and fortune, defines you.

225

The only difference between good and evil, is in any given beholder’s eye.

* * * *

Curious how easily reason loses out to belief and faith and hope.

* * * *

If you are looking for future or past, it is not here now.

* * * *

All is but distraction, until the grand finale.

* * * *

Nothing about which to care, really.

* * * *

It is just the matter of time.

* * * *

Physician, heal thy Self.

* * * *

Do not know, do not care.

* * * *

The eye of mystery is within.

* * * *

Right action is the intuitive call.

* * * *

You think, therefore you think you are.

* * * *

All those voices in your head are you, and you them.

* * * *

Challenging not to be caught in your own labyrinth of metaphors.

* * * *

To be eternally liberated, all you really need, is to truly just want to merely be.

* * * *

What serenity and grace there is, is in the solitude of eternal absoluteness.

226

No need to prove anything, when You are the proof.

* * * *

The brightest star, is just another set piece, on the crest-jewel crown of eternity.

* * * *

Being simple, does not necessarily mean being simple-minded.

* * * *

And what if what is comfortable, is just another lie?

* * * *

How wearing, this passionate monkey-mind.

* * * *

Good news comforts, bad news sells.

* * * *

Bored with wonder, are we?

* * * *

Here now, own it.

* * * *

Hold no law before your own.

* * * *

Even love can be just another prison.

* * * *

You ultimately have no choice in the matter.

* * * *

Freedom is in every thought, every step, every breath.

* * * *

You keep searching for more, but there just is nothing more.

* * * *

It is all just distraction until you are done; content to allow stillness reign.

* * * *

Yet another fabricated dilemma inspired by dogma.

227

Intelligence will not be found in a piece of paper framed on a wall.

* * * *

Busily measuring the indivisibility of oblivion, to what end?

* * * *

Life: A brief distraction of the three-dimensional kind.

* * * *

Nothing playing something, still adds up to nothing.

* * * *

Worms will not be discriminating your vanity.

* * * *

Nothing happens, without rhyme or reason.

* * * *

You cannot teach what you do not know.

* * * *

It is only hardware; it is only software.

* * * *

A still mind is imagination’s undoing.

* * * *

It is all just talk until you walk it.

* * * *

No middlemen allowed in this arena.

* * * *

What to do, when more than enough, is not.

* * * *

Dogma is a shield, behind which most, boldly cower.

* * * *

Any given drug, will only take you as far as it is your nature to go.

* * * *

Is it true charity, true giving, if there are strings attached?

228

‎Conscious of it or not, we all ripple in each other’s lives.

* * * *

The forever-after, may not be as magical as the fairytale that got you there.

* * * *

So much nonsense put in the minds of those too innocent to resist.

* * * *

What a challenge not to project your vanity upon all you see.

* * * *

One of these daze, death will come, and hush you along.

* * * *

All the applause that is needed, is for you to wake up.

* * * *

The end to all tyranny begins where time ends.

* * * *

Language is the expression of nothing.

* * * *

Why would You even think that?

* * * *

Be kind to others; be kind to your Self.

* * * *

Less discussion, less argument, more ponder.

* * * *

How astute the living dead, whiling away their lives.

* * * *

Breathe in the duality, and know all divisions are imagined.

* * * *

If words such as these have found You, they have found their mark.

* * * *

Just another hollow path to glory, assembled by the whimsy of imagination.

229

Never too old, never too wise, to yet again play the fool.

* * * *

There is only the quantum matrix, shrouded in every imaginable disguise.

* * * *

It is relatively easy to predict something you will never live to see.

* * * *

What confusion we have unleashed with all our metaphors.

* * * *

The torment some spirits endure, and for what, really?

* * * *

As consciousness sows, so shall Eden blossom.

* * * *

Me, myself, I; a truly a nebulous concept.

* * * *

How many universes has it been now?

* * * *

What is there to justify, really?

* * * *

Idolatry is a meme not easily undone.

* * * *

Truth, momentary as it is, is its own reward.

* * * *

The observer is the observed; the creator, the creation.

* * * *

No wiring is the same; ergo the world is as it is, is-ing along.

* * * *

Intelligence and ignorance can be equally blinding, equally binding.

* * * *

The answer to all ultimate questions, are prior to any linguistic exertions.

230

We are all absorbed in our own universes, but what difference, really?

* * * *

Seriously, folks, what did you really expect from a bunch of practically hairless primates?

* * * *

The insatiability of consciousness, is a never-ending story of imaginary proportion.

* * * *

Truth is prior to any dualistic notions of creator and creation.

* * * *

Language, the ever-mutating playground of sound.

* * * *

Life, a malady for which nothing is antidote.

* * * *

Is it hell, if you do not know any different?

* * * *

Any given sage is likely a repentant fool.

* * * *

Here they go, giving into fear yet again.

* * * *

The beast of consciousness is insatiable.

* * * *

Memories are the ghosts of imagination.

* * * *

All evolution is created; all creations evolve.

* * * *

Attachment molds agenda, and agenda, attachment.

* * * *

Only in the unfolding nowness can there be accountably.

* * * *

Direction and order from others, is for those who lack their own.

231

There is the imaginary existence of consciousness: worldly, temporal, secular, profane, mundane.

Naught but a brief illusion, a brief collusion, a brief delusion of time and space.

But the real and only You, the real existence, the real eternal life,

Is the indelibly, indivisibly, absolute awareness.

You are the truth, the life, the way.

There is no other.

* * * *

Why accept any assumption that cannot be substantiated by your own observation?

Why allow the assertion of any other, whatever the time and space,

To subjugate the sovereignty of your own insight?

* * * *

So many lessons, so hard-won, and far too easily forgotten.

* * * *

There is only one source, one creation,

And you are but one of its countless manifestations,

Absolutely the same essence, the same gold,

But entirely matchless all the while.

* * * *

Truth is not bound by any geographic assumption.

* * * *

True religion is expressed each and every moment.

In deeds are you known; assertions mean nothing.

* * * *

Nature is the quantum mystery’s expression.

You are of nature, you are the quantum mystery,

Corrupted as it is, by the whimsies of consciousness.

* * * *

Consciousness confabulates every genre of filter,

Through which it imagines its light show of a universe real,

Every streaming, dreaming, impromptu moment.

* * * *

We are all but pawns of the genetic lottery,

And the winds of consciousness into which we are cast.

Call it what you will: fate, destiny, kismet, fortune, providence, karma:

In the grand matrix of it all, you are but a quantum twinkle.

232

Seven billion human beings as of November 2011,

And nearly two billion of those women of child-bearing age.

Does not take a math wiz, to figure out where this madhouse is headed.

* * * *

“The power of population is indefinitely greater,

Than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.”

Robert Thomas Malthus was only off by a few centuries.

Technology cannot forever save us from our inanity.

* * * *

A re-alignment of the human paradigm is unavoidable.

The only important questions are where you, your progeny,

Your friends, and your community, will be,

When the inevitable comes about.

As Charles Darwin wrote:

It is not the strongest

of the species that survives,

nor the most intelligent that survives.

It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

* * * *

How challenging for thinkers across the world, across all time,

To accept the fact that all their insightful philosophies,

Mean squat to the primal force, the source,

From which all creation bursts forth.

* * * *

How can anyone hope for heaven,

Who cannot transcend their endless wander,

Through one purgatory or another?

* * * *

From the womb of oblivion,

Onto a temporary stage for a brief dream.

Then, back to the eternal source, the timeless nothingness,

The singularity, from which all things spring.

* * * *

You are the eternal nowness prior to all creation.

That which was never born, that which will never perish,

That which is formless, indivisible, absolute, timelessly sentient,

The eternal life, the awareness prior to all beginnings, after all endings.

233

Consciousness plays the genius, the ignorance, the madness, the absurdity,

The loving, the hating, all the myriad passionate vanities.

And all the while, awareness, witness.

* * * *

A strategy of hoping for the best and planning for the worst,

Somehow gets one through the daily wander in purgatory.

* * * *

You think you are going to save the world!?

Hah! What is to save, really?

You funny guy.

Make me laugh plenty ha-ha hard.

* * * *

Consciousness is quicksand.

Awareness, bedrock.

* * * *

Duped yet again.

Oh well.

* * * *

I Am.

Done.

* * * *

Mortality.

So it goes.

Deal with it.

Get over it.

Move on.

* * * *

The infinity is within.

The infinity is without.

You are it, and it is You.

* * * *

An intriguing existence to have no boundaries,

Within one’s imaginary state of mind.

One need not do so much in the daily real-time,

If consciousness is given full reign, and an unaligned course.

234

Though you clearly realize, You are not, have never been, will never be,

You must daily act out the attributes of imagined identity,

In whatever way the windy dream prescribes.

* * * *

If you are free and tranquil and content within,

The endless theater becomes less and less significant.

You are not required to do or believe anything,

But through your own acquiescence.

* * * *

Given that the genuine You is everything,

What previous life could You not have had?

What previous form could You not have been?

And what future could ever transpire,

Without your presence?

* * * *

What is the point of judging anything,

Once you have realized all things,

Are but figments of imagination?

* * * *

If you want be loved so badly,

Then just love your Self.

It is that simple.

* * * *

Life is the meaning of life.

What more purpose and meaning,

Do you really need than that?

* * * *

To think the laws of physics,

Have ever, or can ever, be suspended,

Is the foolishness of ignorance and superstition,

Of faith blinded by interminable delusion.

* * * *

The timeless immediacy of the ever-present nowness,

Has never even once been fathomed by the vagaries of imagination.

Even a still mind completely attentive to the awareness,

Cannot more than be of the flame eternal.

235

How challenging to let go of lies once so much of life has been invested in them.

And are you wandering existence hand-in-hand with truth?

Who is to say, who is to care?

* * * *

You are not really required to play out your life any certain way.

You may change directions as many times as time allows,

As long as you are willing to face the consequences.

* * * *

Chew your liquids, drink your solids.

It is the replenishment and care of the body and mind,

That allows the witness to this vast mystery,

To tarry within and without.

* * * *

If you think, you likely think you are.

If you do not think, if the mind is attentively still,

Where are you? Where are you not?

* * * *

It is only we who applaud ourselves.

It is only we who require it.

* * * *

Challenging not to be small-minded,

When one inevitable passion or another,

Casts the mind willy-nilly every direction.

* * * *

The essential truth is not,

Has never been, and will never be,

Subject to the triviality of political correctness.

* * * *

Without you to witness it,

The universe and everything in it would not be.

Imagination is a powerful god.

* * * *

Work, play, experience everything that calls,

Until nothing remains but ever-present awareness,

Indivisible, intangible, indestructible, sovereign, absolute.

236

Why should you, who would fly into the infinity of the unknown,

Ever be tethered, ever be bound, by the limitations of any other?

* * * *

Imagination playing out every agony, every ecstasy,

But, in the final analysis, merely an agent of dreams.

* * * *

It is what you really are, that is immortal,

Not that vain, ever-changing mask and body,

At which you daily gaze admiringly in the mirror.

Narcissus only had a reflection of water,

In which to admire his beauty.

No end to the means,

Current times,

Have provided you.

* * * *

Forget everything.

It is all just pretend, anyway.

* * * *

Few spiritual inquiries stray,

Far beyond the given fairytale.

Early conditioning shapes us all.

* * * *

A free mind can never be chained.

* * * *

What is absurd, and what is not absurd,

Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?

* * * *

The universe, the world, is a great cross to bear,

A great atlas to shoulder, a great boulder to roll.

* * * *

Yes, indeed, it may sound extremely wacko at first.

But then, the only question becomes, what if it is true?

What if you are the infinite indivisible, that others call God?

Ineffable, timeless, immeasurable, indelible, absolute, supreme.

The challenge, Pilgrim, is not giving the mind over to vain absurdity.

237

To discern the truth of the reality prior to consciousness,

A determined, persistent, relatively detached,

Moment-to-moment observation,

Is all that is required.

* * * *

Eternal life will not be attained by any container,

Chock-full of an incessant array of vain notions.

* * * *

Who, what, where, when, why, how, am I?

Who, what, where, when, why, how, are you?

Who, what, where, when, why, how, is anyone?

Same source, same awareness, all dreams.

All dreaming themselves autonomous.

All dreaming themselves distinct.

All dreaming themselves real.

* * * *

You are creator, preserver, destroyer;

Witness to the mind born of time.

* * * *

You who seek it in earnest will find,

The you that is me, the me that is you,

And the we, that is the oneness of all.

* * * *

Any given body is but a vehicle,

For consciousness play out, to dream,

Its finite trek through the relativity of time.

* * * *

Agnostic |agˈnästik| noun: a person who believes,

That nothing is known, or can be known,

Of the existence or nature of God,

Or of anything beyond material phenomena;

A person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

* * * *

To carry history in your head, or not to carry history in your head,

Is the conscious choice between the stagnation of memory,

Or the eternal life of moment-to-moment awareness.

238

Be of such mind, be of such vision, be of such clarity, be of such soul,

That the empty awareness of the grand zero-sum is all that remains.

* * * *

For every true believer who might swing a pendulum one way,

There is inevitably another, who would swing it,

At least as far as the other.

* * * *

In a relatively few moments,

It will not matter what any of us thought about anything,

Much less each other.

* * * *

There are pluses and minuses to every relationship.

One must simply choose, into which to play,

In whatever time is spent together.

* * * *

An infant’s wants, so guilelessly genuine.

Detachment is relatively effortless,

When innocence reigns,

When nothingness blossoms,

From the depths of the unfathomable.

* * * *

Without context, there would be no you.

Without you, there would be no context.

* * * *

There is no other, there is only a dreaming,

To which you are witness, very much alone,

As free, as you, in any given moment, dare.

* * * *

In the grand scheme of all things manifest,

There is a far bigger picture than little old you,

You hopefully, at least occasionally, realize.

* * * *

Organized religions are fine and well and good,

If you have a strong stomach for doctrine and idolatry

And political intrigue and martyrdom and every shade of vanity.

239

Heaven is just another word for the oblivion of immaculate awareness.

And hell, well, just look around and endure the wander as best ye may.

* * * *

The void is the void is the void, and, try as hard as you might,

The grand emptiness can never even for a moment be filled.

* * * *

You are that which is God, I am that which is God.

Just playing out different perspectives.

It is that amazingly simple.

* * * *

The embodiment of nonchalance

Is standing in a crowded line of urinals,

Some magic and a few shots of gin and tonic,

Morphing happily through your veins,

An iPod with Chopin playing,

The tile wall in your eyes dancing,

All as if it was just another day in the life.

* * * *

And what is all this experience, really,

But a memory the moment it is dreamt?

* * * *

Passion is the harbor of all meaning and purpose,

And ultimately meaningless and without purpose.

* * * *

In jest, you say?

Well, let us punch you in the nose,

And we shall quickly see if you can manage a belly laugh.

* * * *

A dark age is on the horizon.

As dark as anything humankind has ever seen.

And, despite the good intentions of many, there is, alas, no stopping it.

* * * *

It is all nothingness, layered with one manifest veneer or another.

The ether of awareness toying with the elements,

Intelligent design, if you will.

240

Humankind cannot grow, grow, grow,

Without there some harsh day being a huge collapse,

Of our own making, of our own synergistic dearth of accountability.

Follow any given Pied Piper, to whatever cliff you will;

There will at some point in time come a fall.

Whatever goes up will come down.

It is a statistical certitude,

Of the highest order.

* * * *

If there is a god, a deity, a supreme being, of any sort,

And he/she/it is as vain and arbitrary as you,

Then what, pray tell, is the point?

* * * *

Every context is unique.

Every situation constantly changes.

No one’s rendering of the universe is ever the same,

Yet prior to the myriad imaginary concoctions,

Every version is very much the same,

In the most indivisible Way.

* * * *

What a walkabout it would be, could any of us,

Witness the inner video of another’s existence.

Meanwhile, myriad faces, tell so many tales.

* * * *

Is not waking up every day, mystery enough,

Without adding a heap of gratuitous folderol?

* * * *

To be in the world, and not be of it.

One foot in dreamtime, the other, oblivion.

Challenging, indeed, to straddle the splintered fence.

* * * *

If you keep up that ravenous, insatiable gorging,

How will you ever discover the serenity of emptiness?

* * * *

Given the nature of reflections, is it any wonder any given mind,

Only seeks out mirrors, to which its monkey nature, is inclined.

241

And the eighth day passed.

The garden had been thoroughly trashed.

Humankind – lost, dazed, confused – blind to its fate,

Wandered about the dystopian wasteland of its bittersweet handiwork.

And on the dawn of the ninth day, the day of inevitable reckoning, what would transpire?

Complete and utter chaos and destruction? Oblivion of consciousness?

Or the reformation of the monkey-mind paradigm?

Would that there were a time machine,

To witness the play’s inevitable conclusion.

* * * *

Politicians seem to have difficulty thinking past the next election,

Bureaucrats the next paycheck, and the masses the next circus.

* * * *

How is it, things so abysmally absurd, so blatantly wrong,

So often seems to work their way up to the top of the pile?

* * * *

Took a long, long time to create this universe, this world,

And here we are flagrantly ripping it to shreds.

Humankind’s legacy to the world,

Is a lot fewer life forms,

And piles upon piles of rubble.

* * * *

As impossible, as irrational, as ridiculous as it sounds,

Everything is inside and outside each other.

The quantum matrix is like that.

* * * *

Time does to the messenger whatever it pleases,

Whatever the given context determines,

The message is all that counts.

We all play one little part or another.

* * * *

And on the eighth day, God awoke,

And exploded at what had become of his Shangri-La,

Exclaiming in complete and unutterable exasperation, “What the … !?”

“What have you friggin’ two-leggeds done to my garden!?”

And, too dejected to say more, rolled over,

And went back to sleep.

242

Once you awaken to a larger view of life and times,

Memories sometimes revisit your teachers, and they are many.

In fact, there are likely few things from which you did not learn something,

However dreary and predictable, however profound and inscrutable.

* * * *

Another day witnessing the monkey-mind play itself out.

Mass delusion and insanity on a worldwide scale.

No doubt any aliens watching us have plans,

To keep the contagion from spreading.

* * * *

Giving one’s full attention to so many absurdities,

Requires such patience and compassion,

That only saints can manage it.

* * * *

From innocence to curmudgeonly cheerfulness.

Where is the instruction manual, anyway?

* * * *

In the greatest demon,

There is the crystal of goodness,

And in the greatest saint, a demon, held at bay.

* * * *

There is nothing more,

So do whatever needs doing,

And spend whatever is left kicking back,

And practicing on the vague notion called contentment.

* * * *

The song of mystery, an eternal chorus born of time,

With no-one-can-ever-know how many narrations.

* * * *

The fruit does not fall far from the tree.

The monkey-mind does not wander far from the jungle.

* * * *

If you are going to lie, cheat, steal, and kill,

It is probably not wise to be too predictable about it,

Or else you may be caught, caged, perhaps even exterminated.

243

Jesus would certainly have to be very talented to solve this fine mess.

Perhaps that is why he is dilly-dallying wherever rumored-to-be-living messiahs hang,

At which, if the tale be true, he proved to be quite adept those final hours.

He and his fishermen have indeed left the rest of us,

Intentionally or not,

Out to dry these last two millennium.

And more than likely, many until-the-end-of-time more.

* * * *

Why always charge for thoughts that come freely to mind?

What a peculiar concept, intellectual property.

As if anyone really owns anything.

A good idea, a good story, belongs to all.

* * * *

How differently would you see anyone,

Were you to view the inner video of their life?

All the nature-nurture winds that molded their existence,

Would certainly inspire compassion for all,

In all but the hardest hearts.

* * * *

The nothingness of the ethereal quantum vapor,

Playing out every conceivable size and form,

Every conceivable state of consciousness,

And we, enraptured with all our absurdities.

* * * *

To those attached to one dogma or another,

You are either all right, or you are all wrong.

We all have to come from the same beginning,

And all assertions about it, are utterly meaningless.

So, drop the inanity, roll out the doubt, and figure it out.

* * * *

At some point, so much history, becomes so much gibberish.

Now is the time, and those who abide in the present,

Are at the forefront, at the tip of the spear,

In the epoch of human adaptation.

Learn what you are able,

From all that history has to offer,

But do not let it weigh upon the many decisions,

That will soon be required to survive civilization’s unraveling.

244

If you cannot examine the cosmos in your mind,

Then your destiny is just one conditioned journey or another,

Dictated by the history, the make-believe, in which you have been steeped.

* * * *

Challenging to admit, to face, to live, the fact, the reality,

That everything upon which you have based this life you call yours,

Is nothing more than a temporal fabrication of imagination.

* * * *

Destruction, without any foresight for what is being created,

Does not leave much elbowroom for the little folk.

But, then again, when have those on top,

Ever really cared about others,

As more than a means to an end?

* * * *

You cannot erase what is already written.

You cannot rewind what is already said.

The unfiltered dream ever streams on.

* * * *

Pain teaches every sort of fear,

And desire creates every opportunity,

To experience its every nuance.

* * * *

Emboldened by the clarity of the untamable wilderness,

Jesus of Nazareth mistakenly, naively, foolishly, believed,

He could tame the madness, the absurdity, of Jerusalem.

* * * *

It is entirely your creation.

You are the source, the origin, the genesis,

Of your version, your account, your narrative, of the universe,

And no other can change that.

* * * *

Aligning with any given dogma,

Is more a gymnastic feat than real spiritual inquiry.

A curiously ironic thing, especially since ever-present awareness of the moment,

Requires absolutely no effort, no strife, no belief, whatsoever.

It is as present a present as any present can be.

245

In all its countless imaginary measurements,

The creation of knowledge is inevitably born of limitation.

Yet, prior to all mind-made limits, the mystic observer, a true scientist,

Remains as equally attentive to the immeasurable now, as s/he would any experiment.

The observer is the observed; the observed, the observer.

There is naught but one.

* * * *

What can really be born in the infinity of quantum nothingness,

For which birth, as consciousness imagines it,

Is nothing more than a dream.

* * * *

This time, too, will one day likely be called ancient,

Assuming anyone is still around and about,

Pondering such things historical.

* * * *

Awareness, oblivious to the play of good and evil,

Allows every dream of consciousness,

To have its day in the sun.

* * * *

We are all deluded by the given context.

* * * *

This week, yes, next week, no.

And after that, more of the same.

* * * *

Another day.

Wake up, get up, suit up;

There is a universe needs witnessing.

* * * *

Where would, where could, where should, awareness be,

Without a body-mind in which to imagine its Self real and true?

* * * *

At the point of diminishing returns,

As resources dwindle, as people become increasingly desperate,

Competition becomes more and more fierce.

Rarely a pretty sight.

246

From the now so-long-ago entry into this dream world,

You have been conditioned to believe so many things truly matter,

And have gradually discerned many of them, if not all,

To indeed be very dubious assumptions.

Where to now, Pilgrim,

Now that doubt is your filament?

* * * *

Every sage across the world, across time,

Integrates the language, the geographic assumptions,

The frame of reference, from which s/he hails.

So many ways to say the same thing.

* * * *

Trying to love each other, to love all things, has been,

A goal well beyond reach, a bar set far too high.

How about we just try to tolerate each other,

And all our vain, imagined differences?

How about we just try to get along,

Try not to destroy everything,

Before Mother Nature,

Somehow manages to off us?

* * * *

What is mine? What is not mine?

Who is the me who possesses anything?

Who is the me, who does more than imagine,

That anything can be gained, that anything can be lost?

All possession is of such a short while,

No matter how long.

* * * *

You are the awareness before time.

That which is mystery by whatever sound,

You may choose – or choose not – to ascribe it.

* * * *

True science is about the never-ending quest,

For the most certainty possible about any given focus.

Which is, of course, all too often handicapped, even paralyzed,

By politics, funding, technology, expertise, competition,

And any number of other itsy-bitsy limitations,

By which all manifestation is ever bound.

247

You are the singularity, nothing more, nothing less.

Your entire existence is, in the final analysis, but a means,

To scrutinize, to explore, to endure, just how alone you truly are.

* * * *

All histories are really nothing more than selected snapshots of perception,

Permeated by the unknowable awareness of the seamless indivisibility.

* * * *

Every destiny happens of its own mysterious accord.

All are written in the sands of imagination.

Some stay a while, maybe longer.

Some slip into oblivion,

Never to be seen,

Or heard from again.

C’est la vie and so it goes.

* * * *

Your deity may be great to you,

But to a great number of the rest of us,

It is nothing more than another fictitious idol,

To which only limited vision can succumb.

* * * *

You have been every particle, every form,

Earth and water and air and fire have ever concocted.

Imagine it so … You are the Eternal One.

* * * *

Every moment, within and without,

Is yoga, union, unicity, fusion, samadhi,

If you are giving it close attention.

* * * *

Before the word, there was nothing.

During the word, there is nothing.

And after the word, there will be nothing.

All sounds are but vibrations in any given mind.

* * * *

All the pronouns of separative flavor, of dualistic tone,

All the I’s and you’s and he’s and she’s and they’s and we’s,

Do not in the most ultimate sense, for any particular, truly make.

248

The actuality of the ultimate truth is a stark quality,

For which relatively few have either interest or inclination.

Delusion is, indeed, much more comfortable, much more gratifying.

* * * *

Some are blessed, though many might argue, cursed beyond measure,

With a sense of doubt, with a capacity for irony and paradox,

With a skeptical wit that gradually transports them,

Into a transcendent, indivisible no-mind.

A rare fate, this return to wonder,

To which all are beckoned, few are chosen.

* * * *

Essence realized, liberated, wandering in wonder,

Does not require much of this world, or any other.

* * * *

From the same mysterious source,

The ephemeral dreamtime of all beginnings, all endings,

All causes, all effects, all parts, all stages,

All everything, all nothing.

* * * *

It is all really the same You through and through,

And each must wander the pathless dream alone,

To discern the presence of the indivisible within.

* * * *

Sometimes You sleeps, sometimes You wakes,

Sometimes You sits, sometimes You wanders.

* * * *

Unless you take matters into your own hands,

You will endure whatever death destiny allots.

* * * *

We are all very unique characters.

The challenge is which forms of uniqueness,

We choose to embrace, or at least comfortably tolerate.

* * * *

There is no other side, other than in the endless intrigues of parasites,

Vampiring the treasure of the meek, all destined to only inherit the earth.

249

Every moment is born anew.

It is your own choice to imagine space-time real,

Your own choice to be free or not, your own choice to suffer or not.

There is no one, really, compelling you to do anything,

To which you do not willingly capitulate,

For one passion or another.

* * * *

How can there ever be a line between within and without,

When neither are more than imaginary concepts,

With no elemental reality, whatsoever.

You are ever it; it is ever you.

There is no other.

* * * *

To truly listen, to hear with your entire being,

Without any thought, any judgment,

You must be willing and able,

To completely give yourself over,

To the babbling brook of another’s dream.

* * * *

Cannot stop destiny; it is already written.

You just need to reach the last page,

In a book without conclusion.

* * * *

Many a woman has paid the price,

In picking an unsuitable mate.

And, of course, visa-versa.

God loves dice, Mr. Einstein.

* * * *

Awareness is only in it for the ride.

For those who see reality,

For what it truly is,

There is neither gain nor loss,

In all the knowledge, all the piles of gold,

Or all of the myriad experiences any given life offers.

* * * *

What is the human species but an unrivaled product of evolution,

With far too much aptitude for tool-making, for its mother's own good.

250

Your face has never been the same, so why pretend it is?

Why be attached to its ever-changing nature?

Go behind the façade to discover,

The immortality of the true beingness,

The awareness common to all small to great.

* * * *

We are all just kaleidoscoping mirages of imagination,

Rippling into each other in every conceivable way.

* * * *

If the Jesus so many idolize did not say,

“I am the truth, the life, and the way … and so are you,”

Then he was just another self-absorbed fraud,

Another charismatic cult leader,

Whom true believers,

Always place on pedestals,

And without question, blindly follow.

* * * *

Go lecture, harangue, curse, or worship the ocean,

And see if it cares about anything you think or do.

* * * *

All the firepower in the world ain’t gonna help,

If you cannot get your finger to the trigger,

And a square, steady aim on the target.

* * * *

If you seek angels, there will be angels.

If you follow demons, there will be demons.

It is your heaven, your hell, and purgatory between.

All equal in the ineffable, eternal indivisibility.

* * * *

Although there may well be some remorseful exceptions,

Most miscreants are likely, far more sorry they got caught.

* * * *

What a mockery of accuracy,

Hollywoods, Bollywoods, Broadways,

And other entertainments so often make of history.

But then again, how accurate has any history ever really been?

251

Why would You ever need to accept or deny anything spoken,

By so many seers, mystics, prophets, saints, oracles,

And philosophers throughout time and space,

When You can discern it for your Self.

* * * *

All have within them the limited and unlimited potential.

Everything narrow and broad, shallow and deep.

It is attachment to the individual dreams,

That binds all sentient beings,

To the dualities born of the senses.

* * * *

No words can describe or contain You.

All You are, is awareness, now.

The universe is merely,

A temporal creation,

Of the senses and mind.

* * * *

Memes are mass recordings,

Far more often than not,

About idolatry and dogma,

Than truth or equality or justice.

* * * *

Who is the experiencer,

When the passing moment,

Is over as quickly as it began.

Quantum mischief, indeed.

* * * *

Well, at least we will leave piles and piles,

Of photographs and videos of the blue marble,

And all our fellow earthlings small to great,

For the progeny to see what they missed.

* * * *

No matter how deeply you delve,

It ever remains an inexplicable mystery.

All conclusions are no more than idle speculation.

It is meaningless to do more than give the passing moment,

Your complete, unvarnished, constant attention.

252

Forget the world, forget the universe,

Forget everything you imagine you really are,

Everything you are not, have never been, will never be.

* * * *

Why would death really be all that different than falling asleep?

The only difference is, that the imaginary you,

Never wakes up again.

* * * *

Around and within awareness, a food body is created,

And for a brief duration, it witnesses Self,

Through a tentative lens,

Of whatever consciousness,

The nature-nurture dream allows.

* * * *

Existence is an odyssey, without and within.

* * * *

A refrain, a mantra for those,

Who feel the need for such things:

I am not this body …

* * * *

Dust is a very close relative.

No use too often bothering about it,

Lying around doing nothing.

* * * *

We are all abodes of the same moment,

Despite our seemingly limitless intoxication,

With every sort of imagined difference.

* * * *

Pray tell, where is this supreme being outside the Self?

This great creator, this absentee landlord,

This driver asleep at the wheel,

That so many, are so convinced, exists.

Where art thou, oh noble lord of heaven and earth?

Do you exist anywhere, but in so many vain plays of imagination?

253

Study for your Self the original writings, the genuine insights,

Not the religions (a.k.a., cults), and all the dogmas they have inspired.

Within them will perhaps be discerned the clarity, you at the core within seek.

* * * *

So, zee many-are-called-but-few-are-chosen paradox

Once and again metes out its great irony.

Rules in the spiritual quest?

Hah!

Good luck with that.

* * * *

Using different words does not change any fact,

And it is only the fact that is important,

Not the sounds describing it.

* * * *

We will never know how she created all this,

But the Mother of All Things Nature,

Certainly can be quite a bitch.

* * * *

The real You, is neither past nor future.

You are the eternal presence,

Pure, simple, free.

* * * *

How could all who seek it,

Not ultimately come to the same truth?

Else it would not be truth.

* * * *

Everything is all really about the process.

Goals are merely rocks along the riverbed.

* * * *

Some build sandcastles.

Some wander by and destroy them.

There is no real explanation; it is just the way it is.

* * * *

Curious that anyone could ever even for the briefest of moments,

Believe they were somehow distinct from that which created them.

254

There is really only one truth,

And it is the core of all that is, and all that is not.

No one possesses any greater truth, and it is for each to alone discover.

* * * *

Never uncritically acquiesce to any individual or group.

Dogmas are born of many an unintentional consequence.

* * * *

Those who are so foolish,

As to believe in all things implausible,

Are not giving full attention to the unfolding creation,

Their own eyes in mind daily reveal.

* * * *

You were born of Mother Earth,

And the immensity from which all reveries are spun,

And one of these daze, she will find a way,

To mill you back into the compost,

With which dreamtime,

Will renew its timeless play.

* * * *

All belief is like a security blanket.

You are everything and nothing all the while.

In what, really, is there to believe?

* * * *

It may matter while you are here,

But what will you think, how will you feel,

When that skull is six feet under?

* * * *

When you were young,

You were the essential You.

Untarnished, pure, free, innocent.

Until the world convinced you otherwise.

* * * *

All dreams, all memories, all ideas, eventually evaporate,

Into what they have been all along; the one and only real You.

The timeless awareness, in which all things come and go.

Appear and disappear, like clouds through the sky.

255

Whatever is left of this passion play,

Is really just the scratchy record of history,

Repeating the same predictable song over and over.

Many would happily re-shape the garden into a kinder place,

But, alas, the biological imperative will out.

Ignorance is the cancer.

* * * *

Death still troubles you,

Because you have not fully understood,

You really are not the body, to which you are so attached.

It seems to be a common misconception.

* * * *

The root of civilization is civility:

Goodwill, kindness, compassion, cooperation, reason.

Without these ingredients by all, towards all,

There is only conflict and chaos.

* * * *

To believe truth orbits within or about any idol,

Is to miss the rationality of any real teaching.

* * * *

There is not enough gold in a gazillion universes,

To quench Mammon’s insatiable craving for more.

* * * *

There goes imagination again,

Always trying to take credit for everything,

As if its infinity of narcissistic notions, really even exist.

* * * *

Each and every morning,

We all wake up,

To one world or another,

To face the day prescribed by geography,

And the genetic lottery, through which all are cast into time.

* * * *

Call it religion, call it spirituality, call it mysticism, call it philosophy,

Or call it whatever else the incessantly restless mind concocts,

All conclusions are ever but the speculations of vanity.

256

If you had never had wings or fins, you would never miss them.

If you had no recollection of the vibrancy of youth, of its energy and keenness,

There would be nothing with which to compare the inevitability of the gradual diminishment.

Alas, Pilgrim, no matter how you might wish it so, there is no going back.

* * * *

Into every account, every chronicle, every memoir, every history,

The motive, the agenda, the intention, of the writer,

Should be very carefully gauged.

* * * *

Curious that anyone or anything,

Including some omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god,

Would be so insecure as to need another,

To believe in them.

* * * *

The mind as identity is waves crashing.

The mind as awareness is eternally timeless.

Serenity is not born of the cacophony of thought.

* * * *

No creed, no laws,

No principles, no dogma,

No priesthood, and no religion, too.

* * * *

All dogma is artificial and arbitrary.

Attempts to mold into reality,

That which is prior,

To all manifest dreams,

Is a sojourn filled with every variety,

Of groundless, pride-filled absurdity and delusion.

* * * *

Is it not all more than a little passé at this point?

Do we have to continue regurgitating the same absurdity?

Are we not ready to evolve into something more attuned to reality?

* * * *

Endlessly fascinating how some cannot help but doubt,

While others are, even to the point of savagery, entirely incapable of it:

“What!? Make me think!? Make me question!? How dare you!! Infidel!! I will kill you!!”

257

Every part and particle throughout the entire cosmos, ineffably synchronized,

Spontaneous, impromptu, unplanned, unarranged, unpremeditated, unprepared, unrehearsed,

Extemporaneous, improvised, makeshift, spur-of-the-moment, off-the-cuff,

Ad-libbed, ad hocked, played by ear, on the fly, on cue.

What an amazing beyond-all-pales thing,

This quantum singularity.

And You are it, and it is You, there is no other.

* * * *

We are all sovereign players in each other’s dreams.

Whether key roles, or merely shadows in a crowd,

It is the same for all, whatever the stage or play.

* * * *

For those who are awaiting

One savior or another,

What is there really to salvage,

But a world chock-full of laughable vanity?

* * * *

Dread is the worry of time,

Of what may yet come,

Of what may yet be endured,

All born of the ramblings of imagination.

Anticipation only creates unnecessary pain in advance,

Over things that may never even happen.

Best just to jump in a cold stream,

Without thinking about it.

* * * *

Do everything, do nothing,

The illusion of space, the illusion of time,

Ever kaleidoscopes through the same ineffable awareness.

* * * *

The sciences can only peer into the hypothetical-theoretical for so long,

Before it all becomes, for-all-practical-purposes, an unknowable abyss,

Which is the word-filled domain of philosophers and mystics and fools.

* * * *

Considering that you feel all but done, after just one rather fleeting dreamtime of a lifetime,

If there is some sort of supreme deity of an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent nature,

How beyond-the-pale weary it must be, having to witness the human drama for eons.

258

The nature of knowledge is that it must ever be re-kindled anew,

Or be quickly lost in the ephemerality of Eden’s inexplicable enterprise.

Minds fade, clay tablets break, books dissolve, and the digital world,

Is but a flick of a switch away from the black hole of oblivion.

* * * *

So many ways this vain dream can be played out.

No need to follow, no need to imitate, no need to duplicate,

For those who have the courage to wander alone.

* * * *

How can the indivisible quantum ether essence,

The unborn, undying source of all life,

All forms, all consciousness,

Ever really live fully?

* * * *

Heaven and hell are but tourist attractions.

Travelers wander the vast elsewhere.

* * * *

We are all kin of the same quantum creation.

We are all born of the same oblivion.

We are all pure awareness.

Even shit is sacred.

Without its golden reality,

Neither flowers nor you would be.

* * * *

The behavior of any individual,

The synergy of any group,

Can cultivate both boon and bane,

Advantage and detriment, fortune and blight,

Benefit and bother, blessing and horror.

For every action, consequence,

For every cause, effect.

* * * *

What are any of us but a few handfuls of star dust,

Temporarily organized to partake a relatively few breaths,

Until the quantum abyss of oblivion resumes its formless nature.

The only difference between existence and non-existence,

Is in the whimsical narration of the sensory mind.

259

The same awareness, the same consciousness, permeates every imaginable difference:

Different bodies, different languages, different times, different spaces,

In order to play out a very-much-the-same mystery.

All the universe is a stage,

And all life forms merely players.

* * * *

Eternal life is right now, wherever You are.

The only real question is, do You exist as a mere mortal,

Or as an eye of eternity, a timeless witness,

To the unfolding mystery.

* * * *

We are all dancing in every way imaginable,

In the same quantum hologram,

The infinite matrix,

Of the inexplicable source.

* * * *

Even worse than pure ignorance,

Is someone knowing a little, all wrong.

At least ignorance might be open,

To learning something new.

* * * *

How do you think God witnesses all creation,

But through your eyes, and the eyes,

Of all creatures small to great.

* * * *

Why would anyone ever participate in any religion,

That advocates disharmony and conflict?

What sort of philosophy is it,

That does not bring deep, lasting peace,

Contentment, serenity, grace, perchance even joy?

* * * *

Since that which You truly are, was never born and never dies,

Technically, no one can really kill themselves.

So, suicide is really just about,

Being done with all the pain and suffering,

With all the pretense, with all the games, with all the bothers.

Not everyone wants to be here anymore, and why should that bother anyone else?

260

The infant begins with no knowledge,

Of what it is seeing, hearing, touching. tasting, or smelling.

Over time, the collusion into which it has been cast, will sculpt it to its own ends.

Few will likely ever doubt with enough abide-alone courage,

To decline and return to the natural state.

* * * *

How can You expect another to see the real You,

When You, your Self, have never, and can never see it, either?

It is naught but reflections and smoke and mirrors,

Only as real as imagination pretends.

* * * *

From the seed-lines of your parents,

And all your ancestors since life’s beginning,

You have funneled into awareness.

* * * *

You are immersed within the sea of grace,

But are too blind to quench your thirst.

* * * *

None of this is really happening.

You are not a body,

Nor a world,

Nor a universe.

You are That I Am,

Prior to all boundaries,

Concocted by consciousness.

* * * *

It is ever the same nothingness,

The same mystery, the same unknown,

The same quantum-hologram-matrix-ether,

Into which the given sensors extend their probes,

And generate universes of every variety and dimension.

* * * *

You can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch,

Everything having to do with the play of consciousness,

But it is awareness – unknowable, indiscernible, indivisible, enigmatic,

Mysterious, impenetrable, inexplicable, inscrutable, incomprehensible, indecipherable –

That is the source, the fountain, the ground, the essence, the witness, of all.

261

Let us idly speculate for a few moments, that God really is a he,

And that he looks something like the Michelangelo Sistine Chapel rendition.

And that Jesus really is the fundamentalist, M-16 toting, bad hair, very vengeful Son of God.

And like Santa Claus, God is keeping a naughty list, and you are near the top of it,

No more than two or three demerits away from eternal damnation.

Who really cares? No, seriously, who cares, really?

Why would anyone even for a moment,

Think of worshipping such a preposterous creator,

Or of idolizing a son, whose testament to the world was so absurd.

* * * *

Who decides what is normal, anyway?

And is what is normal here, normal over there?

And is what is normal now, what was normal back then,

Or what will be normal in some future when?

More than a little arbitrary, indeed.

* * * *

Any leader who does not give an attentive ear

To whoever is in the trenches, or out scouting about,

Should always be required to lead the charge.

* * * *

To all critics: Go make your own movie,

Write your own book, paint your own painting,

Build your own house, live your own life.

* * * *

Pure awareness is tabula rasa,

The uncarved block, the empty slate,

Free of the stains of any concept or passion.

* * * *

You long for it to be more than a dream,

But more, it can never be,

And thus, you must learn to face, and embrace,

The eternal aloneness, in which your ultimate nature, in serenity resides.

* * * *

It is a regrettably curious thing, the destructive grip that ignorance has upon the world.

Modern sciences obviously tender more accurate, verifiable observations and measurements,

Than the ancients across the planet ever could, in their geocentric, ethnocentric domains.

And yet they, from their graves, rule current times as absurdly as they did their own.

262

Ignorance, being its own distorted, corrupt end;

There is really very little point in debating with any true believer.

If someone is seething dogma about anything fashioned of this manifest dreamtime,

Then it is no doubt much less bothersome to put them behind you,

And just walkabout some other direction.

* * * *

Heaven has been here all along, if you had lacked the vanity to see it.

* * * *

You keep trying to make sense out of something,

That will never make any sense, no matter how hard you try.

All you can do is breathe in, breathe out,

And with the flow, go.

* * * *

No one can stand upon the shoulders,

Of the many ancestors who have come and gone before.

Each, alone, must discern their own way.

However high, however low.

True or false.

* * * *

The choir quibbles over absurd nuances,

Which have no real meaning.

You are the oneness.

It is that simple.

No need for any dogma.

* * * *

It is all just theater.

The actor within each of us,

The same witness, playing every form,

In a boundless matrix, beyond all comprehension.

How could it be anything less?

* * * *

Probably almost everyone has many, many other,

Much, much more, important things to do,

Than mull over their inner mystery.

Who can disagree, that it is much more intriguing,

To stare deeply into the screen of a state-of-the-art smart phone,

Than it is the infinite void of an exceedingly lackluster, lint-infested bellybutton?

263

To say any religion or political system or economic theory is better than another,

Is a ceaseless comparison of apples and oranges and peaches and bananas.

Each has their texture, their flavor, their subtlety, their raison d'etre.

All merely arbitrary collusions born of minds caught in time.

* * * *

Why concern yourself with absurd notions of heaven and hell,

Or the ever-morphing permutations of reincarnation?

You are … have always been … will ever be …

That which is prior to any and all forms,

Unrestrained by any limitation.

* * * *

This moment is where the tire hits the road,

Come and gone each and every instant.

No way You can be anywhere else.

* * * *

How long can the world as we know it,

Sustain the degree of self-absorption,

We have wrought upon its creation?

Where is the edge of the petri dish,

Towards which we mindlessly dash?

* * * *

The unanswerable, unsolvable question,

Is whether any deity, is as into the sheeples,

As all the sheeples would like to believe.

* * * *

Bad breathing makes for an unhinged mind,

Wherein the eternal now, is whisked into time.

* * * *

I Am the Truth, the Life, and the Way,

And so are you,

And so is every part and particle,

To the farthest reaches of infinity’s formless presence.

* * * *

Have many of our ancestors ever really cared about the unborn,

As anything more than a means to their own security and well-being?

As anything more than instruments for their own corporeal needs and wants?

264

These thoughts are for those gifted with the eyes to see, and ears to hear, each in their own way.

For the true seer, there is no dogma but the formulas of one’s own making,

And then only for the briefest of intractable whiles.

As Thomas Hobbes penned:

And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

* * * *

Cast into the whimsical winds of time,

You discern your subjective personal universe,

As the biological imperative of the genetic lottery ordains.

Such is the nature-nurture of free will.

Best wishes, Pilgrim.

* * * *

You really want some horrific Armageddon?

Well, just keep on doing what we are doing.

* * * *

Let go of it before it lets go of you.

* * * *

Nothing is new under the sun.

Nothing is old, either.

* * * *

And behind every face eternity ever cast,

You.

* * * *

Each must awaken very much alone,

To the reality of the eternal absolute within.

Anything less is but the idolatry of form and concept.

* * * *

The unknown is not in any way bound to function,

Within the confines of any given puddle of consciousness.

It is consciousness that must expand beyond its myriad limitations.

* * * *

The human paradigm is a ceaseless array of stories of every sort.

Perceptions, all partial, incomplete, steeped in the ephemeral well of imagination.

Is not everything more than a little hackneyed, more than a little passé, at this point in the human epic?

Have not we done everything, all but inconceivable times beyond counting?

265

The ultimate intention of thoughts such as these, are to strip away everything,

To relinquish You to the aloneness, the oblivion, the absoluteness, You truly are.

To leave only the certainty of You, the essence of You, the wonder and grace of You.

Anything less is only more hollow delusion, in a purgatory already reeking with its stench.

* * * *

For the want of minds, that can discern the mystery within all things,

For the want of ears, that can hear the soundless, eyes that can see the unseen,

Another vision of the grand reality gradually fades in the dream of time.

It is not the choir that needs to discern that which is real and true.

* * * *

Others make it possible to explore, to sightsee mindsets,

Outside your limitations, beyond your boundaries.

From the security of your couch, so to speak.

We are all really just voyeurs, onlookers,

Rubber-necking every which way.

Some consciously, some not.

* * * *

The brass ring is a slippery thing.

* * * *

If you really understand,

Why would it even occur to you,

To worship anything outside your Self?

Assuming, of course, any form of acclamation,

Is even necessary in the first place.

* * * *

Being the timeless presence is very simple, really.

Just be the sovereign, unstained, indivisible, untrammeled,

Flawless, immaculate, absolute, eternal awareness.

* * * *

A question for the sciences: How small is small? How big is big?

What exactly is ever being measured but the limitations of imagination?

* * * *

The way is simple.

No priesthood, no followers, no doctrine,

No edifices, no dress codes, no symbols, no tithing, no groupthink,

No oppression, no burden, no bondage, no encumbrance, no annoyance, no yoke whatsoever.

266

You have been mortal dreamer;

Seer, mystic, hierophant, oracle, prophet;

And now you are the truth, the life, the way … That I Am.

Krishna, Shiva, Buddha, Tao, Advuhut, Christ, God, Allah, Soul, Brahman;

However it might be designated or identified by all dreams samsara.

Born again, timelessly absolute, every streaming moment.

Immortal, sovereign, infinite, supreme, complete;

Prior to all dimensions of space and time.

* * * *

Everyone is a fabrication here.

Hotel California of the quantum blend:

“We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.

‘Relax,’ said the night man, ‘We are programmed to receive.

You can check-out any time you like,

But you can never leave.’”

* * * *

Pain is a teacher for the inattentive,

And more than a few seem to get spanked,

More badly, more often, than others.

* * * *

Too hot, too cold, too this, too that,

So many minds wallowing in discontent.

* * * *

When death strikes,

It is the living who must endure.

It is the living who must move on to tomorrow,

More alone than they were yesterday.

* * * *

No bird has ever written down even one chirp.

Nor a dog a bark, nor a cat a meow, nor a badger a growl.

This dreamtime would be without even one history,

Had humankind not imagined otherwise.

* * * *

Life, going out there and living it, is the only real test.

Except to parents, teachers, peers, bureaucrats, politicians,

Corporations, vampires, and other parasites out to make a buck;

All the examinations, all the papers, are ultimately all but meaningless.

267

Gumption: shrewd or spirited initiative and resourcefulness.

Initiative, resourcefulness, enterprise, ingenuity, imagination, astuteness,

Shrewdness, acumen, sense, common sense, wit, mother wit, practicality, spirit, pluck,

Backbone, mettle, nerve, courage, wherewithal, get-up-and-go, spunk,

Oomph, moxie, savvy, horse sense, street smarts.

Concepts to bear in mind and heart in the coming storm.

* * * *

As far as maintaining health of mind and body go,

It is wiser to get more disciplined as you get older, not less.

Ultimately, you cannot hold onto anything in this manifest playhouse,

But it will not hurt to take care of what you have been given,

During the relatively brief interval you have it.

* * * *

Who, what, where, when, why and how, You really-truly are,

Is the indivisible quantum formlessness of eternity,

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

Would that wisdom could be legislated,

But, alas, fools rule, and suffering abounds.

* * * *

You are indeed very much alone.

You can spend your life running from the fact,

Or look within, and find out why.

* * * *

Political correctness is really any given monkey-mind,

Molding others into an acceptable, comfortable limitation.

* * * *

But for human vanity, would there, could there, even be a God?

* * * *

How can anyone own the mystery, when everything is the mystery?

* * * *

What impetuous fire there is in youth.

The exuberance, the innocence, the arrogance, the folly.

Curious how life’s passing gradually tempers, even dampens, the many passions,

As the uncarved block, the a priori, is gradually whittled into destiny.

268

Just more inane dogma in a world,

Already seething with endless monkey-mind blather.

So many telling others what they should believe, how they should exist.

Just walk away from it; put behind you all those who would limit,

Your every thought, your every step, your every breath.

Live bold; be the freedom you were born to be.

* * * *

What the magic number is, that metamorphoses cults into religions,

Is known only to those who accept that God can be buttonholed.

* * * *

What happens after death? … Don’t know … Don’t care.

Didn’t ask to be here, ain’t prayin’ to be stayin’.

Seen and done enough to be ready,

For some eternal rest in the land of oblivion.

* * * *

Political correctness has always been played out,

By those many who fear standing alone.

Many sheep have only two legs.

Muster the courage;

Stand aloof from the herd.

* * * *

What is evil, but the darker side of light?

* * * *

It is history that whittles away innocence.

* * * *

No world should suffer too much affluence.

* * * *

If there was anything benevolent about God,

Why would it have ever created the human species,

To trample, manipulate, torment, and destroy this garden,

And all its myriad creatures, from small to great?

* * * *

Through these words, and many others of the same ilk,

Your ultimate nature speaks earnestly true, sovereign, absolute.

Look clearly, listen closely, You who would discern that which is real.

269

If someone over age five declared that they believed in Santa Claus,

The Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Harvey the Pooka, vampires, or any other imaginary friends,

The true believers of any given creed would laugh, and think him but an idiot and fool.

Well, mirror that vain notion for a moment, and know what a fair number,

Think of any and all dogmatic, holier-than-thou assertions.

* * * *

Call it religion, call it spirituality, call it mysticism, call it philosophy,

Or call it whatever else the incessantly restless mind concocts,

All conclusions are ever merely the notions of vanity.

* * * *

Another layer of sediment drifting toward the ocean floor.

* * * *

So, do you seek the truth, or just another lie?

* * * *

The world will be scarred,

With the ruins born of mind,

For a long, long time to come.

There is no going back.

* * * *

When Jesus said, put no gods before me,

He, hopefully, was not referring to Jesus.

* * * *

The doubt of your doubt by others,

Can be an undermining, infecting snare.

The quest for certainty is a solitary pursuit.

You may spark others, but must ever be vigilant,

Lest the flame be inadvertently damped by ignorance.

* * * *

Who can be sure what mystic seers across the world really knew or meant?

And with the muddle of vain commotion so many initiated, who cares, really?

* * * *

If the strategies and tactics,

You have established to survive, are failing,

Do you have the intelligence, the gumption, the grit in the belly,

To adapt to new ones, to shape new ones, in order to carry on, in order to survive the day?

270

What difference could it possibly make,

What others might think of You, or anything else,

When it is really all You anyway, utterly, indivisibly alone.

When it is all nothing more than imaginary notion stirred by the senses.

Pure, unadulterated, insatiable fabrication from the get-go.

* * * *

To be imbued with certainty, to be without even a smidgeon of doubt,

How is that even vaguely, remotely, figuratively, tenuously possible?

* * * *

Gaia, such a wondrous, magical gift, a garden extraordinaire.

Yet, given everything, the monkey-minds still wanted more.

* * * *

To really not care about anything, even existence itself,

How far, how deep, how alone, will you dare journey?

* * * *

It is by the light of awareness within, that all is seen.

* * * *

What is the universe but the same quantum dust,

Spinning ceaseless patterns of every magnitude.

* * * *

Nothing is long once you have seen the short of it.

Nothing is short once you have seen the long of it.

* * * *

The road to contentment is an arduous, rocky journey,

Long and winding, full of every imaginable distraction.

* * * *

The ever-present, timeless nowness of this garden cosmos,

Is ever right here, right now, ready to take you back into its fold,

Back into the ceaseless kaleidoscoping of its ever-dreamy matrix reality.

* * * *

The mind is a forest of words, in which most wander bewildered.

To see the forest though the trees, the mountain upon which the forest stands,

The sky beneath which the forest rests, and the upwelling within all,

Is a daily challenge to which few rise, much less achieve.

271

Adrift in formlessness, wandering a dream you mistakenly call your own.

* * * *

So many assert heart superior to mind, but how could heart be discerned without it?

* * * *

Ever-changing dream that it is, best never to take anything for granted.

* * * *

We are all the longing of quantum stardust feigning existence.

* * * *

Nobody is just a student; nobody is just a teacher.

* * * *

Any idea is only as strong as its intention.

* * * *

Freedom is yours for the beingness.

* * * *

A-dreamin' in the streamin'.

* * * *

Who can free you, but you?

* * * *

What flame can any moth resist?

* * * *

The monkey-mind; a never-ending jungle.

* * * *

All dogma is the spew of one middleman or another.

* * * *

What seam can there be in that which is indivisibly formless?

* * * *

From nothingness to nothingness, and the pretense of somethingness between.

* * * *

And how they do quibble over the seed of yet another dogma.

272

To believe in God, or not believe in God, what difference, really?

* * * *

The truth is so elegantly simple, as to be everything and nothing all the while.

* * * *

What was it you were supposed to remember to forget, anyway?

* * * *

Do not ask, do not tell; a good policy in many arenas.

* * * *

The tides of history are daily swirling stronger.

* * * *

So alone, you cannot tell the difference.

* * * *

Anger is resistance to the moment.

* * * *

You are an eye of mystery.

* * * *

No brag, just fact.

* * * *

Nowness requires no other.

* * * *

The limits of consciousness are your own.

* * * *

Just doing whatever you do, one moment at a time.

* * * *

More for that poor rat’s ass that no one gives a damn about.

* * * *

Look closely, and you will find the nothingness within every perception.

* * * *

This moment … gone … before you can even think about it.

273

Nothing is meant to happen; it just happens.

* * * *

Awakening to the “I Am That” is the evolution revolution.

* * * *

The sovereignty of one’s aloneness, is the sun of awareness within.

* * * *

In the vastness of the ocean of infinity, all drops are equal.

* * * *

The other side of nothingness is nothingness, too.

* * * *

Just playing along for the time-being.

* * * *

You are the trump card.

* * * *

Stream on.

* * * *

Pointless, indeed.

* * * *

So much not to care about.

* * * *

To be born again, you must die now.

* * * *

Holding on to nothing, is a timeless endeavor.

* * * *

Why do you keep seeking what you have always had?

* * * *

Each discerns it in their own way, but the Way is ever the same.

* * * *

Not too many problems can contend with a good, full breath of awareness.

274

I Am … the Truth … the Life … and the Way … and so are you.

* * * *

Can anyone really more than vaguely rationalize why they do whatever they do?

* * * *

Seven, eight, nine billion human beings, is way more than way too many.

* * * *

We are all just temporal masks streaming by in each other's dreams.

* * * *

The wander into divine wonder awakens to a new dawn.

* * * *

What freedom, in wanting absolutely nothing.

* * * *

End the resistance, embrace the pain.

* * * *

As you think, so you are.

* * * *

Quantum theater.

* * * *

Un-define your Self.

* * * *

Be free of the morass of motives.

* * * *

To see, and see nothing, that is the challenge.

* * * *

Strategy and tactics are equal partners in any given enterprise.

* * * *

Any given story is the convoluted means to get to the kernel of its point and purpose.

* * * *

You do not ask to be free, nor need you assert it, you just inwardly are.

275

Birth and death, just different ends of the same dream stream.

* * * *

No one can ever discern the real you, unless they see the real in themselves.

* * * *

You are the oneness in all, and the all, are the oneness in you.

* * * *

You are what you have always been, and will ever be.

* * * *

When it comes to time, it is for time to tell.

* * * *

History is a river of anonymity.

* * * *

Wandering on empty.

* * * *

Welcome home, Pilgrim.

* * * *

Truth is not a matter of opinion.

* * * *

By what form can awareness be bound?

* * * *

Good news, bad news, what difference, really?

* * * *

By the time you recognize it, any given moment is long gone.

* * * *

Yet another enticing distraction, drawing you back into the illusory matrix.

* * * *

Nothing created, nothing preserved, nothing destroyed.

* * * *

No more questions, no more answers.

276

What storm, what mayhem, can break the willow of a tranquil mind?

* * * *

The eternal absoluteness is within all, but the mind must be very still to discern it.

* * * *

What is the universe that the mind gazes out into, but its own creation.

* * * *

Every moment is equal, no matter the play of light and sound.

* * * *

Human bullshit; ignore it whenever vanity allows.

* * * *

Within every skull, a churning universe.

* * * *

Was not, am not, will never be.

* * * *

All conception is immaculate.

* * * *

To what need awareness cling?

* * * *

Such aloneness cannot be imagined.

* * * *

It comes from whence everything comes.

* * * *

Become the mystery within; what have you got to lose?

* * * *

By definition, the singularity must include you and everything else.

* * * *

The absurdity of centricity – be it ego, geo, ethno, or whatevero – is unending.

* * * *

Of course, you are the Quantum Soul; how could you not be?

277

The dream will entice with whatever bait the mind desires.

* * * *

A collusion of imagination in the nothing-more-nothing-less of it all.

* * * *

If you do not want to be treated like a cliché of a stereotype, stop behaving like one.

* * * *

How forever it is for awareness to try to reach the inside of any skull.

* * * *

Power and fame and fortune, all the poof of imagination.

* * * *

You are not required to care about anything.

* * * *

You are as old as you have ever been.

* * * *

Why identify with anything?

* * * *

Forget all the crap, just do it.

* * * *

Awakening is not a competition.

* * * *

Very challenging, indeed, to remain still.

* * * *

Just another angle on the same old light show.

* * * *

Another piece of trivia to file in oblivion’s circular file.

* * * *

All seeds must play out their given time, and their progeny theirs.

* * * *

It has always really been just your voice, singular, with many shades of other.

278

Humankind will certainly be the most documented species to ever go extinct.

* * * *

Nothing you can ever do, will ever make it more or less than it is.

* * * *

Earth … Air … Water … Fire … Quantum Ether.

* * * *

How impoverished we are by our greed.

* * * *

So alone as to forget everything.

* * * *

Mind your own mind.

* * * *

Soul trumps all.

* * * *

Never trust a deity.

* * * *

Divine madness, why not?

* * * *

How strong is your call to freedom?

* * * *

A quantum mirage no matter how dense the matter.

* * * *

What is knowledge, but a means to pretend the unknowable, known.

* * * *

What would your self-image be, if you had never seen a reflection or snapshot of your face?

* * * *

How the world does suffer for our kind to discern this one very simple truth.

* * * *

Between heaven and earth, the purgatory of the human mind.

279

Awareness has no name, no attributes, and is aligned with no mindset.

* * * *

The mind-body is doomed, but its quantum source will carry on, as forever as forever is.

* * * *

What more can any ask of a leader, but wisdom and fairness toward all?

* * * *

It is all one; do not allow your differences to divide you.

* * * *

To imagine a deity outside your Self is absurd.

* * * *

The kingdom of mystery is within all.

* * * *

Irony and paradox spoken here.

* * * *

Delusion is a strong vice.

* * * *

All in a dream.

* * * *

Why believe anything?

* * * *

This now, too, gone forever.

* * * *

The aloneness that is so not lonely.

* * * *

An intelligent existence is full of epiphanies.

* * * *

Too many straws quickly make for no more milkshake.

* * * *

Be completely, utterly vulnerable, to the totality within, the totality without.

280

The virtue of solitude is the freedom of unencumbered thought.

* * * *

Observe the universe in every way, until you discern in it emanating from your own eye.

* * * *

What is to save, when it is already spent, only moments before you know it.

* * * *

Comparing yourself to others, is a lose-lose game from the get-go.

* * * *

Truth is truth, and requires neither sanction nor proof.

* * * *

Mad beyond belief; a madness worth divining.

* * * *

Vanity can be more than a little blinding.

* * * *

The mystery heeds no bounds.

* * * *

Freedom, assume it so.

* * * *

More noise, joy to your world.

* * * *

What is, a gazillion eons to you, really?

* * * *

If you want a secret kept, best resist the urge to blab.

* * * *

We are all as individual as drops falling back into an ocean wave.

* * * *

No one can see the real you unless they have discerned the same in themselves.

* * * *

Not easy to forget everything, with so much to remember.

281

The senses caress the mind with any number of agonies and ecstasies.

* * * *

All forms of idolatry, are essentially the same time-bound fiction, with different metaphors.

* * * *

It is your universe, from which to pick and choose, as your calling wills.

* * * *

The myriad others, when have they ever not been you?

* * * *

You are just one fulfillment of all potentials.

* * * *

Do not need to, but what the heck.

* * * *

It is said; it is done.

* * * *

Puny mortals.

* * * *

Every mind a temple.

* * * *

Meaning and purpose … pffft.

* * * *

The choir always quibbling over nothing.

* * * *

This right now is the truth, for it could be nothing less.

* * * *

There you go again, cutting off the inquiry with a meaningless label.

* * * *

Ask not what the mystery can do for you, but what you need do to merge back into it.

* * * *

How can you be bored, when every single moment is exactly the same?

282

Suffering is the still through which experience distills into wisdom.

* * * *

Wisdom, slathered with pride and tradition and ritual and dogma, is called religion.

* * * *

You are the hunger, the thirst for existence, that sculpts eternity into time.

* * * *

Would whatever normal is, really be all that interesting?

* * * *

Beware the true believer in any forum.

* * * *

A free mind is the revolution.

* * * *

Existence is distraction.

* * * *

Mutation is as mutation does.

* * * *

The gentle cynic is indifferently agnostic.

* * * *

Nothing is what it was, has ever been, and will ever be.

* * * *

Fewer unintended consequences when foul deeds are only imagined.

* * * *

Truth is only comfortable to those whose vanity is no longer the limiting factor.

* * * *

The free will of human pride is accelerating exponentially toward its inevitable conclusion.

* * * *

Sounds like the same conversation that has been going on since we left the garden.

* * * *

Curious how harmful acts done to one, are so often recast upon another.

283

Wandering the Garden of Good and Evil, where there is in truth, neither.

* * * *

Ye Brahman be, to which no others but those such at ye, can see.

* * * *

Gaze up at the expansive sky, and see your mind the same.

* * * *

Truth is not for the clever, the foolish, or the slothful.

* * * *

History is replete with the same old regurgitation.

* * * *

Yet another instance of too much is not enough.

* * * *

You are perfectly you; why imitate any other?

* * * *

You are only imperfect if you imagine it so.

* * * *

You are student; your universe the teacher.

* * * *

A wake only shows where now has been.

* * * *

If you are fulfilled, what is there to want?

* * * *

Profound and passé every streaming moment.

* * * *

Forgiveness must ultimately come from deep within.

* * * *

Awareness, the final frontier, the grand voyeur of all eternity.

* * * *

Settle for dogma and idolatry, and sure enough, that is what you will get.

284

Yes means yes, no means no, and maybe does not mean yes.

* * * *

In the ever-changing sensory theater, awareness is the only constant.

* * * *

The witness of awareness, neither heeds nor stops for any judgment or conclusion.

* * * *

Each must dredge their own channel, to discern the intrinsic source of all.

* * * *

The games of gods and men, what are they to you, really?

* * * *

An innocent mind, what was that like, anyway?

* * * *

Nothing more is nothing less.

* * * *

What a load of crap.

* * * *

Irony and paradox rule.

* * * *

Neither more nor less, it simply is.

* * * *

A quantum divide is indivisible, nonetheless.

* * * *

Inattention to the given moment, is the first and last mistake.

* * * *

How can you ever hope to explain anything to anyone who lacks the ear to hear?

* * * *

All that glitters is gold, and all that does not glitter is gold, too.

* * * *

Ask me no questions, I will tell you no truths.

285

Speculation is not truth, never has been, will never be.

* * * *

Regarding beauty, what can insects possibly be thinking when they mate?

* * * *

The might that makes right is not necessarily, perhaps rarely, just.

* * * *

Follow none but those who freely point to the way within.

* * * *

So, after it is all said and done, is it five o’clock, yet?

* * * *

Sit down, shut up, look at your umbilicus, breathe.

* * * *

Know the mind, know the body, discern the Soul.

* * * *

Everything and nothing, in every passing moment.

* * * *

A Christmas tree is dying to come home with you.

* * * *

The mind is all, but prior to that, who is there to say?

* * * *

Questioning your assumptions is an art unto your Self.

* * * *

A handful of individuals does not for a revolution make.

* * * *

Of history, what can be said but that it is a theater of the absurd.

* * * *

What point providing answers to those who have never even asked a question?

* * * *

Only the true scientist will not sell his soul for ironic funding.

286

The mortal senses do not care what they see, hear, touch, taste, or feel.

It is only the mind, only imagination, that creates a universe of dualistic notion.

The body is but a vehicle, in which the singularity plays an eternal game of hide-and-seek.

* * * *

The human drama is really no different,

Than any game – board, card, dice, arena, or otherwise –

In which you engage energetically, enthusiastically, even happily, for a time,

But eventually grow bored, weary, perhaps broken, and move on.

* * * *

You have never even once been what you think.

The imaginary self is no more than a fiction of consciousness.

Truly, you are simply awareness, as is everything else.

The singularity is nothing more, nothing less.

* * * *

Time is relative to the space in which it is measured.

What is a second, a minute, an hour, a day, a year,

On Saturn or Jupiter, on Mercury or Neptune,

Or on the sun, around which they all spin?

* * * *

Different jewelry, same gold.

Different stars, same universe.

Different waves, same ocean.

Different eyes, same mystery.

* * * *

Imagine if you had only one sense:

Eyes or ears or nose or tongue or skin.

What would your universe be then?

* * * *

It all becomes quite meaningless.

Empty chatter, empty deeds, empty mind.

Nothing at all necessary, whatsoever.

Enjoy the freedom of just being.

* * * *

All movement of thought is the play of consciousness,

Mesmerized by the myriad creations born of its temporal nature.

Unbound awareness is the unutterable stillness of the ephemeral moment.

287

Organized religions are born of the sanctimonious, mythological blather,

Of those who did not, could not, know any more than you,

As far as any truly meaningful answers go.

But no point arguing or fighting or killing about it.

Just put all the true believers behind you, and wander on and on.

* * * *

No second step can happen without the first,

Nor the third without the second, or the fourth without the third.

Assuming you are counting, that is.

Stream on.

* * * *

You are the original source, the light that creates,

All form and shadow, all meaning and purpose,

All duality, in every imaginary way possible.

* * * *

Every life form ever manifested,

Is doing, has done, will do,

With its brief existence,

Whatever fate has allotted.

* * * *

Existence is a mystery.

It is not a Christian mystery,

A Buddhist mystery, a Hindu mystery,

An Islamic mystery, or anyone else’s mystery.

It is equally the same mystery for all.

Any given belief system,

Is merely vanity,

Promoting differences,

That have never once mattered.

* * * *

The breath only flows in or out.

Benignly indifferent to the ways of the mind,

To all the imaginary whimsy, through which it effortlessly sails.

* * * *

Regurgitation of truth is not the truth.

The word, the concept, the sound, can never be the thing.

A mind that will not look, will not see; a mind that will not listen, will not hear.

288

As yellowed and tattered and brittle as they well may be,

No writings ever scribed have any authority, any power, any use,

But through whatever meaning you discern within their point and purpose.

* * * *

Yet another perceptive observation,

Another witty thought, another clever story,

And not much more to show for it but a fallen garden,

Covered with cement, asphalt, garbage, technology, and conflict.

It is far, far too obvious, there will be no halting our kind,

Until we slam into the mountain of consequence,

Towards which we every moment race.

* * * *

What an amazing thing it would have been,

To have witnessed this wondrous, inexplicable garden world,

Before humankind descended from the trees,

And wandered onto the plains.

* * * *

Allow time to play its game without You.

Eternal life is a many-are-called,

Few-choose-it sort of thing.

* * * *

One is sure it is a he,

Another is sure it is a she,

Still another is sure it is an it,

And all seem so sure it is not them.

So much sureness about so many things,

About that which cannot be known.

* * * *

All stories are equally born of imagination,

And all are eventually, inescapably forgotten.

Whatever life survives us, will not remember us.

A collusion of make-believe, nothing more.

* * * *

Everything is created of the same source, the same awareness, even that which is deified,

Were such a supreme being to be contrived by the matrix of the quantum unknown.

So, of course God exists, and it is within and without all things small to great.

Each and every one, including you, sovereign witness to the mystery.

289

Remarkable how much bad theater is playing out on this little stage.

* * * *

What is yours, what is mine, is only for but a very brief play of the time in mind.

* * * *

Only the truly ignorant, claim to know things they cannot, and never will.

* * * *

You know enough to pretend, you know more than you ever can.

* * * *

Snappity-crackity-poppity, what bother an aging body.

* * * *

What differences are there to align with, really?

* * * *

Alone, so terribly, so wonderfully alone.

* * * *

None of that matters anymore.

* * * *

Let go all the insoluble questions.

* * * *

Stretch your mind to its infinite presence.

* * * *

What cannot be peaceful, if stillness reigns within.

* * * *

We must all play out our time as the cards willy-nilly fall.

* * * *

Who is right, and who is wrong, and where is the boundary between?

* * * *

Any given mind can only wrap around, what it is capable of wrapping around.

* * * *

We are all quantum experiments, playthings, in one form or another.

290

Those inspired to be lifelong learners, witness an ever-expanding universe.

* * * *

The mind will deceive itself, to whatever degree its mix of capacity and limitation allows.

* * * *

Existence is all about whatever distractions the given destiny calls into play.

* * * *

Perhaps time so quickly passes because it does not really exist.

* * * *

The patina of youth is always an enticing delusion.

* * * *

The statistical certitude rolls on.

* * * *

I, Quantum.

* * * *

Perception is all.

* * * *

Yet another point of reference.

* * * *

You teach best what you most want to learn.

* * * *

Another already dimming memory in the annals of time.

* * * *

Toward the anarchy of absolute absurdity, there are many sprinting.

* * * *

So absurd that it is almost comical, in a very sad sort of incomprehensible way.

* * * *

Consciousness playing itself out through every form imaginable.

* * * *

It is all that which is God; including me, including you.

291

The greatest wealth is eternally within, but vanity must still itself to discern it.

* * * *

Just because you do not want to think about it, does not make it not so.

* * * *

Minds hell-bent on limitation inevitably take a lower road.

* * * *

Discern the obvious, and put behind you the rest.

* * * *

Afraid to commit, or just not interested?

* * * *

What a precious thing, solitude.

* * * *

Honor is for the dead.

* * * *

Free will? … Pffft.

* * * *

It is a quantum thing.

* * * *

Ain’t imagination amazing?

* * * *

Slowly falling apart, one day at a time.

* * * *

Born again … just now … just now … just now …

* * * *

Whimsy’s passion, ever on the lookout for the next big thing.

* * * *

Always best to tackle a problem or task before it has a chance to get bigger.

* * * *

Every moment an unfolding clue to dreamtime’s enigma.

292

Was not … Am not … Do not know … Do not care …

* * * *

Every moment, the flowering of eternity, new and fresh and forever undone.

* * * *

So many inexplicable moments woven together in any given mind.

* * * *

Nobody likes getting shuffled to the bottom of the deck.

* * * *

So content, as to make each moment the last.

* * * *

So many ways to say the same thing.

* * * *

You call this free will?

* * * *

Idolatry dies hard.

* * * *

Yet another slave to greed.

* * * *

What is life but activated stardust.

* * * *

Awareness is that prior to all dimensions.

* * * *

Discernment is a nice term for slicing through bullshit.

* * * *

The full story of your dream will never be known by anyone but you.

* * * *

God, if there is such a thing, is likely not even an entity, much less a two-legged one.

* * * *

Who more deserves to play an eye of mystery than you?

293

As long as you inwardly subscribe to the collusion, vanity cannot be avoided.

* * * *

No matter the dream, you cannot be in any other now than this one.

* * * *

The greatest serenity is abiding in the solitude of awareness.

* * * *

There is no discussing truth with those content with lies.

* * * *

As counter-intuitive as it is: live and learn, die anyway.

* * * *

Serenity boils down to a still mind and good breathing.

* * * *

The lack of doubt is a wall that cannot be surmounted.

* * * *

Is there any depth into which delusion will not tumble.

* * * *

No need to save or guard what cannot be lost or stolen.

* * * *

In the eternal moment, we are all that which is mystery.

* * * *

All was lost the moment the garden became a resource.

* * * *

How often the path to glory falls off one cliff or another.

* * * *

There is great stillness just beneath the most agitated wave.

* * * *

Rediscover the infant’s untainted awareness, and know eternity.

* * * *

The challenging thing about change, is remembering it was once different.

294

You are but one, of an ocean of eyes, in the indivisible singularity.

* * * *

Idolatry is for those who have no intention of discovering truth for themselves.

* * * *

Through every doorway, down every hallway, around every corner, an adventure lurking.

* * * *

Just because you can think of something, does not mean you can or must do it.

* * * *

No need to be someplace you are not appreciated, nor even respected.

* * * *

Can there be loneliness without the relativity of some other?

* * * *

Imagination is just a soliloquy of illusion’s delusion.

* * * *

Dogmas are like assholes, everyone has one.

* * * *

Self-absorption in the highest sense.

* * * *

A true witness is the eye of mystery.

* * * *

No worries; few people, if any, will really care.

* * * *

Be the singularity witnessing its creation through your eyes.

* * * *

There is likely not anything born of mind, that cannot be usurped by ignorance.

* * * *

The ones who always seem to end up surprised, are generally the ones not paying close attention.

* * * *

The heart of awareness is most clearly viewed with full, deep, regular breathing.

295

What discussion about truth can You ever have with those content with lies?

* * * *

Any given universe is nothing more than a set of arbitrary perceptions.

* * * *

Letting it all go as it happens, where in that immediacy are You?

* * * *

The mystery explores its rainbow’s each and every essence.

* * * *

How curious to take personally what anyone else thinks.

* * * *

In other words, your babble is better than my babble?

* * * *

Such ado, such absurdity; all over absolutely nothing.

* * * *

The predictability of everything is, well, predictable.

* * * *

We are all playing it out in our own little willful way.

* * * *

Within all the movement, awareness, an indefinable stillness.

* * * *

Everything makes time, everything takes time, everything fakes time.

* * * *

Existence is a smorgasbord, of whatever comes to mind, in this dreamy field of time.

* * * *

We all want to be secure, and so many, so willing, to deprive others, to get it.

* * * *

Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, quantum to quantum.

* * * *

A true scientist pursues the truth, no matter the cost.

296

No one can stop anyone intent on believing their own ignorance.

* * * *

The eternal journey begins with each and every step, each and every breath.

* * * *

The key to peace and happiness, is a full breath and an innocent heart.

* * * *

Where duality reigns, the ever-present truth is ever veiled.

* * * *

Mystery cannot exist without you as witness.

* * * *

How much less you every day know.

* * * *

The un-becoming is afoot.

* * * *

Idolatry is not truth.

* * * *

Quantum fusion.

* * * *

You wear what you eat.

* * * *

If it is not freely given, it is not a gift.

* * * *

A full breath is the surest means to total freedom.

* * * *

Freedom or bondage, you choose, each and every moment.

* * * *

Idolatry and dogma are the barren harvest of those who lack the seed of doubt.

* * * *

So much gibberish to be culled, to reach the clarity at the coreless.

297

Cutting up a pie with different metaphors, does not for a different pie make.

* * * *

The recollections of timebound imagination, create every species of tyranny.

* * * *

How can that which never dies, ever be born but through imagination?

* * * *

Putting all the filters together, cannot help but create one vision.

* * * *

What would you care to do this fine day, my Sweetness?

* * * *

The monkey-mind; irrational from its inception.

* * * *

Your last breath will prove nothing true.

* * * *

The portal to the origin is within.

* * * *

Here now; now here.

* * * *

Self-loathing; do not do it.

* * * *

So much ambition to be nothing.

* * * *

A good guest does not destroy the host.

* * * *

Sure, keep on defining those terms as if it matters.

* * * *

What fearful grip can death have, on those who exist now?

* * * *

Truly want nothing, and the mind evaporates into its eternal nature.

298

Meeting any given moment fully, is mind’s greatest challenge.

* * * *

Never trust a deity to do for you, what you cannot, or will not do, for your Self.

* * * *

Every kaleidoscoping moment: utterly new, utterly old, utterly nothing.

* * * *

The departed would surely pity the living for all their suffering.

* * * *

Just another pharisee, cloaked in a different dogma.

* * * *

Eternal salvation, is just not caring anymore.

* * * *

Nuance by nuance, truth is ever the same.

* * * *

You cannot think peace; you must be peace.

* * * *

Most come to participate; some to do that, and more.

* * * *

The mystery has no expectation of you, nor should you of it.

* * * *

What is religion, but a means for the inherent freedom, to be bled out.

* * * *

How everything, just seems to appear and disappear, is always such a mystery.

* * * *

There is no reason, no point, no purpose, in believing in what is, neither probable nor possible.

* * * *

Sanity is a fairytale, to which only the dread of being different, subscribes.

* * * *

Truth is never, was never, will never be, what you think.

299

A most challenging thing, not to grow more inflexible,

More harsh, more cynical, as the world daily takes its toll.

To be as a child; innocent, free, untainted, uncarved, unbroken;

Is a momentary awareness, only timeless minds realize.

* * * *

All the pronouns: you, thou, we, they, them, it, and their brethren,

Are but vibrations, puffs of air, dividing the mind into this and that.

They have no ultimate reality, no ultimate meaning, whatsoever.

* * * *

Alas for those yet to come, that the grand Ponzi scheme,

Set into motion before civilization first took root,

Is steadily, irreversibly coming undone.

What will be left in the rubble,

The scar tissue of our battered garden?

* * * *

Nobody has ever seen what you have seen.

Ever thought what You have thought.

Ever done what You have done.

You are a one-time design.

The once-and-only You,

In the once-upon-a-time of it.

* * * *

The Self in one, is the Self in all.

The Self in all, is the Self in one.

* * * *

You are the first and the last,

Though you are not the first, first,

Nor will you be the last, last.

* * * *

After you have won your little revolution;

After you have destroyed everything, you did not like;

With what will you replace it; what will you build upon the ruins?

* * * *

Eternal life is merely playing out the existential moment.

The very same moment in which every other creature on the planet,

Is instinctually, seamlessly, effortlessly, simultaneously, selflessly functioning.

300

Perception is all, and all is seamlessly diminishing,

As the container wanders toward its inevitable demise.

And what will “you” be then, but what You have ever been.

No point in being attached to a reverie, that must inevitably end.

* * * *

The dream you call life, is chock-full of things that do not go your way.

Getting angry or depressed about it all, is much less challenging,

Than learning to just turn the other cheek, and wander on.

* * * *

If you are truly content with your kaleidoscoping dream;

Satisfied with what you have seen, with what you have done;

Why would anyone else's judgment ever possibly matter?

* * * *

After awakening to a larger vision of all creation,

Except for a greater sense of the grand connectiveness,

You are really no different than you were before.

You must still abide the mortal dreaming,

And that is never always easy.

* * * *

From the beginning, and before, to the end, and after,

Everything is indivisibly, seamlessly, ineffably connected.

Only in the mortal theater of mind, is duality imagined.

* * * *

The chronicles of time are nothing more than vapor.

All history begins decaying long before it is written.

* * *

It has always just been You, all alone.

The world, the universe, the entire sensory theater –

Family, friends, adversaries, things, work, play, pleasure, pain –

Have all been nothing more than secular distractions,

From this one and only indelible reality.

* * * *

The ultimate potential of any given mind,

Is not merely to wander and abide the manifest dream,

But to discover the portal, to that which is called God, by many names.

That which each must ultimately explore, completely alone.

301

From the ether of nothing, burst quantum, which formed itself into many earth-wind-water-fire elements,

That created a vast universe, sprinkled with countless stars, around which many worlds twirled,

Upon which, on at least one whirling marble, volcanoes spewed and oceans roared,

And life upwelled into existence, and mutated into biological streams,

One of which gradually, irrevocably, evolved into you,

Mortal witness to the timeless mystery,

To which there are but questions without answer.

* * * *

You are the temporal outcome of a lineage of seeds, streaming from life’s origin.

You are the mystery, the enigma of DNA, and its futile attempt at immortality.

* * * *

Your world, your universe, is your quantum teacher,

And it seems it will offer whatever you are fated to experience,

And perchance whatever it is you are equipped to learn.

Who, what, where, when, why, is anyone’s guess.

* * * *

If you cannot establish heaven in the here and now,

What in God’s name makes you even fantasize,

That you will just be given it carte blanche,

After your existence is extinguished?

* * * *

There are really no words for it,

Yet still we prattle on and on and on.

It is a monkey-mind thing.

* * * *

You may take the monkey out of the tribe,

But can you take the tribe out of the monkey?

* * * *

You are yet another flowering of nature.

How can you even for a moment consider yourself separate,

Or in any way lesser or greater than anything else?

You are it, it is you, there is no other.

* * * *

Just because you have behaved some set way all your life,

Does not mean you must awaken to the same today, or ever again.

Transcending the mind, the conditioning, the meme, is always an option.

302

Nobody can save anybody, or anything, in the grand creation-destruction of it all.

Only the eternal singularity, which we all are, which some call God,

Is prior to all dreams of time, to all birth, to all death.

There is no point at all, believing any sound laced with concept,

Will ever even once, touch the ultimate reality of it, the ultimate truth of it.

* * * *

Through the other, you gradually discern your Self,

Until you perhaps fully drink of the grand elixir of singularity.

Absolutely alone within the peace of the inner sanctum,

Irrespective of whatever songs the sirens sing,

To entice you to crash into the rocks,

Of the ever-tumultuous mind.

* * * *

You are the center of your known universe.

* * * *

Curious that anyone,

Truly believes all their believing,

Really makes even the tiniest iota of difference,

To that which is real and true.

* * * *

Ascend the mountain, you are the mountain.

Wander in the valley, you are the valley.

Walk in the forest, you are the forest.

Swim in the sea, you are the sea.

Stroll upon the plain, you are the plain.

You are your world, you are your universe,

And yet through it all, you are none of it, as well.

* * * *

Why would you ever even contemplate,

Much less expect, any other to be like you?

To see or do anything, exactly the way you do?

We are all just snowflakes here, of our own device,

Forever alone in our individual shard of the singularity.

* * * *

Despite all assumptions and collusions to the contrary,

Neither your body, nor your mind, nor your dream,

Has ever, for even one moment, been the same.

303

Why does there always need to be a point? A meaning? A purpose? A value?

What is so wrong with just living, just breathing, just being in the beingness?

* * * *

Some things you do for years; some things for months.

Some for days, some for hours, some for minutes, some for moments.

And some, you just scarcely even need to imagine,

And that is more than enough.

Illusion is for those who lack imagination.

* * * *

When you were a two-legged swinging from branch to branch,

The jungle was your universe, and language, at most,

Just hand signals and inarticulate grunts.

Is it really all that different now?

* * * *

What is close? What is far? What is here? What is there?

Where is the dividing line between you and anything?

* * * *

The right words in the right mind,

“Open Sesame” the portal to the treasure within,

Each in their own matchless way.

* * * *

Is there anything human hands have ever created,

That can reconstruct itself the way a forest can?

* * * *

You do not really exist,

As more than a figment of imagination.

Everything you know, everything you think, everything you do,

Is merely built upon the smoky vapor of mind.

Nothing more, nothing less.

* * * *

How can it be anything more than streaming sensation?

The eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the skin,

Are nothing more than nerve endings, channeling into the brain,

Which every moment imagines a conditioned translation of what is called a universe.

A solitary dream of consciousness, awareness playing its Self real,

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

304

Still the chattering mind; seal the dike from which thought swirls into dreamtime.

Cease your universe, for at least a bit, in the once in a while.

Meditation, it is indeed that simple.

* * * *

Whether or not you discern what this eye discerns,

Depends entirely upon whether or not it is your destiny to see.

To be among those relative few, who decline idolatry,

And all the middlemen barking their wares.

* * * *

The idolatry of form and concept is all balderdash.

Put it all behind You, and wander however You please.

You are prior to all dreams in this kaleidoscoping mirage,

And no sanction by any other is ever required,

For you to be what You truly are.

* * * *

If you cannot manifest heaven while you are alive,

What makes you think it will be granted after you die?

* * * *

You have never for even one moment been the same.

You have never for even one moment not been the same.

* * * *

The entire religious-spiritual game is just that, a game,

Artificial diversions fabricated by others,

For monkey-minded purpose.

There is only You,

And no other is necessary,

To fully apprehend, to fully appreciate,

The ineffable mystery of every moment’s eternal presence.

* * * *

When you are a child,

You speak and think and reason as a child.

But when you grow up, you put away all those childish notions.

What does that mean, really?

* * * *

It is only through your acquiescence, through your mix of desire and fear,

That the many limitations of others, is allowed to, in the darkness, bind you.

305

The great disconnect between humankind, and that called God by many names,

Is entirely fashioned of consciousness and the inherent limitations,

Of all concepts lodged in the dualistic temporal vision.

Only those who transcend the false belief,

That they are the mind and body,

Realize what they truly are,

Have ever been, and will ever be.

* * * *

More than a little absurd to get all vain about,

Or take credit for, or get upset about,

The spin of the genetic lottery.

* * * *

Breathe in.

Breath out.

Repeat as necessary.

* * * *

Everything is nothing.

Nothing is everything.

* * * *

You are That I Am.

You have ever been That I Am.

You will ever be That I Am.

Utter it however you will,

You can never not be,

The source of all creation.

* * * *

Are You experiencing the universe,

Or is the universe experiencing you?

* * * *

To attain peaceful, harmonious society,

All any need do is abide by the Golden Rule:

Do unto others as you wish them to do unto you.

* * * *

So many temptations.

Hard to see, hear, touch, taste, feel, just one.

What hedonists we all are, each in our own snowflake-unique way.

306

Prior to the body and all its sensory inputs,

Prior to the mind and all its ephemeral concoctions,

Prior to consciousness in every way, every shape, every form,

You are.

* * * *

Opening the door for a true believer of any make or model,

Is like trying to liberate a bird whose mind,

Is little more than a cage.

* * * *

None of it has ever really mattered,

And in a relative sense, it will not be much longer,

Before what never really mattered,

Will matter even less.

* * * *

Was it God that created man in his own image,

Or man that created God in his?

Seriously folks,

Is it not more than obvious?

* * * *

Truth, that which was, is, and will ever be.

Of things that constantly change,

Truth is not one of them.

* * * *

Challenging as it all too often is,

Try not to be too blinded by your cynicism.

Despite the play and its players,

There is wonder in it all.

* * * *

Words ceaselessly meander,

Through the corridors of imagination,

Concocting every variety of fantastical enterprise.

* * * *

No form is the source of its own intelligence,

Any more than a piece of jewelry is source of its own beauty.

It is the intrinsic gold, the quantum essence, that which is within and without,

That creates and sustains, all that is temporal from small to great.

307

You cannot teach what you do not know,

And you cannot teach something well, until you know it very, very well.

And you cannot teach that which can never be known,

Until you have very, very clearly discerned,

That you are the unknown.

* * * *

Re-establishing a guardianship relationship with nature,

Will likely prove to be the overriding imperative,

For the unenviable future we are all-together creating.

Assuming, of course, any survive to modify the paradigm.

* * * *

Imagination is the trove of all agony, of all ecstasy,

But it is truly nothing more than echoes,

In the vacuum of eternity.

* * * *

What is this ephemeral trait called beauty,

But an ever-distracting promise of something,

That does not, has never, will never, exist.

* * * *

Only in the very-much-now momentary presence,

The stillness of absolute awareness, does vanity end.

* * * *

Probably 99.99 percent of all life on this garden world,

Exists between the heights of Mount Everest,

And the depths of the Mariana Trench.

That is only just a smidgen over twelve miles,

Which is where to where, in your dream of a world?

* * * *

You are eating and drinking and pissing and shitting,

And breathing and wandering through the ever-swirling elements.

Just where is the partition between you and anything?

* * * *

How can there be just one teacher,

When your universe has been laying the foundation,

With every sort of instruction, since long before you were conceived.

Awakening is a timeless process, not any particular mask, not any particular point in time.

308

Even if you could somehow take back every single regret,

Make different decisions at each and every blundering misstep,

You would just create another wretched array, at which to daily cringe.

* * * *

We must all play to the given audience on the given stage.

And no matter how many stages You may,

In any given life wander,

In your own dream,

You are ever lead character,

Immortal protagonist in the grand theater.

* * * *

So many words propelled this way and that,

As if their ceaseless back and forth,

Will somehow engineer,

Their conceptual notions real.

* * * *

Everything a hook holding up the veil.

* * * *

We all discern it a mystery,

And then quibble and feud and battle,

Over the endless speculations all minds contrive.

* * * *

Without You to witness to it,

There would be no light by which to see.

There would be no matrix of mystery to be explored.

There would be no truth to again and again and again be discerned.

* * * *

Freedom may be less about being able to do anything you want,

As it is being able to decline, to sidestep, anything you do not want.

* * * *

Megalomaniacs, narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths and other predators,

Have always manipulated the course of the human drama,

Because in the natural order of things,

Prey rarely do well,

At more than hiding or dodging or running.

Evasion and subjugation are the hallmarks of so-called civilization.

309

You cannot open a door that will not open,

No matter your deepest yearning that it would be so.

Nor can You help but wander through one that seamlessly yawns.

Fate is as fate does; ever drawing You forward to its unknowable conclusion.

* * * *

You believe you have the power to make things happen.

Well, Pilgrim, only if it is in the cards You were shuffled,

Only if it is the part assigned long before You were born.

* * * *

Some of your finest friends have been dust,

For hundreds, even thousands of years.

But they bequeathed many thoughts,

Which ever speak the same truth,

The same voice, in many guises.

* * * *

Another memory.

Ho-hum.

* * * *

Physician, heal thy Self.

* * * *

From fear, fearlessness.

From desire, desirelessness.

From passion, passionlessness.

From conflict and struggle, serenity.

* * * *

Hey, nobody is forcing you,

To do anything you cannot say no to,

If you are willing to endure the consequences.

* * * *

To see you are that which is mystery is not arrogance,

But recognition, acceptance, appreciation, salutation.

* * * *

There are always consequences,

In the causes and effects of this manifest dream.

Consciousness must ever pay the many pipers of its own creation.

310

Sodom and Gomorrah arise anew in every epoch, in every geography.

It is the outcome of the monkey-mind’s hedonistic nature.

Few move beyond the biological imperative,

And those who do not discern,

Succumb to one consequence or another.

* * * *

So many hoping, praying for a miracle, a sign of favor from God.

Easy to forget that it is in each and every step,

Each and every breath.

Yet still they want more, more, more.

* * * *

Consciousness synergistically playing itself out,

However each and every single one wills,

Each and every streaming moment.

* * * *

What is existence but a relatively few breaths,

A relatively few pleasures, a relatively few pains,

A relatively few successes, a relatively few failures.

A relatively few comrades, a relatively few adversaries,

A relatively few anything of everything,

And everything of anything.

* * * *

Idolatry, laced with dogma, has never,

Nor will ever, have anything to do with truth.

Put any middleman who claims otherwise behind you.

* * * *

What is the point of all this knowledge,

If it does not transmute from trivia into intelligence,

From intelligence into wisdom, and from wisdom into eternal life.

* * * *

Still waiting for the Mother Ship,

To pick you up and return you home, are we?

Well, alas, bad news, amigo, it was long ago sucked into a black hole,

And you – tinker, tailor, soldier, spy – are marooned,

Amid this inexplicable alien species,

For the rest of time.

Best not to scream too loud.

311

The infant is within a sensory swirl of sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and touches,

For which it has not even one concept, by which to gauge the universe yet to exist.

* * * *

Heavens and hells, karma, or any other afterlife speculation of reward or punishment,

Are nothing more than fabrications of ever fearful, ever unhappy, ever-conniving minds.

The one and only truth – all that is, has ever been, will ever be – is timelessly here now.

* * * *

We are a species destined for a relatively quick decline, if not extinction,

For our scarcity of right relationship to the rules of engagement,

Orchestrated by the quantum game board’s natural order.

* * * *

The difference between home invasion and conquest,

Between a suicide bomber and a guided missile,

Is but a relatively minor matter of degree.

Attitude is all.

* * * *

Suspend craving, disregard fear, ignore dread,

And what remains but the essential You?

Unwind your weary mind and body,

Dive into the pool of serenity,

That is the source of all.

* * * *

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity,

But often painful just the same.

* * * *

The unknown is faceless.

Put away all the photographs.

Forget the reflection in the mirror.

Shelve all the knowledge of this and that.

You are the immeasurable; You are the mystery.

As pure, as simple, as free, as you allow your Self to be.

* * * *

As seen from perhaps the darkest before-the-storm points in human history,

Given the nature of our kind, is it even at all possible, that an enlightened paradigm,

Might, like the fabled phoenix of mythical origin, rise up from the debris?

Away from the busy din, idealistic notions are so easily spun.

312

An ocean of nothingness;

Light shimmering upon every permutation,

The timeless miasma of consciousness can conceivably imagine.

* * * *

The same eternal awareness has been housed in every life form since life was formed.

In all creatures small to great, the same omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence.

* * * *

You will likely continue enduring the agony and ecstasy of existence,

Because, short of pulling the trigger, there really is no choice.

Suicide is indeed the only real philosophical question.

* * * *

At what point do you just write some escapades off?

At what point do you call a bad deal a bad deal;

Stop throwing treasure, time and energy at it,

And just wander on to the next adventure.

* * * *

The awareness, the witness you ever are,

Is the indivisible, immeasurable source:

Omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent.

It is You, You are it, there is no other.

* * * *

Pain is an unyielding teacher,

And you may or may not be adept,

At learning its many lessons.

* * * *

We all come up with so many things,

That appear so very important at the time.

Some long remembered, most quickly forgotten.

* * * *

The convenience of being an unknown solo act,

Is not having to cater to one herd mentality or another.

There is no freedom in the expectations of political correctness.

* * * *

Apply to the ever-streaming moment, as many words and numbers as you like,

Time and space are nothing more than abstractions born of temporal imagination.

313

The first billion population mark was breached by humankind in 1804-ish.

The second in 1927-ish, the third in 1960-ish, the fourth in 1974-ish, the fifth in 1987-ish,

The sixth in 1999-ish, the seventh in 2011-ish, the eight projected in 2023-ish,

The ninth for 2040-ish, and the tenth and beyond whenever-ish.

Seven billion in a little over two hundred years.

To what beyond the pale will Gaia allow us to take it,

Before the Malthusian reality finally kicks us down the line?

* * * *

The ephemeral me-myself-and-I is but an intangible presence,

A glimmer of the unknown imagining all its dreaming real.

* * * *

Do you move in time, or does time move in you?

Do you do nothing, or does nothing do you?

* * * *

There is obviously no limit to God’s cruelty.

* * * *

What did you really accomplish this day,

But another flurry of memories,

Already growing dim.

* * * *

It is consciousness that moves,

Not You, the stillness of awareness,

The unstained, infinite witness.

* * * *

Unravel the Gordian Knot,

Bit by bit if your aim is suffering.

Slice it in one fell swoop if it is freedom.

* * * *

What tricksters these senses are,

Manifesting a reality that can never be real,

Creating a reverie that can never be more than a dream.

* * * *

Only through the ever-streaming, ever-changing input of the senses,

Does it seem that you are seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling,

This indivisible quantum-matrix universe, a mirage of an inexplicable origin.

314

Who can say who or what or when or where or why or how,

The seeds of doubt are planted, take root, get watered, and grow to fruition.

It is, as all things ever are, the same ineffable mystery from all beginnings to all endings.

* * * *

An unending irony that the many things that make life pleasurable,

Will, without remorse, send you back to oblivion, if you do not temper them.

Existence requires more discipline, not less, as you grow older.

* * * *

The innocence of childhood was indeed a bliss of its own,

But, alas, we must all sooner than later grow up,

And make our way in the given dream.

Wander it out the best we can.

* * * *

Continually processing, grokking your little dream,

When you could, instead, be nirvana now.

It is right here, right now,

As it has always been, will ever be.

* * * *

Be as indivisibly indifferent as all the stars,

It has taken to create this imaginary dream.

* * * *

Existence is the unknown, cloaked in known,

Which we all must each in our own way endure.

* * * *

When the finite reunites with the infinite,

When the drop is no longer distinct from the ocean,

Where can any seam between observer and observed reside?

* * * *

Yet another day in the examined life, the torrential spew of consciousness,

Playing its tiringly silly, often pathetic, unendingly absurd, song of mystery.

* * * *

To return to the upwelling, to Para Brahman, may or may not be your calling.

There is no predicting who will comprehend the source of awareness.

Nor is it really all that important, for the mystery is in all things,

No matter how many are, or are not, destined to awaken.

315

The malarkey of fear and superstition and ignorance,

Would have you bow and scrape and pay homage for all eternity.

But in truth, there is nothing to which you are in any way required to submit,

If you have the courage to stand free of all claims, utterly alone,

In the elemental winds of your quantum dream.

* * * *

Far more discerning and real to become a Christ than a Christian,

A Buddha than a Buddhist, the Tao than a Taoist,

The Truth than a True Believer.

* * * *

If those who say they do not care, really did not care,

Would it even occur to them that they did or did not?

* * * *

The only thing you can really do is witness it.

There is no holding on to anything,

Least of all, the vain notion,

That it has been you,

Who has really done any of it.

* * * *

Even if you were up on some great stage,

With eight billion-plus people wildly cheering,

In the vast singularity of all things matrix,

You would still be very much alone.

* * * *

Best discern the existential of it now,

For there will likely not be the opportunity,

Once the container to which you are so attached,

Blows back into the dream-weaving quantum sands.

* * * *

You can take all your dogmatic absurdities,

And the political correctness with which they are laced,

And shove them where no sun ain’t never got no ambition to shine.

* * * *

Is a contribution for a tax deduction really a gift?

Is a donation for an inscription on a wall really from the heart?

Is philanthropy really any more than good old vanity guised in yet another cloak?

316

You are not the body, nor the mind; You are not the left hand, nor the right.

You are not the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, nor the layers of nerve-ridden flesh.

You are not the heart or any other organ, nor are You the tip of the biggest toe.

You are naught but awareness, as ethereal as the sky is to clouds.

* * * *

What courage it takes to stand alone, and be that which You truly are.

Do not abide the many true believers who say it cannot be,

For who are the blasphemers, but those who deny,

The truth, that is within and without all.

* * * *

And who are the savages, and who are the civilized,

Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?

* * * *

Truth is much less than the concept implies.

* * * *

Resistance to the reality within and without,

Is but an every-moment exercise in futility.

* * * *

It does not have to make any sense, you know.

The mystery of it all is really far too inexplicable,

To ever wrap even the most immortal head around.

* * * *

How would all the intelligence,

Playing out in this manifest dreamtime world,

Be possible, if it were not inherent within the quantum source?

Intelligent design, indeed.

* * * *

If you love one and hate another,

The odds are good that your interpretation of love,

Is not as unqualified or enduring, as you would have others believe.

* * * *

Perception is always such a muddy-waters thing,

Because the input of the senses is whittled down so thoroughly,

By the filtration process as it wanders through the patterning of the given mind.

Conditioning is the weaver of all dreams.

317

Neither supernatural storylines, nor daunting deities,

Nor ornate edifices, nor imposing statues, nor gold-trimmed regalia,

Nor grand paintings, nor elaborate décor, nor great multitudes, do for truth make.

Hokum is hokum, twaddle is twaddle, bunkum is bunkum, claptrap is claptrap, drivel is drivel,

Hooey is hooey, gibberish is gibberish, absurdity is absurdity, no matter the pretense.

* * * *

If it is your calling, your vocation, to know you are that which is mystery,

Know that you will discern it within, it will become you,

And you will be the all-seeing witness,

Of the all and none.

* * * *

Many a herd will be only too whistle-while-they-work happy,

To stampede anyone and/or anything into dusty hamburger.

* * * *

You will suffer until you let go of your universe,

And the incessant movement of the mind that sustains it.

Until you give way to the stillness of the awareness,

The source from which all dreaming streams.

* * * *

So idolatrous they cannot even begin to see it.

Too absurd to even bother arguing about it.

* * * *

A theater, a carnival, a university,

Which daily grows less and less enticing,

As the world, the universe, within,

Gradually becomes undone.

* * * *

If Jesus had written down his thoughts,

Would there even be a Christian religion?

* * * *

What are gods and demons, what are heavens and hells,

But the imaginary, stuporous vapor, of fear-ridden minds.

* * * *

Not too much longer before this mortal dream will fade into oblivion.

What a relatively short set of streaming moments, any given life truly is.

318

Nothing for which to feel guilt or remorse.

Nothing for which to apologize or beg forgiveness,

The pain is the price all must pay to be right here right now.

Only the rare few discerning the one and only reality.

Forgive your Self, and carry on, best you can.

* * * *

And if and when, you truly realize,

Who, what, when, where, why, how, you really are,

What will you do then?

* * * *

How can you promise any tomorrow,

When you are not yet there,

To answer for it?

* * * *

You, Quantum.

Quantum field.

Quantum infinity.

Quantum freedom.

Quantum tranquility.

Quantum indelibility.

Quantum sovereignty.

Quantum absoluteness.

Quantum indivisibility.

Quantum timelessness.

Quantum singularity.

Quantum totality.

Quantum truth.

Quantum joy.

You, Quantum.

* * * *

After everything is said and done,

What is there to be, but what you truly are,

Have ever been, and will ever be.

* * * *

Why be bound by any historical notion?

Why be crimped by any mythology or tradition?

Why not be entirely free in the sovereignty of awareness?

It is only fear that ordains you acquiesce to any artificial limitation.

319

Now, now, now, now, now, now, now …

Eternity is right here now, the mystery is right here now,

Prior to all attributes, prior to all assumptions, prior to all identification,

Prior to all movement of consciousness, of imagination.

You are it, and it is You; there is no other.

What is so difficult to fathom,

About the stillness of the ineffable awareness,

Which as simple as simple can be?

* * * *

To assert the allegory of Jesus, “the greatest story ever told,”

When you have not really read anything else,

Is more than a little absurd.

* * * *

“Should” is one of those arduous words,

Framed in countless assumptions and great expectations,

That only rarely suits anyone well or long.

* * * *

Tiny ants wandering their hills and caves,

The grand infinity of their six-legged universe,

That few two-leggeds will ever fully realize,

Is more than a little similar to their own.

* * * *

Just a touchy-feely three-dimensional dream,

Ever the same, no matter the space, no matter the time.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

What would you do,

If you were able to begin again,

With a shiny new, completely healthy body,

And all you have gleaned from this brief life, entirely intact?

Would you wander down the same trail,

Or break new ground?

* * * *

It is not through thought that You, the witness, exists.

The You, you really are, is not this time-bound, fabricated character.

What You really are is the awareness, the presence,

The nowness of the eternal life.

320

So many lost little boys, so many lost little girls,

What is a world, already facing an existential crisis, going to do,

With a digitalized generation, about to join in on the cancerous feeding frenzy?

* * * *

It is the collective synergy of human endeavor,

That is carrying our kind, all the myriad creatures small to great,

And our illusory, dreamtime garden birthing ground,

Toward a most guaranteed outcome.

* * * *

The labor of children is timeless play.

The labor of adults, all too often time-bound drudgery;

A state of mind to which none need succumb.

To retain the innocence of a child,

Is a wondrous talent.

* * * *

Forget that you were ever born.

Die to all past and future.

The streaming now,

Is the awareness You are.

Everything and nothing, all the while.

* * * *

It is the body that is growing older,

Not the ageless, indivisible, immeasurable You,

The awareness that was never born.

* * * *

A Self-reflective inclination,

Is obviously not calling,

To every one across the board.

The abyss within, is perhaps too large,

Perhaps too frightening, perhaps too unenticing,

For all but the rarest, to want to peer into at any given time.

The old ‘many are called, few are chosen’ theme,

Played out in any given solar flare.

* * * *

You are only fooling yourself, if you think you will be back.

You are only fooling your Self, if you think You will not be back.

You can check out, Pilgrim, but, gosh and by golly, you can never leave.

321

A challenging thing, being in the world and not of it,

Attentive to the given moment, yet still locked in a body,

Still attached, like it or no, to the universe in which it wanders.

* * * *

The abyss can be plumbed forever, and no edge ever reached.

The senses are but an ephemeral veil to the solitude,

You are, have ever been, will ever be.

* * * *

Once you have thoroughly explored consciousness,

And its limitless nuances to your satisfaction,

The challenge becomes how to detach,

From the endless movement,

Of its incessant blather.

* * * *

In the ever-present, the mind dissolves,

Into the immeasurable nothingness,

To which attachment has no tether.

* * * *

Two ways to fathom wisdom:

One, by doing many foolish things.

Two, by not doing many foolish things.

* * * *

What is outside is inside, and inside, out.

Where is the seam between any two or more?

* * * *

If they snicker at you because you are so different,

Hoot back at them for trying so hard to be the same.

* * * *

By life’s end, how many of us wish,

We had done and said so many things differently,

That we had been both the giver and receiver of more kindness.

* * * *

Life is a marathon.

Be aware how quickly you are running it,

Lest you be caught at its end, with too little left to carry well the given day.

322

Few are inflicted with the great doubt,

That eventually conveys them all the way back,

To the ephemeral awareness prior to all consciousness.

So many temptations, so many distractions, so many delusions,

On the long and winding ever here now road home.

* * * *

Are you prepared to leave everything behind?

To be totally, absolutely free, of all manifest claims?

Are you prepared to be, You, absolutely alone, dreamless?

Naught but pure awareness; formless, for all eternity?

Or will you do all this to your Self, yet again?

* * * *

What a vast difference between

Thinking you are infinity

And being infinity.

One the product of thought,

The other simply mystery its Self.

* * * *

And what point is there, really,

In wallowing in all this sentiment,

This passion, this imaginary pretense,

Of such an obviously impermanent nature?

* * * *

Let go all the struggle.

Be completely, unequivocally effortless.

Give yourself over to the beingness, the nowness, the stillness,

Of the absolute awareness prior to consciousness.

It is your true nature; it is the eternal life.

* * * *

No matter how many ways you may find to distract yourself,

No matter how large a family you might propagate,

No matter how many people you may know,

Or the size of crowds you may daily stride through,

You are ever, have ever been, will ever be, absolutely alone.

* * * *

How often does something you were looking for, or trying to figure out,

End up being practically right in plain sight, or so simple, as to all but obvious.

323

Your dream of existence is a mystery,

That time will never long attest really happened.

Truly not at all different than any tree falling alone in a forest.

* * * *

Creation is an ever-unfolding, ever-evolving transmutation of energy.

Of the stardust, the elements, the quantum, the singularity,

Playing at existence in every way imaginable.

* * * *

When did you begin to imagine you were this mind-body?

That it belonged to you like all the other possessions,

With which emptiness continually shrouds itself.

What point is there, really, in being attached,

To its ever-changing corporeal nature,

For even one iota of a singular moment?

* * * *

There is no formula in rearing children.

Everyone has their own approach to parenting,

Some for good, some for ill.

And from it all,

Human history unfolds.

* * * *

Group dynamics include in their synergy,

The individual attributes of isolation and fear,

And thus, are often shrouded with irrational notions,

Of self-serving, self-righteous, self-promoting, persecution.

* * * *

When you are merely awareness, you are free.

When you are a mind attached to a body, you are bound.

So guileless, as to be yet another, of the greatest stories never told.

* * * *

Arrogance accumulates many an opportunity for one just reward or another.

Pity they are not always bestowed at all, or as quickly as might be deserved.

* * * *

What ego could exist without attachment to the body-mind,

And all the perceptions that have been but imagined,

In the streaming dream of absolute awareness.

324

It all means whatever you choose to believe it means, until you clearly realize,

Even the most profound vision of that prior to all imagination,

Really means absolutely nothing at all.

* * * *

Quantum, the source of all things.

Who else, what else, where else, when else, why else, how else,

Could all this possibly be?

* * * *

You may be the indelible, indivisible, unborn-undying mystery,

But you are still cousin to a hodgepodge of monkeys,

Chimpanzees, gorillas, and sundry primates.

In other words, you are but a beast,

An evolutionary invention,

Of puddle magic,

And muddied thinking.

* * * *

In the back and forth between you and You,

One is mind-full, the other mind-less.

* * * *

You already are the eternal life.

For what is there to pray?

What need for some imaginary god?

You alone translate creation into heavens and hells.

* * * *

We all know different things,

We all perceive different universes,

We are all stained by different experiences,

Yet we are all born of the same mystery all the while.

* * * *

Let Atlas carry the woes of the world,

Or Sisyphus push them daily up the mountain.

Walk lightly, walk freely, wherever whim may take you.

* * * *

Judgment, such an insensitive thing,

Which so many dislike when focused upon themselves,

But so readily, and without hesitation, inflict cruelly, upon so many others.

325

It is likely not politically correct to say it,

But is it not obvious there is an array of differences,

Within the human species, the same as every other life form.

Whether insects, plants, fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians or mammals,

There are countless variations across the board, within each and every grouping.

Rottweilers and Toy Poodles are dogs, Persians and Siamese are cats.

And every human being across the world, may walk on two legs,

But in the evolutionary choices made in every geography,

Distinctions in capacity and limitation, are clear as day.

It is not a right or wrong thing, nor a good or bad thing,

Nor any other variety of things, about which to self-absorb.

It is just the way it is; the way it has always been, will ever be.

* * * *

Psychic vampires.

Once you discern their bleak nature,

You can either evade them, or drive stakes into their hearts.

To allow them into the inner keep of your castle,

Is to put up with a world of hurt,

That no one deserves.

If you allow them a vein, it is on you.

* * * *

All the imperial pretenses of nation states,

And all the many ways groups combine and align,

Are all just short-lived, meaningless, delusions of grandeur,

That the dreamtime inevitably shows the back door,

Hooking and gonging them off the stage,

The same as everything else.

* * * *

What makes no sense to most,

May be the only thing that does to You.

Standing completely alone, is really the only option,

For those whose doubting, discerns the truth within and without.

* * * *

If not in every breath time offers,

Then at least in the last moments before death,

Surrender to the ineffable eternal awareness prior to consciousness,

And rest fulfilled, content in that immortal knowingness,

When the Reaper comes to gather the vehicle,

To which vanity is so attached.

326

What is needed to abide, perhaps thrive, in this manifest dream of a world?

Intelligence, common sense, street smarts, discipline, skills,

Gumption, initiative, creativity, detachment,

And whatever else words such as these might imply.

* * * *

Any colossus is ultimately doomed to perish to something smaller.

Assuming, of course, that it does not fall on its own sword,

Or just slowly whither from age and self-loathing.

* * * *

The universe the senses and mind present, is your eternal teacher,

And will use every feasible device to awaken you,

Whether or not it is your calling.

* * * *

Humankind is perhaps the most pathological cancer,

Ever devised by this dreamy panorama of a matrix.

* * * *

Would that there were a rewind button,

For all the perceived errors and regrets.

* * * *

If you are not completely present,

Completely, with fresh eyes, here now,

Then you wander the death of recollection,

Oblivious to the eternal nature in every moment.

* * * *

There is really no label for anything,

But the mind born of time is always grasping,

To give everything one name, one sound or another.

* * * *

And, pray tell me, Pilgrim,

From where does all this intelligence arise,

If not from the vital source, intrinsic in all things small to great?

* * * *

You are That to which all prayers are imparted,

By those who delude themselves into believing such pursuits,

Have any real meaning or purpose, other than to muffle their fear of the unknown.

327

It is not a matter of believing you are that which is quantum, but in being that which is quantum.

It is in the immediate perception, the immediate awareness, the hereness, the nowness;

Not some self-absorbed entity, ensnared by the movement of mere thought.

* * * *

Only non-followers, non-believers, non-identifiers,

Those courageous and intelligent and skeptical enough, to stand alone,

Will ever have the doubting wit to discern the truth of it.

Many are called, but few are chosen.

* * * *

It did not have to turn out this way, you know.

This absurdity was not ordained by some vain, petty deity.

It has all always been about the synergy of choices,

Made long before our little portion of the show,

Came along on the timeline of our kind.

So, do not be blaming some deity,

For the exceedingly fine mess,

In which we now find ourselves.

* * * *

Get to know people too well,

And, sure enough, sooner or later,

There are funerals to attend.

* * * *

There is always tomorrow,

That day that never quite arrives,

That rainbow, that always just manages,

To elude now’s ephemeral grasp.

* * * *

You really only lie to your Self,

Cheat your Self, steal from your Self,

Upset, offend, use, harm, and kill your Self.

It is a God-eat-God universe from beginning to end.

* * * *

Billions of blind monkeys,

Quarrelling over the same elephant.

All this bickering, arguing, battling, destroying,

Over so many similar things, merely given different sounds.

Could there possibly be anything more absurd?

328

Consciousness is a vibrating lens,

With countless filters crafted of every imaginable limitation.

Awareness is of the infinite source, witness within all things small to great, bound to nothing.

* * * *

Eternal salvation is not about the body or mind or soul being saved.

It is the purging of the fabricated identity, of the ceaseless inventions of the mind,

And timelessly being what You truly are; that which is mystery.

You are the Truth, the Life and the Way.

Be That I Am,

The Self of all selves.

* * * *

How can you not be that which many call God by countless names,

When, without the light of awareness shining from within,

Your cosmos would not for even a moment exist.

* * * *

Is consciousness the river, in which you flow,

Or you the stillness, through which it dreams?

* * * *

A quantum-eat-quantum universe.

* * * *

What is suicide,

But the unwillingness,

To continue playing a part,

For which the pain and suffering,

Or even just the bother of daily existence,

Is just too great a nuisance to bear.

Not everyone wants to be here.

* * * *

Slice it, dice it, however you please,

That which has no seam, that which is indivisible,

Remains ever untouched, ever indivisible.

* * * *

Where is ahead? Where is behind?

Where is up or down? Sideways or crossways?

Where is the center of that amorphous, eternal indivisibility,

That which is the center, yet has no center.

329

Where is the dividing line between within and without?

The senses are but illusory, temporal filters, barriers, hurdles,

Through which the mortal mind-body is fabricated,

And the theater of consciousness,

Molded into you.

* * * *

There is truly only one religion,

And it is without creed, dogma, scripture,

Sanction, structure, tradition, leadership or contention.

True democracy of the highest order, indeed.

* * * *

You will travel whatever path unfolds.

Take it to whatever level you feel called to take it.

Just remember, there are no levels.

There is no path.

* * * *

Set your Self free from all these words, as well.

They have their uses and their pleasures,

But what you seek is not in them.

* * * *

The true physician is within.

All religions proselytize idolatry.

Priesthoods are snake oil charlatans.

Physician, heal thy Self.

* * * *

So many irreconcilable problems.

But how can you solve a dream?

* * * *

Another intellectual wrestling match,

In which you battle reality with your delusion,

Your psychic armor of inflated notion.

* * * *

What cannot be, cannot be,

No matter how many, may will it so.

And what will be, will be, no matter how many,

Might spend their entire lives attempting to halt or alter it.

330

History is the arbitrary highlighting of selected snapshots,

From eternity’s indivisible, ever-graceful streaming.

The crisscrossing of the endless array of ripples,

Which bring notable events to realization.

And from those streaming moments,

New ripples, ever make their way,

In the quantum theater’s dreamtime.

* * * *

You must someday die to this mortal vessel.

Enlighten and liberate your Self now.

Rebirth of the unknown is now.

* * * *

We are all cousins of the same puddle,

But that indivisible truth seems to do little,

To heal all our innumerable differences,

Imaginary as all differences truly are.

* * * *

Unending bliss must surely be,

Swimming in the depths of the sea,

Or soaring into the heights of the heavens.

Whales, eagles, and other such fellow earthlings,

Must wander in a state of consciousness,

Few human beings ever reclaim,

After childhood’s end.

* * * *

Try to wake up today, give it a go.

Try to transform into what you really, truly are,

Rather than endlessly regurgitating,

What you think you are.

* * * *

The immediate is, without peer.

Serene, tranquil, peaceful, graceful, aware,

Ever-steady, indivisible, eternally immeasurable, absolute.

To reside in the here now is to know eternal life.

* * * *

You must be somewhere, sometime, in the play in which you stream,

But how could it ever really matter to the indivisible, where and when?

331

Why begrudge anyone any choice they feel the calling to make?

* * * *

Tsunamis of every size, coming from every direction, for the rest of the human epoch.

* * * *

Better to be what you are, than what you never were, nor will ever be.

* * * *

What bother, all these limitations inspired by mortality.

* * * *

Political expediency; what a daily chore.

* * * *

What never born can ever die?

* * * *

Quantum mischief.

* * * *

Who knows? Who cares?

* * * *

The bona fide requires no affiliation.

* * * *

What is the latest craze but life imitating plastic.

* * * *

What is any problem but attachment to the wrong solution?

* * * *

The universe is but a dreamy sandbox for consciousness to do what it will.

* * * *

Play your little part in the world, but know it is but a dream, no matter how real it seems.

* * * *

Political correctness is a muddle, to which even the most astute often succumb.

* * * *

Everyone acting out their little cliché; all so predictable, all so passé.

332

Thinking is as much as habit as anything else given inattention.

* * * *
Another salvo of unhinged absurdity, etching its way through the neuron trail.

* * * *
What paradigm, what frame of reference, can ever encompass You?

* * * *
Too many words tend to lock us into thinking they matter.

* * * *
Easier said than unsaid; easier done than undone.

* * * *
Discern the abyss between fact and fancy.

* * * *
Could flies breed much faster?

* * * *
A quantum with a view.

* * * *
Great if that works for you.

* * * *
Keep your nose on your own face.

* * * *
The relativity of all are but shades of gray.

* * * *
The eternal life is within and without every moment.

* * * *
The sensory mind-body is the theater; awareness, the audience.

* * * *
Likely many, if not most, believe they are better-looking and smarter than they are.

* * * *
Two grains of sand vying for supremacy of the universe.

333

Though there is absolutely no requisite,

For any moment to be played out in any particular way,

Everyone performs their destiny according to the given nature-nurture.

Though someone could perhaps do anything conceivable in the quantum-matrix sense,

Free will is an illusion, and all will journey through whatever destiny their form,

Their capacity and limitation, their amalgamation of desire and fear allows.

For anyone to do something entirely out of mind-body character,

Really just means it was in their character from the get-go.

* * * *

Pain, whether physical or psychological, is a cruel, unkind, foul,

Nasty, brutal, pitiless, malicious, spiteful, vindictive,

Merciless, vicious, heartless, ruthless,

Harsh and callous meanie.

And … more than a little likely,

The only way more than a handful of us,

Would probably ever actually learn some things.

* * * *

Getting eight-plus billion people to wake up

Just ain’t likely going to happen.

So, just enjoy your show,

As best ye may,

And try not to sweat the other,

More than moderate compassion allows.

* * * *

Such is the nature of irony and paradox,

That many things stated with different words,

Apparently unconnected and contrary at first glance,

So often bear the same unadorned nuance.

* * * *

Think you cannot at all get along without someone or something?

Oh, you will, my fine friend, rest assured, you will, indeed.

Whether voluntarily, or from your cold, lifeless hands,

Absolutely everyone and everything will cease to exist when you do.

When this magical mystery tour of a dream reaches its most certain conclusion.

Consciousness is but a temporal state, requiring a vessel of some sort, in which to play out.

The promises of everlasting life, of access to one deity or another, will always prove but empty and vain.

And of what is called rebirth; it is not some individual persona, but the mystery that all things are.

And that quantum “You-ness” born anew, will blow in the nature-nurture winds of its time.

Experiencing many things; always with very much the same awareness within all.

334

Feel free to wipe the slate clean anytime you please.

There is no reason to keep it full of meaningless gobbledygook.

Forget everything, simply be what you are, have ever been, and will ever be.

* * * *

Your perceived world, your perceived universe, is all about you,

And everyone and everything else is about theirs.

We are truly all alone, together.

* * * *

Is there any argument that humankind has on the whole,

Become a rather disheartening disappointment,

To any who might have hoped for more?

* * * *

How many patterned things we all, without intention,

Regurgitate, over and over, day after day after day.

* * * *

To be anonymous within is the greatest challenge.

The fabrication of identity is ever-enticing for those,

To whom the imagination of consciousness is real.

* * * *

You are in all things, and all things are in you.

Whether experienced literally, or discerned figuratively,

It is the way it is, has always been, will ever be.

* * * *

Accepting dogma and idolatry is the first and last mistake.

Truth is an ever-present-every-moment-now kind of thing,

And no intermediaries, past or present or future, are required.

* * * *

Eternity is the seamless now,

To which momentary awareness is witness.

Die to the dream of time, and totality becomes absolutely clear.

* * * *

What point being a footnote,

Or even a lengthy chapter in a history book.

Or, perhaps the most terrifying possibility of all things narcissistic,

The front cover on a check-stand magazine rack.

335

The singular mystery somehow created You.

And You in turn, witness your version of a manifest dream.

You are it, and it is You; as indivisible, as inseparable, as it must ever be.

* * * *

There are the many, whose existence is lived out of obligation, to the arbitrary memes born of time;

And the sporadic few, whose spirits are drawn to the exploration of its mystery.

Not all can be scientists, else there would be no laboratory,

In which wisdom might brew.

* * * *

The history of humankind is an incalculable archive of every conceivable narrative.

There is really no greater or lesser story; all are equally steeped in imagination.

* * * *

Seriously, who really cares about this mundane universe, or any other?

Set them all down, wander the infinity, blissfully carefree.

Be the cosmic child you have always been.

* * * *

What is this temporal food-body,

This witch’s brew of a biological stew,

But the timeless, indivisible, quantum ether,

You are, have ever been, will ever be.

* * * *

This pale blue dot is but an infinitesimal iota of dust,

In an immense ocean of ineffable mystery.

Who truthfully knows if or when,

You will ever exist again?

But, tell me, Pilgrim, have you ever seen,

Any seed being given a second chance, much less a third?

* * * *

Maybe what you really want, is what your imaginary deity wants.

Maybe the mundane, through which you traipse, really is the plan.

And maybe, just maybe, the big picture is really not all about you.

* * * *

Quantum stardust somehow organized,

To such an implausible degree, as to pretend it is alive.

And when that was no longer entertaining, evolved into human beings,

In order to ceaselessly manufacture every sort of absurdly dualistic fiction imaginable.

336

It is likely inevitable in this vast mystery of a cosmos,

That any given garden world will allow life forms to evolve,

Which will sooner or later potentially threaten their very existence,

Creation is destruction, destruction is creation, extinction is nothing new.

* * * *

Everything you see, hear, touch, taste, feel, is but a projection of consciousness.

The Great Quantum will play out whatever theater you are conditioned to discern.

* * * *

Everything simultaneously streaming, unfolding one moment to the next,

In this immeasurable quantum matrix of a holograph universe.

Only your little slice of imagination is about you.

* * * *

It is all pretty meaningless, despite all assertions to the contrary.

How can any dream ever be real, no matter how real it seems?

* * * *

Without the subtlety of great doubt, truth is veiled,

Behind every conceivable whim of imagination.

* * * *

You are the singularity.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

What more need be said?

* * * *

How can anyone imagine,

Much less deeply believe, they are,

Or ever could be, in any way, shape or form,

Separate from that which is God?

* * * *

Sometimes small-minded, sometimes large.

That is the unfathomable nature of consciousness,

And the awareness from which, and into which, it blossoms.

* * * *

At a very certain point, listening over and over and over to a regurgitating meme,

Is really neither enlightening nor interesting, nor more than a squandering of precious time.

Please try coming up with something that has not been mindlessly yammered a gazillion times before.

God is neither alive nor dead, just bored to tears with the same uselessly absurd balderdash.

337

How marvelous, for those who were born in the magical land, of the one true religion.

* * * *

There is no such thing as theology, just mythology starting with the twentieth of twenty-six letters.

* * * *

Seriously, what is so great about you, that any supreme being would want to save?

* * * *

How can there be character flaws, when the character is the original flaw?

* * * *

The challenge, is not confusing idolatry and dogma, with truth.

* * * *

Identity is merely awareness, temporarily usurped.

* * * *

The seed you plant is the harvest you get.

* * * *

Every moment erased by the next.

* * * *

In solitude, the peace of transcendence.

* * * *

The tyranny of absurdity is beyond reckoning.

* * * *

Let political correctness be someone else’s problem.

* * * *

The ever-accelerating exponential of all things humankind.

* * * *

Curious how our idols become exactly what we dogma them to be.

* * * *

All there is to learn ultimately boils down to how little there really is to know.

* * * *

Yet another vague memory spinning its way toward oblivion.

338

Any given container is at most,

Only concerned about its biological survival,

And the reproduction of its genetic material in manifest time.

Anything beyond that primary directive is but the recreation of consciousness,

And its seemingly boundless, delusional predisposition,

For bad theater in every venue.

* * * *

Created of the infinite unknown, a mystery beyond all reckoning,

You encapsulate it with your finite vanity,

And call it God.

* * * *

To discern a question fully, is to fathom its answer.

Any given problem is harbor to its own solution.

* * * *

Once upon a time, you knew so much.

You were a sponge for knowledge,

For every sort of experience,

Until you saw how little,

It all really meant.

And now you grasp,

So much less, so little,

That it is all but laughable,

Perhaps slightly embarrassing,

To recall the conceit and arrogance,

Of that self-assured, youthful innocence,

You so effortlessly consumed not so long ago.

* * * *

If you would know God,

Then look within, friend, look within.

Look within, so deeply, that it all becomes so indivisible,

That the entire cosmos instantly dissolves,

Into this very moment.

* * * *

At some point for many, if not all,

The mortal frame stops being as fun a place.

Replaced by a sense of endurance, tolerance, sufferance,

Forbearance, patience, acceptance, resignation. forbearance, acceptance.

Of resignation slathered in stoicism.

339

How can the quantum singularity, that which is called God by many names,

Ever truly divide itself into more than endless arrays of kaleidoscoping dreamscapes?

Temporal reflections of light and sound seamlessly cast through every conceivable dimension.

There is no denying, but through the endless permutations of delusion,

That we are all of the same original nature.

* * * *

We all eat and drink and piss and shit through the same alimentary plumbing.

Just because we are monkeys of every color and shape,

Does not make us different.

* * * *

You need not believe any of the innumerable labels,

With which you have been characterized by yourself or others.

None pertain once you have discerned your true nature,

And the limitations of all sounds given concept.

* * * *

Is this all humanoid evolution can achieve?

Is this as intelligent as we can be?

Is this as good as it gets?

Surely, there must be more to life than this.

* * * *

An ineffable, inexplicable, unfathomable mystery,

Of which you are inscrutable observer,

Of which you possess nothing,

In so many shapes, colors, tastes, sounds, scents.

Reflections of light, and the unknowable from which all are cast.

* * * *

It is not the will of some deity, but your own, that plays out its fate.

Timelessly perceived, within and without, by the dispassionate witness.

* * * *

Any given mind, is nothing more than an arbitrary bubble of consciousness.

The only constant is the awareness, from which all dreams indivisibly spring.

* * * *

What is this thing called hope? What is it for which so many are always hoping?

More fortune? More fame? More power? More pleasure? More respect? More love?

More friends? More health? More harmony? More time? More this? More that?

Who is content with the who-what-where-when-why-how they are right now?

340

Do not all stories have a certain predictability about them?

Same old monkey-mind plots drawn up with different characters and sets,

Different languages and costumes, different this, different that.

All ultimately merely tributaries of consciousness,

Racing in time back into the eternal,

From which all arise.

* * * *

No matter how much any may experience in any given lifetime,

It can never be more than a statistical sample.

Enough to discern the whole,

But no more,

Than the merest drop,

Of the infinity of all things possible.

* * * *

An angel of death you are,

To so many creatures small to great,

You have consumed and destroyed to be here now.

Alas and oh well, it is a God-eat-God world.

Nothing is lost, nothing is gained,

In the grand dreamtime.

* * * *

Despite the fact that cheating does work,

And even though there is no score,

Give your Self fewer points,

If you are using chemical means,

To investigate the imperishable within.

* * * *

The ancients called the elements,

Earth, air, water, fire, ether.

Scientists in these times,

Call it the periodic table.

Intuit it, name it, label it, describe it,

Measure it, organize it, in whatever way you will,

It is, has ever been, will ever be, must ever be, the same mystery.

* * * *

All things small to great are of the same grand eternal infinity.

Any lesser vision is but mind-born idolatry and dogma,

And not even worth one moment’s distraction.

341

Every sexually reproductive species has its evolutionary partnership between genders.

In the human paradigm, males hunted and fished and farmed, protected the perimeter, provided the seed.

Females attended the village, bore and nurtured the young, passed on the culture.

Adapting these ancient relationships, so long in the making,

To a world seething in disassociation,

Is the challenge for the future ever-now unfolding.

* * * *

There is no God in the way you or anyone else across time or space has ever conceived.

That which is supreme is so indivisibly, formlessly prior to consciousness,

That all human concoctions are absurd by any comparison.

And you are it, it is you, there is no other.

* * * *

The smug, self-righteous arrogance of true believers,

Likely propels many a doubter even further afield.

* * * *

Within the quantum indivisibility of the singularity,

All things from the smallest to the greatest,

From the infinite to the infinitesimal,

Play out dreams too countless to comprehend.

* * * *

We cannot all be here at the same time.

If we wish for this garden to sustain our kind,

And all the other myriad life forms it has given rise to,

We must very quickly move toward a more rational paradigm.

If it really does not matter, which is obviously the case,

Then party on, and hope it will just be your progeny,

Who will endure the inevitable consequences.

* * * *

Such internment this obligation to others can so often be.

For their desire for so much You no longer desire.

For their fear of so much You no longer fear.

For their attachment to so much You no longer cling.

For their passion toward so much for which You feel nothing.

* * * *

The universe born of consciousness is awash in metaphors.

Though the literal often transcends in many subtle ways into the figurative,

Every sort of confusion and havoc can arise when anything figurative is taken too literally.

342

It really only matters that you wake up to what You truly are.

Do not be overly concerned about the many others in your dreamtime.

They will awaken if/when they have seen and done enough.

And if You are one of their many teachers or not,

Why would it, could it, really matter,

If there truly is no other?

* * * *

No group, no civilization, no world, can withstand,

More than a certain degree of cancerous affliction.

* * * *

How white is black? How black is white?

How right is wrong? How wrong is right?

How heavy is light? How light is heavy?

How all is nothing? How nothing is all?

How true is false? How false is true?

How high is low? How low is high?

How far is near? How near is far?

How hot is cold? How cold is hot?

How huge is tiny? How tiny is huge?

How light is dark? How dark is light?

How large is small? How small is large?

How strong is weak? How weak is strong?

* * * *

Put no idols before the I Am, You ever are.

Dogmatic assertions by any individual or group,

Are really nothing more than the same old blasphemy.

* * * *

The rutted mind begins taking shape,

As soon as nature and nurture,

Begin meshing in the theater of time.

By the age of grayness and weariness and rigidity,

Ruts run so deep, that new ground is only by the rarest traveled.

* * * *

No matter the effort any mind has ever made,
None have ever changed or altered,
Even one tiny hair on truth’s chinny-chin-chin.
The play of consciousness has absolutely no say in the matter.
The way it is, is the way it is, the way it has always been, the way it will ever be.

343

So many ways we are taught and encouraged to suffer in mind,
Plus the many ways we on our own devise.
And then, of course,
There is the physical pain,
That the current of physics exerts,
On the nervous system traversing to and fro,
In these very mortal corporeal vats of biological goo.

* * * *
Before you began fabricating an identity,
You were naught but eternity, fresh from the womb of Eden.
And then you cloaked Self in a throng of thoughts,
And, without further ado, forgot it all.

* * * *
What could be more yawn than sitting alone on a cloud,
Occasionally flapping a couple useless wings,
Trying to learn how to play a harp?
At least some of that fat,
Might get burnt off carousing in hell.
Going to be one heck of a wild and crazy, no doubt.

* * * *
To believe, or not to believe; therein lies the answer.

* * * *

In the larger picture of all things eternal,
Your final moments, however they come to pass,
Will be very much like the ones kaleidoscoping right now.

* * * *

We are all very slowly melting in the drip, drip, drip,
Of our mortally fashioned, flesh-and-bones hourglass.

* * * *

No matter how humble one may appear on the exterior,
Few are capable of transcending the illusory call to glory.
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity, for all but the most absolute.

* * * *
So much ambition, so much vanity, so much absurdity,

To be what you already are, have ever been, will ever be,

In this right here, right now, indivisible quantum mystery.

344

Loneliness versus aloneness, duality versus singularity,
The sorrow of imagination versus the sovereignty of absoluteness.
There is really nothing to compare, when there is really nothing to be measured.

* * * *
Why would that which is indivisible, untouched by birth and death,
Ever be concerned by the absorptions of so-called good or evil?

* * * *
It has never really mattered, nor will it ever matter,
What color, sex, caste, culture, creed, religion,
Or whatever you and others think you are.
You are That I Am, and that says it all.

* * * *
To judge others is to be the critic of a theater,
You have in supreme ignorance created.
Close your eyes and other senses,
And you will see it all nothing.
Awareness dancing in stillness.
An eternal lightshow, nothing more.

* * * *

Consciousness is the flower,
Awareness, the root,
And the indivisible totality,
The ground in which all dreams,
Blossom, flourish, diminish, dissolve.

* * * *

Is the fish separate from the water?
The worm from the ground?
The bird from the air?
The sun from the flame?
‘Tis a matrix of quantum design,
Pure, simple, nothing more, nothing less.

* * * *

What other choice was there, really?
Like it or not, fate draws you,
To your inevitable, mortal conclusion.
You cannot change anything without it ever being,
What has already been long ago written upon the sands of time.

345

There is a tendency for youth to disrespect and ignore their parents,

As well as many elders, who might share with them so much knowledge and wisdom.

Perhaps the payback will someday be, that their children and other youth,

Will behave towards them with the same inglorious disdain.

* * * *

Each and every child is ever born of Eden,
And only lose sight of the garden at the worldly beckoning,
Of those upon which they must depend, of those they must trust to survive.

* * * *

To those who proselytize one dogma or another,

What can you really do but stay silent, or apprise them, politely or not,

That you already are That which they claim to serve,

And thank them just the same.

* * * *

Having one’s throat slit by a foe is to be expected,
But a sharp dagger slid between the ribs by friend or kin or tribe;
Now that is the grimmest topography of betrayal,
The pale of which goes no further.

* * * *
You came into this mystery with nothing,
You will leave it with nothing,
And there has really been nothing more,
Than imaginary notions in every moment between.

* * * *

If it is your calling to discern that which is mystery,
That which is within all, small to great,
You must let go everything.
Yes, everything.
The you, you pretend,
Fabricated by imagination,
Must become so inwardly quiet,

That you divine the awareness You are,

That which is boundless prior to all conception.

* * * *

You take some pain, you dish out some pain; impossible not to.

Existence is turbulent for all born into this dreamtime.

So it goes, deal with it, get over it, move on.

346

The quantum clayness that makes up all those figurines you so vainly worship,

Is the same quantum clayness that makes up the container you think you are,

And every part and particle of the cosmos that resides between and betwixt.

* * * *

Save a world that cannot be saved, or souls that can never be lost?
Such meaningless theatrics our kind over and over so predictably play.

Why on earth should any creation ever dread or deify its source?

Nothing but monkey-mind brew from beginning to end.

* * * *

So much unhappiness, dissatisfaction, ingratitude, and struggle,
Over what is the most astoundingly incomprehensible gift,
From the first inexplicable, magical breath, to the last.

* * * *

You need not give so much attention to the mind and body.

It is all made up for such a short ever-changing while.

Give it little weight in the grand scheme of things.

It is the real that You are here to discern and explore.

* * * *

What matter that you are remembered by all the world,

Once only maggots, worms, and other critters are witness,

To the once-upon-a-time quantum universe inside your skull?

* * * *

Duality is nothing more than an arbitrary, meaningless concept,

Born of the sensory illusion that you are separate.

It has no ultimate reality whatsoever.

You are the primal essence that is indivisibly singular,

Unfathomable, absolute, prior to all imaginings born of consciousness.

* * * *

Today you have one opinion, tomorrow another, and the day after still another.

How fickle these opinions, and yet how attached we are to each and every one.

* * * *

Though we peer across world, and into the far reaches of the universe,

Though we see into the infinitesimal of which all is created,

Still we cling to all the traditions and superstitions,

Of one geographic assumption or another.

How absolutely amazing is that?

347

Peering out from the stillness of awareness,

Through every visage from the infinitesimal to the infinite,

Unknowably mysterious, inexplicable, enigmatic, inscrutable, unfathomable,

The timeless, indivisible, immeasurable, quantum singularity,

The one and only, ineffably eternal You.

* * * *

The boundless awareness is, without any movement of me or myself or I.

It cannot be altered, claimed, manipulated, possessed, or usurped.

It is the untapped spring, the uncarved block, the tabula rasa.

It is the primal source of all; partial or beholden to none.

It is prior to all manifestation, equally present in all;

And ever carries on after the dissolution of all.

* * * *

Who you might think I am, is not the I am, I am.

Nor is the who, you think you are,

The You, You are.

* * * *

Peace, tranquility, contentment, harmony,

Are of the ever-unfolding instant.

Not a product of thought,

But an effortless relinquishment,

To the timeless beingness, a.k.a., eternal life.

* * * *

Self-discovery is a moment-to-moment process,

As true a scientific inquiry as there could possibly be.

* * * *

How can there ever be a collective vision in the human epoch,

When every human being, every life form, is a universe unto its Self?

All are spun of the same awareness, the same quantum, the same singularity,

But consciousness, imagination, knows naught but bounds at every turn.

* * * *

The many others across all eternity are no different than you,
And the Golden Rule says it as clearly as it can be said:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
What need for any further suggestions, principles,
Guidelines, rules, decrees, edicts, amendments,

Or commandments or regulations or laws?

348

Your world, your universe, your self-metaphors, are all imagined.

Still the mind, close the eyes, the ears, all the other senses,

And the nothingness of awareness becomes apparent.

* * * *

If you really want to annihilate the universe,

The quickest way is to just find a trigger,

And let your brains out for a breather.

* * * *

Why should you be concerned,
With what others think,
When it is really,
Your own creation,
From beginning to end.

* * * *

Be of reasonable mind,
Of tolerable wit and humor,
A friend unto your Self.

* * * *

What is mine, what is yours, really?

A brief experiencing, nothing more.

* * * *

The reality of truth is really only comfortable,

If you are open and receptive to what is truly real,

And dishonesty and delusion and confusion,

No longer mesmerize your reverie.

* * * *

Absolute awareness is the underlying operating system,
Upon which all consciousness is artlessly programmed.

* * * *

There can only be one Truth, one Reality, one God, one Whatever,

And it is meaningless to argue or create some dogmatic stance over it.

* * * *

The quest for truth is more than an assertion of this or that.

True inquiry delves into the source, into the awareness,

Into the infinity prior to all concepts born of mind.

349

Quantum earth, quantum water, quantum fire, quantum wind, quantum sky.

Everything ultimately of the same quantum indivisibility,

No matter how mind slices or dices it.

* * * *

Every life form that is born of this mystery must inevitably die.

But the essence of which all creation is formed,

Is never born and never dies.

* * * *

All things that arise from the shifting sands of time,

Must inevitably fade and fall and dissolve back into it.

* * * *

The swimmingness of the eternal nature,

Is the realm of all the other creatures of Eden,

Who have managed not to degenerate, to devolve,

Into the madness, the absurdity, of imagination.

* * * *

She, too, will be a hag, and he a geezer.

Every rose has its day; every rose fades.

* * * *

Memes are so tiringly predictable.

* * * *

Makes you question, examine,

Perhaps even think for your Self.

That is obviously the point of all this.

* * * *

Being the totality, You are, is not a belief system.

Truth is not subject to any conception, whatsoever.

* * * *

Nothing new under the sun, everything new under the sun.

So predictably unpredictable, so unpredictably predictable,

Every unfolding, eternally streaming, matrix of a moment.

* * * *

The freedom that is not tempered by consideration and responsibility,

Is self-absorption devoid of reason or meaning, purpose or relevance.

350

Eight philosophical questions that will never be solved:

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Does God exist? Is our universe real? What are numbers?

Do we have free will? Is there life after death? What is the best moral system?

Can you really experience anything objectively?

* * * *

Few baulk at the everyday routines to which they are accustomed.

The problems arise when they learn of different ways,

And expend their lives coveting more.

* * * *

Those few who manage to stream along in the pure awareness,

Prior to time, prior to space, prior to consciousness,

Are unburdened by any history, whatsoever.

* * * *

Close the eyes, ignore the senses, still the mind,

And what have you got?

That is right; nada, nichts, niente,

Rien, intet, niets, wala, ingenting, nothing.

* * * *

Greet all fatuous claims with a skeptical ear.

Anything may be possible in this quantum dream,

But imagination often delves well beyond probability.

* * * *

Life, there is just no choice about it.

Every seed is cast into one fate or another.

Every seed must play out whatever hand is dealt,

Or else conceive a means to fall on one sword or another.

* * * *

The past had its momentary window.

You need not allow it to dominate, to control, yours.

The tyranny of tradition has no power, but through your acquiescence.

* * * *

Who knows what incredible mysteries may reside,

On other worlds, in other dimensions, of this vast quantum matrix?

You must rely on your own frame of reference, to hypothesize all possibilities possible,

Yet how can any ever be anything but You, whatever the guise?

351

Many chatter away about truth, but none have ever, or will ever own it.

* * * *

Idolatry is idolatry, no matter the myth, no matter the image, no matter the figurine.

* * * *

Who is who? What is what? Where is where? When is when? Why is why? How is how?

* * * *

The Memedom of God: Memeism practicd by memeists seeking memehood.

* * * *

Where would your universe be without you to create and witness it?

* * * *

Psst, Don Quixote, they are just the windmills of your mind.

* * * *

To what new limitation will the body aspire today?

* * * *

The internet: the library of consciousness.

* * * *

You are an audience of one.

* * * *

What effort is woven into a web of lies.

* * * *

Only the eye of the monkey sees itself any different.

* * * *

The hoity-toity rule a silly little world of their own absurd design.

* * * *

Best not to judge other points of history merely through the reflection of your own.

* * * *

For the mind that discerns totality, what matter what is done or undone?

* * * *

A universe without, a universe within, you are That I Am.

352

Believers and atheists, all playing their little game, dancing their little dance.

Pretending to know what they cannot, never have, and never will.

To know you know nothing is the only honest stance.

Make-believe may offer some solace,

But no assumption can ever touch what is real.

* * * *

The parochial mind is incapable of discerning its Self.

To explore the farthest reaches and beyond,

One cannot be bound by anything.

* * * *

The journey may begin with the first step,

But the pace along the winding trail,

Is set by the slowest trekker.

* * * *

It is whatever you think it is.

It is not whatever you think it is.

* * * *

More words, ever more words.

More differences, more confusion,

For the witch’s brew to simmer and stew.

* * * *

This momentary nowness,

Is all that is really happening.

The dream is just that … a dream.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

Depending on the color of your skin,

The depth of your wallet,

Or the witnesses lined up against you,

Probably best never to assume you will get a fair trial.

* * * *

Curious how so many mystics,

Across time and space,

Give over a portion of their existence,

Attempting to help others discern their inherent freedom,

Often inspiring dogmatic absurdities of every hue in their well-intentioned wake.

353

How beyond all pales absurd it at some point becomes.

We prattle endlessly about the silence, the serenity, the austerity, of a still mind,

But to remain in that state every moment, is for most, if not all, very challenging, very unlikely, indeed.

The monkey-mind is ever an absorbing thunder and lightning show,

To which death is really the only antidote.

* * * *

The indivisibility of the quantum chaos, is order unto its Self.

What stability can there be in the theater of consciousness,

But what awareness, through imagination conceives?

* * * *

You think you are really so different?

That your little drama has not been played out,

Countless times beyond counting?

* * * *

We are all time-travelers of imagination.

Strap in and enjoy the ride as best ye may.

* * * *

How can anyone possibly care,

About eight-plus-plus billion people,

And all the other life forms across the planet,

Except in the most abstract sense?

* * * *

The ultimate You, is untouched by any and all claims.

A Self-contained, quantum matrix of the highest order.

* * * *

No matter the creative or destructive enterprise playing out,

How can the ocean of mystery, ever become greater or lesser?

It ever reigns sovereign, absolute of its own inherent nature.

* * * *

What sort of deity is it that does not encompass the stars?

And how would it be possible for it not to include You?

* * * *

You begin as student, your universe the teacher.

And if/when you become your cosmos,

Perhaps a student will appear.

354

Call it That I Am, call it Brahman, call it Tao, call it God, call it Self, call it whatever you will.

It is all the unnamable awareness that is prior to all dreams of consciousness.

Absolute, indivisible, complete, supreme, without peer.

And You and everything else, it as well.

There is nothing that is not this ineffable mystery.

Despite all imaginary inventions, it is ever the indelible unknown.

* * * *

The quantum mystery does not care into what form it is fashioned,

Or if it is used in any meaningful or profound way at all.

It plays any part that indivisibility dictates.

* * * *

All your many attempts to hold onto anything,

Are absolutely futile, utterly meaningless.

There is naught but the dreamy now,

And the perceptions to which the mind,

With such tenacious determination, clings.

* * * *

Truth is esoteric and beyond grasp to most.

Some have the eyes to see and ears to hear;

But in others, the ground is dry and barren.

So it goes.

* * * *

No matter the form,

No matter the time and space,

You cannot be anywhere but here now.

It is the way it is, across the board.

* * * *

Knowledge will never reach a conclusion,

For it is far too adept at creating itself anew.

* * * *

All forms are but variations of quantum vibration,

The underlying physics of the elements within all things,

As witnessed by the ever-present, ever-perfect, eye of awareness.

* * * *

What a magical dream this garden world was, before humankind began assaulting it,

With its insatiable greed, its unending self-absorption, over every imaginable difference.

355

The relatively agreeable thing about imagination,

Is that you can do absolutely anything your mind might dare.

Often much more enjoyable, and certainly less bother than the real thing.

* * * *

All creatures small to great are born of the same indivisible mystery.

All are fated never to see more than reflections of their own faces.

* * * *

Mind can be a problem-solver; mind can be a problem-maker.

Cease making problems, and it attains a measure of stability.

* * * *

We all, small to great, must play whatever part,

The given anatomy deceives us into believing.

* * * *

So many teachers.

Everyone and everything, really.

What does not communicate one thing or another,

To those to whom learning is as natural,

As drinking a glass of water?

* * * *

Sometimes you do, sometimes you do not.

So it goes, deal with it, get over it, move on.

* * * *

Wander beyond the idolization of form,

Geography, language, culture, creed,

Or any other temporal, tangible creation.

Discern the infinite intangible, the unmanifest,

The indivisible, from which all creation materializes.

* * * *

Ignorance, stupidity, avarice, entitlement, and hate;
Ever at odds with intelligence, enlightenment, generosity and love.
Another day, same predictable, maddening paradigm.

* * * *

First entry into the chilly waters of any experience,

Always requires the girding glint of will, and an attentive breath,

Before wading or jumping or diving into the ever-churning unknown of time.

356

Careening fast and furious towards extinction by our own hand,

May well be a unique knock-down in this world’s relatively brief timeline.

What other species has ever had the capacity, and for more than a few, the inclination,

To despoil and destroy this garden, the way we of the two-legged stance do?

* * * *

Where would you be without your world, your universe, or it, without you?

You imagine yourself separate, but where is the gap, where is the seam?

* * * *

From where do thoughts such as these come?

Is it not obvious that we are all portals,

To the same mysterious source?

* * * *

Free will? Yeah, right.

Maybe to stop, go straight, turn around,

Or perchance go right, even left.

But even that is dubious.

* * * *

What any true scientist,

Must first and foremost be,

Is a seeker of that which is true,

Whatever it is, wherever it may lead.

* * * *

Another shopping day begins.

What else do you not need so badly?

What more can be bought that you will rarely,

Perhaps even more likely, never use.

* * * *

Buy into a meme, and your life will whirl,

Its constricted pattern for the rest of your existence.

Doubt is the saving grace from a mind chock-full of absurdity.

* * * *

From the quantum, all-seeing perspective,

What is any existence, any stream of consciousness,

But yet another footnote in the annals of this mystery theater.

Important unto its Self, but really nothing more than a brief dreaming,

A brief notion, a brief glimmer, in the play of time, in the quantum stardust of it all.

357

How fortunate, those whose destiny it is to attain virtuosity in one realm or another.

Only just less fortunate, are those who can appreciate the virtuosity of every realm.

* * * *
Whether or not any given mind can always remain happy, perhaps even joyful,

Is an inquiry each must explore, and only perhaps ascertain, very much alone.

* * * *

Is not the world humankind has together created, purgatory enough?

What can you expect from a creation chock-full of vain sheeples?

* * * *

Is there any greater curiosity than how absurdity has become,

Such a dominant force in the evolution of the monkey-mind.

* * * *

Greet your executioner with a cheerful nod, a handshake,

Maybe even a hug and peck on the cheek, if time allows.

* * * *

How many have awakened, and to what degree?

How many have not awakened, and to what degree?

And does it really matter any degree, either way?

* * * *

Keep devouring, keep ravenously wolfing it all down.

Maybe one of these sorry daze, you will finally be full.

* * * *

A curious thing how those with whom we are most familiar,

Must often endure, in part or whole, our withering contempt.

* * * *

If a tree falls in a forest, unwitnessed, did it ever really happen?

If a tree falls in a forest, witnessed, did it ever really happen, either?

* * * *

All translation must be observed with a dubious, discerning eye;

Especially the interpreter, the sorter, the filter, in your own inured mind.

Everything you perceive, translates through the biases of your frame of reference;

Entirely subjective, entirely slanted, entirely unique, entirely idiosyncratic, entirely alone.

Step back from your conditioning, and realize, from the dispassionate view of the quantum matrix,

That your entire existence, from womb to grave, is all nothing more than the huff and puff of imagination.

358

You are not the body, nor are you the mind,

Any more than you are your car, home, workplace, world, or universe.

You are that which is prior to anything and everything.

Always seek the greater ground.

* * * *

One moment streams into the next, seamless,

And in each and every absolute, sovereign, unblemished,

Indivisible, nameless, flowing moment,

You are all that is.

* * * *

Anything can end without a moment’s notice.

So it goes, deal with it, get over it, move on.

* * * *

Always best to be somewhere else,

When shit is in gravity’s embrace,

Or moving rapidly towards a fan.

* * * *

No destiny can be changed.

No fate can be avoided.

All are merely played out,

As nature and nurture sculpt.

All are written, or yet to be written.

* * * *

What to do with a life,

When it offers so much more,

Than desire could ever possibly pursue.

* * * *

Dogma is the worldly vision,

Of those who, for whatever reason,

Lack the eyes to see, and the ears to hear,

The infinite mystery, in which each and every one,

Equally participates in so many ways.

* * * *

Responsibility falls upon each and every one,

To decide how they will play out their worldly existence.

To blame some deity or demon for one’s choices is absurdly infantile.

359

How can anyone look at all these fellow creatures small to great,

And not, without doubt, discern the obvious fact, that within each and every one,

Is the same indelible source, the same awareness, the same intelligence?

That all are the same omnipresent, omniscient witness as you.

* * * *

So many masks come and gone, and many more yet to be,

And behind all, the same faceless source.

Call it what you will,

It is ever indivisible and absolute.

* * * *

Passionate responses to any of life’s tremors,

Ever magnify the moment’s passing.

In the agony and ecstasy,

One cannot be, without the other.

* * * *

When what is, is all that is left to want,

It will be, as always, ever present.

* * * *

To be free of imagination,

Or not to be free of imagination,

The question of all questions.

* * * *

Why would you wait for anyone else,

Especially, when there is no one else.

* * * *

Perhaps you are on the road to redemption,
If you have even barely discerned the demon,
And are no longer allowing it to reign your show.

* * * *

Nope, nope, nope, there is nothing more to it,
Than what this moment, each and every now offers.
Even gods on high, are caught up in one dream or another.

* * * *
Idol worshippers will never be content with the truth of the here now.

The inexplicable absoluteness of eternal life is not for the meek of spirit.

360

Everyone wandering about, completely absorbed in one screen or another.

What an inexplicable world, we have in our linear-cubicle thinking, created.

* * * *

No one else can ever perceive your version of the dreamtime.

Do with it what you will, what you can, in the time allowed.

* * * *

Mere words cannot for any actual change make.

‘Tis in action and deed that all futures are spun.

* * * *

Gravity must eventually collapse into itself,
So deeply as to completely evaporate,
And then, boom, big bang again,
Into some vast new invention,
Upon which philosophers,
So eloquently blather.

* * * *

Eternal means timeless.

Eternal life means timeless life.

To live a timeless existence, you must abandon,

The false identity born of imagination,

To that nowness you truly are.

* * * *

You have explored the world,

You have gazed out into the heavens.

You have contemplated every sort of pursuit.

Now, distinguish from whence it has all come to pass.

* * * *

For memes to let loose their rigid grip,
Would require a revolutionary paradigm shift,
Seemingly well beyond the monkey-mind’s capacity.
In the eternal struggle between intelligence and ignorance,
It is not rocket science to predict which mindset will rule the future.

* * * *

Clouds are merely the wisps of an ocean of air,

The sun a smidgen of dust, around which other particles orbit,

All flecks in a cosmos, that is but a brief commotion in the infinity of awareness.

361

Consciousness streams simultaneously in every form that life has ever taken.

Each and every one its own completely incomparable universe.

Each and every one concurrently kaleidoscoping.

Not one ever exactly the same.

Yet all the while, all, exactly the same.

* * * *

Who cares who said it?

Or what was said, where it was said,

When it was said, why it was said, or how it was said.

If it is true, it is true, and that which is true,

Can never be bound or captured,

By the limits of mind.

* * * *

You are not the body.

You are not …

* * * *

Quibble, quibble.

* * * *

Just is-ing along.

Nothing is but what it is.

Nothing done, nothing left undone.

* * * *

Just because you think it,

Does not mean you have to do it.

The garden is for those who lack imagination.

It is in the moment-to-moment choices,

That heavens and hells are created.

* * * *

You, who are the unfathomable, indivisible singularity,

Seem to have been born to experience the otherness, and may well do so,

Until who knows how, who knows why, who knows when,

Who knows where, who knows what,

Who knows who.

362

No mortal frame can be preserved in this ever-changing theater.

It, and the personality to which imagination is so attached,

Must inevitably, as all forms do, dissolve from the stage,

On which it has so sincerely, and with such passion, played.

* * * *

It is attachment to our mind-bodies, to all the sensory inputs,

To the mirage, the illusion, of a kaleidoscoping cosmos,

That precipitates all this agony, all this suffering.

A relentless moment, all across the world.

* * * *

Kill off little self however you will.

The awareness is indifferent,

To all manner of fates.

* * * *

Power without accountability,

Without consequence,

Is rarely, if ever,

A balanced equation.

* * * *

Do you swear,

To tell the truth, the whole truth,

And nothing but the truth,

So help you God?

* * * *

What an abysmal, toilsome thing it is,

To daily observe humankind learn so little,

From its unrelenting predisposition for muddle.

The ceaseless machinations of horror and corruption,

Are spread deeply and broadly unto the roots and flowers.

* * * *

So irrevocably connected, as to be daily ensnared in absurdity, are we?

Well, do not worry, my fine friend, it is not for that much longer, now, is it?

* * * *

If you are seeking to discriminate the truth, you will find it within.

If you are merely looking to reaffirm your sundry delusions,

You will remain bemused by Samsara’s countless veils.

363

As enlightening, absorbing, entertaining, and often oh so horrifying,

As all the innumerable flavors of imagination can be,

It is ever merely a kaleidoscoping dream,

And really, in the ultimate sense,

Just does not even matter one scintilla.

* * * *

Peace, contentment, serenity, grace, happiness, joy.

The final harbor.

* * * *

Nothing to do, really, but witness the show,

Wherever you may be, whatever the course.

* * * *

Daily, the same old scratchy record.

No news would, indeed, be good news.

* * * *

The abyss yawns at your vanity.

* * * *

The balloon of consciousness,

Must expand far and wide, deep and long,

To reach its inevitable limit.

* * * *

North and south, east and west,

Up and down, in and out, right and left,

Just arbitrary sounds for manifest consciousness,

To pretend at carving up the indivisible.

* * * *

If you will not learn something,

Out of some sort of inherent common sense,

Then, rest assured, pain is always an enthusiastic teacher,

In the wings, ever alert, patient, fully armed.

* * * *

Those who dominate the world have no relationship with nature or themselves.

Therefore, alas, Mother Gaia and all her creatures small to great,

Are condemned to enslavement and destruction,

For whatever coin can be fashioned from their demise.

364

Where is this vain, resolute, notorious “I” we so readily assume real?

Is it the ever-changing body, the ever-changing identity?

Is it the rambling compendium of perceptions?

Can it even be the timeless awareness,

Common to all things living?

How can there truly be,

“Me, myself, and I”

In that infinity which is prior,

To all forms fashioned of quantum vibration?

That which is ageless, formless, indivisible, sovereign, absolute.

That which has never even once suffered mortal birth,

Much less the pangs of imagined death.

* * * *

Every streaming moment, so fleeting, like an ever-burning fuse.

Every point of nowness, gone as swiftly as it arrives.

Everything, but figments of imagination.

Merely a dream of the senses.

A magical, mystery theater of illusion.

* * * *

Every bubble of illusory existence one day bursts.

Your world, your universe, will expire,

When you close your eyes,

For the final time.

* * * *

You are nothing; you are everything.

Hard to comprehend, but it is that simple.

* * * *

Always arduous sailing,

When others want more from you,

Than you are willing or capable of offering.

* * * *

Throughout your life,

You have cared about this or that,

For lengthy, moderate, or brief slices of time.

And yet, sooner or later, care’s capricious nature, inevitably,

For whatever raison d'être, draws to a close.

So, the question becomes:

Why do you care about anything?

365

It is all make-believe, a game of pretend, a lie to which most subscribe.

Every mind wraps around one security blanket or another,

To hold fast to its imaginary, sensory reality.

Those whose fate it is to awaken,

See it for what it is,

And in time,

Make their way home.

* * * *

The differences there are be between so-called angels and demons,

Are in the arbitrary choices made by consciousness.

The same awareness is witness to all.

* * * *

There is, indeed, something very schizophrenic in all this.

You are the world – you are in it, and it, in you.

And there can be every sort of irony,

Every conceivable paradox,

Abiding in those divergent states.

* * * *

Why would you ever, even for a moment,

Believe yourself anything other,

Than pure awareness?

All identification, all naming,

It but the fabrication of imagination.

* * * *

We are all born of the same source,

Whatever you may wish to call it.

But it is for each, very much alone,

To figure out exactly what that means.

* * * *

Whatever the destiny, the endgame,

Is inevitably enforced by the same Reaper.

Nobody has ever made it to heaven or hell alive,

And the same can be said for karmic absurdities, as well.

* * * *

To be born again into the absoluteness of eternal awareness,

Is the true purpose and meaning, the true reckoning,

The true potential, of every breath, every step.

366

This garden world has been spinning round and round for several billion years,

And the universe billions more than that, as it will be for eons more.

How can anyone seriously believe their imaginary notions,

Are anything more than a momentary flurry,

In the grand totality of it all?

* * * *

What is required to awaken,

Is to inwardly pay very close attention,

In a non-intellectual, prior-to-consciousness way,

Until you very logically, without doubt, discern for your Self,

That you, the witness, the observer, are the observed.

All duality is the concoction of imagination.

* * * *

How can anyone ever lead any other,

To that source wherein there has never been a follower?

All any can really do is just point the way,

And, without further ado,

Call it a day.

* * * *

All these things you love and hate,

Desire, fear, dread,

And poof!

Suddenly, they are all gone,

If they were ever really there in the first place.

* * * *

No need to put into words what words cannot tell.

Let the action of conduct and deeds be the message.

* * * *

The universe created of senses and mind,

Is both the teacher and the greatest distraction.

A manifest dream, in which the stillness of awareness,

Is locksmith to the momentary nature of an eternal existence.

* * * *

The Muslim and Mormon religious shticks,

Are only a few centuries less cultish than the Christian one,

And that merely a few less than the Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and Roman ones.

All established religions across the world are cults; just with more vintage upon which to lay vain claim.

367

We all vote with our wampum,

And however everyone together casts their ballot,

Creates an irrevocable dystopian future, for which each and every life form,

Is to one degree or another, already paying.

* * * *

Very difficult, indeed, to be detached from the given body,

Especially in the flurries of pleasure and pain.

And, of course, which distraction,

Is easier to endure?

* * * *

What might you be doing with your existence,

If you had not somehow taken the road less traveled?

Free will looking forward, fate looking back.

* * * *

Whatever you want, Quantum Dearest,

Sweetie-kins of the bona fide imperative.

* * * *

Before all firsts, after all lasts, You are.

* * * *

In all its pricelessness,

The irony and paradox of Truth,

Is how little profit it offers those who mine it.

* * * *

Again and again, and yet again,

You are ever tempted in so many ways.

To be free, or not to be free, that is the question.

* * * *

There is no way to get through existence,

Without hurting or being hurt, intentionally or not.

A full dollop of forgiveness by all concerned, is the best salve.

* * * *

The question ever remains:

Do you follow your own observations,

Or subscribe mindlessly to the countless delusions,

Consciousness, with complete and utter ease, every moment weaves.

368

There is ultimately only one law in this world,

And it is enforced with complete equanimity by Mother Nature.

Those who ignore or transgress this simple reality,

Inevitably pay one price or another.

* * * *

And in the fleshy depths of the dark, churning cavern,

In which your teeth gnash without hesitation,

A new universe explodes into being.

* * * *

How can the blind ever be expected to see,

That which it is not in their nature to see?

* * * *

We call the human species civil-ized?

Who, pray tell, do we think we are kidding?

Read it and weep:

civil |ˈsivəl|

adjective

courteous and polite

civilization |ˌsivələˈzā sh ən|

noun

the stage of human social development and organization

that is considered most advanced

* * * *

Receiving everything from a silver platter,

Does not construct gumption and grit at the core.

Entitlement is a cancer; both individually and collectively.

* * * *

Pssst, to all you true believers,

Waiting for Armageddon;

Jesus is not coming back.

Time put all the middlemen behind you,

And start figuring out what he was talking about on your own.

* * * *

You need not submit to the dualistic notions, of this world or any other.

They are but ceaseless sensory manifestations, born of temporal limitation.

369

You have played the given nature-nurture part as well as You possibly can,

But you have all along been something of a pretender, a chameleon.

The truth is, you have often sensed You are not a human being,

Nor any of the countless other forms in which You dance,

In this infinite eternal theater that You, your Self, are.

For that which is absolute, indivisible, complete,

Is what You truly are, have ever been, will ever be.

* * * *

What suffering consciousness so endlessly concocts.

End desire, release fear, soften the heart.

All differences are imagined.

* * * *

Who are you? What are you? Where are you?

When are you? Why are you?

How are you?

No knowing, really.

* * * *

It is all God,

Including You.

Figure it out.

* * * *

Alone, so alone.

Ain’t it wonderful?

* * * *

The filament of awareness,

Is the eternal Me, my Self, and I.

Anything less is delusional.

* * * *

Who can care for You,

If you do not care for your Self?

Be your best friend in every form and guise.

* * * *

You have an absolute right to protect yourself,

Against any and all who would harm you and yours.

As much as many a heart would choose to see it otherwise,

In this shades-of-gray garden, if you want peace, prepare for war.

370

So many so-called spiritual seekers,

Ambitiously questing the beingness, that has been theirs from the get-go.

Just too caught in the Gordian Knot of their aspiration,

To discern there never was a goal.

* * * *

No more than a dream,

No more than an imaginary theater;

With every possible agony, every possible ecstasy.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

Consciousness is the Bartertown of imagination.

No stone will be left unturned under all its suns.

* * * *

An empty page is the most receptive ear.

An uncarved block, a pièce de résistance.

* * * *

No human has ever beheld its own face,

Nor any other part of the given body,

To which the eyes have no access.

Why that is, is less than obvious,

To all but the rarest of the rare.

* * * *

Most everybody seems to believe,

Their version of absurdity is normal.

* * * *

Curious how almost any given belief,

Tends to inspire some form of dogma.

* * * *

Even an entire universe cannot fill you.

The utter aloneness of the infinite singularity,

Is absolutely, indivisibly, eternally unfathomable.

* * * *

The only constant in this ever-changing cosmos is awareness.

The elemental theater, in which consciousness runs amok,

Is a veil, in which suffering is an inevitable outcome.

371

Language can never be anything more than an endless stream of metaphors.

* * * *

Any given existence is, from cradle to grave, an ever-morphing mix of capacities and limitations.

* * * *

We are all born of the same womb, live in the same house, and share the same grave.

* * * *

What you cannot do or be, or perhaps should not do or be, imagine.

* * * *

Who can teach anyone, not open to learning, anything new?

* * * *

So, where exactly is this thing called vanity?

* * * *

Nature belies any and all dogma.

* * * *

Doubt cannot be transplanted.

* * * *

So … so … so … monkey-mind.

* * * *

In stillness, you are as before all creation.

* * * *

This cannot be taught, only learned, and then forgotten.

* * * *

Who created God? … What do you mean we do not ask that question?

* * * *

What is true absolute power, but the mind that can hold fast its passionate monkey.

* * * *

The one and only God – for the want of a better word – includes you.

* * * *

Across the world, true believers praying to a dial tone.

372

A vastness, filled with swirls of consciousness;

All coursing the same immortal, timeless awareness.

The quantum matrix of that which is prior to all naming.

That source, that is the one witness within all, small to great.

* * * *

Why would it ever possibly matter to be known in the minds,

Of others you will never even have the misfortune to meet?

* * * *

All these so many thoughts, really mean diddly-squat.

They are merely a means to the end of all beginnings.

* * * *

A multi-dimensional, ephemeral dream of matter,

With which You identify for a brief sense of time.

* * * *

The only real enduring solace,

From the ceaseless storms of consciousness,

Is immersing into the aloneness.

* * * *

How quickly a ripple can turn into a tsunami.

* * * *

We must all endure so much pain.

How is it we do not all feel compassion,

For each other, and all creatures small to great.

* * * *

Aphorisms are no different than fine wine.

Inhale them fully to plumb, to fathom the insight.

Imbibe them slowly to perceive, to discern the wisdom.

* * * *

Existence is indeed painful, but to be free and at ease, is possible,
If you discern the calling, and are willing to let go of everything.

* * * *
Every body-mind is a facet of the ever-unfolding genesis.

An every-moment fabrication of evolution.

Nothing more, nothing less.

373

It is a mystery.

It is the mystery of all mysteries.

It is not a Christian mystery, it is not a Jewish mystery.

It is not a Muslim mystery, it is not a Hindu mystery, it is not Taoist a mystery.

It is a mystery that does not belong to, or favor, any -ist, or any -ism.

It is not subject to any idolatry, it is not subject to any dogma.

It is a mystery free and clear from any and all claims,

By any individual or group across all eternity.

* * * *

Yet another collection of ethnocentric idol-worshippers,

Bent on convincing everyone theirs is the one and only.

* * * *

Sometimes, a good offense is the best defense,

Sometimes, a good defense is the best offense,

And sometimes, just best to get out of Dodge.

* * * *

What to do, once you see?

Some flee it, some embrace it,

Some straddle the fence.

Whatever calls you,

Imitate no one.

* * * *

Forget the body,

Forget the mind,

Forget the world,

Forget the universe,

Forget everything.

* * * *

To wander in awareness,

Without accumulating this or that.

Free from ownership of any thought or thing.

Holding onto nothing, how difficult can that be, really?

* * * *

From infinite to infinitesimal, everything to nothing, known to unknown,

Top to bottom, small to great, here to there, this to that, that to this,

You are indivisibly, infinitely, perfectly, absolutely connected,

Yet completely, irrevocably, forever alone all the while.

374

There is no existence in any creation, no matter the dimensions, that will not be but temporal illusion,

Because, no matter how hard it tries, Self, the grand witness in all things small to great,

Can never discern its true reality but through the reflections of otherness.

So, delude yourself in any and every way for all eternity,

It is ever the same dreamer dreaming;

Ever You, in one imaginary holograph or another.

* * * *

What is the point of an existence that lacks thoughtful reflection?

That moves through time without the nuances of critical thinking?

* * * *

Seven billion human beings born in just two hundred years.

How could anyone seriously expect or believe,

That it would not inevitably devolve,

Into anything less than near-total anarchy.

* * * *

All nature consumes to its limits.

Everything has limits.

Balance is all.

* * * *

Family is a given,

Friends, a pleasure,

Acquaintances, tolerable,

Adversaries, a bother,

Enemies, a hazard.

* * * *

Not to worry or panic,

But rest easy, that tomorrow,

You will likely forget something else,

Along with making any number of foolish mistakes,

And maybe even a very major screw-up.

C’est la vie and so it goes.

* * * *

Religion that is not religion, belief that is not belief;

In which momentary awareness is the only faith required.

Staged, ever-streaming, in a sensory theater of a timeless dream.

No one can help you realize your ultimate, indelible reality.

You must discover it completely, totally, forever alone.

375

No matter how real it all seems, the you that You play,

Is but the whim of imagination swirling about the senses.

An arbitrary, ephemeral set of perceptions from all get-go’s.

You have never been more than this every-moment streaming.

* * * *

Everything we take for granted in the given day-to-day,
Is, really, just as astounding as all the things,
We consider inexplicably mysterious.
How are we not every moment lost in wonder?

* * * *

To be content with the life you have been dealt,

From Royal Flush to not even a high card,

That is the every-moment challenge.

* * * *

Yet another intriguing nuance to the universe,

The world, the human condition.

Yawn, ho-hum.

* * * *

Even now, after a plethora of dreamtimes,

Nearly everything under any sun,

Still, you long for more.

* * * *

Awareness is not,

Has never been, will never be,

Confined by any limits set by consciousness.

* * * *

It takes a strong, disciplined spirit,

To maintain a steady course amid the rocks;

The sirens of imagination singing out every temptation.

* * * *

The curious thing about most-if-not-all organized religions,

Is they truly believe theirs is the only true religion,

And that their true God will favor only them,

And will cast everyone else into hell.

Groupthink is ever groupthink,

No matter the flavor of the Kool-Aid.

376

Sometimes the mind become so clear,

That it seems You have finally awakened for all eternity.

But then the murkiness of consciousness resumes its conditioned grooves,

And You must once again stumble about the convoluted labyrinth of your very vivid imagination,

Until the eternity of every moment breaks through the mists anew.

Perhaps one day You will stay here.

* * * *

Freedom is truly your original state.

You only choose oppression,

Because the senses have fabricated samsara,

And the mind, its ceaseless array of passions, of desires and fears.

* * * *

The ever-kaleidoscoping sensory streaming,

Is given the illusion of continuity by consciousness,

But it is, has ever been, will ever be, eternity all the while.

* * * *

Good thing we found fig leaves and learned to sew;

Elsewise, walking down any given boulevard,

Might be a rather terrifying experience.

* * * *

Pruning a tree or bush is challenging;

How much more so, raising a child.

* * * *

Let us not confuse truth with comfort.

* * * *

Nobody can see through your eyes.

They have their own vision to discern.

* * * *

This moment, this right now,

Is all there is, and there ain’t no more,

No matter how much imagination yearns it so.

* * * *

You are the writer in the writing,

The singer in the song, the painter in the painting,

Ever wandering an inexplicable dreamscape in your own solitary way.

377

Which moment can ever crowd out or define another,

When all are equally, timelessly, here-now, come and gone.

It is only imagination born of mind that concocts time’s illusion.

* * * *

You poor, hapless, puny, wretched, miserable, pathetic mortals.

You do perpetrate so much suffering upon yourselves.

You might inspire some genuine compassion,

Were so much of it, not so wanton.

* * * *

You are that mystery from which all things spring.

You are the earth and sun and moon and stars,

And all the intervals betwixt and between.

And you are none of it, all the while.

* * * *

Peace, tranquility, serenity, harmony, grace.

The many-splendored quality of beingness.

* * * *

Crammed full with so much vain silliness,

And still hungry for more, more, more.

What a force, this insatiable desire.

* * * *

Real gold is something money cannot buy;

No matter how vast or magical the universe.

* * * *

Every life is tinged with many regrets.

No use dwelling on what cannot be rewound.

Learn well, grasp the greater vision, and stream on.

* * * *

“The way of humankind is harsh,” God said wistfully.

“But was it not a splendid creation?” Mother Nature sighed.

* * * *

Your spirit has never known anything but well-being and good fortune.

It is impervious to the vagaries of any form, any existence.

It is pure, immaculate, untainted, innocent,

To the most indivisible, sovereign, absolute degree.

378

If you yearn a relatively simple, candid, serene, anonymous, streets-lined-with-gold existence;

Better to be born a peasant than a king; better to be a nobody than a somebody.

For there are far fewer constrictions imposed by the many others,

And it is much easier to walk the path you choose.

* * * *

What hath science and industry and technology and commerce,

Wrought upon this ever-spinning garden world,

And all its innocent residents,

This fine day?

* * * *

Who, what, when, where, why, how,
You were before manifest time's dreaming began,
You will be again after its last breath.

* * * *

If you are a demon in mind and body and spirit,

Then this dream world offers every opportunity,

Your dearth of imagination may possibly obsess.

* * * *

Whose idea was this genesis thing, anyway?
Oy vey, what a headache, and for what, really?
A theater of the absurd, with narcissistic hedonism,
The grand puppeteer from beginning to end.

* * * *

And what does the actor do with the given life,

Once it is clearly, absolutely understood that it is all,

Nothing more than hollow, impromptu theater?

* * * *
History is written by winners, losers, survivors, abiders;

Whoever makes the effort to set down one version or another.

But sooner or later, all eyes grow dim, and all ears, deaf,

And all chronicles are lost to the winds of illusion.

* * * *

The awareness is not the manifest dreamscape.

It is the unfolding creation from which all things ascend.

It is for each to discern, to perceive, within their individual dream;

That they are the same awareness, the same source, as any other is in theirs.

379

What is it, draws some minds into the examination of mystery,

And other into living out the dreamtime of the senses,

But an inexplicable mustard seed of curiosity.

* * * *

True religion, true spirituality, true grace, true faith,

Is a grass roots, solo kind of endeavor.

No middlemen required.

* * * *

It is an immeasurable, indivisible, quantum matrix,

Each and every life form witness to it,

In its own unique way.

* * * *

Any given body is really no more than a container,

From which mystery witnesses a sensory play.

The challenge is not forgetting it is not real.

* * * *

It is attachment to the mind-body,

That is the source of all this angst and suffering,

All this delusion, all this absurdity.

* * * *

At which beginning,

Do you stop calling it a beginning?

At which ending, do you stop calling it an ending?

* * * *

What a truly astounding thing,

To hate another enough to harm or kill.

Just remember when someone does the same to you.

* * * *

The issue of material possessions,

Is less about whether or not one owns them,

As much as it is how much they encumber one’s mind.

* * * *

Why should you not agape your Self?

Why deprive your Self the infinite immensity,

Of what you truly are, have always been, will ever be?

380

When the given existence gives way to inevitable departure of the container,

The vast cosmos that mind and senses have into dreamtime spun,

Will dissolve back into the indivisible quantum mystery,

The given mind-body is a one-time-only show,

Never really “yours” from the get-go.

This is the only imaginary you,

That is, has ever been, will ever be.

* * * *

Attributes and handicaps, capacities and limitations,

Merely define the actor in this mortal theater.

Prior to them, You are imperceptible.

No matter the shifting exterior,

No one can know You,

Unless they know themselves.

* * * *

This birthing ground, this dust ball, is afire,

And too many are, for all intelligible purposes,

Foolishly oblivious to the health and well-being,

Of the only residence in the neighborhood.

Delusional far beyond the pale.

How amazing is that?

* * * *

That you exist is not mystery enough?

That you exist is not eternal enough?

That you exist is not time enough?

That you exist is not gold enough?

That you exist is not real enough?

That you exist is not true enough?

That you exist is not holy enough?

That you exist is not sacred enough?

That you exist is not magical enough?

That you exist is not spiritual enough?

That you exist is not purgatory enough?

That you exist is not heaven or hell enough?

* * * *

The quantum ground entices you with every imaginable trial,

In order to gradually draw you deeper and deeper,

Into the abode you have ever inhabited.

Any and all resistance is futile.

381

There is nothing practical about knowing you are the mystery.

Much of the time you may well be considered,

Quite eccentric, even mad.

It is not easy being a chosen One.

* * * *

Speaking the truth is always called blaspheme,
Insubordination, insurrection, revolution,
By those who do not choose to hear it.

* * * *

What have you not done under your sun?

This.

Right here, right now.

* * * *

Friends are the better way.

Followers only muck it up.

* * * *

The tyranny of words,
Of sound given concept,
Bind us, blind us to the truth,
Prior to their origin.

* * * *

Sewing is welding with cloth.

Welding is carpentry with metal.

Carpentry is sewing with wood.

Artisans come in all flavors.

* * * *

You are the first, You are the last,

Everything before and between and after.

There is ultimately naught but You; You ever alone.

* * * *

Why would the moment after the last wheezing breath,

Be any different than the one just before it?

Or the one just before birth,

Be any different,

Than the one just out of the womb?

The totality that is unborn-undying, is without attributes.

382

Mystery forbid, we ever cross space to reach another garden paradise,
When all our species has ever really ever done to this world,
Is subjugate and exploit and torture and slaughter.
Curious how easily guardianship gave way to avarice.

* * * *

To the youth of the morrow’s space and time,

Have you educated yourself to your best advantage?

Will your skillset enable you to survive,

And perhaps even thrive?

* * * *

You are not That I Am, you are This I Am.

* * * *

You are drawn to thoughts such as these,

Because of an introspective caliber,

Mortal limitation cannot contain.

* * * *

Everything transmutes eventually.

It is just how and when, not if.

* * * *

Sometimes you wander,
Sometimes you sit,
Sometimes you eat,
Sometimes you sleep.
Sometimes you are busy.
Sometimes you do nothing at all.
Sometimes you just are, and call it enough.

* * * *

If you want to save your children,

From sickness, injury, aging and death,

And the countless forms of torment throughout,

Probably best not to bring them here in the first place.

* * * *

Any fate largely depends,

To what end the given persona will go,

To appease their hunger, their thirst, their craving,

Their unquenchable, passionate yearning for more, more, more.

383

Free of past, of future, of desire, of fear.

Free of birth, existence, identity, hope, dread, death.

Free of the sensory theater, of the world, of the cosmos, of any deity.

Free of anything and everything, free even of nothing.

Simply awareness, eternally alone.

* * * *

The universe is so vast, and we, so small.
Intriguing how the multitudes are so absorbed,
By so many trivial, inconsequential, vain pursuits,
Considering them so important all the while.
Nero is not the only one fiddling away.

* * * *
Agonize for as long as it pleases you.
It will only end when you are finished,
With all pursuit of rhyme and reason.

* * * *

Any given existence,

Is merely an endless parade,

Of agonies and ecstasies,

That only touch those,

Attached to illusion.

* * * *

Pay attention.

That moment is gone,

And another who knows how many,

Just streamed by, too.

* * * *

Are you really any more,

Than the smokiness of any flame?

That ghostly trail wafting evenly from a pipe,

Is truly as real as your meager role in this ineffable dream.

* * * *

You want to know the one and only truth?

It is all You, nothing but You, and You absolutely alone.

Now, Pilgrim, sally forth against the many windmills of space and time,

And discern yet again, You are the source, You are the mystery,

If such dreamtime fate be yours in some future telling.

384

Who cares who said something, who did something?

Who penned it, drew it, composed it, cooked it, created it, demolished it.

Ultimately, that it was played out, is all that matters.

The same mystery is within all.

* * * *

In the grand, holographic dreamscape,

Someone had to be, at the right place, at the right time,

Or at the wrong place, at the right time.

It just may, or may not,

Have been you.

* * * *

That humankind considers itself superior,
To all other life forms small to great,
Is the greatest absurdity ever told.

* * * *
Creed, dogma, canon, belief, faith,

Are not the truth, the life, the way.

You are the truth, the life, the way.

* * * *

The observer is the observed,

And the observed is the observer.

There just ain’t no two ways about it.

* * * *

Allowing total strangers,
Many of them fools or demons,
To decide they should be your leaders,
How mad is that?

* * * *

How amusing to witness consciousness,

Playing out its seemingly endless menagerie,

But when the curtain comes down, is not every stage,

Really very much of the same theater?

* * * *

Either you have the incisive intelligence to discriminate it, or you do not.

No waffling, no babbling, no playing-the-middle-maybes.

No iffing, no anding, no butting about it.

385

Everyone is going to likely need a little experience under the belt,
Before they can comprehend that it is all imagined.
Few, if any, are born enlightened,
And fewer still with the inclination to live free.

* * * *
Any given life is but a fleeting sense of space and time,

In which the ever-present ether of awareness,

Equally permeates every moment.

* * * *

No point in dreading the inevitable demise.
All anyone can do is watch and wonder,
Until the Reaper, grim or otherwise,
Shows up to harvest the dreamer.

* * * *
Nothing to grasp, nothing to spurn.

Nothing to say, nothing to take back.

Nothing to know, nothing to not know.

Nothing to establish, nothing to dissolve.

Nothing to hold on to, nothing to let go of.

Nothing to embrace, nothing to relinquish.

Nothing to borrow, nothing to pay back.

Nothing to retain, nothing to renounce.

Nothing to accept, nothing to reject.

Nothing to do, nothing to undo.

* * * *

Discerning the infinite truth of your Self,
Erases all karma, erases all consequences,
And aligns your dreamtime fate with eternity.

* * * *

Why does anyone need any religion to be kind?

Why does anyone need any doctrine to be considerate?

Why does anyone need any scripture to live a pious existence?

* * * *

No mortal seed defies gravity more than a brief while.
And those who would challenge its obvious force,
Without due consideration and great respect,
Inevitably submit to a harsh lesson very quickly.

386

It is through language that all conscious distinctions are made.

Prior to the articulation of imaginary self through personal pronouns,

Prior to the fabrication of knowledge, Eden was free of any dualistic notion.

There is no god, there is no devil, there is no heaven, there is no hell,

But through the ceaselessly absurd confabulations of mind.

* * * *

And what, really, is there to dread about the dissolution,

The evaporation, the oblivion, of the mind and body,

Of this imaginary identity of the manifest kind?

* * * *

How predictable it is for any given monkey-mind,
To disparage, to resent, to even hate,
The countless things,
Outside its finite frame of reference.

* * * *

Is it better to perish quickly, painlessly,
Or slowly, so that the unfolding agony,
Lets you know you are still breathing?

* * * *

The god so many project,
Is really formed and adorned,
With their own narcissistic vanity.

* * * *
Is it real hunger,
Or just the insatiable mind,
Choosing between different sensations?

* * * *

Wake up, my dears.
You are all the same oneness.
Move beyond your self-absorbed dreams.
They are not, have never been, nor will they ever be,
The infinity of mystery You truly are.

* * * *

Shopping, shopping, shopping, until you be dropping,

Looking for the next thing you just cannot possibly exist without,

But will very likely forget as soon as it is stowed away in one closet or another.

387

Every language is the unique way any given human grouping,

Conceptualized the time and geography from which they originated.

What an expansive state of consciousness it would it be to fathom them all.

* * * *

Whatever happens to you in this brief mortal existence,

You must ultimately work out on your own.

No one can really save you,

If you will not to your Self lend a hand.

* * * *

To abide in this dreamtime manifest theater,

All must, all will, in one way or another,

Play along with the given collusion.

* * * *

There is nobody to follow,

In the quest for the infinity of truth,

Because it cannot be taught,

Nor can it be learned.

* * * *

Why do you doubt your light?

Why do you doubt your truth?

Why do you doubt your Self?

* * * *

You are free, no charge.

* * * *

For a mortal duration,

Through one seed or another,

You awaken yet again in consciousness.

* * * *

We all, each and every one,

Establish a set of arbitrary assumptions,

To which we daily adhere and project upon our world.

* * * *

What someone said, what somewhat heard,

What are the odds that anyone, no matter how nimble,

Ever really entirely grasps any other’s frame of reference, spot on?

388

You well know the many sights, the many sounds, the many tastes, the many smells, the many textures,

The many thoughts, the many passions, the many pleasures, the many pains.

What more could you possibly want or need?

* * * *

What is pain? Is it physical? Is it mental? And which is real? And for how long?

* * * *

You need not keep rehearsing; you need not continue practicing.

You have your little character down; you have it figured out.

The big challenge now is enduring getting off the stage,

Taking off the costume, and departing the theater.

* * * *

Impossible to even begin to comprehend,

All the boundaries, all the limitations,

In this inane ball of consciousness.

* * * *

Whatever you do is your fate.

There is no changing it, really.

* * * *

In the grand eternal now,

You are that which was never born,

That which can never die.

* * * *

Dogma is the charade,

Of followers lacking the wit or will,

To discern for themselves the sovereignty within.

* * * *

The you, you so earnestly imagine you are,

Is naught but a synergy of everyone and everything,

Ever compiled in your brief, very temporal frame of reference.

* * * *

When you are out of kilter, when you need to recover some detachment;

When you need to reset, rekindle, retune, reorganize, recalibrate,

A greater perspective from one hellish moment or another;

It generally works to take a physician-heal-thy-self-time-out ride,

On the flying carpet of imagination, to another shard of the given dreamtime.

389

What are you really doing that you have not done perhaps countless times before.

You are a pattern, the same as everyone and everything else.

Death only wipes the slate clean.

* * * *

Are you really all that interested,

In allowing others to embezzle too great a slice,

Of what little eternity remains in this finite, temporal container?

Puttering along indivisible seems far more enticing.

* * * *

Hot or cold, hard or soft,

Awake or asleep, engaged or unengaged,

Honest or dishonest, clothed or naked, seen or unseen,

Clean or dirty, comfortable or uncomfortable,

Self-absorbed or self-absorbed,

It is all the same.

* * * *

The great fear is imaginary, vain attachment,

To the endless cravings of sensory body.
It has no ultimate reality, whatsoever.

* * * *

The Eve Gene strikes again.
Nothing is never enough.

* * * *
Assumptions abound.

* * * *

It is through imagination,

That this universe is created.

In your own image, so to speak.

* * * *

What is jealousy but an abiding insecurity,

A sense of ownership with a tinge of loathing.

* * * *

The intriguing thing about the indivisibility of nothingness,

Is how it permeates every fragment of this touchy-feely matrix.

An illusionary banquet that leaves consciousness ever hungry for more.

390

And God so despised the world he had created, that he gave his only son,

To spawn a religion that would guarantee its destruction,

Through every absurdity imaginable.

* * * *

If there is a God, it surely must be the same for all.

And here humanity is, ceaselessly battling,

Over dogmas all belief inspires.

The sheer inanity of our limited vision,

Is the madness of vanity beyond all reckoning.

* * * *

Neither past nor future exist.

Nowness is your kingdom.

* * * *

What is freedom?

What is truth?

What is real?

What is not real?

What is aloneness?

What is indifference?

What is absoluteness?

What is contentment?

What is detachment?

What is equanimity?

What is happiness?

What is serenity?

What is bliss?

What is totality?

What is the Way?

What is That I Am?

* * * *

In the world … seemingly so.

But of it? Well, daily less and less.

What has practicality got to do with it?

* * * *

The ecology of the passionate mind

Is little more than a muddled, discordant jumble.

The real you, prior to consciousness, is spacious awareness,

From the deepest within to the farthest without.

391

So much vanity over the biological artifice surrounding an alimentary canal.

* * * *

What an astounding thing the play of language, and all that it has created, preserved, destroyed.

* * * *

What is all religion founded upon but fear of what is, and craving for more of it.

* * * *

Any parasite can feed on its host, only for as long as the host endures.

* * * *
A darkness, the depths of which, few mortals care to linger.

* * * *

Are you doing nothing, or is nothing doing you?

* * * *

All seeds are but temporal time machines.

* * * *

Another crock of poop uncorked.

* * * *

Nobody’s discovery.

* * * *

Every bird, its own song.

* * * *

A god born of imagination is not God.

* * * *

Spending your fortune, one breath, one step at a time.

* * * *

What is unknowable is unknowable, no matter how adroit the speculation.

* * * *

Children are not the only ones who must someday, somehow, put away their childish things.

* * * *

Philosophers wrangle with a universe absolutely indifferent to their struggle.

392

It is only the mind and body that imagines experiencing anything.

You, the eternal observer, the awareness, remain ever indifferent.

* * * *

What is the whole kit and caboodle but a time-ridden reverie.

All meaning, all purpose, is imagined from first breath to last.

* * * *

We are all but ephemeral dreamtimes of our ultimate nature,

Temporal waves crashing upon the rocky shores of infinity.

* * * *

To gaze across all history with neither need nor want,

Is a freedom even the many gods of old would envy.

* * * *

Each must ascertain his/her own eternal salvation,

In the nothingness of the ever-present awareness.

* * * *
The meek will always find one wolf or another,

All too willing to gorge upon their gullibility.

* * * *

Mad? You call me mad? Well, my fine friend,

That is no great distinction in an insane asylum.

* * * *

Much more important to have faith in your Self,

Than in what this mirage of a world thinks of you.

* * * *

Ignorance without hesitation impales those daring,

To question or impede or obstruct its narrow vision.

* * * *

What is the point of judging any part or particle of it, really?

A dream is a dream, nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

How often is obtaining that thing, or experiencing that experience,

Really more about the craving that brewed prior to the gratification.

How many sit, waiting, in some dark, crowded, all-but-forgotten space?

393

One man’s babble is another man’s song; one man’s pleasure, another’s pain.

No one sees, hears, tastes, smells, feels, anything the same.

We all sail alone within an ocean’s dream.

* * * *

The origin had to be nothing; else something could not be.

But where oh where did nothing come from?

The ultimate unanswerable question.

* * * *

Why narrow your Self to this or that assumption,

When you are in every way truly nothing,

But the clear space of awareness.

* * * *

You need not believe anything.
The awareness you are, does not require,

Any movement of consciousness,
For you to witness the play,
Created by the senses.

* * * *
The harvest of guilt,

Is shame and remorse.

Forgive your Self, move on.

* * * *

There is neither time nor space,

But through the play of the senses,

As witnessed by the awareness you are.

* * * *

No matter how hard you strive,

No matter what intrepid efforts you make,

You can never win an argument with Mother Nature.

She be the power; best learn well, and abide and endure her way.

* * * *

Going further than a couple zeros on either side of the decimal point,

Is the abstract realm of theoreticians of one focus or another.

Scientific abstractions, as accurate as they may well be,

Jump through cerebral gymnastics all but meaningless to daily existence,

Wherein consciousness must every moment sound the depths of its own imaginary invention.

394

What are belief and atheism but mind-made assumptions, conjectures;

Two sides of the same old coin of human persuasion.

Agnosticism, not pretending to know,

Is far more honest.

* * * *

What if humankind transformed its vain paradigm,

To something more aligned with the garden,

And all its creatures small to great,

And perhaps even one another.

Everybody, on three: One, Two, Thr …

* * * *

Heaven, hell, 'tis ever the same.

There is no other side, no other way.

Despite all dualistic notions to the contrary,

It is all the same quantum oneness.

* * * *

Traces of perception,

Harvested by the senses,

Warehoused on a neuron trail,

For imagination to fashion,

Into another bit of time.

* * * *

Before good and evil,

Before all its causes and effects,

There is only the vast unknown stillness.

Within it, is the truth, the freedom,

That the intangible You is.

* * * *

From the first breath to the last,

What is the sensory mind really about,

But hedonistic consumption of its universe,

And a narcissistic fixation with an imaginary self.

* * * *

Nature is the mystery’s expression,

And humankind but one of its myriad creations.

Separate only in consciousness, dualistic only in the mind,

In no way any less indivisible than all creation can be from its creator.

395

What is this inexplicable universe, but an immense aquarium, filled to the brim with quantum essence;

Playing out every conceivable permutation consciousness might project, and physics allow.

Intelligent design, indeed: indivisible, total, sovereign, real prior to any perception.

The everything and the nothing, indelible, well prior to anything imaginable.

And you, sovereign witness, born of the same enigmatic source.

* * * *

Reality is so much more than any words,
And idols and rituals and costumes and symbols and dogmas,
Can ever even begin to clearly ascertain.

* * * *

We human becomings can learn to get along, or not.

To cooperate, tolerate, and together survive,

Or to beat madly about, and die off;

It does not at all matter to anyone but us.

* * * *

We all share the same awareness,

The same reverie of time and space,

Yet each and every one is utterly unique.

All frames of reference are relative,

Until what is seen is no more.

All judgment is absurd.

* * * *

It is your show.

Enjoy in joy as best ye may,

Or wallow in misery if that be your bent.

No matter from the ultimate view.

* * * *

The world is an ocean of thoughts,

Crashing, swirling, drifting.

And You, the real You, the one and only You,

Is witness to it all; ever free, despite all the clamor of the senses,

Playing out in the imaginarium of any given mind.

* * * *

Poor old Jesus; all his groupies just will not let him rest in peace.

Always remembering him up on that cross in complete and utter agony,

As though there really was something glorious about being painfully scourged.

At least Buddha, for all his effort, gets to hang out as a serene statue in a lot of gardens.

396

All that is done is simultaneously undone each and every moment.

Whether it is taken seriously or with a chuckle, makes no matter, whatsoever.

No point of consciousness has ever been more than the timeless transience of imagination.

* * * *

If Jesus and his omniscient-omnipresent-omnipotent Daddy,

Really want/need to be believed in, as much as so many seem to assume,

Well, then let him reappear and prove two thousand-plus years,

Of idolatrous absurdity were worth the wait.

Put up or shut up, so to speak.

* * * *

You cannot save anyone from their inevitable fate.
You may play a part, but it is they, alone,
Who must live out their dream.

* * * *
The seeds of a great dark age are sewn,
And woe unto those innocent beings,
Who are not prepared and vigilant.

* * * *

Joust with others if You will,

Or sit quietly beside a forest stream,

It is ultimately all the same.

* * * *

Only that which is mystery,

Can spin something from nothing,

Every moment, for all eternity.

And You, witness to it all.

* * * *

Call it destiny, fate, kismet, dream,

It is ever ephemeral and time-bound,

And has no lasting nature, whatsoever.

Only that prior to quantum dust has merit.

* * * *

You are imagined within me, and I within you.

Each of us fathoming our little dreamtime selves real,

Yet nothing more than ephemeral junctures of consciousness.

Nothing more than illusory droplets in this ineffable quantum mystery.

397

That baggage you daily carry about in your mind,

Jam-packed with knowledge, likes, dislikes, fears, desires, worries,

Hopes, beliefs, regrets, all the this’s and that’s, that formulate your dreamtime universe;

You could just put it down for a bit, perhaps even never pick it up again.

But no, cutting loose of all your imaginary renditions,

That would be beyond all pales.

* * * *

The secular triumvirate: creation, preservation, destruction,

Are equal, ever-present, kaleidoscoping qualities,

Of this indivisibly timeless dreamtime.

* * * *

Self-interest inevitably sows disharmony.

Pride, coupled with the great dread of life and death,

Ultimately makes true cooperation,

All but impossible.

* * * *

Caress all the wounds and tension,

Your vat of flesh and bones has endured,

That you might arrive at this moment of existence.

All those injuries are ultimately imagined.

Allow the ground to nurse and heal,

Your twisted, misaligned spirit,

Into the totality it truly is.

* * * *

Though death be all around you,

Your time to greet it,

Will be sooner than you think.

May as well put a call into the coroner now.

* * * *

Mystical writings across the world,

Are figurative how-to manuals for budding mystics,

All too often misinterpreted by minds spun in the unwavering literal.

* * * *

One of the many challenges of growing older,

Is reminiscing one’s youth, and the yearning for all the things,

Queuing up to be seen and heard and tasted and smelled and touched and understood.

The preciousness of innocence can only be lost once.

398

Despite the mind's preference for anything over its opposite,

At the essential level, there is no real difference,

Between any pleasure or pain,

Any good or evil.

* * * *

If you are not at peace, if you are not somewhat content,

It might be time to recalibrate those assumptions,

Or perhaps be finished with them entirely.

* * * *

Discern the simplicity prior to consciousness,

The clarity born of pure awareness,

That which is witness,

To all that is known and unknown.

* * * *

What matter if no one but You alone,

Ever sees it or lives it or dies it?

You are soul witness to it,

Forever first and last.

* * * *

Same old, same old,

Repackaged for another run.

‘Tis all so predictable.

* * * *

Until you can clearly declare,

"I am the truth, the life, and the way,"

And deeply, intuitively perceive what it implies,

You have not quite figured it out.

* * * *

You are not the body,

Moving through time and space.

You are the eternal awareness, witnessing,

A temporal, three-dimensional weaving of the senses.

* * * *

This is the only here-now there can ever be.

The infinite singularity made manifest in the finite moment,

Timelessly discerned through the consciousness of each and every witness.

399

Family and friends and foes, alike, drying up, blowing away, in the dreaming of time.

And what is real? And what is not real? Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?

* * * *

It is not your consciousness, nor my consciousness, nor anyone else’s consciousness.

It is simply consciousness, playing out in every mind, in every way imaginable.

* * * *

All the gibberish, all the babble, all the drivel in the world, means nothing.

Be still, and know You are, have ever been, will ever be, That I Am.

* * * *

No one can be truly responsible for anything beyond their control,

Which, for all practical purposes, is just about everything, really.

* * * *

Just because this theater wanders to the far reaches of absurdity,

Does not mean you cannot enjoy the agony and ecstasy of it all.

* * * *

So many groups in this world claiming persecution by others,

To justify their favor in the vanity of some imaginary deity.

* * * *

Awareness is prior-to-conscious dream of time and space,

Fabricated in the quantum-neuron matrix of any given mind.

* * * *

Without its bag of assumptions, to what would the mind hold?

Would that it were so simple to tranquilly let go of everything.

* * * *

Every sort of distraction will haunt you, until you set them all aside.

Not easy for any dreamer to detach completely from the sensory play.

* * * *

When all is said and done, it matters less how you spent your existence,

Than whether or not you mustered the intellect to discern it clear and true.

* * * *

The play of imagination requires collusion for the world of mind to abide.

As Shakespeare through Hamlet spoke: To be, or not to be, that is the question.

You need not give over to any of it, if you have the wit, the audacity, to stand alone.

400

What hope can there possibly be, when the bar,

Is set at meaningless, irrational absurdities, across the board.

When nature is usurped, ravaged, squandered, in every way, in every corner.

When the absurdity of trivia and distraction, carnivals and clowns, power and fame and fortune,

Become the mainstay, the lifeblood, the prime directive, the raison d'être.

* * * *

The sages say, look within,

And when you do, you find zilch, nada, zip, nil.

And so, you begin looking everywhere else for something, anything,

Because a still, gaping abyss could not be all there is.

It just has to be more than naught,

But, alas, it is not.

* * * *

What nonsense, this need to believe in anyone or anything,

Much less have anyone or anything believe in You.

Here You are: unknown, indefinable, timeless.

Nothing to believe in, nothing to prove,

Once the beingness of awareness

Has reclaimed its primacy.

* * * *

Your quantum nature is indivisibly timeless.
Are you mad for seeing it, or mad for not?

* * * *
What will the dreamtime you now witness,
Be in 10 or 100 or 1,000 or 10,000
Or 100,000 or 1,000,000

Or gazillions beyond counting.

* * * *

Why would you need for anybody,
To know you, or know of you,
Once you discern your absolute nature?
Vanity is nothing more than imagination gone askew.

* * * *

What will happen to your world, your cosmos, after the body disincorporates?

What will happen to everyone and everything after you are no longer present to witness it?

Imagine the dissolution of consciousness, of letting go of everything,

As everything is simultaneously letting go of you.

401

Your raison d'être is what you think about alone in the darkness.

* * * *

The nothingness offers little into which imagination can bite, ergo, much ado about it.

* * * *

Every birth the creation of a new universe; every death the destruction of one.

* * * *

You have never been anywhere, but this ever-present, eternal now.

* * * *

What petty gods that needs incessant worship and praise.

* * * *

Creator and creation are always one in the same.

* * * *

It is a quantum-eat-quantum universe.

* * * *

So many carnivals, so little time.

* * * *

Lost in time, found in time.

* * * *

A collusion of imaginary proportion.

* * * *

The senses and mind timelessly creating time.

* * * *

It is not how or where you begin, but how and where you end.

* * * *

The senses are the veil that words sew with the robust thread of imagination.

* * * *

Identity is something of a trespasser, a squatter, upon the indivisible indelibility of awareness.

* * * *

Life is a string of momentary decisions, choices, to which the only end is death.

402

This garden world, this universe, this creation, this great nada of a dreamtime,

Is going to do just fine without its two-legged, absurdly estranged cancer.

Consciousness is really nothing more than a feverish flash in the pan.

* * * *

So many in these modern times,

Seem more interested in spending their existence,

Staring mindlessly for hours and hours into one screen or another,

Rather than engaging in the bona fide virtual reality,

Playing every moment in their minds.

* * * *

If this amazing, inexplicable mystery is happening,

Then is not just about anything a possibility,

Out there in the universal immensity?

And all of it, and beyond, You.

* * * *

Forget everything.

Dismantle the conditioning;

The attachment to any conceptual weavings.

Become that which has no boundaries.

That which discerns no duality.

No within, no without.

No inner, no outer.

No this, no that.

* * * *

See what cannot be seen,

Hear what cannot be heard,

Smell what cannot be smelled,

Taste what cannot be tasted,

Feel what cannot be felt.

Be what cannot be known.

* * * *

Not likely any given middleman,
Will ever direct you towards the truth,
Without exacting one pretty penny or another.

* * * *

What is organized religion,

But bits and pieces of prodigious wisdom,

Slathered with meaningless portions of ludicrous delusion.

403

Likes and dislikes are always subject to change.

Each of us is endlessly changing and re-arranging the furniture,

In the creation-preservation-destruction of all things born of the passionate mind.

* * * *

Who, actually, is your father, your mother, your brother, your sister,

Your friend, your enemy, or anyone or anything else,

Passing before your infinite eye?

* * * *

All memories are but vague, ephemeral perceptions,
Of an ever-kaleidoscoping sensory mirage,
Born of the mind bound in time.

* * * *

The iceberg is ripping through the hull.

Who will survive to see the dawn?

* * * *

We all live in glass houses.

Curious how few realize it.

* * * *

All flaws are imagined.
Physician, heal thy Self.
Be whole, sovereign, true.

* * * *

How draining it can so often be,

To daily regurgitate and play out,

This imaginary edifice of perception,

That has no ultimate reality, whatsoever.

* * * *

How you daily endure all the gibberish,

Inanely, insanely spouted from every nook and cranny,

Is, in itself, more than a little remarkable.

Detach, Pilgrim, detach.

* * * *

You are but one of a universe chock-full of every sort of pattern,

Playing out its programming, for as long as the given design abides,

Its written-in-the-sand destiny, in its transitory slice of time and space.

404

Every mind, front and center stage, in an entirely different play.

Each and every one, the leading star of their own show,

All costumed up to reveal the inner reflection.

* * * *

Make awareness the default setting, and Eden reappears;

Now camouflaged by metal, asphalt, cement, glass,

And countless other patterns of born of mind.

* * * *

The literal-minded will never comprehend truth,

No matter how adroitly it is articulated.

It requires a figurative awareness,

To ascertain the ultimate.

* * * *

The common sense that is not common;

One either has it, or has it not.

Count your blessings,

If you somehow,

Had it from the get-go.

* * * *

As fascinating and absorbing as history,

And all things intellectual are,

They are all imagined,

And therefore, ultimately, unreal.

* * * *

All relationships are political,
And though many may foster equality,
More than a few devolve into power and control.

* * * *

There is no love, there is no hate.

There is no light, there is no vibration.

There is only the singularity of awareness,

In which every other, every moment, is imagined.

* * * *

The Great Quantum is, indeed, great.

And I, you, we … are all filaments of that greatness,

Born to witness whatever ecstasy and agony the given reverie decrees.

405

Any Auschwitz, any mayhem upon others, is really only the inevitable outcome,

Of the torture and genocide, we practice on all our other fellow earthlings.

Compassion is a quality of existence initiated in each and every step.

The fate of the many is often bound up in the actions of a few.

* * * *

Born again into yet another manifest form,

And through her innumerable sirens, the primordial mother,

Beckons you with every imaginable enticement,

To one rocky shoal or another.

* * * *

You wander the maze of the given little mind,

Until you perhaps some day discern,

That it has always really been,

Merely a reflection of the big mind.

* * * *

Simple beingness requires no identification,

No movement of thought, whatsoever.

Being in the world, and not of it,

Is to be, ever-present, now.

* * * *

Every life form on this planet,

Learns to care for itself, or dies.

Much simpler than rocket science.

* * * *

… Here now … here now … here now …
… Now here … now here … now here …

* * * *

Most have always ignored truth,

So why would they pay attention now?

Much easier to commit every form of idolatry,

Than to become what you truly are.

* * * *

Somewhere along the line,

You realize it just does not matter anymore,

But carry on as if it did, just to play out the character designed,

The pattern being woven in your little stitch of time.

406

The Jesus-walking-on-water allusion is obviously figurative from a quantum perspective.

And he probably brought the wine and bread, and Lazarus was more than likely not really dead.

Accepting anything literally that you have not for your Self scientifically observed and/or experienced,

Is generally a dubious misstep into the ceaselessly precarious absurdities of any and all delusion.

Hold fast to the rational, the sensible, the balanced, the coherent, the logical, the realistic.

* * * *

Reminiscence all the conversations in which you have ever participated,

And wonder at this astounding theater of consciousness,

In which you are ever center stage.

* * * *

All religions are limiting for those earnestly seeking truth.

No group, no other, can truly assist in discerning,

That which is totally alone, without peer.

* * * *

You are the spark, not the circuit.

The circuit is but a dream along which energy travels,

For but the briefest of whiles.

* * * *

Alas, the garden our kind has fashioned,

And is daily continuing unabated to fashion,

Is all really just festering wounds and scar tissue,

For who knows how many dystopian epochs to come.

It will likely take the tectonic plates more than a few moons,

To completely expunge the innumerable inanities,

Of our relatively brief time in the sun.

* * * *

If it is truly indivisibly one, if time and space are not real,

Then where can there have ever been any beginning, any end?

Any boundary, any rend? Any inner, any outer? Any this, any that?

* * * *

Your fellow earthlings surely deserve a modicum of respect and consideration.

After all, we all slimed our way out of the same puddle in some way back when.

* * * *

… detach … big breath … detach … big breath … detach … big breath … detach … big breath …

The absoluteness, the sovereignty, the indivisibility of eternal life, eternal freedom,

Is an in-the-moment-unburdened-by-all-the-baggage kind of thing.

407

Awareness is awareness.

Neither light nor dark, right nor wrong, strong nor weak, vibrant nor passive,

Kind nor cruel, sweet nor bitter, great nor small, good nor evil.

Absolutely indifferent in every way imaginable.

* * * *

Save the world? What, pray tell, is there to save?
How can that which was never spent, ever be depleted?

That which was never something, ever be nothing?

That which was never one thing, ever be two?

That which was never light, ever be dark?
That which was never born, ever die?

* * * *

The body, the mind, the world, the universe,
Is but a sandbox, in which consciousness,
Is offered every opportunity to awaken.

Many are beckoned, few are inclined.

* * * *

There is no your way, or my way.

The is only the Way,

For each,

To uniquely discern.

* * * *

A quick, hard slap across the face,

A bucket of water dumped upon the head,

The knock of a stick across the back,

Whatever it takes to wake up,

To the stillness of truth.

* * * *

If you have discerned it,

Surrendered to it, become it,

And the world no longer sustains you,

What on earth would entice you to ever return?

* * * *

If you put yourself out there,

It is challenging not to come away tainted,

By Samsara’s many vain and pleasurable enticements.

Pay attention, if possible; else you may not quickly, or at all recover.

408

Desire for gratification, dread of pain, curiosity about life, fear of death,

Are DNA’s evolutionary means in its futile attempt at immortality.

Keeping the mind from devolving into paranoia and paralysis,

Is the moment-to-moment tightrope the mind daily walks.

* * * *

Once upon a time, in the Old School world,

It was fire and sword that created mayhem and ruin,

But in the digital lunacy of these modern times,

You cannot push the save button too often.

* * * *

The newborn is pure awareness.

In the infant and child,

The seeds of consciousness,

Begin gradually sprouting in the mind,

In whatever direction the winds of time may blow.

But it is in the awareness, that all truly are,

Have always been, will ever be.

It is from the source of all,

That eternal life ever springs.

* * * *

No one, no matter the rank or capacity,

Really has any authority, any say,

Over your state of mind,

But You, You alone.

Freedom is a birthright,

If you are fearless enough,

To maintain it against all odds.

* * * *

Peace on earth,

Requires peace of mind,

And good will towards each and all.

What are endings but outcomes of beginnings.

* * * *

Attitude is a statistical bell curve,

Ranging from joy to sorrow.

Where anyone journeys on the curve,

Is all about the play of imagination that manifests,

In the given mind, in the given context, in the given moment.

409

Therapy for the blind is vision;

For the deaf, hearing; for the hungry, sustenance;

For the numb, feeling; for the artist, creativity; for the gluttonous, more;

For the seer, the mysterious unknown.

* * * *

Why do so many play out their existence fearing death?

Other than the discombobulated inanities inspired by imagination,

Death is simply not waking up to another tomorrow.

It is living and dying that are the bother.

* * * *

There is no conclusion to all that is measurable,
Until you understand the choicelessness,
In which all dreams are dreamt.

* * * *

You ask me who … I tell you I do not know.

You ask me what … I tell you I do not know.

You ask me where … I tell you I do not know.

You ask me when … I tell you I do not know.

You ask me why … I tell you I do not know.

You ask me how … I tell you I do not know.

All I can tell you is … I am That I Am.

All I can tell you is … you are, too.

* * * *

If you cannot keep your passions in check,

They will to bitter ends, perhaps likely delve.

* * * *

Curious how worked up some people can get,
When you say things they do not want to hear.

* * * *

You can withdraw from the world into a cave,
Or embrace it all, and sing the song, dance the dance.
Either way, it is still but a fleeting, ever-changing dreaming.

* * * *

It is a god-eat-god, quantum-bash-quantum, stars-fling-comets-across-the-universe,

Rock-paper-scissors, throw-the-dice-across-the-table, everything-on-red,

Touchy-feely-three-dimensional-dream, kind of manifest zone.

410

How seriously to take this kaleidoscoping dreamtime, depends on your nature.

To be light and breezy all the time, well, few can truly manage to be that free.

* * * *

Where is the exact demarcation between this so-called good and evil?

A line or two in the sand of an ever-shifting consciousness, indeed.

* * * *

Any given universe offers an all but infinite set of experiences,

But no lesson is ever learned until you teach it to your Self.

* * * *

Wisdom is wisdom across all time, across all space.

None can ever possess what is discernable by all.

* * * *

Barefoot in the remnants of an ocean wave;

What is that sand rushing between your toes,

But You in yet another of the myriad forms.

* * * *

Any given mind is an ever-fluctuating wander-fest,

No matter the landscape or horizon or pale beyond.

* * * *

The garden world you might have happily preserved,

Were such a thing even possible, was long ago undone.

* * * *

Feel the craving of worms for your sack of juicy, tasty flesh,
As you wander above ground for only but a little while longer.

* * * *

Are you looking at things with fresh eyes, with an alert, serene mind;
Unfiltered, uncompromised, untethered, by the mirage of imagination?

* * * *

Unless their actions force you to pay attention to their ceaseless absurdities,

Why should you care even one iota, what all the other monkeys think and do?

* * * *

Amazing as it is, in its function as a portal, into this touchy-feely sensory dreamtime,

What a revolting piece of work, the human body, once you yellow-brick-road it closely.

411

The virtual reality is a programmed matrix born of an indivisible, quantum dynamic;

An intelligent design well beyond the dogmatic reckonings of any monkey-mind.

* * * *

Contending that there is no God, does not necessarily make someone an atheist.

It may simply be asserting that one refuses to subscribe to a limiting definition.

* * * *

The emotions of human perception are but the wiring of evolutionary origin.

Really nothing more than a temporal mutation in the mammalian paradigm.

* * * *

When you discern what is true, and disappear into the timeless awareness,

The universe within and without, converts to its untainted singular reality.

* * * *

Humility and modesty are just stilling the self-absorbed inner chatter,

Immersing into the imperturbable, timeless tranquility of awareness.

* * * *

God is prattled about in consciousness; merged into, in awareness.

Always a case of earnest conviction versus discerning equanimity.

* * * *

Count the boulder fortunate that it need not collude itself a boulder,

And can merely sit alongside the river, watching its dream stream by.

* * * *

This streaming dreamtime moment, will be at best partially perceived.

More likely quickly forgotten, and even more likely all but unnoticed.

* * * *

Sadly curious how the yearning for spiritual freedom, can be so mangled,

By those who so diligently strive to control anyone who naively allows it.

* * * *

Any earnest scientist inevitably discerns that the observer is the observed.

Measurement can only go so far, before it evaporates in the limits of imagination,

The pale beyond which, the eternal immeasurability, is forever unknowable.

* * * *

You get told this, you get told that, everyone imagining every possible confabulation.

Consciousness is the wind of the mind, blowing every direction, inconstant, in every way.

412

No culture reigns supreme but through its covetous intolerance of others,

And its ability to subjugate and annihilate through the will born of mind.

* * * *

Each of us, every day, in every way, work often times very hard,

To hold our ever-changing perception of a universe together.

* * * *

In all our myriad forms, in all our myriad minds,

We are all the same witness, the same awareness,

Playing out different portions of same mystery.

* * * *

The deification of a lie can never be true.

* * * *

The repetitive grooves of limited thinking,

Only grow deeper and more and more confining,

As eternity does its time-marches-on thing.

* * * *

What good is knowledge, what good is history,
If you have not learned the many lessons offered?

* * * *

You will be at the portal of the one and only truth,

When the words no longer sound, like just another lie.

* * * *

In natural selection, there is the survival of the fittest.

In unnatural selection, it is the thriving of the inadequate.

* * * *

A woman’s affection is often full of limiting terms and conditions,

To which many a male seems genetically programmed to concede.

* * * *

If there is any ultimate purpose or meaning to this mystery of existence,
Surely, it is realization of the singularity, within and without all creation.

* * * *

A child’s reality is unanchored to the whirling-swirling of imagination.

It is the rare, doubting few, who truly ascertain the freedom of a newborn.

413

Where to go if you are happy here, where to be if you are satisfied now.

So many looking for happiness and satisfaction everywhere but within.

* * * *

You are each and every moment born completely anew.

Why should you ever feel at all bound or obligated,

To be the same in everything you say and do?

* * * *

Freedom is in the clarity of awareness,

Not the quantum theater of sensation.

* * * *

Be anonymous without.

Be anonymous within.

* * * *

Your entire universe,

Is but a speck of dust,

At the tip of a fingernail,

At the edge of the infinity,

That is all, the only You,

You have ever been.

* * * *

Pain is the unjust dessert.

Chew well.

* * * *

Eternal life,

Is forgetting everything,

Even that perceived but a moment ago.

* * * *

This vast edifice is entirely imagined.

It is not, has never, will never be truly real,

No matter how diligently you strive to believe it so.

* * * *

How do you wish this dream to continue is the question,

For you are all the players across time in your mind.

Will it be a simple, pleasant, even joyous dreamscape?

Or a dystopian nightmare from which none will ever escape?

414

All our imaginary universes are built within frames of reference molded by experience.

Each of us can only see and hear and touch and taste and smell and feel,

What minds have been conditioned to discern and realize.

The ineffable mystery, is vessel for all.

* * * *

As real as it may seem in the moment-to-moment,

Of this three-dimensional sensory theater,

None of it has ever truly been,

More than a brief sensory distraction.

* * * *

A different time, a different existence.

A different appearance, a different dream.

A different world, a different universe.

All the differences; same mystery.

* * * *

Formless or no, it is all you.

* * * *

So much to remember.

Much simpler to forget.

* * * *

How can infinity be measured?

Science is bound by its limitations.

* * * *

You are already samadhi, ecstasy, bliss.

All you need do is be still enough to discern it.

* * * *

We are all that which is called God by many names.

Each of us exploring our own exclusive aspect of creation.

* * * *

And why do you need to believe in anything concocted by mind?

Is not just being, enough, without all the nonsense born of imagination?

* * * *

The infinite ocean is an infinity of drops; how could all this be, any other way?

Without the endless splintering, there would be no existence, there would be no witness.

415

In vanity’s battles over time and space, there can be only winners and losers.

* * * *

The challenge with fate is not knowing what it is, and having to play it out one moment at a time.

* * * *

The trouble with facts, is that everyone seems to be harbor to so many different ones.

* * * *

So immeasurably wealthy that you do not even have to count anymore.

* * * *

Creation is a roshambo – rock-paper-scissors – kind of thing.

* * * *

You are small, you are large, and everything between.

* * * *

What, in god’s name, is there to fight over, really?

* * * *

What, in God’s name, is there to fight over, really?

* * * *

God and Satan are the bogeymen of imagination.

* * * *

Freedom is in the doubting of everything imagined.

* * * *

Born again and again, with every breath, for all eternity.

* * * *

In the beginning, in the middle, in the end, what matters, really?

* * * *

Always worth loosening the treasury purse strings to research the obvious.

* * * *

The only real choice in life, is whether or not you are going to swim out into deep end.

* * * *

It takes a great deal of inattention to not have discerned the truth of it.

416

Once you have glommed the gist, the drift, the point, the kernel,

What dog and pony show, what theater of the absurd,

Could possibly be all that appealing?

* * * *

The truth of awareness requires nothing.

No laws, no principles, no dogma, no creed, no hierarchies,

Fabricated by the mind-made limitations,

Of self-serving middlemen.

* * * *

How much better off this garden world would have been,

If the three religions that sprang from the desert,

Had been forever drowned in the sand.

* * * *

Surround yourself with those who always acquiesce,

And you will likely always hear your right answer.

* * * *

The notion of history is sculpted in countless ways,
Through the never-ceasing, indivisibly eternal now.

* * * *

What greater folly, what greater absurdity,

Could there possibly be in this inane dream of a world,

Than to try to influence its illusory course?

* * * *

The instantaneous journey home is not for the meek.

They will, indeed, inherit the earth and all its limitations,

For that is the far shore horizon of their given vision.

* * * *

Since you are truly everything,

In your immortal never-born-never-die way,

You experience birth and life and death every passing moment,

In an all but infinite number of ways.

* * * *

It has always been your voice speaking to you,

Through the innumerable others you have encountered,

Throughout your mortal existence in the dreamtime of samsara.

417

Perhaps God is manifest for the same reason you are.

Wine and women and song, are not necessarily just mortal fare.

Even the deities of olden times enjoyed altered states of consciousness,

In the grand once and a while of the given here and now.

* * * *

Dwell in that stillness, that awareness, that timelessness,

From which the dream of consciousness rises and falls.

Imagination, as present as it seems, is not eternal life.

* * * *

Everything you think is ultimately an assumption.

The challenge is to fabricate as few as possible.

* * * *

I am you, and you are me,

And together, we, each in our own unique way,

Sing the song of mystery.

* * * *

Who was that masked

Infant … child … adolescent … adult?

One in the same, no doubt.

* * * *

All the attachments,

To all the things,

To all the memories,

To all the relationships,

To all the this’s, all the that’s;

What weights chaining the free spirit.

Distractions from the ever-present awareness,

In which life is eternal, in which the real You, ever are.

* * * *

The ever-changing mortal frame,

Is a mobile unit in which energy transmutes.

The mind is a neuron matrix in which imagination frolics.

* * * *

Revolutions are brought about by those whose disenfranchisement,

Creates the will to seize what they feel is rightfully theirs,

Through whatever means the given time allows.

418

Why should You not agape your Self with every fiber of your beingness?

* * * *

This very moment is as inexplicable as every other moment that has ever been or will ever be.

* * * *

Pay close attention: time does not exist, and the nowness streams quickly eternal.

* * * *

Political expediency is about keeping what you really think to yourself.

* * * *

And what is it to which you think you are waking up?

* * * *

Another monkey mimicking intelligence.

* * * *

So many over-reactions.

* * * *

Vanity gone wild.

* * * *

You, the Great Nada, its Self.

* * * *

No effort required to be all you truly are.

* * * *

The eternal life is a state of beingness, not becomingness.

* * * *

The world that mind built is interesting and entertaining, but to what end?

* * * *

And what is the point of all this passion, for what is really nothing more than a brief dream?

* * * *

So many things you could have, would have, said and done so differently.

* * * *

To live forever, to ever be the same, why would You do that?

419

The most majestic tree;

Really no greater than a simple blade of grass.

The most ornate flower; really no more profound than a modest weed.

* * * *

Awareness is the one and only real You prior to consciousness.

Consciousness is nothing more than imagination,

In the playground of the mind.

* * * *

If you enjoy and embrace the worldly world,

There are an endless number of distractions offered.

If not, well, you are either in for a bumpy ride,

Or on your way to becoming very still.

* * * *

Every streaming moment the quantum matrix,

Vibrates itself indivisibly, immortally anew,

Within and without the one and only You.

* * * *

Of what need does pure consciousness,

Have for any thing, or any other?

Freedom is without compare.

* * * *

It is a God-eat-God world.

Chew well.

* * * *

From formlessness you arise,

To formlessness you will return,

To what you have ever really been.

* * * *

If this dream is happening,

Then what dream is not possible,

In the grand theater of infinity’s rainbow?

* * * *

You can be as small-minded as everyone else,

When You forget You are awareness, not the body.

Samsara is an enduring 24/7/365-all-your-life antagonist.

420

Those who long for mortal immortality live in dread of the shadow of death.

Though many are called, few ever die to time, few live eternally free.

What is called death is merely returning to the quantum womb;

Oblivion’s potential to arise into whatever adventure calls.

* * * *

We are all dust in the wind in some who-knows-when tomorrow.

Worms’ meat in some moment, some modern time or another.

It is really just a matter of who is going to bury or burn who,

Assuming, of course, there is even a pound of flesh to find.

* * * *

Those who will not, or cannot abide,

By Mother Nature’s rules in whatever niche is offered,

Must necessarily change or perish.

* * * *

It is what it is.

Nothing anyone anywhere has ever said or done,

Is saying or doing, or will ever say or do,

Will ever change it even one iota.

* * * *

By whatever name you may choose to call it,

This essential nature is what You are,

What You have always been,

What You will ever be.

* * * *

To believe awareness,

Is attached to any concept or form,

Is but vain arrogance born of human limitation.

* * * *

The manifest dream is a grand feast,

And at its source is that which is absolute.

And when you are stuffed to the point of bursting,

Self-discovery is the final desert, the nightcap, so to speak.

* * * *

One’s peace of mind toward fellow human beings,

Might well be better served if you gave them the same attention,

You would ants aimlessly crisscrossing below, or birds flitting about above.

421

Scientific Method … noun … a method of procedure,

That has characterized natural science since the 17th century,

Consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment,

And the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.

1) Define the question

2) Gather information and resources (observe)

3) Form hypothesis

4) Perform experiment and collect data

5) Analyze data

6) Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis

7) Publish results

8) Retest (frequently done by other scientists)

* * * *

Whether words imprison or free depends upon the ear.

* * * *

I have given you conscious reality.

Through this mind, you exist.

Had we never met, or had I never heard of you,

You would not be, but through the wide-ranging intuition of all things possible.

Outside this awareness, this consciousness,

You do not exist.

You have given me conscious reality.

Through your mind, I exist.

Had we never met, or had you never heard of me,

I would not be, but through the wide-ranging intuition of all things possible.

Outside your awareness, your consciousness,

I do not exist.

What is the world but a brief ephemeral dream for all.

* * * *

Of Tastes, there are said to be as many as six:

Sweetness, sourness, saltiness, bitterness, umami, pungency;

Smells include musky, putrid, pungent, camphoraceous, ethereal, floral, pepperminty;

Touch consists of pressure, skin stretch, vibration, temperature;

Sound is vibration; and Sight, color and brightness.

And that is just in the human version of the electromagnetic potential.

How many senses there might be across the entire board,

Is well beyond any terrestrial pay grade.

422

Included in the relatively few quotes attributed to or about Jesus in Christian mythology,

And largely misinterpreted by those many inclined to idolatry and dogma:

Know thy Self; Love thy Self; Physician, heal thy Self;

You shall love your neighbor as your Self;

To thine own Self be true;

Husbands, love your wives as your Selves;

Have this mind in your Selves, which was also in Christ Jesus.

* * * *

It is all about synapses, how many there are, how fast they fire.

The Genetic Lottery is the Wheel of Destiny.

* * * *

Eden is still very much present, very much here now.
It is you who must clearly divine its eternal presence.

* * * *

You really believe you have free will?

Only if you are in denial of all that has transpired,

In the eons long before you were born.

What will play out will play out,

As if choreographed,

With unimaginable precision.

* * * *

So much influence established by mindsets,

Whose time in the sun was long ago buried.

* * * *

Another wave of human history,

Of world history, of universal history,

In which you must play your itsy-bitsy part.

* * * *

It is naught but a dream,

But just try telling others that.

Some either want to worship or kill you,

Rather than figure out what you are talking about.

* * * *

What vanity to call your Self by any name.

“I Am” is even an assumption of dubious consequence.

Only in complete stillness are you unstained, indivisible, absolute.

423

Faith, hope, love, are but ephemeral concepts born of the monkey-mind,

Bothers born of the wiring of an evolutionary track.

Nothing more, nothing less.

* * * *

Those who abide in nature wander to a different rhythm,

Than the hive-dwellers whose tempo is governed,

By the frenetic creations born of mind.

* * * *

Without any certainty of our fate, we wander forward.

What courage it takes to face and endure each day.

* * * *

If you do not doubt,

You may well mindlessly accept,

Traditions, dogmas, rituals, symbols, superstitions,

And delusional ignorance in general,

As the mainstays

Of that which is truth alone.

* * * *

God and the Devil are drinking,

Dice-rolling, cigar-chomping buddies,

Who take turns performing each other’s parts.

* * * *

What if you could simultaneously

See-hear-touch-taste-feel-and-beyond

Every vibrating aspect of the quantum matrix?

Far more than any measly Om, to be sure.

And by the way, ultimately, You are,

One drip-drip drop at a time.

* * * *

In the not too far distant dystopian future,

The world’s progeny will likely be asking,

“What in God’s name were they thinking!?”

* * * *

More than likely that once the commission is earned,
Once the fee has been paid, once the vein has been tapped,
The middlemen will fade back into the web to await the next mark.

424

What is ego but a collection of attachments to all the accumulations of mind and body?

* * * *
What makes you think you deserve heaven if you cannot endure its serenity here now?

* * * *
Why not live in bliss, in perpetual happiness, in an ever-present orgasm of awareness?

* * * *

What is sexual attraction but an evolutionary attempt by DNA to attain immortality?

* * * *
The dogmatic, the true believers, use the demons of others to deal with their own.

* * * *
What an incredible waste of one’s life bothering about what others think of you.

* * * *
Dogma and idolatry are but ceaselessly repetitive loops in human programming.

* * * *
How silent is silent? How deep is deep? How still is still? How alone is alone?

* * * *
Death is ultimately the greatest teacher, for it is the annihilation of all that is false.

* * * *
Why fight the insanity, the absurdity, of a species immobilized by its imagination?

* * * *
What vanity to believe you must endure great suffering for some imaginary notion.

* * * *
It has always been You, no matter the form, no matter the time, no matter the space.

* * * *
Ye gods, how many ways the body is capable of torturing its every nook and cranny.

* * * *
What higher purpose, what greater meaning, can there possibly be than Self-discovery?

* * * *

What upshot any concept, but a distraction from the “what isness” of any given moment.

425

Some play soccer or baseball.

Some paint trains, or put sailing ships in bottles,

Other read, write, walk, cook, garden, or lounge about watching television.

We must all pass our time in one fashion or another.

Some consciously, some not.

* * * *

The real You has ever been born, the real You has never been born,

In as many forms, in as many places, in as many times,

As there are zeroes to follow any number,

And yet your eternal nature,

Ever remains indivisibly immaculate.

* * * *

As you have forgotten so many vague perceptions,

You have very likely been forgotten by far more.

* * * *

Another vaporous trail of indivisible bread crumbs,

For those who would aimlessly wander,

The road less traveled.

* * * *

Everyone articulates an entirely unique universe,

Based on the continuously evolving nature-nurture,

Interweaving through their kaleidoscoping dreamtime.

* * * *

All are born anew each and every eternal moment,

But it is the realization of the reality within,

And the total dissolution of the mind’s fabrication,

That is, for every earnest enquirer, the greatest challenge.

* * * *

You cannot help but disappoint anyone,

Whose set of expectations, whose field of vision,

Is self-serving, narrow, irrational, unreasonable, delusional.

* * * *

Maybe turn your cheek once, even twice,

And then, well, the primal imperative may need to quickly kick in,

Unless you are keen on being scourged and crucified.

Martyrdom is indeed enticing for some.

426

Once you are dead and gone, just how important is it, really,

How possible is it, even, that anyone remembers anything about you?

How can a few lines in some history book mean anything at all,

Once the dust has settled behind those unseeing eyes?

* * * *

To discern the intrinsic serenity of the unfolding moment,

You must detach from all the pleasures and pains,

Of mind and body in the sensory plane.

* * * *

Suspend knowing, forget everything.

Be the awareness, absolutely free.

* * * *

So nothing as to be everything.

So everything as to be nothing.

* * * *

Before genesis, you are.

After genesis, you are.

In genesis, you are.

* * * *

Forget everything.

Remember nothing.

* * * *

It is what it is.

All beliefs about it

Are all but meaningless.

* * * *

From awareness springs life eternal.

* * * *

Love is a concept with so many vain definitions,

As to be as absurdly laughable as the notion of God.

* * * *

Revenge is really nothing more,

Than a captivating loop of hate and violence,

A festering round-and-round, of the divisive potential within all.

427

Hot or cold, hard or soft, clean or dirty, clothed or naked,

Comfortable or uncomfortable, asleep or awake, seen or unseen,

Engaged or unengaged, self-absorbed or Self-absorbed, it is all the same.

* * * *

The awareness is equally within every particle of creation.

Omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent.

You are it; it is You.

* * * *

All have equal access to the source of this mystery.

Rest assured it is quite indifferent to all creation.

* * * *

There really is no this or that, or that or this.

There is really only just the way it is.

* * * *

Observing the body without delusion,

There is really not all that much,

About which to be vain.

* * * *

Sometimes you create.

Sometimes you preserve.

Sometimes you destroy.

That is the way of it.

* * * *

More legalistic jabber from the choir.

Vanity is the source of all differences.

* * * *

It is a God-eat-God cosmos.

Everything in one pattern or another,

Because that is how this mystery matrix works,

For as far, for as wide, for as deep, for as long,

As the quantum sandbox of eternity plays out.

* * * *

Discerning truth is an experiential actuality.

It has nothing to do with the endless assertions of blind faith.

It is simply being attuned to the timeless awareness in the right here, right now.

428

Group, herd, gaggle, flock, swarm, mass, crowd, throng, rabble, drove, multitude, company,

Host, army, pack, troop, gang, troupe, party, band, bevy, knot, cluster, bunch,

Posse, crew, surge, stream, huddle, school, horde, hive, mob.

So many words describing groupthink.

An instinctual thing; functional until it is not.

* * * *

Is this really your body, or merely a vehicle, a container, a conduit,

That the actual You only for a brief sense of space-time occupies.

* * * *

Despite all assertions that there is or is not a God,

No one really knows who-what-where-when-why-how,

Which leaves agnostic the only honest perspective.

* * * *

Whether you call it cause and effect,

Karma, fate, kismet, chance, luck, accident,

Consequence, providence, fortune, upshot, lot, result,

Destiny, ordained, designed, predetermined,

All play out in the ever-present now.

* * * *

This eternal moment is all are, all you have.

Whether or not it is where you might wish to be,

How could you be anywhere or anyone else?

* * * *

New day, same old story.

Without fresh eyes, who can discern,

The newness under every moment’s starry sky?

Without fresh eyes, what are there but regurgitating puppets,

Dancing to the whims of the strings of history.

* * * *

If yesterday and tomorrow were real,

Why cannot you see and hear and touch and taste and feel them?

Even this moment is forever done and undone.

* * * *

Differences make the world go round,

But it is not they that create the world, the universe,

Or anything operating within the indivisible singularity of all things.

429

The natural laws govern all creatures, all things, from small to great.

Gibberish is not what makes the universe spin round and round.

There is not some deity tracking demerits on a naughty list.

Heaven, hell, is the world you every moment imagine.

You are ultimately on your own, completely alone.

Even your mother cannot shield you for long,

From the long and winding road ahead,

On which the many agonies and ecstasies,

Will reveal the lessons to which you subscribe.

So it goes … deal with it … get over it … move on.

* * * *

All the sensations, all the passions,

All the concoctions of mind and body,

None are the essential, real You,

The sovereign, immaculate,

Absolute witness,

The heart of awareness,

The oneness prior to all dreams.

* * * *

You are The First, You are The Last.

You are not, however, the first,

Nor will You be the last.

Every existence,

Its own little adventure.

* * * *

If you were to suddenly perish,

What others, what thoughts, what problems,

What things, what wealth, what karma,

Would you carry into the abyss?

Be free, die now, to all of it.

* * * *

If it is your fate to discern a larger perspective,

Than the given geography allows,

You must exit the cave,

And leave no stone unturned,

In the hologram your mind perceives.

And in reality, it may not be at all that necessary,

To leave the squalor of the cave, or turn over even one stone.

The only real question is whether or not you seek to be free of all constraints.

430

Truth is not something for which you must petition permission to discern, to realize.

You are on your own, ever alone in an odyssey of Self-discovery,

Within the infinite essence of the quantum sea.

* * * *

Curious how the rich, the famous, the powerful,

Bask in the adulation and envy, or disparagement, of the masses.

Everyone on one path to glory or another.

It is a monkey thing.

* * * *

Life, long no matter how short, short no matter how long.

* * * *

Alas for the sciences that they shall never discern,

The very first moment consciousness,

Separated from Eden.

* * * *

You are bound in dreamtime,

Until the samsara of consciousness,

Has played itself out in you.

* * * *

To destroy a fellow earthling,

Without cause, purpose, or meaning,

So much unnecessary, unwarranted suffering,

For what, really?

* * * *

This garden world owes you nothing.

It provided the seed, and you are doing with it,

Whatever the dreamy space-time of consciousness wills.

* * * *

The course humankind has taken is not all that inspiring anymore.

The petri dish is getting too trashed, too crowded,

Too predictable, too absurd.

It is all vanity and greed,

And there is really no way out,

But for the rarest, most astutely discerning,

Who can, in the face of any temporal sensory temptation,

Maintain a steadfast immortal presence in the eternal “so it goes” of it all.

431

Allowing the ever-conflicting squalls of the world into your mind,

Makes for a perpetual storm of every imaginable magnitude,

To which all wishfully final solutions are never final.

* * * *

It may all be written in the sands of time,

But it is you who must live it out, one moment at a time.

Free will, such as it is, looking forward,

Fate looking back.

* * * *

If there is a middleman between you and truth,

Then the only question is how thick the lie.

* * * *

To recall how the world,

Once inspired such longing, such passion.

Oh, those were the daze.

* * * *

The obvious only become obvious,

When the mind and heart are clear,

Free of all meaningless burdens.

* * * *

Life is but a few breaths,

And back to sleep, back to sleep,

In the eternal manger prior to dreamtime.

* * * *

So small and so huge as to be indistinguishable,

From the dynamic synergy of its countless parts.

* * * *

Words are entertaining distractions,

But to be completely alone, solitary to the infinite degree,

Well, what is there to think, really?

* * * *

Even when their dream is afire,

Human beings have the delusional capacity,

To believe that a deity is looking over them, protecting them,

And that he/she/it, will help them somehow continue on, as they always have.

432

The ongoing enjoyment of anything, is in the comfortable appreciation,

Of its fathomable aspects, of its layered subtleties,

Of its unfolding nuances.

And boredom, too much of the same.

* * * *

The human paradigm is very much about consumption.

Consumption of the senses, of the mind-body,

The ever-unfolding differentiation,

Of one aspect or another.

* * * *

You need not abide the limitation,

Of anyone or anything if it does not suit You.

You are sovereign; be sovereign.

No sanction required.

* * * *

What is anything to You who have seen,

An infinity of universes come and go?

* * * *

How long, how short,

How broad, how deep,

How narrow, how steep,

How, how, how,

How it all is,

Is, indeed, a mystery.

* * * *

There is no personal deity,

So much as there is a personal you,

That is a mystery called God by many names.

* * * *

That which never sleeps,

Is within and without all small to great.

A boundless abyss of serenity; a mystery beyond compare.

* * * *

The cosmos is an eggshell; the mind a beak.

Eternal salvation is the sovereignty of every given moment.

It is the ineffable timelessness of awareness, that the perpetual now ever offers.

433

Likely these thoughts and others of a similar ilk will not appeal,

If you lack a certain yearning for the end of absurdity,

And the bliss of oblivion beyond the pale.

* * * *

Once some deity is postulated real and true,

Eventually that deity must wonder how it came to be,

To which the only indivisible answer is You,

And You do not know squat, either.

* * * *

Consciousness shapes every mind in its own way,
Based on whatever languages and mythologies,

Are available in the winds of the given time.

* * * *

You have invested so much in so many things,

And now you must somehow let it all go,

To discern that which You truly are.

* * * *

In the journey to Self-discovery,

Any other can only direct You so far.

The final steps are for You to make alone.

* * * *

Not likely any given middleman,
Will ever direct You towards your truth,
Without exacting one pretty penny or another.

* * * *

The senses are akin to a video game;

A virtual reality fleetingly considered existence.

To believe, or not to believe, is, indeed, the only question.

* * * *

From the ultimate perspective, there is likely not anything,

You have not done or said or thought, or at some point will.

* * * *

In whatever time is left, what will humankind,

Make of its contorted journey through consciousness?

What you would give for a time machine to watch it all play out.

434

It would be impossible to know everything there is to know,

To experience everything there is to experience,

And, fabrication that everything is;

Why would you need to? Why would you want to?

* * * *

If you have a sincere and real hankering for freedom,

Then these thoughts may be of some use.

If you are content with lies,

Best dilly-dally dawdle elsewhere.

* * * *

Is the human species really that much different,

Than any bacteria consuming its way,

To the edge of a petri dish?

* * * *

Earnest science is the most enlightening way,

Of examining this immense mystery;

Call it whatever you will.

* * * *

You think you know so much.

A little humility, puleeze!

* * * *

Nothing is sacred.

Nothing is not sacred.

* * * *

Consciousness is a means,

To playing out the dream of time.

You are the awareness, not consciousness.

* * * *

To wander the eternal life,

You must be both in and out of life,

In each and every breath, each and every step.

* * * *

Discerning the one and only truth within and without;

As arduous as a long, winding climb, to the highest mount;

As effortless and agreeably simple as a stroll in an idyllic park.

435

All these sounds are but interchangeable concepts describing the same unfathomable reality:

God, Brahman, Buddha, Jesus, Allah, Soul, matrix, unicity, oneness, stillness,

Indivisible, sovereign, absolute, awareness, consciousness, bliss,

Serenity, divinity, nothingness, totality, ether, dream,

Universe, quantum … mystery …

* * * *

Whatever gave you any sign, any indication, any hint, any suggestion,

That the quantum mystery has ever cared about the personal you,

Except the vanity of the meme into which You were launched.

* * * *

Surrounded as you are by the sensory play,

An ether replete with earth and air and water and fire,

You are, You have ever been, You will ever be,

Totally, without doubt, completely alone.

* * * *

Best to take ecstasies in small measure,

Agonies with a whopping dollop of stoicism,

And moderation as regularly as possible.

* * * *

Who are you? Who are you not?

What are you? What are you not?

Where are you? Where are you not?

When are you? When are you not?

Why are you? Why are you not?

How are you? How are you not?

* * * *

This world is your home.

You were born here,

You will live and die here.

There is no other viable alternative.

If you do not cherish her, if do not nurture her,

She will tit for tat you, she will quid pro quo you, in spades.

* * * *

All religion is unnecessary, pointless, superfluous, gratuitous.

Whether one deity or many, not one is real, not one is true.

All are imaginary inventions, collusions, lies, of the monkey-mind.

What dogma, what idolatry, can there be, in the indivisible formlessness?

436

The gist, the meaning, the crux, the essence, the substance,

The point, the kernel, the core, the lesson, the heart,

The moral, the wisdom, the spirit, the truth,

Is all that really counts in any story.

* * * *

What you take for reality, is merely a sensory streaming,

Inspired by the imagination we label consciousness.

* * * *

This existence is your opportunity to awaken.

Play out your attachments knowing they are but dross,

In the true reality of the stillness before time.

* * * *

The body-mind is a churning vat of brewing goo,

In which agony and ecstasy, both real and imagined,

Play out ceaseless twists and turns of every concoction.

* * * *

Consciousness can never keep up with the awareness,

That creates and destroys time each and every moment.

All it can do is relinquish all control to the eternal witness.

* * * *

Of the human paradigm, it can generally be said,

“I will care for you in so far as you will care for me.”

Love and hate are but capricious flips of any given mind.

* * * *

The persona is akin to a useless load of rocks,

Weighing you down with all its imaginary draughts –

Unreal, false, illusory, absurd, delusional – from the get-go.

* * * *

Wrestling with the future of humankind,

And all the myriad fellow creature small to great,

Is an eternal chess game, a Sisyphean task, indeed, indeed.

* * * *

Were the positions in time reversed,

Between you and those who have come before,

Do you really believe you would not have done much the same?

437

Deities have always been invented across the world, across time,

To cope with the unknown, to deal with the waves of agony and ecstasy,

Of this sensory dream, in which we play out our endless vanities.

The wisdom of insecurity is for the few and far between.

* * * *

What point will there be to being a footnote in the history books,

When worms are the only things moving about your cranium?

* * * *

Those who believe they knew you way back when,

May have a most challenging time realizing and accepting,

You no longer participate in the same state of mind.

* * * *

Everything is written-in-the-sand after the fact.

Dubious whether there is any meant-to-be about it.

Free will looking forward, fate looking back.

* * * *

Humankind has bequeathed the unborn progeny,

Of countless life forms across the planet,

A nightmare of epic proportion.

* * * *

Practicality may not be the harbinger of truth.

Abiding in truth may not always be practical.

* * * *

It is the same stillness, the same nothingness,

The same nownesss, the same perpetuity,

As it has ever been, and will ever be.

In each and every breath, a tidbit of eternity.

* * * *

Herded by time, into adventure after adventure,

And just as surely pressed on again and ever again.

What a challenging dream to at so many times endure.

* * * *

Who are the Krishna’s, the Buddha’s,

The Lao Tzu’s, the Christ’s, or any other mystic seer,

But that which is Quantum Soul come unto manifest consciousness.

438

There is nothing in this world, or any other, that must, or can be, continued.

The eternal moment is, with or without a manifest dream.

So, Pilgrim, where are you in all this?

* * * *

Every culture, no matter the size, no matter the capacity,

Must inevitably succumb to the consequences,

Of every success, of every failure,

In its synergistic dream.

* * * *

The universe is the aggregate of all things quantum,

And prior to and beyond all that,

Well, You.

* * * *

If I exist, it is possible that You do, as well.

If I do not exist, then how can You?

And visa-versa on both counts.

Strange thing, this quantum sandcastle.

* * * *

Rage on, if you must, but to what end?

What can unbound destruction,

Ever hope to create?

* * * *

What is wealth, what is not wealth?

Has a nugget of gold really any more value,

Than the ocean-born mystery of a tiny grain of sand?

* * * *

The dream births you,

Attends you,

Feeds and clothes you,

Gives you pleasure, inflicts pain,

With every intention of someday killing you.

And you, in return, accept your destiny, and believe it all real.

* * * *

What a near-infinity of hooks the universe begats,

To perpetually seduce you into its illusory, delusional reality.

A streaming web of sensory-inspired passions of every imaginary flavor.

439

Eternity is far larger, far smaller, than any metaphor can ever travel.

* * * *

The dearth of values, discipline, fortitude; ever the portent of the descent into chaos.

* * * *

Just because something makes you comfortable, does not make it true.

* * * *

You are the first, you are the last, and the during, as well.

* * * *

I am … you are … we are all together … alone.

* * * *

That which was never lost, can ever be found.

* * * *

The obvious is not, to many, if not most.

* * * *

The human zoo, and only some in cages.

* * * *

The effortless mind is an abyss unto its Self.

* * * *

Weary of pleasure, weary of pain, what is left to do?

* * * *

What cancer has any interest in limiting its insatiable nature?

* * * *

If anything was sacred, why would everything always be changing?

* * * *

The chasm between what you want and what you need, may well be very large.

* * * *

Look down your arms to your hands, and discern why you will never see your face the same.

* * * *

Curious how so many consider their savagery to be the mark of civilization.

440

Perhaps the universe is a huge mind in the relativity of all things cosmic.

Perhaps existence was created because this quantum mind willed it so.

Perhaps this is just another speculation, likely as moot as any other.

* * * *

What dreamtime of consciousness plays out within any of us,

Is more out of our hands than pride would deign believe.

Free will is an assumption abiding on very thin ice.

* * * *

So much absurdity to keep the mind a-wandering.

Carnivals at every turn are a sure means,

To the collapse of any world.

* * * *

Nothing, about which there is much ado.

* * * *

It is by the light within that all is seen.

The sun and stars are but reflections.

* * * *

Do you live to eat, or eat to live?

Or a bit of both, in moderation.

* * * *

There is nothing to want or fear.

It is only a body; it is only a dream.

* * * *

To discern religion of the divine kind,

You must set aside dread of the unknown.

You must summon the courage to stand alone.

* * * *

The sooner you face clearly, squarely, the way things are,

The sooner you will be able to disentangle any given problem.

Procrastinating only allows it to swell to grander heights.

* * * *

Every life form across all creation abiding in a niche of its own,

Struggling to survive in whatever way the programming of the genetic lottery allows,

Against the endless waves of annihilation cast upon its mortal frame.

441

It is the same awareness in all,

Dreaming eternally in one simultaneous here now,

Witness to all genesis, in every way, in one synchronized, indivisible instant.

I, Quantum … You, Quantum … He, Quantum … She, Quantum … Us, Quantum … All, Quantum.

* * * *

Have we not seen enough cults to know that every group creates its own mythology,

To sustain its groupthink vision, its groupthink vanity, its groupthink raison d'être.

No need to believe, no need to follow, no need to subscribe to any limited notion.

* * * *

To be unconcerned about the endless concoctions of space and time,

While the clock tick-tick-ticks away in the timelessness,

Is, indeed, the challenge for any who see.

* * * *

Any given personality is really nothing more than a byproduct,

Of the response of consciousness to the winds of time,

And all the attachments to its imaginary state.

* * * *

You cannot fit a square block.

Into a round hole, nor a round block into a square one.

And never the twain shall they meet.

Just the way it is.

* * * *

All your experience, all your knowledge,

And You still the unknown all the while.

* * * *

So many facets, so many reflections,

What is a quantum mind, a god-mind to do,

But be as detached as the awareness ever allows.

* * * *

Anyone can discern that which is eternal,

If they are able to inwardly liberate everything.

The eye of a needle is only as small as the eye is blind.

* * * *

That which is God, that which is Self, that which is Quantum, that which is You,

Is far greater than the collaboration, than the synergy, than the relativity, of all its parts.

442

Arrogant, bigheaded, conceited, egocentric, egoistic, egotistic, high and mighty, selfish,

Vain, narcissistic, inflated, proud, self-absorbed, self-admiring, self-centered,

Snobbish, self-important, self-interested, self-loving, self-seeking,

Self-satisfied, self-regarding, smug, stuck-up, superior.

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity, and so many metaphors to boot.

* * * *

Each and every day, every human being in this dreaming,
Wakes up and re-imagines a universe they believe real.

* * * *

You are but one,

Of the myriad eyes of mystery,

Yet another matchless witness to the infinity of dreams,

The mystery ever inspires in imagination.

* * * *

It is rational to go your own way, to abide alone.

Guilt, remorse, obligation, are mortal cuisine.

* * * *

As if all the measuring really means squat.

* * * *

Check your vanity at the door, Pilgrim.

* * * *

Abide the irrational, the absurd, the insane,

And be agreeably disposed when rationality,

Moderation, good intention, sporadically arise.

The good news is that it may not be all bad news.

* * * *

What so many call love in this theater of the absurd

Is expressed through endless shades of self-absorption.

* * * *

What contortions, those cemented into one meme or another,

Will maintain, to rationalize, to justify, their imaginary universe.

* * * *

There is intelligence, insight, wisdom, from every geography, every time.

No culture or group reigns unmatched in the countless lessons life offers all.

443

Be mindful of the glass house confines, from which you judge anyone or anything.

* * * *

In this mortal theater, most are woefully unprepared for the tsunamis that will soon be in droves arriving.

* * * *

Why bother hoping for some exalted heaven, if you cannot be content with a simple breath?

* * * *

The danger in being a stranger, is accidently stepping on inexpedient toes.

* * * *

The future transforms into the past in the ever-present now.

* * * *

The inanities of vanity know no boundary but death.

* * * *

History is opinion laden with many views.

* * * *

You are awareness, consciousness the spark.

* * * *

Are you sorry you did it? Or sorry you got caught?

* * * *

How many ways we devise to torment ourselves and others.

* * * *

Find the courage to be strong in the winds of your brief moment in time.

* * * *

The difference between black and white, is in the arbitrary eye of the given beholder.

* * * *

Ever a peculiar thing, how humankind is so obsessed, to have answers to questions that have none.

* * * *

It may matter far less what You are doing, than the awareness You are, as you are doing it.

* * * *

There is likely not an age in the human paradigm, that insidious intent was not at play.

444

Another place, another time, another sunny day, another stormy night,

Another conversation, another meal, another cup of coffee, another shot of whiskey,

Another book, another movie, another television show, another play, another song, another photo,

Another workday, another vacation, another holiday, another anthropological event,

Another journey to the privy, another shower, another preening moment,

Another war, another accident, another birth, another death,

Another creative moment, another amusement,

Another … another … another …

Another so it goes.

* * * *

All who have touched your existence, your body, your mind,
Have played but ephemeral parts in the dream you dream.

* * * *

For those who ponder the mystery in majestic metaphor,

In the revelation of that they deem to be God,

Awareness is King and Kingdom.

* * * *

What are we two-leggeds but organized matter,

Very much believing it all matters.

Nothing is sacred.

* * * *

Religions play upon the insecurity of mind.

Spirituality encourages its understanding.

* * * *

More nonsense for the dustbin of history.

* * * *

Be wary of making the narrow assumption,

That intelligence is restricted to humankind’s,

Egocentric-ethnocentric-geocentric interpretation.

* * * *

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child,

I understood as a child, I thought as a child.

But when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

How limited to think that ancient adage to be only referring to children.

Ask rather: And what is a child? And what is not a child?

Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?

445

Acquisitive, avaricious, bent, sparing, close-fisted, corrupt, corruptible, craving, crooked,

Desirous, derisory, dishonest, excessive, fraudulent, gluttonous, grasping, greedy, grudging,

Immoral, insatiable, materialistic, meager, mean, measly, mercenary, mingy, miserable, miserly,

Niggardly, piddling, parsimonious, penny-pinching, scrounging, shady, bribable, venal,

Tight, tightfisted, unethical, ungenerous, unprincipled, paltry, stingy, voracious.

Greed works for some.

* * * *

Ay-yi-yi, the jailhouse choir, and its inane political correctness.

It is enough to make any seer retire into a deep, dark cave.

* * * *

If you do not care enough to be the change,

Of which you so eloquently speak,

Why expect it of another?

* * * *

Forget everything.

Everything!

* * * *

Why so sad?

Why so angry?

Why so fearful?

Why so serious?

Why so zealous?

Why so rushed?

Why so lonely?

Why so needy?

Why so you?

* * * *

What urgency is there in this universe,

Once you recognize it for the dream it is.

What is there to save, to change, to do, to be,

But what you are, have ever been, will ever be,

What you are not, have never been, will never be.

* * * *

What to do when you are done,

With all that is of human confabulation.

What to do when unpretentious beingness is enough,

But whatever comes and goes in the earth-wind-water-fire of it all.

446

The array of experiences each mind perceives, fashions its own future.

One’s fate is assured; it cannot be other than what it is.

The ever-shifting sands consume all.

* * * *

There was nothing before you, will be nothing after you,

And, challenging as it may well be to discern,

Is nothing within you all the while.

* * * *

It was knowledge that cloaked the vision of Eden.

It is awareness that renders it apparent again.

* * * *

It may well be less, “The horror! The horror!”

Than it is, “The absurdity! The absurdity!”

* * * *

Nothing is the matter; the matter is nothing.

* * * *

The civilized man is only fooling himself.

* * * *

It is all merely an intriguing, temporal veil.

So it goes. deal with it, get over it, move on.

* * * *

True wealth is cannot be measured by any number,

Woven by any words, nor captured within any form.

Serenity is far too immediate to long endure in minds,

Filled with greed and lust and other passionate ambitions.

* * * *

All the things you have said and done,

To please, to gratify, to satisfy others, to what end?

For whom do you still pretend? For whom do you still perjure?

* * * *

Why would you really need to believe the mythology,

The folklore, the legends, the customs, the traditions, the history,

All the many perceptions, of any given culture, ultimately real and important,

Including the dreamy sliver of space and time that you call your own?

447

Just because you do not want to hear something, does not make it untrue.

* * * *

Simple pleasures in moderation, generally cause far less suffering, than those carried to the extreme.

* * * *

So, you woke up again this morning, and what is your dream up to this inexplicable day?

* * * *

Awareness is witness peering out, and consciousness, quantum larking about.

* * * *

What to do with your existence when there is nothing more to want?

* * * *

The truth can never be possessed by any mythology.

* * * *

The end is nigh, but perhaps not quite yet.

* * * *

No worries, it is just a monkey thing.

* * * *

Giving thought to that which needs none.

* * * *

Is the fish in the ocean, or the ocean in the fish?

* * * *

What are you, but a manifest ghost, bound by gravity’s rainbow.

* * * *

The source is slowly reeling you home, escapade after escapade after escapade.

* * * *

What are you holding onto, but a mass of thoughts, that ultimately have no meaning, whatsoever.

* * * *

The greatest wealth is forever within, but vanity must still itself to discern it.

* * * *

They come, they go, all these ghosts, born of the sensory mind.

448

Hello, how are you today? I am fine, how are you? Fine, thank you. Have a good day. You, too.

No matter the language, no matter the culture, no matter the time, no matter the whatever,

Have human greeting rituals ever really been all that different anywhere in the world?

* * * *

Fate is fate.

To think it has ever been at all changed

Is akin to believing, going right or left, forward or back, faster or slower,

Really means anything.

* * * *

There just is no stopping it, until the train tumbles off the tracks,

And even then you can be sure it never ends,

As it never began.

* * * *

The human drama perhaps boils down,

To our unceasingly futile effort, to keep things the same,

Once we have irrevocably changed them.

* * * *

The question any would-be-wanna-be parents,

Should clearly ruminate upon, before casting their seed,

Is whether or not they would want to come back,

To the dystopian tsunami daily unfolding.

* * * *

Do not believe even for a moment,

That anything you have ever spoken or written,

Will significantly modify or change the human paradigm.

Toying with history is an amusing diversion;

Far more than likely futile fare.

* * * *

The monkey-mind is chock-full of irrationality.

Only minds establish upon prudent, disciplined inquiry,

Can have any reasonable likelihood of approaching existence,

With some evenhanded measure of rational integration.

* * * *

The nuances of any given history are seemingly unfathomable.

Every witness perceives the same things as no one else ever will.

We are all wandering about the same theater in different universes.

449

What is it like to be so without doubt, so uncritical, so unskeptical,

As to be all together complacent, consenting, to the given propaganda?

What are the circumstances, the dynamics, that fashion the true believer?

* * * *

The river does not cling to the boulder, nor the boulder to the river.

Everything, every moment. the same smoky quantum streaming.

* * * *

The dilemma with too much is that it is just too much,

The dilemma with too little is that it is too little,

And the amazing thing about almost right,

Is how few seem satisfied with it.

* * * *

You are the immortal aspect of this vast theater.

DNA is but an ever-mutating wannabe,

A contagion of quantum origin.

* * * *

Just because it is a beyond-the-pale mystery,

Does not mean it was fabricated by a deity,

Who in some minds resembles Santa Claus.

* * * *

Even when you are alone with nothing to do,

It is challenging for the whimsy of imagination,

Not to carry you out sortie after sortie into the fray.

* * * *

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

* * * *

Is man the measure of all things, or merely the measurer?

* * * *

How much the anticipation of death shades human existence.

The tingle of the executioner’s razor-sharp blade on every neck.

* * * *

Love thy Self, and, knowing Self to be in all creatures small to great,

Is it not likely you will be somewhat compassionate all others, as well?

450

Existence is often painful, churning in every sort of struggle and conflict.

And each in his/her own way, daily endures the agony and ecstasy, into which they are cast,

Until that last exhaling breath finally exchanges the myriad pleasures and pains,

For the serenity of the oblivion to which all inexorably succumb.

* * * *

What is any given childhood but an empty mind, an innocent mind, a tabula rasa mind;

Not yet filled with a lifetime of perceptions, of desires, of fears, of dreads,

That future agonies and ecstasies, will over time imagine real.

Forget everything; be reborn into the timelessness.

Into what you were before all beginnings.

* * * *

Ultimately, this reverie is nothing more than a passage of imagination.

Ever-kaleidoscoping perceptions to which you are so attached.

The key to freedom is in the stilling of the busy mind,

And a clear, discerning, fearless detachment,

Toward the infinity of sensory hooks,

Playing out within and without.

* * * *

Traditions, folklore, myths, legends, parables,

What enticingly brief notions, brief distractions.

Mortality proves the insignificance of all histories.

* * * *

Who cares, really, what any critic or censor thinks.

Let them make their own movie, write their own book,

Paint their own painting, create their own creation,

And see how petty it is for any to judge another.

* * * *

Are you moving through now? Is now moving through you?

Or are you simply now, eternally aware, infinitely absolute?

* * * *

Pass on what you can, to as many as you can, as often as you can.

You never know who will have the ears that hear and eyes that see.

Nor what will flower in the challenging dreamtime now unfolding.

* * * *

What are good and evil but different aspects of the same monkey-mind.

Where else in the universe could such absurd notions possibly exist?

451

On a small spinning pale blue dot, in an outback of a brief manifestation,

Vanity arose in a noisy flurry, for barely a whisper of the space-time it imagined real,

Before relatively quickly dissolving back into the indivisibility of its fundamental quantum nature.

Such is the outcome of all imaginary forays inspired by the theater of consciousness,

In the likely very rare moments that it manages to evolve into being.

* * * *

Truth does not require anything of any of its incalculable creations.

It is prior to any given who-what-when-where-why-how.

It is anonymous in its indivisible singularity.

* * * *

There is nothing everlasting about any form, about any dynamic.

Nature is a chaotic divinity; illusion an anchorless dream.

And through it all, is an indivisibility, so cosmic,

Only in wonder can it be comprehended.

* * * *

Curious how many find it so unfathomable,

That every other life form small to great,

Is born of the same intelligence as we.

* * * *

Yet another Orwellian caricature.

* * * *

A dream is a dream,

No matter how real it seems.

Truth is truth, no matter the delusion.

* * * *

At the heart of awareness,

All the naming means diddly-squat.

What is, is, no matter the sound it is granted.

* * * *

Thinking from very small, to thinking very large,

Takes some to where they only seldom think at all.

* * * *

You are but a filament of breath.

Feel that breeze wafting through your nostrils,

And realize, yet again, the unequivocal impermanence of all things.

452

Those who have thought so many thoughts, examined existence in so many ways,

Are no nearer to the quantum beingness than any peasant ploughing the fields of gold,

Or any worker bee quietly living out their fleeting existence in one urban hive or another.

Perhaps more aware of it, but no more in control of it, than any man in the moon.

* * * *

The mind is the immeasurable playground of quantum imagination.

All history, all science, all art, all vocation, all trivia, all anything,

Is but a perpetual dance in a matrix too vast to fathom any edge.

* * * *

What is consciousness but a dreamy cloud of imagination;

Of dualistic notions inspired by the sensory creation.

One may clearly distinguish reality though it,

But the dream in itself is not the truth.

* * * *

What would it be like to be so present,

As to experience fully every now,

Any given life has to offer?

* * * *

To be born is to die,

With some wandering

Through a dream between.

That is the way it is.

* * * *

Who is this I?

What is me? What is mine?

Everything is yours. Nothing is yours.

* * * *

To be as passive as the lotus;

Well, not easy, my friend, not easy.

Especially when you are bearing the wounds,

From so many battles with the windmills of your mind.

* * * *

All these traditions,

All these geographic assumptions;

Vainly vying for supremacy in a world of dreams,

Where all patterns small to great orbit in a vast sea of relativity.

453

When the given body hungers, when it thirsts, it seeks out food and water.

But that which slakes the ravenousness nature of the unquenchable mind,

Is an existential question to which each dreamer must alone find answer.

* * * *

You are but a minute speck of this vast conundrum of a universe,

That happened, for whatever speculation might be mustered,

To have been born into this dreamtime as a human being,

Into a particular geography, with a particular mindset,

To which you have likely become far too attached.

* * * *

The shift from consciousness, from imagination, to awareness,

Is like a submarine moving from the churning surface,

To the stillness of the tranquil depths below.

* * * *

We all in any given interaction present our inner truth,

And if we present a lie, then a lie is our truth.

Whether or not one sees the difference,

Is the lie’s most true meaning.

* * * *

What if you truly discerned,

That you had gotten it all wrong?

Would you be able to somehow recalibrate,

And like an uncarved block, start over, begin anew?

* * * *

From the mystery, quantum formed.

With its isness, quantum spun manifestation.

Without this quantum patterning, no thing would be,

Yet its untouchable original nature, will be forever unknown.

* * * *

Everyone is dealt a different hand,

In this poker game of time and space.

Each plays it out as the given cards allow,

But it is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

And someday, no matter how well any player bluffs,

Every stack of chips inevitably topples in the last wager.

Masks and players ever change, but the game goes on and on,

For as long as the house has the cards to shuffle and chips to play.

454

Memes can be cancerous patterns that infuse minds with regurgitated drivel.

* * * *

Is history that does not eventually point you to your ultimate Self, history worth knowing?

* * * *

All emotions are nothing but sensations to which imagination attaches value.

* * * *

What consequence have you not paid times beyond counting?

* * * *

Is it true, or just another lie, the only question.

* * * *

Are you even a human being anymore?

* * * *

It is so, because you see it is so.

* * * *

Consistency is oh so droll.

* * * *

Doubt until you doubt it not.

* * * *

Stop pretending you know anything.

* * * *

The awareness in one, is the awareness in all.

* * * *

Nighty-night; more make-believe, more pretend tomorrow.

* * * *

It is a God-eat-God world, a God-eat-God universe, a God-eat-God mystery.

* * * *

The Reaper is likely long past laughing at all monkey-mind exertions to avoid the scythe.

* * * *

… eternity … birth … an imagined existence … death … eternity …

455

The question for the young is ultimately less, “What to become?”

Than it is, “How do you want to dance your very short while?”

* * * *

Any would-be deity that does not include absolutely everything,

Is merely mumbo-jumbo born of the half-baked monkey-mind.

* * * *

And what of those who will not adapt to the coming change?

Well, as always, they shall be fodder in one stew or another.

* * * *

Something that is well-said, something that is well-written,
May mean something different every time it is said or read.

* * * *

What any other thinks of you, what you think of any other,
Is meaningless once you discern all things small to great,
Are ultimately within and without the source you truly are.

* * * *

Kiss up, kiss down, or serve all equally with fair intention,

Is always the choice of any who play the game of hierarchy.

* * * *

The real You is indivisible, unchanging, sovereign, absolute.

Repeat after me: I am the Way, I am the Truth, I am the Life.

* * * *

Still the mind, breathe in, breath out, in awareness, You are.

The seeker is that which is sought, it is that simple, that clear.

* * * *

What do all these thoughts, all this knowledge, all this trivia,
Mean, really, to a mind that has been stilled into eternal grace.

* * * *

Regarding any religious assumption, any spiritual speculation,

You really only know what someone else did not know, either.

* * * *

You are both the protagonist and antagonist of your own dream,

Your own jailer in an imaginary prison built of mind and senses.

456

True meditation is not at all forced,

And no tradition, no scripture, no posture, no symbol,

No dogma, no mantra, no status, no garb, no diet, no gender, no vernacular,

No attribute contrived by the monkey-mind is in any way required to abet its momentary process.

Pure awareness is the source, the baseline, the witness, of all quantum creation.

* * * *

However immense and majestic the vision these words may attempt to convey,

Its reality is so much greater than even the greatest imagination,

Will ever be able to even vaguely imagine.

* * * *

Perception is but a very infinitesimal, very biased sampling,

Of the quantum vibrating within all patternings,

Whose mystery is ever-present.

* * * *

Smart phones making for dumber and dumber people.

Finger quick with a click, but not a lick of sense,

On how to sow a seed, support its growth,

Or harvest and process it for the winters ahead.

* * * *

You are born now, you live now, you die now.

Time is just a temporary state of imagination.

* * * *

If someone was really going to take your advice,

Would they have even needed it in the first place?

* * * *

You are so caught up in the sensory dream,

So hypnotized, so conditioned, so brainwashed,

That you believe it all real, you believe it all important.

You believe everything thought, you believe everything felt.

All is vanity, nothing more, nothing less, nothing but,

And it the key to the mind in which you reside.

* * * *

Find your own voice, free of all the conditioning.

Free of the misinformation and disinformation of propaganda.

Free of the indoctrination and habituation of any brain-washing, whatsoever.

It is in there if you have the courage to stand alone against all tides.

457

There is no duality until consciousness diverges into the self that is not.

* * * *

Holodeck … Holoworld … Holoverse … ever an infinite matrix of unknowable origin.

* * * *

How does God create, but by being you and me, and everyone and everything else.

* * * *

How small is small, how large is large, depends how well you can see.

* * * *

There is a bridge for sale in your future if you are that gullible.

* * * *

Awareness is the quiet hum of the boundless awakeness.

* * * *

What imagination sows, imagination reaps.

* * * *

Only in consciousness do you suffer.

* * * *

Are you not weary of all the pretending?

* * * *

And this, is what we, in all our vanity, have created.

* * * *

Political correctness is the great malady of the monkey-mind.

* * * *

What are you to do with your brief flurry of time, but whatever time bids.

* * * *

There are those who create history, those who regurgitate it, and those who ignore it.

* * * *

You are as alive as you have ever been, or will ever be, in this very much right-here-right-now.

* * * *

The challenge is to never believe any speculation to be more than speculation.

458

What is existence but every moment fathoming, navigating, negotiating,

A quantum dreamtime that will never even once stop,

Until death do you merge.

* * * *

How can anyone ever even begin to settle,

For any infinitesimal egocentric-ethnocentric-geocentric-solarcentric vision,

Of this beyond-all-pales enigma of a mystery?

* * * *

The true scientist, the true historian, the true anything,

Never gives up questing as accurate a rendering,

As their swirl of consciousness can muster.

* * * *

All life is born of the same origin, the same source.

Despite our attachment to genetic bloodlines,

We are all cousins of the same puddle.

* * * *

Across the universe, throughout eternity,

There are an inestimable number of perceptions,

Within each and every imaginary moment,

From each and every imaginary angle.

So boggling as to make any mind,

Singularly serene in wonder.

* * * *

Satisfy your Self first and foremost.

What others think of you means nothing.

They will think whatever you think they think,

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

The quantum either of genesis is still evolving,

And we are all equal players in the dreaming of it.

Intelligent design, free and clear of idolatry or dogma.

* * * *

If this were your final minute, if the Reaper was hovering near,

What would you be doing? What would you be thinking?

Would you be all alone? Or surrounded by family and friends?

Would you be filled with sorrow? With regret? Or content to the brim?

459

One moment so quickly gone, another hour an hour too long.

Every one passing exactly the same, no matter the weather of any given mind.

Every one witnessed by the same omnipresent, indelible awareness,

That permeates equally all things from small to great.

* * * *

How quickly every moment passes the same.

Sometimes as terribly, swiftly ruthless as an enraged sword.

Others, as softly untroubled as a butterfly’s wing.

Yet ever the same, ever the same.

* * * *

Insanity in every nook, absurdity in every cranny.

Who can be helped, who will not help themselves?

Who can be saved, who will not save themselves?

* * * *

Opinions, opinions, opinions,

Opinions about this, that, and the other thing,

What do they really, truly mean?

Diddley-squat.

* * * *

We quarrel over anything and everything,

As if anything and everything really matter.

* * * *

The great number of hallucinogens,

That Gaia across her orb offers,

Take those open to inner exploration,

Down many trails, across many borders.

For those who would pursue a grander vision,

It a journey to be taken as dauntlessly as will allows.

* * * *

Why would anyone ever need or want to duplicate,

To imitate another’s life in any way, any shape, any form?

Live your own existence, free of any history, free of any burden.

* * * *

Many if not all things, end up being very different from what they started,

And yet the same all the while, is the irony and paradox,

Of this quantum matrix of a theater.

460

None can hold onto the good any longer, nor get through the bad any more quickly.

All must be enjoyed or endured as consciousness sanctions.

And the awareness ever untouched.

* * * *

What quality of parenting is there when parents are staring into screens,

And their offspring beside them, inhaling burgers, sucking up sodas?

* * * *

It is not original sin, it is original separation,

And it happens every instant one forsakes the eternal moment,

Every time one embraces the pretense of knowing,

Imagined by the mind bound in time.

* * * *

From the bliss of the womb,
Through the birth canal, into hell.
Thank you, Mother, thank you, Father,
For an excursion surely no one of sound mind,
Would ever even more than fleetingly fantasize taking.
And the real nightmare is you know what:
That it might well happen again.
Bwahahahahaha …

* * * *

Never forget that you are a part of the insanity,

That no matter every exertion of mind,

You are separate from nothing.

* * * *

Any definitions of that which is mystery,

As ludicrous as all descriptions ultimately are,

Should always be as nebulous as imagination allows.

* * * *

Each and every mind falls prey,

To whatever prompts the paramount delusion,

To whatever carves the deepest furrow in the patterned mind.

* * * *

Smoke and mirrors at each and every turn.

How can anyone who is honest be anything but agnostic,

About questions whose many answers can never be more than speculation?

461

Group dynamics are group dynamics, no matter the size or nature.

Really nothing more than tribalistic notions founded in the jungle long ago.

The common denominator of all religions, nation states, families, and high schools.

Just the monkey-mind over and over in different levels of self-absorption.

Egocentricity, ethnocentricity, geocentricity, heliocentricity,

Were written into the original DNA source code,

Long before the will born of mind,

Began plying Darwinian truth to its own ends.

* * * *

To share, to discuss, to examine, perchance to glean and appreciate,

The interminable contortions of all difference, all uniqueness;

Rather than make every attempt to change or destroy it.

* * * *

There are, no doubt, many, many extraordinary,

Inexplicable moments in any existence.

Porcelain thrones are like that.

* * * *

Quantum light.

Quantum sound.

Quantum vibration.

Quantum consciousness.

Quantum awareness.

Quantum mystery.

Quantum home.

I, Quantum.

* * * *

Discern the inescapable, one and only You,

That You are, have ever been, will ever be,

In the grand is not, never was, will never be.

* * * *

Why should anyone submit to the arbitrary dictates

Of any individual, any group, any tradition, any dogma?

To stand alone, free, untainted by time, is the indivisible way.

* * * *

Do you cling mindlessly to your passions?

Your desires, you fears, your angers, your likes and dislikes?

Let go in the awareness of mind; be free in the day-to-day, as the moment allows.

462

The anxiety over death is within those who live in a mind with every sort of dread.

If you are existing fully, if you are born and dying every moment,

Then what fear of the inevitable end finds harbor?

Eternal life is the inexorable grace,

Of those who discern their immortal nature.

* * * *

So absorbed by the space-time continuum of your little dream,

That only during rare moments in the given here and there,

Will you detach from the mind, a bag of neuron goo,

Seemingly filled with every imaginable inanity,

Born of the ceaselessness of consciousness.

* * * *

One must forget absolutely everything to discern that,

Which only the utter stillness of presence can know.

* * * *

The human paradigm is steadily approaching,

Its not very appealing decline, if not conclusion.

Kind of a reaching-the-edge-of-the-petri-dish thing.

* * * *

What was important yesterday likely is not today.

What is important today likely will not be tomorrow.

What is important tomorrow likely will not be the next.

* * * *

You believe what you choose to believe,

But believing does not, has never, and will never,

Make any falsehood or any fabrication into something true.

* * * *

Suspend the thought process,

The movement of the sensory mind-body,

Rest easy in the essential state, attentive to the ground,

To the eternal, in which the many boundaries between within and without,

Dissolve into the immeasurable prior to consciousness.

* * * *

To have gotten this far in life, to have reached this very here-now moment in time,

Is pretty friggin’ amazing, considering what it took to tolerate the agony-ecstasy of it all;

That you somehow managed to dodge, managed to survive, those many, many, very close calls.

463

No idol, no dogma, can compel anyone to be anything, that does not sally forth from within.

* * * *

When there is no place to be but wherever you are, where can death have any entry?

* * * *

Who can read such thoughts as these, whose ground is neither tilled nor fertile?

* * * *

Immerse in the quantum womb of that which is prior to consciousness.

* * * *

Good fortune is finding yourself in someone’s guardianship.

* * * *

Consciousness is movement; awareness just is.

* * * *

The singularity in every sort of disguise.

* * * *

Common sense, such as it is.

* * * *

Yes, it is that simple.

* * * *

Aloneness is its own harbor.

* * * *

What is death but the end of vanity.

* * * *

What are the loins but quantum heir looms.

* * * *

Why do you feel any need to participate in it as you do?

* * * *

What need for compassion in this ever-churning God-eat-God universe?

* * * *

From the infinity prior to all beginnings, to the infinity beyond all endings, You are.

464

If the reality humankind is creating is not all that appealing, should you pretend everything is wonderful?

Or call a spade a spade, and hazard being unpopular, hazard being shunned by the other monkeys?

To be of the mob, or not to be of the mob; to be alone, or not to be alone, that is the question.

* * * *

Fear is the harvest of all the agony and ecstasy imprinted in the mind and body.

Transcend it via the quantum field, where imagination is but a flurry of stardust.

* * * *

Every one’s account of awakeness cannot help but be different,

As are all things that emerge from the ground of consciousness,

Conditioning being such a strong mainstay of its erratic nature.

* * * *

The mystery of this vast creation is a beyond-the-pale enigma.

The Greatest Story is at best to be surmised, never told.

All notions are but speculations of imagination.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothings but.

* * * *

Talk to anyone as much as you please,

It is up to them to listen as sincerely as possible,

To get the truest, most viable translation.

It is about inquiry, not dogma.

* * * *

The quantum matrix programming is indivisible,

Indelible, indifferent, inexorable, indissoluble, indefatigable;

Intelligible only through the incisive code-breaking,

Of mathematics, art, music, linguistics,

And other paradigms intuited by imagination.

* * * *

The newborn is but simple awareness.

The identity that will gradually in imagination bloom,

Will be the mind-body’s nature-nurture adaptation to the sensory theater.

The means to survive, to endure physically and psychologically,

The dreamtime into which it has been by mystery cast.

* * * *

What need for belief, for hope, for faith, for love, for philosophy, for fealty, for dogma,

For any attributes born of the other, which are but ever-moving shadows within the ultimate.

What is, is, and it is an immeasurable, indelible awareness, prior to any and all quantum theaters.

465

All become inured to a certain degree of physical and mental pain and suffering,

To where even a twisted ankle, a burnt finger, or the plucking of a nose hair,

May barely warrant much more than a fleeting curse by a few synapses.

* * * *

The monkey-mind lays claim to every imaginable expression of behavior.

What rock has not been turned myriad times, well beyond remembering?

* * * *

The time of consequences will increasingly play itself out,

Until the Reaper finally plucks you off the stage.

Keep a couple coins handy for Charon.

* * * *

What is knowledge but busy-busy distraction,

From the what is of the unfolding moment.

* * * *

What is death but not waking up again.

Nothing to anticipate, nothing to dread.

Nothing to hope for, nothing to believe.

All attributes are but the mirage of mind.

* * * *

When your gods, your idols, your dogmas,

Have for the last of many times failed you,

Perhaps you will at last learn to stand alone,

* * * *

Imagination sallies forth,

Always behind, no matter the moment.

The collusion putters on of its own synergistic whimsy.

* * * *

Suicide is not cheating death;

Only taking a hand in how it will happen,

Rather than lingering for a more tedious, painful finale.

Charon still earns his obol for yet another voyage across the river Styx.

* * * *

The manifest space-time continuum is not linear.

It is a boundless, indivisible, multidimensional, quantum matrix,

Eternally singular, inexplicable, but for imagination’s dynamic, time-bound dream.

466

Specialists often tend to be blind to many things outside their sliver of interest,

And generalists too wide-ranging to cultivate much depth in the immensity of theirs.

It can be a cannot-see-the-forest-through-the-trees, trees-despite-the-forest, chasm thing.

* * * *

All monkey-mind interpretations are but imaginary, subjective, self-absorbed confabulations,

Of the egocentric-ethnocentric-geocentric-chronocentric-heliocentric-cosmoscentric kind.

* * * *

So many spending their existence trying to be good, trying to stay out of trouble,

Based on the contrived belief in an extremely jealous, vengeful deity,

That will see that they are eternally judged and punished,

If they fall short of the dogmatic mark.

* * * *

Much easier to worship idols,

Much easier to follow someone else’s law,

Than it is to perceive the timeless within for your Self.

Many are called; few are inclined.

So it goes.

* * * *

For anyone to believe any mind-born creed,

Is for whatever reason favored by some all-mighty deity,

Has always be an absurd ethnocentric notion.

* * * *

Many may have been called,

But relatively few seem to have answered.

So much ignorance, so much rancor, so much willful harm.

How draining to watch the garden daily diminish.

Who would ever need witness it again?

* * * *

There is always the potential for anything,

To evolve into any given mind’s dogmatic agenda.

Best to always keep that critical-thinking gauge on full alert,

Including toward your own genetic proclivity for narrow-mindedness.

* * * *

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost.

How bothersome great adulation would be for many of those destined to see.

Anonymity, within and without, is an agreeable aspect of the freedom sovereignty allows.

467

Despite the muddle humanity has in every way imaginable made of it,

How can it possibly be, that all creation is not fashioned of the same source?

All the creeds ever devised across all eternity, cannot negate this one indelible truth:

That the quantum in one, is the quantum in all, and the quantum in all, is the quantum in one.

No one possesses the ultimate indivisibility, any more than anyone or anything else,

Regardless of the incalculable machinations of the undiscerning multitudes,

Given over to every imaginable paradigm, under any given sun.

Do not be drawn into delusion by the fog of words.

Monkey-see-monkey-do is not bona fide.

* * * *

Best stay detached from humanity's ceaseless inanities.

Until the splintered souls of this dualistic world wake up,

The insane absurdities of estrangement will carry on.

Some sort of realization may or may not happen,

But there is no point being daily upset about it.

* * * *

That which is prior to consciousness is awareness.

Awareness is timeless; consciousness, time.

Awareness is still; consciousness, movement.

Awareness is reality; consciousness, imagination.

It is what it is; nothing less, nothing more, nothing but.

* * * *

All you are, all anyone or anything else is,

Is the timeless awareness playing out a pattern,

A blueprint, a design, an archetype, a genetic construct.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

Is this whole dream, is all of eternity,

Just an interminable recording going on and on?

The unknowable, merely playing it all out to pass the time.

A cavernous awareness simultaneously inhaling,

Through every eye, every single moment.

* * * *

Most are likely easy targets, should anyone want to do them harm.

The challenge in this dreamtime, is to either make as few adversaries as possible,

Or to have the wherewithal to build castles and armies great enough to fend off the barbarians.

Not too many actors get to play pharaohs and kings and other warlord roles,

So, most must choose the former as the fickle fates allow.

468

Philosophers, students of existence that they are, ponder anything and everything.

No stone is left unturned as many times as are needed to learn,

Whatever it is he/she is born to discern.

We are all seekers seeking out one fate or another.

* * * *

The river would not be but for the spring at its source.

And the spring but for the clouds from the sea,

And the sea but for the returning river.

To every thing there is a season,

A time to every purpose.

* * * *

Just you, totally alone, absolute, indivisible,

The senses streaming a world, a universe,

To which no time or space is attached,

The eternal life of the quantum soul.

* * * *

What are you, but,

A historical collage,

An economic statistic,

An anthropological result,

A psychological adaptation,

A sociological paradigm,

A scientific curiosity.

* * * *

All sense of persona, of self,

Is a temporal fabrication of imagination,

Of the winds of consciousness blowing every which way.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

Consciousness is an evolutionary mutation of instinct.

The fruit of this garden world is knowledge.

Once it was plucked from the vine,

Once Pandora’s Box was opened,

Once the Genie was out of the bottle,

All the cards followed suit, all the dominos fell.

Much less about original sin than it is original separation.

The rub is reattaching the fruit, closing the box, corking the bottle,

Shuffling the cards, and somehow putting Humpty-Dumpty back together again.

469

Why would anyone be unable to see this mystery as anything but a spontaneous creation?

Why would anyone embrace any make-believe dogma, when none are essential?

Why would anyone adhere to a deity limited by any vain confabulation?

Why would anyone debate the fact that they are whatever it is?

Why would anyone ever feel the need to be anything,

But very much present, very much right here, right now.

* * * *

Humans are always so wrapped up in what others think of them.

What a curious dependency is bred into our monkey blueprint.

* * * *

What is this monkey-mind need to identify with things,

To always be describing ourselves in so many ways,

Tagging ourselves as so many this’s and that’s?

As if all the labels have ever meant anything.

* * * *

We are just DNA doing what DNA does.

Toss consciousness into the instinctual cauldron,

And you have the good, the bad, the ugly,

In spades beyond counting.

* * * *

What greater serenity can there be,

Than to be alone with one’s thoughts,

Steeped in the timelessness of awareness.

* * * *

Envision a mystery, so immensely now,

As to include You in its field of awareness.

You as one of its countless eternal witnesses.

Indivisibly one, in every way creation sanctions.

* * * *

Imagine, if you will, a poker table with Santa Claus,

The Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Peter Pan, and Jesus,

All wearing baseball caps, chomping on cigars, sipping whiskey.

* * * *

Bother that it is for those who must endure the mortal aspect,

The quantum essence cannot know its Self but through creation of the other,

In as many ways as possible as often as possible, to better reflect upon all things imaginable.

470

Wisdom is the upshot of a great deal of pleasure, a great deal of pain, in every way imaginable.

It is the outcome of having witnessed patterns over and over enough,

To well anticipate their inevitability.

* * * *

You must have a deep and earnest yearning for oblivion to discern it for long,

Elsewise, the inattentive mind rockets off in one direction or another,

And there you are, back in the same old, tired, hurried flux.

* * * *

Are you the identity to which you so resolutely cling,

Or the ephemeral awareness that perceives it all,

Prior to consciousness, prior to imagination?

* * * *

Curious how so many seem to choose,

To spend so much of their supine existence,

In little boxes suckling the dreary teat,

Of rambling bureaucratic malaise.

* * * *

How similar we are in our differences.

How different we are in our similarities.

* * * *

Call it justice, call it revenge,

But some form of law will be kept,

By whoever possesses the fiercest club,

In whatever way the pendulum of time swings.

* * * *

This world is filled with great violence and chaos.

Most cannot afford a bodyguard, much less an escort,

So it is prudent to always be at the ready should need arise.

Si vis pacem, para bellum: If you want peace, prepare for war.

* * * *

It seems far less likely that humans were made in the image of some deity,

Than they are fashioned of the infinite imagination of singular quantum design.

* * * *

A fist is a stone is a club is a sword is a spear is an arrow is a bullet is a bomb is a missile.

In warfare born in the jungles, in the rivalries of long ago, the relativity of tool-making is all.

471

Life is only as free as you do not poop on someone else’s freedom,

And then it becomes the law of might makes right, the law of club and fang,

And idioms galore about power and control rolling on down the line.

* * * *

Strands of chromosomes,

Since matter’s transformation into existence,

Competing across the board in every way for survival, for supremacy,

For immortality of the mortal kind.

* * * *

Sometimes you give your attention to consciousness.

Sometimes you give your attention to awareness.

And in the end, it does not really matter at all.

There is no meter, there is no final judgment.

It is a three-dimensional quantum dream,

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

Rest assured, it shall carry on without you.

* * * *

To whom but the rare inscrutable few,

Is silence more sweet than clamor?

Sightlessness sweeter than sight?

Tastelessness sweeter than taste?

Oderlessness sweeter than smell?

Touchlessness sweeter than touch?

Thoughtlessness sweeter than thought?

* * * *

If you want to sustain mental health,

If you want to prevent something like suicide,

Perhaps you should transform this overwhelmed world,

Into something in which people want to carry on.

* * * *

Every time you start that conversation with some stranger,

A new perspective, a new world, a new universe, slowly unfolds,

Each one its own flavor from sweet to sour to salty to bitter to umami.

* * * *

We are all patterns seeking some sort of respite, some sort of reprieve,

From whatever purgatory the sensory-mind every twinkling, imagines real.

The promises of God, of heaven, of eternal bliss, however hollow, are an easy sell.

472

Regarding destiny: Do you choose it? Or does it choose you?

Is there free will, chock-full of options, in this theater of space and time?

Or is the entire reverie nothing more than an indivisible, juggernauting recording,

An infinite matrix witnessed by the ultimate you in every way imaginable?

* * * *

Most everyone is going round and round one track or another.

But there are some dazzling random exceptions,

And they lead remarkable lives.

* * * *

Total freedom is the end of the countless assumptions,

Born of the busy-busy, incessantly chattering mind,

The dancer dancing in the nowness of awareness.

* * * *

Are you moving through time and space?

Or is time and space moving through you?

Or is anything, anywhere, moving at all?

* * * *

When you are completely, totally, alone,

You need not believe or pretend anything.

You can be free to be absolutely nothing.

* * * *

The real you is not this flesh-and-bones edifice.

All identification is unqualified fabrication.

No concept can encompass anyone or anything.

All definitions are deficient, no matter how profound.

* * * *

Every life form is of a seed line,

An eternal thread of life sowing new life,

All evolving from life’s origin, however it began,

To which speculation and conjecture proffer every answer.

That the unknown is forever unknowable does not seem to register.

* * * *

What irony that in the face of an incredibly astonishing mystery,

Humankind has lost itself in an absurd collusion of every possible vanity.

An entirely imaginary invention, this myopic notion of a separate, individual persona.

A duality sparked in consciousness, when it began its evolutionary spin in the jungles of long ago.

473

There are no followers in the journey toward wisdom and beyond.

One may peruse the many thoughts of those who have come and gone before,

But the expedition into the great unknown, is, as it has ever been, an unqualified solo act.

* * * *

When has the awareness ever seen more than an ever-changing reflection,

Of any eyes through which it is has peered out upon its given universe?

* * * *

Physics is physics, chemistry is chemistry, biology is biology.

Nature is what it is; the rubrics of the game are set.

Play well, or suffer the consequences.

* * * *

History tends to raise winners to pedestals,

And spin losers to denigrated, even vilified obscurities.

The true histories, well, how many, if not all,

Are long lost in the sands of time?

* * * *

How big is big? How small is small?

Scientists, mathematicians, and other bean counters,

Always adding zeroes to every end,

To what end?

* * * *

In all its interminable forms and concepts,

The idolatry to which the monkey-mind is prone,

Shares across the board the same absurdity.

* * * *

A world jam-packed with inane choices,

To which alternative thinking is looked at askance,

And often times with violent aversion.

* * * *

What is the universe, but very tiny, very brief sparkles,

In the grand infinity of the inexplicable eye of awareness.

* * * *

Science that does not flow with nature is not science.

Science that manipulates nature to unnatural ends is not science.

Science that generates mayhem and destruction upon the garden is not science.

474

And why should not every day be rife with contemplation of the unknown?

Why should not every day, even in the tempest of great activity, be a day of rest?

What is it so many are striving to be, to prove, in this most astounding dream of time?

* * * *

From the neurology of the primal brainstem, the dawn of consciousness,

Gradually evolved into the imaginary perception of a separate self.

The inherent collusion of a species on its journey of survival.

In the nothing more, nothing less, nothing but of it all,

The challenge is to move on to the final chapter,

To discern the unconditional singularity,

The origin of all things quantum.

Whether or not that will ever happen,

Will be in some far-future-stay-tuned telling.

* * * *

Took a long time to put this world together.

Shame to see it ravaged so thoughtlessly.

* * * *

A writer is precise with words,

A mathematician, with numbers,

An artist, with shape and color,

An athlete, with movement,

A musician, with notes.

Each its own genius.

* * * *

The eye of mystery is within all,

But it is the rare who seek and discern it,

And the rarer still, who become it.

* * * *

Observe your world, your universe, for your Self.

What need have you for anyone else’s conclusion?

* * * *

Spend your life helping others wake up to a larger perspective?

Why bother them if they are content in their stewpot of suffering?

* * * *

Ultimately, the task is to move beyond flag-waving for some mind-made outcome,

And discern that you are really a resident, a citizen, of the cosmos, across all eternity.

475

You work so hard to become something in this world, in this manifest dream.

Challenging to realize, challenging to accept, that it was all for nothing.

The winds of vanity … nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

Who can out-Schopenhauer Schopenhauer?

Who can out-Wittgenstein Wittgenstein?

Who can out-Heraclitus Heraclitus?

Who can out-Aristotle Aristotle?

Who can out-Buddha Buddha?

Who can out-Kafka Kafka?

Who can out-Plato Plato?

Who can out-Hess Hess?

Who can out-Marx Marx?

Who can out-Sartre Sartre?

Who can out-Spinoza Spinoza?

Who can out-Lao Tzu Lao Tzu?

Who can out-Descartes Descartes?

Who can out-Nietzsche Nietzsche?

Who can out-Vonnegut Vonnegut?

Who can out-Confucius Confucius?

Who can out-Zoroaster Zoroaster?

Who can out-Shankara Shankara?

Who can out-Epicurus Epicurus?

Who can out-Aurelius Aurelius?

Who can out-Voltaire Voltaire?

Who can out- Locke Locke?

Who can out-Hegel Hegel?

Who can out-Kant Kant?

Who can out-Jesus Jesus?

Who can out-Camus Camus?

Who can out-Socrates Socrates?

Who can out-Heidegger Heidegger?

Who can out-Muhammad Muhammad?

Who can out-Krishnamurti Krishnamurti?

Who can out-philosophize the weight of history?

Hemmed in by the sages of the ages, we are, we are.

* * * *

The quantum clayness plays out any given genetic function,

Without judgment, without qualification, without rhyme or reason.

Consciousness is witness to the innumerable differences,

Awareness, to the indivisibility of the all.

476

Once the life course has been set, once the world view has been molded,

A fair number of monkey-minds do not do well with too many choices, too many options.

Many feel the need to change, even destroy anyone, anything that is too different,

Which for some means almost everyone and everything on the planet.

What a thing to be so confined, so narrowed, so limited,

So incapable of embracing the great all of it.

* * * *

Why maintain any sense of fabricated self, any sense of imaginary identity, at all?

To pretend you are other than the awareness of the eternal moment,

That which is real, that which is true, that which is all,

Why would you want to do such a thing?

* * * *

So many artists, so many inventers, so late in the game, looking for a novel niche,

Something no one has, under the given sun, ever done.

Good luck with that.

* * * *

Krishna, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zoroaster, Moses, Jesus,

Socrates, Aristotle, Muhammad, Confucius,

And on and on and yawn and yawn.

All clichés, all stereotypes,

All two-dimensional souvenirs,

Afflictions of time upon the timeless.

* * * *

You fell into the dark pool, the primal abyss of vanity.

To what narcissistic delusion will you submit this day?

* * * *

In the statistical relativity of it all,

Things likely could be far worse or far better.

Gratitude is an attitude, a mindset well worth cultivating,

If the hand you have been dealt in this game of life is at all equitable.

Count your blessings if you are so fortunate as to have some.

* * * *

Here you are: eating, drinking, sitting, walking, running;

Living out each and every day, sleeping through each and every night.

Here you are, witnessing the sensory dream playing out every moment in your mind.

Here you are, seeking meaning and purpose, in a vista that offers none,

But through imaginary intercourse with perception.

477

What is humankind but an assortment of strands of evolving-devolving chromosomes,

Rushing about in every way imaginable, often pretending all the while,

That its little play of consciousness is somehow important,

To a cosmos likely indifferent to its existence.

* * * *

Insight into the unknown has never been a group thing, and never will be.

Groupthink only muddles the truth of it into one absurdity or another.

* * * *

True religion, true belief, true faith, true conviction,

Is surrender to the beingness, the aloneness of the eternal moment.

There is no deity, no creed, no dogma, no groupthink.

It is for you, and you alone, to discover.

So simple, as to be discerned, in each and every breath.

* * * *

And to those who abide in the biblical framework,

What is the length of a day, what is the length of a night?

What is anything having to do with space-time,

To those harboring the eternal eye?

* * * *

Why would anyone ever be in denial about the good news,

That they are the quantum creator experiencing its creation?

* * * *

Dissolve back into the quantum womb of your origin.

Free of all desire for existence, free of all fear of existence,

Discern the unicity, be the unicity, prior to all born of imagination.

* * * *

Your body and mind are riddled with every sort of fear and worry,

The post-traumatic stress of the synergy of life’s ever-streaming currents,

Some soft, some harsh, but all sculpting you, as the winds of time do all things.

* * * *

Challenging, perhaps all but impossible,

Not to discern the sensory present through the countless filters,

The mind-body’s tree rings from a lifetime of abiding the dreamtime of the given universe.

Only the newborn perceives it for the kaleidoscoping unknown that it ever is,

And none for long as the mind steadily puts order to the chaos

Into which it has from oblivion been cast.

478

The ultimate truth, by whatever metaphors are used to describe it, is unquestionable,

Undoubtable, indisputable, unarguable, undebatable, incontestable, undeniable, irrefutable,

Incontrovertible, unmistakable, unequivocal, certain, sure, positive, definite, absolute, conclusive,

Watertight, ironclad; beyond doubt, beyond the shadow of a doubt, beyond dispute,

Beyond question, not in question, not in doubt, sure as shootin'.

* * * *

When you respect others, you give them your attention,

When others respect you, they give you theirs.

Fairly simple, if egos can manage it.

* * * *

Believe it or not, like it or not,

Existence requires a certain discipline.

A knowing when to say yes, and when to mean no.

An opaque awareness that every streaming moment flowers anew,

To new decisions in the ever-changing coursing of time,

And that balance is required to meet it rightly.

* * * *

Pardon me for inquiring, but why do some humans …

Seem to loathe nature and her many creations?

Become so determined to control others?

Go to such extremes to feel happy?

Believe gold so important?

Seem to delight in hurting others?

Partake in so many preposterous notions?

Corrupt the world with so many unproven creations?

Despise so many others simply because they abide by different values?

Become so vain about their bodies that they cloak them with every imaginable costume?

Focus on so many differences when there is so much more in common?

Acquire so much more than they could ever need or use?

Bear children in whom they have little interest?

Create a world so indigent and forlorn?

Learn so little from history,

And are so blind to its reckoning?

* * * *

What is the Buddha mind, the eternal mind,

But the mind that thinks without thinking, sees without seeing,

Hears without hearing, smells without smelling, tastes without tasting, feels without feeling.

The sensory theater is but an ephemeral, ever-kaleidoscoping dream.

A quantum play, nothing more, nothing less.

479

What would it have been like to only know a tiny slice of this garden world?

To have lived among a small group in forest, a valley, a prairie, a mountain, an island, a desert.

Communicating orally using a unique language spawned by the given geography.

Scratching out an arduous existence with nascent tools and weapons.

Wearing simple attire, living in caves or modest shelters.

Hunting, fishing, gathering, harvesting.

Consuming whatever the niche about you offered.

Gazing up at the boundless unknown in wonder, perhaps in dread.

Weaving stories, establishing traditions, rituals, customs; creating myths, legends, gods.

The prehistoric etchings of what we vainly call the modern, civilized world,

All in the same eternal moment it has always been, will ever be.

* * * *

We spend so much of our existence spouting over and over and over:

I am this … I am that … I am not this … I am not that … I am … I am … I am …

When in truth it has all along been the indivisible quantum nothingness,

Playing a timeless game of hide-and-seek with its Self.

* * * *

We are all that which is of the same origin, the same creation.

But relatively few at any given time seem to be conscious of it.

And even if we all were, would the world be all that different?

* * * *

You are the gap in the sparkplug,

The center around which the wheel turns,

The space around which the clay vessel wraps itself,

The ocean, within which, currents flow, upon which, waves crash.

* * * *

There are no experts, there is no mastery,

Once you realize we are all just beginners here,

Prisoners of our own device, programmed to receive,

Some with minds jam-packed with more insights than others.

All are ultimately of the same essence, just filled with different notions.

You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave.

* * * *

How did we evolve into playing it out in such discordant fashion?

What is this monkey-mind need to believe in anything?

What is this insatiable craving for power, for fame, for fortune?

Here we are, somewhere near or past the summit of our brief history of time,

And where can it possibly go, but into some dystopian nightmare, on a sure road to extinction.

480

You who witness the enigma, ponder the esoteric,

Will take thoughts such as these wherever your mind is prepared to go.

The ground is tilled, the seed planted, the field watered, the shoots trimmed, the buds blossoming.

All for naught in the grand scheme of things, but that is the so-it-goes wonder of it.

* * * *

What would existence be like if you were completely alone for the rest of your life?

Whether in a valley, a forest, a mountain, a desert, a tundra, or an island,

What would it be like to never see another human being again?

* * * *

No set of writings, no persona, no group,

Should ever be accepted thoughtlessly as some authority.

Everything should be approached vigilantly, rationally, with a critical eye.

You are captain of the given mind-body to which You are witness.

Take command of your helm, navigate your own course.

History has its station, but You are here now.

* * * *

Breathe in the cosmos … breathe out the cosmos …

What is to believe?

* * * *

Delusion: an idiosyncratic belief or impression,

That is firmly maintained despite being contradicted,

By what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument,

Typically a symptom of mental disorder.

* * * *

The mystery, the unknowable you truly are, is utterly anonymous.

Identity is but the temporal fabrication of consciousness,

Of imagination, and its secular attachment to form.

The source, the awareness, is prior to time, prior to mind,

And the rare who fully discern it, abide in the unassuming solitude,

The sovereign, unconditional, indivisible, immortal aloneness of eternal life.

* * * *

To accept blindly is foolish; to doubt rationally is prudent.

Why should you accept anything you have not discerned for your Self?

Why accept any fable, any myth, any legend, any folktale, any fairytale, any invention,

Without some reservation, some critical inquiry, some judicious oversight?

481

What is news but gossip with varying levels of exhortation to give it an aura of great importance.

Why we give attention to unfolding events across the world, or even across town,

Is the mystery of the monkey-mind and its evolutionary roots.

* * * * *

All religion, all science, all technology, are proving to be ultimately nonsensical.

What is the point, the raison d'être of all this knowledge, really,

If it only ends up in mayhem and annihilation?

* * * *

Knowledge arrives after the fact, and wisdom is its gradual distillation.

And wisdom – for those perchance giving it their attention –

May well discern coming ripples before the fact,

And waylay need for more grappling of the bothersome kind.

* * * *

All knowledge, all assumptions, all speculations,

Are they really anything more than time-bound distractions,

From the eternal seamlessness of the nothingness,

That can never be more than imagined.

* * * *

There are far too many variables unleashed,

To be scientifically certain of anything, really.

A statistical sample is about as good as it gets.

* * * *

The human mind-body is evolved of nature,

But its abstract, emotional, time-bound paradigm,

Is not nature’s ingenuous, serendipitous way.

* * * *

How is the human species really any different,

Than lemmings irreversibly rushing towards oblivion?

What is this dream, but patterns within patterns within patterns?

* * * *

Assume that just about everyone has a number, an algorithm,

No different than any cow or pig or chicken in these our modern times.

You are free to say or do pretty much anything. as long as you do not talk too loud,

Or do something annoying, something disruptive, to the powers that be,

Such that your name flashes on some bureaucratic screen,

And the jungle’s bogeymen are unleashed.

482

Why would you believe, beyond-the-pale-more-than-unlikely events, happened thousands of years ago,

When you have never once, witnessed anything outside the bounds of natural law?

All are folklore born in the forges of one groupthink or another,

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

Within the unfathomable immensity of the quantum matrix, endless fallacies flourish:

Mirages, hallucinations, illusions, visions, delusions, fantasies, figments.

Where the unreal is made real, form after kaleidoscoping form.

Where every Kansas is an Oz, and every rope a snake,

Until with a sharpened blade of discernment,

The Gordian Knot is cut, and all again real become.

* * * *

What goes through the mind of a child when queried,

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Such a peculiar question to ask any soul,

Still wafting serenely in the uncarved essence.

* * * *

What an infantile vision of God so many entertain,

Usually with it being all about them, all about theirs,

And their all-too-often irrational, drama-coated lives.

* * * *

Change up the sensory field:

Look with your ears, listen with your fingers,

Feel with your nose, smell with your tongue, taste with your eyes.

In a quantum mystery already well beyond the pale,

What is there that is not conceivable?

* * * *

Best take reasonable care of the body.

It is the portal through which the dream is experienced,

Through which You witness whatever slice of mystery You have been allotted.

Life offers too many challenges to not be able to face it squarely,

With as much health and well-being, as possible.

* * * *

Might be better to call ‘The Truth’ by some other sound

– The Way, The Mystery, The Indivisible, The Great Zambini, or some such vibration –

So as to avoid making the error of believing it is any kind of thing,

Rather than the ungraspable enigma that it is.

483

If you break down existence into its many parts, sub-parts, and sub-sub-parts:

Food, sex, work, play, cutting the nails, trimming the verge, agony and ecstasy, ad infinitum,

Going round and round in the same groove, doing the same old thing over and over,

What would really be so enticing about existing in some imaginary forever?

The manifest dream must renew its Self, else it will die of ennui.

* * * *

Every life form ever born manifests unique facets of awareness;

Of intelligence, intuition, practicality, acumen, judgment, knowledge, wisdom.

All of which enable it to survive, to abide, to perhaps even thrive,

In its wee little niche, in the given patch of jungle.

* * * *

We are all shards of the same crest-jewel of consciousness,

Droplets of the same ocean, slices of the same pie,

Observers of the same quantum matrix.

Why struggle or suffer over it?

* * * *

This one is right, that one is wrong, is only true,

For those who see the world in black and white,

And brusque, brook-no-argument lines, between.

* * * *

If suffering is your favored teacher,

If pain is the only way to get through that thick skull,

Then suffer well, friend, suffer well.

* * * *

If something really means something to you,

Is important enough to want to give it your time,

What is there to do but heed the call wherever it leads?

* * * *

Even if you were some sort of super being,

Able to burst across the universe in a single bound,

It would still be in this very eternal, very singular moment.

It would still be yet another inexplicable twist of the indelible origin.

* * * *

No quantity of alcohol, nor any other drug, will have the same effect on everyone.

Each and every container operates on an exclusive range of capacities and limitations.

There may be many statistical similarities, but we are all unique universes unto our Selves.

484

The mind being what it is, how possible is it to ever be completely free of the mindset,

The meme, the filter, the conditioning, the patterning, the habituating, the brainwashing,

Of any given body, any given family, any given group, any given culture, any given origin?

Imagination requires one starting point, one underpinning or another,

From which to launch into the dream of time.

* * * *

A few metaphors from a thesaurus, for the mind brewing in equanimity: Composure,

Calm, level-headedness, self-possession, coolheadedness, presence of mind;

Serenity, tranquility, phlegm, imperturbability, equilibrium; poise,

Assurance, self-confidence, aplomb, sangfroid, nerve.

* * * *

Consciousness is the movement within a bubble of manifest awareness,

Whose brief mortal dreamtime allows the grand quantum mystery,

To witness its Self in whatever way the genetic lottery spins.

* * * *

Perhaps we should stop deluding ourselves that our kind,

And the world at large, are heading for a happy ending.

A happy ending only means the story is not yet over.

* * * *

Each and every life form,

Perceives its own version of the matrix.

None is more real, none is more true, than any other.

* * * *

Any given life so full of memories,

And all of them, even those just moments ago,

Seem such distant things in the mindscape of perception.

* * * *

What is it to be a man? What is it to be a woman?

What is it to be absorbed, captivated, in some between?

Each and every human being across the world, across time,

Grappling with their reality at the center stage of the given world.

None really right, none really wrong, just imagination having its way.

* * * *

To project our monkey-mind collusion upon the cosmos,

And whatever unknowable mysteries are afoot in the infinity of it all,

Ever falls into a realm of self-deception, well beyond the pale of any mortal vision.

485

We are all wandering the quantum matrix.

Sometimes running, sometimes walking, sometimes standing,

Sometimes swimming, sometimes flying, sometimes waking, sometimes sleeping.

But of the same infinitely inexplicable mystery, all the while.

* * * *

From cradle to grave, existence is in large part, about consumption.

Whenever there is a hunger, the choice is to forgo it or feed it,

Until the sensation no longer maintains it potent sway.

Moderation in all things, ever proves itself the wisest policy.

* * * *

There are those who attain clarity, those in and out of the fog,

And those whose existences, are forever a muddled quandary.

* * * *

What you perceive, is also, in its own fashion, perceiving you.

The observer is the observed, the observed is the observer.

* * * *

By means great or small, your mortal conclusion is assured.

From formlessness to formlessness, a brief dream between.

* * * *

No matter how you will it so, you are of the quantum genesis,

And can never, in more than in the filament of imagination, part.

* * * *

You seek nirvana, bliss, grace, samadhi, call it whatever you will.

Well, just still the thoughts, detach from the world, and breathe.

Yet another perception in the ephemeral pool of indelible awareness.

Available whenever the given mind can, to such indivisibility, be managed.

* * * *

You believe that you exist,

But in which now are you the you that you pretend?

This one? … This one? … This one? … This one? … This one? … This one? …

* * * *

You really – despite a mind chock-full of so-called religious knowledge,

To which you cleave with such self-absorbed tenacity – do not know anything of the great unknown.

All you are doing is regurgitating the countless absurdities of universes forever undone,

Instead of fully living in the given right-here-right-now, free of all claims.

486

As with any organism small to great born into this whirling garden world,

Human consciousness seeks out similar wavelengths within the spectrum of possibilities,

Thus preserving, spreading whatever perceptions, whatever memes, are harbored in the given mindset.

To discern one’s conditioning, and perchance to be free of it, or at least attentive to it,

Requires a skeptical, introspective nature of the highest order.

* * * *

Those who know of you, shall remember both the good and bad about you,

But gradually, they will cease thinking about you, except in rarer and rarer moments,

Until all traces of you wash away, and you are forgotten completely,

As all things finite eventually are, and must ever be.

Vanity is but the wind of mind.

* * * *

The frame of reference, that bag of knowledge, that stew of perception,

Is but a phantasm of consciousness, a.k.a., imagination.

What you really are is prior to it all.

Discern it, and be as free as the moment allows.

* * * *

Who knows who, who knows what, who knows where,

Who knows when, who knows why, who knows how,

But the sensory consciousness you imagine you are.

* * * *

Do not confuse what you imagine, or what you do,

With the prior-to-consciousness awareness You are.

* * * *

Strands of genes collide and merge into new life.

Each and every one matchless in its own dream of time,

Each and every one an immeasurably vast cosmos unto its Self.

* * * *

What are love, hate, and other four-letter words?

It is in deeds that the truth of any and all are truly known;

Not in the capricious sounds issuing ceaselessly through the larynx.

* * * *

How many things will you thieve before you discern the meaning of honesty?

How many deceptions will you spawn before you discern the meaning of integrity?

How many people will you harm or destroy before you discern the meaning of compassion?

How much life will you live before you realize every act ripples out far and wide?

487

For any newborn, fresh from the womb, a whole agony-ecstasy existence underway,

And no operator’s manual to aid in the long and winding labyrinth.

Just a world chock-full of memes striving diligently,

To absorb them in endless absurdity.

* * * *

What is birth but the beginning of a story, and death its end.

It is in the manifestation, the consciousness, that all creation unfolds.

For the newborn, not a care in the world – chaste awareness,

Witnessing the senses buzz away, slowly sculpting,

The chronicle, the legend, the fate ahead.

* * * *

When you are done with it all,

When you have consumed in every way, more than enough,

Then it is time to do absolutely nothing,

As often as possible.

* * * *

You have been diminishing since you were conceived,

But it is not until it becomes steadily, readily apparent,

That it becomes absorbingly, annoyingly bothersome.

* * * *

With all our so-called astuteness and aptitude,

To ultimately comport as mindlessly as any cancer,

Is irony and absurdity intertwined well beyond measure.

* * * *

An examined existence is an unlikely probability,

In those whose thoughts been prompted by a dreary education,

Bent on shaping the given mind into a mundane widget of the ordinary sort.

* * * *

What is the point of an education that does not inspire critical thinking?

What is the point of an education that does not inspire the mettle to inquire fully?

What is the point of an education that does not inspire the capacity to question everything?

* * * *

What are the sensory organs – eyes, ears, tongue, nose, flesh – of any mortal vessel,

But readers of the ever-streaming colors, flavors, tastes, smells, and textures.

What is any universe, but awareness witnessing the creative handiwork,

Of the mind’s rendering of the data, the nervous system weaves?

488

All the words and symbols, all the theories and speculations, mean diddly-squat.

It is up to you to perceive, on your own, all alone, for your Self,

The one and only You, prior to consciousness.

* * * *

What is it, to be completely vulnerable, spontaneous, without artifice?

To bear no vain notion, to merely exist, without concern or motive?

* * * *

The mind caught in the web of friend and foe,

Will find the true enemy is the division within.

* * * *

What insurance policy is there, really,

That can more than gloss over, the suffering,

Of this exceedingly mortal existence?

* * * *

Truth is truth, reality is reality,

Bound by neither light nor sound,

By neither form nor concept,

Bound by nothing in all.

* * * *

You may speak the truth clear as day,

But only those hungry for what is real,

Can hear a voice from the wilderness.

* * * *

Right begets wrong; wrong begets right.

Love begets hate; hate begets love.

Yes begets no; no begets yes.

Good begets bad; bad begets good.

White begets black; black begets white.

In everything, its contrary, waiting to bloom.

* * * *

The great tombs only show how fearful some can become,

In their vain attempts to grasp that which is but an enigma.

* * * *

Enjoy your quickly fleeting youth as best ye may, for as long ye may,

For you will, if you manage to survive, be geezer or hag soon enough.

489

Temporal existence is a game of sorts,

In which by being born you must in one way or another play a part.

A game in which you must somehow learn the written rules, as well as those never once uttered.

A game you must endeavor to play as well as your capacity and limitation allows,

For as long as the mind-body endures the agony and ecstasy of it,

Or at least for as long as it manages to interest you.

* * * *

Has technology truly crafted this inexplicable garden a better place to live?

A mixed bag, a motley report card, a dubious bottom line, to be sure.

And to timeline it in biblical parlance: The day ain’t over yet.

* * * *

The one-percenters and their minions will always find a way,

To make a dime on the whimsicalities of the bottom-feeders.

* * * *

How attentive are you the garden world about you?

The birth, the death, and all the exquisite dancing between.

And all the befores, all the durings, all the afters,

Ever the same inexplicable mystery.

* * * *

Like it or not, examining what is, is far more real,

Than spouting an endless array of what-should-be’s.

* * * *

Look prior and beyond all religion,

And recognize for your Self the one and only Truth,

That you are That I Am; the source, the ground, the essence, its Self.

You are eternal, singular, sovereign, absolute.

There is no other.

* * * *

Why would you believe some deity

Would be more interested in you than everything else?

You really think being a tree, an insect, a fish, or a bird, is any less absorbing,

Than all the inflated silliness, you are ever-managing to concoct?

* * * *

What agony, what ecstasy, it is to exist; every possible delight, every possible torment.

Each and every life form – across all space, across all time – experiencing a unique rendering.

And the awareness, prior to the quantum play, witnessing it all – right here, right now – in every way.

490

If you were that which is mystery, and wanted to experience each and every one-of-a-kind creation,

How else to do it but by casting your Self center stage in each and every role?

It is, indeed, a God-eat-God, beyond-all-pales mystery.

And you are the mystery, in just one of its incalculable forms.

* * * *

No one is truly free in this mortal human paradigm.

Ultimately, all are bound by one frame of reference or another.

Bound by geography, culture, religion, language, gender, conditioning, events,

Capacities and limitations, ambition, opportunities, ad infinitum.

Like it or no, that is how the genetic lottery rolls.

* * * *

Timelines within timelines within timelines,

An indivisible quantum sea playing out a space-time relativity.

Everything written in the sands of ever-timeless time,

For you to discern as mind and heart allow,

In this very mortal walkabout.

* * * *

Who, what, why, when, where, how are you,

But imagination attached to its manifest dream.

Still the many thoughts the senses inspire,

And be the anonymous, faceless one.

* * * *

Someone spins a parable; the future calls it scripture.

And if enough join the cult, it may even become a religion.

Dogma and idolatry and persecution and mayhem, sure to follow.

* * * *

What is memory, but electrical impulses whizzing down neural trails?

What is emotion, but biochemical secretions oozing through membranes?

It is imagination’s translation of sensation, that navigates any given existence.

* * * *

So many families with unhappy, wretched sagas.

What is that worn adage about blood being thicker than water?

What might that mean, if twists of irony and paradox were to tinge the brew?

Is it thicker than the water of the womb? Is it thicker than the milk of the mother’s breast?

Or is it perhaps the blood bond, the mutual covenant between the truest of friends?

Are alliances we choose, more robust than the one into which we are born?

Is the blood-bond of friendship thicker than that of water and milk?

491

All the so-called scriptures were written by seers and sages,

Really no different than anyone who has pondered existence before or since.

We are all cousins of the same puddle, responding to the life and times into which we are cast.

The geography, culture, language, technology, and on and on, are inevitably different,

But guaranteed, beyond all doubt, we are all very much the same monkey-mind,

And prior to that, very much the same quantum stardust of all creation.

It is but a veiled, temporal play, in which the myriad players,

Are, in the ultimate eternal reality, one in the same.

* * * *

Discerning eternal life takes a little more insight than mere belief teamed up with hope.

It is always right here, right now, but you must have the astuteness, the wit,

To realize, to perceive, that time is but a notion of consciousness,

Masking the eternal here-now, the majestic theater,

Within which all manifestation dances.

* * * *

How many books have been written since the advent of the printed word,

Most of which have been long lost, many likely all but unread.

So much thought, so much effort, and for what?

* * * *

What is this herd instinct to follow, to imitate, to duplicate?

Why would you ever need or want to mimic anyone else’s vanity,

When your own recital is surely more than absurd enough?

* * * *

Every mind imagines a world to which its nature-nurture,

Its capacities and limitations, its frame of reference, subscribes.

No one can be more or less than what the genetic lottery has allotted.

Any rubber band, no matter how elastic, can only stretch so far.

* * * *

Eternal life is the instinctual default for all life forms,

And though many creatures may exist with some sort of sense of time,

Humankind is so immersed in it, as to need religion and every other form of distraction,

To offset the pain and suffering that a mind, chock-full of memories, inspires.

* * * *

The extraterrestrials will have a great time exploring our relics, watching our movies,

And perusing all the bookstores and libraries that managed to stay open until the pithy end.

We will be big hit in some galaxy far, far away: the little green scholars and twelve-legged bards,

Will cast nets far and wide in every sort of speculation about humankind’s rise and fall.

492

How would it be possible that You are not ultimately the same Me as Me, and Me the same You as You?

The same He as He, the same She as She, the same We as We, the same It as It, the same All as All

Identification with the mind-body is the pretense, the façade, the charade, of consciousness.

At the quantum fount, how can it be anything, but same all in one, the same one in all?

* * * *

Have you really, ever thought, said, or done anything all that different,

Than anything thought, said, or done countless dreamtimes before and since?

Perhaps, but likely ever so rarely, and really, naught but minor tweaks,

In the eternally evolving patterning spun of quantum stardust,

In the puddles and jungles of the unfolding long ago.

* * * *

What is the smallest small, what is the largest large,

And what are you if not the awareness, the nothingness,

The indivisibility, that weaves within and without all.

* * * *

How can there be happy endings,

When there is no conclusion to anything?

Perhaps happy process, but beginning and endings,

Are but the punctuation points of consciousness,

Caught in the filament of unfounded notion.

* * * *

How interesting it would be to know the stories,

Of all the things you have lost or sold or given away.

To know whether they are still being used and cherished,

Buried in some landfill, or a part of some collector’s potpourri.

* * * *

Human existence, as it is known,

Is about the accumulation of imaginary conceptions.

To release the mind that attains, is to relinquish all, to the eternal nowness,

The timelessness that is as near to the one and only ultimate reality,

As awareness, through mindfulness, is capable of realizing.

Only in a very serene mind, only in that awareness,

Can the mystery you truly are, be realized.

* * * *

You may believe all this the intentional working of some supreme-on-high deity,

But even if that is true, it must certainly be subject to the same force underwriting all.

Subject to the same evolutionary process, the same pool in which all attributes ebb and flow.

493

That the cosmos, that You, exist at all, is beyond the scope of all rationality, all sensibility.

And yet why should the ultimate truth, not be forever impenetrable, unfathomable, inscrutable?

Why should it, how could it, ever be required or obligated, to make any sense whatsoever,

To any but the relatively rare few, inexplicably called to witness its indelible way.

* * * *

And in that oblivion, that obscurity, that emptiness, that gap, that space,

That abyss, that vacuum, that void, that nothingness,

That nada of awareness, You are.

* * * *

Unhook the engine, let loose all the baggage cars.

Be that sharp-cutting-edge, up-front-and-center awareness,

That which was never born, that which never dies,

That which You truly are and are not.

* * * *

Even if there is some on-high deity,

What need to constantly bow and scrape?

What need to tarry in guilt and self-loathing?

What need to again and again pray for forgiveness?

What need to beg for what is not freely given?

What need to give thanks even once?

What point projecting vanity,

Upon that which should have none?

* * * *

Real spirituality is a solitary endeavor.

If You are following some beguiling personality,

Or participating in some strain of intoxicating groupthink,

Rest assured that You need to push the reset button.

* * * *

What You do or say today,

In no way makes you duty-bound,

To play it the same in any given tomorrow.

It is nothing more than vanity that strikes a bargain,

That You incarnate the same persona from one day to the next.

* * * *

Be the world, the cosmos, everything You imagine it might contain.

Do not be held back by the innumerable limits of your given conditioning.

Stand alone, absolute, indivisible, inscrutable, the zenith of your panoramic view.

494

At some point on some day after some tomorrow,

Consciousness, as humankind has portrayed it, will simply disappear.

And on and on the abiding earth will whirl, until the cosmic dominos fall, however they will.

And more likely than not, despite all science fiction to the contrary,

No alien species will ever come across all the residue,

Of our relatively transitory tenure.

* * * *

Of all the knowledge gleaned since the fruit of the garden was figuratively picked,

Your little set is but a speck of a bit of a tad of a drop of a crumb,

Of a trace of a fragment of a morsel of a smidgen,

And yet all of the all, all the while.

* * * *

You can likely carry on, despite what others think of you.

Unless, of course, they are willing to beat you up, enslave you, or even kill you,

In which case, you should probably tread lightly, or even run.

* * * *

Identity is a charade born of the monkey-mind in some long ago,

A mortal game that you are forced to play to one degree or another,

If you wish to survive for at least a modicum of mind’s potential.

* * * *

The only way any teacher ever becomes truly inspiring,

Is if he/she has at least one student earnestly seeking to learn.

For them to happen into each other, well, that, my friend, is the rub.

* * * *

We all have an individual worldview, a unique universe of our own making.

All are equally authentic in their own indelible, imaginary way.

And yet, all are created equally of the same origin,

The same inexplicable mystery.

There is no way it can ever be truly changed.

It may gradually evolve into something somewhat dissimilar,

But its roots will always harbor the conditioning of its nature-nurture beginnings.

* * * *

You see and hear and taste and smell and feel,

Through the mind-body filter, to which you are so attached.

The memes of dreamtime have molded you into a pattern you think you.

Only by discerning the indivisible awareness prior to the nature-nurture programming,

Can the essential, intrinsic freedom, of that which is timeless, that which is eternal life, be truly won.

495

The human paradigm, perhaps the paradigm of all manifest, conscious existence, created of awareness,

Is about consumption of the given sensory feed: sights, sounds, tastes, smells, textures.

Experiences of every imaginary scope, filling every conceivable moment.

Meditation is a state of beingness, less about consuming,

Than it is riding the kaleidoscoping wave,

Impassively witnessing the inexplicably timeless mystery,

That which has neither beginning nor end, cause nor purpose, rhyme nor reason.

* * * *

The many-faced media has had as much or more of a hand in raising you,

As anything your family, community, and education may have done.

It is very much a part of the village in these our modern times.

* * * *

Every form is an energy transmutation module,

Every moment taking in and giving out,

As the indivisibility of the matrix,

Churns on and on and on.

* * * *

‘Twas madness got you here,

And it will be madness that carries you on,

Until one demolition ball or another,

Strikes your vain notion down.

* * * *

The nothingness of the eternal,

Cannot be taught, only learned;

And in the learning, process is all.

* * * *

What is it you are seeking?

Do you really want an answer?

Are you willing even to die to find it?

Who but you needs to be satisfied with it?

Are you durable enough to endure the aloneness?

And, by the way, who are you, really, to ask such things?

* * * *

To discern the awareness prior to consciousness,

You must look prior to all the perceptions, all the memories,

Prior to all the thoughts drifting willy-nilly in the smoke of imagination.

Consciousness is but an imaginary veil, behind which is ever the essence You truly are.

496

Not easy to let go of all you imagine you are, and are not, in this absurd little dream of space and time.

The monkey-mind will seemingly do whatever it must, to preserve its countless illusions.

Absolute attention – desireless, fearless – is the key to eternal freedom.

* * * *

As limited as any given manifestation must be to dream any existence,

The ultimate You – omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent –

Is within all creation and the space between.

Why would anyone imagine it to be anything less?

* * * *

Just because it is all infinitely one, does not necessarily mean,

One must indiscriminatingly love everyone and everything.

There can be joyful serenity in being indifferent to it all.

* * * *

If you cannot fit it all into a simple, timeless breath,

Then it probably does not matter much, anyway.

* * * *

Be the Good Samaritan however it suits you.

The most authentic giving is not an obligation.

* * * *

Whether on a mountain chanting,

Or in a tavern slamming straight shots,

Gravity is slowly drawing all to the same grave.

Vanity is but the not-so-solitary game of consciousness.

* * * *

What need for any dogma, really?

You are your own law, and it can be an ever-changing thing,

As dynamic as any given moment.

* * * *

As with anything said or written or done,

It is up to the given witness to contemplate what is meant.

Some thoughts are literal, some figurative, and some, tosses of the in-between.

* * * *

You very likely, are not at all concerned what happens to some seemingly insignificant life form,

In a tide pool or stream or valley or desert or mountain or ice sheet, in another corner of the world.

But, comprehend it or not, that web of life, of which absolutely everything is part, is why you exist.

497

Every religion began as a sect, a cult, of supporters, of enthusiasts, of followers, of groupies,

Who worked very diligently to persuade others they were gatekeepers of the truth,

And should be acknowledged, venerated, and compensated accordingly.

* * * *

To all those who class themselves higher, greater, more substantial,

Know that behind your back, or after you have left the room,

There are many who snigger at your inflated absurdity.

* * * *

Are you really this form, this mind-body?

Or is it merely a vehicle for consciousness to play out its dream,

And you nothing more than a passenger, a witness;

Awareness, timelessly observing it all.

* * * *

Until you left the tranquility of the womb, there was no other.

And once you moved out into the roar of the world,

Consciousness began its sculpting,

And here you are.

* * * *

Why would it possibly matter what anyone thinks of you?

Be your sovereign universe, and allow others the same.

* * * *

To which modern time might we be referring?

All modernity has its moment in each and every mind,

And all are forever lost, the very instant they become memory.

* * * *

Humankind reached its first billion in 1804.

Its second billion in 1927.

The eighth was up and about by 2023.

Eight billion two-leggeds in just over two hundred years.

The total number who have ever lived is estimated to be 100 billion or more.

How can any paradise ever hold up to such a feeding frenzy?

* * * *

Attitude is all.

With the flip-flop of a thought, sorrow becomes joy;

Bad, good; bitter, cordial; anger, calm; violent, gentle; arrogant, humble; sour, sweet; dark, light.

The remedy to a dualistic world, is the within that is within all withouts.

498

We humans are all animals here,

Mammals with consciousness enough, with imagination enough,

To perceive the sensory play in such a way as to fabricate the notion, the absurdity, of individuality.

Animals with a beyond-the-pale aptitude for communication and tool-making.

But animals, nonetheless, animals, nonethemore.

* * * *

If you were in a jungle, and had not learned the means, the tools, necessary for your survival,

How long do you think others would share the boon of their skill in the hunt?

Every bird must abandon the nest, flying upon its own wing.

Anything less is not the Way of Eden.

* * * *

Why is every man not respected, venerated, as one would,

A grandfather, a father, an uncle, a brother, a husband, or a son?

Why is every woman not treated, respected, venerated, as one would,

A grandmother, a mother, an aunt, a sister, a wife, or a daughter?

What is it that makes our kind so callous toward strangers?

Why are we so caught up in the squalor of differences,

Rather than the common thread weaving all?

* * * *

This brief dream is likely just a one-shot dog and pony show,

In your mind-body’s, so very vain sliver of forever,

So, enjoy it as best ye may, while ye may,

For it will all be over sooner than soon enough.

* * * *

Even the most vile foe, is teacher to you, and you to s/he.

There is no occurrence that has not played its part,

In your reaching this moment in dreamtime.

You may not much care to offer heartfelt thanks,

But the truth of it, best be acknowledged for what it is.

* * * *

There are always subtleties within subtleties within subtleties.

No one ever achieves excellence any first time,

Nor does anyone ever truly know everything about anything.

Attaining mastery always takes practice; the beginner is always a beginner.

* * * *

Go back to the You before the mortal body, and forward to the You after it has fallen away.

Of what importance is this ever-changing vessel, this vague set of imaginary notions, really?

499

The addictive mind is an insatiable mind, a consuming force, obsessed with every possible extreme:

Food, sex, alcohol, drugs, religion, power, fame, fortune, materialism, greed ad infinitum.

A habitual, undisciplined, pride-filled mind, driven to debilitating dependency,

By what is really nothing more than a kaleidoscoping sensory theater.

Ever running from the aloneness, the stillness, the essence,

Of the indelible mystery permeating everything.

* * * *

Here You are – awareness, consciousness, imagination – timeless, right here, right now.

And really no answers to the questions: who, what, where, when, why, how.

Agnostically faking it the best you can, the modus operandi.

* * * *

Desire and fear and dread saturate the primordial roots of every human endeavor.

From the dark jungles, obscure and ominous, passion burned across the world.

* * * *

What is any history but what some storyteller’s imaginary frame of reference,

Coupled with the translation of your frame of reference.

Very dubious from the get-go.

* * * *

Who are you to argue with somebody who wants to believe in a deity,

That is as real as the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus?

* * * *

What is the body but a bag of perceptions,

Of memories, of desire, of fears, of ecstasies, of agonies,

All cavorting in eternity’s indivisible stillness, in every way imaginable.

* * * *

Why investigate and corroborate anything and everything to your satisfaction?

Because you are a scientist, and resolute, exacting reflection, is first and foremost.

* * * *

The future of Eden – relentlessly corrupted by the mind of humankind – daily unfolds.

The purity of its Darwinistic origin, forever tainted by the cancer it before time fostered.

* * * *

Nothingness is the timeless constant, within which, every imaginable variable –

Each and every one fashioned of the quantum essence and its ever-shifting nature –

Ever condenses and evaporates, like clouds in the sky, in its unborn-undying here now.

The mystery has been labeled by many names, to which, it has never even once answered.

500

Pretend you are already dead.

Die to time, literally be here now, right here, right now.

As still as the morning dew, totally alone, eternally present, not a care in the world.

All knowledge vaporized, no family, no friends, no enemies, no problems.

No attachment to the agonies and ecstasies of the sensory feed.

Unequivocal negation of any and all assumptions.

No body, no identity, no possessions.

Just attentive awareness.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.

* * * *

The awareness, the spirit, the soul, the essence, the mystery;

How can it be said to belong to anybody, if not everybody and everything?

In the raging sea of metaphors, it is all very much the same.

* * * *

What is any given mind but a set, a bag, an array, of programming.

A circulating loop of habituation, conditioning, brainwashing.

A frame of reference believing its thoughts real and true,

Its manufactured identity sacrosanct and enduring.

* * * *

How ludicrous to imagine that we really know anything,

That all our speculations mean diddly-squat,

That all our ceaseless wordplay,

Is any more than another form of wind.

* * * *

What are the shades of gray between black and white,

Good and bad, right and wrong, right and left, bitter or sweet,

Or any other dualistic notion born of the monkey-mind’s play of time?

* * * *

The difference between any you and any me, is all in our heads, is all in our minds.

Our perceptions, our imagination, our relentless emphasis on the ever-kaleidoscoping universe,

Playing out every timeless moment, bewildering us all with its inexplicable veil.

And who has the unshakable witness behind the curtain ever been,

But the same You that is Me, the same Me that is You.

* * * *

And if it is perchance in your cards to figure out this mystery of mysteries,

How far will you glean it? What will you say? What will you do?

How will you play this, what might be called, fate of fates?

The Last Page

Every one, the same quantum indivisibility, playing the manifest theater real.

Every one, the immortal essence, peering through mortal eyes, feigning a mortal game.

Every one, as free, as aware, as their shard of spirit demands, and mind allows.

* * * *

Those, whose destiny it is to become seers, ponder many things,

Until they gradually become aware of the foundation of consciousness itself,

And in that observant attentiveness to the awareness that never sleeps,

Their minds discern that from whence all things come and go,

And in that awareness merge back into the indivisibility,

Of the eternity that is, has ever been, will ever be.

* * * *

Is there any creature, any form, fashioned in this vast universe,

That does not journey to the conclusion of its paradigm?

All nature is naught but patterns within patterns.

All functions of the same choicelessness.

All programming of quantum design.

Indivisible within one and all, for all eternity.

* * * *

The quantum indivisibility is sightless,

Soundless, senseless, odorless, and tasteless.

Only in consciousness does any universe appear real.

* * * *

If the world, if the universe, was truly real,

How could it, would it, every instant be changing?

Only You do not change, only You have ever been the same,

Only you have ever been the one and only You,

Awareness, witnessing a dream.

* * * *

The Tao, by whatever sound you call it, is always the same.

The same as when you were born; the same as when you die.

The same as before you were born; the same as after you die.

Life is a brief opportunity to view it the same while you exist.

* * * *

That quantum essence that you truly are, cannot die, for it was never born.

You are eternity, the stuff of stars, come to life in a dreaming of time.

There is no who, no what, no where, no when, no why, no how.

You are the nothing more, the nothing less, the nothing but.

First to Last - Five Hundred One Pages