Preface
What is written here
Has been spoken, written, and lived
By many in many times and places in human history.
Ever disguised by innumerable masks, costumes, concepts, and technologies,
Its mysterious nature has timelessly confused and frightened
Those unable to discern beneath the surface.
This aphoristic vision is simply another attempt,
Using contemporary masks, costumes, concepts, and technologies,
To illustrate in thought something as old as old is,
That which has ever yet never been.
It is for those who desire nothing from this manifest dream
But that it be a journey into freedom.
Best wishes.
I
Before all experience,
Before all thought of identity,
Before all mirrors and photographs,
Before all vanity, gratification, and delusion,
Before all vexation of desire and fear,
Before all suffering of existence,
Who-what-when-where-why,
How are you, really?
* * * *
Move prior to concept, prior to known.
Return to the untainted awareness of the child,
The uncarved freedom of the empty tablet,
Prior to all said, all done, all imagined.
* * * *
There is really no death,
Only the departure of the senses
And the dissolution of imagined identity.
* * * *
When in every moment
You see without a trace of doubt
That there is no master other than you,
That those many pedestaled images of great souls
Were projections of the inherent longing
To awaken to the birthright
That is prior to consciousness,
You will be free of artificial limits,
You will have triumphed over illusion,
You will have discovered the indelible truth:
That you are, indeed, sovereign, indivisibly absolute.
II
Everything that appears real,
Everything that you have been told,
Everything that you have come to believe,
Is all the fabrication of your mind.
* * * *
It is natural to want to know who you are,
But the thoughts of self, the attachment to persona,
The encasements of identity: labels, definitions, assumptions,
Are not the instruments that will truly get you home.
All concoctions, all speculations of mind,
Are only obstacles to the journey.
* * * *
Call it by whatever sound you will:
God, Allah, Brahman, Tao, Buddha, Krishna,
Christ, Great Spirit, Way, Absolute, Supreme, Totality,
Or any of the many other labels it is given throughout the world,
It is ever the same indivisible mystery cloaked by the illusion of diversity.
III
The manifest dance is timeless, ever-present, undying.
A dreamtime without beginning, without end;
Without cause, purpose, or meaning;
Neither definable or explicable,
For it is beyond all rational appearances.
It can never be known, comprehended, or understood,
Except in the most roundabout, circumspect, oblique, effortless ways.
And in that which is intuited there is no gain or reward.
One simply wanders spontaneously free,
Whatever the course.
* * * *
All identity is make-believe, a collusion of human scale.
IV
All mythos, all sense of time, all sense of history,
Is nothing more than the make-believe of adults.
* * * *
What you call real
Is merely a reflection;
A temporal, dreamy illusion;
An enticing, ever-changing lightshow.
Your true nature is none of it.
* * * *
The infinite source of manifestation
Is tasteless and untouchable;
Without vision or sound or smell.
What one perceives is but the mind’s reverie.
The vague, obtuse, ephemeral quality of awareness called intuition,
Is as near to understanding as any one can ever come.
* * * *
To maintain any one path most true,
To insist on duality in any way, any shape, any form,
Is to completely misconstrue the relativity of this manifest dreamtime.
* * * *
Worship martyrs, crosses, statues, crystals, photographs,
Nature, wealth, words, ideas, or whatever your own will manufactures,
Or simply attend nothing but your own momentary awareness.
But for the sorrow of continuity in all but the latter,
All dreams pass in the same manner.
V
Put aside all hope, all gain and loss, all dreams of glory,
All yearning, hate, anger, fear, envy, and jealousy,
All dread of sickness, injury, aging, and dying.
Your mind-body is but a temporal dream,
You are eternal, sovereign, absolute.
* * * *
You may sit quietly and breathe with your eyes wide open or tightly shut;
Chant spiritual songs or hum mantras until your mind is three shades of blue;
Practice every sort of rigid, dogmatic, death-defying diet or prescribed exercise;
Submit to ancient beliefs, rituals, and traditions; wear costumes and deify symbols;
Practice any discipline, worship any form your mind or another's might conjure;
Real meditation is the serene awareness of every moment's birth and death,
And no system is required to discern and freely perceive your birthright.
VI
You are the ground,
The splintered I Amness of isness,
Creator and witness to an inexplicable theater,
A dreamer dreaming the kaleidoscoping quantum show real,
The timeless nature masked by endless variations of laughter and sorrow.
Why? No one can know. That you are is surely enough.
* * * *
Nothing wrought of this quantum genesis is ultimately real.
Everything is imagined, everything is dreamily timeless.
All indivisibly appearing, all indivisibly disappearing,
Within and without the eternal matrix of awareness.
* * * *
Surrender your identity:
Your concepts and cravings,
Your fears, irritations, and doubts,
Your knowledge, opinions, and routines,
Your ambitions to achieve one glory or another.
Surrender everything you believe you are,
That you have never really been.
* * * *
There is no Eastern or Western thought,
Only an awareness manifesting consciousness,
Blanketed by an innumerable array of mythologies.
* * * *
If you smugly believe yourself more spiritually significant
Than a cockroach, grain of sand, or pile of dung,
Then you are missing the real point.
There is profound wonder in realizing you are one
With worms, snails, lice, flies, toads, salamanders, and snakes.
* * * *
Are you able to scrutinize your existence
Without any attachment, any craving, any trepidation?
Dispassionately, objectively, reserving all pride-filled judgments;
Discerning forthrightly, clearly, without ulterior motive;
Observing closely the many joys and sorrows;
The likes and dislikes, the loves and hates;
The thoughts, beliefs, opinions, conclusions;
The endless flow of people, places, things, ideas;
The seemingly boundless array of passing experiences;
And come to the realization that it was really all your creation;
An inexplicable, intangible, ungraspable, timelessly indivisible journey;
Imagined by a dreamer whose ultimately choiceless nature is prior to all imagination.
VII
How will you be psychologically free?
There is no method.
It happens when you will abide
No further infringement from any portion of the illusion,
When you are at last sovereign enough to journey alone, whatever the course.
* * * *
The senses tease and taunt you.
They are lies of the delusional mind.
You must ascertain the witness within,
Discriminate the freedom that they cannot,
And know with every particle of your beingness,
That only in the timelessness of awareness are you real.
* * * *
To identify with thoughts is akin to the ocean believing it is the sound of waves crashing.
VIII
Polish mirrors that never reflected,
Clean stains never spilled,
Mend tears never torn,
Perfect that never flawed,
Illuminate shadows never cast,
Give purpose that requiring none.
You are ever unfathomable and unknown,
A timelessly whimsical enigma dancing in stillness.
* * * *
There will never be political, economic,
Or social resolution to the human condition.
Consciousness itself must make the paradigm shift.
* * * *
It is consciousness that suffers, not you.
The awareness is without laws or principles or ideals.
What consciousness believes are but choices founded in delusion.
* * * *
Geographic isolation has spawned a broad diversity of mythoi,
Each grappling to protect ancient beliefs, customs, and histories.
Humanity’s clinging to what was, is becoming less and less viable
As the stew of a shrinking world continues to simmer in dreamtime.
IX
Why cater to something an individual or group
Said or did tens or hundreds or thousands of years ago?
History, whether personal, tribal, national, or world,
Is perhaps the greatest misery of consciousness.
X
Since the dawn of consciousness, mind has grappled
With the mystery of birth and death, creation and destruction.
It has used every device to explain that which can never be explained.
Only in complete surrender to the awareness prior to thought's linear conception,
Can there be any insight into the choicelessness of the indivisibility.
* * * *
Everyone has a mindset, a filtering process that interprets
The reality appearing to appear about them.
The challenge is discerning the relativity of all experience;
That everything is temporal, ephemeral illusion, nothing more or less real;
That, from beginning to end, each and every moment is but the fleeting dreamtime of awareness.
XI
If … you only had better health;
A stronger, younger, more vibrant body;
A highly capable, nimble mind;
Wealth, power, status;
Lived in a different place or time …
If …
Would make no difference.
All destinies are only variations
Of the same unfolding dream.
* * * *
Claims of religious persecution are absurd, fictional paths to glory.
Countless peoples of every persuasion have suffered throughout history.
Many, perhaps most, have claimed themselves chosen by the divine.
The arrogance of collusion has always been an enticing delusion.
XII
Thought is a reflection of an illusory past
And the projector of imagined futures.
Awareness is the tentative, ungraspable now.
It is boundless, eternal, neither identity nor persona.
It is the mysterious origin, the vapor of insight and intuition.
From its unknowable nature thought springs into being,
But without it, none of this would ever have been.
It is the parent of manifest consciousness,
The source prior to all perception.
* * * *
Dread of times to come,
Of the unknown yet to manifest,
Overwhelms those who have not realized
That it is their own imagination that cripples them.
* * * *
The sciences have in every manner
Scrutinized the unitary movement of this illusion.
They have stretched the conceptual mind in innumerable ways,
Yet none will ever succeed in determining its origin.
All they can ever do is dance with Maya
On the floor of manifestation.
* * * *
At some point, books and their many concepts must be set aside.
Scholars journey the dead-end path of dualistic intellect.
Reclaiming your birthright is direct perception,
Not the cataloging of manuscripts.
The truth you seek will not be found in them.
XIII
Right living is not a statement of morality.
It is a moment-to-moment feeling of intuitive rightness.
It is playing out this illusive dreamy theater as effortlessly as possible.
XIV
To know you are one with totality
Seems so simple, so freeing, so real,
Yet so many cling to this belief or that,
As if their clutching complexity and strife
Is so much more important than simply being.
* * * *
The colluding dreamtime of humanity
Conditions each of us to pretend something
No other manifest life form requires of its kind.
It is very arduous to be free of all claims.
* * * *
Essential nature is not divisible.
There is only totality, oneness, isness.
Nothing greater, nothing lesser, nothing but.
We are all in reality an indivisible, indelible enigma,
Quantumly dancing center stage in every form imaginable.
* * * *
All the observations and experiments of the sciences
Explore, measure, and explain only illusion.
The ultimate teaching offered by the rational mind
Is insight into the confines of dualistic sensory perception.
Scientists must at some point bridge the chasm as irrational mystics
If they truly seek to comprehend this theater for what it in reality is, and is not.
XV
Imagine a nearly imperceptible bubble of foam
Riding the flowing crest of a small wave
On just one of an infinity of shores
Of an ocean beyond measure.
That all but insignificant fragment of illusory reflection
Is analogous to the entire human reverie
Across this spinning orb.
* * * *
The tenuous belief that science will be the cure-all
For humanity's plight is self-deception on a grand scale.
Any conceptual tool is only as beneficial as those who wield it.
* * * *
More than enough, probably far too much,
Has been said of the spiritual quest through the ages.
The delusional, divisive conceit surrounding and permeating it,
The dogmas, temples, money-changers, and Pharisees,
Are burdens that each must over time shrug off
To discern and wander freely in Eden.
* * * *
No other creature on this planet
Has taken naming to the extreme we have.
They do not separate themselves from their experiencing.
They have never believed themselves or others to be what words imply.
They do not slaughter or maim one another for the myriad reasons we endlessly concoct.
They endure passively, helplessly, for us to realize some insight, some rationality,
And perhaps one day return to the garden in which they have ever resided.
XVI
Stars, planets, and moons traveling from horizon to horizon,
Cycling springs, summers, autumns, and winters,
Clocks you watch, watches you wear,
Calendars whose pages turn and turn again,
Are tricksters in this three-dimensional, illusory weaving.
Time has never truly passed as you have been conditioned to believe.
* * * *
Suffering is the outcome of attachment to the fictitious mind-body identity.
All endeavors to ease the sorrow of consciousness are ineffectual
Without the realization of your true indestructibility.
* * * *
Clothing, jewelry, make-up, and hair
Cloak the stark reality of the human body,
The various orifices of its physical functioning.
What is beautiful, romantic, and essential to the deluded
Takes on another appearance when the veil
Of genetic gratification unravels.
* * * *
Being born into illusion
Does not mean you must reside there.
You have never been bound by the original separation
But through your conditioned collaboration.
* * * *
You spend your life believing the part you play,
But contrary to what the senses fool you into knowing,
All your thoughts, concepts, theories, images, hopes, and dreams,
All the kaleidoscoping reflections of those many mirrors passing before you,
All the vain paths to glory you or anyone else have ever concocted,
Have no ultimate reality or lasting importance whatsoever.
XVII
Sculpt a vast number of clay figurines,
All different shapes, sizes, and colors,
Give them every sort of name and belief,
They are ever of the original lump of clayness.
* * * *
Your dream is an outcome
Of the mirrors streaming alongside you.
Transcending all manifest reflections is the challenge.
XVIII
You suffer the linear continuity of time and space
Because your view of awareness is locked
Into a constricted conscious identity
That is not, has never been,
Will never be, real.
XIX
You are free to do whatever you will,
Live whatever dream you are inclined to entertain,
Play out the endless fantasies your restless narcissism creates,
Until its shallow nature sustains you no longer.
* * * *
Continuity is illusion, a subtle trick of memory, of imagination.
The indivisible waves of reality timelessly break ever anew.
XX
This world is a birthing ground of consciousness,
Away from which the only earnest heading is awareness.
When your vision tacks this direction there may or may not be
Acceptance from the relatives and friends you value.
Unresolvable differences may be unavoidable,
But whatever course ultimately unfolds,
Your revelation must carry the day.
Neither seek nor expect the sanction of those
Lacking the insight to comprehend your journey home.
* * * *
When communities are no longer functional,
New adaptations form to iron the disarrayed fabric.
Human civilization is navigating through a teetering zenith.
A cooperative paradigm, one crossing all boundaries,
Awaits shaping into common consciousness,
The potential toward which all humanity
May or may not choose to journey.
The epic is already complete,
And though none present
Will ever see its end,
Your presence contributes
To the future this time is shaping.
XXI
What so many believe religion to be,
Is acted out as self-serving, improbable propaganda.
It is a secondhand act of memory, of recollection and regurgitation.
Real revelation comes spontaneously from union within.
* * * *
To believe godness is only that which is out of the ordinary,
Is an error humankind succumbs to again and again.
All manifest forms persevere in the same field.
A particle of dust is as much an unfathomable mystery
As the most astounding, most wondrous miracle ever performed.
There is absolutely nothing ordinary about anything in this quantum matrix.
* * * *
We are rapidly approaching the inevitable reckoning point
In the dynamic movement of human consciousness,
When we as a tentative life form have no choice
But to reconcile the countless differences
And see the unmanifest universality,
The absolute unicity of awareness.
Our many differences are imagined,
But the results of this continued delusion
Are inescapably devastating to all life on this sphere.
To maintain this paradigm as it has evolved is indescribable madness.
* * * *
You have the advantage of history
To thoroughly witness the enduring confusion
Wrought by the delusional rigidity of organized religions.
When will you wrest your sovereignty from those who would tame it?
* * * *
What unutterable vanity to believe that this timeless quantum mystery
Needs to be, much less can be, systematized into any so-called religion.
* * * *
Your craving, your dread, your suffering,
Your delusional hope that some other can or will save you
Has been wielded against you since the seeds of consciousness took root.
It is time to clearly discern that you know as much as anyone,
That it is you alone who must choose to be free.
XXII
Jesus is rumored to have declared, "I Am The Way.”
Was he imparting, as many believe, that he alone was “The Way”?
Or was he perhaps suggesting that we are all “The Way”?
Perhaps he intended, "I Am … is … The Way.”
Or simply a definitive, “I Am, The Way.”
Or perhaps, if paradox was at play,
As is often the case with seers,
Any and all of the above.
* * * *
Nowness, all but done just as soon as it fleetingly happens,
Requires memory to pattern out what it believes occurred.
* * * *
To state simply, "I am the Way."
Means you no longer identify with the theater
Or the partial role your body once fooled you into believing.
* * * *
Disentangle your consciousness
From all the compromises organized religions
Have made with ignorance, superstition, and myriad other delusions,
Born of the illusory craving to know fostered by the sensory dream of the mind-body in time.
XXIII
The immutable requires neither approval nor sanction.
The manifest resolve of the skittish herd is the synergy of delusion.
Reality ever stands alone, aloof, free, without concern.
There is no other between you and the source.
* * * *
As consciousness grounds in awareness,
As you clearly perceive illusion is not reality,
As you discern duality is the source of all suffering,
As the birthright of beingness resumes its rightful function,
There is nothing left to do but whatever needs doing.
XXIV
Since the origin of manifest consciousness, humans
Have been raised and patterned in accordance
With the varied responses to geography.
They have played, fought, and mated,
Sought power, fame, and fortune,
Worshipped innumerable idols,
Lived desperately, nobly, and vainly,
Suffered sickness, injury, aging, and death.
To what end the speculations are beyond number,
But ever the source has been the same inscrutable awareness,
Unfathomable, unknowable, impenetrable, timeless, indivisible, omniscient.
* * * *
The way you perceive existence is the way
The winds of time have molded you to perceive it.
It is all subjective projection based on countless circumstances
Which have conditioned the manifest spirit-mind-body identity in time.
Whatever your attitude, whatever your belief on the matter,
No projection is really more true than any other.
* * * *
Despite attempts by sages of every era and geography,
The human psyche remains dominated and shaped
By primal instincts and urges bred into the mind long ago.
The many masks of fear have diversified into innumerable forms,
And are as blinding, paralyzing, and destructive as they have ever been.
Transforming consciousness into its fullest potential is not for the meek of spirit.
XXV
The quantum nature can be challenging to ascertain
Because you only perceive the shortcomings of this dualistic world.
Quest within, discern the essence, unify with the totality,
Realize the perfection you have ever been.
* * * *
You believe because you move your hand from side to side,
That time has passed and movement in space transpired.
But what has created that reality but the timeless stillness,
That ephemeral essence in which you as witness truly reside.
XXVI
No matter how insane the unfolding human drama appears,
Remember always that it is being played out in perfection.
* * * *
Though all that is, is the unicity of the great quantum dreamtime,
Few deeply discern the ever-present, unborn-undying state.
Many are called, few are chosen, fewer still volunteer.
XXVII
How many more concepts there are
With the passage of time.
In every realm there are vocabularies
Which did not even begin to exist in prior times.
The impetuous, harsh sharpness of our unsheathed scholarship,
Is an undiscerning blade of creation and destruction
We are not even remotely close to mastering.
* * * *
What is there to be but what you already are?
How can fruit know what it is to ripen?
Caterpillars to fly? Buds to flower?
Any pattern to reach maturation,
But through faith in nowness
That isness will ever be so.
* * * *
Humankind has but a fleeting window of opportunity
To observe beyond its destructive attachments
To geography, culture, politics, economics, and religion,
To perceive, to distinguish the broadest picture, the greatest whole.
XXVIII
Walk a few paces from where you stand.
Look back to where you think you started.
Time and space are the illusion of perception.
You will never wander through any instant again.
* * * *
Prior to consciousness, prior to the sensory theater,
The stillness before time is what you every moment are.
* * * *
Who sees the wind tipping the trees in spring?
Hears the busy chatter of squirrels chasing?
Smells the mid-afternoon coffee brewing?
Feels the piercing of the kitten's playful claws?
Tastes the chilled chocolate melting?
Who has all those memories?
All that knowledge and capability?
All those assorted opinions and values?
Who desires, dreads, angers, laughs, suffers?
You do.
You are the power, the light, a drop of all that is, and is not.
You are creator, quantum dancer, eternally, immortally absolute.
* * * *
A drug may help you find it, but cannot keep you there for long.
The challenge is to perceive eternity in the everyday mundane.
XXIX
All across the world at this very instant,
Diversity suffers and perishes in countless ways
Because of the juggernauting inertia of consciousness
Fashioned by geographic notions Gaia will not forever sustain.
* * * *
The mind-body is a temporal vessel of finite patterning,
In which the infinite has potential to consciously manifest.
* * * *
It may be fairly frightening, even irritating,
For many to begin fathoming they are godness,
Because up to this point, their manifest consciousness
Has not even begun to open to that expansive an inner vision.
* * * *
So many human beings spend a great deal of time rejecting their animal nature,
Yet evidence of our basic instincts underscore everything we have ever created.
* * * *
Free your Self of the notion of original sin, that you were born evil.
It is nothing more than an idea inspired by ignorance, by greed, by the need to control,
That the pure awareness you most definitely are, did not choose at birth.
There is no sin, no iniquity, only dualistic whimsy.
XXX
Contrast your entire existence with geological time,
In which the longest stretch might at best equal
A mere fraction of a moderate layer of sediment.
We are each witness to a fleeting span of manifest time.
The relentless narcissism, fantasies of glory, and empire-seeking,
Are, from an across-the-board perspective, such trivial, meaningless pursuits.
The arrogant pinnacles humankind devises across this garden world
Are barren and desolate when viewed for what they are.
* * * *
Reincarnation is the moment-to-moment fabrication of the identity you imagine you are.
* * * *
A hindrance many have in considering themselves godness manifest,
Is that they believe it should entail having all sorts of innate supernatural powers.
The fact that they see, walk, talk, and create every sort of mischief,
Does not register because everyone else can, too.
Well, of course they can.
They are also godness manifest.
It is the concept of god that needs changing.
* * * *
Look back closely at your life.
See how every moment was necessary
For you to arrive at this apparent point in time.
That it has all been completely, perfectly, effortlessly
Choreographed, costumed, and rehearsed for the original run.
An epic, time-bound play produced and directed by you, starring you.
Be on good terms with your spontaneous, manifesting reverie.
Enjoy the myriad players appearing in your production.
All are teachers and students in your eternal journey.
Of the Human Journey
Mortal existence is not easy. It never has been, and never will be, for any creature sown of this garden orb, this smidgeon of quantum dust, floating in the vast, immeasurable unknown. What follows are thoughts about the human journey; its theatrical paradigm and the fare existence offers, and the choices all must resolve, very much alone, in the sojourn through the veiled maze of space and time, of consciousness, with all its dualistic notions. It is a journey of ecstasy and agony, courage and fear, love and hate, absurdity and insanity, irony and paradox, life and death. It is the ineffable, insoluble mystery, born of the passionate mind, and the ever-flowing array of perceptions, of patterns, every human being faces, in the movement though birth, sickness, injury, aging, dying, and death.
These reflections are written to help promote a larger vision of where we as a species are heading. One that attempts to look beyond humankind’s many seemingly irreconcilable divisions. One that values insight and wisdom. One that elevates rather than detracts. One that seeks to foster a sense of guardianship, rather than destruction and manipulation, of our little dust ball garden, and the many life forms it has spawned.
We live in a time period similar, yet increasingly unique, among the many eras come and gone before. Excessive population, coupled with unprecedented, unrestrained industries and technologies, and the consumption frenzy they feed, are driving our petri dish experiment of so-called free will, toward a rather bleak outcome. All the absurdities, all the insanities, we have so carelessly, foolishly, needlessly wreaked upon the earth’s magnificent diversity, are huge rebounding tsunamis, awaiting our arrival in time. The rules of the manifest game are simple and uncompromising, and those who bend and break them, must eventually pay the price that Mother Nature, chief arbiter of all things dreamtime, is more than capable of exacting.
As long as we human beings battle over pride-filled, tribal differences, we inevitably embrace a fate of our own synergistic, instinctual, self-absorbed design. The monopolistic win-lose divisiveness wrought since long before history’s invention, since our egocentric, competitive, voluntary secession from the garden, spirals us down a path of annihilation. What we have done in all our arrogance, has created a time already nightmarish for many, and will only exponentially accelerate, for those to whom we are now ancestors. And we are nowhere close to discerning a common vision, a truly cooperative paradigm that might sidestep it.
We leave it to future generations, to create solutions to problems, all have aided in forging. We vainly hope that political, economic, and religious leaders will shepherd us to salvation, but they cannot, because the collective vision is too full of limitation and polarity. Despite all our canny attributes, we as a species have not yet fully fathomed our interconnectedness, our inherent kinship, to the indivisible totality. We have not grasped, that time and space, do not exist as any more than a play of consciousness, a collusion of imagination. Nowness is the only ephemeral, eternal reality, and the decisions, the choices, each of us make in this moment-to-moment flowing, of this ever-changing theater, create the dreamtime future.
So many of the leaders we have chosen to follow, with all their insecure, parasitic ambitions for power, glory, and wealth, only wax the slide with empty promises, and compromising, shortsighted decisions. Though many are highly intelligent in many clever ways, too few have the wisdom and integrity, to truly serve those they pretend to lead. The result is, that along with there being no political or economic solution to the dilemma now unfolding, our dysfunctional paradigm has created a spiritual crisis, well beyond all the vain pretensions so many call religion.
No one has ever, will ever, can ever, see the world exactly the same as anyone else. We are like snowflakes and fingerprints, patterns woven of a mystery, to which all creation is witness in one form or another. Time and space are magical illusions, and each and every one of us is an equal participant, in a vast theater of consciousness, spontaneously playing itself out, in seemingly every possible way. All our knowledge, all our histories, all our schools of thought, the countless frames of reference we imagine individually and collectively, dreamily overlap and merge like ripples, crisscrossing to and fro upon the same sea of relativity.
Words, whatever the language, are conceptual icebergs, each and every one of us envision and translate differently. Thoughts of culture, tradition, ethnicity, gender, morality, currency, politics, religion, ad infinitum, inspire an array of responses, often conflicting because of rigid, dogmatic attachments to time. Yet, at the origin of all consciousness, that quantum field from which this grand three-dimensional mirage has come to pass, is very much the same indivisible oneness, the same universal, eternal truth, despite all our sophomoric, meaningless arguments, over the endless permutations of knowledge, we ourselves have contrived.
All differences are fabrication, make-believe, fantasy, whimsey, delusion, born of imagination. All polarizations, whether cultural, racial, sexual, geographic, economic, political, religious, mythological, and on and on, are illusive deceptions, born of the play of matter, of light and sound, and the theater they together weave. Each of us imagines a personal universe, in which all travel very much alone, despite all the sensory evidence to the contrary. Until one can see past the attachments to an individual life, the many differences seem real, but ultimately, they are not, never have been, and never will be. It is a dance too vast, for any mind to more than intuitively discern, and perchance fathom, that it is lead dancer in its spirit-mind-body chronicle.
We are passing through a holographic epoch of time, in which the seemingly countless dramas of human existence, are available for all who have capacity and means to explore. What evolved of geographical isolation, can now be witnessed in whatever fashion predisposition allows. There is a tendency, due to the aberration of pride and the quest for false glory, to argue one mythology’s supremacy over another, yet is any collusion, more than a conceptual adaptation to time and circumstance? Is any one version, any one dream of consciousness, any one play of imagination, from the ultimate-reality perspective, really, truly, in any way, superior, to any other? Might may make right, but it does not make truth.
No one gets out of this manifest existence alive, and every human being ever born comes to grips with that truth, in whatever way capacity and limitation allow. Some create hells for themselves, while others discern within, a quality, a virtue, a harmony, that has been given countless names across the world. Most of us, of course, wander the purgatory between. In the journey of life, each of us swims an ebb and flow, in which the individual spirit-mind-body plays out incalculable variations of the passions born of desire and fear.
The life any of us creates, with all its perceptions and interpretations, is a blend of voluntary and involuntary choosing. Traditions are creations every cultural grouping, every societal mindset, fabricates, in order to maintain continuity in those the genetic lottery casts into its geographic realm. No one is bound to continue believing anything, but through the conditioned choices of imagination, that some call free will. Those who discern their own law, see this manifest play far differently than those, who, for whatever reason, cannot see past their attachments to the narrow propagandas of history, whatever the scale.
The gist of these reflections, is to encourage those who see their immeasurable nature, to become that to which they aspire. Intuitively, spontaneously free, to meet the moment as it unfolds, whether or not it fits the vision of any other individual or group. In the statistical bell curve of any rise and fall, of any creation and destruction, there are always the initiators, and those who tag along well after. Those who entertain the greatest vision, are already among the many who do not. Whether the reader sees it as a fact or not, we are all that which is the same indivisible upwelling, the same inexplicable mystery. Eternity is very much present within every part and particle, every quantum of the dreamtime to which all are witness. It is a vision so spaceless, so timeless, so infinite, so infinitesimal, as to be intrinsic to all creation, from You, to the farthest reaches and beyond.
Is the human species, with all its competitive predispositions, capable of comprehending and responding to a larger vision of itself? With all that is facing us, do we have the luxury of time? Probably not. More than very unlikely, in fact. Though the transformation of consciousness is an instantaneous matter, we as a species are caught in the juggernauting wave of collective ignorance, avarice, hedonism, narcissism, and countless attachments to choices made in times long before our brief little window, our tiny little scratch of the timeline. We may agree the problems ahead are nearly insurmountable, but a paradigm shift into a cooperative, balanced, intuitive, holistic, realistic mindset, is too much of a change for most to even begin to fathom, much less enact, at this point in time.
Despite the countless lessons offered by history, we are too attached to building mountains of false gold, practicing divisive religion, maintaining rigid traditions, following disingenuous leaders, promoting the idolatry of personality, supporting destructive institutions, fabricating egocentric class structures, producing adverse technologies, consuming insatiably in every conceivable way, destroying irreplaceable diversity, and killing one another because our ancestors could not get along any better than we, for all the same myopic, space-bound, time-bound, evolutionary, imaginary reasons.
Recognize it or not, the human species is fast-approaching a tailspin of its own design. It is inevitable that this garden planet, and all life that dwells on it, will someday return to its origin. That is the nature of the vast changing, the creation-destruction of each passing moment, in which we all choicelessly, spontaneously participate. The indivisible, impersonal totality; that which relatively few fully discern, much less quest total surrender.
The question is, will we go out with nobility, humility, integrity, and discipline; as fully-evolved human beings, harmoniously realigned with the source of our origin, guardians of what is left of the garden that birthed us all? Or will we exit like fruit flies, churning feverishly for the last dollop of honey in the bell jar; like rats, vying savagely for the last crumbs at the bottom of the cage?
Each of us makes that decision in every step, in every breath, in every deed, every word, every thought. We individually create our own unique, imaginary versions of the universe, and how we work it out together in the impromptu theater of consciousness, only time will tell. The essential quantum reality is not about contrived differences. It is not about futile, conceited pursuits, meaningless paths to glory. Life is an opportunity to perceive, within and without, a vision of an integrated relationship with that which is infinitely, infinitesimally greater than its many parts.
It is the true discernment that each and every one of us, including every angel and every demon, including all creatures small to great, including every infinitesimal, absolute speck of quantum dust swirling within, to the furthest indivisible reaches of the unknown, is equally That I Am, to which mystics across the world, throughout time, point. There is no other.
Each and every one of us is the same indivisible eternal oneness, the same absolute, immeasurable, timeless genesis, playing out the relativity of dreamtime. We are all connected, inseparable, no matter the exterior, no matter the capacity, no matter the frame of reference. No religious middlemen, no stairways to heaven, are necessary. This indelible insight is absolutely free to all discerning enough, to see clearly, that the ethereal thing called truth, is the momentary, intangible, undeniable birthright of the timeless awareness, imbued equally within all quantum creations. This intuitive vision of the clarity beyond form, and the exploration of right living it brings about, is the only true revolution.
This inexplicable mystery we call life, this beyond-boggling organization of matter, is an opportunity to witness the vast unfathomable diversity of this manifest theater, this grand play of creation and destruction, of known and unknown, in whatever way each individually imagines. It is the potential within all, to see that every form born of space-time, is merely one of a ceaseless kaleidoscoping of shapes, of facades, of masks, of patterns, all veiling the same source, the same awareness, the same witness; nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.
The singularity of totality is beyond the scope of the mind, beyond the irrational concoctions of superstition, beyond the rational explorations of science. It is beyond the wordplay of any belief system, beyond the egocentric weavings of individual persona, and the countless delusions spawned of ignorance. We are all alone, together, and how we as a species finally choose to dance the dance, sing the song, walk the walk, and talk the talk, is ultimately, in this mind’s eye, the true legacy of the human journey.
Best wishes,
M
Got God?
Do you believe in God? If so, describe what you mean by that?
Godness is the “I am That I Am” within each of us. It is the everything and the nothing. It is the smallest particle to the greatest whole. It is the isness, the nowness, the awareness, the timeless indivisible, unborn, undying source of this infinite, unknowable mystery. It is the creation, preservation, and destruction of every part and particle playing out the grand theater, the eternal kaleidoscoping holograph of space-time. That spark of divinity, of the Self within all selves, is the witness acting out every dreamtime imaginable.
Each and every life form is the immortal totality splintered into mortal fare. The source of life, of creation, is more than any measurement can ever explain or define. All attempts to grasp it, all the traditions, symbols, rituals and concepts, all the speculations ever devised in this garden world, or any other, are equally limited as anything but intuitive reflections. They are all merely a means to an end, not an end in themselves.
Time is a fabrication of consciousness. It is the virtual reality of the mind; the cotton candy of imagination. The ephemeral, momentary nowness is the only reality. Every life form, no matter who, what, where, when, why, or how, is very much of the same evolving creation, the same source, the same light, the same dreamer, the same witness, the same amness, the same uniqueness, the same absolute oneness. No matter how you slice and label it, we are all holographs of the same essence.
If you were raised in a religious environment, has that had a positive or negative impact on your life?
Organized religions across the world clutch vainly to beliefs founded upon geographic assumptions whose foundations have all become brittle and stale in this shrinking world. Groups throughout time have again and again claimed to be the standard-bearers of truth, but have all too often created far more conflict than community in their ethnocentricity. The net result is that the many propagandas of history are weighing us down with clashing notions. Notions that no longer hold water when examined closely.
The fact is that we are all the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and those blind to this most simple, obvious understanding, those attached to literal translations and dogmatic collusions, cannot help but perpetuate unnecessary confusion and disintegration.
Religious traditions, with all their customs, folklore, symbols, rituals, and concepts are products of time and its inevitable limitations. Their value is that they remind us of our relationship with the mystery of our existence. But to vainly cling to any as more than temporal tools, to battle over them in any way, to use them as anything but maps home, presents a narrow vision of the eternal quest. The word is only sound, and no sound can more than echo through the expanses of eternity.
Organizing the spiritual quest tends to box godness into a concept. And in the journey beyond concepts, into that which is immeasurable, there are no boundaries, no assumptions, that withstand that which creates, preserves, and destroys all illusions. The source of time is bound to no form, and inevitably harvests all.
Do you believe in heaven, hell, and judgment day?
Heaven and hell are states of mind, plays of consciousness, that only seem real where the now of time meets the road. Heaven is a sense of intuitive unity, an understanding, a clear harmony, a serene contentment. Hell is its divisive counterpart filled with unending prejudice, complexity, and contention. It is the passionate mind playing out the dualistic weavings of desire and fear, and the suffering they endlessly bring to fruition. Every day is judgment day for those confined by the illusory, dualistic play of the senses. In separation we are demons, in unity we are angels. Who has not tasted every potential to some degree?
Can prayer heal the sick?
If you really have faith, do you need to pray? Sickness, injury, aging. and dying are inevitable in this mortal theater. Oblivion of personal identity is the undeniable fate of all forms. Yet that quantum essence each of us truly is, is immortal, and this very simple realization creates a far different view of life, than most seem destined to entertain at any given time. What each of us really is, is far greater than birth and death, and the limitations of any manifest theater. And praying to imagination for mortal immortality, is rooted deeply in the quicksand of ignorance.
Are your religious/spiritual beliefs separate from your political ones?
Every action ripples. Every cause creates effect, and every effect becomes cause to the next effect. Those aware of this tend to walk more attentively in their day-to-day actions. Separative choices lead to disintegration; holistic ones to integration. Through interactions with others we show what we value. Are religion and politics separate? All division is the play of the time-bound mind. As long as we as a species value power, fame, and fortune more than we value right relationship, as long as we are in the grips of worldly attachment, as long as we worship mammon and idolize form, we journey toward an inevitable, synergistic fate of our own creation. The paradigm from which we spawned is no longer functional, and the bell is daily tolling louder.
Describe a spiritual experience you have had recently.
Is there any moment that is not spiritual, magical, mysterious? Whether sitting on the porcelain throne, or caught up in an inexplicable vision, every moment’s unfolding is ultimately very much the same. We may or may not be tuned in, we may prefer some moments to others, but in reality, the ungraspable is sky to all the cloudy creations of consciousness, wherever or however they unfold. Pay attention to the vastness within, or meander through every sensory, dualistic diversion the world offers, it is all the same ephemeral virtual reality. Life is an opportunity to reflect upon the indivisible oneness within and without, and to take it as any more than a three-dimensional, quickly passing mirage, misses its greatest potential.
What is the soul?
What is not the That I Am? What is not the ground of all creation, preservation, and destruction? What is not the indivisible, immortal, absolute reality, that permeates all seen and unseen? What is not the same quantum mystery residing in everything, from the smallest particle of an atom, to the farthest galaxies of all creation? Godness, as discerned through consciousness, is as expansive or limited as any given personal vision, yet cannot be confined by any. Ultimately, there is no other. The ocean of godness, of isness, of hereness, of nowness, is all, including the drop of awareness reading this. The proof of it is that no one, no creature ever birthed upon this spinning garden has ever, will ever, or can ever discern more than a reflection of its own face. All forms are splinters of the same witness, the same oneness, the same faceless unknown. All attributes, all measurements, are born of the illusion of the quantum matrix of space-time, and to be bound by any reverie is the delusion of ignorance.
"Got God?" was a response to a seven-question survey of Chico News & Review readers published in April 1996.
Ten Reflections
I
Become a conscious, sovereign human being, awakened to the intuitive wisdom of Self, witness to the reality and unreality of this timeless-spaceless mystery of time and space.
II
Respect this diverse garden world, and the inherent rights of all creatures great to small. They are all masks of the same creation. There is no other.
III
Treat others at least as well as you would prefer they treat you. Do not expect them to return the favor, or to learn from your example. No one will ever be you.
IV
Live and let live; live and let die; grasp and release; give and take; win and lose; forgive and forget; inhale and exhale; fly and land; swim and drift; rise and fall; open and close; lock and unlock; come and go; start and stop; begin and end; flow and resist; tense and relax; be and allow; create, preserve, destroy.
V
Moderation in all things. Gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, lust, and pride are the roots of limitation, the source of suffering. The axis of evil is nepotism and cronyism and favoritism. Take delight virtue, in integrity and simplicity.
VI
Share what you have to share. But not in such a manner that it is degrading or disempowering to those you serve. Giving to get is not sharing.
VII
Play win-win whenever practical. Unmitigated competition is ultimately a dysfunctional paradigm. Avoid unnecessary conflict. No one really wins a fight. There are plenty of cooperative, egalitarian opportunities for those seeking the inherent ground.
VIII
Bring children into this world only if you intend to truly care for them. There are far too many human beings already. Life is arduous enough without a harsh, imbalanced beginning.
IX
Do not put false wealth above real relationship. Learn to listen to the many voices of nature. Learn to see with its many eyes. Mountains of gold do not compare with a child's joy in a mound of sand, a bird's, in the morning sun, or a dolphin's, in the passing wave.
X
Creation and preservation and destruction are equal partners in this kaleidoscoping light and sound show, playing out in the infinitesimally infinite aloneness of this dreamtime quantum theater. Deeply understanding this, may lessen the suffering of your relatively brief, more than a little absurd existence. Try not to take it all so seriously that you cannot laugh, at least occasionally, at this temporary mind-body, at this transient identity, this ephemeral, ever-changing, three-dimensional illusion, to which you are so attached.