This last post comprises the totality of my journal.
Pick and choose the themes that attract you. Read a few poems and entries at each visit, and let the Voice of the Plowman be a meditation for you.
We are kindred spirits bathed in our own light.
The butterfly, in its zig-zag flight,
Chooses the flowers on which to alight.
Enjoy
Wrapped around his yesterdays,
Holding on to death as if it were alive.
Fearfully convinced that in this way,
His ego will survive.
The universe it seems,
Doesn’t share his dreams,
For birth and death are friends,
And the journey never ends.
________…________
Leaves a sticky trail,
Does the tail of a snail,
And the trail of the snail,
Is the snail’s tale.
The future, I suppose,
Is the end of its nose,
But the trail of the snail,
Is the tail of the tale.
It takes forever
To get anywhere,
Unless you realize
You’re already there.
________…________
To let go of whom you think you are
Is to find yourself,
And be alive
There are so many dead people in the world.
________…________
“Be where you are”
He shuffled the cards
In a game of solitaire,
And played them out,
With solicitous care,
“Jack on the Queen,
Ace over there.”
From the first card he laid,
The game had been played.
Unaware the deck held his fate –
“Black seven on red eight.”
His poor mind worked hard,
As he turned up each card,
………Until the game was over.
________…________
Tap, tap, tap on the oyster’s side
Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide,
The seagull’s mouth opens wide.
Flying is something he’s never tried.
Will he chance it and go for a ride,
Or take a little peek at what’s outside?
If to the tapping, the oyster replies,
Musters his courage and goes and flies,
To his own self he’ll say his goodbyes.
For it he leaves his shell behind,
He’ll soon become another kind,
And no more oyster will he find.
Life’s like a shell at low tide.
If it’s not opened and you stay inside,
You’ll lay amid the rocks, petrified.
If I dare to be free,
No more ego, no more “me.”
________…________
The firm conviction that you have arrived,
Is the proof that you’re not there yet.
We hide behind
The fantasy of our “individuality.”
In reality we are one human phenomena,
Transparent to “each other.”
The atom is not a small particle
Among other particles,
And you are not a skin-encapsulated ego
Among other skin-encapsulated egos.
Only by thought,
Is there a “still” spot,
A “thing” is a “think,”
Don’t you know.
Your name out loud
Is a vanishing cloud,
And the “think,”
Is the “thing,”
When you go.
________…________
You can’t describe anything
Except in terms of something else.
Everything is relational
Reality is a mystery.
“You were always part of the whole picture.
You just didn’t know it.
The persona is not
an autonomous reality.
It is a dynamic relational event.
The most you’ll ever be,
Is part of something greater
Than whom you think you are.
________…________
For the leaf on the tree,
There’s no separate “me.”
Those with the belief
Of a separate leaf –
When the tree’s deleafin’,
Lose their belief in
A life apart from the tree.
For the sun and the rain and the earth underneath,
The belief of the tree is like that of the leaf.
With time, seems to me,
Neither leaf nor tree
Continues to be.
What’s hanging around is sun, rain and the ground.
If you don’t see,
That in order to be,
You’re neither leaf nor the tree,
You’ll end up
With the belief of the leaf,
And an isolated “me.”
________…________
Who wrote the plot of your little play?
What was your role and what did you say?
Is your play just a part of another play?
Will you understand that one day?
What is life?
“Sometimes it seems,
Like someone’s dreams,
Of growth from birth to death?”
Not so my friends
They’re just book-ends
Your life (mankind) transcends.
________…________
Like the marigold who finally woke up,
And realized she was doing
“The seed-flower-seed thing.”
________…________
Let go?
You can’t let go unless you recognize what you are
Letting go.
If you recognize it, and don’t let it go, then
That’s who you are, and your journey is over.
You have then stereotyped yourself.
The value of the bowl
Is the space within it.
________…________
Space is no-centerness.
It is not something you travel on and on in, until
You get to its end.
One can only laugh at the expression,
“Conquering space.”
When you allow inner space to be,
An awareness takes place
That there is no inner subject
Viewing an outer object,
And that in some way
Subject and object are one.
There is no technique for allowing
Inner space to be.
It is outside of the discursive movement
of the thought process with all its
Psychological shenanigans and misplaced energy
________…________
Do not fight your emptiness,
Feel your inner space.
Inner space is freedom
From that peaceful spot,
See the chaos,
Without being part of it.
Compassion and love enters your space.
Peace, freedom, love, are you.
Treasure your emptiness.
Once again:
The value of the bowl is the space within it.
Listening involves acceptance of an inner
space not tainted by retained memories,
experiences, conclusions,while recognizing
the true as the true,the false as the false,
the true in the false.
Boundless outer space and boundless inner
space are complementary dimensions.
________…________
He died in the dead of the night.
He floundered around in dark, empty space,
Looking for light, seeking his place.
Through his life as a lawyer, he knew,
That he could convince you,
That “words and the law,”
Outweighed what you saw.
Now he could never distinguish
Real light,
From the word light.
________…________
“The map is not the territory.
Words are not the thing.”
House, John, Tree – are words.
Run, jump, love, are words.
Words are thoughts.
Thoughts are past.
________…________
All those objects that you view
Through your telescope that are
Light-years away, might not be
there anymore,
It might be all over, and you don’t know it.
________…________
Don’t be quick to stereotype,
Some things are not always true.
It rains one day.
The sun shines another.
The true is an unchartable way.
________…________
Damn your ego,
Just enough to let a tree grow.
“Follow your bliss” – Joseph Campbell
________…________
Nothing is real except the present,
which strangely enough has nothing
to do with “past” and “future.”
How it perceives itself as it is, is
another story. It uses time, place,
causality to try to prove to itself
that it is an object among other objects,
and thus, confirm its “ego.”
Until it sees through this, it remains
in the “time” flow.
________…________
The present has a “movement” of its own,
Nothing to do with Newtonian physics.
________…________
There is no static “thing.”
That is why there is no “ego.”
________…________
The simplicity of reality is hidden
from discourse.
________…________
The jigsaw piece loses its reality
When fitted into the total jigsaw.
________…________
Death is permanent,
Eternity is something else, non-describable.
________…________
There is no “teacher” and “student.”
Simply the meeting of kindred spirits.
________…________
When you find that you are the Buddha,
There is nothing added to your stature.
________…________
It is probably true,
That if you let all things go,
Then all things are you.
But without you or me,
Who is there to see,
Unless all things are thee?
________…________
“Individuals” who change the world see past themselves
in their actions.
________…________
The cosmos is whirling, the sky is all afire,
You’re standing on a spinning ball,
Upon this funeral pyre.
The sun comes up, the earth descends,
You’re either big or small.
Everything is relative,
There’s nothing real at all.
You’re there alone,
On a rolling stone,
As the other stones roll by.
You’re just a dot among the lot,
You’re born and then you die.
Get to the centre of that spinning wheel,
Or everything is relative, no matter how you feel.
The secret of the centre (it’s not behind your eyes).
It’s in the mind of all mankind,
No matter what’s your size.
The centre is that inner place,
Which transcends the cosmic wrath.
Its point is everywhere in space,
Timeless is its path.
Birth and death are relative,
Until you see at last,
In death, there is no future,
In birth, there is no past.
At the centre, birth and death are gone.
________…________
It’s a strange thing to me,
That something from nothing has come to be.
Philosophers have said,
That time is in your head,
And that’s the key.
________…________
The whole picture transcends the knowing of it.
________…________
There is no still point,
Gossip is meaningless.
________…________
The ego is not eternally present.
The ego is simply past and future.
When you find out that you are past and future,
Another perspective arises.
Timeless, uncentered.
If you don’t let go whom you think you are,
You won’t find out who you are.
In “time” we are the living dead.
Through every consecutive instant of our thought,
We see so clearly, our “now” is naught.
Eternity is not of a “consecutive” nature.
One, Two, Three…
Is just your memory.
________…________
God is one.
God with God
Plays peek-a-boo
Through the two,
Me and you.
God looks out from your neighbours eyes,
And in a flash, you realize,
You found what you were looking for,
Love, peace, no more war –
And God the center of you, too.
________…________
Mr. Relativity,
That’s what they call me.
I always need a person by my side.
I don’t care if it had to be a rib from my body,
Just do it.
I need that other person.
That’s the only way I know my (partial) existence.
If I’m short, it is because someone is tall.
If he’s dumb, then I am smart
If he’s smart, then I am dumb.
If he’s not there at all, I don’t know who I am.
Mr. Relativity,
That’s what they call me.
________…________
I know a man with no feelin’ head to toes.
No smellin’ in his nose.
His eardrums are burst.
And what is really worse,
As his eyelids rose:
He couldn’t see, that’s right.
He had lost his sight,
And everything was night.
No senses has he.
Couldn’t hear, couldn’t see,
Couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk,
Very poor company.
Without his senses five,
Is he, with me, alive?
Is Decartes’ line sublime,
And where thought is not,
There is no world of mind;
Or is thinking just in time,
A sign of the divine?
________…________
The great philosopher
Really probed deeply into reality.
– When you play with concepts,
Keep your seat-belt on,
Or you’ll lose your seat on the bus.
________…________
It is alright to ask questions,
As long as they lead to other questions.
There are some beautiful questions
Which keep one on one’s journey.
Poor is the person who has all the answers.
The best of his suggestions:
Life is not about,
Finding all the answers out,
But finding all the questions.
________…________
Sociopathic politicians are becoming more common.
________…________
Rain and sun and earth,
Gave birth,
To the flower and the tree.
They never had a name,
Until the human came,
“Earth and sun and tree, Rose and Peony.”
Nor did the sun shine bright,
Without an eye and sight,
In fact, if gave no “light.”
Then it came to me
There was no quality,
Without an eye to see.
And earth and sun and tree,
Rose and Peony,
Needed me to be.
________…________
Lord deliver me from intellectuals,
They hold everything at arms-length.
They never get the feeling of things.
They turn feelings into words.
They believe that someone smarter than them,
Made the whole world – the super-brain.
They believe God is like them,
Only smarter.
I’ll laugh and I’ll cry,
Till the day that I die.
________…________
That your delight
Be in the happiness of the other.
Life is relationship,
Until you find your place.
You think there is closure,
And that things are just right,
When the sufferings of others,
Are out of your sight.
________…________
I don’t know when
The implosion took place.
Long before the A-Bomb
Shattered all space.
Before Hiroshima, and the First World War,
Humankind wasn’t ONE anymore.
Politics, Business, Military Powers,
Is the blame theirs and none of it ours?
The ruins of one city, since heaven knows when,
Are the ashes we start from again and again.
Stopping and starting is the name of the game,
Who we are, one link in the chain.
The inner peace of the whole human race,
A clear sky so blue, the vastness of space,
Outside and inside are one and the same,
The world is us, for credit or blame.
________…________
Technology is progress.
Profit is the goal.
Nothing’s more important,
Than being in control.
Who can give you freedom,
From the power and the gold,
And release your spirit,
From the darkness and the cold?
Imagine a place,
Where such is the case:
No judgments passed,
No treasures amassed,
No seeking a distant star,
Freedom to be as you are.
________…________
When you stop viewing things,
Only as they relate to you,
You see the magic in everything.
________…________
From my living room I saw it all.
Tiny creatures on a little blue ball.
Spinning worlds racing through space.
A gradual emergence of the human race.
Why was God so stingy with the apple tree?
Why the need to be obeyed?
How come gods never see,
They already own what they have made.
Then I saw outside my door,
The pain and grief of “a just war.”
Different gods want their heathens dead…
The little blue ball became blood red.
Avarice and greed,
Were in the human seed.
Guilt, the lot of those who got,
Envy, in the heart of those who need.
Only love can make one see,
That Adam and Eve,
And the fruit of the tree,
…The world I live in – is me.
________…________
Fang and claw
Make the law.
Strength of will
O.K.’s the kill.
Mother, mother, where’s your boy?
“He’s become the General’s toy.
Johnny said they’re evil,
The General told him so.
He’ll kill those rotten bastards,
So off to war he’ll go.”
________…________
We’d rather pray to God “way up there,”
Than see him in our neighbour everywhere.
________…________
The Buddha says:
“Open your eyes.
Look around.
Time is out.”
Cain is still killing Abel.
Christ is still alive.
Let the dead bury the dead.
The life of love and caring is in the present.
There is no prize for such a life,
No waiting for something else
Wake up,
You found yourself.
________…________
I saw an eagle,
Soaring in the sky.
It never knew,
As it flew,
That someday it would die.
That its flight of bliss,
Would come to this,
Was clearly in my mind.
But the eagle had no thought of “time”
(Thought of time was mine).
When it plummeted from the sky,
To die.
To soar like an eagle,
And get a little glimpse
Of Eternity.
________…________
Come with me to the stars,
And get a better view.
Away from profit, loss and cars,
And things that bother you.
No lonely Ego, goals amiss.
No nation-building on that ball.
From the center, feel the bliss,
Unity with one and all.
________…________
He would never open that last door,
Nor pull the final curtain to the floor,
His ego seeking “Evermore.”
But if he becomes the living dead,
Put a fluffy angel on his head,
Hang pretty bulbs from his nose and toes.
Drip strips of tinfoil from his fingertips,
A wreath of silver round his bony hips,
Paint his cheeks a pretty rose.
Wrap him up in golden wreaths and say,
“See, I’ve thrown my Christmas tree away,
Come visit him on your holiday.”
That the other egos could thus play,
Really wouldn’t make his day.
“Please let me go,” is what he’d say.
________…________
There is, in all the universe,
Only one suffering humanity.
Greed, competition, war, exploitation,
Are its symptoms.
________…________
Mr. Relativity,
That’s what they call me.
I explained this to my friend,
That the two of us, in some way, were one.
He said that the world turns, keeps progressing,
Only because free, assertive, industrious,
Individuals make it turn, and that this
Is called Democracy and Capitalism.
He called me a Commie Bastard.
I told him, “Not so.”
Mr. Relativity
Is what they call me.
________…________
It seems that each person is (at least subconsciously)
aware of his own “relational” being.
We are not skin encapsulated egos.
The brain is not a container which holds “memory items.”
A function of the brain “pretends” past relationship is
present (and thus “recalls”).
This is the brain’s a priori “time function.”
This function decreases or deteriorates somewhat with age.
At death, all brain-memory function (temporality) ceases.
Mr. Relativity ceases.
________…________
The concept of a Time-machine is simply
attributing to “time” as some absolute, empirical reality,
instead of a quality of the brain.
This does not deny the ability of the brain to “count” change.
________…________
We are not “individual souls” looking for a piece of heaven.
When you are dead, you won’t know that you are dead.
Death is a “no brainer.”
________…________
Oneness is much like nothingness. You can’t explain it.
________…________
There was an embryo who said to itself,
(If it had a self to say it to).
“I’ll be defreezed and down from the shelf,
And into some womb in a day or two.”
But medical science became so refined,
They took “Embie” apart cell by cell.
One for arthritis and a slowing-down mind,
And one for its Grandpa who just took a spell.
Much to its dismay.
They consumed poor “Embie,”
In less than a day.
The doctors all say,
There was no other way,
For modern techniques
To treat them.
“Embie” thought so,
I had to go.
(Editor’s note: Embie can’t go …..because Embie never was.)
________…________
DO YOU BELIEVE?
I believe what you believe.
DO YOU KNOW GORDON?
I know Gordon.
HE WAS HIS OWN PERSON.
THAT’S THE WHOLE STORY.
HE’D NEVER PUSH YOU AROUND.
HE’S MY PICK FOR GOD.
– mine too, praise Gordon.
________…________
Evolution:
Mother, mother, I implore,
What do we have these fingernails for?
To scratch our arse, and nothing more?
________…________
My friend asked the Buddha,
“What is the meaning of life?”
And the Buddha said,
“What do you mean? Make your question more clear.”
And my friend, being an honest man, said,
“What’s in life for me?”
And the Buddha said,
“Nothing, you are simply looking at things the wrong way.”
My friend then asked the Buddha,
“What is the right way to look at things?”
And the Buddha replied,
“I can’t tell you, for if I did, you would be following
my way, not yours. Your way is the right way.
You have to find yourself.”
My friend then said,
“But when I look inside myself to find myself,
I find nothing.”
And the Buddha said,
“That’s right. You’ve solved your problem.”
(Who is the Buddha?
He’s the little man who is not there).
________…________
Psychologists, Psychiatrists, clergymen, social workers,
All trying to tell you who you are.
You can’t be told; you have to find out for yourself.
Then you are not just a copy of who someone else thinks they are.
Who wants to wear a used suit?
________…________
You travel so far,
To be who you are.
The peaceful place
For the whole human race,
is not some distant star.
________…________
Dirt and pebbles and rocks abound,
And tufts of grass come from the ground _
No one but me around,
that’s what I found.
What mystery do I see?
A blade of grass,
Took sun, rain and dirt,
No longer inert,
To live with me.
You laugh and you cry,
Till the day you die,
And don’t know why.
And now I lay beneath the sod,
No more concerns if there’s a God
Away from stone and grass and tree,
In some land of mystery, –
No “me.”
If I had seen this from the start,
From these ruminations I’d part,
And be content to see,
Stone and grass and Thee.
Just because you’re neath the sod,
Doesn’t mean there is no God.
________…________
It’s not that we be good,
In order to obtain well-being, happiness or heaven.
It’s simply that goodness is Godness.
There’s no prize for this.
You’ve found yourself,
Oneness with all.
________…________
That which fills the space of a free person is love.
Love and creation are identical.
________…________
I’m sure you remember when you were ten,
Days that won’t be back again.
Or maybe when you were thirty-five,
And were so happy to be alive.
Or even later in your life,
Days of joy, days of strife.
All dead and through-
Simply a memory to you.
Yesterday is just the same.
Gone as real, alive in name.
That’s what death is don’t you see,
Gone, but with no memory.
Every moment of your life you’ve died,
That’s what memory makes you hide.
But for our memory,
Death would be,
Always present with you and me.
________…________
Your fear of life is not about
The new things you may find.
Your lack of courage is wrapped around
The things you leave behind.
________…________
I sent my kid to school
To be smarter than his dad.
And now he’s such a fool
I wish I never had.
________…________
It’s not what you hear,
It’s how you listen.
________…________
Sometimes the real,
(I often think so),
Is more what you feel,
Than the things that you know.
________…________
Although words are the most effective vehicle
for communication, words are not the reality.
They are an effort to express the reality,
and cannot be an accurate description of the breadth,
depth and meaning of the reality.
In our present culture where speed of communication
skims over reality, it is very difficult for anyone
to stop and “be still.”
Be still, be still……..
…. In birth, there is no past……..
Be still, be still……..
…. In death, there is no future……
Love and compassion for those who suffer
On their bed of thought,
For thought is time.
Take time out,
No more moving from one center to another.
…. Be still, be still……..
________…________
Take the words out,
And what have you got?
To a rational man,
Not a hell of a lot.
But A, B, C, D,
Are just sounds to me.
And T, R, E, E,
Doesn’t make a tree.
Loose your mind,
And then you’ll see,
The world is you,
and the world is me.
________…________
I fell asleep one night,
and dreamt I was awake.
Now I ask myself,
“Did I that journey take?”
The only proof I have,
Lies behind the bedroom door.
My wife was at my side,
And said she heard me snore.
________…________
In its wobbling fall,
‘Round that bright shining ball,
Passing through light,
Then the blackness of night,
The earth takes its flight.
The end of the day
Reveals the vast Milky Way,
And you in the midst
Of that starry display,
“Always on Top,”
As it spins without stop.
“My perspective is best,
I’m from the West.”
(We have to compare,
With those from elsewhere).
But the easterner too,
Has a particular view:
“The sun shines on us,
Before it’s on you.”
And pretty soon you’re in a war,
And don’t quite know
What you’re fighting for.
________…________
“Conquering” space,
And “winning” the race,
Are simply signs
Of the ego’s place.
Out of the night,
And into the light,
Happens in a flash.
No time-
No gradual journey
To a finish line.
________…________
Make no judgments about your neighbour.
All life sits upon shifting sands.
________…________
I thought I was the center of the Universe…
Beautiful flower, you be the center for a while.
Your golden pedals reach up to the sun.
Your green leaves cup themselves for the rain.
Your colors shout out happiness
To all around you.
Thank you, little flower,
That was all very well,
But now I must return
To my egocentric cell.
_______…________
Archetypes, Myths, The Platonic Idea,
Timeless and spaceless,
But exceedingly real,
Transcending phenomena,
And whatever you feel.
A view from this throne,
When life’s day is done,
Trades the sight of the moon,
For the light of the sun.
________…________
The Big Bang
How about: Bang, Bang, Bang…
…The rhythm of the Universe,
Not some act of chance.
Our lives are the lyrics.
The world’s a song and dance.
________…________
Beware of all leaders.
They need followers.
Thinking for yourself is fresh air.
Who needs a used suit?
________…________
Be free,
And see,
A point of view
Is not the true.
You can’t put wind in a bottle.
________…________
There’s a deep hole in the ground,
Where the echoes of miners still sound,
Eight hours a day,
They worked for their pay,
’till their bodies were found.
Two thousand feet down,
Right under the town,
With pick and shovel, and dynamite too,
They moved coal from the depths,
’till their work-day was through.
A spark from his bit,
And the methane was lit.
Up from the earth, through this tiny hole,
Ashes and dust and heat took its toll.
Twenty-five lives for three tons of coal.
The homes on the hill,
And the families we know
Stay touched by the spirit
Of the miners below.
________…________
I know about the apple,
And the trickery of Eve,
And how the blame,
Soon became,
The snake’s, if you believe.
Did Adam teach the pride of lions to kill the little fawn,
Then fight among themselves until the meat was gone?
“No my child, it’s the law of the wild,
That the strongest beast
Has the biggest feast.”
Were the fish in the sea forced to flee,
From bigger fish on an eating spree?
“No, my son, but to create
One great humanity.”
There’s something wrong
With nature’s song,
But not with you nor me?
________…________
The way of the mystic is not one of intelligence
and common sense. The words of the mystic (as mystic)
transcend the temporal phenomena of birth and death.
If the words of the mystic (as mystic) are taken literally,
he is then seen as crazy, unorthodox or heretical.
The words of the mystic point to another(timeless) reality.
The mystic cannot describe this reality, because words
are in “time.” He (she) cannot name this nameless reality
even to themselves, and can only point, by means of words.
This reality is not static, yet timeless. It is vital,
but not (as intelligence and common sense would expect)
directed towards some end.
It is an awareness that one’s birth is not the beginning
of eternity for one (for eternity has no beginning).
And aware of that, fear of death (for eternity has no end)
has no meaning.
________…________
At one time, I,
Was just three feet high,
And so was the climbing sweet pea,
Growing, along with me.
From my living-room, what catches my eye,
Not the beautiful decor, as much as I try,
But out in the garden, a little sweet pea,
Full of life like you and me.
The life that I see,
In both sweet pea and me,
Ends in death of me and the pea.
What does Eternity have to say,
As the sweet pea and me end our stay?
Our lives from the seed to the sod,
One act in the drama of God?
A God which keeps pea-ing and me-ing,
Our lives just a way of Its seeing,
Or one with Its being?
________…________
A cynical man once said to me:
“I’ve leaned my ladder against the wrong tree.
I’ve lost my sense of wonder and spontaneity.
I’m analytical and serious.
I’ve lost the mysterious.
I am me. You are you. There’s no us.
In deadly competition, I got the biggest piece of pie.
I can’t be satisfied ’till the day I die.
My journey had no love, but I wouldn’t change its course,
I came out on top of everything
By sheer brutal force.
Relations were mutual use, fairness by the law.
God help us (each of us) he said.
And now he’s dead.
His ladder’s there, you see,
Against that withered tree.
________…________
The ego, which we consider a substantial reality
within oneself, is simply a “vantage point” for viewing;
a vantage point always capable of changing.
We have turned this “centering” device into the illusion
of a “possession” device, and by doing so, are limiting our
real being.
Confusing this vantage point with an acquisitive SELF is
like confusing the page you are writing on, with the book.
The totality of who you are and what you do transcends
this ego structure.
This neurological structure is simply a centering device,
flexible, pliable, mobile, – not an identification device,
static, possessive, naming, owning, limiting.
Freedom is the recognition of this illusion.
True quality of life is an “outward movement,”
not a drive to own.
________…________
I’m a bit hung up on duality,
That without other, I could never be.
I’m only weak beside another’s might,
Left is only left, because there’s right.
Our language says it all,
There’s big because there’s small.
Black relates to white,
Sadness to delight.
Things are hard because my finger’s soft.
Up needs down, the ball won’t stay aloft.
For the life of me, I can’t be free,
In this world of duality.
Will we ever see,
That to be truly free,
In relativity,
There is no Yin, no Yang, independently,
No skin-encapsulated ego do I see,
There’s just Yin/Yang, other/me.
________…________
Feelings are relationships.
Relationships are what we are.
There is not someone inside us looking at, and
experiencing feeling. We are that feeling,
and it is a relationship, letting us know that
everything is connected – that we are part of a whole,
and that the whole explains who we are,
and not vise-versa.
To believe you are who you think you are (ego)
is simply mistaking the finger for the moon.
________…________
The non-apparent unity of being-
Hidden by the thin film of the delusion
of being an “absolute one,” amidst a multitude of others,
striving for, and willing, an isolated end.
________…________
On a speeding bus, tourists can be seen,
With their seats turned backwards
To see where they have been.
The poets writing verses
Of the beauty as it passes;
The mundane swapping stories,
Of the places they’ve been last.
The rich miss all the beauty,
Their eyes all affixed,
On the waste in their hats,
As they poke it with their sticks.
Israel and Palestine,
The Serbs and Croats and us,
All looking out the windows
Of that speeding bus.
Who knows where we are going,
Anyone of us?
“Not I,” a voice resounded,
-The driver of the bus.
They turned around,
And what they found,
Filled their hearts with terror.
The driver’s eyes were focused on, the rear-view mirror.
Obsessed with what we’ve been,
And all that befell us,
Our biases and prejudices
We’re steering that speeding bus.
A toddler wandered to the front,
Saw the perils up ahead;
Returning to her mother’s seat,
She woke her up and said,
“Please stop the bus, and change our course,
Or we will all be dead.”
________…________
Mr. Relativity,
That’s what they call me.
I could never fight in a war.
I need that other person.
If I killed him,
I would be killing that other part of me,
The one which tells me who I am,
Or who we are,
Or that which is,
Mr. Relativity,
That which I seem to be, – you and me.
________…________
There is not much difference between a hoarder,
who has filled his home and his back yard
with trash, and more and more,
than a multi-millionaire, who has accumulated
millions of dollars, and more and more….
Both have lost their way.
________…________
You want to be the eternal present,
But what you are is past and future.
The eternal now is eternal, but it is not you.
When you find out you are just past and future,
The door opens.
Nameless you come to the door.
Nameless you leave by the door.
The door opens to the nameless.
If you don’t let go whom you think you are,
You won’t find out who you are.
________…________
Timeless reality is beyond thought,
for thought is in time.
________…________
Discursive reasoning is what it’s all about,
Until you discover that “time” is out.
A world with no thought,
You are what you’re not,
And you’ve lost your seat on the bus.
________…________
A hard-hearted egoist,
Who, like gravity,
Sucks all things into its own center,
Wanted to be God,
And got his wish.
Then, like an astronaut, free of gravity,
Found that everything he touched,
Moved away from him.
Although travelling thousands of miles an hour
with relation to other objects,
he felt motionless.
He found out that his center,
was an imaginary creation of his own.
He realized that things “outside” of himself
Didn’t give meaning to him.
All that was left,
Was the Contemplation of Being,
And, being an egoist,
Wished he had not wished to become God.
________…________
Sometimes it felt that I,
Was getting too much stimuli;
And one more straw,
Would break the camel’s back.
That no matter what you’d do,
Control was lost to you
And your brain was raw,
From stimuli’s attack.
The rushing tide comes in,
And inevitably goes out.
-That’s what living’s all about.
________…________
We are not autonomous, independent, isolated,
skin-encapsulated egos.
Inter-dependency is an integral state of our being.
Rational thinking, temporal concepts, causality, language,
are useful tools to establish right relationship, which
senses or intuits a holistic perspective.
Greed, acquisition, stems from the erroneous perception
of ourselves as autonomous subjects, and prevents the
perception of the whole.
The Ego assumes its identity to be all the known things,
experiences, events of the past, spoken words of others,
achievements, losses, triumphs, etc. which make up its
particular identity. Not to have all this stuck to you,
(like the tar-baby), means to be free.
To greet the new, the now, without reflection on the past
is an act of meditation.
In meditation you realize that you were defining yourself
by the past. You become still.
You stop being judgmental.
You stop comparing.
You let distractions roll by.
You do not fight your emptiness.
“you” have inner space.
No reflection on a you, a “me.”
Peace, freedom, love.
“You” are it. It is you.
________…________
Meditation is not about getting something
for your piddling little self.
It is about losing your piddling self.
________…________
Anxiety is like a snake which realized that
its eyes were distinct from the tail,
then, forgetting it was one complete snake,
moved its tail.
Seeing its tail with its eyes, the snake believed
that something was chasing it, so it wiggled
away, faster and faster, running away from itself.
________…________
Time out –
The sweep of love, kindness and mercy is over.
Do I hear the roaring of a distant God?
Tap, tap, tap, on the oyster’s side.
Nowhere to go,
Nowhere to hide.
________…________
Unchain yourself and see,
How wonderful it is to be free.
Love and freedom go together.
You can’t have one without the other.
_________…________
The do-gooder –
Didn’t want to know the other,
Simply wanted to correct him.
________…________
Scientists often chase their own tail,
projecting their own thought process upon
what they perceive as an objective world,
as if a rational god created it that way.
________…________
You speak in the dimension of time.
(The only way one can speak.)
And you ask about a non-temporal universe.
Do you expect an answer?
The non-reflective, non-dualistic delicateness of being.
The virtue of inner/outer “space.”
________…________
The first person to die,
Was a strange event,
No one had a clue,
Where or why he went.
It didn’t startle him,
For he didn’t know,
That everyone will “go.”
For everything is dying,
One after the other.
He who died first,
Didn’t notice this.
A view from the top of the mountain,
Seeing people come and go,
Reveals man’s continuity,
Through life and death below.
So just because you’re “neath the sod,
Doesn’t mean there is no “God.”
________…________
Is the ego an “object” imagined by thought?
And the bite of the apple, the myth that it bought?
Has fantasy devised the plot,
And an imaginary you accepted your lot?
Are you one act in a three-act play,
Simply an ego not here to stay?
Like an ant in an anthill making his way,
Through dark tunnels, day by day.
But the ant in the anthill is not like me.
He’s an integral part of the colony.
Thoughts that were separate from the whole universe,
Remains for humans, our own worse curse.
________…________
Life is relationship.Life is not a series of
accomplishments. It is a dynamic interrelationship,
a relational tension suspended in reality. It is
not the attainment of short-term goals. It is a
journey from the bonds of narcissism to freedom,
and the ultimate obstacle is, as it always has
been, “focus on one’s self”.
It is as if your journey is to transcend your
own boundaries, not to travel further and
further into outer space as fast as you can.
If you are engaged in a process larger than
your ego perspectives, trading your individual-
perceived autonomy for an awareness that encom-
passes more than simply “what is good for me and
mine”, then you are truly free.
However, we find ourselves within our culture,
so involved and committed to selective goals,
so identified with what we do, that we lose
sight of the wholeness of our being.
________…________
Spirituality has nothing to do
With religions based on rewards or punishment.
(i.e. Greed or fear).
You want comfort and security? Then pick a religion.
________…________
There is only a thin (illusory) film preventing us
from seeing who we really are, and thus limiting our
existence to our persona.
Nobody wants to accept the reality of death.
“Unless the seed dies, it will not become a beautiful flower.”
Everybody wants to remain a seed, and just become
a bigger seed after death.
In our individualized sense of self, we are like “tar babies”
with all our experiences stuck to this “individualized” entity.
It is more difficult to “let go,” than it is to “hold on.”
Once you let go, you see that only emptiness allows
fullness to take place.
We are neither the sum of our missteps nor the sum of
our achievements.
Our life is the action/reaction of relationships.
We continue to mistake the jigsaw piece for the total picture.
________…________
The educator is often like someone who can’t sit down
and eat a meal. He keeps circling the table
discussing the various foods, their color, size,
how they were cooked, etc.
And if you tell him this, he’ll argue, and discuss about discussing.
________…________
There is no teacher/student, no leader/follower.
There is simply the meeting of kindred spirits.
Happiness is the meeting of kindred spirits.
There is nothing more to it, nothing less to it.
There is no big pie in the sky.
Live with kindred spirits.
There is no viewer of this Phenomena. In a way
we are all one.
________…________
Philosophy has always been a quest for the
resolution of the “one and the many,” (locked in a
dualism mode in their search).
________…________
His home, an esteras shack about ten feet square,
Amid hills of garbage everywhere,
Inside the door, a dirt floor,
Some clothes in the corner and little more.
Two old tables of different height,
Bore his bony body on that sad night.
Swabs of cotton and two coins on his eyes,
His bare feet in old boots not his size.
Three mourners were wailing inside where he lay.
Three coins for their service, the regular pay.
A fly walked his cheek, no one paid heed;
He’s free from these bones and perpetual need.
Sometime tomorrow, though it’s just one day,
They’ll dig a hole in the hill,
And that’s where he’ll lay.
An old man of thirty has just passed away.
Several thousand people,
Conditions just the same,
In Pampa De Comas,
Where justice doesn’t reign.
Oh, how could God perceive this scene,
Like someone from outside?
Oh you of little faith, don’t you see,
That God has just died.
If (he) didn’t, (he) wouldn’t be God.
________…________
It’s not important that you be loved by God.
It’s important that you love like God.
________…________
“War is not about one person killing another,”
Said the ideologue.
But his head is in a fog,
For it’s a strange thing to me,
That he could see,
The forest,
And not see the tree.
________…________
The city ignored her,
She lived among the poor.
And what was worse, was the curse,
She found inside her door.
Pots and pans were flying,
Pictures on the floor,
Voices shrieking, crying,
All this and much, much more.
Water falling on her head,
Knockings on the wall,
Little green men in her bed
Footsteps in the hall.
“Please exorcise this dwelling,
There’s devils everywhere.”
She didn’t know that wasn’t so,
The devil was the mayor.
________,,,________
OEDIPUS
See the boy with the red boots on?
That’s Luke McCoy and Mary’s son.
They hadda a home just outta town,
’till little Lukie burned it down.
Don’t be fooled
By the smile on his face.
He’d just as soon
Burn down your place.
That little boy, his mother said,
Didn’t really want his old man dead,
When he dropped that brick
On his father’s head.
“I love you Mommy”
The little boy cried.
Six months in a body cast,
Luke near died.
She’s a cow-girl from way out West,
You can tell by her boots, and the way she’s dressed.
Her old man was a wrangler, one of the best,
‘Till she and Lukie put him to rest.
Did Anima and Animus,
Give birth to greedy Oedipus,
Both of them gone wild,
Between mother and her child?
If Anima and Animus,
Were at peace in Mom and Dad,
The story of the cow-boy,
Would not have been so sad.
Anima and Animus met, and they were wed.
Both of their psyches brought them to the bed,
And as the child was bred,
His mother slyly said,
“We’ll be together,
When your father’s dead.
________…________
A cool crispness cut through the cow-hide walls,
but the clear freshness of the evening air outweighed
any discomfort caused by the approaching winter.
They were all there. -Friends, friends although they rarely
agreed whole-heartedly with each other about anything.
Quiet and emotionless on the outside, but with feelings
ranging from selfless kindness to violent, stormy rages
towards each other, while at the same time sharing
a solidarity which dumb-founded outsiders.
Chief Red Deer lit the pipe. His breath pushed out,
cutting the still air with a pocket of smoke, which
moved among them,
….and he passed the pipe.
As the smoke diffused in their midst, they were each
caught up, or drawn down, or woven together
in the commonness of their heritage, drawing strength
from something among them, something that transcended
the night air.
Something beyond their understanding.
The silence of their gathering was more powerful
than the few words spoken.
________…________
The quality of mind,
The animal does lack,
Is a sense of humor,
(Though it brings the stick back).
You can teach it to bark,
Roll over, play dead,
But tell it a joke,
And it’s over its head.
The mind, yours and mine,
Can sometimes decline,
As the body gets old,
Or seeks power and gold.
If it finally gets mean,
And its humor a sham,
Then he’s more like the dog,
And less like the man.
________…________
Freedom’s a word,
In which both sides delight.
The Left say it’s theirs,
And so does the Right.
Feelings of friendship,
Nothing more,
Bring Heaven to Earth,
No more war.
________…________
All the roads have come upon their ends.
Long ago he lost most all his friends.
The work of time finally had its due.
All has come to past, there’s nothing new.
No moving forward, yet no going back.
He finally conquered time and its attack.
All his goals, his joys and all his tears,
Drove him through those passing years.
But now the coin was tossed,
And we think of him as lost,
We mourn for him, for he’s the one we miss,
Yet without time, he’s reached a state of bliss.
A man of good will,
Who’d never kill,
But like any guy,
He had to die.
________…________
About a great actor,
Someone once said,
“I’m not sure that there weren’t times
That he walked across the stage,
Without casting a shadow.”
When asked what he meant, he replied,
“I’m not sure there was anyone there.”
The Ego, that inner face,
Is not as real as inner space.
________…________
Wahdeeyano?
How could the universe dwell in your mind?
It exists in space of another kind.
Or maybe the mind
Fashions it to its kind,
And the mind is the kind of the universe,
Or the universe is the kind of the mind?
________…________
To Be Free
Like an eagle, soaring in the sky.
First focused on its prey,
Circling higher and higher,
Till it loses sight of its prey.
Higher…higher…higher…
The circle wider…wider…wider,
No longer fixed on some central point,
Just soaring…soaring…
________…________
Nature
The apple core, with its seeds just “dying” to be alive.
________…________
Inside myself,
And inside you,
Lives the eternally true.
Truth’s a thing in itself,
A dynamic, non-chartable find,
Integrity is its kind.
Changes in time affect your life and mine
Care must be taken, both daytime and night,
For law and order spells out our right.
Right is more useful by far, than the truth that you are,
If you don’t follow it, you well could get hit,
By some passing car.
Prejudice and strife, enter your life,
When religion and you,
Confuse the right with the true.
If the true were the right,
Who could write a right rite, right?
________…_______
Where you ever in someone’s company,
When you didn’t want to be?
Their views on war, and neighbours too,
Really bothered you.
While walking on a tightrope you,
Were pulled this way and that,
For in your heart was another view,
Not where they were at.
Judgmental views, not what you’d choose-
Their slippery slopes
Dashing hopes,
That love and freedom be
With you and company.
________…________
We are only “partial” realities.
We see things from our partial reality
through our mental functioning.
We make missteps in acquiring right relationship.
Only the trusting, vulnerable, tarnished,
move towards the real whole, (of which they are
already a part).
The self-justified don’t get it.
They consider their “part” a real whole.
________…________
Intelligence is a functioning of the Universe.
You and I think it is in our heads.
________…________
Did you ever try to find,
The person in your mind,
The one you talk to when you are all alone?
And after many futile tries,
You finally realize,
There’s no one listening on that telephone.
This causes much concern,
Until at last you learn,
Every moment without fail,
You’ve been chasing your own tail.
What’s in front of you at last,
Is not a looking-glass.
Our eyes are for the sunshine,
Not reflections of the past.
________…________
Sitting and thinking,
The words coming fast-
Jumped up to write them down,
Forgot to wipe his ass.
One leg in his trousers,
His shirt hanging out,
The secret of the Universe,
That’s what it’s all about!
Quickly zipping up his fly,
Said” I really don’t know why,
I’ve this streak of luck”’
Upon deeper reflection,
T’was his detection,
“Sometimes a duck’s just a duck.”
________…________
The do-gooder said,
“Everyone please accept themselves
the way they are, and then there will be peace.”
(Except, he thought, killers and thieves
should try to be better… and perhaps even myself,
at least a little bit).
So he was never able to bring peace.
________…________
The Guru went to the mountain peak,
And heard his muse thus speak:
“The animal existence of turning living things
into dead things, is over.
You are no longer maintained in that manner.
Progress, competition, success or loss, esteem
or disgrace, no longer drive you through time.
The man of the spirit loses those co-ordinates
of that path of the individual.
What appeared to be a dot between past and future
now opens up to all there is.
You have no past, no future.
Discursive reasoning is gone.
No observing changing phenomena.
No subject-object. The light is on. No shadow cast.
Absolute freedom. No choosing this or that.
Compassion turned into love.
The still moment reveals itself.
You live in a universe so fine,
that the lamb lays down with the lion”
And even if he tried,
He couldn’t find his way back down the mountain.
Just between me and you,
That’s what happened to
The Guru.
________…________
My lover has died.
Summer is gone.
I felt alone, –
Until I loved as my lover.
Only the lover in free,
Only the free can love.
________…________
Never was there a jailer so harsh,
As your own mind,
In its drive for pleasure and control.
________…________
Open your eyes.
Be careful you haven’t raised your greed
to a new level.
Now you don’t want a new car.
You want eternal life,
and would do anything for it.
Stop seeking,
Be at peace,
Do not fear.
Love your neighbour.
________…_______
I don’t remember being born,
And won’t remember dying.
If in time, I fashion something for after death,
then I should sit down right now,
and fashion something for before I was born,
—or accept the mystery.
________…________
To seek the real and the true,
Midst “things that are not you.”-
To find yourself.
To wake up from this dream,
Midst things that only “seem.”-
To find yourself.
To feel the spirit of love,
Not coming from “above,” –
To find yourself.
To stop the search, and shine,
Nothing “yours or mine,” –
To find yourself.
________…________
Footsteps in the snow, –
Washed away by falling rain, –
The flowers grow.
________…________
There is no “still point” from which to view
still or passing objects, no matter how scientific
your investigations are. You are part of the equation.
Empirical investigations are useful, not metaphysical.
If one considers Empirical Science metaphysical
in nature, then one is chasing one’s own tail.
How ridiculous it is to temporarily seek the beginning
of time.
Empirical Science is of a dualistic mode.
Meditation transcends dualism.
Meditation is to enter the world of “oneness”
Meditation is free from the movement of time.
________…________
Meditation is to see with the mind.
It has nothing to do with changing your person
to another kind of person. It is to see the false
in equating your thought-up personal ego as if
it were reality. Efforts to elevate your thought-up
personal ego to a higher level is no part of meditation.
When the mind sees the false, the false disappears.
With ego gone, there is inner space,
vastness, truth, beyond thought,
and perhaps the expression of love.
In birth, there is no past.
In death, there is no future.
Past and future are thought. They are useful tools.
There is no usefulness in meditation.
________…________
You cannot meditate without first of all
caring for the whole of humanity,
the whole of the universe.
Then the beginning of your meditation is
the same as the ending of your meditation.
No subject/object. Right mindedness.
No comparisons. No usefulness. No duality.
No subjective delight.
A non-contrived, non-thought-about happening.
Non-nameable, non-temporal, bliss.
________…________
The cyclical world is the knowable world.
In this world of thought and words,live
people communicate with live people. But
the word is not the thing.
To concepts we do cling,
But the word is not the thing.
The wonders of reality,
Are dulled by our mentality.
_________…________
I don’t want any more Knowledge.
I’ve forgotten more than I know
I just want peace.
Peace in my heart.
Peace among people.
I don’t want an explanation for it.
________…________
The slightest judgmental attitude,
turns the light off.
________…_______
A friend of mine came to mind,
Always pleasant, always kind.
Whatever he could do for you,
You’d be certain he’d come through.
For many years, this was the case,
Oh, so noble, never base.
Year by year his stature grew,
The likes of him, very few.
He shot his father from behind,
Killed him, though he was so kind.
Oh, DEATH, why did not you,
Take him before his stature grew?
________…________
You lie to yourself.
You can see it.
Take heed…
The wars, the killing, the greed.
More alms for the poor,
A political change, rearming to cease,
Change something outside us,
And leave us in peace.
Then he listened in as the high buildings
And great monuments were talking to each other:
“Why can’t mankind have a more humane war,
A quiet one, without so much disruption,
One with germs and chemicals,
Not these bombs which cause destruction?”
Why can’t they keep us out of this din?
And let us die from rust?
And do their dying from within,
Without affecting us?”
The sphinx and great pyramids,
Nodded their heads in agreement.
________…________
Bliss-
If you knew what it is,
You’d make it another goal for the ego.
________…________
Every day, without fail,
Arm and arm on the Elbow Trail.
In their eighties, but still quite hale.
He left her arm,
Soared to the stars,
Borne aloft on the handlebars.
Died quite fast,
With a shriek and a gasp,
The bell of a bicycle up his ass.
He wouldn’t be dead,
Is what she said,
When his broken corpse was laid,
If only I’d bought him that hearing aid.
________…________
Viewed from inside the pot, you
Have so little to do,
With the cooking of the stew.
On the other hand,
You understand,
If there were no lamb, and peas, and carrots too,
There’d be no stew.
________…________
Look upon the world,
With all its toil and trouble and joy,
And feel a part of it,
Without judging what is good or bad,
For this we share with each other.
Then past and future have nothing to do,
With the firm, gentle peace in you.
________…________
Sitting in his living-room,
On a quiet night,
Staring at the furniture,
The chair came into sight.
“Me chair, you Bill,”
It seemed to say, you see,
(As if it had a center,
Just like you and me).
“Your name is a whim of my will-
You don’t know you’re “chair,”
While I am sure I’m Bill,
You’re just “over there.”
All was quiet and very still,
When a voice inside his head,
“Me big Bill, you little Bill,”
To him it clearly said.
T’was Bill Ideal to Bill O’Neil,
The voice he tried to hide,
Yet all the time made him feel
Envy, guilt and pride.
And the chair doubled over, laughing.
________…________
Why do people of the extreme right wing
feel so unloved?
For them, there has to be a Hell,
for people they don’t like.
They feel good when their God makes sure
their lives have all the things that make
them rich and comfortable, and condemns
the people they don’t like.
They seem afraid that other people
will take their things, and the only people
you can trust, are the ones you control.
They appear driven by insecurity.
Ordinary people feel so sorry for them.
________…________
No limitations, that space may extend,
Temporal events that proceed without end.
Infinite space and eternal time,
Concepts too great for your head and mine.
An inch more space than we can conceive,
That’s what we are led to believe.
Go back before that chaotic din,
Add one more minute for time to begin.
Without the concepts of time and space,
An awesome feeling of “self” takes place.
The Cosmos then feels,
Like time spinning its wheels.
A mysterious dimension then appears,
Which can’t be described in series of years.
The personal ego ceases to grow.
The “self” takes its place, no other to know.
No measure can tell you,
How you arrive,
At this universe,
So completely alive.
________…________
There are the trees,
Waving at each other in the breeze,
Just growing up together,
Regardless of the weather.
Then I saw that we,
Quite different from the tree,
Ache, to communicate,
Though wiser we be.
And when I lost the “Me” –
Just like breeze and tree,
Peace, twixt Me and Thee.
________…________
Was the temporal trip from birth to death
Simply “Maya”?
The staggering of some drunk along the road?
A train ride to an arbitrary station stop?
A jig-saw piece that loses its identity
once fitted into the total picture?
Alas, the noise of words.
________…________
A lover lets you grow,
By broadening your horizons,
And releasing you from attachments
To things so close to you,
That they blind you, and keep you from your journey.
A lover will keep reminding you
Of the good things you are,
As with a gentle breath,
He blows the chaff from the wheat.
A lover will give you breadth and depth,
And an awareness that each thing you do,
And who you think you are,
Is only part of you.
A lover will make you realize
That everything you care about,
Cares about you,
And make you feel at home with all.
A lover’s tears will fall upon your cheeks,
In response to your groping through hazy ways,
Bumping into things too bright
For you to see.
________…________
So much of our life is filled
with meaningless trivia.
The story is told of a man
who committed suicide by jumping off
the roof of the town hall.
When he hurled past the town clock,
He noticed it was 3:15.
________…________
A world in which everyone receives the same gifts,
And delight and bliss is in the “other’s” happiness.
Walking along the shore of the sea,
At the edge of eternity,
A young man said to me,
“May I keep you company?”
An ordinary guy,
Just like you and me,
Said, “I’m God for all Eternity,
And have this to say to thee:
Everyone gets a million dollars when they die.”
“Everyone?” said I, “killers and thieves and me?”
“Why?” said I.
“Because that’s the way I am,” said he.
The fool kept his million dollars.
________…________
The free will that you believe you have,
(The mastery of your own destiny),
Is like that of a passenger on a train
choosing which seat to sit in, while the train
continues on to an unknown station.
________…________
Intelligence is what is.
Man’s thought process sits on it like a pimple,
Stirring it up with contradictory concerns,
in an effort to attain a false security,
finally convincing itself that it(ego)
is the source of intelligence.
Intelligence permeates all of nature.
Intelligence is a function of the universe.
When you act from intelligence, you don’t fit into
the cultural modes carved out by the ego.
________…________
Eternity hasn’t got a beginning.
Do you think it’s going to start for you?
________…________
By now you may have asked yourself, “If there
is no “ego,” no “me,” what is the use in living,
no fun, no feelings of success, no love of family,
no enjoyment of sex, no delight in good food
and drink, etc.”
But no “ego” is not a state of nihilism.
All this activity goes on, but none of it
sticks to a center called “me.” Living now
is precisely all this activity, and there
is no living in the past (Living in the
past is impossible). But memory often makes
us believe that what is over, is still with us.
One may ask oneself, “Am I alive, or just
peeking out the window?” If one is just peeking
out the window, one is living in the past.
If one lives without possessing, owning, what
has transpired, – one lives in the present, and
there is a realization that there is not
necessarily a subject viewing an object.
Subject and object are one. There is no
“reflection” on “something.”
Inner space and outer space are two sides
of the same coin. Outer space is that which has
no center. Inner space is that which has no
center.
Treasure your inner space, for inner space
is freedom.
________…________
To stop, and rinse one’s mind
Of everything that is in it,
Is a very daring thing to do.
All the Gods of the Universe
Then disappear,
And you are all alone.
Do not fear,
Or else you will create, or bring back
All the Gods of the universe.
Now don’t tell me,
You’ve kept that special one of yours,
In the back of your mind…
Rinse your mind
Of all that’s in it.
Do not fear.
Goodness, beauty, love are there.
How tiny the world, and all its spinning.
Another dimension exists.
________…________
Thought takes place in inner space.
There’s nothing spiritual about thought.
Thought can be very painful when in conflict.
Severe headaches can result from turning ones’
inner space into a war zone, where opposites
confront each other, and one maintains an
obsessive attachment to both sides of the conflict.
I love the person I hate.
I hate the person I love.
I want my cake, and I want to eat it too.
Etc., etc., etc., …,
Treasure your inner space, or fill it with conflict.
________…________
Play with Ego, Time and Space,
And die among the human race,
And never reach a spiritual place.
“Make me more than what I am,”
Will never achieve peace and calm
Only through humility, can you really be.
You find yourself,
When you set yourself free.
Stop seeking.
________…________
Ecstasy is a daring, dangerous event.
You fall so far if you covet it.
________…________
His mind was settled and at peace.
A question appeared out of nowhere:
“What is the meaning of life?”
Follow your bliss? Find your game?
God and heaven? The Tao?
Be quiet and see who you are?
And suddenly there was no question and questioner.
Ambiguity and contradiction dissolved.
No seeking closure.
His mind opened up to the nonsense of thinking.
LIFE was open-ended.
No birth and death.
The Buddha roared in laughter.
The Atman smiled his all-knowing smile.
Jesus shone in his glory.
The Cosmos knew itself
Everything was alive.
Inside and outside are one.
When you find out it’s One,
You have to live that way.
When you live that way,
The world is One.
________…________
His close friend had died,
And like a lost child,
To the Lord Almighty, he wailed and he cried,
“Why did you take him? What did he do?
To meet such suffering and cruelty from you?”
“You don’t know your neighbor next door,
Your friendship’s as shallow as your love for the poor.
You believe I sit and judge from outside.
It was me who lived, and me who died.
Your friend’s death was mine,
In space ad time.
The point that you missed,
If you insist,
Is simply that I,
Like you, live and die.
I’m closer to you,
And the whole human race,
Than some creature of yours,
In the vastness of space.
Who were you talking to “way out there?”
Don’t you realize I’m everywhere?
From birth to death is not a fun-ride.
You haven’t arrived until you have died.”
________…________
I’m laying in bed,
Pillow under head,
And through my ear,
The beat I hear,
Tells me I’m not dead.
If that beating stopped,
I would never know.
It’s you by my bed,
Who knows that I am dead.
What I leave behind, is the working of a mind.
The blossoms on the rose,
The green leaves on the tree,
Nature’s song and dance, and true humanity,
Is where I’ll always be.
________…________
Intelligence is a form of dynamic order, not rational,
logical order. Signs of universal intelligence are all
around us, – how a tree is fashioned so that its seeds
fly or float to the ground and take root, how butterflies
and geese migrate, how the body parts and organs develop,
how the brain, the nervous system evolve, etc., etc.
Man’s brain apes this order, and develops systems of
time, space, logic, causality to survive as an individual in
this world. But intelligence transcends the brain activity
of man.
Thought is the function of the brain. There is nothing
spiritual or immaterial about thought. Thought arrives at
the aforementioned concepts, and using memory
(reflections on experiences), tied in with concepts
of past, present and future, ever seeks ends that
fosters its security.
Thoughts’ veering from the course of true intelligence
results in competition, greed, chaos, wars.
________…________
The berries were ripe.
His basket was full of stones.
There was no room for the berries.
Such a fool.
The water flowed freely.
His basket was empty,
And it wouldn’t hold water.
Such a fool.
Love abounded.
His mind was filled with prejudices.
There was no room for love.
Such a fool.
Life was flowing freely.
With an empty mind,
He tried to hold on to life.
Such a fool.
He never did learn,
How to pick berries and fetch water.
________…________
Oh, great Guru,
We ask of you,
“ What is the meaning of life?”
“If I told you,
Before you’re through,
That would spoil story.”
“ Sometimes it seems,
Like someone’s dreams
Of growth from birth to death?”
“Not so, my friends.
They’re just book-ends,
Your life transcends,
For happiness and glory.”
________…________
“ I believe that at the moment of dying,
We become aware that a mere illusion
Has limited our existence to our own person.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer
________…________
The sky cracks open, –
Like the shell of a gigantic egg.
New life is born.
The end of Beginnings, for time has passed.
The skull of man lays upon the dust,
This shield of bone no longer needed,
For thought is through.
No ought or must, no “ego”’ thrust.
No senses five, –
Other eyes in other skies.
Other light in other sight.
No center “I,” nor “Me” nor “you.”
The rumbling of a distant God come true.
The mystery of the here and now unsealed.
True love revealed.
________…________
The Tao-The way of life of the Chinese mystic
Lao-Tsu:
“When the wise man hears of the Tao, he puts it
into practice. When the fool hears of it, he
laughs at it. Indeed, it would not be the Tao
if he did not laugh at it.”
Another translation:
“When the superior man hears of the Tao, he puts it
into practice. But when the inferior man hears of it,
he laughs at it. Indeed, it would not be the Tao if he
did not laugh.
So please do not say that you have not been warned.”
________…________
Ask yourself why you are sitting on this ball of rock,
spinning around a ball of fire.
Wonder at the mystery of life.
Love your journey. Your journey is love.
When you are dead, you will not know you are dead.
The field is then clear. Dualism vanishes.
Love, not directed to some object.
________…________
When you say “Two,”
What’s happened to you
Is the thing, and the thought of its past.
One, Two, Three,
So it seems to me,
Are measures, not things that last.
If you’re as sure as I’m,
That numbers are just time,
And space without end,
You can’t comprehend, –
What meets your eyes
Is less a surprise,
With numbers as size.
Now how do you feel,
Knowing numbers aren’t real,
And one, two, three,
Is just your memory?
________…________
As far as I KNOW, I always was.
I can’t remember not being.
I am.
And when I’m not, I won’t KNOW,
So as far as I KNOW, I always am.
But who am I?
I could figure out that I wasn’t always,
By seeing the birth of others.
No matter to me, in so far as I am.
I could figure out that I won’t always be,
By seeing the death of others, -,
No matter to me, for when I’m dead I won’t know.
But I’m somewhat curious,
As to who I am.
________…________
You have a deep awareness
Of the precious “now.”
If you didn’t, you couldn’t
Or wouldn’t know how
To bring from the past
Your pleasures and caring,
The places and things,
And people you knew,
As if they were sharing
Your “now” too.
________…________
Eden was never meant to be,
A place of comfort for you and me.
That’s simply the wrong point of view.
For Eden has something to do,
With a gift from someone to you.
Our pursuit of the other’s bliss,
Is what creation is.
If we miss this,
Then greed’s the blame,
For creation and love,
Are one and the same.
________…________
No “me,” No “ego’?
Be careful, Mr. Guy in a bag of skin,
That you don’t just pretend there’s
No “Me” within.
________…________
Capitalism is materialistic.
Did you expect it to be warm and fuzzy?
Theocracies are delusions.
Did you expect them to provide for your needs?
________…________
Who told you that Cain killed Abel?
Adam?
History or mythology?
Don’t underestimate the value of myth.
It’s not nice to kill.
________…________
Tell me my dear, with your sweet smiling face,
What hand so cruel, stops your heart and you die?
Or is this just the way of the whole human race,
Where loving and dying is the blink of some eye.
Flowers and trees continue to bloom,
Birthdays and weddings still taking place,
While hope turned to doom,
For your sweet smiling face.
Seen from the outside,
This seems the case.
But who knows what’s inside
The whole human race?
________…________
If you wanna be,
You hafta see,
You gotta say,
“The blind spot on the screen is “me.”
The movie’s on,
Till the “me” is gone.
Then: No wanna,
No hafta,
No gotta,
No blind spot
No movie.
Yes, that’s true.
It’s all you,
Without a shadow cast,
At last.
________…________
Religions are vehicles to help you find God
in your heart.
Somewhere down the line you have to let go
of them.
________…________
Progress is finding a good place to stop.
– G.K. Chesterton –
________…________
It’s a strange thing to me,
That something from nothing has come to be.
Philosophers have said,
That “time” is in your head,
And that’s the key.
________…________
The world crucified Christ,
For saying he’s the son of God.
In parts of Asia, they would have said,
“Congratulations, you have found out.
Come in and have a cup of tea with us.”
________…________
Truth is not in words (That’s logic).
Truth is in the reality that words are trying
to express.
Truth is never static, nor is it some temporal phenomena.
Experience through time has been unsuccessful in
reaching goodness, whether it be technical progress,
psychological enlightenment, political ventures,
economic changes, social improvements, etc.
We don’t seem to know how to stop and find out
where we are, and what our true motion is.
We have turned “willing” from an instrument to do
good, to an instrument to enhance our intellectually
formed ego.
The Buddha can’t stop laughing.
________…________
Everything you’ve lived through, you’ve died to.
Faith is the belief that nothing new will happen,
if you cling to the old.
________…________
Ode To Art Buchwald
You’re born and you die’
In the blink of an eye,
But your memory won’t let you know.
Thought brings in Time,
To your life and mine,
And we count the years ‘ere we go.
One, two, three is just our memory,
And birth and death, not measurably’
Life is a coin whose two sides are birth and death.
All that is, goes on/off, on/off, on/off.
“I’m Art Buchwald, and I just died.”
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
_______…________
The Universe seems to be a gerund, which generates
a feeling of insecurity and fear in some of its “parts,”
causing a reaction of some of its “parts” to break
down the gerund into “subject” and “object,” so that
an esteemed subject can control a perceived object,
disregarding its basic unity.
________…________
If you are seeking the Buddha,
cease your quest,
The eye cannot see itself.
________…________
Spirituality is not an intellectual pursuit.
It is a loving way of being.
________…________
The whole thing is a vast play.
There’s not an ego here to stay.
Fantasy has devised the plot,
An imaginary “you” accepts your lot.
Nature is cyclical,
One seed said to the other,
“let’s take that trip again,”
And, “My that little girl just looks like her mother.”
Spiritual life is not cyclical,
Not driven by the laws of nature.
The true is not a laid-out course to follow.
The true and the beautiful are one.
Lukie’s boat was painted green,
The prettiest sight you’ve ever seen.
________…________
Life is like a jig-saw puzzle,
with one piece missing.
If you find out that piece is you,
and fit it into the puzzle,
then the beautiful puzzle reveals itself,
and there is no individualized “you.”
________…________
“Master, tell me the secret of Zen.”
“Have you finished your rice?”
“Yes, I’ve finished my rice.”
“Then wash your bowl.”
________…________
All holy books posit the need to be saved.
Beware of all Philosophies, Theologies, Ideologies,
which offer to save you.
It is not surprising that a materialistic culture
which views God as a provider of comfort, well-being,
and wealth, spawns an insecure, quasi-paranoiac,
power-seeking society.
We should be careful that our God is not just a
psychological problem of insecurity and dependency,
an authority complex, blocking our freedom and
responsibility, for the condition of the world as it is.
“Eden might well be the world in which we now live,
where we choose which fruit to eat,
and what road to take.”
________…________
He who binds to himself to a joy
Does the winged life destroy.
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise.
– William Blake –
________…________
The water and the tree,
Has, of me, no thought.
As far as they’re concerned,
I’m not.
Their unconcern of me,
And my concern of tree,
(Regardless of what I think or feel),
-That which IS, is real.
________…________
You are the world.
It’s up to you to treat yourself right.
You won’t be presenting that book
to some Editor.
________…________
Beware the corpse in the pyramid.
Let the dead bury the dead.
Life is now.
See the pretty flowers grow.
Don’t count the hours,
And don’t pick the flowers.
I’ve had my days of laugh and play.
-Youth please carry on.
And when it’s time to part,
There’s no envy in my heart,
When days are past and gone.
________…________
The Military’s attempt to eliminate
terrorism, by war,
Is like a surgeon trying to cure measles,
By cutting off the red spots.
________…________
One can only let go,
When one sees what one is,
in a non-judgmental manner.
Then the false disappears.
If one is judgmental,
one simply becomes the opposite
Of what one saw.
________…________
Most value systems are based on the misconception
of a self-image as a skin-encapsulated ego,
resulting in an entirely individualized perspective.
A perspective that transcends the individualized, –
A non-personal, not-for-me, is a true value system,
a right point of view….
Then the magic of the universe reveals itself.
________…________
Integrity is everything.
Don’t be judgmental.
If something doesn’t fit’
Just don’t wear it.
________…________
A couple of eggs, hard-boiled,
Is not like eating a hen.
Nor is the fertilized egg in the womb,
A Mary, a James, or a Ken.
Aristotle’s philosophers would agree,
That potential is not actuality.
________…________
LATE NIGHT MUSINGS
I might just as well go to bed.
Too much Newton, Einstein, Planck, in my head.
Each new point of view adding to my dread,
That Scientists will shatter,
Little bits of matter,
And misuse what these great men said.
Newtonian kinetics, action and reaction,
all in space and time,
The world like a billiard game,
Nothing is sublime.
Nothing more to know, so they told me so.
Security was mine.
But Einstein’s relativity,
Space and time a unity,
Gravity’s attraction, coupled with the speed of light
Proposed a new reality, a new insight,
And turned my Newtonian security into fright.
Particle Physics, wave phenomena, or,
The Quantum leap of Planck and Bohr,
All danced within my head.
The search will never end,
The rays of light can bend.
My mind is overfed,
With all the things they said,
I think I’ll go to bed.
________…_______
The next few stories portray the deprivation and
limiting coping options of the very poor, –
their desperate survival, in a milieu of injustice,
superstition, rumor, violence, love and trust.
MINCHI
Our cook was a little old woman with a heart of gold,
always pleasant, in spite of living in an esteras shack
among thousands of other shacks, a short distance from
the church. Minchi her daughter, and Minchi’s drunken
boy-friend lived with her.
One day, she asked me to go to her house because Minchi’s
boy-friend was drunk and abusing them. He was a skinny
fellow, and very drunk, and it was easy to wrestle him
out the door. During the process, a cardboard carton
tipped over and a little baby rolled out. Minchi grabbed
up the crying baby. All quieted down when the boy-friend
was gone, probably to find his drunken buddies and
another bottle of wine.
A few months later the cook told me that Minchi’s
boy-friend was dying and that Minchi wanted to marry
him before he died. I went to the shack. The emaciated
boy-friend was in bed, was already near dead and could
not speak.I told Minchi he would have to agree to the
marriage, and noting his eyes were open, asked him to
blink his eyes if he wanted to marry Minchi. In spite of our
efforts,he never blinked, so the marriage was off. He died
the nextday, and the following day, the cook and a couple
of his drunken buddies got a box for him. We put him in
the back of the pick-up and I drove them to the rocky
slopes where they finished digging a grave for him.
Some prayers were said, and that was it.
A few days later, the cook told me that they burned any of
his clothes left behind, and also the bed, as they did not
want his spirit ever visiting the house.
Thousands of poor people lived in this area, miles along
the foothills of the Andes, a slum area of Lima.
No Doctors, no funeral parlors, no hearses. Most people
buried family members the day after their death because
of the very hot days, in some make-shift cemetery,
or further up the rocky slopes of the Andes.
________…________
MARTIN CASSIS CHAMPI
In an area of many small villages which provided
laborers for large haciendas, we set up a clinic and a
housing project. One day a child was brought into the
clinic. His mother had carried him in, papoose style,
from a small hacienda village.
He was not a year old. His body had to be cleaned of
crusted cow manure. Following the advice of the curandera
(witch doctor), This had been applied to cure his sickness.
His face was expressionless, bony, eyes sunken in,
body just skin and bone. He was dehydrated and starving.
We took him to a hospital in a near-by town. His name was
Martin Cassis Champi.
I visited the hacienda where the families lived in hovels.
Both mother and father picked cotton all day long. I con-
fronted the hacienda manager, then the hacienda owner.
They spieled off a list of expenses, irrigation, shipping
costs, etc., etc. The blame went from manager to owner,
and to the U.S.A., who would not pay enough for the cotton.
The manager even blamed the mother. He said Martin was
a twin and the mother neglected him and favored the other
twin.Weeks passed.
On my way to one of the small villages, I met Martin’s
mother. She had one baby, papoose style, on her back. The
child had on a red sombrero (much in the style of a
Cardinal’s hat). I asked her about Martin. She said,
“Martin died in the hospital, and we put him in
a cardboard box and buried him behind the hospital.”
Who killed Martin Cassis Champi?
________…________
PEPE
Pepe was very small. His head was not much higher
than the Altar. The candles on the altar were about
a foot tall. After Mass I asked Pepe to blow out the
candles. I watched him from the half-closed sacristy
door. He walked around the Altar. He could not even
reach the base of the candles, then he managed to pull
himself up on top of the Altar, and crawling around
on his knees blew out each candle, then let himself
down from the Altar. When he came into the sacristy,
I said, “Did you put out the candles?’
Pepe said, “Si Padre.”
Another day, Pepe was in the front row of the church.
When the Priest drank from the chalice, Pepe said
Salud Padre.”
The nuns came to me one day and said that they had
to take Pepe to the clinic for a while because he
was sick and throwing up, and very drunk. He had gotten
into the Altar wine and the communion wafers, and had a feast.
One day I piled Pepe and six or seven Altar-boys into
the pick-up, and drove them to the beach. We took a
short-cut dirt road which cut through a large corn-field
to get to the main road. On the way back, just at the
turn into the dirt road, a man had a flat tire on the
main road, and had no jack. I drove into the dirt road,
lent him my jack, and helped him change the tire. When
I came back to the pick-up, the corn-field security man
accused me of stealing corn. The truck was half-filled
with corn. I explained my situation to the security
man and ordered the boys to unload the corn back into
the corn-field. As we drove off, the watchman said he
had my license plate number, and he would be reporting
me to I don’t know who. Arriving back at the church,
Pepe said to me,” what are we going to do with this”?
Behind and under the seats, was packed with corn.
I said, “I guess you guys will have to take them home.”
________…________
COMAS
Thousands of families lived in esteras shacks in Pampa De
Comas. They would accumulate bricks or adobes a little
at a time, and stack them up along the esteras wall,
until they had enough to build a wall, then four walls,
then windows and a door.
All of this took time and money. Jose’ had his walls up, and
windows installed, and finally was able to put up a real door.
The following day, he returned from work and discovered
that someone stole his door.
“Now,” he said, “I’ll have to brick up the door space, and
come and go by the window, until I get a new door.”
Nearly every shack had a dog, usually roaming the roads
during the day. Often, when the dog died, it would be
buried beneath the door sill, as a protection against
intruders.
No newspapers or T.V.
Thousands believed and lived by any rumor that circulated
around. Communists often spread many anti-gringo
rumors at that time, in spite of the distribution of
Caritas food, construction of medical clinics, housing
projects, etc.
Each shack had an old metal oil drum sitting outside the
shack. A water truck (an old oil tank truck) would fill
them on a regular basis, for a few soles.
Refuse was taken from time to time down to the main
road. The garbage trucks could never keep up. You could
smell Comas long before you arrived there.
In spite of the lack of police and a great many thefts,
etc., the continual life of hardships endured, was coupled
with an innate kindness towards each other in most
instances, emitting an aroma of love undetectable
by the senses.
________…________
LA CARCEL (the jail)
The jail in Chincha held prisoners, dangerous and other-
wise, who were awaiting their trial in Ica, the capital
of that province. Many were there for years, their files
not coming to the top of the pack for lack of resources
or because of some or other incident.
Life here was harsh, and conditions worse than the esteras
shacks of Comas. A few water pipes in the prison yard
provided water for washing, cooking, drinking. Inside the
locked prison, crude bunks rested on dirt floor. There was
no dining hall. A few portable kerosene heaters were shared
for cooking. Food was supplied by relatives or friends,
or money from the sale of home-made toys, or purchased if
you already had the money.
The nuns, who regularly accompanied me, did more for the
inmates than I. They brought oranges or bread rolls
or sweets, and sometimes contrived contests or games for
those who wanted to participate.
One day they brought a few burlap bags, for a bag-race in
the prison yard. They had a beautiful statue of the Blessed
Virgin Mary for first prize.
Each competitor got his two feet in each burlap bag, and
the race was on.
When the Sisters went to present the prize to the exhausted
winner, the prize was gone.
Someone stole the Blessed Virgin Mary.
________…________
LORENZO
The story Lorenzo told me was that he was from Chile, a
crew-member of a ship that docked in Callao, Peru.
He had been arrested for stealing some things from the
Captain’s Cabin (He said that he was just cleaning up
the cabin and took some things that nobody really wanted).
His trial was coming up soon. He would be sent Ica, tried,
sentenced and deported to Chile. The only way he could
remain in Peru was to marry his Peruvian girlfriend. He
asked if I could arrange that marriage. I told him that
I’d try.
I went to the Warden, a gruff, tough, large man, not noted
for any signs of compassion, and proposed that two guards
and the prisoner be permitted to go to our church on the
day Lorenzo was to be transferred to Ica. Lorenzo would
arrange that his girl-friend would come to the church on
that day. I would marry them, and then personally drive
them to the prison in Ica. Amazingly enough, the Warden
agreed.
The morning of his transfer I bought several bottles of
low-priced champagne for the wedding party, then I picked
up Lorenzo and the two guards. We went to the church to
await the wedding party.
After several hours it was evident that the bride-to-be
was not going to show up. During the waiting period we
consumed (guards included) a fair amount of champagne.
Everybody was happy, including the jilted Lorenzo.
I drove them to Ica prison, and left them at the gate.
The following week, one of the inmates at the Chincha
jail told me that the guards took Lorenzo directly to
the sick bay, and that all went well.
Several weeks later who should show up, but Lorenzo,
himself. He wanted to sell me a radio. I told him I
already had one. We exchanged pleasantries, and he
was off to Lima, or some place.
After he left I mused for a couple of moments,
“Why was he released in Peru? Was he really a Chileno?
Did he really intend to marry that Peruvian girl?
Where did he get that radio?”
_______…________
ROSA
On Sunday I celebrated 4 or 5 Masses at various
hacienda villages in the Chincha area.
At one particular village, Rosa, a very devoted
Christian, always had the small make-shift chapel
ready for Mass on my arrival. She was a tall, very
plump, black lady who had that uncommon combination
of grace and take-over ability.
The first row, in front of the small altar, had
cushioned kneelers and soft-backed chairs. The
haciendado (owner)and his family occupied these.
About ten or so wooden benches completed the chapel
furniture. These were the seats of the sugarcane
workers and their families, The men were tall, strong,
muscled black men, all dressed in their work attire.
As I began the Mass, it struck me that these poor,
exploited cane workers who suffered and toiled much
more than I, had the same God as I, and I felt helpless
at their plight, and the unfairness of life.
In the middle of the Mass I asked that 12 of them
join me at the altar. They all looked at Rosa and
Rosa gave them the nod. So 12 of them joined me at
the altar.
The men and I had communion under both species.
Tough men who could chug-a-lug a bottle of wine,
sipped gently from the chalice. Following that I
gave communion to the haciendado, his family and the
rest of the small congregation.
As I left, with what I needed for the next village,
I glanced at Rosa, and she gave me the nod. The
following weeks, mostly the same villagers were
present, as well as the wife and children of the
haciendado. He never appeared again in that little
chapel in that small hacienda village.
I knew also, that if Rosa ever left that village
there would be few, if any, at that make-shift chapel.
________…________
MELCHORITA
I never knew Melchorita. She died sometime before I
went to that little pueblo.
The pueblo was small, but there were two churches, one
on each side of the plaza. The old church was simply
filled with statues. Many, of the suffering Christ-
Jesus carrying the cross, crucified on the cross,
statues of the Blessed Virgin, Mary Magdalene weeping,
a bloody saint in a glass-topped coffin. Other
statues depicted Satan being overcome; Michael, the
Arc-angel with one foot on the neck of a bright red
Satan with tongue protruding and horns sticking out
from his head. These were just a few of the statues.
The old church was now locked up, and only opened
(to the chagrin of many) on the chosen feast-day of
a particular statue’s history, whereupon it would be
heisted upon a platform and borne in procession by
several locals, often times a little tipsy, with a
small band playing and banners waving.
The other church was newer, very few statues, and an
Altar for celebrating mass. Conflict existed between
those who wanted to continue rendering homage to
their statues and those who went to Mass in the
newer church.
The only control of the continual visits to the
“statue church” was in locking it up, while at the
same time complying with the frequent processions
of this or that statue.
Melchorita was something else. She was a poor widow
who swept and cleaned a near-by church. When she died,
the villagers made her a saint. A location was chosen
for praying to her, for lighting candles and vigil
lights for favors requested or favors received,
thanking her for her many miracles. A hill of wax
reaching up to your chest was evidence of her high
regard.
Pictures, newspaper articles, written attestations of
her miraculous interventions, hung upon the walls.
Hills of canes and home-made crutches were piled up
on one side of the mountain of wax.
Without depreciating Melchorita, I pass on to you an
article I read in the local newspaper:
“Jose’ Alvariz (not his real name) thanks Melchorita
for saving his life. He was coming out of a house of
ill-repute when his wife took a shot at him. The
bullet hit his medal of Melchorita (which he always
wore) glancing off and missing his vital organs.”
________…________
THE F-WORD
If you ever worked in a coal mine in the forties,
you’d remember the narrow tunnels, pit horses
pulling empty box-cars to the mine face of coal,
and then hauling loaded trips to the main shaft,
to be hoisted to the surface.
Miners worked with pick and shovel and dynamite,
clawing out the coal from narrow seams and thence
loaded into the box-cars for their journey to the
surface.
The most common inclusion in any conversation was
the word “fuck.” You heard it everywhere and began
using it yourself in a very short while. It was part
of the comradeship of the mine, but rarely used on
the surface, where they were the essence of gentle-
men and pillars of the church.
Joey McLaughlin lost his fuckin’ plug of chewing
tobacco, and went to a fellow miner, who reluctantly
gave him part of his. As bad luck would have it, his
friend lost his half of the plug and went back to
Joey to borrow a piece. Joey told him he only had
enough to last the fuckin’ shift, and said, “No
fuckin’ way.”
Cecil was hung-over and told me that he and his
cousin Harry had a half dozen each last night. I
said,” that’s a lot of fuckin’,” and from that day
on, I was a young seventeen-year-old kid, part of
the miners’ culture.
One day a trip of loaded box-cars was ready to be
hoisted to the surface. I noticed on one of the box-
cars was written in large chalk letters, “Lloyd
fucked Baldy’s daughter.” This was not true. But what
bothered me was that Baldy was the underground
Manager.
… It was Joey McLaughlin who dragged Cecil from
under the debris as the tunnel was still “comin’ in.”
There was no room for phony people in the mine.
The comradeship of the men working underground, tough
and kind, with a common sense of raw humor, reflected
an integrity of person hard to match.
________…________
THE GURU
The story is told of a great Emperor who had a
spiritual adviser, a wizened up, frail Guru.
The Guru was always badgering the Emperor by his
continual insistence that the Emperor’s world
was a world of make-believe, “Maya” and that true
reality consisted of other than what one’s senses
presented to one.
The Guru said that a different perspective was
required than that of the accumulation of riches,
comfort, pleasure, – in order to obtain a pure
identification with a world of grace and beauty,
– the truly, real world.
Finally, the Emperor decided he had had enough,
and wanted to teach the Guru a lesson.
He arranged for a herd of elephants to stampede
in the same area where the Guru daily sat,
cross-legged, in meditation.
Upon seeing the horde of stampeding elephants
coming his way, the Guru acted swiftly. He jumped
up, ran to a near-by palm tree and shinnied up
to safety, thus avoiding being crushed by the stampeding
horde of elephants.
Later the Emperor spoke to the Guru.
He noted that if everything was “Maya,” make-believe,
imaginary entities, why then did the Guru run from
the imaginary stampeding elephants?
The Guru responded, “Imaginary stampeding elephants
charge at imaginary Guru, and imaginary Guru climb
up imaginary palm tree.”
________…________
THE MACABRE DANCE OF THE EGOS
We don’t realize that as egos, we are conceptual
entities, not existential entities, and we go on
with this macabre dance which we call life, –
believing that we are some isolated entity in a
bag of akin, dancing through time with other egos.
The realization of death comes to ego-consciousness
through viewing the death of others. Others don’t
know they died. Thought is unable to elicit an
awareness that they had limited their existence
to their own person.
There is no life in everything of the past, but we
continue the macabre dance, pretending the past is
real and an integral part of the dance.
The present is not defined by the comings and goings
of the macabre dance of isolated egos.
True intelligence and love are other than all that.
________…________
True religion has nothing to do with following a bunch
of rules to receive a reward.
It is simply loving your neighbor. There is no reward
for this.
There is no great authority figure doing book on you,
who is going to give you a prize for loving your
neighbor.
Loving your neighbor is the beginning and end of your
journey. It is beauty and truth and beatific vision.
There is no dualism, no split between “you” and a “God.”
Why do you pretend that you don’t know this?
Did your Mommy tell you something different?
________…________
The Myth far exceeds historicity in providing threads
of meaning to our lives. The bible is full of myths,
as are the many writings of Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.
One gets to a point where one can laugh at the persistent
seeking to know that which is outside the realm
of knowledge.
________…________
Unity is not experienced by overcoming duality.
There is no technique available. There is nothing
other than unity.
To seek the Buddha when you are the Buddha makes
no sense. The eye cannot see itself.
To recognize that you are the Buddha adds nothing
to your stature.
________…________
When the mind views reality as a multitude of
isolated things, a priori it has considered itself
an isolated thing. Holism is the opposite of that
perspective.
The universe is a phenomenon of inter-related harmony
with neither subject or object a consideration of its
reality. To isolate an “I” and examine it as separate
from the universe is a mental exercise. To isolate an
“atom” and examine it as separate from the universe
is a scientific exercise. Both are useful pursuits.
The “I” and the “atom” can be explained by the universe,
and not the reverse.
It is only our ego which prevents us from experiencing
consciousness of the whole of reality, because, once
centered in time and space, only partial consciousness
is achieved.
______…______
“Don’t pull the plug on my Ego.
Don’t let the me, from the “Me” go.
Don’t drain the wine from the keg.
Don’t leave me like one hollow egg.
Don’t tell me space is not inches and feet,
And say from my sanity, I now must retreat.
Don’t tell me minutes don’t make up a day
These measures are treasures; I need them I say.”
“I’m not telling you your living’s not true.
Live with the measures, do what you do.
But to limit your life to that tiny “Me,”
Will blind your vision of all you may be.”
________…________
Through words, signs and symbols,
(No one can debate),
That the language of the Nations
Is the way that we relate.
The meaning of “to be”
Seems worth a second thought.
Life, not death?
Or just the opposite of what’s not?
If the word is not the thing,
Then the query of “to be”
Is the working of one’s mind,
And not reality.
But, be joyful in your words,
And sing them loud and free,
‘Till the language of all nations,
Converse in unity.
The shepherd tends his flock,
The hewer cuts the tree.
They never waste a thought,
On the meaning of “to be.”
________…________
Within most countries, are claims that certain
specific religions, each with its own set of
dogmas, is the true religion. Often times, political
correctness requires an adherence to these dogmas.
Being politically correct is not an expression of
man’s innate spirituality.
Man’s inner spirituality tries to express itself
through ritual and imagery. Spirituality has nothing
to do with the adoration of idols.
These idols, in our day, are not wooden statues.
They are the names of people of the past whom we
would rather adore and “be saved” by them, than
to live like them. We just won’t take personal
responsibility in the here/now for the world as it
is.
Following any dogma and not recognizing the myth and
its meaning, is like “mistaking the finger for the
moon.” Values of myth are lost by taking them as
historic realities.
The fundamentalist does not recognize this. If the
book said,” it was raining cats and dogs, he might
seek evidence of thousands of dead dogs and cats.
________…________
One must be careful that one’s religion is not
just a psychological problem, one of insecurity
and dependency, an authority complex blocking
one’s freedom and personal responsibility for the
world as it is. Thus, leaving one with the hope that
some authority figure will provide one with some
form of self-justification, and confer upon one a
life of goodness, truth, order and happiness.
—-The exercise of freedom and love,
are the beginning and end of one’s journey.
________…________
Most people’s idea about Heaven is “a peaceful spot,
more rationally perfect than this one. It is filled
with the newly born (perhaps even the fertilized
egg) right up to the oldest deceased. There you will
meet your friends and relatives.”
That children are encouraged to believe this, is a
commendable measure of human compassion.
Even as adults, we have a difficult time accepting
that death is permanent. Our religious beliefs
encourage us that we, as Tom, Dick and Harry, will
carry on with some continuous life as Tom, Dick and
Harry.
We are stuck with the belief that God is “in the
image of man,” a perfectly rational being, all knowing
and all powerful. He created this world of time,
space and rational beings, ergo we’ll say hello to
(him, her, it) upon our arrival.
For the young, active adult, life appears to be achieving
the goals of one’s ego, – and this idea is simply
transferred to that transition from birth to death,
resurrection being the self-fulfillment of one’s ego
alongside of all the other self-fulfilled egos.
An opposition to this point of view draws forth an
immediate reaction,” Me, Tom, Dick and Harry will
continue on. We are not, and never have been simply
fictitious,conceptual entities.”
Death to that fictitious center we call ego allows for
a movement of life towards wholeness, and not a stereo-
typed persona.
This view-point ushers in a new perspective:
Meditation is not a useful tool for the ego. There is
no seeking something for self, nor reflection on self.
Consciousness without a center point. It’s more a state
of freedom and love and a feeling of oneness. It transcends
temporarity and thought. There is no viewing the
world from a “self” perspective, no aim, intent or
usefulness. An awareness of your true dimension.
So catch a bus, prepare a meal, play some game, do your
work, etc., aware of who you really are.
________…________
Love is not attachment.
Love is not pleasure.
Love is not sentiment.
Love seeks no return.
Love frees everything it touches.
Love is creation.
________…________
Did the Incas have an inkling
Of the mystery of light?
Their Sun-God in the morning
Conquering the night?
The rays of their Sun-God breathed life to the corn.
The Sun-God of the Incas assured them of Morn.
Rituals were fashioned by the Andean Priest.
To be in the Sun’s pleasure and partake of the feast.
The sacrifice of victims appeased the God’s wrath.
The sun would continue on its light giving path.
-Our culture surpassed the Incas, we say,
We take light for granted, be it particle or wave.
Our God is the gold in the temple, not the sun in
the sky.
It provides us with money for the things that
we buy.
We laugh at the sun as it turns in the airs,
For our God will make us rich millionaires.
We have our feast,
Like the Andean Priest
________…________
THE SAGE
Quite common words, I forget a lot,
And efforts at circumlocution serve me not.
In response to some queries, I seriously stare,-
For the words that I seek, aren’t readily there.
My friends nod approval, not really aware,
That silence and wisdom aren’t always a pair.
________…________
THE SAGEBRUSH
I’m a sagebrush, I’m sure you all know,
I ride with the wind, wherever I go.
Aloft in a sand storm, whirling around,
Up in the air, then back on the ground.
Over the sand hills and down dusty lanes,
Alongside your car, or in front of the trains,
No purpose at all, as free as the air,
Bouncing and spinning, to who knows where.
To the top of the hill, or still-stopped at last,
Freed from stillness, by the wind’s gentle blast.
So ahead and behind,
Is just in your mind,
And the home of the Sagebrush,
You never will find.
________…________
THE SauSAGE
Just wrap it in a bun and eat it.
________…________
For whom-
Do pretty flowers bloom,
In a far-away tropical forest?
And why-
The brilliant colors of the beasts,
Tells nothing of their bloody feasts?
And what-
In sun, rain and verdant earth,
Brings all these colors to their birth?
And where-
Is nature’s source of life,
Amid such beauty, peace and strife?
One side of nature, – fang and claw,
The other holding us in awe.
________…________
Politicians believe they can change the world
by reforming the economic situation of the world.
The economic situation of the world does need
changing. However, having lived many years among
the poor, as well as among the well-to-do, it
became evident that exploitation of the weak
and vulnerable, hunger for power and the violence
associated with it, is rampant among both rich
and poor.
Without a radical change inside the “individual”
there will be no peace. This fixation on the “me”
without an awareness of the unity of nature, mankind,
the world, resulting in competition rather than
co-operation, only leads to personal, community, and
national discord.
National greed, corporate exploitation, out-sourcing,
is simply the exploitation of the powerless and the
poor of other nations.
Corporate greed is more difficult to treat than the
most aggressive forms of cancer.
The pursuit of wealth and power is neither a peaceful
nor a spiritual goal. That which is done in such a
“progressive” fashion, striving for something better,
then “more better” is quite different from the soul
of humanity- order, freedom, beauty, serenity, peace,
and love of neighbor.
________…________
There’s no golden laurel to set upon his head,
For the status of a hero depends on WHEN he’s dead.
Oh, that they had killed him on that great attack,
Rather than, in retreat, they shot him in the back.
He’s like the rest of us, –
Brave and cowardly,
Just like you and me,
Not blinded by a courage, for goals of fantasy.
The valiant leader freed his people,
From the tyrant’s chains,
And rose to power, through sacrifice and courage,
Running in their veins.
…. and became the next tyrant.
So the world turns, –
Till brotherhood is recognized,
And strife is so resolved,
And the discord between Nations,
Are finally dissolved.
________…________
LIFE IS SORROW
Sorrow is that of a tot who has lost his toy,
The end of a relationship that has gone astray,
The loss of a child, be it girl or boy,
The sight of life’s tragedies, day by day.
It’s the realization of pleasures gone bye,
The loss of fun in friendships and play,
The tears of sadness when loved-ones die,
The fading attachments along the way.
It’s the sight of our losses as we age,
The scenes of suffering in lands far away
The loss of freedom, like actors on stage,
It’s part of living, the part that we pay.
Time is the memory of things of the past,
Sorrow is time’s closest friend.
You’re just like an actor, one of the cast,
But the light of the present brings sorrow to end.
Sorrow and time are things of the night,
They darken your joy, and dim your delight.
________…________
LIFE IS JOY
Joy is the birth of a baby, the face of the mothers.
It’s the children playing in the back yard,
The care and kindness shared by lovers,
The spirit of writers, the tales of the bard.
It’s the bluebird of happiness, touching the ground,
The joy of its song, and its freedom to fly.
It’s the rapture of silence, making no sound,
The memory of goodness, as time passes by.
It’s the bliss of beauty that meets the eye,
The sound of music exciting the ear,
The stars in the heavens, the sun in the sky,
The pleasures of friendships year after year.
……
Joy and Sorrow are sisters, you see,
Two live limbs, on a beautiful tree.
________…________
THE NON-IMITATOR
How to think and how to feel,
How to arrive at what is real, –
Simply watch the idiot box,
Or follow current orthodox?
Your culture tells you how to be,
The past dictates what you should see.
–For your journey to be true,
The road you take is up to you.
How to change a culture’s mode,
Not simply do what you are told.
–In your desire to put it right,
Rely upon your own insight.
The problem is the greedy,
It’s rife among the wealthy,
But also among the needy…
The solution is not from smart suggestions,
The answer is in YOUR questions.
________…________
Our normal level of consciousness posits a center
point, a mental projection of a still point,
whether it be “ego”(inner) or separate things (outer).
Empirical sciences generally have this dual perspective.
Practical living in time/space require it.
Something is” happening.”
The work of the mind is to put this “happening” in
terms of time, space, causality, grinding out its own
ideas of the happening in accord with its own
survival and “progress.”
Thought is a function of the brain. Thought is
temporal, discursive, rational, logical, concepts
relating to concepts in a causal manner.
Based on its concepts of time and space, its
process of abstraction, generalizing from the
particular, learning and teaching through the
use of words(concepts) it achieves a measure of
security in being able to control “parts” of the
happening.
The happening remains whole. There is always some
conceptual quality in the word “part.” There is
never an actual, autonomous, individual, part.
“Everything” is interdependent.
Thought has a way of picking it all apart and
examining “pieces” as if they were separate from
the whole.
This process is much like entering a dark room
with a flashlight. Bit by bit one becomes aware
of the room and its contents. The alternative is
the person entering the room and turning on the
light.
Unfortunately, to describe his total vision, he
must use the rational process-word after word
in a timely fashion.
The minds’ creation and use of time, although
necessary for daily living, either frightens one,
or encourages one to continue on its treadmill,
maintaining an imaginary, substantial ego.
The five senses appear to validate this illusion
of an “I” inside ones’ head, suffering, enjoying,
watching things passing by,or simply identified
with ones’ static “I.” But there is no static
condition, no isolated, individualized part.
Yes, you are the world, but not the one an
imaginary “you” set up.
________…_______
TIME OUT
At top-left is the image of a mask. Ages ago,
Greek actors held up different masks to represent
the characters they were playing. On this picture,
this image of a mask symbolizes the “ego,” a
changing mask for changing circumstances, not a
fixed reality in ones’ skull.
The time components, breaking out of the time-piece,
no longer clicking, symbolizes a reality without
the movements of time measuring the past; thus
validating the fact that what is real, is the NOW.
At the bottom of the picture are ruler and compass,
measuring devices, as if space were a measurable
object.
Time, Space and Ego are necessary concepts, tools
by which we, as perceived individuals, relate to
the world of our daily lives.
Meditation is freedom from the movement of time.
With Time out, ego and space disappear as “objects.”
________…________
MYSTICISM AND MEDITATION
In the above picture, the Yin/Yang symbol hovering
over the mine, symbolizes the accessibility of a
precious spiritual dimension to ordinary people,
whose lives are caught up with the daily activities
of living.
Although the production of ore from the mine may
sustain a village, feed a steel mill, make a profit
for share-holders and owners, meditation has nothing
to do with all that.
Nor is meditation an escape venue, a safe-haven, a
life in seclusion, a place of security in a world of
dynamic trials.
Meditation is the continual attention in ones’ life
activities, at seeing the true, the true in the false,
the false in the false, in a non-judgmental manner.
Meditation is not a useful system.
Meditation is ultimate simplicity, and only most
difficult for those whose lives are continued
attachments, stereo-typed personas.
Simple people know this, without a complex vocabulary
to describe it.
Integrity, wholeness, is their lot.
________…________
The roaring flame will give off light,
Only if there’s eye and sight.
The falling trees no sound shall make,
Without an ear-drum they may shake.
The flame leaves ashes in its wake,
The fallen trees no longer quake.
The memories of their sight and sound,
In the mind, oft still abound.
To find the light that you may be,
Free from thoughts of flame and tree.
No clinging concepts chain your mind,
Your visions of another kind.
We’ve traveled outward far and wide,
Now it’s time to look inside.
The inner space is there to find,
The vastness of a human mind.
Once opened up what senses sealed,
All at once, the world’s revealed.
No movement in the realm of time,
Face to face with the sublime.
________…________
Though one can view Outer space, infinite in size,
The breadth and depth of Inner space is hard to realize.
The eye, the light, the sciences, probe the distant stars.
The “I” (the ego) drives for goals, …
that serve as prison bars.
It puts its slant on every thought, and measures it by
time.
It chooses what to think about, every thought a “mine.”
Like a metal sieve, it screens the data it lets in,
And limits Inner Space to a “thing” within your skin.
Outer Space is infinite, a “place” for Science inspection.
Inner Space, a “spot” to plot, and view your own
reflection?
When Science and senses new worlds find, …
The Ego rules and limits, the contents of the mind.
Inner Space and Outer Space are a unity,
…not each a “thing” of mine.
When Ego takes its proper place,
Infinity is Thine.
________…________
As one begins to realize that the ego is a conceptual
complex of brain activity, through memory and experience,
and not a “thing in itself,” a new way of viewing
reality appears: Holism, integral relationship, inter-dependency.
Feelings are the dynamism of relationships. There is not
someone inside us, looking out and experiencing feelings.
We are that feeling, and it is “in relation.” We feel some-
thing is missing, or everything fits, and are enduring the
appropriate consequences. Everything is connected.
There is only one whole. The resolution of conflict is the
return to the whole.
When one takes oneself so seriously, (believing they are
a star in their own play) one loses sight of their real
role in the real play.
________…________
Nature is cyclical…Born/die, born/die, born/die…
Nature is not eternal. Being born and dying are two ends
of the same process.
Eternity is not the opposite of cyclical. The concepts of
beginning and end do not apply to eternity.
The Time, Space, Causality realm stands in no relationship
to the Eternal.
Eternity is not a progression– one thing after another.
Eternity is a state- love, no possessive characteristics,
real existence.
Eternity is beyond knowledge. Complex simplicity.
________…________
You want a job?
Try to find out where the train is going.
The one that seems to be taking you from a baby to
an old man….
Your destiny, when you get off the train.
________…________
The Good Old Boys, on a night out drinking,
Got together to share their thinking:
“The blacks, the jobless, the immigrants too,
Causing all the trouble, what’ll we do?
Their guns and knives threaten our lives.
We gotta protect our kids and wives.
There’s pistols and rifles hanging on our wall,
We’ll take them down, and use them all.”
Their heart’s not warm and their psyches are shrinking,
They’re carried away by their paranoid thinking.
Politicians who share their views,
Will do whatever the Old Boys choose.
They’ll keep their borders safe and tight,
And do what the Old Boys think is right.
(the human psyche, when it contracts,
Will justify most all their acts).
When fearful minds rely on power,
And still believe in their ivory tower,
Their narrow vision can’t expand.
-No social justice in their land.
________…________
FIGHTING THE WINDMILL
Using the wrong means to solve the wrong problem.
Arm the students to prevent murders in the classroom.
Build a more sophisticated bomb to stop world wars.
Address world poverty by amassing a fortune.
Etc.,etc.,etc….
________…________
“There’s laws that clearly state, the demented can’t get armed.
That’s the reason why we say, the public won’t be harmed.
If you see a feeble-minded, get him off the street.
Send him to the clinic, for psychiatrists to treat.
Arm the teachers in the schools, take a gun where’er you go,
Even in the church, or when you’re at a show.
Everybody but the crazies, are free to bear a gun.”
So the man from Phoenix, said to everyone.
Now who shot the stranger, and the family of five,
With bullets flying everywhere, and the gun-man not alive?
– There’s not enough psychiatrists in the U.S.A.,
To treat the paranoia in the N.R.A.
________…________
THE MAGICIAN
The magician, the illusionist, pulled a rabbit from his hat,
All of us were struck with awe, not expecting that.
He locked a tiger in a cage, gave his wand a magic pass,
Then peeled away the curtain and revealed a lovely lass.
He spins our minds in circles, and cunningly distracts,
Then surprises us again, with another of his acts.
Although we feel it’s all unreal, he fools us every time,
His sleight of hand, his secret craft, befuddles every mind.
He makes the tiger disappear, and in its place a pretty girl,
Allaying all concern and fear, our minds still in a swirl.
But now I vow, however how, I’ll keep my eyes affixed,
And not be fooled by the magician, and his magic tricks.
When I reflect upon the Universe, and who created that,
It elicits no more awe in me, than the rabbit in the hat.
The mighty cosmos, planets, suns, the multitude of stars,
You’d think would be more awesome than a tiger behind bars.
Who could make the world appear, was troubling my mind,
A great magician with his wand, an answer will I find?
But the question of a maker, leads to no solution.
It’s just another case of humanity’s illusion.
There always is a magician, performing on the stage.
There never was a tiger locked within that cage.
There always is a Universe, timeless is its age.
________…________
OLD MAN GRIPING
There are so many vehicles to get the news to you,
The world is ever on your plate, there for you to view.
The gossip in the twitter age, is only partly true.
The gossip pre-technology, was just as faulty too.
……..
Right wing rhetoric stirs up hatred,
In their minds, there’s nothing sacred.
The depth and breadth of human kind.
Is ever absent from their mind.
……..
The good negotiator views both sides, to arrive at
his decision.
The ideologue can’t dialogue; he sticks to his
position.
His minds made up ahead of time, he simply wants
submission.
No longer unity and peace, his solution is division.
……..
________…________
BIOLOGICAL BIPEDS
Biological bipeds birthed by the sea,
Concerned about survival and their destiny.
A glimpse of order, a struggle within,
Accepting that sanity is “just fitting in.”
The biped measurer introduced time,
Carving in pieces, a world so sublime.
— Reality of every kind, —
Existing only, for the bipeds’ mind.
Flowers and trees, and even rocks,
Sealed within reasons’ locks.
Love and compassion ceasing to be,
For biological bipeds birthed by the sea.
Within nature’s circle is the biped’s life,
Living in a world of war and strife.
Eternal creation, its love and mystery’
Transcending the mind of the creature from the sea.
Such a man could never see,
The love in flower, grass and tree.
His world, an object for his mind,
All restrained by ego’s bind.
His search for identity, a mental exercise;
For there never was an ego behind the biped’s eyes.
There’s no separation, no future prize deserved.
The biped doesn’t know; the observer is the observed.
________…________
THE SAILOR
Sailors on shore-leave, dances and booze,
Except for the hang-over, nothing to lose.
Now back ship-board, and far out to sea,
Memories of girlfriends, lucky are we.
My home is the Ocean, it’s vast as can be.
Away from the cities, my ship sets me free.
The calm and the storm, the stars in the night,
Nothing compares to the sea and its might.
At the port cities, apartments I’m shown,
But life in those boxes, for me is no throne.
No visions of grandeur, no dashing sea foam.
The great blue Ocean is my cherished home’
…He was an old cow-hand,
From the Rio Grande
Now he doesn’t need a rope,
and he doesn’t need a brand,
For the open Ocean became his land.
There’s no horizon that comes to an end,
No barbed-wire boundaries, no fences to mend,
Open space, no property lines,
Absolute freedom, no keep-off signs.
Yippy YI O KI Aye!
________…________
LIGHT
The spectrum of light, by which we all see,
Has colors, their wave-lengths, in unity.
But there was a fight,
In the spectrum of light,
Between the red, the yellow and blue.
And the purple and green,
Were said to be seen,
Fighting each other too.
When the colors all fight,
There’s a loss of true sight,
And we see through the reds, greens or blues,
Or any one color we choose.
How chaotic a sight,
With the loss of true light.
Humanity, we find in the same situation,
With unending wars between nation and nation.
Seeing the world from an ego-based view,
And humanity divided between a “me” and a “you.”
A “him,” a “me,” and a “you,”
Just like the red, the yellow, the blue.
________…________
THE MINER
The Drummond Mine’s not there anymore,
The steam-driven hoist, rusted to the core.
Men with pick and shovel, once broke away the coal,
Now the underground is empty, not a single soul.
The town, once aburst with life, now an empty shell.
What was once an Eden, now a scene from hell.
Poverty depression, and very little hope,
Miners and their families at the end of their rope.
Social Workers, Psychologists, Clergymen galore,
Offered consolation to the men who mined the ore.
The grieving population, in spite of what they heard,
Knew their plight was greater than the sound of any word.
Strategies of coping, or the words of the Divine,
Offered no solution to the workers of the mine.
Life is not the things you know, or simply how you feel.
It’s living like the miner, facing what is real.
Freud’s “Id” and “Ego,” Descartes’ “think” and “be,”
Psychological dualism, life’s uncertainty,
-No concern of miners digging out the coal
With faith in one and other, they shared a common soul.
There’s no dualism, in the miner’s underground.
Trust in kindred spirits, was the secret that they found.
________…________
FREEDOM
Words alone will never set you free.
You’re branded by your culture, don’t you see.
No writing on a page,
Will mitigate your rage,
For the bars in your jail is your ego.
Nor will the wisdom of the sage,
Open up your cage,
Unless at last you see,
That freedom’ll only be,
When you let the “me” go.
The thought-spun image is hard to let go,
We’re so attached to the things that we know.
The whole of consciousness, events of the past,
Remembering them, believing they’d last.
When kindred spirits meet, there’s no image of a “me.”
In love and unity, they are truly free, –
While the thought-spun ego, in a false embrace,
Measures all “things” in “time” and in “space.”
________…________
SERENITY
For many years, I was just like everyone. No time
to see the life around me, caught up in the vortex
of usefulness.
I was just sitting there. A large pot of flowers on
my balcony was continually blooming. Among the red
flowers were some dead ones, some just budding, and
most in full bloom. There were two kinds of red flowers,
one having a deeper red color, and bloomed in clusters.
The white flowers were no bigger than your finger-nail,
but there were many of them. Looking at them closely
revealed a bright yellow center, fading into orange
and brown seedlings.
A few feet from the balcony large green trees grew,
their limbs now covered with bright green leaves.
A month ago there were no leaves on the limbs. A
couple of black squirrels ran up and down the trees,
one sometimes chasing the other, then stopping
abruptly, then both would run off in different
directions, only to meet again on one limb or other.
A row of spruce trees had light green needles at their
tips, next to previous years’ darker growth. Everything
was exuding life.
Children came out and played on the green grassy area.
The birds in the trees seemed to be used to them. One
of the magpies (crows in a tuxedo) swooped down on a
black squirrel who easily frustrated its possible intent.
Through the open window of my den, I could hear the T.V.
blaring away, “O.K., who gets occasional constipation,
diarrhea, bloating?… Do you have a problem with the bacon
sticking to the pan?… For good hair care try… and
on and on… A series of advertisements and inane
comments repeated over and over, like a dog barking
in one’s face.
I closed the window, and watched the squirrels in their
play.
For many years, I was just like everyone. No time to see
the life around me, caught up in the vortex of usefulness.
________…________
There was a man who despised himself because he was so
greedy,
He recognized, but still denied, his guilt about the
needy.
This ‘total’ man devised a plan to deal with this enigma,
“I’ll take the ‘part’ that serves my heart and rid me of
this stigma.
The only way to handle this,
And still remain in wealth and bliss,
Is shed the needy from my head,
Let ‘others’ seek their daily bread.”
This skin-encapsulated fool, thinks freedom is a rule,
Allowing him his wealth and ease, ignoring what is cruel.
-For freedom in his narrow mind,
Has naught to do with being kind.
It’s just another tool.
________…________
A young budding journalist, with a good resume,
Sought a position with reasonable pay.
But a glut in the work-force left little to choose,
So he’ll feign paranoia, and work for right wing News.
________…________
THE DEAD
With what mind do they think?
With what ears do they hear?
With what eyes do they see?
The dead are gone…
Their brain, a bit of dust, in a shell of bone.
They have no memory, they’ve left us quite alone.
It’s you and I, here and now,
With memories of what went on before,
Who miss their faces, feel the loss,
But ‘they’ are no more.
They ran out of time…
No when, nowhere, goals no longer driving.
They’ve reached the end, no gradual arriving.
Gone from this world of mine…
While now, today, yesterday, and death,
is ours to ponder,
Life outside of time is left to wonder.
________…________
The flickering flame of the fireplace,
The stillness of the night,
Awake, the wee hours of the morning,
Not a moment of sleep in sight.
The world and its spinning, like a spiraling dot,
The past and the future in one little spot.
All of life, in the blink of an eye,
Friends all gone, how oft must I die?
“Why, why, must everything die?”
So the philosopher said,
(though long since dead).
-And nature’s reply
To the question of why:
“Order is fine.
It’s a true trait of mine,
But ‘purpose,’ is just in your head’.
________…________
The air, the water, the minerals and vegetation, all
feeding this human substance, which somehow achieves
a reflective quality (mental activity);and then this
human substance forgets the elements that are constantly
forming it. It begins to believe that it is independent
of its life source, while it is actually one with it.
It is actually a product of the world, a phenomenon of
nature’s cyclical activity.
The human doesn’t come ‘into’ this world (as the Bible
proclaims). The human comes ‘out’ of it.
Man’s thought process is an intellectual tool. It recognizes
that actual intelligence is a wide-spread, universal
phenomenon. Then it denies that very recognition in order
to build up, through memory and experience, an Ego center,
individualized and isolated from universal intelligence.
It now pretends that ego-perception is not a limited
perception, but rather, the source of intelligence.
Remaining in this area of consciousness prevents the
adoption of a holistic view, and the realization of the
true breadth and depth of existence.
The first step of the journey into inner space, is the
abandoning of the ego-construct and the awareness of a
holistic view.
Just as the earth is not the center of the vast outer
space, neither is the ego the center of the vast inner
space.
Inner Space and Outer Space are two sides of the same coin.
________…________
LOVE’S JOURNEY NEVER ENDS
A little boss-man in your head,
Runs your world ’till you are dead.
From your head to your feet,
It seems to you, your world’s complete.
If your brain sees past your skin,
And you discover a world within,
You find out who you really are,
For a little boss-man can’t go far.
Open up, let love abound,
Embrace the world that you have found.
Let the boss-man say good-bye,
Your life’s immense, like the open sky.
You’re not an ego, in a bag of skin.
You’re the outer world and the world within.
You’re intelligence and love combined,
Far from the limits of the boss-man’s mind.
________…________
He sits alone, on his ego throne,
Midst billions of blazing stars,
And calculates in light-years,
What’s behind the planet, Mars.
Views Outer Space, where gas and ash,
Through gravity, give birth,
To multitudes of suns and orbs,
Far beyond the earth.
Amid gigantic galaxies,
That past ages never knew,
Where is Jesus’ body,
As he rose from human view?
There surely is another way,
To view this cosmic din.
Perhaps the Lord has risen,
In the Space within.
In Inner Space, where love abounds,
There is no ego state.
To all who hear, the journey’s clear, –
A life devoid of hate.
________…________
THE AFTER-LIFE
Three acorns, Dokie, Mokie, and Pokie,
all fell to the ground.
Dokie went right under,
and was lost to Mokie and Pokie.
“Dead”, thought Mokie and Pokie,
“Off to the Great Acorn land.”
Mokie and Pokie so loved him that they
wanted to contact him.
They tapped three times with their shells.
They studied meditation.
They prayed to the Great Acorn in the sky.
And finally, each, in his own acorn shell
heard the noises of acorn Dokie reverberating
in their shell….
But it really was their own echoes.
Mokie and Pokie were so attached to Dokie that
for years and years, they couldn’t let him go.
They didn’t notice the great oak tree growing
at their side.
We mortals keep looking for a James, a John, a Mary,
who have long since passed.
…now beyond our finite perceptions.
________…________
Your body’s not the limit of your being,
Along with your hearing and your seeing.
Nor are you just the smellin’ in your nose,
Or the feeling in your fingers and your toes.
Throughout your life, the persons whom you know,
The towns and cities where you come and go,
All come together with your senses five,
And assure you, that your ego is alive.
It might be true that every life transcends,
The timely pleasures and their certain ends,
Or does Mother Nature always have her way
And bring to end the mighty ego’s stay?
If you recognize a SELF, beyond your ego,
And your “I” has let the “Me” go,
Then you’re not confined within bag of skin,
And peace and love and freedom, are the space within.
________…________
THREEPEE
Threepee, the great industrialist(Progress, Production,
Power) took over. A gigantic robot developed. Threepee
and its scientists and engineers, cold as a steel bar,
fed it.
From its innards it drew forth metal and coal through
the sweat of living man; it pushed and twisted metal
straws into its juices, and sucked it forth.
Its oil and coal and metals were fused by its breath of
fire.
It split its smallest ‘piece’ and gathered up its energy,
striving always for greater power, progress, production.
(For that’s what it was).
Gigantic Robot came upon the myriad permutations and
combinations of 0-1; the rational process now divorced
from human values, because Gigantic Robot was as cold as
a bar of steel.
Now, living man could put its brain to rest, and rely upon
The Robot’s info in his back pocket. The connection
between his brain and heart gradually corroded.
And squeaky man, morphing with Gigantic Robot, squeaked
out, “please love your neighbor.”
But Threepee, who ran the show replied, “If you don’t like
P and P and P, then shit behind a bush and wipe your ass
with a handful of leaves, – for Progress, Power, Production,
has won.
Threepee and Gigantic Robot, now were one.
________…________
The answer to one’s questions are rarely black or white.
Oft times one must settle for the grey.
And most of our conclusions, wrong or right,
Depend upon their context, and their day.
God and the Devil aren’t contestants in a fight,
Where bad is always wrong and good is always right.
Such a war would have no winners, …
For they are both in saints and sinners,
But humans can’t abide,
With good and bad inside,
So they came upon a way,
To keep them both at bay.
They used denial and projection,
To provide for their protection:
The ego, greed, the wars, the lies,
Are the lot of all the other guys.
When they muster up their courage and open up
their eyes,
Good and bad in one and other, they finally
realize….
Then life is not a battle, between good and bad
each year.
With goodness towards each other, God and Devil disappear.
________…________
MOTHERS
She is gracious, a peace-maker, a child of the earth.
And within natures’ cycles, the mother gives birth.
The forms she creates are passing, we grieve,
For all her children will timely take leave.
The freedom she gives them to go on their way,
The price of her love, the debt she must pay.
She treasures their lives, although they depart,
Forever their love remains in her heart.
Nature’s cycle…you’re born and you die,
Joy and sorrow combine in her sigh.
Affection and beauty, they come and they go,
But mother and child, one thing they know:
“Nature doesn’t set you free,
Nor lead you to eternity.
Freedom’s not from up above, …
It’s forever found in a mother’s love.”
She is gracious, a peace-maker,
A person of love.
________…________
MARY-LOU
Why are you still crying, Mary-Lou?
Don’t you know that we all loved him too?
Each of us have shed our tears like you.
There’s nothing more that we could say or do.
…Why are you still crying Mary-Lou?
Mary-Lou, you have to find a way,
To leave the past behind and live the day.
Listen to your friends, hear what they say,
The past is past, and there is no replay.
…Why are you still crying Mary-Lou?
Throughout his life he struggled to be free.
We all admired his spontaneity.
The other side, that all but you could see,
He was no child upon a mother’s knee.
…Why are you still crying Mary-Lou?
All his joy in life, you saw as part of you,
To let him go was hard for you to do.
Our grief is gone, although we loved him too,
Please drive away self-pity, and be with us anew.
Love him,
Let him free,
And he will free you too, Mary-Lou.
________…________
The inhabitants of the world are one humanity,
Overly impressed by their rationality;
As if Intelligence were the product of their brain,
And all its other qualities reduced to mere disdain.
Logic, and usefulness, the “way” of the human mind,
Dynamic prime movers for the human kind.
Competition for survival, comfort, ease, its only goal,
For man’s a “rational animal,” and that’s the human’s role.
The mind delights in limits, by this it has control,
Declares itself a person, each a separate soul;
Content with measurements of outer space and time,
Eternity, Infinity, beyond the rational mind.
It strayed from true intelligence, and relied on human
thought,
A stereotypical life, is the story that it bought.
Good will, love and caring, reduced to second place,
In the isolated mind of the ‘rational’ human race.
Ideologies or religions won’t cure this human state.
Shrinking self-identity remains the human’s fate.
An inner world of caring might restore humanity,
And Lo! a human being more than rationality.
________…________
Intelligence is the art of listening.
Learning is the science of inquiring.
There are many learned men,
Who are not intelligent.
________…______
You don’t have to go to outer space to find an Alien.
You just have to look inside yourself.
You are the Alien.
You view yourself as an autonomous, isolated entity.
You believe you are not essentially linked in unity
to the whole of the universe.
You are still seeking to ‘conquer’ space, and are
continually at war with each other….
Wake up!
________…________
“Each person expressing their own views, the artists
and their works, technological advances, traffic jams,
fields of corn, political systems, religious institutions,
the business world, family relationships, the oceans,
medicines, trees, etc., etc.
How do you do it, you who are the world”?
-”The same way I grow my hair.”
“I don’t understand.”
-”You must get out of the way.”
________…________
Block your ears,
Close your eyes,
For you can’t accept the fact…
That ahead and behind,
Is the work of one’s mind,
And living and dying is one simple act.
Yesterday is gone.
It’s not coming back.
The one with the scythe makes his attacks,
As you live and die in the midst of his hacks.
So open your eyes, unplug your ears.
Nothing awaits you in on-coming years.
It’s here already, abandon your fears.
________…________
THE LITTLE GIRL
A little girl, not four years old,
Always did what she was told.
To please her mother, when in her threes,
She’d recite her A, B, C’s.
This little girl, so young of age,
Saw the canary in its cage.
She couldn’t come to realize why,
For it had pretty wings to fly.
She brought its prison to the floor,
And opened up that little door,
Released it to the open sky,
Was full of joy to see it fly.
“Mother, mother,” she cried in glee,
“I let the little yellow bird free.”
…Her mother knew she lost her hold,
Too soon her lamb would leave the fold.
________…________
Life is like a good juggler’s act.
He is able to keep many balls in the air
at the same time.
Many people just use one ball,
and they think they are juggling.
We call them Ideologues.
________…________
I wrote a poem about “Embie,”
(While including a caveat).
And tried to show.
As far as I know,
How “Embie” would feel,
If “Embie” was real.
But a fertilized egg,
Can feel no relief,
Nor reflect on its grief,
In a personal way,
During its uterine stay.
Some people say that a fertilized egg
is a person.
When they get to heaven, they’ll have to
be careful they don’t step on any of them.
________…________
YOU GOT TROUBLE??
Bringin’ up a family, payin’ the rent,
Very short time, money all spent.
Plan for the future, so they say.
I’ll be lucky to get through the day.
Baby’s crying, wet her pants,
Eight hours sleep, not a chance.
Off to the market, buy some corn,
Meat’s too expensive, house not warm.
No time for readin’, no time for play,
No deep thinkin’, bills to pay.
Next door neighbor, quite unkind.
Universal peace never crosses my mind.
Up in the mornin’, half-past three.
World’s got troubles, so have we.
Work from the mornin’, till late at night.
The whole damn thing, just don’t seem right.
The problem is greater than my plight.
Greed turned daylight into night.
________…________
Oh, you found me.
Hidden among the other pages.
Well, I’ll spill the beans.
You’ve heard it all before, but it does make a
good story.
It’s all about those little creatures you call
aliens.
The story, if you believe it, goes like this:
Several multi-colored, beautifully attired creatures
visited the Earth.
“Don’t be frightened,” they said, “We come from the
planet Nowannaowns, and we just want to show you
how great you are.
Most of you earthlings are committed to the idea of
being an isolated subject, entitled to the ownership
of things and even of other psyches. This is the basic
dynamism of your world. The most successful of you
become millionaires.
Natives of long ago were willing to sell you specific
parts of the earth, and would sell you parts of the sky,
or the moon itself, if they could get away with it.
They didn’t know that you could write it down on a
piece of paper, each make a mark, and the Deed was
done. Then, much to their surprise, they had to get off
their piece of ground.
We laugh at the idea that a written piece of paper
is the right to stand, walk on, build or play on a
specific part of the earth.
And then, there was Columbus, honored for discovering
America (It was always there). So, also we laugh at
your sending Rockets into outer space to discover
a people like you (You know, those with the same spirit
of acquisition).
We, on the other hand, have no concepts of possession.
We are not socialists. We believe variety is the spice
of life. We think “Oneness.” There is no conflict between
variety and oneness. We are not isolated from the Uni-
verse. No idea of duality has ever entered our minds.
Our minds are one with the flow of the Universe.
Now, we must tell you of your greatness. You are not
a thing that possesses other things. When you recognize
your short-sighted view-point, suddenly you know you
are all of it, just like us, not a bleak, blah phenomenon
of equality, but rather, a rich variety of freedom, beauty,
peace and love.
…Now you can keep gathering up your stuff,
…or be who you really are.
________…________
TRIBALISM
The thistle, shamrock, rose, entwined,
With French, Italians, Germans, too.
And Chinese, Indians, if you don’t mind,
Russians, Arabs, Turks and you,
– all got together, nations true.
World peace is their goal-,
Treat all nations fair and right.
Harmony and love is in their soul,
But meantime they’ll just have to fight.
-They have to show their nation’s might.
Economic problems are national woes,
But Corporate giants will fix this up,
Making peace between budding foes,
As long as they can fill their cup,
-No matter what they might corrupt.
Economic change won’t make the day.
Ethnic backgrounds will have their say.
Peace and unity seem far away.
________…________
SUBJECTIVITY
For those who wear pink glasses,
The world is always pink,
No matter what others may think.
And those whose glasses are blue,
Make efforts to convince you,
The world they see, is the true.
Religions, Politics, Philosophies, each with different views,
Offer peace and security,
Whichever the one you chose.
Teachers, with their knowledge,
Send their best to college,
And oft, the meanest we see, are like the monkey and
the tree:
A monkey hopped along the shore of a neighboring sea.
He came upon a flailing, flapping fish, not where it
should be.
To keep the little fellow safe, he put it up a tree.
When what you see, you think is fact,
Check your glasses before you act.
________…________
Human consciousness is confused,
Living in a state of fractured denial,
in a world permeated with greed, envy, hate, division.
The only way to remedy this state is to recognize it
totally. You are the world. Why continue on this path?
Changing this world state cannot be accomplished
by well-meaning groups, political systems, ideologies,
religions, each addressing particular ills, over
periods of time.
The cure comes only by a complete revolution of
consciousness, taking responsibility for who you are,
rejecting the old consciousness of acquisition, greed,
envy, prejudice, etc., not in a gradual progressive
fashion, but instantaneously.
________…________
Many retained experiences, be they positive or negative,
become points of reference, –
and limit the minds’ expansion.
________…________
The story is told of a Zen Master, entering the classroom,
noticing all his students were staring at one window.
There on the windowsill, was a bluebird singing its song.
The Master waited until the bluebird finished, and flew away.
Then he addressed the students, telling them that was their
class for the day.
________…________
THE SNIPER
Sniper, sniper, take my advice,
Don’t do your killin’ from the same place twice.
Or better still hear what I say,
‘Throw your ‘isms and your guns away’.
Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Jews,
Take any religion you may choose,
Any Ideology in your head,
Won’t mean a damn thing when you’re dead.
Sniper, Sniper, I implore,
Don’t take a bead on my front door.
I’m just pickin’ up the paper,
Nothin’ more.
When the war is over where’ll he go?
Diggin’ up potatoes in Idaho?
________…________
Bravery in the military must not be denied,
But it’s also in the fighting men, on the other side.
The honor of the soldier is the country’s pride.
Ideologies of their leaders, is the reason that they
died.
________…________
ODE TO MARY ROSE
There she sits among the brick and concrete of the
dimming day.
Her toil, her kindness, soon to pass away.
Alone, not lonely, a humble life, a stately queen,
musing from her throne,
Leaving all behind, the brick, the stone.
Tough as steel, but gentle as a daisy,
Kind of heart, no patience with the lazy,
And though she is no more, no longer at her door,
Her love continues on forevermore.
The looming dusk depicts the fading scene,
The ending of a life well-lived, a lady so serene.
The enduring strength of concrete, brick and stone,
Will never match the life that Mary Rose has shown.
……
(Bridget and I are in our eighties,
Mary rose was Bridget’s grandmother).
The soaring dove
A sign of love,
No worries on its mind.
It’s great to be,
Completely free,
No other worlds to find.
A state of bliss,
Is simply this,
Love and freedom intertwined.
________…________
Goodness is in your heart.
You act from it.
You are not good, in order to receive some reward.
As if you could gain heaven, by being better than
you are, on that treadmill invented by yourself,
always not quite good enough.
Goodness is not a tool to obtain some future benefits.
Goodness is in your heart.
You act from it.
________…________
Be caring to yourself,
And you will be caring to everyone else.
Be caring to everyone else,
And you will be caring to yourself.
________…________
Alas the greedy.
They amass money for money’s sake.
When they smell shit,
They think it is perfume.
________…________
The Gods are at it again.
What Gods?…
The Gods created by the ideologues.
Each of them is the One God.
If there is only One God, there must be
peace and happiness?
‘No, my friend, peace and happiness is always,
“Down the road a bit.”
Each God has its own ministers, priests, rabbis,
gurus, chosen leaders, etc. They all have their
sacred books (Sometimes different Gods come out
of the same books).
Each have their formulas, rules, rituals, etc., on
how to get there (down the road a bit). The
payoff is later on, they say.
Yes, the Gods are clashing again.
Their followers will kill each other and claim
their own particular martyrdom.
And the non-Gods are also in the fight.
They are the political systems, the corporate
entities, each with its own ideology, power,
production, progress… engaged in unrelenting,
economic competition, any means justifying the ends.
A materialism driven by greed, creating pseudo values,
promising wealth, freedom, security, to the fortunate
few.
“Can there be peace and happiness in such a world
mess”?
Peace and happiness are not generated by the Gods
and the non-Gods.
Peace and happiness dwell within this worldly mess.
The world is filled with caring and loving people.
Their peace and happiness joyfully expressed in acts
of caring, truth, beauty, order, love. So many people
risking, sacrificing their own lives for both friends
and unknowns, living in peace with their neighbors.
Truly, the land of the real,
is always present,
with the land of nothingness.
________…________
Treating the ego as a functioning tool, and not as
an essential, substantial reality, allows one to live
with other different ‘ego images’, following the
cultural norms of the day.
The big error is one’s belief that one is something
that can claim ownership of something else, not
recognizing one’s interrelationship and inter-dependency.
Recognizing the latter mitigates one’s drive for
acquisition, thus opening the door for co-operation,
harmony, peace, freedom.
The passing identification of ego through knowledge and
experience represents growth. If it is not passing, but
permanent, then one has stereotyped oneself; one’s inner
space is clogged.
Intelligence does not need an individualized center
called “ego.” But the brain is afraid to let go of it.
When it lets go, the universe is the real. Then the ‘you’
is the world, with no reflective ego process.
This view-point is difficult to accept, because it transcends
the ordinary usefulness of our daily lives.
________…________
Looking for help from the saints who are dead?
Relying on books that you’ve already read?
Comfort and ease and very good health,
–No reason for interest in life or death?
Listening from one’s own point of view,
Expecting to hear something new?
Hoping to arrive at a spiritual place,
But simply viewing your own proper face.
No ego structure is required,
For mental life to be inspired.
________…________
Peace, Space, Oneness….
Reflecting, when one is alone,
One’s mind goes backwards,
To memories that reinforce
Who one thinks is the “me.”
Recognizing that they are no more,
A non-named space of peace appears.
The filling of that space
is not through the efforts of a “me.”
…So much of our life is beyond the realm of understanding.
________…________
Eternity is not a succession of time units.
Infinity is not an extension of space.
We only know what they’re not:
“Junks” of “time” created by thought.
________…________
ANTHROPOMORPHISM
(Because we are intelligent,
we picture God as the super-intelligent).
Millions and billions of galaxies and stars,
All light-years away.
Certainly no concerns of ours,
It’s just our God at his play.
Whirling and swirling, explosions and fire,
Velocities surpassing the blink of an eye,
-Our mind overwhelmed, no need to inquire,
It’s simply God’s toys twinkling by.
The fire and the rocks, and the whole spinning mass,
Can’t THINK like us, as we live,then die,-
So we ask what’s (he) up to, and why we surpass,
The Orbs, the Galaxies, the Suns in the sky.
The creationists’ answer is clear as the day,
“It’s simply God’s mystery,” that’s what they say, –
“Don’t threaten our security, or expand our mind,
It’ll make us angry and a little unkind.”
________…________
True peace is the awareness that just as you forgive
other people, other people forgive you.
To err is human.
To forgive is human too.
Trust in the other’s goodness,
For they’re as good as you.
________…________
There was a fair lady who could give it or take it.
She could tell you the truth or easily fake it.
In a game of strip-poker, she’d leave you buck-naked.
________…________
Vulnerable, pretty flowers,
You tell the world your story.
You’re free to be…
No observer observing,
No clipping, shaping, grooming,
Just be yourself,
Thrusting from the earth,
Welcoming the sun and rain,
Beautiful leaves,
And bright yellow petals.
________…________
OTHER WORLDS
When one believes oneself to be an isolated, individualized
entity, simply a dot on a small planet, in a vast universe
of planets and suns, it is very difficult to be aware of
one’s relationship to all of reality.
Man’s quest to explore the universe and communicate with
alien beings, presumes that one understands one’s own
identity and one’s relationship to the observed universe.
It is quite possible that one projects one’s own self image
onto the object we think we are investigating.
A main requisite might well be to find out who we really
are, how we fit into this universe, prior to investigating
from our own perspectives, the supposed rational inhabi-
tants of ‘other worlds’.
In truth, we are not simply individuals who manipulate
objects (people and things) for our own survival, comfort
and ease. Although the external world presents itself in a
mode of dualism, light/darkness, hot/cold, big/small, etc.,
to our minds, such dualism is not necessarily attributable
to the inner psyche.
From the inner psyche’s perspective, there is no subject
(ego) viewing an object. Subject and object are one activity.
The thinker is not a separate reality. For example, when
one views a panorama, one is not conscious of an eye
embedded in a head at the same time. So it is, with a
holistic perspective,not conscious of any ego in the psyche,
but integrally related to all of reality.
When one adopts this viewpoint, the search for other
worlds undergoes a paradigm shift.
Thought itself, is an exercise of a brain. Intelligence
is of the universe, and man’s brain is either in sync
with it or not. When it is not, it limits itself to an
identification with its own cultural formations, morality,
experiences, goals, comparing, competing, in the cyclical
world of nature.
The reasoning process is not something sacred. It is a
materialistic process of brain activity. It manipulates
concepts of past and future to achieve its respective
goals relating to survival and comfort among other
living beings, and existential circumstances. It is useful
and necessary in everyday living.
Communication with other worlds is extremely difficult, if
not impossible, because the specifics of our language is
so derivative of our sense of identity – an individual
limited by a corporate body. We speak and understand in
the media developed by our brain… temporal, causal,
progress, measurement, etc., all activities between
individuals,which might be viewed from afar like birds
chirping and chattering among each other as they live
and die.
If one is to investigate other worlds, one must use the
right tools for the job. A rational identification with
true intelligence is absolutely necessary.
Intelligence does not stand alone. Intelligence and love
are a unity.
A validation of Holism results, and one becomes aware
of one’s true identity.
_______…________
The images of various mandalas are not magical symbols
that lead the psyche to wholeness.
The inner experience of a mandala is very significant.
The mandala experience being,in a sense,the feeling of
oneness,the resolution of the one and the many.
Goodness appears to be that awareness,respect and
commitment to the holistic,interrelated dynamism of
all reality.
TAT TVAM ASI– Thou art that.
________…________
Love is not simply emotional or physical attraction.
Love is not simply attachment.
Love is a way of being, in all relationships, seeking
nothing in return.
________…________
The rising sun, again in view,
The rose, once dead, blooming anew,
The regular beat of the human heart,
The cyclical world of which we’re a part.
The fossil fuels and their carbon base,
Threatens the world and frightens the race,
The hydrogen bomb of nations at war,
Will man and his world exist anymore?
Out from this cycle, man yearns to be,
And into some land of security.
Witchcraft, philosophies, religions, contrive,
To assure human beings they all will survive.
Karma claims you’ll return, changed anew,
-You might not recognize it once was you.
The Christian has you resurrected,
Pardoned from any ill you effected.
In spite of such gloom and anxiety,
There’s many a person happy and free.
Kindness, compassion, and love are rife,
In the cyclical world of each human life.
________…________
Your ego is like your travelling bag,
Packed with all your things, and your name
inked on the tag,
For your last journey, there’s no need to pack,
You’re taking nothing with you, and you’re not
coming back.
________…________
POLITICS 2016
The Republican party has become a mean machine
which has finally imploded.
It is now like a bunch of chickens who have
invited the fox into their chicken coop.
________…________
Creation, for the rational subject, is the coming
(and going) of things in time. For the rational
subject it needs a cause (a first cause).
Eternity, for the rational subject, is a description
of time that goes on and on.
Infinity, for the rational subject is a word for
space that extends and extends.
In actuality, these statements are meaningless.
Trying to find out at what time TIME began is
ridiculous.
Trying to find out WHERE space ends is ridiculous.
Time/space are one, and a completely different
reality than the concept of Time and the concept
of Space.
Eternity, Infinity, are beyond the understanding
of the rational subject.
Trying to pin-point the BIG BANG is like putting
a fart in a bottle and painting it green.
________…________
Normal life in any community requires a certain
identification with the culture of that community
and its value systems, all contributing to the
formation of our own ego-system.
Any resistance to such identification is denying
the reality of an ego-complex. Such a person no
longer “fits” in to the value systems of that
community. In street talk, he would be an “odd ball.”
The odd ball must be sensitive to the daily living
experiences of his own life and that of his neighbors,
…while at the same time recognizing the flow of
experiences which deny any static identification.
________…________
He knew he had no more to say,
Of happenings from day to day;
-Nor furthermore, to explore,
The movements of the mind,
An Eden once again to find,
Through efforts in the realm of time.
As nature’s cycle calmed the din,
Of human goals that surge within,
Once released from nature’s finite hold,
No further seeking the untold;
A realm of freedom did unfold,
That shattered views of mind and thought,
Revealed the world that mind had sought.
So, smile and greet the coming days.
Enjoy the circle and its ways.
-The mind pursues its thoughtful ends
Through analysis and reason.
-The tree of life brings forth its fruit
Each in its proper season.
When freedom does the mind enhance,
The ripened fruit drops from the branch.
________…________
EPILOGUE
He didn’t write to simply fill the pages,
And wouldn’t trade a meaning for a better rhyme.
Although his life’s the fruit of many ages,
He sought to lure the reader out of Time.
His mind, it seems was void of all direction,
For Space to him was neither here nor there.
His travel always needed some correction,
For he could end up almost anywhere.
He denied the limitations of the Ego embrace,
And was awed by the infinity of Outer/Inner Space.
Was not concerned with past or future, or what the
reader may have read,
For the word is not the thing,
And love is never dead.
________…_______
I must thank my wife Bridget for her patience.
I apologize for my ignorance of the technology
of the computer age.
I wish to thank Bridget Hrabok for creating my
blog, Tyler Williams of “Heard”
for polishing up the presentation of my work
in such a professional manner and Jennifer Cottrell for her assistance in the printing and binding this collection of my work.
The Voice of the Plowman 