CCXXXVII
Life is but a mind full of vague perceptions
Playing out an unknowable future
In a momentary present.
* * * *
From beginning to end,
All any of us ever really has
Is this ever-fleeting awareness.
* * * *
There are no followers in this game.
How can there possibly be?
We are all one-and-only original copies,
So different, and yet always so very much the same.
* * * *
If you cannot really think for yourself,
If you cannot question or doubt,
Then you are little more than a recording
Playing over and over and over and over and . . .
Until your last meaningless, single-minded breath wheezes out.
* * * *
History is but an often-tawdry burp
Upon the infinity of totality’s mirage.
* * * *
Anyone spending a great deal of time
Criticizing the creativity of others
Probably isn’t doing much of their own.
* * * *
Just another collection of thoughts,
Impressions of cynical innocence.
* * * *
Do not confuse love with lust
Or the many delusions of romantic notion.
It is a transparent affection that is absolutely unconditional,
Not a petty, self-absorbed minion of desire.
* * * *
It does not matter who said what when.
All that matters is that it resonated
In ears capable of hearing.
* * * *
The fog of mystery is not easily dispelled.
* * * *
History entices many onto the shoals of immortal pretense.
* * * *
It is not your persona that is immortal, you ninny.
* * * *
Identity is the soot of consciousness.
* * * *
If hell is in the details,
Is heaven without any?
* * * *
Identification is all about nothingness
Blown up into the pretense of somethingness.
* * * *
Fortunately, it’s only for a lifetime.
* * * *
Flip the coin however many times you will,
Which side is good, and which is evil,
Is ever a delusional declaration.
* * * *
Even the maddest of hatters will only go so far.
But from the edge of that madness,
It can be discerned
There really are no limits.
* * * *
Poor translation can sew the seeds
For a bountiful harvest of confusion and dogma
Down the yellow brick road of time.
* * * *
The role of this lone voice
Is to set down these many thoughts
And meander on in the stream of time, anonymous.
* * * *
These thoughts are like piles of dung
For seeds to feed upon,
And prosper or fail as time wills.
* * * *
I don’t know why all this is happening.
What makes you think you do?
* * * *
The drop cascading above the wave
Raises its head, and, peering though its reflective edges,
Mistakenly calls what it sees . . . reality.
* * * *
An all too common error.
* * * *
Yes, six billion-plus people can be wrong.
* * * *
Put down the script
And let your face go.
* * * *
The challenge is to sharpen into an adroit mind
That can solve problems without making them.
* * * *
What madness the sexual aspect
Can bring upon our species.
* * * *
It happens.
* * * *
One of many amusing hobbies
Done without any real belief or concern
That it will aid in bringing about some future clarity.
* * * *
Clinging to select portions of the dreaming
Is the cause of all suffering.
* * * *
How would you judge yourself
If you had another set of eyes?
* * * *
Who have you ever personally witnessed
To be free of the natural laws
Of this world?
* * * *
Do you look for yourself, or merely repeat
What you have been conditioned to repeat?
* * * *
Creation and destruction are a fifty-fifty proposition.
* * * *
So many tokens gathered.
Baubles all.
* * * *
Are we talking your justice, my justice,
Or some imaginary friend’s justice?
* * * *
Any mind that wanders the greatest heights
Must occasionally slog the greatest depths.
* * * *
Life is but a few moments
On an ever-changing stage.
* * * *
How adept the senses are at leading one astray,
And the mind with an almost infinite capacity
To fall asleep and forget again and again.
* * * *
What need for there to be a point to all this?
* * * *
There’s nothing to prove to anyone,
Including your Self.
That you are is enough.
* * * *
The sound of one hand clapping
Is the same as one ear listening.
* * * *
Too much comfort softens the grip.
* * * *
There are the ignorant
Who know they are faking it,
And the ignorant who haven’t a clue.
* * * *
You cannot save anyone
Who will not save themselves,
Who will not learn to stand
On their own two feet.
* * * *
You are the ubiquitous eternal awareness
Witnessing the beginning and ending of all time.
Eternal salvation is freedom of an absolute inner vision.
* * * *
You will be imprisoned
In the mind’s mortal weaving
Until you can pierce the individuality
With the single-pointedness
Of pure indivisibility.
* * * *
Does air choose the balloon?
* * * *
The weight of thought rests only
In your peculiar attachment
To its ephemeral nature.
* * * *
From earth, wind, water and fire
Spring the rainbow of time.
* * * *
How is it you find it so difficult to accept the reality
That you are one of many forms of godness dreaming?
End your doubt with the all-consuming fire of pure attention.
* * * *
What I am, you are also.
Neither doubt nor forget ever again.
For however long you live,
Live eternally one.
* * * *
Ignorance has a curious way
Of winning every argument.
* * * *
From singularity burst forth the dust of manifestation,
And from that dust countless forms came into existence,
And In those many forms the play of consciousness evolved,
And in that consciousness arose the desire for union,
And in that union, dust ascertained its divinity.
* * * *
Slowly, very slowly, like drop after falling drop,
The stonecutter whittles away the mountain.
* * * *
You are a dream of the indivisible oneness
Pervading all forms, witnessing the eternal theater
In whatever fashion the play of consciousness may partake.
* * * *
These words are brought to you
From a source beyond reckoning
By the hand of a mind born to scribe.
* * * *
No history is necessary
To perceive the innate veracity
Of the ultimate nature.
* * * *
You are the me and the not me
In the unreality of reality.
* * * *
Does any thought or deed
Really matter even one iota
To the ultimate source?
* * * *
Eternity has no awareness of time or space.
That is the purview of time-bound consciousness.
* * * *
How vain can it get?
* * * *
To seek that which is unborn
Has no link to the evil concoctions
Imagined by so many fear-ridden minds.
Eternal damnation is but a state of imagination.
The unborn is the singularity prior to all manifestation,
That which experiences neither birth nor death,
Nor any beginning nor ending, whatsoever.
* * * *
Why fear your own creation?
Why want from it what it can never be?
It is an empty offer no matter the mirage projected.
* * * *
From simple beginnings to simple ends.
Complexity can never endure
For long durations.
* * * *
Just because the hatter is mad
Doesn’t mean he isn’t right.
* * * *
The pleasure button pushed without moderation
Will only weave a harsh web of self-destruction.
* * * *
In which lifetime were you born?
* * * *
Why do you follow leaders who have no insight
Into anything but your greed, prejudice
And other separative notions.
* * * *
We embrace and suppress each other’s flags
And the many cultural ideals surrounding them
As if they have any real and lasting importance.
* * * *
You cannot hide from your fate.
One way or another,
Something is going to happen.
* * * *
The inward journey is one only
The maddest of fools contemplate.
* * * *
Life is something of an empty offer,
A beguiling siren void of any ultimate substance,
Yet ever enticing the wayward pilgrim into the reefs of delusion.
* * * *
Normal is relative to a personal view.
* * * *
The passions are millstones
Dragging you to and fro in your mortal dream.
Tame them, and you will discern the freedom for which you yearn.
* * * *
To bring about a sense of serenity,
The source of duality must be seen within.
Only a pervading sense of detachment will free any
From the confusion inherent in the mind.
Manifest the quietude of godness,
And reality will find its way.
* * * *
Dogma is born of literal interpretation,
Mysticism of a figurative approach.
* * * *
Reality is not the problem here.
It is the general lack of insight into the natural order
That is the source of all human derangement.
* * * *
Every life form gets one die roll or another.
Do any have any real say in the matter?
* * * *
Time and space are mirages of the mind.
* * * *
Getting between individuals or groups
Intent on doing great harm to one another
Can be more than a little precarious.
* * * *
Stating the obvious is what this work is about.
* * * *
Many spend their lives believing
The concoctions of imagination will save them,
But all plays of mind are but tethers without anchor in reality.
* * * *
A moment lived fully is expelled with each breath.
* * * *
No word, equation or symbol for reality makes.
* * * *
Illusion,
One and all.
* * * *
The danger of scientific inquiry and technological advances
Is that no ethical constraints are inherent in the process,
And already the train is going to fast to stay on track.
* * * *
What is there to do,
But savor this moment,
However fleeting its duration.
* * * *
No one can tempt you but yourself.
* * * *
The passion woven of craving and fear
Gradually cloud the given clarity
Of the innocent heart.
* * * *
Why justify your life to a dream
Which has no ultimate reality?
* * * *
If you believe you are not suffering,
Then you are not paying attention to the angst
Your day-to-day consciousness has become too numb to feel.
The pure mind is corrupted by day-to-day divisiveness,
Deteriorated by excessive, self-serving passions,
To which the dissolution of all identification
Is the only real, lasting solution.
* * * *
Be wary of the arrogance of pride.
It wreaks havoc in many ways.
* * * *
In all your incessant accumulation, all your longing,
Have you ever really fully witnessed the desire?
* * * *
The world is a pearl of cosmic design,
A one-time gift that the life forms it births
Are absolutely free to treasure or destroy.
* * * *
Any given body is a test tube
In which chemical interactions
Precipitate every sort of passion.
Does any seed have any real choice
But to witness the blend allotted?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)
© Michael J. Holshouser 2009
World Rights Reserved