CCXXXVIII
All the little monkeys in the grove munched contentedly
Until their instinctual minds began to stir, and words began to form.
As they revealed their newborn concepts, they found their universes different,
Contention took root, contentment faded, the garden disappeared,
And the epic battle for power and control was underway.
* * * *
Human drama, human trauma.
* * * *
Every life form consumes, every life form is consumed.
It’s a god eat god world every moment of every day.
* * * *
Our savagery is tempered
By the pretense of civility.
* * * *
How arduously simple it truly is
To fathom you were never born.
* * * *
The instant thought thunders,
Truth is lost to the conceptual abyss,
The edifice of human neurology.
* * * *
The quest for truth is an ironic joke,
A quixotic duel with the windmill of the mind.
The closest any can ever come to direct perception
Is complete surrender to the stillness at its core.
* * * *
The seeker climbs the mountain,
Discerns there is no mountain,
And saunters down a mystic.
* * * *
Dare you end it all now?
* * * *
Truth is completely effortless,
But whether or not it is comfortable
Is a matter of personal inclination.
* * * *
Beliefs are set in so many tenuous foundations.
A constant stream of assertions is required
To keep them roosted in any given mind.
* * * *
Where exactly are you in that container,
And how far away is the tip of your nose?
* * * *
Your mind, my mind, any mind.
How different are they, really?
* * * *
Revenge tends to shatter into shards
In the angry soul of the vengeful.
* * * *
Grasping truth is like trying to pick up
A wandering drop of mercury with tweezers.
* * * *
How much more serene life becomes
When you do not resist the ebb and flow
Of sickness, injury, aging and dying.
* * * *
Either we are all
That which is godness,
Or godness does not exist.
* * * *
Maya offers an endless array of placebos,
But seeing the truth of the matter
Is the only real medicine.
* * * *
Life is the mirage of the mind.
* * * *
Do you really want,
Or only think you want?
* * * *
There are many ways vampires
Suck essence from their victims.
* * * *
What world would we all agree upon?
* * * *
Expand your contraction.
* * * *
So, which reflection are you, really?
* * * *
Is it worth it?
* * * *
Godness can only know itself
Through the eyes of limitation.
* * * *
To say I am that which is sought
Is not to be understood personally.
* * * *
Godness has walked this world
In every way, in every time.
You are it in your mind
In your play of time.
* * * *
What is so contrary about evolution
Being the means of creating the diversity?
One process is not without the other.
* * * *
Believing anything is just this or that
Rather that this and that
Is the delusion
Of linguistic malapropism.
* * * *
Are you the “I am” of limited proportion,
Or the “I Am” of the infinite eternal?
* * * *
And godness blew its Self into life,
And here you are, trying to figure out
How to deal with the vanity of it all.
* * * *
The highest high
And the lowest low
Are equally imagined.
* * * *
The decomposers will inherit
The last remains of your vanity.
* * * *
Within strength is the seed of weakness,
Within weakness, the seed of strength.
* * * *
When it boils down to it,
All your morality will probably take a back seat
If you are tired and huddled.
* * * *
One wonders how many historical figures
You would be partial to, support or follow
If you actually met and listened to them.
* * * *
The universe provides an endless database
For those who spend their time collecting data.
* * * *
The advent of humanity
Implies an inevitable decline.
And how then shall the epic read?
You do not need to see it all
To extrapolate the gist.
* * * *
What seems so sure one moment
Can change so quickly the next.
To discern the mind which knows no security
Is the mountain few seek, much less find.
* * * *
Anyone who believes
There is such a thing as normal
Doesn’t understand the relativity of a bell curve.
* * * *
Sticks and stones break bones,
And words will never hurt you,
But sticks and stones will be used
For the words of some imagined slight.
* * * *
The innocent babe stretches into a new life
As it slowly awakens in time and space.
* * * *
What do you desire from this world
That you are so enticed to again and again witness
Humanity’s seemingly endless capacity for confusion and turmoil
Dream after dream, moment after moment,
In what end will it end?
* * * *
The eternal dreaming
Through which each of us wanders
Is really the same ever-present, ever-aware nowness.
So the challenge is to make every now
A good now in which to die.
* * * *
Eternal salvation
Is not some inane reward
Given by god after physical death.
It is the moment-to-moment experiencing
Of a mind that has died to an imagined creation.
* * * *
Improve the quality of their lives as much as they will,
For so many always wanting more, it is never enough.
* * * *
What is essential, and what is not essential,
And need you ask anyone to tell you these things?
* * * *
Humanity has spent so much effort
Denying its roots in nature.
And in so doing, has set itself apart,
Deaf and blind, to the core source of all creation.
* * * *
We delude ourselves
Into steadfastly believing
Our madness rational.
* * * *
We are thoroughly experiencing
The consequences of civilized life,
How the synergy of imagination
Creates havoc at every turn.
* * * *
So what do we do now?
* * * *
So many striving to change the other,
Not allowing them the empowering sovereignty,
The freedom to simply be, for which all intrinsically long.
* * * *
We are all the same actor
Playing every part imaginable.
* * * *
Everything you have ever perceived,
Whether consciously or unconsciously,
You are.
* * * *
The kingdom of godness is within,
And you are sitting upon its lotus throne,
As are any and all who realize the simple truth.
* * * *
We are all equal in the “I” of godness.
* * * *
So-called masters have come and gone.
Where does that leave you?
* * * *
You sleep because creating the universe is heady work.
* * * *
The luxury of a long, innocent childhood
Has always depended upon the circumstances
Binding any given geographical mindset.
* * * *
It is likely you have been exploited
In many ways and degrees by others
From the moment you entered this world.
* * * *
Humanity is so absorbed in its little-self orientation,
So trapped in the theater of pain and pleasure,
That we have become deaf, dumb and blind
To the untainted majesty of the inner kingdom.
* * * *
Imagine the profound silence
Of the many creatures of Eden
Who never know even one word.
* * * *
Curious how each of us extracts so many
Different conclusions from the same database,
Which makes the universe acquiescent
To being whatever is imagined.
Very curious, indeed.
* * * *
Too many are oblivious to the mystery
To appreciate that we are quickly destroying
The future’s ability to witness the wonder of the garden.
* * * *
How much has been lost in translation.
* * * *
Those who judge all imagined opposites harshly
Are blindingly attached to their own narrow view.
* * * *
All the precious items prized by the world of men
Cannot buy the innate freedom of the unknown.
* * * *
The pure mind is the alchemist
Capable of perceiving
All things gold.
* * * *
How can any soul
Be greater that another
When all are the same Soul?
* * * *
Just a wayfaring free spirit with a general self-taught knack for wordplay
Who awoke one day and saw how much we all have in common,
Despite our seemingly countless imagined differences.
* * * *
“Shame we can’t get along a little better,”
He said to him Self.
* * * *
Take out all the mumbo-jumbo,
And are any of us really doing anything
All that different?
* * * *
This fleeting moment is all you really have.
Whether innocuously bland, pleasurable or painful,
It is done practically as quickly as it started.
Only a hint of memory will ever reflect
It ever even happened at all.
Such is existence.
Individually or collectively,
What is there to cling to, really?
* * * *
A reminder to savor the day,
Whatever its flavor.
* * * *
Either we choose to see through the differences,
Or we foolishly grow even more blind,
And destroy everything.
* * * *
Unless wisdom is acclaimed more than false gold,
The legacy of humanity will inevitably fall into ruin.
* * * *
The effort it takes many to merely survive can be overwhelming
Yet the will to survive, whether it be fear of death or indomitable spirit,
Keep each of us playing our little part in the on-going creation.
* * * *
Of course you are personally responsible.
We all are.
As far as it can be taken personally, anyway.
* * * *
You are a seamless drift of time.
* * * *
Go elsewhere if you want the order of collusion.
* * * *
It is what it is.
It doesn’t really matter what any of us believe.
* * * *
Belief is just another face of fear.
* * * *
No matter what you believe, you must still deal
With the heaven and hell of consciousness
Of the given day.
* * * *
It’s all pre-ordained, pre-destined,
Looking back, that is.
* * * *
Delusion is woven of imagination gone astray.
* * * *
Alas, humanity does not abide in the wisdom
It has with such suffering so repeatedly earned.
* * * *
Oblivion is the ground,
And imagination the seed.
* * * *
Some things need a different context
To be clearly seen in their entirety.
* * * *
How very unlikely that humanity
Will ever even come close to transcending
Its seemingly countless delusions.
* * * *
Once upon a time, we were all children;
Innocent, playful, prone to laughter and tears, empty.
And then the wind blew, and the rain fell.
* * * *
So much delusion,
Yet the world spins on,
Oblivious.
* * * *
Nothing matters but what you care that it matters.
* * * *
Ignorance seizes the day again and again.
* * * *
How is it that so many
Can exist so many years,
And still be so incredibly blind?
* * * *
Go, Quantum.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)
© Michael J. Holshouser 2009
World Rights Reserved