CCXLII
We have gazed across the cosmos,
And into the very heart of the atom,
Yet are still bound by limited vision.
* * * *
Consciousness is a portal
Through which the oblivion of godness
May be witnessed by those
Given the eye
To see beyond the veil.
Totality is as infinite as the inner eye.
* * * *
The fog of history’s unfolding is an ever-present theater.
Consciousness is imploding upon its creation,
And the only question for the future is:
Will whatever remains be pathetic or profound?
* * * *
What would the so-called heroes of yesteryear
Do in this precipitous, unwieldy point in time?
* * * *
Who can account for any tomorrow
When it is this very today through which
We must somehow first manage to navigate.
* * * *
From a smattering
Of knowledge
Blooms an opinion,
From opinion, assertion.
From assertion, hypothesis
From hypothesis, theory.
From theory, truth,
Just smattering away.
* * * *
If you want to play up, behave up.
* * * *
Just remember, my unruly friends, the Grand Pooka
Is watching your every move, hearing your every thought.
He is keeping a list, and will be checking it thrice
When it is your time to come before Peter,
The Chief Pearly Gates Inquisitor.
* * * *
What is life but the consumption
Of one experience after another.
* * * *
Lao Tzu was not a Taoist,
Christ was not a Christian,
Buddha was not a Buddhist,
Nor was Krishna was a Hindu.
Why should you adhere to any -ism,
Or label yourself any -ist?
* * * *
The point of seeking is to discern
You are the only One.
Anything less
Is the fog of purgatory.
* * * *
Followers are an insipid lot.
* * * *
It is your attachment to sensation
And the thoughts it invokes
That binds your spirit.
* * * *
What in god’s name is there to prove?
* * * *
There’s nothing new under the sun,
Unless it is new to your translation.
* * * *
Be sure to give yourself some time each day
To let the attachments of the mind fall away.
* * * *
Another form dead, broken, destroyed,
Its brief purpose done, its hour in time complete.
Everything the same, the play churns on.
* * * *
To live for what any other thinks,
Is, indeed, the road to perdition.
* * * *
The mind is akin to an engine sustaining the movement.
The trick is discerning when to be in gear,
And when to disengage.
* * * *
Forget going out with a bang.
Already the whimper sounds.
* * * *
Every witness, every form
With any consciousness whatsoever.
Renders a universe scaled by the limits of imagination.
The true mystery, call it whatever you will,
Is prior to all perception.
* * * *
One must be fearless to doubt beyond all conclusions.
* * * *
Why in god’s name
Would you feel it necessary
To be a sheep in some charlatan’s flock?
How absurd to allow middlemen the pretense to your soul.
* * * *
Discern that place where no direction is known.
* * * *
Are the leaders who want to lead you
Really the leaders you want to follow?
* * * *
What carnival will be endured this day?
* * * *
Grasping infinity requires a capacity for stillness.
* * * *
Unwrap your head around it.
* * * *
Although the real you is ultimately, infinitely perfect,
Consciousness is obviously, absurdly rife
With imperfection and limitation.
* * * *
What hooks you in your version of the world?
To care, or not to care, that is the question.
* * * *
A universe spun of nothingness
That you might both enjoy and agonize
In nearly every way imaginable
Until death do you part.
* * * *
Infinity truly hath no bounds
But the limitations of conscious design.
* * * *
The entire universe is brewing
With the pulse of your heart’s every beat.
There is naught but you in each and every breath.
* * * *
To discern this ultimate view
Is to discover the source of all mysteries,
The taproot of all existence, the foundation of all rivers
Returning to the ocean of birth and death.
* * * *
Ultimately, the narrow vision of self-absorption
Closed in on humankind, and the remnants of the humbled species
Were left to struggle as their ancestors had
Before the rise.
* * * *
To which now were you referring?
* * * *
History continues to reiterate itself
Because patterns of limitation
Are not readily changed.
* * * *
Know thy Self, and discern
There is nothing at the core.
* * * *
A head crammed with imaginary concoctions
Cannot be relied upon to hear anything new.
* * * *
The gap between what you think and what you do
Is the make of your soul.
* * * *
The urge to be known
Is a pattern of consciousness
With which each of us must contend.
* * * *
Why drive when a walk will get you there less quickly.
* * * *
Another birth,
Another death.
Like drops flowing,
Inevitably evaporating
Again and again.
* * * *
You will find it where there is nothing to measure.
* * * *
Even nothing doesn’t matter.
* * * *
Why settle for a paltry empire among men,
When all creation is yours for the knowing.
* * * *
What is there to believe in
When you are that
From which all belief springs.
* * * *
When all creation is viewed as energy flowing,
Then all movements are but variations
Of earth, wind, water and fire
Playing to and fro throughout eternity.
* * * *
Errors of judgment, mistaken assumptions,
Will bring about grave, possibly fatal consequences
If impacted by masses ill-advisedly vectored.
* * * *
Born in obscurity, his chief aim became to partake
Many adventures and an inevitable number of follies,
And still manage to retain a relative level of anonymity,
Lest the endless temptations of vanity further entice him
To a more inflated level than he was already inclined.
* * * *
Just more crap that you’re going to forget anyway.
* * * *
The ignorance of so many others
Is most assuredly not your bliss.
* * * *
Is life any more than a whirlwind
Of nothing’s much ado.
* * * *
The countless lies of vanity
Are uttered in every way imaginable.
Humanity’s Tower of Babel has, indeed, bloated
To too lofty an arrogant height from which to gracefully fall.
* * * *
Both literally and figuratively,
You are herein offered nothing.
* * * *
Even da Buddha, in all his enlightened bowl-cleaning
Must have eyed a shapely form on occasion.
Else-wise, why would he make
Such a vain commotion about all of it?
* * * *
How precarious any conclusion.
* * * *
If you get the drift,
You glean that eternity
Yields to nothing.
* * * *
All life forms must endure a variety of calamities
On the winding journey up the steps of guillotine.
* * * *
Just another self-absorbed ego
Burdening as many as possible
With its megalomaniac obsession.
* * * *
If Jesus didn’t partake Mary Magdalene,
Or at least a randy disciple or two,
What manner of god was he?
* * * *
Death just sort of happens
When every last recourse
Is beyond any control.
* * * *
Be wary how much medicine you take, and when,
For not all prescriptions warrant the same dream.
* * * *
To wander, anonymous,
Without leaving a burdensome path,
Should be the freeing aim of the everyday philosopher.
* * * *
The fall is much greater from great heights.
* * * *
If words are true,
They will ring across
All time and circumstance.
* * * *
Even those who know it well
Must inevitably repeat the follies
Punctuating any given history.
* * * *
What is the body but a quagmire
Of chemically induced confusion.
* * * *
Turn your cheek too many times
And you’re going to get a broken jaw.
* * * *
The sword and the pen both have their days.
* * * *
Hobbies and interests
Keep you occupied
Until dust clouds the vision.
* * * *
Pathetically absurd.
* * * *
Sip of reality whenever possible
In the course of any given day.
* * * *
All the memories,
Where do they go?
* * * *
The dogs of war are a mangy lot.
* * * *
Megalomania is a common vice
Among those the ignorant masses
So loyally, so blindly, so foolishly follow.
* * * *
There is no superior culture,
Only what you are used to.
* * * *
How demented will it get?
Even god doesn’t know.
* * * *
The senses provide the data,
But it is the mind that imagines an order.
* * * *
Behind any given mask,
It is all very much the same.
* * * *
History is the flux of the moment’s unfolding,
* * * *
Each of us lives in a universe all our own,
And few will ever embrace, unconditionally,
Another’s peculiar, imaginary vision of reality.
* * * *
What have you ever really done?
* * * *
The desires of mind and body
Are a ceaseless flowing.
* * * *
To see, cease to be.
* * * *
Are you a body?
Are you what you do?
Are you what you believe?
Are you a soul?
Are you really anything
But a dream born of imagination?
* * * *
Born of nature’s spontaneity,
Consciousness fabricates an order
With which it can abide.
* * * *
Ultimate reality is what it is,
And no belief, no matter how profound,
Can touch, much less change it.
* * * *
Much ado about something
That was never really a question.
* * * *
How can you hold onto nothingness?
* * * *
Be wary of being reborn into yet another delusion.
* * * *
How infinite all possibility.
* * * *
To detach from that which is known,
Without compass, sail or rudder,
Is the final journey of choice.
* * * *
Discern behind the mask,
And it will be obvious
That it is true for all.
* * * *
Taking pride in being a follower,
Part of a flock regularly sheered by a middleman,
Is just another deluded excuse for lacking the courage and capacity
To own the infinite sovereignty inherent in all.
* * * *
Jesus or any other so-called savior
Will never be the answer
For those
With the aptitude for truth.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)
© Michael J. Holshouser 2009
World Rights Reserved