Chapter 247 - The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)

CCXLVII

What is this spinning orb but compacted lint?

* * * *
There may be angels rooting for humankind,
But it is we who must endure the many ripples
We have so carelessly, needlessly invoked.

* * * *
From oneness comes the many.
To the oneness, return all.

* * * *
Arguing this or that insanity
Is like crows cawing
To a deaf wind.

* * * *
Creation, genesis, big bang,
Call the origin of the grand theater whatever you will,
The stage is merely an on-going neural storm
Exploding into consciousness.

* * * *
Blaming it on a devil
Is just another delusionary denial
Of humanity’s responsibility for its own muddle.
All gods and demons are imaginary creations of conscious design.

* * * *
How many believe their pacifiers are truth.
Their beliefs, symbols, rituals, dress and traditions
Barricade them from the reality that all dreams are imaginary,
Akin to balloons that a mere pinprick of reality
Collapse into the untraceable.

* * * *
So many subtle and unsubtle ways
Concocted to take ourselves seriously.
How long will the earth bear our delusion?

* * * *
Observe each unfolding moment
As if it were both the first and the last.

* * * *
We are human by design,
Not necessarily disposition.

* * * *
To be considered a madman in this inane world
May well be one of the highest compliments.

* * * *
You can only be as free as you dare to be.

* * * *
Surrender is an effortless state of beingness.
Indivisible, complete, untainted, whole.
Untouched by sensory reality
In any manifest realm.

* * * *
Through these words,
Within all dreams,
You will know thy Self

* * * *
So much absurd confusion
About something so simple.

* * * *
These are observations of a separate reality,
Snapshots of perception from an individualized mind
Temporarily trapped in the sensory snare
Of manifest space and time.

* * * *
Your attachment to pain and pleasure,
To the body in which you temporarily dwell,
Is the source of all manifest suffering.

* * * *
The world has no claims
Upon those who see as isness
That they are its creator.

* * * *
The confines of all organized religions
Are to be transcended by those
Born to see the only truth.

* * * *
As long as you have need of the reflections of any other,
You will reside in the bondage of time and space.
You cannot discern the Self of godness
Until you cease being distracted
By the many minions.

* * * *
Opinions are akin to waves
Crashing again and again upon the rocks.
A ceaseless, noisy huff and puff
That means nothing
To the vast ocean beyond.

* * * *
Good and evil are vain notions
Born of self-absorbed consciousness
And its endless plays of duality.

* * * *
So many jabber away,
Repeating whatever inanity
Was put in there last.

* * * *
What is any dream but what you think it is.

* * * *
You always thought it was rather strange
How different you felt from others.
Now it makes more sense.

* * * *
How difficult it is to resist opening the senses
To the theater playing itself out about you.

* * * *
No going back now.

* * * *
The difference between good and evil,
Right and wrong, or any other dualistic notion
Most often depends on what side of the field you sit.

* * * *
The end of time and space is boundless.

* * * *
Women and children, men and war.
Creation and destruction,
Ever entwined.

* * * *
The dreamy mystery of it all seems such
That you will attain what you want
Until you crave it no longer.

* * * *
What would life be like
If one’s eventually death
Was not a predicted reality.

* * * *
If the ancients had possessed telescopes, microscopes
And all the advanced technologies we now take for granted,
Would they have set in motion the innumerable religions
Which now weigh us down with idolatry and conflict.

* * * *
Clear observation of this vast mystery
Is a function of how thorough
We are in the looking.

* * * *
Idolatry is defined as extreme admiration,
Love, or reverence for something or someone.
Synonyms include fetishism, idol worship, adulation,
Adoration, reverence, veneration, glorification,
Lionization and hero-worshiping.

* * * *
If the shoe fits, wear it.

* * * *
History will regard this piecemeal treatise as it does all revolutionary attempts.
Sometimes embraced, sometimes condemned, sometimes forgotten.
It all depends what minds of the time are capable of seeing,
And the changes they may be inspired to make.

* * * *
Should one accept everything and doubt nothing,
Or accept nothing and doubt everything.
Surely, there must be compromise
Lurking in there somewhere.

* * * *
Either/or is more often than not
A most dubious proposition.

* * * *
Be very wary of translations,
Including your own.

* * * *
Quest the meaning of these words unto thine death.

* * * *
At the core of the universe,
There is no me, myself and I.
There is only a quantum oblivion.

* * * *
There is, indeed, a mystery at the source,
But that which many vainly call god
Is nothing to take personally.

* * * *
If the thought fits, own it.
If not, there are plenty more
Out there calling for your attention.

* * * *
As with any conceptual apparatus,
Money will reflect the intent of the user.

* * * *
Oxford American defines vanity
As excessive pride in or admiration of
One's own appearance or achievements,
As well as the quality of being worthless or futile.
It is also a dressing table.

* * * *
Is any one of us really all that different?

* * * *
Challenging to play a pawn’s role
When you are at the same time
Witnessing the entire board.

* * * *
The advent of technology-based thinking
Has tacked humankind’s course into uncharted waters.
There is little anyone can do except again and again resignedly point out
That on some inevitable day in a time likely not far away
Nature will nonchalantly re-assert her say.

* * * *
Any economy is only as viable
As the resources fueling it.

* * * *
Surely, you do not believe you are the only one.

* * * *
Knowledge is always susceptible to synapse collapse.

* * * *
Grant yourself permission to think, do and go
Wherever it is you need to think, do and go.

* * * *
There will be time enough to die.

* * * *
Curious how, for vast piles of gold
And hollow echoes of glory,
We foul so the only home
Upon which we will ever reside.

* * * *
Sometimes the most obvious things
Are the hardest to see and believe true.

* * * *
The fabrications of consciousness
Are all you know.

* * * *
In any given moment,
Inattention has the potential
To get you zapped.

* * * *
Contentment is less about
What you may have accomplished
As much as it is being the moment you are.

* * * *
Hard to be at peace within
When you are so attached without.

* * * *
Individual universes being what they are,
There’s always something lost in any translation.

* * * *
Why do you need anyone else
To tell you who or what you are?

* * * *
What a merry mess
We have mad of our opportunity
To be the gardeners of godness in Eden.

* * * *
Does any other creature who ever existed
Make the effort at living that we do?

* * * *
True faith does not require prayer.
That is left to those who are engaged
In the remedies of superstition and hope.

* * * *
Who would have us?

* * * *
Opening your life to the realization of totality
Really depends if you are at last ready
For that which is prior to all paths.

* * * *
These many thoughts flowed freely
From a mind filled with the insights of innumerable experiences.
Best wishes to all upon which this vast mystery
Bestows a heartfelt breath.

* * * *
Whether they see it or not,
All are ultimately responsible for their portion
Of the dream of consciousness.

* * * *
Wherever you set your foot,
Place your hand, or rest your head,
Discern the contentment offered
In each and every moment.

* * * *
Lend a hand,
But do not give it away.

* * * *
Whatever your past, your surrender makes you worthy.
All sin is washed away within the true seeker of union.

* * * *
The key to true wealth has nothing to do
With anything this world can ever offer.

* * * *
So few cultivate and nurture the garden
For the unmanifest to take root and flower.

* * * *
Exorcise the universe from your mind,
And you will see the source of all things.
* * * *
Within the stillpoint
Of each and every here now
Is the freedom for which you eternally long.
It is the intuitive window from which truth is seen and spoken.
Its reckoning can only clarify when worldly priorities
Are surrendered to the discerning gaze
Of oblivion’s awakened witness.

* * * *
Even with lifetimes of practice,
The so-called masters
Must begin anew
Each and every moment.

* * * *
For you to grasp words of wisdom,
You must have discerned
Your inner light.

* * * *
So many ways that which godness can be named,
And still never, even for a moment, be touched.

* * * *
What attachment we have
To sound given meaning.

* * * *
What balderdash that this plane of existence
Is claimed more or less spiritual than any other.

* * * *
The play of consciousness
Spins distinctions from nothing,
And ever again vainly asserts them real.

* * * *
The ultimate goal of the only real question
Is to leave you without any meaning or purpose
But what the ever-unfolding moment intuitively entails.

* * * *
The awakened mind is akin to that of a watchful hawk.

* * * *
No authority can sway you
But through your own fearful consent.
Attaining authorship of one’s own conscious design
Is an immortal quality of existence
Few ever discern.

* * * *
Can you discern joy in the web of time,
Or must you die to it completely
To gain the eternal salvation
Of that which is timeless.

* * * *
Words must be used to point to that
Which no word can ever grasp.

* * * *
What is the point of all this suffering
In which we ever again muck about.

* * * *
Attaining eternal life is merely surrender
To the ever-unfolding momentary nature,
A union of awareness within and without.

* * * *
The path full of dead ends and wrong turns
Is for those satisfied with an endless stream of labels.
A maze by any name confuses the same.

* * * *
The questions cease once it is clearly seen
There is no answer any words can ever grasp.

* * * *
What is there, really, to learn?

* * * *
Words are like a fog
Only the sun of awareness
Can clearly dissipate.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)
© Michael J. Holshouser 2009
World Rights Reserved