CCXLVIII
We are all so equal in so many different ways.
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Mind and body are merely vehicles
For the unmanifest to briefly witness
The vastness of its eternal mystery.
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A life devoid of Self-examination
Is, truly, a missed opportunity.
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To possess a quality of mind
Free of ceaseless, insatiable appetites,
Is an attitude toward existence
Esteemed by few.
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The innumerable infernos of passion
Are temporal, and gradually diminish
As the eternal becomes Self-evident.
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To value a mountain of gold
Over a universe of dust
Is a narrow, suffocating reality
To which the only real antidote is death.
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The strong become feeble
When passion’s roaring, ill-tempered wave
Crashes upon the still, dispassionate inertia of a sandy shore.
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Is there anyone in this world who does not inevitably fall
Into the hellish depths of their own desire-filled creation?
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Live quietly, and avoid whenever possible
The innumerable things that aid and abet
Unnecessary suffering of mind and body.
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You can discuss and inquire
With the many others,
But there is no one to follow.
The herd cannot, and likely will not,
Discern that which is eternally obvious to you.
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When craving is seen for what it is,
What need for the psychological security
Offered by the minds obsessed with mammon?
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Even the most stunningly beautiful
One day wake up a dusty skeleton.
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The temporal inevitably plays havoc in minds
Steeped in the endless craving of consciousness.
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Time cannot do more than tantalize you with serenity.
It must end for that reality to manifest in daily living.
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If you cannot face off Maya toe-to-toe without desire,
What good are all the words denying your craving?
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You may countless times recast the players in your dream,
But the play of the passionate mind ever brings about
The same predictable ends all attachments bring.
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It is the habitual mind lock that creates the binds in time.
To discern the end of the rutted path is to flow freely
In the union prior to all sense of separation.
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You will attain the joy and serenity
You believe you deserve.
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What can you truly offer anyone?
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You will never find
Any god outside your Self
To be anything more than a concept.
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You keep trying to fill your Self
Upon this world’s illusions,
But it is like gulping air
So quickly expelled.
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You enunciate your awareness of the Way
In whatever means aptitude allows.
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Awareness is awareness,
No matter the imprint of consciousness
Framed upon it
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What you believe the world is, it is.
But is it really?
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Believing you are an eternal trail of lifetimes
Is only another trap of ego’s false identification.
More delusion woven into an imaginary reality.
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Wanting something
To become something it is not
Can never make it so.
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Is god anything more than another concept,
Another invention of consciousness?
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We are but microbes to a larger eye.
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Why depend on what others said
Hundreds or thousands of years ago
When your perception now is just as real.
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The great silence of the ancients
Probably came about because they had
So much less bullshit and silliness to unravel.
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A key that does not fit a lock
Can never open the door.
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Just a quantum cowboy
Riding the quantum divide.
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Human consciousness is woven from the will of the herd.
Few wander beyond the illusory security of the pack
Into the aloneness that makes all things surreal.
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Time erodes like an avalanche.
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If you could trust god,
Why would any of this conflict
And endless confusion
Be necessary?
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Has there ever been a contest gravity lost?
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You are not what anyone thinks you are,
Nor are you what you think you are.
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What is the infinite mind
But the you of awareness
Prior to space and time.
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That which cannot be known
Cannot be easily remembered,
And is exceedingly easy to forget.
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Another day, same mystery.
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Creativity is its own reward.
Great if it also gets rewarded
In one way, or perhaps several,
But enjoy the process first.
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Hate to pop your bubble,
But I cannot help my Self.
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Study anything, anytime, anywhere,
But idolize no one, nor anything.
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As challenging as it may be to believe,
You are a smidgen of that divine creation
Creating itself in the eternal storm
Of the universal unfolding.
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Get over yourself.
Fuse into the big picture,
A mish-mashing, hodgepodging
Of every potential under any given sun.
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The predictable patterns of habitual thinking
Echo again and again in any given mind.
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Death becomes you.
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Yesterday and tomorrow
Are left to your imagination.
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Have you ever met a label
That didn’t fit one recess or another?
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What a chewable masterpiece you are.
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Does desire ever grow old?
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All your resistance just makes life more painful.
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So many believe you chose to be born.
Another speculation impossible to prove.
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You are just a mobile plant
Wandering the mountainsides
Rather that flowering in one spot.
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Those who need the other, who fear obscurity,
Will carve a niche in which they gain
The attention they crave.
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Consciousness seeks activity
In whatever way the senses trigger
The interest of its ceaseless movement.
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Suddenly, it all makes sense.
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It is only consciousness that bothers about all this.
That which we call god has very little to do
With any given cause or effect.
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As you would any muscle,
Flex the mind intensely,
Then allow it to relax.
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Share the vision of eternal awareness prior to consciousness
With all who have the ears to hear, the eyes to see,
The tongue to taste, the touch to feel,
And the nose to smell
The mystery
That ever remains unknown.
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Want until you want no more.
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Another dreamy moment
Brought to you by your Self.
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If there is a supreme being,
Rest assured its vanity
Is really no different than your own.
Even god is bound by the absoluteness of infinity.
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Decisions made in the younger years
Become foundations, sometimes fortunes,
Sometimes blights, for the older ones.
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Another temple in the Church of Reason.
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What so many call god
Is really neither good nor evil.
It is merely all possibilities
Under any given star.
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How quickly the wall approaches.
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Such a bewildering dilemma humanity faces:
How to preserve what it has, get more of the same,
And then somehow salvage what is already forever spent.
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What irony that if our species
Did somehow manage to discover,
And then reach another viable paradise,
It would likely only be a matter of time
Before we mucked it up just as badly.
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Admit it, we are a cancer
Slowly consuming the only host
Upon which we are likely to ever abide.
* * * *
Despite all our ability to manipulate
The many layers of the mystery about us,
We cannot fool Mother Nature forever.
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You cannot always sit upon a mountain, or by a river.
The bustle and tussle of life draws us all
To the plebeian fare.
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Many others could have penned this more adroitly,
But no one was interested, so there it is.
Deal with it as best ye may.
* * * *
Pretending to really know something
Can never be the same as real knowing,
And it is a very real truth that so many things
In this enigmatic mystery can really never be known.
So it is really much more real not to pretend,
To be agnostic in the most real way.
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Create, preserve and destroy
In whatever order, or disorder,
Circumstance and inclination allow.
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A peaceful, content heart
Is not an easy thing to maintain
In a world so full of strife.
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Everything has been done under the sun,
So unless you feel called upon to do it once again,
Sit back, breathe deeply, and enjoy the show as best ye may.
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There is reality, and then there is what we all,
In our own particular way, want reality to be.
A very flexible thing, this vaporous mystery.
* * * *
You are not your body, your thoughts, nor your actions.
You are naught but sovereign witness to eternity’s
Grand, holographic, kaleidoscoping mystery.
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How pathetic that madmen and children
Always seem to set the course
Of the human epic.
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Allowing the mind to be still,
Simply its own awareness,
Is an arduous challenge.
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From the genesis of all things, everything resides
In ever-widening layers of holographic context.
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The intelligence
That leads to insight and wisdom
Is a rare commodity.
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From a seed, existence takes root.
For an allotted, limited period of time,
Fate plays out in the field of imagination.
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Here again to help you find your way home.
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Revenge has a way of taking over.
The irritation that spins into raging hate
Is an energizing, intoxicating brew.
How good it feels to those
Who feed upon it.
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Armageddon is an imaginary field of battle
Created entirely from the vanity
Born of separation.
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All is imagined.
Sip blissfully, merrily, joyfully,
From the trough of unadulterated awareness.
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No use regurgitating memories
You can never change or take back.
Find contentment in the likely fact
That they would not be repeated
If the opportunity arose again.
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The river of imagination runs deep and swift in its endless delusion.
A firm detachment is required to discern the Self that is truly you.
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Live and let live,
Live and let die,
Die and let live.
* * * *
The mind wanders to and fro, grokking this and that,
Ever striving to fathom the world it has divined
In its brief, meager portion of existence.
* * * *
Everything is imagined.
To be clear of ceaseless chatter,
One must be inwardly still, even in movement.
Arduous, exceedingly arduous, indeed,
To be unfettered by any claim.
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The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)
© Michael J. Holshouser 2009
World Rights Reserved