CCLVII
Given the reckless abandon humankind has voraciously taken,
It looks very likely the shrinking world will soon be large again.
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Inseparable, indivisibly, holographically seamless,
But for imagination's chronically dualistic notions.
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Another unique day of more of the same.
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When given a series of absurd choices,
Always remember that "None of the Above,"
Whether listed or not, is always an option.
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Genetic lottery being what it is, the seed you call you
Had to take root somewhere in this mysterious field of dreams.
Look around, and for good or ill, this is your brief window of opportunity
To do whatever time and circumstance and inclination allow.
If it is your destiny to wake up, then you will wake up.
If not, enjoy the snooze as your nature calls.
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With all the horrors we synergistically havoc upon our own kind,
As well all the relatively defenseless fellow earthlings across the world,
Pray tell, what exactly does it mean to be considered inhumane?
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What is it about power, fortune, fame, or any other vain notion,
That makes so many human beings feel so absurdly superior?
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Great cleverness, great wit, is so often blind to the larger landscape.
The minimalism of wisdom is born of insight, not mere knowledge.
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You have dug your rut, now wallow in it.
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Humanity must inevitably pay a heavy price for its disregard of this planet's diversity.
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Insight is simply the expansive vision of the awareness that is neither within nor without.
The eye of the mind, the sovereign, eternal nature, that witnesses prior to sensory input.
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Once you really have it, you will never lose it.
You may be distracted, but you can never forget.
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How insane must it get before all the actors on this temporal stage finally wake up?
Are all these narcissistic little parts, all these squalid little roles, so endlessly absorbing?
Are all these countless contortions of free will so mesmerizing in their pretensions,
That the human genome must eventually drown in its own sea of imagination?
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Dancing in the vast mystery of awareness, oblivion's rainbow is a choiceless choice.
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There is no need to travel elsewhere to find what you already have and can never lose.
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Content is the gardener who knows the true kingdom.
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The synergy of all ever keep the dice rolling in endlessly unpredictable ways.
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Discern the will to be content.
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Nothing happens.
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The rich and powerful may believe it is they who steer history,
But it is the masses upon which their vain notions ebb and flow.
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The immortality of any configuration
Is but an invention of human imagination,
And its ceaseless craving for continuity.
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More cannon fodder for the exit door.
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Of what real significance is it to have your name set down in the annals of history?
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The difference between history and news and gossip is but a few slivers of degree.
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Yet another good day to die.
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Babble, babble.
Babble, babble.
Babble, babble.
Babble, babble.
Babble, babble.
Babble, babble.
Et cetera ad infinitum.
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History will ever be lost and forgotten in the fog of time and space.
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The happenstance of creation springs anew each and every moment in every mind.
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Memory is but the neurological traces of perception.
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All wars are the same; the only thing that changes is the way people die.
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History is an ever-flowing treat for those who have the inclination
To poke about in the imaginary sandbox of geography and time.
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The synergy of human vanity carries on in the time-being.
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The body only craves what it needs; it is the mind’s abyss that wants so much more.
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You are naught but an ever-changing figment of your own temporal imagination.
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The mystery continues, ever you, ever insoluble.
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Far away is really the same near as here.
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History buries all.
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The masks and minds may change, but the Soul is ever the same.
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Start digging and eventually you come to realize
The whole thing is just one el grande assumption.
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How can the awareness, the nothingness, that was never born, ever die?
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So many windmills, Don Quixote, and so little time.
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Time does really not exist,
But that you, through sensory perception,
Imagine it momentarily so.
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What is not the face, what is not the play of godness?
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What a world, what world, and we so foolishly carefree in the mayhem we cast upon it.
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A rose by any other name is still imagination's game.
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Another historical nugget to be buried and forgotten.
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Better to die alone than be smothered by a herd.
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To be chosen, you must first volunteer.
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Always something more to acquire.
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The wonders of serendipity are seemingly ceaseless.
Enough to motivate even the hardest cynic
To re-immerse in the child-mind.
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Humankind was not cast out of Eden.
We just became so smitten with imagination
That we ceased paying attention to its eternal nature.
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No individual, no group, can lay claim to ownership of the indelible unknown.
All are witness to the same mystery in which all forms play out equal parts.
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The missing component in many who ponder is amusement.
Amusement at all the irony, at all the paradox, at all the absurdity.
Amusement at all the inane attachment to everything imagined.
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To be born again is to begin each moment anew.
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You are Adam, you are Eve,
Still choosing the forbidden fruit,
Still turning your back on Eden's reality.
You were not cast out of the garden;
You simply stopped wondering,
And starting knowing.
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Trade shoes with anyone, anywhere, anytime,
And wander a mile or so to see that any perspective
Just as authentic, just as imaginary, as your own.
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You are final arbiter of your brief play of time.
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What a handicap to be weighted down by gods, ancestors, and time in general.
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The challenge is to wrap one's mind around the fact
That the quantum nature can do it all simultaneously.
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The same me that is you; the same you that is me.
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You tell the truth if you do not need to lie.
You play fair if there is no reason to cheat.
You wake up if you are no longer sleepy.
You are full if you have eaten enough.
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Eat your rice,
Clean your bowl,
Take a nap,
Rise,
Wander on.
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If there is really nothing else
You really want to do,
Do nothing well.
Reality never sleeps.
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Four-letter words better left unspoken include:
Love, hate, hope, good, just, luck, fair, cute, nice,
Pink, work, time, herd, fate, true, gawd …
And, no doubt, so many more.
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Why get angry about something that is really too absurd to bother about.
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Idolatry is idolatry is idolatry, no matter the form, no matter the concept.
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Forget everything.
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You have seen the future, and it is now.
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The grand "if."
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Oh boy, another memoir.
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It has ever been there, abiding patiently for you to look, to discern clearly,
The immeasurable underpinning of your time-bound existence,
That to which the imagined you is eternally bound.
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No arguing with physics: mass and velocity and vectors together rule all.
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How can a drop in the ocean
Ever contemplate its true nature
Until it is cast into separation?
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Where there is a will, there is a Way.
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Another stone-cold wacko.
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Agape knows no hell.
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History is but the relative perspective
Of every variety of geographical creation,
And the myriad cultures they inspire.
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Cynics are the fruit of idealistic notion gone reality.
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From fist to rock to club to knife to sword.
From spear to sling to bow to crossbow to catapult.
From musket to cannon to tank to plane to jet to rocket to drone.
From chemical to biological to nuclear to whatever’s on the drawing board.
Ever the constant self-absorbed, avaricious, tool-making, duality-ridden, monkey-mind.
What would it take for this divisive species to get past its "civilized" ways?
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To merely seek a comfortable state is meaningless.
Do not equate a lethargic, passive mind,
With one reborn in awareness.
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Once you awaken to the awareness, there can be no divorce,
No matter what you do with your brief manifest dreamtime.
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Each of us takes on one role or another, perhaps many, in any given lifetime,
In our effort to participate, willingly or unwillingly, in the cultural dynamic.
The challenge is not believing you are the attributes of any function,
That you need not identify at the core with anything you do,
That it is only a pretense, a chameleon performance,
For those caught up in this theater of delusion.
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It is your craving for freedom that will set you free.
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How can you ever hope to merge with heaven if you cannot even abide your neighbor.
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Only in the essential "I Am" state can you fathom the awareness,
The unconditional indivisibility, from which all appearance springs.
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It is an amazing mystery, impossible, no doubt, but there it is, nonetheless
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Why should anyone great to small ever feel the need to apologize or justify,
Playing the temporal character they have been conditioned to manifest?
We are all nothing more than windswept fabrications of imagination.
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The witness is equally within all creatures, all forms great to small.
It is one vast ever-changing mystery theater, kaleidoscoping indivisibly,
With every sentient being starring center stage in their own unique production.
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What did your face look like before its conception?
What will it look like after the food-body dissolves?
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You are not the body; you merely inhabit it temporarily until death washes it away.
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The unknowable unknown is, well, unknowable.
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Holding onto nothing.
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"See you tomorrow" can be a dubious assumption.
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Not holding onto nothing.
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Eternity is all, attached to none.
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What is any gourmet meal but just another pile of shit waiting to happen.
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Detachment is a blade unto Self.
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It is only vanity that believes anything important.
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How long can forever be if time is an illusion?
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Feed them a lie and they will follow; feed them the truth and stand alone.
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What is it to awaken? And is it worth arguing about?
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Truth serves no purpose.
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If it defied physics, it probably didn’t happen.
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How can that which was never born ever die?
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History has proven over and over again that anything can be usurped.
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The sands of time are written in the stars.
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Let go the conditioned mind.
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Have you ever really moved in any way, any shape, any form?
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The winds of mind are the winds of time.
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Every mind, a lie unto its Self.
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Lose your mind.
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Time to start brushing up for the contentment trophy.
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Only imagination imagines itself alive.
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Talk is cheap.
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What direction does vanity call you today?
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What’s to do?
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Freedom is an eternal birthright; it is as simple as simple can get, as plain as plain is.
To attain that quality, everything within and without must be disposable.
Though you may have many things, think many thoughts,
And even participate actively in the world,
With a sense of inner austerity, you can still be free.
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The Return to Wonder
Field Notes from the Unknown
© Michael J. Holshouser 2009
World Rights Reserved