The Return to Wonder - Chapter 262


CCLXII


If you only worship forms, what will you have someday but the dust of skeletons.

* * * *
Discern the awareness that is real.
Summon the courage to journey into absolute madness.
It is the surest way to the truth of you.

* * * *
Just because it is not seen does not mean it is not there.
Just because it is seen does not mean it is there.

* * * *
The inquiry is a solitary journey; no one else can do it for you.

* * * *
The universe in your mind,
As infinite a portal as it may seem,
Is really a very finite dream.

* * * *
All obituaries at the core read the same.
S/he was born, experienced many things,
And died, alone, perhaps very painfully.

* * * *
In the relativity of the garden,
Who can with any real authority say
Where the lines of good and evil are drawn?

* * * *
The only resident evil in this dreamtime is humankind.
No animal, plant, insect, or any other life form
Has ever suffered the delusion of hell.

* * * *
The obviousness of these many words will be lost upon all but the rarest of ears.

* * * *
While kings gain temporal glory
On battlefields in far distant lands,
Gardeners till eternity in their minds.

* * * *
Be cautious about what doors, windows,
And mysterious boxes you impulsively open,
For some are not easily, if ever, closed.

* * * *
It is relatively simple to feel free on a mountaintop,
With no one around, and of things mind-made, nary of sound.
See how long you can hold that serenity when you get back to civilization.

* * * *
No one can save you from yourself but your Self.

* * * *
Eternal life is from all beginnings to all endings.
The timeless indivisibility has ever been Self-evident
To any who give it their unborn-undying attention.

* * * *
The art of wishful thinking is widely practiced to little avail.

* * * *
The grand unlearning is one of the greater challenges this brief existence offers.

* * * *
The blandness of eternity, given the temporary flavoring of illusionary consciousness.

* * * *
The dream of time hath many players, and many stages with many entrances.

* * * *
A little bit of you in everyone and everything.

* * * *
Some do, some watch, some run.

* * * *
It is all really just smoke and mirrors.
The trick is getting through the funhouse
Without getting all cut up by the broken glass.

* * * *
Why justify that which needs no justification?

* * * *
Ignorance, compounded daily, makes for serious consequences.

* * * *
Within the mind of each and every skull
Is a mystery theater of quantum proportion,
A long and winding excursion born of imagination's
Implacable capacity to play out every conceivable illusion.

* * * *
The currents of water,
The winds of air,
The flames of fire,
And the quakes of earth,
Are they truly all that different?

* * * *
Any so-called supreme being, or lesser deities of the greater dimensions,
Who must still subscribe to one finite set of capacities and limitations or another,
Is, in reality, not all that much greater than any given creature on this spinning dust ball.

* * * *
More to be forgotten.

* * * *
There is really can be only one ultimate truth.
It is not my version, or your version, or anyone else's version.
It is just truth, just reality – plain and pure and simple –
Without any of the narcissistic pretenses
To which the human mind
Inanely, incessantly subscribes.

* * * *
You are what you are; all any of us can do is follow our nature wherever it leads.

* * * *
It is not a universe where anything lasts forever, so sorry.

* * * *
Strategy and tactics must be balanced and coordinated
For any venture to be brought to its intended conclusion.

* * * *
So many things you will never even once experience.

* * * *
Give it up for the mystery, folks.

* * * *
The issue is not whether or not there is a god.
In their incessant arguing, both believers and atheists
Overlook the point that the real opportunity existence offers all
Is the agnostic exploration of awareness, the portal to the eternal source.
It is the eternal role of indivisible witness offered by consciousness
To that which all are equally given a front row center seat.

* * * *
Prove this wrong if you can.

* * * *
To discern the gold, the vein must be followed wherever it may lead.

* * * *
All destinies have their share of abrasive moments,
But count yourself fortunate if your portion
Is in the few and far between.

* * * *
You are reincarnated every moment that you imagine your identity real.

* * * *
Awareness is eternal; consciousness, time.

* * * *
Ignorance rules.

* * * *
So much waiting for this or that.

* * * *
The currents of time mold every seed into its destiny.

* * * *
All things gathered are eventually lost.
Wisdom, too, goes the way of the wind.

* * * *
Of mind and body and soul, little is known, but much is said.

* * * *
You are really the awareness of a moment prior to time.

* * * *
The blind cannot see the gold
That surrounds them every seamless moment
Of their brief self-absorbed existences.

* * * *
Any who see this mystery clear and true,
Whether through pen or paintbrush or sword,
Become sovereign witness to the indivisible way.

* * * *
What can this world offer the rare few who are prior to all worldly riches.
Gold is sand, and sand, gold, for those whose fate it is to see the unseen.

* * * *
Pride is the only real sin.
Separation from the absoluteness of totality
Is the calamity of all fallen angels.

* * * *
You are that which is prior to all possibilities.

* * * *
Eternal salvation begins right now with union within.

* * * *
What good is a huge pile of gold if there is no world in which to spend it?

* * * *
Quality is all.

* * * *
The burden of history grows daily greater.

* * * *
The human paradigm is of no consequence
To totality's infinite, indifferent, inexorable wheel
Of creation and preservation and destruction.

* * * *
To whom is this written?

* * * *
What are belief and hope, but fear cloaked by different sounds.

* * * *
The indivisible absolute, layered in relativistic notion.

* * * *
Like water or wind, relationships ebb and flow.
It is more than a little challenging to avoid swirling
Through any number of passions towards one another.

* * * *
What is good, what is bad?
What is up, what is down?
What is right, what is left?
What is north, what is south?
What is similar, what is different?
All concoctions of sensory-mind creation.

* * * *
Yet another set of true believers proselytizing their ignorance.

* * * *
Malarkey swathed in doublespeak.

* * * *
It is you who carries so-called karma from one burdened moment to the next.

* * * *
Death is just your turn.

* * * *
Each moment another slice of the unfolding fate.

* * * *
Freedom is a state of mind clear of the potpourri of time.

* * * *
A paradigm to which all humankind in delusion colludes.

* * * *
Identity is the weighty baggage
Of the mind's time-bound fabrication,
To which you pay a voluntary subscription.

* * * *
Only a child can see that the emperor, surrounded by sycophants, is really buck-naked.

* * * *
Looking for more of what you do not really need.

* * * *
Yet another version of the same-old-same-old.

* * * *
All attributes to the contrary, there is no other.
Just the same me that is you in yet another flavor.
Ever the same mystery cloaked in so many disguises.

* * * *
I am you, and you are me, and we are all one together.

* * * *
There is no normal; just statistical relativity.

* * * *
Whether it is reckoned by seconds, hours, days, years, breaths, heartbeats, steps,
Or some other mind-made mark, each is allotted only so many in their dreamy journey.

* * * *
Words are sounds given meaning through the collusion of consciousness.

* * * *
One is the same as the other.

* * * *
Some lead, some follow.
The rare few just do their own gig,
Indifferent to the will of the whimsical herd.

* * * *
All manifestation emerges, unfolds, evolves,
Through the eternal, relative serendipity
Of space-time's quantum potential.

* * * *
Betrayal, to whatever degree,
Whether intentional or accidental,
Seems a constant in the human dynamic.

* * * *
The arbitrary nature of human truth is unceasingly, irrevocably debilitating.

* * * *
Perfection, as idealized by consciousness, is inevitably flawed.

* * * *
Just a little game we play by our Selves with our Selves.

* * * *
Humankind's capacity to manipulate has pushed back natural limits in countless ways,
But the inevitable outcome is like a yawning pit awaiting our arrival in time.
Mother Nature will not much longer abide an insolent species
Who carelessly defies the rules of the game.

* * * *
A brief, narcissistic existence, replete with fabricated, delusionary meaning,
Surrounded in all directions by an eternally infinite ocean of purposelessness.

* * * *
Without imagination, where should you, could you, would you, be?

* * * *
Surrendering completely to the friend, the beloved,
Is the most arduously effortless thing imaginable.

* * * *
Thank god animals have hair, and human beings wear clothes,
Else suicide would be more rampant than it already seems to be.

* * * *
You continue to try to exist,
But because time is not ultimately real,
It is only as firm as the make-believe of imagination.
It is the indivisible irony, the eternal paradox.

* * * *
It is all that trying so hard to believe this or that which creates so much suffering.

* * * *
Whatever you imagine, makes it so, in your own mind, in your own brief time.

* * * *
How is it we allow so many maniacal, greedy, corrupt personas to control our destiny?

* * * *
Freedom is not a matter of mere assumption.
It is a quality of mind absolutely clear
Of all pretense and assertion.

* * * *
Yet another zombie wandering its delusional mindscape.

* * * *
Nuance is all.

* * * *
The first moment no different than the last.

* * * *
Name that delusion.

* * * *
That demon in you always calling for more, more, more.

* * * *
Solution? How could there be?

* * * *
Put up or shut up.

* * * *
And what would be the point of opening that Pandora box?

* * * *
There is nothing to be.

* * * *
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

* * * *
Physics ... Chemistry ... Biology ... Patterns within patterns within patterns.​

* * * *
There is no other, only you, ethereally eternal, forever present.

* * * *
The web of life is in tatters; a cloud of chaos is descending.

* * * *
So obvious from the long ago.

* * * *
Awareness is all you are; no was, no will ever be, about it.

* * * *
How can there be an end to what never began?

* * * *
What point to a promise that cannot be kept, a promise that is not real.

* * * *
What a sad pestilence the humanunkind.

* * * *
Using words again and again to fitfully describe that which words can never attain.

* * * *
So many causes, so little time.

* * * *
The future is now, such as it is.

* * * *
Did the math.

* * * *
In cold, dress for cold; in hot, dress for hot; in wet, dress for wet.
Mother Nature will school those who give her their attention,
To discern the common sense that is only rarely common.

* * * *
Once you discern
That it is you who has created
A dualistic perception of a supreme being,
It is you who must transform the delusional assumption
Into an indivisible vision, one that includes the center-stage witness.


* * * * * * * * * *

The Return to Wonder
Field Notes from the Unknown
© Michael J. Holshouser 2009
World Rights Reserved