CLXXVIII
Before we can create viable solutions,
We must discern and face the enormity of the problems,
And our very prominent role in their creation.
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Consciousness
Is as fleeting as steam
Rising from a hot cup of coffee.
* * * *
Wanting to be valued for a body,
A mind, or an outlook that cannot last
Is like treading through quicksand.
* * * *
Who is a stranger to suffering?
The challenge is not blaming others
For the sorrow to which you have colluded.
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Humanity has never dealt well with its morality.
* * * *
If that’s what you want to believe…
* * * *
What is civilized life
But a mound of parasitic forces
Playing off each other’s many delusions?
* * * *
If you are too engrossed with the details, you miss the big picture.
Too caught up in the big picture, you stumble over the details.
Strike a balance.
* * * *
Lump it in whatever categories you will,
Consciousness is consciousness
No matter the subscription.
* * * *
Trying to be, trying not to be,
It is the effort in either
Which creates the suffering.
* * * *
When you say, play and do whatever the audience desires,
It’s easy to become attached to the applause,
And disabled by the hecklers.
* * * *
It is attachment that makes you so rigid.
* * * *
The obvious is rarely obvious to all.
* * * *
Awareness disentangles the knots of thought’s creations.
* * * *
Does desire toy with you?
Or you with it?
* * * *
Your predispositions find their mirrors.
* * * *
The one-pointed nature is as free as it gets.
* * * *
Regarding the inevitability of physical death,
You will cross that bridge soon enough.
* * * *
You are the beginning and end of time.
* * * *
The limits of godness are created and defined solely by you.
* * * *
The mystery’s greatness
Is cast of your eternal reflection.
Light streams from the mind’s awareness,
Giving birth to sun, moon and stars
And all the myriad forms.
* * * *
Time is a dream.
It has no reality but through
The a priori nature of consciousness.
* * * *
Though the source of all, the infinite nature
Is just another ephemeral piece of imagination.
* * * *
It doesn’t matter whether you like them or not.
* * * *
What can change but change itself?
* * * *
Why should it make sense?
* * * *
What is any dream but the eternal dust
Playing in a sandbox of it’s own making?
* * * *
Dispense with all regrets.
* * * *
No matter the mask, costume or pretense donned,
All are you.
* * * *
These writings are not in the least bit complicated
Once the key to one is discerned the same for all.
* * * *
The many attributes of the flesh
Cannot sate true desire for long.
* * * *
Flowery bouquet that you may be now,
A crumbling skeleton you will one day be.
* * * *
What will we do when the forests are all paper?
* * * *
Perfectionists can make it tough on themselves,
And everyone who chances into their dour path.
* * * *
We are all going to die.
How miserably is the question.
* * * *
Just another pathologically corrupt dream,
As so many seem to be.
* * * *
Light is as light does.
* * * *
Has it ever become clearly apparent
Why you have never, can never,
Will never see your own face?
* * * *
So many things we disagree with
That we go along with anyway.
* * * *
You will only be as free as you desire allows.
* * * *
You have allowed ignorance and delusion
To lead you down a path of destruction
Even a fool would not dream of treading.
* * * *
Throughout Eden’s garden,
Ignorance inevitably succumbs
To its own conscious death.
* * * *
Yours to witness at most
* * * *
Thou art godness in the way no words can tell.
* * * *
How die you that was never born?
* * * *
Your dream is whatever you know it to be.
* * * *
Discard the life that was never yours
In any way thought inspires.
* * * *
Are you sorry you did it,
Or just sorry you got caught?
* * * *
The peace of eternity
Requires no reconciliation
Of an individual nature.
* * * *
How many ways there are to torture oneself
For what we think we are and are not.
* * * *
Growth, growth, growth.
What is it we actually think
We are growing into?
* * * *
How large must a stack of gold be
Before you see it is just a pile of sand?
* * * *
Corporations are inert husks
Filled with teaming life making decisions
That create and destroy with synergistic indifference.
* * * *
If you identify with time, you will be caught in it
In whatever way your free-running will takes you.
* * * *
The challenge is learning to ignore the garbage
So many toss upon themselves, others and you.
* * * *
Do you truly suffer, or
Is it merely imagination’s,
And its correlated attachment
To the body temporarily inhabits.
* * * *
Lots of upset, angry people,
But not about the same things.
* * * *
Grace awakens within those who allow it.
* * * *
People do what their vanity abides.
* * * *
Parasites and critics have a lot in common.
* * * *
Change yourself before asking it of the world.
* * * *
Feeling ordinary is a very good thing.
* * * *
Change the course of a river however you will,
It still must eventually return to the sea.
* * * *
What lies out past infinity?
* * * *
Look past your penis
At what that beautiful woman
Will be looking like fifty years hence.
* * * *
What is this attachment to the word, love?
* * * *
Not interested in the limelight, sorry.
* * * *
Irony has a way of making almost anything humorous.
* * * *
So, in other words,
Freedom of speech for you,
But not for them.
* * * *
What bitterness this thing called love can harvest.
* * * *
We’re all disturbed about one thing or another.
* * * *
Madness abides any given label.
* * * *
They say the good die young.
Hopefully, god will grant a little time off
For those token moments of moderate behavior.
* * * *
A truth for all.
* * * *
Four-letter word for organized religion: bunk.
* * * *
Who and what is not the truth, the life, and the way?
* * * *
What will you do when all your gods,
When all your idolatry has failed you?
* * * *
Death is just returning to the womb of totality.
* * * *
Turn away from all that is known
Into that which is unknown.
* * * *
What a phenomenal thing to exist.
* * * *
The challenge is learning to ignore the garbage
The others put upon themselves, others and you.
* * * *
Do you really suffer,
Or is it merely imagination
And the correlated attachments
To the body it temporarily inhabits?
* * * *
Doesn’t matter whether it’s well-written or not.
What counts is whether you grasp the intent.
* * * *
Is there anything more boorish than false pride?
* * * *
Is god so vain as to attempt
To experience every possibility?
* * * *
The pie is cut,
The niches are full,
And ‘No Trespassing’ signs
Are posted at every imagined border.
Where to go from here?
* * * *
Love measured is not love at all.
* * * *
Anything can be skewed by misinterpretation.
* * * *
One returns to absoluteness
Because it is the only state of mind
Immune from the pain of consciousness.
* * * *
Is humanity capable of controlling its numbers,
Or will Mother Nature intercede in ways
We would rather not experience?
* * * *
Is any thought ultimately real?
* * * *
You are the stage upon which your universe is built.
* * * *
Why are you still dragging around
So many things that no longer matter?
* * * *
So fascinating the countless ways
Human beings have found to worship
The mystery in which we all reside.
The challenge is realizing none
Is more important than any other.
* * * *
No matter how surrounded you are
By the artificial creations of the mind,
It is really all still completely natural.
* * * *
Good breathing reconciles all disorder.
* * * *
Why so much denial
Of the grand indifference
Of this mysterious oneness?
* * * *
Interest fans the flames of capability.
* * * *
Why keep adding to the bother?
* * * *
Another inconsolable life.
* * * *
How can hair and nails be so endlessly fascinating.
* * * *
Jesus was not a white, apple pie, flag-waver.
* * * *
The most effective way to destroy an idea
Is to usurp the message with doublespeak.
* * * *
Who is not disturbed to some degree
By the consciousness in which they abide?
* * * *
Such a tentative, precarious breath
On which this mortal dream depends.
* * * *
How tenacious any given perspective.
* * * *
Delusion is the stream’s impetus.
* * * *
To clap with one hand is no different
Than clapping with three or more.
* * * *
What was is no longer,
And what is now, will, too,
Someday no longer be.
* * * *
There is no escape from space-time,
But through the sovereignty of death.
* * * *
There’s no finding what isn’t there to find.
* * * *
The essence of maybe.
* * * *
The type of person for whom enough will never be.
* * * *
So much time wasted arguing stupid things.
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The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)
© Michael J. Holshouser 2009
World Rights Reserved