Chapter 49 - The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)


XLIX

God is an invention of the limited mind
To quell the untenable superstitious fears
Of that which can never be known.

* * * *
Commitment is the mind’s quest in time
For the continuity of imagined sequences.

* * * *
Belief is founded upon the desire for more,
And there is ultimately no such thing.

* * * *
The present is lost to the past
Faster than the senses can get a reading.
There really is no passing moment anyone can grasp
Which is not tainted by the mind’s limitations.

* * * *
As old as old is,
It is as young as it has ever been,
Born of the unborn in light’s bittersweet play of creation.

* * * *
If humanity truly wanted
Or was capable of peaceful coexistence,
It would be a manifest reality.

* * * *
You are the result of god’s playful desire
To experience every form of creation imaginable.

* * * *
In the course of realization toward liberation,
The animal instincts lose their sensory foothold
And fall away as chaff does from a granule of wheat.

* * * *
Who can anyone truly help in this mad world?
Each must alone discern the cause and remedy of suffering,
And begin the unfathomable journey into that birthright which is truly home.

* * * *
What heights and depths the mind transverses
In the time-bound journey of consciousness.

* * * *
Between passion and equanimity
Is a river few can navigate without aid,
One that ferrymen cross again and again,
Harbingers for those seeking eternal salvation.

* * * *
From the origin of all, you are no more or less divine
Than any other manifest possibility of this dream of godness.
The only difference between you and anything else
Is the potential to realize and reunify
With your ultimate nature.

* * * *
Becoming is the process of time
Born of the movement of mind.
Being is the field prior to all dreams
From which eternity momentarily blossoms.

* * * *
There are so many explanations
For that which can never be explained,
So many reasons for that which needs none.
Those bound to time are unable to make sense of it
Without being hopelessly ensnared in the net of concepts.
Freedom comes only in the cessation of vain struggle.

* * * *
To become the part that is whole,
Eliminate the part that is not.

* * * *
Finding contentment in the changing nature
Of sickness, injury, aging and dying
Is not easy for any mind.

* * * *
Attachment to life is death, and death life.
A paradox only the most resolute see.

* * * *
If a grain of dust has yet to be born,
What makes you, a pile of dust,
So sure you ever were?
Mud packed together,
Given reflection in light,
Creates a conscious presence,
An individuality porous to introspection,
An indivisible mystery so thoughtlessly squandered.

* * * *
Those who are not ready
Will set these words down
And return to their slumber.

* * * *
Grace is the return to that which is god-given.

* * * *
Each is born adrift in temptation,
Succumbing to one illusion after another
Until all divisions become bitter fruit,
And freedom its own reward.

* * * *
The seers are their own experiments.

* * * *
Maya is the great tempter,
Yet her teachings are eternal
For all born unborn to see.

* * * *
When were any born if not prior to all beginnings?

* * * *
To journey through the sea of concepts
Through that stillness from which all originates,
Requires a discerning concentration
Free of the mind-body’s desire
To continue in time.

* * * *
We all experience upon each other,
All too often in ways that create
Such unnecessary torment.

* * * *
As thought is transient,
So is every form it, in collusion
With the senses, imagines.

* * * *
Those who do not know themselves
To be the way, truth and light
Will inherit the earth.

* * * *
To presume the role of judge is a sorrowful course.

* * * *
What creates time but the mind born of time?
What sees eternity but that which is eternal?

* * * *
There is no census
On how many prophets
History has long since forgotten.
The most famous are given great weight,
But in reality all are quite equal.

* * * *
Relinquish all that is past,
All that is past projecting future,
All that is past transpiring into future,
All that is the creation of the limited mind
Caught in an imagined vehicle bound by time.

* * * *
Hell is separation from the unity.
It comes about through an infinitum
Of permutations born of light’s illusions.
Each must alone travel in time’s winding maze,
Facing the damnation of the individual mind’s creation,
Until through unfailing discernment is undeniably, irrevocably seen
The pathless, eternal, indivisible, universal, sovereign, naught-but-one within.

* * * *
Unceasing are the paths to confusion and strife.
Uncompromising is the unitary sovereignty
Of that which is eternally absolute.

* * * *
Eternal life has nothing to do
With the many concepts
Used to realize it.

* * * *
If this play of words
Does not aid your journey
Into the surrender of true being
Then cast them into the fire
And continue on
As you will.

* * * *
What is that state
Wherein the thoughts
Of a mortal seem to be
One with those immortal?

* * * *
The greatest power,
The greatest fortune,
The greatest knowledge,
Are within those who do not need it.

* * * *
The literal-minded and crafty are ever doomed
To return again and again to the world of illusion.
Until they learn the discipline, strength and insight
To transcend beyond its imagined and limited nature.

* * * *
To cross the roaring river requires courage and tenacity.
To show its way to others, to travel back and forth enough
To know the journey between hell and heaven and beyond,
Is something anyone might feel called to do without question,
Yet who can comprehend why any life is played out as it is?

* * * *
There have always been many false prophets
Who used their partial knowledge to trap others
In the webs of their tarnished desire-filled insights.
So many wishing to surrender to that which is true,
Yet ever looking for someone else to light the way.

* * * *
Making it one is the arduous work
Of an effortless, indivisible mind.

* * * *
True law is without dogma.

* * * *
If not parent or child, brother or sister,
All Eden’s creatures great and small
Are surely distant cousins, one in all.

* * * *
Of what use is any philosophy if soiled with disharmony?

* * * *
What is proclaimed god is within all that is.
If you do not see this one, single fact
It is your life’s missed fortune.

* * * *
The lines and spectrums of all distinctions
Are carved and weighted by imagination.

* * * *
To conceive
The unfathomable
Is the awareness of that
Which creates no distinctions.
It is the quiet drunk of the god-realized
Mystics, seers, prophets, buddhas and christs.
Call them what you will, all are served at the same bar.

* * * *
As long as you look to birth and death as reality,
You will not within discern the unborn nature
Which is the true origin of all dreams.

* * * *
Godness is what Oz only pretended to be:
Omnipresent, omnipotent, omnipotent.
Obviously the sort with a finger in every pie,
Even ones so mortal and fragile as me and you.

* * * *
If you did not step on thorns or stub your toes,
Would you ever look where you are going?

* * * *
Stories are merely stories to children,
Confusing to the ignorant seeking entertainment,
And enlightening to those questing wisdom.

* * * *
Wretched is the soul whose journey creates
Only misery, division and remorse.

* * * *
Hate and anger smolders in time.
Love springs eternal.

* * * *
Love is not so very many things,
And to say what it truly is
Is impossible to say.

* * * *
Superstitious notions germinate out
Of the mind’s dread of the unknown,
Its endless futile craving for security,
For the immortality of consciousness
Sustained only by time’s swift illusion.

* * * *
Every manifest form whether alive or inert,
Is conscripted by spontaneous circumstance
To an unavoidable, endlessly changing destiny.
It is an individual timeless experiencing played out
In the indivisible infinity of intelligent awareness,
Mysterious and unknowable at every juncture.
To zealously tether to a single limited perspective
Misses the true wonder from which all creation springs.

* * * *
Harmony within is as challenging as it is without.
Each of us in our passion creates rationalizations,
Vain attempts to remedy confusion and ignorance.
Healing the schism within one’s soul requires each
To develop the patient skill of a discerning physician,
And with insightful intuition manifest a gentle serenity,
A rebirth of the unitary eternal nature dwelling within all.

* * * *
The world humans as a species are manifesting
Makes harmony just another useless ideal.
The discord of rigid, exclusive mindsets
Competing for psychological survival
Moves us rapidly towards destruction.
How difficult it is to see clearly and calmly
That survival of all life forms on this island garden
Depends upon the wise, allowing guardianship of each.

* * * *
Now is without beginning or end,
As it has ever been and will ever be.

* * * *
Does it matter?
Not unless everyone colludes it so.

* * * *
To be free you must in intuitive awareness
Seek that which is prior to time and space
And the flawed inventions of limited minds.
It is the living death of the imagined individual
And its rebirth into the indivisible life of the eternal.

* * * *
Each of is the catalyst to our own mortal invention,
An imagined creation through which only the rarest see.

* * * *
All have equal right to the eternal knowing.
There is no middleman with claim to authority
Over any other being but what in fear is allowed.

* * * *
The simplicity of it
Is made complex by minds
Battling for individual survival in time,
For the continuity of dreams of vain fabrication.

* * * *
Individuality is the source of suffering.
It is the isolation born of sensory division,
The selfishness created by ignorant delusion.

* * * *
What is any personality but an adaptation of a passionate mind?

* * * *
Most are so blinded by the darkness of the cave
That the light outside is defined as impossible.

* * * *
This is a world where the imbalanced collusions
Are called sane and balanced ones insane.
There is no sense to it in this mind’s eye.

* * * *
Unencumber your Self of all history.
Find your home in the homeless nature.

* * * *
Only the ignorant foolishly believe
There is anything to really save.

* * * *
To discern reality you must somehow earn a frame of mind
Able to see the topsy-turvy, inside-out, convoluted nature.

* * * *
Every grouping cuts up the world into its mindset,
Into a mythology explaining the mystery of existence.
This make-believe knowledge is given increasing weight
As tradition snowballs in its time-bound manner,
Until its edifice becomes so veiled
Only the dead call it life.

* * * *
The eternal wonder of Eden is staled by time-bound continuities,
Vain histories out of sync with eternity’s dusty ethereal reality.

* * * *
None are separate from god
But through insistent delusion.

* * * *
Humanity squanders its potential
In such vain ways.

* * * *
To die or not to die
Before the body’s mortal end,
That is the question.

* * * *
The elemental universe
Is bound by the limitations
Of its manifest nature.

* * * *
For the absolute,
In this unfolding moment,
An unparalleled view
Of all creation.

* * * *
The universal mind is an eternal void
Unburdened by the manifest nature.

* * * *
One step after another, any given ant makes its way.

* * * *
You are that
Which neither word, number nor symbol
Can ever command.

* * * *
So many seem to delude themselves that one god or another
Will resurrect their temporal mortal form in one ever forever-after or another.
Few have the fortitude and tenacity to discern that here now
Is all any dreamtime can ever offer.


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