Chapter 52 - The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)


LII

If passion rules your actions,
You are riding the wheel of suffering.

* * * *
Why continue eating something
If you are no longer hungry for it.

* * * *
What is the quality of mind
When its hunger for more ends?
What is a witnessed death, the riddle?

* * * *
Once you see a problem clearly,
The answer is often quite simple.

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The sages do not need to travel far
Because there is nothing they need to see.
The inner vision is sustenance enough.

* * * *
I have seen that I am the eyes of godness,
And through that seeing know that you are as well.

* * * *
Choose leaders who are wise,
Not merely capable, greedy and ambitious.

* * * *
I want, I want, I want...
Over and over and over,
I want, I want, I want...
It is the gist of the industrialized refrain,
The epitaph of the self-proclaimed civilized man.

* * * *
Though you may have grown up feeling odd
Because you never bought into all this confusion,
It is not required that you believe the many delusions
Spawned by the endless play of human ignorance.

* * * *
Without you, godness would have no reflection
With which to witness creation and destruction.

* * * *
We are all just receiving units,
Playing out a spontaneous dream
Without  beginning or end.
Thou art that I am.

* * * *
Where does any creature end and god begin?
Only the mind knows.

* * * *
The beaten path is beaten only in time.
Where do ruts go when time ends?

* * * *
What competing group in this world
Does not feel god is on their side?

* * * *
Sincerity can end disharmony
In all but the most aggravated hearts.
Battles and wars never fought
Are the most easily won.

* * * *
So many spend their lives gathering
Every physical and mental possession possible.
For a few it becomes letting everything go.
Die to your life and discern serenity.

* * * *
Wisdom is that gleaned from the immeasurable.
It is the insight of the mind beyond the measured mind.

* * * *
Call it heaven or call it hell,
Both are merely imagined by minds
Born of divisions and limitations created in time.

* * * *
Groups form for one reason or another,
Give themselves a label and declare their dogma
To be the final enduring truth above all others.
How often such vain delusions have only
Created much suffering for so many.

* * * *
Surrender your way to freedom.

* * * *
We are all god
Playing out god’s game,
God knows why.
Maybe.
Personally, I’m very sure
I don’t know anything.
I think.

* * * *
Why we keep playing
Pathetically predictable dramas
Is an unfailing mystery.

* * * *
Do you really believe
Any of humanity’s babble
Makes even a ripple of difference
Playing out in the vast timeless reaches?
Or is it all just echoes in your head?

* * * *
Look at the world you see.
It is the harvest of Eden’s wonder.
No one part is responsible for the confusion,
For each of us creates the undoing
Of the original union.

* * * *
Most are far too deluded
To be truly honest about the fact
That they do not really have any answers,
Mainly because all the questions were too small.

* * * *
Most are so attached to holding onto all the mind concocts
That letting go is completely beyond comprehension.

* * * *
We are all caught by one fallacy after another.
Seemingly without end all the trials take each of us
Upon a long course to wisdom and beyond.
These words map out an inward journey
As seen through one dreamer’s eyes.
Within their play are the limits of all words
And the tarnished limitations of his own vision.
Correct or expand them as you are able or inclined.

* * * *
To transcend all delusion and ignorance,
What state of mind would that be?
Beyond all speculation.

* * * *
To realize how shaped you life is
By the mirrors set before you
Requires an insight few possess.

* * * *
How truly alone do you dare be?
Will you ever be the ultimate witness
That true you prior to all delusions?

* * * *
Look across any room, any expanse.
All of it is the creation of your senses.
Without you manifestation would not be.
Passionate judgments of of your creation
Are the heaven and hell of an imagined reality.
Judge it and you judge your own dream.
Judge it and you judge yourself.

* * * *
Peering across the expanses of my vast inner universe,
I intuit it to be truly no different than your own or any other’s.

* * * *
All hierarchies are the fantasy born of limitation.

* * * *
Real freedom is a personal quest
To which no other’s claim matters one iota.
It is a personal realization that all limitation is illusion,
That within, no matter the condition of the exterior,
You are that which is pure, divine, beyond
All aspirations of the human mind.

* * * *
What good is an unpracticed philosophy?

* * * *
Despite all doubts to the contrary, you are worthy
Of your own undying, unconditional love.
What more do you need than that?

* * * *
You exercises your limitations
In whatever way you will.

* * * *
Choose your differences
And you will find them.

* * * *
Word may not break bones,
But they sure enough cause us
To throw sticks and stones without fail.

* * * *
The ignorance of our ancestors is upon us.

* * * *
When will humanity learn that numbers
Do not necessarily mean quality?

* * * *
We each have demons within us,
All of which we may or may not face
As being entirely imagined concoctions.
You will exorcise them whenever you choose.

* * * *
Use whatever life offers to take you
Into the journey only the rarest ever fulfill.

* * * *
Mother nature plays by a very definite set of rules.
All manifestation must abide within them or perish.
This simple equation is without exception, or as one
Professor once said, “The exceptions prove the rule.”

* * * *
Very few individuals take the reigns of their being
Past what their geographical mythos shapes them into.

* * * *
You are the jester, fool, madman in whatever court
This mysterious genetic lottery has ordained.
Others will not discern the golden wealth
Which makes you majestic sovereign
Of your version of this divine play,
Unless they, too, travel the deep end.

* * * *
What is there to do
But become madder than any hatter?

* * * *
Dispel all doubts.
They are all shadows
Cast by your own imagination.
It is they which create all limitation.

* * * *
A cockroach in the kitchen wall
You would probably not even notice,
But a neighbor across the world,
You would hurl to purgatory
For offenses too banal
To even mention.

* * * *
You all play your parts so well
That I really need do nothing more
Than sit back and witness the show.

* * * *
No one can do it all,
So the many do the one.

* * * *
It will be hard enough for you
To transcend your conditioning.
To expect others to be interested
Is more than a little ludicrous.

* * * *
A man without a flag, a country, a world, a god
Or any other vain man-made claims,
Is a free spirit doing time.

* * * *
Remember this, remember that.
What is there to but a mixture of memories
Which keep you from seeing anything
With eyes reborn in innocence?

* * * *
How many ways vanity finds
To claim to one glory or another.

* * * *
How meaningless to live for a historical footnote.
Like footprints in sand, waves crashing all about.

* * * *
Time is the creator of all this mischief.

* * * *
All your judgments, all your opinions
Are cast in sand upon a windy shore.

* * * *
Humans think themselves so powerful,
Yet quake when mother nature sneezes.

* * * *
Admitting that you are faking everything
Can be a very useful release  valve.

* * * *
If you rely solely on your body for your happiness,
You are bound to be unhappy at many points in time.

* * * *
Why watch all this confusion?
For the sheer conceptual curiosity how insane
Consciousness can choose to be.

* * * *
We kill each other for every imaginable passion,
To what end only the most ignorant are too blind to see.

* * * *
Societies encourage you to feel lonely, confused and fearful
So that you will fully participate with the mythological set.

* * * *
Conspire in whatever traditional,
Symbolical, ritualistic exercises you choose,
But do not expect anyone else to buy into your delusions.

* * * *
Maybe you will be happy when you have it all
And have done everything imaginable.
Unlikely, but one never knows.
Each to their own dream.

* * * *
How to deal with the world?
As it is, as it is not,
As you would like it to be?

* * * *
Who is there to please but your Self?

* * * *
It is not easy to discern
What there is to surrender.

* * * *
We are all diamonds in the rough.
It is life which chips away at the flaws.

* * * *
Watching where humanity is heading
Is like watching a vehicle hurtling toward a wall,
No seat belts, no brake, and everyone’s foot on the gas.
What survives the aftermath is just a mild curiosity.
Earth will abide until the dream subsides.

* * * *
The countless words you cling to
Are a tenuous lifesaver in the void.

* * * *
A quiet celibacy in every arena
Is the natural outcome of not wanting.

* * * *
What is it you would want to become
That your dreamy imagination
Cannot already create?

* * * *
Maya will raise every mask
Until you deal with them all as one.

* * * *
Contrary to popular belief,
Emotion is not love.

* * * *
Competing with god will only mold you into a demon.

* * * *
Time and space move so quickly,
It is difficult to discern it is really
The mind which moves them.

* * * *
To discern the imageless mind
Is to transcend all imagined mirrors.

* * * *
What would it be like to never be concerned
What another thought of you again?
To do it, stop imagining it.

* * * *
Humanity does not operate smoothly
In large groupings because they identify
With hollow limitations and differences
Rather than expansive similarities.

* * * *
Eternal life is a right-nowing realization.
If you are waiting for a mythological character
To save you and your illusion from the here and now,
You will be crying by your empty bags for a long time to come.

* * * *
Why would you want to imitate a part already played
When spontaneously playing your own is an original creation?

* * * *
Who will be left if you ever discover
What is truly spoken herein?

* * * *
An undisciplined mind is lost to its myriad imaginings.

* * * *
For everyone else that might be true.
But you are the creator of your own time.

* * * *
Futile as it likely is,
Just trying to tweak the script
Towards a less cataclysmic conclusion.

* * * *
Do not trust your senses to tell you the truth.

* * * *
Even though their delusion steeps them toward annihilation,
Its grip is too strong upon humanity to avert the disaster ahead.

* * * *
You are everything you have ever seen, done, and thought about doing.
You are everything you have never seen, done, and thought about doing.
You are all dreams seen, you are all dreams unseen, you are prior to all dreams.


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