Chapter 54 - The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)


LIV

Stand fearless in the winds of darkness.
It is no different than the stillness
Of any other given day.

* * * *
If you have only witnessed a garbage dump,
How could you know what there was before?

* * * *
Great dreamers forgive and forget.

* * * *
Money is only as useful as your imagination.

* * * *
That called scripture
Is a well-intentioned news
Of the broadest, most holy insight,
Used by ignorance and greed
In so many divisive ways.

* * * *
All spiritual hierarchies worship false gods
Born of idolatrous collusions.

* * * *
You get off the wheel of suffering
When the desire for the spin
Is no longer enticing.

* * * *
“I am” is all you know.
Everything else is speculation and innuendo.

* * * *
Wipe it away until all you see is dust.

* * * *
Priesthoods of any claim are no different
Than any other vested interests.

* * * *
When you are free, time become a great drunk.

* * * *
Accept and embrace your physical death.
It is the most freeing point in your life.

* * * *
What on earth is there really to be afraid of
But one’s own vivid imagination?

* * * *
You want so much more from life, but cannot attain it
Because it is only your temporal imagination
Which dreams there is such a thing.

* * * *
Forsake the world for its reality is of time
And all that is time is born of illusion.

* * * *
The christs and buddhas most worship
Are merely old idols in a different form.

* * * *
Why all this happens so may say,
But truly there is no one who knows.

* * * *
Why is the innocence of children
Allowed to end so quickly?

* * * *
Even if the world of consciousness
Does attain some harmonic convergence,
It will still be a temporal production
With no additional meaning
In the ultimate reality.

* * * *
The tree which bears no fruit
Has failed its potential as have all
Whose lives are barren to their godness.

* * * *
Truth is too simple and effortless for words to grasp.
To discern its timeless essence requires an attentive discipline
Very few are simple and willing enough to surrender to.

* * * *
Deafness to the world’s chatter is a hard-won peace.
There are no hoops you need jump through
To enter the essential state.

* * * *
The manifest is ever in a perfect balance,
But whether or not humanity can sustain itself
Within the changes it has evoked is another matter.

* * * *
The only thing permanent about this world
Is what it truly is not.

* * * *
The light flickers endlessly across the screen,
But the screen and the witness
Are both very still.

* * * *
Become that which has never existed,
Yet has never not existed as well.

* * * *
Though these words may seem vague and obtuse,
They are precise and exact to the minds
Who share the same vision.

* * * *
What you discover will be what you imagine.

* * * *
No matter how you spend your time,
Whether laughing, crying, playing, working,
Painfully or pleasurably, directed, drifting or sleeping,
Active or inactive, it ever passes as the same now-ish awareness,
Unconcerned whether you drink heartily, spew it all out, or ignore everything.
It is the god-given wealth that you may spend however you see fit,
A free-will journey born of the mystery prior to consciousness.

* * * *
Probably better not to know the writers of such thoughts as these,
For all too often their vain personality traits only serve
To weaken the impact of their insights.

* * * *
When imagination stills
What, pray tell, is truly left?

* * * *
Will you allow the worldly corruption
Which the many lost advocate
To decay your own soul?
Or will you rise above the tempest
And navigate into the way prior to all ways?

* * * *
From any ruins, new things spring.
From the dark and cold of winter
Blossom the bud and fruit of time’s
Mysterious eternal dreamy unfolding.

* * * *
What is yet to come
In any time and space,
Only the witness can tell.
It is ever the play of spontaneity
Which seems fated only when one scans
The myriad paths memory weaves.

* * * *
You are in time,
And you are not eternally.
It is the timeless blink of the inner eye
Which proves it so.

* * * *
Within these many thoughts is concern neither for heaven nor hell,
But the union with all which is prior to any imagined dream.
It is the eternal song of oneness without title or tune
From which all springs timelessly unbidden.

* * * *
Why humanity creates so much divisive passionate suffering
When we could be happily laughing and dancing
Is the only question worth really asking.

* * * *
The only true gold
Is behind the mask,
Beneath the costume.

* * * *
Wait long enough, travel far enough, imagine hard enough,
Who can begin to guess what godness might yet create?
That you are proves any possibility is, indeed, possible.

* * * *
All belief is concoction born of the desire
Of the limited mind to attain security.
And from that futile desire arise the endless
Fears, angers, desires, vanities and fiery passions
Played out upon an impermanent stage
Woven entirely of imagination.

* * * *
What humanity values
Is usually that which is rare,
But what is most rare in humanity
Is all that is truly valuable.

* * * *
It does not matter
Whether anyone else
Discerns their god nature.
It is enough that you do.

* * * *
The elements of the movement,
Fire, wind, earth and water,
Prove unerringly again and again
The Impermanency of all things material.

* * * *
It is less a matter of should and should not
As it is will and will not.

* * * *
What death have you chosen?
Will you discover eternal life before the fatal moment?
Will you die to time in time?

* * * *
Castes are created and accepted
By those bound to manifest qualities,
Those who envision countless differences
And rate themselves according to vain distinctions
Passed on by mythological traditions, rituals and symbols
Worshiping and idolizing that fabricated by minds woven in time.
The journey prior to all appearances erases every hierarchical collusion.

* * * *
The only way to end suffering is through eternal salvation
Which simply means living thoroughly in the passing present
Without all the drudge of past and future mucking it up.

* * * *
Politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen
Priests, lawyers and other parasitic scam artists
Will probably always find innovative ways
To get your money into their pockets.

* * * *
Put behind you those things
You no longer find important.

* * * *
The rise of civilization has been
At the expense of human potential.

* * * *
Life could be so idyllic,
Yet so many have chosen
To create suffering in so many ways.

* * * *
You are the guiding hand of your fate.

* * * *
How many imaginary enemies
Do you carry in your head?

* * * *
Cockroaches, rats, ants and the like
Will probably miss us when we go extinct.
Despite ceaselessly vain attempts at genocide,
We have proven ourselves to be excellent providers.
Though we are likely more sound philosophically,
They are obviously our genetic superiors,
Largely thanks to all the radiating and poisons
We have cast at them during our brief occupation.

* * * *
Philosophers are lovers of wisdom, insight and truth,
Of that which is beyond all concepts within themselves,
And all things through the illusory play of space and time.

* * * *
Any thought that this seeing
Makes one superior
In any way, shape or form
Is just delusion taking another spin

* * * *
This inward awakening is a quiet revolution.

* * * *
The depth of your being is untouched
By any concept ever conceived.

* * * *
Color the veil however you will,
It is ever the same spellbinding nature.

* * * *
Everything is Self-imagery.

* * * *
Some deny their desire,
Others give into every one.
In the end both are zero-sum,
And the only question remains,
Was the trek torturous or serene?
Or somewhere in-between?

* * * *
Even the most attractive men and women
Can never achieve the absolute beauty
Of one who sees through all veils.

* * * *
When the question, “Who am I?”
Is no longer answered, you will know.

* * * *
What is the mind but a tool of measurement
Created by its own perceptions and vain conclusions
Until that rare moment it discerns beyond all veils
And a mystery prior to all limits becomes clear.

* * * *
Death strikes all camps back into the folds of oblivion
Where all distractions end and oneness is unwavering.

* * * *
How astounding the mind’s penchant
To become attached to suffering.

* * * *
Hope?
What need for hope?
The real you is beyond such concoctions.

* * * *
You will never figure it out,
But you may become content
With all your ignorance.

* * * *
Time casts each of us into a history
Which all spontaneously participate in
According to the countless  patterns
Dictated by conditioned free will.

* * * *
Be wary lest the ambitions born of time
Weigh too heavily upon your shoulders.

* * * *
You started off with a patterning
Gradually molded by an environment
Into whatever you think you are right now.
The only question is, however,
Are you really that?

* * * *
Humanity may finally be running up against its limits.
Up until now, technology and fierce competition
Have pushed them back many times,
But any successful adaptation
Always breeds new consequences.
The future will inevitably pay a large price
For our collective cleverness.

* * * *
Desire weaves many prices.

* * * *
The killers are the ones left to learn their lesson.

* * * *
What you long for in the other,
You will find within.

* * * *
Can you be free until you surrender,
Gratefully dead?

* * * *
We are all godness
Wandering the manifest realm.

* * * *
You may sit before anyone,
But until you are ready to learn,
It is all yabber.

* * * *
There are certainly times when life
Must be taken if you are to continue in time,
But weigh very carefully which times are necessary,
And which are not.

* * * *
All these experiences you seek and remember,
Where do they really lead, what is their true worth?
Part of wisdom is learning which thoughts and actions
Lead to barren ends and which are worth experiencing.

* * * *
The path to glory is paved
With vain intentions.

* * * *
Those who hate make every excuse.
Those who love need none.

* * * *
In a true fight the sage is not present.

* * * *
Sages let everyone who must finish first
Go on ahead in their rushing now.

* * * *
The endless suffering inspired
By our self-aggrandized rushing about
Is so unnecessary and ultimately destructive for all.

* * * *
Every individual, every group, has a story to tell
They are all equally imagined dreams.

* * * *
How ironic that the ones who see
The interconnectedness of all manifestation
Have been ignored, derided, destroyed or worshipped
Throughout history by the many who cannot.

* * * *
Revenge just sets you onto fields
Not worth tarrying in.

* * * *
Let all doubt evaporate
Until the obviousness of your vision
Manifests in every action.


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