Chapter 62 - The Stillness Before Time (Compendium)


LXII

In examining the claim of free will closely,
You must ask yourself if you chose
Your gender, color, body shape and health,
Your culture, language, socioeconomic level, and so on.
Many claim it so, but is any assertion more than empty speculation?
Is free will merely another hollow concept, another delusion of the self-absorbed mind
Continually fabricating rationales for that which it can never begin to know.

* * * *
By what leap of imagination
Did we ever conclude politicians
Were or would ever be a true leaders?
Beware any and all who seek to guide you.
There are many an unwritten agenda.
That ever again fell the gullible.

* * * *
No foundation will stand the test of time.
All succumb to the dusty eternal nature,
To the ocean’s unfettered push and pull.

* * * *
There will always be more
For those who ceaselessly crave more.

* * * *
In the midst of playing any game,
It is wise not to lose site of the board
On which the pieces must play.

* * * *
In time’s theatric passing
There will be many experiences
You will need never repeat.

* * * *
What are the odds in a battle of wits and fang
Between a wolf and its domesticated cousin?

* * * *
Water flows many directions, but only one way.

* * * *
We are all sucked into the vortex of history’s future.

* * * *
You are the king and slave of creation.

* * * *
As much as so many may wish it so,
Truth is not attainable in the realm of consciousness.
The kingdoms of the known cannot lay claim to more than illusion.

* * * *
Your fate is assured.
Look beyond it
For the answer to all riddles.

* * * *
The sage sees adversity and fortune
With the same impersonal equanimity.

* * * *
Listen closely, peer into any unknown,
And any language, any set of concepts
Will awaken within your field of knowing.

* * * *
Rightness is the obvious.

* * * *
The anarchists of today
Become the kings of tomorrow.

* * * *
The flowing babble of the river
Is the causing effecting and the effecting causing.

* * * *
You will never see your identity
But through the reflections
Mirrored by the dreamer within.
All attachments are creators of duality.

* * * *
What difference really
Between a trough and a table fully set?

* * * *
What is the peak to which all climbers aspire?

* * * *
Life is the exploration of capacity and limitation.

* * * *
The tethers of your mind mold time.

* * * *
Why do you choose to suffer?

* * * *
How can you abide in one-pointedness
When reality is completely pointless?
Consciousness is the only point-maker.

* * * *
The time which once seem far in the future
Approaches with a steadfast sureness
And seemingly increasing speed.

* * * *
Perhaps godness is as small as it is large.

* * * *
Does inner vision have anything to do
With sight as it is known?

* * * *
The medleys of imagination
Have little to do with reality.

* * * *
All roles are assumed.

* * * *
Only in fragmentation
Is there the vain craving
For it to be more than it is.

* * * *
Personality is a temporal pattern
An expression, a cross-stitch in time,
A brief chord in the symphony of creation,
A drop in the ocean of consciousness,
A dream in the mind of godness.

* * * *
There are many who would do all a favor
By saying and doing much less.

* * * *
All assumption is founded in time.

* * * *
Why should you care?

* * * *
Is freedom
What you are when you do,
Or what you do when you are?

* * * *
That from which conscious light issues,
That to which it returns, you are that.
Immortal, eternal, infinite, whole, sovereign.

* * * *
Space-time, does it move?
And who is keeping count?

* * * *
It’s either one way or the other.

* * * *
Use the mind and nervous system
To step beyond its mortal origin.

* * * *
There is truly nothing without it, yet consciousness
Continuously creates every vain notion to mask it.

* * * *
Meaning and purpose are interwoven with self-imagery.

* * * *
You are the answer to all questions,
The dreamer of all dreams,
The truth of all truths,
The end to all beginnings
And the beginning to all endings.

* * * *
Nirvana is merely the cessation
Of consciousness from all patterns.

* * * *
The forms are the gold,
But the gold is not the form.

* * * *
Whatever changing is yet to unfold
Originates individually and collectively.
We are in it together whatever the outcome.

* * * *
Trust god to kill you for all your trouble.

* * * *
Choice implies duality.
Where there is only one,
What choice can there be?

* * * *
Godness endures existence
In order to reflect upon that
Which can never be known.

* * * *
Those who are easily offended
Need to question their assumptions.
Only images are offended.

* * * *
Death.
One moment you’re there, the next you’re not.
Was life ever really that much different?

* * * *
Passion inevitably leads to conflict and division.

* * * *
All you experience is created within
Through neurological transformation.

* * * *
Free will is defined by capacity and limitation,
By environmental influence and genetic predisposition.
To consider it free is another delusional construct.

* * * *
Accept life for what it is.
All resistance to fate is futile.

* * * *
We are all immortal time travelers.

* * * *
What has ever made you believe you could ever be
Anything the mind could ever concoct?

* * * *
You behave what you believe.

* * * *
What will you do
When all the promises
Prove unsustainable.

* * * *
Do not seek immortality.
Discern it coursing in every fiber.

* * * *
How long must life’s play continue
For you to divine its true meaning?

* * * *
Passions spring forth ever again,
Yet retrospect often questions
What any tumult is worth.

* * * *
Life is filled with struggle.
Why do some thrive in its midst
While others surrender and seek its end?
Is there a movement past the psychological resistance
Creating so much divisive strife and mischief?
All of it the same, yet every variation
Fate seems intent to play.

* * * *
God is as dead as you are.

* * * *
Ego is founded entirely upon
A set of perceived assumptions.

* * * *
The womb is the die cup of time.

* * * *
Is the real issue what they think,
Or what you think they might think?

* * * *
The source is ever the source
No matter its label or definition.

* * * *
You ask the world to change,
But will not change yourself.

* * * *
Immortality creates its own sanity.

* * * *
To shroud existence
With nobility and romance
Is ever a comforting delusion.

* * * *
How else could the mystery ponder itself
But through your eyes?

* * * *
Muzzling the dog solves the problem before it happens.

* * * *
All action is inertia.
All causes become effects and all effects, causes.
Among the most basic laws of the natural order,
The balance of all causes equals all effects,
And the synergy of time’s permutations
Inevitably play out predictable conclusion.

* * * *
God owes you nothing.

* * * *
First blood wakes up the basic nature.

* * * *
What need have you to see it all
Once you know you are all of it?

* * * *
How can you be free
If your inner vision is colored
By the propaganda of time?

* * * *
Peace without is not possible
Until it is discerned within.

* * * *
What a burden desire can be.

* * * *
What peace can thought truly offer?
Its suspension is the only resolution.

* * * *
Seeing one’s Self, seeing the no other,
Is a vision which requires no mirror.

* * * *
Judgments are cast of the form
And the brief span of its pretense.

* * * *
To be unconcerned
Even for your own opinions,
Now that is freedom.

* * * *
You may choose to do things the same,
But you are not bound to any action.

* * * *
If you cannot put aside you pride to see it,
Then you are damned to the timeless,
Eternal hell of your own making.

* * * *
How fortunate those who find
Even the mundane exceptional.

* * * *
How much more simple the life
Of the one who accepts its offering.

* * * *
You are the whimsical nature of that which is prior.

* * * *
In any garden there is the planting,
The pruning, the thinning,
And the harvest.

* * * *
Are you pretending to know something you really do not?

* * * *
If god wasn’t merely a concept,
Why do so many find it necessary
To mitigate their various doubts
Through endless persuasion?

* * * *
How strange to be judged by another
For something you cannot help.

* * * *
Voluntary activity is motivated and enjoyable.

* * * *
We as a species are generally unable to examine
The founding assumptions of our consciousness.

* * * *
Ignorance alone is one thing, ignorance multiplied another.
But exponential ignorance is reckoned only in chaos.

* * * *
Is any organized religion anything more
Than a reflex of superstitious, undiscerning minds?
The dread of the unknown, or more accurately,
The illusory security blanket of the known.

* * * *
The more dogmatic, the harsher the judgments.

* * * *
Most of your ancestors never even watched one movie,
Read a book, drove a car, listened to a stereo...
And still you ceaselessly grasp for more.
Is there any end to your thirst?
If you were truly happy,
Would there be more to want?

* * * *
Time, the present unfolding,
Is seen through the screen of memory.
How each flavors it is left to personal discretion.
Objectivity is the most subtle delusion.

* * * *
Take any corner, any angle too fast
And you’re bound to crash and burn.

* * * *
You who believe your identity real.
It is you who are truly mad,

* * * *
All seeds originate of the same source,
Blown into life by a causeless mystery.


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