The Return to Wonder - Chapter Ten


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What was the face of God before you were born, what will it be after you die,
But the same faceless, still awareness it has always been
In every timeless here now
Since long before the advent of stardust.

* * * *
Using some confining, dogmatic, pointlessly hollow concept of god
To endure, to stomach, the day-to-day time-bound mundane
Does not make anyone more spiritual or transcendent
Than they and everyone and everything else
Every indivisible eternal moment is.

* * * *
Do not seek out christs, buddhas, and other sages
Except as means to realize your own knowing.

* * * *
Accept nothing short of direct perception.
What point is there to anything less?

* * * *
Sorrow is a distraction you choose to play.

* * * *
Locked in identity, we are all vain outbursts.

* * * *
The quantum of humanity awakens at its own pace
Into conscious action in routine daily living.
Do not wait for others to follow suit.

* * * *
Sometimes you end up at the right placed at the right time.
Other times at the wrong place at the right time.
But what is good and what is bad?
Looking back later, doesn't it all seem relative?

* * * *
Erase any and all doubt that you are indivisible quantum source.
Exist serenely in the ever-present, moment-to-moment, timeless reality.
Even in the midst of complete and utter chaos, you are the harmony that reigns.

* * * *
The dreams of cats, ants, fish, flowers and rocks are no less illusory than your own.

* * * *
The delusion of duality is for those to whom the pleasure of the senses is all.

* * * *
One by one, drop by drop, quantum by quantum,
Human consciousness must individually reconcile its indivisibility.
All resistance is imagined.

* * * *
Never disbelieve or deny another's experience.
Just because it has not yet been discerned within your realm
Does not mean anything is not perhaps possible.
You are the eternal proof of that.

* * * *
When to say yes, when to say no,
When to say the maybe that does not mean yes,
Is a talent not easily mastered.

* * * *
To die for an idea is as vain as it gets.

* * * *
The dream passes in its own eternal way.

* * * *
Life's seeming meaninglessness
Is a thin veneer disguising its purpose.
Rip off that mask and discover your real face.

* * * *
To peer through the dualistic sensory screen
At the ceaseless diversity across this garden world,
And see only the unicity of awareness, is an arduous task.

* * * *
You are the eternal faceless nature; there has never been another.

* * * *
Is creation anything more than one big unfathomable quantum experiment?

* * * *
The only real sin you have ever committed was never being told of your original nature.

* * * *
Past and future are the imagined collusion of the monkey-mind.

* * * *
Knowing you are one with all manifestation
Does not mean you should not exercise caution
When petting tigers or sleeping with snakes.

* * * *
Separation from the source is purgatory.
Heaven is the born again reunion within.

* * * *
The will of godness manifests intuitively.

* * * *
When struggle and resistance end,
When surrender to what is, is complete,
You will be the awareness that is home to all.

* * * *
The hell of consciousness offers little peace.
Heaven is the stillness of absolute awareness.

* * * *
Most so-called higher states in life take practice.
Detachment, harmony serenity and contentment,
Are especially challenging leaders among them.

* * * *
As long as you believe your identity genuine,
As something more than the underlying awareness,
You will dread sickness and injury and aging and demise.

* * * *
Light and dark are but sensory perceptions of consciousness.
The reality of the indivisible absolute is prior to any and all notions.
To subscribe to any conceptions is merely the vain game of imagination.

* * * *
Seek the path that suits your nature, but never believe it was the only one possible.

* * * *
God surely meant guardianship of the garden, not domination and destruction.

* * * *
Each must find their way alone as suits disposition, interest, and capacity,
The mysterious givens of the manifest patterning that makes all unique.

* * * *
Somehow the mysterious glue of now holds together into the next.

* * * *
The journey home is fraught with demons of your own making.

* * * *
All mythos is a cruel hoax played upon the unborn.

* * * *
Sow the seed of godness, and it will harvest you.

* * * *
Eternity begins and ends this moment,
A birthright most are far-removed from ever knowing,
And even fewer tap with their whole being.

* * * *
You will find contentment in identity's demise.

* * * *
Practice, practice, practice, it is endless practice.

* * * *
Seeing the unseen, there is really nothing more to see.

* * * *
None are islands in this finite, temporal, mortal dream of time.
Only in eternal awareness are all worlds, all universes, undone.

* * * *
Peace, as simple as it is, takes intention to manifest.
Humanity did not reach any point in time through tranquil means.
Peace for many would be akin to a morsel of food stuck in a glutton's throat.

* * * *
Those who strive only for the vanities of power and fame and fortune,
Close the gateless gate to the timeless mystery within and without.

* * * *
Drugs, if used, should be used to find reality, not escape from it.

* * * *
All your selfish craving for security denies everyone else's.

* * * *
Once you know union is possible, the rest is up to you.

* * * *
Every manifestation, despite its unlimited nature,
Operates within the confines of its patterning.

* * * *
Awakening is like going to a big screen movie theater.
At first you observe only the plot upon the screen.
At some point you see there must be more to it,
That light passes through a lens on a projector.
The bulb and film seem to be the source of it all
Until you find the electrical cord plugged into the wall.
And where that leads to, what it comes from, is anybody's guess.
So enjoy the movie, realize it is not as real as you thought,
That what you really are is hidden behind the wall.

* * * *
To assume the source of this mystery is either male or female
Is to completely miss the very real probability that it is neither,
That sexuality is likely nothing more than random happenstance.

* * * *
Condemning any individual or group in for the state of the world
Misses the interconnected collusion of all humankind across time.
To one degree or another, each and every one of us is responsible.

* * * *
Between godness and its manifest creations, godness has the easier job.

* * * *
Hurl your dream into the ocean of reality; you are but a drop in the spraying reef.

* * * *
The mortal mind is a temporal, mysterious tapestry threaded by desire.
Fear and anger and obsession and every variety of vanity,
Are among the most negative outcomes.

* * * *
Some might argue owning this depends on karma,
That no one can accelerate or coerce the awakening.
Others contend it will happen if you simply desire it so.
Your own research into the matter is warranted.

* * * *
To intelligently witness this absurd spectacle,
And not descend into darkness through cynicism,
Or stumble about clumsily in ironic laughter,
Is a most challenging tightrope, indeed.

* * * *
Your real family are those of like-mindedness.
They may or may not be related by blood.

* * * *
The mind is a most unruly agent.

* * * *
Herein are many thoughts,
All of them pointing back to you
In the most real, the most elevated way.

* * * *
Undiscerning dogmatic rigidity and repression
Are not laudable ingredients in questing the spirit.
Fanaticism in any of its many vain faces has little merit.
Travel the path of moderation whenever possible.

* * * *
Explore the underlying indivisible simplicity within all things.

* * * *
Whether they be relatives, friends, acquaintances, or enemies:
Grasp as best ye may whatever lessons the departed may have offered,
Then release them in peace to whatever the indivisible, the unknown, has in store.

* * * *
Once you own any thought, any concept, any impression,
Once any perception is added to the dynamic of your frame of reference,
The insights it reveals, mix-and-match-new-and-unique,
Double-double-toil-and-trouble meld,
Into the witch’s brew of your paradigm stew.

* * * *
At first you may feel hesitation to articulate your vision.
Those limited to the determinate world of illusory appearance
Do not easily hearken to the news of their divine nature.

* * * *
To give over, to relinquish one’s existence
To fully discerning the awareness, the godness within,
There is no greater actuality, no superior truth,
Than opening the portal to the eternal.

* * * *
Any belief that you are separate from the totality
Is founded entirely upon unwarranted delusion.

* * * *
You may cloak it, ignore it, deny it,
But you cannot escape the indivisible within.
Eventually, it summons all home.

* * * *
If you give your self to Self,
Things will take care of themselves
In a way that only you alone can witness.

* * * *
To own this awareness,
And somehow abide in the world,
Is what this scarred garden so badly needs.
Likely won’t change anything in the inevitabliity of it all,
But it needs it just the same.

* * * *
Those operating in a limited, conditioned view of godness
May see your light and may even invite you to reside in their fold,
But your vision of totality, they will likely never even begin to comprehend.

* * * *
You are a liar, a cheat, a thief, and daily plot murder and mayhem,
But at least you are not a hypocrite more often than necessity requires.

* * * *
The world is a hatching ground of so many potentials as to be incalculable.

* * * *
The illusory world can never provide you with the security you crave.

* * * *
You may have to experience suffering in many ways,
Depending on your vain resistance to the indivisible.

* * * *
The many trappings of the conceptual personality
Are false and must be discerned as such
If liberation is ever to be realized.

* * * *
The eye of discernment
Sees the ravages of suffering
On the masks of consciousness.
Few faces are harbors of eternal joy.

* * * *
To perceive the isness of awareness directly,
What higher purpose could there possibly be?

* * * *
Do not hope for a better time.
Heaven's eternal way will ever be now.
Hope only puts off the realization of the unfolding.

* * * *
The ego identity is as shallow as a poor man's grave.

* * * *
You may transcend the innumerable limitations of the mortal nature,
But must still partake the confines and consequences of the given form.

* * * *
The cause becomes the effect becomes the cause becomes the effect becomes …
In the ceaseless streamlessness-causelessness-effectlessness-nadalessness of it all.

* * * *
When you own this, the accounting of karma begins its final zero-sum audit.

* * * *
Coming to grips with the eternal nature is rarely as simple as it is.

* * * *
Use every passing experience to reflect upon your divinity.

* * * *
Time is an ungraspable, dreamily surreal passing.

* * * *
So many things existence will do to carry on.

* * * *
In diversity there is unity; in chaos, order.

* * * *
Empathy is a means to understanding.

* * * *
Existence can be an absorbing calamity.

* * * *
Nothing is known, nothing is left unknown.

* * * *
True wisdom is abiding fully in the given moment.

* * * *
All the creed, crucifixes, statues, holy books, prayers,
Are but distractions until you are ready for the real gold.

* * * *
The most solid forms waft the same as smoke rising from a flame.

* * * *
Dissatisfaction with yourself is the hunger for the perfection of your Self.

* * * *
Always a challenge responding adequately to situations for which you are not prepared.

* * * *
So challenging to be detached from manifestation.
All the concepts and activities, the desire for sensory gratification,
The ceaseless craving of the loins, the ever-enticing draw of power, status, wealth.
Practice, it is a lifetime of practice, from the first breath to the last.

* * * *
More irony and paradox for those who are already more than way too weary.

* * * *
This one and only timeless moment, are you giving it your full attention?

* * * *
Drink fully that isness often headlined love; the cup will never empty.

* * * *
You can think about this grand mystery in whatever way you wish,
Or not at all, for all that it matters.

* * * *
The gravity of the indivisible is drawing you home.

* * * *
Peel away all appearances, and what is left?
The mind, the body, the senses, are not you.

* * * *
Defining your Self is the first and last error.

* * * *
We two-leggeds embrace a good story.
Weave a mundane shopping list into a tale,
And it risks becoming a coast-to-coast best seller.

* * * *
To what dream can the bona fide Self possibly be bound?

* * * *
What is your greatest attachment? Release it and all will follow suit.

* * * *
The antidote to any given problem is ever encoded somewhere within it.

* * * *
Doubt everything until you discern within that truth to which doubt can find no hold.


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The Return to Wonder
Field Notes from the Unknown
© Michael J. Holshouser 2009
World Rights Reserved