New View of Reality

Plato described our existential situation as being like people chained to our seats in a movie theater, facing the silver screen. Thus, we confuse images on the screen for reality. Suppose, one of us breaks loose of the chains that tie us to the screen. We turn around and for the first time see our situation for what it is? Would not our friends question our “new” view of reality?

Who

Who am I today? Who was I yesterday? Who will I be tomorrow?

This little self, always changing. A bundle of feelings, thoughts, perceptions constantly looping back on itself.

There must be something “more”. It cannot be named without turning it into a something. It’s not something. It’s a nothing, a no-thing, that is infinite.

Seconds in a Day

One day = 24 hours

24 hours = 1,440 minutes

1,440 minutes = 86,400 seconds

 
Don't we all say that “a second can feel like an eternity"? That means we have the opportunity to experience an “eternity” 86,400 times a day. Not bad!

Twenty Seconds

“My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm — all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.” 

- Joseph Conrad

Eternal Turning

How do you catch a moment?
Can you put it in a glass bottle?
How do you breathe life into an image?
Can you look at it until it lives?
What is life, anyway?
Is it the eternal turning over of the Soul?
Round and round we go. 

Desires power the world

Desires move us here and there; they power the world. Desires push and pull us through life. Desires make us mate, work and lust for life itself. Some desires define our lives. Examine, and face these desires - many have been within us since childhood, but forgotten. Examine them for clues of what really brings fulfillment. Desires are often so powerful that they take on lives of their own; directing us, rather than us directing our desires. A car’s engine is like desire – without a sober driver at the wheel the engine blindly takes us to destruction. Of all desires, the “highest” is the desire go beyond desire – that is the desire for self-realization.

Who Am I Today

WHO am I today? Who was I yesterday? Who will I be tomorrow? This little self, always changing. A bundle of feelings, thoughts, perceptions constantly looping back on itself.

Magic Powers

Merlyn, it doesn't seem like anything changes. Maybe little events in the day are different, but the same everyday life that I experience just continues to drag me along. I've been really sad lately, Wiz. I was hurt recently by someone I really care about. What happened between us broke my heart. Now, it's like my heart hurts all the time. Well, until something happens to help me forget. The problem is that it's only temporary and in the end, I always feel the same way.

Merlyn: Listen to me, Haku. I am old now. My heart was broken many times; I gave away my heart in wild enthusiasm. Looking back now, what else could have happened? Love does not know boundaries. Love stumbles around wanting to be open. As years passed, I came to value all those heartaches as sweet nectars of wisdom...

Merlyn: Wow! The output keeps coming. I thought I was done with this kind of thing at my age. I thought I was just going to recycle old stuff. I am old stuff! Where's it coming from?

You're not old! You can go backwards through time, Merlyn. That means you must be getting younger.

Merlyn: And, you, Haku, are getting older.

So then one day, we'll both be the same age?

Merlyn: Yes. That will be good.

Pivot of the World

Standing still, you become the pivot of the world, you become a leader, you become whole and holy, and you come to peace beyond all logic and understanding.

Soft voice of wisdom

these days
filled with technology
filled with noise and people
you can hardly hear yourself
or a little child next to you

listen, listen, listen
to the soft voice within
it’s the voice of wisdom

Go Now, Go Now

Everything changes
nothing abides
Go now, go now
into the nowness

Waiting Line Enlightenment

Every long waiting line provides opportunities to be either impatient or patient. Sooner or later impatience drops away into surrender to waiting without expectation. Gradually you become free. You may even laugh. Waiting lines - pathways to enlightenment.

In Our Heads

Our minds are trainable. But we must also discipline our bodies with gentle breathing and movements to get out of our heads. Academic people - students and teachers alike - suffer from being too much in their heads. 

Oneness Consciousnesses Cultivation

Take five minutes now to bring mind to oneness. Do this often during the day. Ideal is five times. But, each day is different. No need to be dogmatic. Some days, no meditation at all. That's okay. The desire for meditation will come back again. You will miss it. Watch how things change with and without meditation.

Unbounded Knowledge

Universities and colleges put boundaries on knowledge. All the arts, letters, sciences are bound within divisions and departments. Of course there is too much knowledge for any one person to grasp. Still, I wonder if we could better serve education by keeping in mind that the fragmentation of knowledge is a convenience not a reality. Real knowledge is unbounded. The mind is happiest when it glimpses the interconnection of all things.

Settle the Mind

Settle the mind;
the Unconditioned Self arises.
Illusions become transparent.
Deep reality shines through.

Life Lives Us

We don’t live life, life lives us.

It’s an error to think “I’m in control”.  Don’t even think about it. Live naturally.

A young person may say, “I’ll never get married.” Than they are soon thereafter, married with a child or two!

Another youth says, “I’ll never be so conservative when I get old.” But when they get old they do the things, are things that they had rejected. 

The seasons of life express themselves through us.

The Cloud - by Shelley

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 

From the seas and the streams; 

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 

In their noonday dreams. 

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 

The sweet buds every one, 

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 

As she dances about the sun. 

I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 

And whiten the green plains under, 

And then again I dissolve it in rain, 

And laugh as I pass in thunder. 

I sift the snow on the mountains below, 

And their great pines groan aghast; 

And all the night 'tis my pillow white, 

While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 

Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, 

Lightning my pilot sits; 

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, 

It struggles and howls at fits; 

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, 

This pilot is guiding me, 

Lured by the love of the genii that move 

In the depths of the purple sea; 

Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, 

Over the lakes and the plains, 

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, 

The Spirit he loves remains; 

And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile, 

Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 

And his burning plumes outspread, 

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, 

When the morning star shines dead; 

As on the jag of a mountain crag, 

Which an earthquake rocks and swings, 

An eagle alit one moment may sit 

In the light of its golden wings. 

And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, 

Its ardours of rest and of love, 

And the crimson pall of eve may fall 

From the depth of Heaven above, 

With wings folded I rest, on mine aëry nest, 

As still as a brooding dove. 

That orbèd maiden with white fire laden, 

Whom mortals call the Moon, 

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, 

By the midnight breezes strewn; 

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 

Which only the angels hear, 

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 

The stars peep behind her and peer; 

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, 

Like a swarm of golden bees, 

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 

Till calm the rivers, lakes, and seas, 

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 

Are each paved with the moon and these. 

I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone, 

And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl; 

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, 

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 

From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, 

Over a torrent sea, 

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, 

The mountains its columns be. 

The triumphal arch through which I march 

With hurricane, fire, and snow, 

When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair, 

Is the million-coloured bow; 

The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, 

While the moist Earth was laughing below. 

I am the daughter of Earth and Water, 

And the nursling of the Sky; 

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; 

I change, but I cannot die. 

For after the rain when with never a stain 

The pavilion of Heaven is bare, 

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams 

Build up the blue dome of air, 

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 

And out of the caverns of rain, 

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 

I arise and unbuild it again. 

Gratitude to the Poetry Froundation