What is Written Here
What is written here
Has been spoken, written, and lived
By many in many times and places in human history.
Ever disguised by innumerable masks, costumes, concepts, and technologies,
Its mysterious nature has timelessly confused and frightened
Those unable to discern beneath the surface.
This aphoristic vision is simply another attempt,
Using contemporary masks, costumes, concepts, and technologies,
To illustrate in thought something as old as old is,
That which has ever yet never been.
It is for those who desire nothing from this manifest dream
But that it be a journey into freedom.
Best wishes.
The Stillness Before Time 1996
Of the Human Journey
Mortal existence is not easy. It never has been, and never will be, for any creature sown of this garden orb, this smidgeon of quantum dust, floating in the vast, immeasurable unknown. What follows are thoughts about the human journey, its theatrical paradigm and the fare existence offers, and the choices all must resolve very much alone in the sojourn through the veiled maze of space-time, of consciousness with all its dualistic notions. It is a journey of ecstasy and agony, courage and fear, love and hate, absurdity and insanity, irony and paradox, life and death. It is the ineffable, insoluble mystery born of the passionate mind, and the ever-flowing array of perceptions, of patterns, every human being faces in the movement though birth, sickness, injury, aging, dying, and death.
These reflections are written to help promote a larger vision of where we as a species are heading; one that attempts to look beyond humanity’s many seemingly irreconcilable divisions, one that values insight and wisdom, one that elevates rather than detracts, one that seeks to foster a sense of guardianship, rather than destruction and manipulation, of our little dust ball and the many life forms it has spawned.
We live in a time period similar, yet increasingly unique among the many eras come and gone before. Excessive population, coupled with unprecedented, unrestrained industries and technologies, and the consumption frenzy they feed, are driving our petri dish experiment of so-called free will toward a rather bleak outcome. All the absurdities, all the insanities, we have so carelessly, foolishly, needlessly wreaked upon the earth’s magnificent diversity, are huge rebounding tsunamis awaiting our arrival in time. The rules of the manifest game are simple and uncompromising, and those who bend and break them must eventually pay the price that Mother Nature, chief arbiter of all things dreamtime, is more than capable of exacting.
As long as we human beings battle over pride-filled, tribal differences, we inevitably embrace a fate of our own synergistic, instinctual, self-absorbed design. The monopolistic win-lose divisiveness wrought since history’s invention, since our egocentric, competitive, voluntary secession from the garden, spirals us down a path of annihilation. What we have done in all our arrogance has created a time already nightmarish for many, and will only exponentially accelerate for those to whom we are now ancestors. And we are nowhere close to discerning a common vision, a truly cooperative paradigm that might sidestep it.
We leave it to future generations to create solutions to problems all have aided in forging. We vainly hope that political, economic, and religious leaders will shepherd us to salvation, but they cannot, because the collective vision is too full of limitation and polarity. Despite all our canny attributes, we as a species have not yet fully fathomed our interconnectedness, our inherent kinship, to the indivisible totality. We have not grasped that time and space do not exist as any more than a play of consciousness, a collusion of imagination. Nowness is the only ephemeral, eternal reality, and the decisions each of us make in this moment-to-moment flowing of this ever-changing theater, create the dreamtime future.
So many of the leaders we have chosen to follow with all their insecure, parasitic ambitions for power, glory, and wealth, only wax the slide with empty promises and compromising, shortsighted decisions. Though many are highly intelligent in many clever ways, too few have the wisdom and integrity to truly serve those they pretend to lead. The result is, that along with there being no political or economic solution to the dilemma now unfolding, our dysfunctional paradigm has created a spiritual crisis well beyond all the vain pretensions so many call religion.
No one has ever, will ever, can ever, see the world exactly the same as anyone else. We are like snowflakes and fingerprints, patterns woven of a mystery, to which all creation is witness in one form or another. Time and space are magical illusions, and each and every one of us is an equal participant in a vast theater of consciousness, spontaneously playing itself out in seemingly every possible way. All our knowledge, all our histories, all our schools of thought, the countless frames of reference we imagine individually and collectively, dreamily overlap and merge like ripples crisscrossing to and fro upon the same sea of relativity.
Words, whatever the language, are conceptual icebergs each and every one of us envision, translate differently. Thoughts of god or gods, love, morality, money, tradition, politics, ad infinitum, inspire a myriad of responses, often conflicting because of rigid, dogmatic attachments to time. Yet, at the origin of all consciousness, that quantum field from which this grand three-dimensional mirage has come to pass, is very much the same indivisible oneness, the same universal, eternal truth, despite all our sophomoric, meaningless arguments over the endless permutations of knowledge, we ourselves have contrived.
All differences are fabrication, fantasy, make-believe, delusion, born of imagination. All polarizations, whether cultural, racial, sexual, geographic, economic, political, religious, mythological, and on and on, are illusive deceptions born of the play of matter, of light and sound, and the theater they together weave. Each of us imagines a personal universe in which all travel very much alone, despite all the sensory evidence to the contrary. Until one can see past the attachments to an individual life, the many differences seem real, but ultimately, they are not, never have been, and never will be. It is a dance too vast for any mind to more than intuitively discern, and perchance fathom, they are lead dancer in their chronicle.
We are passing through a holographic epoch of time in which the seemingly countless dramas of human existence are available for all who have capacity and means to explore. What evolved of geographical isolation can now be witnessed in whatever fashion predisposition allows. There is a tendency, due to the aberration of pride and the quest for false glory, to argue one mythology’s supremacy over another, yet is any collusion more than a conceptual adaptation to time and circumstance? Is any one version, any one dream of consciousness, any one play of imagination, from the ultimate-reality perspective, really, truly, in any way, superior, to any other? Might may make right, but it does not make truth.
No one gets out of this manifest existence alive, and every human being ever born comes to grips with that truth in whatever way capacity and limitation allow. Some create hells for themselves, while others discern within, a quality, a virtue, a harmony, that has been given countless names across the world. Most of us, of course, wander the purgatory between. In the journey of life, each of us swims an ebb and flow, in which the individual mind plays out incalculable variations of the passion born of desire and fear.
The life any of us creates, with all its perceptions and interpretations, is a blend of voluntary and involuntary choosing. Traditions are creations every cultural grouping, every societal mindset fabricates in order to maintain continuity in those the genetic lottery casts into its geographic realm. No one is bound to continue believing anything but through the conditioned choices of imagination that some call free will. Those who discern their own law see this manifest play far differently than those who, for whatever reason, cannot see past their attachments to the narrow propagandas of history, whatever the scale.
The gist of these reflections is to encourage those who see their immeasurable nature to become that to which they aspire; intuitively, spontaneously free to meet the moment as it unfolds, whether or not it fits the vision of any other individual or group. In the statistical bell curve of any rise and fall, of any creation and destruction, there are always the initiators, and those who tag along well after. Those who entertain the greatest vision are already among the many who do not. Whether the reader sees it as a fact or not, we are all that which is the same indivisible upwelling, the same inexplicable mystery. Eternity is very much present within every part and particle, every quantum of the drama to which all are witness. It is a vision so infinite as to include each and every one of us, along with all the other myriad life forms across the planet, as its source.
Is the human species, with all its competitive predispositions, capable of comprehending and responding to a larger vision of itself? With all that is facing us, do we have the luxury of time? Probably not. Though the transformation of consciousness is an instantaneous matter, we are caught in the juggernauting wave of collective delusional ignorance, and countless attachments to choices made in times long before our brief little window. We may agree the problems ahead are nearly insurmountable, but a paradigm shift into a cooperative, balanced, intuitive, holistic, realistic mindset, is too much of a change for most to even begin to fathom, much less enact, at this point in time.
Despite the countless lessons offered by history, we are too attached to building mountains of false gold, practicing divisive religion, maintaining rigid traditions, following insincere leaders, promoting the idolatry of personality, supporting destructive institutions, fabricating egocentric class structures, producing adverse technologies, consuming insatiably in every conceivable way, destroying irreplaceable diversity, and killing one another because our ancestors could not get along any better than we, for all the same myopic, greedy, time-bound, evolutionary, imaginary reasons.
Recognize it or not, the human species is fast-approaching a tailspin of its own design. It is inevitable that this garden planet, and all life that dwells on it, will someday return to its origin. That is the nature of the vast changing, the creation-destruction of each passing moment in which we all choicelessly, spontaneously participate. The indivisible, impersonal totality; that which relatively few fully discern, much less quest total surrender.
The question is, will we go out with nobility, humility, integrity, and discipline as true human beings, harmoniously realigned with the source of our origin, guardians of what is left of the garden that birthed us all? Or will we exit like fruit flies churning feverishly for the last dollop of honey in the bell jar; like rats vying savagely for the last crumbs at the bottom of the cage?
Each of us makes that decision in every step, in every breath, in every deed, every word, every thought. We individually create our own unique, imaginary versions of the universe, and how we work it out together in the impromptu theater of consciousness, only time will tell. The essential quantum reality is not about contrived differences. It is not about futile, conceited pursuits, meaningless paths to glory. Life is an opportunity to perceive within and without, a vision of an integrated relationship with that which is infinitely, infinitesimally greater than its many parts.
It is the true discernment that each and every one of us, including every angel and every demon, including all creatures great and small, including every infinitesimal, absolute speck of quantum dust swirling within, to the furthest indivisible reaches of the unknown, is equally That I Am to which mystics across the world throughout time point. There is no other.
Each and every one of us is the same indivisible eternal oneness, the same absolute, immeasurable, timeless genesis, playing out the relativity of dreamtime. We are all connected, inseparable, no matter the exterior, no matter the capacity, no matter the frame of reference. No religious middlemen, no stairways to heaven, are necessary. This indelible insight is absolutely free to all discerning enough to see that ethereal thing called truth is the momentary, intangible, undeniable birthright of the timeless awareness equally within all quantum creations. This intuitive vision of the clarity beyond form, and the exploration of right living it brings about, is the only true revolution.
This inexplicable mystery we call life, this beyond-boggling organization of matter, is an opportunity to witness the vast unfathomable diversity of this manifest theater, this grand play of creation and destruction, of known and unknown, in whatever way each individually imagines. It is the potential within all to see that every form born of space-time is merely one of a ceaseless kaleidoscoping of shapes, of facades, of masks, of patterns, all veiling the same source, the same awareness, the same witness; nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.
The singularity of totality is beyond the scope of the mind, beyond the irrational concoctions of superstition, beyond the rational explorations of science. It is beyond the wordplay of any belief system, beyond the egocentric weavings of individual persona, and the countless delusions spawned of ignorance. We are all alone, together, and how we as a species finally choose to dance the dance, sing the song, walk the walk, and talk the talk, is ultimately, in this mind’s eye, the true legacy of the human journey.
Best wishes.
M
The Stillness Before Time 1996
Got God?
Do you believe in God? If so, describe what you mean by that?
Godness is the “I am That I Am” within each of us. It is the everything and the nothing. It is the smallest particle to the greatest whole. It is the isness, the nowness, the awareness, the timeless indivisible, unborn, undying source of this infinite, unknowable mystery. It is the creation, preservation, and destruction of every part and particle playing out the grand theater, the eternal kaleidoscoping holograph of space-time. That spark of divinity, of the Self within all selves, is the witness acting out every drama imaginable.
Each and every life form is the immortal totality splintered into mortal fare. The source of life, of creation, is more than any measurement can ever explain or define. All attempts to grasp it, all the traditions, symbols, rituals and concepts, all the speculations ever devised in this garden world, or any other, are equally limited as anything but intuitive reflections. They are all merely a means to an end, not an end in themselves.
Time is a fabrication of consciousness. It is the virtual reality of the mind, the cotton candy of imagination. The ephemeral, momentary nowness is the only reality. Every life form, no matter who, what, where, when, why, or how, is very much of the same evolving creation, the same source, the same light, the same dreamer, the same witness, the same amness, the same uniqueness, the same absolute oneness. No matter how you slice and label it, we are all holographs of the same essence.
If you were raised in a religious environment, has that had a positive or negative impact on your life?
Organized religions across the world clutch vainly to beliefs founded upon geographic assumptions whose foundations have all become brittle and stale in this shrinking world. Groups throughout time have again and again claimed to be the standard-bearers of truth, but have all too often created far more conflict than community in their ethnocentricity. The net result is that the many propagandas of history are weighing us down with clashing notions. Notions that no longer hold water when examined closely.
The fact is that we are all the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and those blind to this most simple, obvious understanding, those attached to literal translations and dogmatic collusions, cannot help but perpetuate unnecessary confusion and disintegration.
Religious traditions, with all their customs, folklore, symbols, rituals, and concepts are products of time and its inevitable limitations. Their value is that they remind us of our relationship with the mystery of our existence. But to vainly cling to any as more than temporal tools, to battle over them in any way, to use them as anything but maps home, presents a narrow vision of the eternal quest. The word is only sound, and no sound can more than echo though the expanses of eternity.
Organizing the spiritual quest tends to box godness into a concept. And in the journey beyond concepts, into that which is immeasurable, there are no boundaries, no assumptions that withstand that which creates, preserves, and destroys all illusions. The source of time is bound to no form, and inevitably harvests all.
Do you believe in heaven, hell, and judgment day?
Heaven and hell are states of mind, plays of consciousness, that only seem real where the now of time meets the road. Heaven is a sense of intuitive unity, an understanding, a clear harmony, a serene contentment. Hell is its divisive counterpart filled with unending prejudice, complexity, and contention. It is the passionate mind playing out the dualistic weavings of desire and fear, and the suffering they endlessly bring to fruition. Every day is judgment day for those confined by the illusory, dualistic play of the senses. In separation we are demons, in unity we are angels. Who has not tasted every potential to some degree?
Can prayer heal the sick?
If you really have faith, do you need to pray? Sickness, injury, aging. and dying are inevitable in this mortal theater. Oblivion of personal identity is the undeniable fate of all forms. Yet that quantum essence each of us truly is, is immortal, and this very simple realization creates a far different view of life than most seem destined to entertain at any given time. What each of us really is, is far greater than birth and death, and the limitations of any manifest theater. And praying to imagination for mortal immortality is rooted deeply in the quicksand of ignorance.
Are your religious/spiritual beliefs separate from your political ones?
Every action ripples. Every cause creates effect, and every effect becomes cause to the next effect. Those aware of this tend to walk more attentively in their day-to-day actions. Separative choices lead to disintegration; holistic ones to integration. Through interactions with others we show what we value. Are religion and politics separate? All division is the play of the time-bound mind. As long as we as a species value power, fame, and fortune more than we value right relationship, as long as we are in the grips of worldly attachment, as long as we worship mammon and idolize form, we journey toward an inevitable, synergistic fate of our own creation. The paradigm from which we spawned is no longer functional, and the bell is daily tolling louder.
Describe a spiritual experience you have had recently.
Is there any moment that is not spiritual, magical, mysterious? Whether sitting on the porcelain throne, or caught up in an inexplicable vision, every moment’s unfolding is ultimately very much the same. We may or may not be tuned in, we may prefer some moments to others, but in reality, the ungraspable is source to all creations of consciousness, wherever or however they unfold. Pay attention to the vastness within, or meander through every sensory, dualistic diversion the world offers, it is all the same ephemeral virtual reality. Life is an opportunity to reflect upon the oneness within and without, and to take it as any more than a three-dimensional, quickly passing mirage, misses its greatest potential.
What is the soul?
What is not the That I Am? What is not the ground of all creation, preservation, and destruction? What is not the indivisible, immortal, absolute reality that permeates all seen and unseen? What is not the same quantum mystery residing in everything from the smallest particle of an atom to the farthest galaxies of all creation? Godness, as seen through consciousness, is as expansive or limited as any given personal vision, yet cannot be confined by any. Ultimately, there is no other. The ocean of godness is all, including the drop of awareness reading this. The proof of it is that no one, no creature ever birthed upon this spinning garden has ever, will ever, or can ever discern more than a reflection of its own face. All forms are splinters of the same witness, the same oneness, the same faceless unknown. All attributes, all measurements are born of the illusion of space-time, and to be bound by any reverie is the delusion of ignorance.
"Got God?" was a response to a seven-question survey of Chico News & Review readers published in April 1996.
The Stillness Before Time 1996
Ten Reflections
I
Become a conscious, sovereign human being, awakened to the intuitive wisdom of awareness, of Self, witness to the reality and unreality, the irony and paradox of this timeless-spaceless mystery of time and space.
II
Respect this diverse garden world and the inherent rights of all creatures small to great. They are all masks of the same creation. There is no other.
III
Treat others at least as well as you would prefer they treat you. Do not expect them to return the favor, or to learn from your example. No one will ever be you.
IV
Live and let live; live and let die; grasp and release; give and take; win and lose; forgive and forget; inhale and exhale; fly and land; swim and drift; rise and fall; open and close; lock and unlock; come and go; start and stop; begin and end; flow and resist; tense and relax; be and allow; create, preserve, destroy.
V
Moderation in all things. Gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, lust, and pride are the roots of limitation, the source of suffering. The axis of evil is nepotism and cronyism and favoritism. Take delight virtue, in integrity and simplicity.
VI
Share what you have to share. But not in such a manner that it is degrading or disempowering to those you serve. Giving to get is not sharing.
VII
Play win-win whenever practical. Unmitigated competition is ultimately a dysfunctional paradigm. Avoid unnecessary conflict. No one really wins a fight. There are plenty of cooperative, egalitarian opportunities for those seeking the inherent ground.
VIII
Bring children into this world only if you intend to truly care for them. There are far too many human beings already. Life is arduous enough without a harsh, imbalanced beginning.
IX
Do not put false wealth above real relationship. Learn to listen to the many voices of nature. Learn to see with its many eyes. Mountains of gold do not compare with a child's joy in a mound of sand, a bird's, in the morning sun, or a dolphin's, in the passing wave.
X
Creation and preservation and destruction are equal partners in this kaleidoscoping light and sound show, playing out in the infinitesimally infinite aloneness of this dreamtime quantum theater. Deeply understanding this, may lessen the suffering of your relatively brief, more than a little absurd existence. Try not to take it all so seriously that you cannot laugh, at least occasionally, at this temporary mind-body, at this transient identity, this ephemeral, ever-changing, three-dimensional illusion, to which you are so attached.
The Stillness Before Time 1998
The Matrix
Another aphoristic journey
For those who see, hear, feel, and breathe
A mystery which can never be but what it has ever been.
An array of thoughts on what is known and what will ever be unknown.
Reflections from a mirror given over to the sojourn of sages and the fools they become.
For the dancers and singers who chuckle at the theater of imagination,
Those who seek to tread immortal waters, fearless.
The Stillness Before Time Website 2000
The First Page
We are all created of the same source,
By whatever name you might wish to call it.
Our sense of individuality is merely a fleeting illusion,
Born of the attachment of consciousness to mind-body-spirit.
In reality, we are all equally the same awareness permeating all things.
All dualistic notions are vain delusion fabricated by imagination.
Yes, it all seems real and true enough at any given moment,
But if you fully contemplate the ever-present now,
You will discern that this state we call life
Is really nothing more than a very temporary
Touchy-feely, three-dimensional, sensory reverie.
The indivisible, absolute mystery, pretending existence.
* * * *
Everything comes and goes, appears and disappears,
Changes in each and every inexplicable moment.
A magical mystery tour of bewildering origin.
And to those many so full of themselves,
Unable to perceive the unfathomable
That every moment beckons their attention,
How did the mindboggling become so mundane?
* * * *
Discern the indivisible awareness prior to all attributes,
All genders, all languages, all ideologies, all creeds, all geographies,
All families, all friends, all acquaintances, all antagonists,
All anything, all everything, under any given sun.
Discern that which is solely awareness,
Unblemished by any perception
Born of conscious design,
Mortal or otherwise.
* * * *
Every existence is entirely unique
In this grand, magical theater of time and space.
The unfolding of the song of godness is a creation extraordinaire
In every way, shape and form into which the mystery
Has spontaneously, choicelessly unfolded.
You are one of countless dreams,
All witness to the totality,
That which is prior to all perception,
That which is absolute, both within and without,
That which is real, that which is true, that which is ever you.
The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim 2012
Who Can Out-Do Anyone?
Who can out-Wittgenstein Wittgenstein?
Who can out-Schopenhauer Schopenhauer?
Who can out-Aristotle Aristotle?
Who can out-Lao Tzu Lao Tzu?
Who can out-Heraclitus Heraclitus?
Who can out-Kafka Kafka?
Who can out-Buddha Buddha?
Who can out-Plato Plato?
Who can out-Yogananda Yogananda?
Who can out-Aristotle Aristotle?
Who can out-James James?
Who can out-Ram Dass Ram Dass?
Who can out-Ashtavakra Ashtavakra?
Who can out-Watts Watts?
Who can out-Marx Marx?
Who can out-Descartes Descartes?
Who can out-Patanjali Patanjali?
Who can out-Arendt Arendt?
Who can out-Nietzsche Nietzsche?
Who can out-Sartre Sartre?
Who can out-Locke Locke?
Who can out-Thoreau Thoreau?
Who can out-Emerson Emerson?
Who can out-Bacon Bacon?
Who can out-Descartes Descartes?
Who can out-Vonnegut Vonnegut?
Who can out-Krishna Krishna?
Who can out-Hume Hume?
Who can out-Machiavelli Machiavelli?
Who can out-Comte Comte?
Who can out-Whitman Whitman?
Who can out-Rousseau Rousseau?
Who can out-Russell Russell?
Who can out-Hobbes Hobbes?
Who can out-Foucault Foucault?
Who can out-Kierkegaard Kierkegaard?
Who can out-Mill Mill?
Who can out-Confucius Confucius?
Who can out-Osho Osho?
Who can out-de Beauvoir de Beauvoir?
Who can out-Aquinas Aquinas?
Who can out-Carneades Carneades?
Who can out-Hess Hess?
Who can out-Diogenes Diogenes?
Who can out-Smith Smith?
Who can out-Parmenides Parmenides?
Who can out-Pascal Pascal?
Who can out-Chomsky Chomsky?
Who can out-Thales Thales?
Who can out-Wollstonecraft Wollstonecraft?
Who can out-Muhammad Muhammad?
Who can out-Shankara Shankara?
Who can out-Sina Sina?
Who can out-Derrida Derrida?
Who can out-Epicurus Epicurus?
Who can out-Kant Kant?
Who can out-Aurelius Aurelius?
Who can out-Socrates Socrates?
Who can out-Dewey Dewey?
Who can out-Aristotle Aristotle?
Who can out-Voltaire Voltaire?
Who can out-Hegel Hegel?
Who can out-Holshouser Holshouser?
Who can out-Plate Plato?
Who can out-Socrates Socrates?
Who can out-Heidegger Heidegger?
Who can out-Arendt Arendt?
Who can out-Zoroaster Zoroaster?
Who can out-Jesus Jesus?
Who can out-Camus Camus?
Who can out-Spinoza Spinoza?
Who can out-Krishnamurti Krishnamurti?
Who can out-philosophize the weight of history?
Hemmed in by the sages of the ages, we are, we are.
The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim 2012
(Revised and Expanded 2022)
Proof Enough
If you are genuinely earnest in your inquiry into Self,
The unadorned fact that you have never seen,
Nor will you ever see, your own face,
Is really evidence enough.
The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim 2012
The Last Page
Every one the same quantum indivisibility playing the manifest theater real.
Every one the immortal essence peering through mortal eyes, feigning a mortal game.
Every one as free, as aware, as their shard of spirit demands, and mind allows.
* * * *
Those whose destiny it is to become seers ponder many things
Until they gradually become aware of the foundation of consciousness itself,
And in that observant attentiveness to the awareness that never sleeps,
Their minds discern that from whence all things come and go,
And in that awareness merge back into the indivisibility
Of the eternity that is, has ever been, will ever be.
* * * *
Is there any creature, any form, fashioned in this vast universe,
That does not journey to the conclusion of its paradigm?
All nature is naught but patterns within patterns,
All functions of the same choicelessness,
All programming of quantum design,
Indivisible within one and all for all eternity.
* * * *
The quantum indivisibility is sightless,
Soundless, senseless, odorless, and tasteless.
Only in consciousness does any universe appear real.
* * * *
If the world, if the universe, was truly real,
How could it, would it, every instant be changing?
Only you do not change, only you have ever been the same,
Only you have ever been the one and only you,
Awareness, witnessing a dream.
* * * *
The Tao, by whatever sound you call it, is always the same.
The same as when you were born, the same as when you die,
The same as before you were born, the same as after you die.
Life is a brief opportunity to view it the same while you exist.
* * * *
That quantum essence that you truly are cannot die, for it was never born.
You are eternity, the stuff of stars, come to life in a dreaming of time.
There is no who, no what, no where, no when, no why, no how.
You are the nothing more, the nothing less, the nothing but.
The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim 2012
The Mystery You Are
There is no middleman between you and the mystery you are.
There is no need to endlessly agonize over questions that have no answer.
There is no need to believe, to worship, to follow, to pray, to grovel, to tithe, to dogmatize,
To dread judgments from an on-high, to quake over imaginary heavens and hells.
You are That I Am, you are that which is unborn, enduring, undying,
As untainted and free as you allow the state of mind to be.
* * * *
You are the mystery of you, the wonder of you, the eternity of you.
Only sensory perception, imaginary notion, separate you
From that most inescapably authentic reality.
Realize it, grapple it, know it, be it.
* * * *
How can the here-now, the ever-present moment, ever be born, destined to one day die?
How can that which is without attributes, that which is indivisible, ever exist?
How can there be light or dark? Sound or silence? Right or wrong?
How can there be any this, any that, in an indelible mystery,
In which space and time are not, have never been, will never be?
* * * *
Despite all assertions to the contrary, humankind is not the be-all-end-all of this manifest mystery theater.
We have certainly played out a remarkable reverie in our trifling fragment of space-time,
One possibly not replicated anywhere else across the starry-starry cosmos,
But our egocentric, ethnocentric, geocentric hullabaloo,
From whatever prelude to whatever finale,
Has never really been more
Than vanity-vanity-all-is-vanity on steroids.
At best a negligible undulation in the electromagnetic spectrum.
* * * *
Being domesticated, being cultivated, being trained, as a human being,
Does not make you any closer to godness than any other life form.
Every single beast has evolved from the same quantum origin.
The only difference between you and any other organism
Is an inexorable egocentricity born entirely of imaginary notion.
The entire human drama is nothing more than a collusion of consciousness,
Made possible by the evolutionary happenstance of an ingenious, group-oriented mind,
Two arms, two legs, a larynx, opposable thumbs, and high-capacity lungs.
No critter ever born into this mystery ever stood a chance.
And, being far too clever for our own good,
Neither, ultimately, do we.
Who Does Anything?
Who contemplates?
Who perceives?
Who knows?
Who cares?
Who feels?
Who loves?
Who hates?
Who hopes?
Who believes?
Who does anything?
In Every
In every yes, a no; in every no, a yes.
In every truth, a lie; in every lie, a truth.
In every good; a bad; in every bad; a good.
In every vague, an exact; in every exact, a vague.
In every blessing, a curse; in every curse, a blessing.
In every unknown, a known; in every known, an unknown.
In every intangible, a tangible; in every tangible, an intangible.
In every abundance, a shortage; in every shortage, an abundance.
In every superiority, an inferiority; in every inferiority, a superiority.
In every inexplicable, an explicable; in every explicable, an inexplicable.
In every immeasurable, a measurable; in every measurable, an immeasurable.
In every intelligible, an inscrutable; in every inscrutable, an intelligible.
In every open hand, a closed fist; in every closed fist, an open hand.
In every creation, a destruction; in every destruction, a creation.
In every brilliance, a dullness; in every dullness, a brilliance.
In every positive, a negative; in every negative, a positive.
In every logic, an absurdity; in every absurdity, a logic.
In every infinite, a finite; in every finite, an infinite.
In every deep, a shallow; in every shallow, a deep.
In every right, a wrong; in every wrong, a right.
In every large, a small; in every small, a large.
In every whole, a part; in every part, a whole.
In every plus, a minus; in every minus, a plus.
In every savant, a fool; in every fool, a savant.
In every gray, a gray; in every gray, more gray.
Are You?
Who are you?
What are you?
Where are you?
When are you?
Why are you?
How are you?
… Are you? …
The Sound of One Hand Clapping
The sound of one hand clapping is the sound of …
The big bang five trillion big bangs ago,
The moment just before a sneeze,
The other hand clapping,
A dust ball swirling,
An atom splitting,
A minnow winking,
A wave’s furthest reach,
The wiggle of a loose tooth,
Dust settling upon a dewdrop,
The moment before a door slams,
Wind wafting along the edge of a rock,
Time changing on the face of a digital clock,
A water balloon bursting through a chain link fence,
The brush of a butterfly’s wing upon the surface of the moon,
A paper plane gliding through the stillness of a room,
The ground falling toward a descending plane,
Sunlight reflecting off a beetle’s back,
A wheel bouncing above the road,
A mosquito’s needle piercing,
A gnat flapping one wing,
The space between the eyes,
A crippled cockroach dancing,
A tear tugged downward by gravity,
A spit wad just before smacking its target,
Angels dancing madly on the proverbial pinhead.
The pause between breaths, the breath between pauses.
Awareness Is
Neither one nor two,
Neither single nor double,
Neither solid nor ephemeral,
Neither everything nor nothing,
Neither what is nor what is not,
Neither living nor nonliving,
Neither right nor wrong,
Neither time nor space,
Neither here nor now,
Neither good nor evil,
Neither true nor false,
Neither judge nor jury,
Awareness is.
Groupthink
The groupthink creates.
The groupthink conducts.
The groupthink influences.
The groupthink manipulates.
The groupthink persuades.
The groupthink controls.
The groupthink harvests.
The groupthink destroys.
The groupthink perseveres.
Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?
Who is there to become?
What is there to realize?
Where is there to arrive?
When is it going to happen?
Why is there no end to questions?
How will you ever be free?
Turtles-All-The-Way-Down-All-The-Way-Up
How many star-filled universes may have come and gone before the so-called Big Bang
Or Creation or Genesis or Turtles-All-The-Way-Down-All-The-Way-Up,
Or whatever other metaphors mind may have conjured up.
And how many will come and go after this rendering,
And how many are simultaneously happening right now,
And what was and will be before and after any or all of them,
As if there could ever be any before or after any timeless fabrication,
Before or after what may well have never really happened in the first place.
Anything and everything, is on the table in the indivisibleness of all things quantum.
What Do You Your Self Intuit?
What is it little old you discerns in this theater into which you have without choice been cast?
Without all the countless devices we toolmakers have devised to measure our universe,
Without all the sciences, without all the mathematics, without all the technologies,
Without all the things the monkey-mind will do to quantify to the nth degree,
What is it you for your Self alone intuit, you for your Self alone deduct,
What is it you for your Self, without any influence from any other,
Discern real and true in this immeasurable enigma beyond all pales?
Who is the Who?
Who is the who, who desires? Who is the who, who fears?
Who is the who, who plays out any action, plays out any passion,
But the indivisible awareness cloaked by the attachment of consciousness
To the mind-body presenting itself, pretending itself, colluding itself, real and true.
A Quantum Reverie
The entire human spectacle, and all its countless histories,
Is nothing more than ever-changing, temporal, imaginary perception.
A make-it-up-as-we-go, spontaneous kind of thing, that really is not any thing at all.
A holographic dream, which all are genetically programmed, culturally conditioned, to play along.
An enigmatic quantum reverie: nothing more, nothing less, nothing but.
Very bemusing to all concerned, indeed, indeed.
Catching the Drift
Time to get another trim, cut another nail.
Time to eat another steak, drink another bottle of wine.
Time to take another jaunt, another walk, another shit, another piss.
Time to fill another form, smog another car, pay another bill, lace up another shoe.
Time to abide another debate, cast another stone, suffer another injury, endure another death.
How many times does one need to do something to catch the drift?
Nature’s Dogma
Nature’s dogma is the unwritten law determined and enforced by quantum mechanics:
Irrevocable, irreversible, unalterable, unchangeable, immutable, undeniable,
Incontrovertible, indisputable, permanent, binding, absolute, final.
You Are All
It does not matter how you are.
It does not matter why you are .
It does not matter who you are .
It does not matter what you are.
It does not matter when you are.
It does not matter where you are.
You are all the same consciousness.
You are all the same awareness.
You are all the same dream.
You are all the same now.
You are all the same me.
You are all the same you.
You are all the same quantum.
Call it God, call it Buddha, call it Tao,
Call it Allah, call it Brahman, call it whatever,
You are all the same prior-to-consciousness mystery.
If truth does not bring you the harmony of peace, nothing will.
The Infinity of Hells
The details, the details.
The nuances, the nuances.
The minutiae, the minutiae.
The particulars, the particulars.
The elements, the elements.
The niceties, the niceties.
The facets, the facets.
The facts, the facts.
The parts, the parts.
The aspects, the aspects.
The specifics, the specifics.
The finer points, the finer points.
The infinity of hells that havoc the mind.
Seemingly
Seemingly mortal, yet not all the time.
Seemingly carefree, yet not all the time.
Seemingly arrogant, yet not all the time.
Seemingly egocentric, yet not all the time.
Seemingly narcissistic, yet not all the time.
Seemingly sociopathic, yet not all the time.
Seemingly psychopathic, yet not all the time.
Seemingly courageous, yet not all the time.
Seemingly intelligent, yet not all the time.
Seemingly attached, yet not all the time.
Seemingly relaxed, yet not all the time.
Seemingly intense, yet not all the time.
Seemingly foolish, yet not all the time.
Seemingly this or that, yet not all the time.
Seemingly so many things, yet not all the time.
What Will You Do?
T-Shirt Karma,
Coffee Mug Dharma:
What Would Jesus Do?
What Would Lao Tzu Do?
What Would Nietzsche Do?
What Would Siddhartha Do?
What Would Muhammad Do?
What Would Zoroaster Do?
What Would Krishna Do?
What Would Waldo Do?
What Will You Do?
Forever Inexplicable
Awareness, the source of all creation, knows nothing.
Self-knowledge is but the imaginary fabrication of consciousness.
Without the matrix of quantum indivisibility, without the dream of otherness,
There would be no reflection, there would be no inquiry into the mystery of all mysteries.
And even in that reflection, as expansive or focused as it might be,
The inexplicable remains forever inexplicable.
The Passions
The passions can be a heady mix of emotions, often impetuous, barely controllable.
From Wikipedia, a list of the A-to-W ways it can play out in any of us: affection, anger,
Angst, anguish, annoyance, anticipation, anxiety, apathy, arousal, awe, boredom, confidence,
Contempt, contentment, courage, curiosity, depression, desire, despair, disappointment, disgust,
Distrust, ecstasy, embarrassment, empathy, envy, euphoria, fear, frustration, gratitude, grief,
Guilt, happiness, hatred, hope, horror, hostility, humiliation, interest, jealousy, joy,
Loneliness, love, lust, outrage, panic, passion, pity, pleasure, pride, rage, regret,
Remorse, resentment, sadness, saudade, schadenfreude, self-confidence,
Shame, shock, shyness, sorrow, suffering, surprise, trust, wonder,
Worry, and who knows how many honorable mentions
In the hard-wiring of the jungles of long ago.
We are the Planet of the Apes, indeed.
You, Scientist
Trust your Self.
Trust your own mind.
Trust your own awareness.
Trust your own perception.
Trust your own intuition.
Find your own way,
You, scientist.
Ebb and Flow
Ebb and flow,
Yield and resist,
Listen and speak,
Receive and impart,
Retreat and attack,
Maneuver and fire,
Block and strike,
Give and take,
Yin and yang.
What You Cannot Know
You cannot feel that which cannot be felt.
You cannot see that which cannot be seen.
You cannot hear that which cannot be heard.
You cannot taste that which cannot be tasted.
You cannot smell that which cannot be smelt.
You cannot know that which cannot be known.
Who, What, Where, When, Why, How
Who, what, where, when, why, how … am I?
Who, what, where, when, why, how … are you?
Who, what, where, when, why, how … is anyone?
Who, what, where, when, why, how …….. is anything?
But the same indivisible upwelling permeating everything.
Call it by whatever vibration you choose, it is the same clayness,
The same omniscience, the same omnipotence, the same omnipresence,
The same unborn-undying awareness, ever creating its Self anew.
Be the Light
See the light,
Hear the light,
Touch the light,
Taste the light,
Feel the light.
Be the light.
Mystery, I Calls It
Some call it God.
Some call it Allah.
Some call it Yahweh.
Some call it Brahman.
Some call it Quantum.
Some call it Jehovah.
Some call it Shiva.
Some call it Tao.
I call it Mystery.
Liar, Cheat, Thief, Murderer
I am a liar, I am a cheat, I am a thief,
And I daily plot murder and rape and pillage and mayhem,
But I am only a hypocrite when bored out of my mind, and just can’t help my Self.
I am a liar, I am a cheat, I am a thief,
And I daily plot murder and rape and pillage and mayhem,
But I ain’t no gol-durned hypocrite, unless of course, the truth don’t bear telling.
I am a liar, I am a cheat, I am a thief, and I plot murder and mayhem daily.
But I am only a hypocrite when given moments of vanity force my hand.
I may be a liar, I may be a cheat, I may be a thief,
And I may daily conspire every variety of murder and mayhem,
But at least I ain’t no Jesus-loving-god-forsaken-double-dealing hypocrite.
I am a liar, I am a cheat, I am a thief, and I plot murder and mayhem daily.
That said, hypocrisy and pretentiousness are not strangers at the table, either.
I am a liar, a cheat, a thief, and daily plot murder and mayhem
Between bouts of excessive debauchery and inordinate treachery.
But at least I am not a hypocrite more often than vain notion calls.
I am a liar, a cheat, a thief, and plot murder and mayhem daily.
And whatever that does not deal with makes me a hypocrite, too.
How many worship some imaginary deity, praying for blessings, for forgiveness,
And then spend every other moment possible in one pursuit or another,
Lying, cheating, thieving, even plotting murder and mayhem,
Never discerning their hypocrisy and self-deceit.
You are a liar, a cheat, a thief, and daily plot murder and mayhem
Between stretches of excessive debauchery and inordinate treachery.
But at least you are not a hypocrite, more often than vain notion calls.
Do not even for a second believe that I did not more than a few times play the demon.
I am a liar, a cheat, a thief, and plot murder and mayhem daily.
And I am guardian serving and protecting all.
I am consciousness,
Every facet unfurled as the given time called.