Followers

Monday, March 31, 2008

John Donne

BATTER my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due, 5
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely'I love you,'and would be loved faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie: 10
Divorce mee,'untie, or breake that knot againe;
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

The Secret of Freedom


Under the right circumstances, it is not difficult to have a powerful experience of meditation, to taste the indescribable peace, bliss, rapture, and stillness of the Ground of Being-like a still forest pool, in which you sink ever more deeply, where your mind is not moving at all. It is very important to taste the inherent liberation of your own infinite depth, but that kind of experience in and of itself will not necessarily teach you how to have a liberated relationship to the chaos of your own mind and emotions. Sinking to the depths of your own self is always profoundly inspiring, but it's not enough. It is equally important to know how to stay on the surface when a storm is raging and have no relationship to the chaos. And that is what the deliberate practice of meditation is all about. For most of us, learning to do that is ultimately a source of greater confidence and soul strength than the spontaneous experience of infinite depth. And in fact, from an absolute or nondual perspective, being at the surface is no different from being at the very bottom of the pool. Even if it doesn't necessarily feel that way, in time you will come to understand that it is the same. That is the secret of freedom.

Andrew Cohen

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Reality






















Any reality that can be conceived by an individual entity is based on
a belief or personal absoluteness in temporality which is a complete misapprehension in itself. The individual human just cannot accept the fact that his individuality and, more importantly, his individual volition or free-will is nothing more than an illusion.

There is a single, immanent Reality which is at once the source, the
substratum and the true nature of everything that is manifested as the universe. This indivisible Reality is directly experienced by every sentient being as the subjective awareness of self, the consciousness of existing and being present.
Ramesh S. Balsekar

Just for sheer delight . . .


From . . .
Faustus, M.D. The Search for Love in Manhattan

March 29, 2008

From a conversation E.S. and I had earlier today in the kitchen.

E.S.: Hey, those cookies are mine.
FAUSTUS: Yes, but your love for me makes them mine too.
E.S.: ...
FAUSTUS: It's the transitive property of love.
E.S.: Give them to me right now.



" I Am An Illusion"


Lyrics

by Rob Thomas . . .

Take this confusion
Runnin' round my head
Take back my unkind words
Lay that weight on me instead
I'm the place where everything turns sour
Where you gonna run to now

Wrong step
We got off track
We need someone to help us get back now
Worn thin
Awful state I was in
I believe I was losing me now I'm found
I am found

But I'm not real anymore
I am an illusion

I am the damage
I am the relief
Sometimes I'm people
I never hoped that I would be
If I take in whatever they turn out
What's that gonna make me now
Don't you understand

I'm not real anymore
I am an illusion

Wrong step
We got off track
We need someone to help us get back now
Worn thin
Awful state I was in
I believe they were fooling me
Now I'm down
I am down

But I'm not real anymore
I am an illusion

Hear it here . . . .

Thursday, March 27, 2008

chinese

One of my chinese students in China give me a Christmas card at Christmas past. On one side she had written these words presumably copied from some text. I just wondered if you had heard these words before or thought they might be of interest/relevance. (Strange christmas card verse I thought )

"Happiness is accompanied by sorrow and it would turn sunny after rain as well. If rain remains after rain and sorrow remains after sorrow, please take these farewells easy and turn to smilingly look for yourself who is never to appear."
~Anonymous
From "Non-Duality Highlights" Jerry Katz, Editor

Monday, March 24, 2008

The Clash


"The clash between science and religion has not shown that religion is false and science is true. It has shown that all systems of definition are relative to various purposes, and that none of them actually 'grasps' reality ... All the various definitions of the universe have had ulterior motives, being concerned with the future rather than the present. Religion wants to assure the future beyond death, and science wants to assure it until death, and to postpone death. But tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live.

There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly." ~Alan Watts "The Wisdom of Insecurity".
Thanks to "The Daily Dish"

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Take The Test

Our imperfect perception of the manifested world in terms of
measurement, diversification and classification is the veil that
maintains our commitment to illusion.
~Ramesh S. Balsekar

Poem by Frank O'Hara



Lana Turner has collapsed!

I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head

hard so it was really snowing and

raining and I was in such a hurry

to meet you but the traffic

was acting exactly like the sky

and suddenly I see a headline

LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!

there is no snow in Hollywood

there is no rain in California

I have been to lots of parties

and acted perfectly disgraceful

but I never actually collapsed

oh Lana Turner we love you get up

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Spring: 3/19/08 11:49 PM


O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
, has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty .how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest

them only with

spring)


E.E. Cummings

Monday, March 17, 2008

Irish Day "Beannacht "



On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
John O'Donohue
(1954 - 2008)

Friday, March 07, 2008

An All-Consuming Care


In Evolutionary Enlightenment, we begin to understand that who and what we all are, at every level of existence, is part and parcel of a vast, cosmic process—a process that began 14 billion years ago when something burst out of nothing, and is constantly developing and ever-unfolding in every moment. And our own personal salvation is found when we reach that point where we begin to care more about the evolution of that process than we do about our own liberation, our own happiness, or even our own enlightenment. When we begin to care about something that is so much deeper and higher and more important than ourselves, we find ourselves remarkably and quite spontaneously less preoccupied with and burdened by our personal fears and desires. This is not because those fears and desires have necessarily gone away, but because something more important has entered into the very center of our being, and our heart has become consumed with that. In this way, personal liberation becomes no longer the goal of our spiritual search, but merely a spontaneous byproduct of our passionate care for the unmanifest potential of the next moment.

Andrew Cohen

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Hallelujah

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know
What's real and going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen

Monday, March 03, 2008

Bring Me Only This

Life packs each vessel with song
until it overflows
then scoops it out like a melon,
spoon by sharp spoon
loss by loss
until just the rind is left
translucent,
to shape the aching hollow
through which sunlight pours.
But the hunger of absence
is wrapped around a seed
that cannot be destroyed.
When loss leaves you empty
sing into the void;
let the soft, moist breath of your moan
caress the seed. Water it
with attention until it reveals itself.
What you find there
at the heart of emptiness
born of loss
cup it tenderly.
Bring it to me.
Bring me only this.

- John Mizelle