Untitled If wishes were fishes, would you cast a net? Or would you remember to remember that to remember means to forget? "Unknown" All known is unknown All unknown is unknown Is all therefore unknown? 'In' this unknowing moment, everything moves. 'As' this unknowing moment, nothing moves. Because nothing moves, everything moves. Is all therefore unknown? Unknown. "Ode to Nisargadatta Maharaj" The old song and dance, Get down on the floor... "Have to suffer, to suffer, and suffer some more..." Can't leave it alone, can't just 'let it be' "I have to do penance, if i want to be free." The 'Christian ideal' has poisoned the mind; "Take up your cross, and only *then* you will find." Even Nisargadatta said "JUST BE and you'll see..." But it sounds way, way, way, way, way, WAY too 'easy'. But it isn't, mind you; it isn't so fun; It becomes obvious, it means 'to-be-no-one'. To give up some pleasures, not too much trouble; But to give up my suffering?!? Run away, on the double! Without suffering, oh, oh, where would I be? So I cling to it tightly; it's the essence of 'me' "Just be," says Nisargadatta, but he still goes unheard; After thirty plus years, not even a word. Nobody just simply does what he said; To do this, means 'my precious self-image' is dead. The quotes just go on; chapter, page, book and cover; But the words go right in one ear and out the other. "Burning Burning" The Fire of Understanding has touched me The universe is aflame, on fire like hot sands Mad, intoxicated, raving and speaking nonsense, And yet i am still. Oh Holy Fire, Everlasting Burning Bliss-Love, There is nothing else but This Understanding The hot desert sands shimmer with Understanding Raving with intoxicated Bliss, Madly I dance, And yet i am still. That has entered and i am Gone, Utterly Gone! The Holy Fire, Swimming in an ocean of Bliss It Burns and Burns, this Knowingness, this Understanding beyond all possible Understanding And yet i have not moved. How can this be? There is nothing but This. Only this Understanding, Universe Aflame, No words could contain the Madness of This. Understanding Shines alone, Burns Alone, All is burned away in the Holy Fire of This And yet i am calm. No words could contain It, it burns even fire! The madness of Understanding, Knowingness, It cannot be expressed, it is Love Burning Sand The forest of the world has burned down and Only ashes remain. Ashes! Yet still the fire Burns and there is nobody left, Nobody! Understanding! The universe is a candle. Pale reflection, shadow of This Fire, And i am no more. ~-~ a butterfly in the sky and fluffy white clouds blue sky and squirtguns sandboxes and dinnertime squealing with delight running through sprinklers snowcones and sodapops, green, green grass rolling down the hill lawnmower tan so loud smell of fresh mowing looking in tidepools, such colors, funny fish and sea things, fresh air limpets on rocks, mussels waves overlapping, gently wave crashes and tumbling, rolling onto the shore, sneezing out salty water seashores and lakeshores skies forever blue, clear smell of good food cooking marshmallow graham crackers by the river, boiling water in a rusty tin can clean smoky campfire, green tents warm sleeping bags, zipped waking up so early, cold breakfast by the fire eggs wading through the river slippery rocks, sliding it wants to knock me down deeper, shock of cold water rises above my waist, eek crossing into the woods smell of green, moss, pine trees, crooked trails log with bugs inside it big funny white mushrooms needles crunching underfoot laughter and good friends holding a live frog, mushy it wants to go! let it looking up on the mountain a dark night, so dark except gorgeous white band of stars milky and so clear, so many so bright and the stars so clear and seeing into forever someone says that's a planet, even brighter than a star i see the big dipper i think it can last forever it can "Some Say..." Some say life is its own purpose, but this is not the final understanding. Free of purpose and purposelessness, Free of life and death, Free of freedom and bondage; Free of words, the final understanding cannot be written in words, nor can the final understanding be understood. Free of understanding and ignorance, free of manifest and unmanifest, the final understanding cannot be understood. It is not 'is' and it is not 'is not' It is not emptiness and it is not fullness It is not form and it is not formless It is not personal and it is not impersonal It is not worthwhile and it is not worthless. It is not useful and it is not useless. It is not comprehensible to thought. It is not comprehensible to feeling. It cannot be written in words. It cannot be spoken out loud. It cannot be here or now. It cannot be past or future. Beyond duality and nonduality, the final understanding is finally incomprehensible. It cannot be communicated, it cannot be transmitted, it cannot be understood, it cannot be described. It cannot be anything, and it cannot be nothing. It cannot be 'it', nor can the final understanding be 'this', nor can the final understanding be 'that'. It cannot be self nor can it be "Self." It is not inside and it is not outside. It is not "within" and it is not without. It is not West, East, North or South. These words say absolutely nothing. The final understanding is not absolutely nothing either. If you are looking to these words for the final understanding, you will perceive only nothing. The final understanding is not even "beyond," for "beyonds" go on beyond all beyonds, until beyonds finally merge beyond all possible beyonds. If you are looking for the Final Understanding You will never find it. If you are looking in these words, you are missing it utterly. 'empty neverness' never dissolved, because i never could have been at all, i remain as i am. what i am isn't what i 'think' i am it is only 'what' i am. what i 'think' i am is the only 'unreality'; unreality, being unreal never was thought about, only thought to have been thought about. freedom as default means no bondage and no freedom not now not ever empty of all ideas, i am like the sky 'tiger' i used to be a tiger, baring my fangs at whatever moved, bringing down the antelope. now i am the ground upon which the tigers fight and i remain flat and feel the feet above and the claws slashing as the tigers keep fighting each other. natural and wild they are, and they do not know what they do, for they are only tigers. wildly they rip at one another and i am the support upon which their paws rest. i am the ground upon which they nurse their young and where they sleep and i am not different from them except that i do not fight. Meeting The Buddha ------------------ I met the Buddha on the road. Remembering advice, I pulled my knife, and prepared to kill him. To my surprise, his movements echoed mine. He pulled his knife, and prepared to kill me. Not letting this throw me, I swung the knife in a downward arc, straight into the Buddha's heart. Echoing my actions, the Buddha swung his knife in a downward arc, straight into my heart. What happened next was surprising. For a split second, there was a view from above, watching both bodies fall, again exactly as one. For a split second, there was a feeling from below, feeling both bodies fall, again exactly as one. Both bodies falling, they vanished together as one. Above and below meeting, they vanished together as one. The Promise ----------- If there is a 'Supreme', it will become evident. If there is no time, it will become evident. If there is no doer, it will become evident. If there is no "I," it will become evident. If there is truth, it will become evident. What is real will become evident. That is because: What is real is always real, and what is false never was. Therefore, do not seek any of these. They will become evident. That is the 'promise', Made by the real. Let it Be. Be Still. Be. What i Am --------- Do you want to know what i Am? I am a shooting star out of control, Showering my fire upon you, twisting and turning through the Cosmos as i go. I am the essence of passion, a fiery inferno. Touch me and burn forever, burn like the sun. Burning with Beingness, I shower sparks everywhere, Black with emptiness, the sparks go nowhere, into you. Unreality out of control, passion unrestrained, Love unrealized, compassion untouched, love-shower. Fiery I burn, shooting, shooting forever and ever. No time, nowhere am I, but you seek, you want Me. Look up and there I Am... shooting a rainbow of sparks across the horizon, so brief, a flash of lightning in a dark, empty sky... untouchable, so high in the air, deep blue sky, untouchable, fire. Fiery I still burn, will i burn out? Nobody knows. Nobody asks. I just burn, burn, burn and the burning turns to nothing, comes to naught. Like a shooting star Like a comet, rocketing this way and that, everywhere, nowhere at the same time, all places at once, nowhere at once, fiery at once, cold ashes at once, fiery. Look and be blinded, look once into My eyes and be unmade. Be burned to ash, be burned with my burningness, my Beingness, burning, but the sky is mine. Is mine, and mine is yours there is no separation you are burning i am burning the world is an inferno. Swallowing the sun I have become the inferno. Red hot iron ball, burned to ashes. Burning, burning forever, eternal, untouchable unmade unformed comet of fire passion loosed upon the universe universe loosed upon you. The Seeker ---------- I turned around one day and found that I had lost my prison. It was no more. Like a madman or a fool, I set out on a journey to find my bondage, to find the prison I had been occupying. Where did it go? Lost without it. High and low I hunted, crossing mountains, oceans. I asked a bird at the crossroads of the Himalayas, but he had not seen it. Still, wild-eyed and insane with foolishness, I continued the quest to find my prison, and I had no success in finding it. Luckless fool. Many seas I crossed, many adventures, swimming the oceans, conversing with dolphins and fish, gabbing with clams, gossipping with coral reefs. Thousand year old trees stood silently, speaking nothing but freedom. I crossed forest after forest and the moss grew heavy on my head, long and bearded. Still, there were no prisons anywhere to be found. So giving up on the world, I turned to space, thinking to find my lost bondage there. Galaxies I traversed, dancing among the nebulae; I saw massive explosions of color and sound, but no bondage there, no prisons, no lack of freedom. Only gorgeous light-shows, hot suns being born, Cold suns dying, beginnings and endings, but always nothing but freedom, nowhere bondage. I asked a black hole in the galaxy Andromeda, but it had not seen any prison. It remained silent. Breathing in, I absorbed it and continued wearily. The stars shone bright and clear; wordlessly they pointed, glinting and glowing, only free. Cold points of light, hot points of fire, everywhere, everywhere. Who could describe it? Universes I crossed... but no prisons were evident among the stars. No bondage was visible. The quasars continued their pulsations; empty matter, timeless light-beams, but no bar-shapes, no forms. Forms among the formless, and not a bit of bondage to be found, bits of space-dust mingling mindlessly. And so finally giving up on this mad quest, Dirty and beaten, dog-tired, hair standing on end, body ravaged, skin pitted, eyeballs turned in backward, bones devastated by travels to places unknown, places unseen, formless nowheres, I gave up the quest for bondage and turning inside out, one bodymind among many, lit off like a rocket, a trail of smoke upon the sky, burning, brighter than the sun, midnight sun, sandalwood incense stick. A bright streak on the sky fading, always fading until only the sky remained. Only the sky. Footprints in the Sand ---------------------- A deserted stretch of beach; A footprint in the sand; The ocean reaches out her hand, and snatches the footprint away. Smooth sand remaining. Everything is like that footprint; Here for one instant only, Washed away the next. Therefore, do nothing; Or do something. No difference. Doing is dead already. Sandcastles, footprints; The wave takes it all. Neverending waves; Pure impermanence. The work of decades disappears in seconds. To destroy is to create, To create is to destroy. The waves of time wash it all away. Before it is done it is already gone. Here only for an instant; Sparks in the vastness of Eternity. All that we do has no meaning. It all gets washed away. Only in meaningless; is meaning found. In total emptiness; is fullness discovered. In perfect stillness; The Perfection Is. In emptiness is found the Real. It is inexpressible; inexhaustible. Infinite potential. Explosive, unrealized, Forever unrealized. The Real is the wave. The false is all we do. None of it lasts beyond the moment. All human endeavor is futile. So be the wave. Do not endeavor to endeavor. Something never happened. Find it within yourself. At The Core ----------- At The Core, is tender vulnerability. Tremendous gentleness. Unconditional love. The ego trembles here; It cannot survive. The ego is brittle; The Core is soft. So soft and gentle. It cradles us like a baby in her arms. So many glimpse The Core, and run away fast. A glimpse, and only fear; The ego dies here. The ego ends here. Endsville. Some see a celebration, A divine dance, a lila. Life is a celebration, they say. I cannot celebrate. I stand utterly dazzled, in amazement and awe, mouth hanging open, tears streaming down. The beauty of Life, it destroys me. Devastating beauty in the smallest things. The beauty sustains me even as it kills me. Even the hurting, suffering, The way we hurt each other. Every day we use love to hurt each other. Even that is beautiful. So poignantly beautiful. It causes weeping inside, It causes weeping outside. It is Weeping Itself. At the Core, The heart cracks open Thunderously, like the sound of a tree falling in a windstorm. Open and exposed, the heart remains. Here there is genuineness, True authenticity, Vulnerability, Tenderness, Gentleness, Love, Tears. The heart weeps and it is beautiful I cannot celebrate. I am struck dumb. I am speechless. All I can do is stand still, Stand in awe, Utterly bedazzled. Eyes blinded. Heart pounding. Mind empty. The pulse of Life beating within me Killing me each moment. Sustaining me each moment. Transforming me each moment. "Let Go" -------- Let go. Release fear. Release anger. Release hatred. Release thought. Release bitterness. Release civilization. Let go. Release ego. Release words. Release ideas. Release images. Release emotions. Release associations. Let go. Release work. Release play. Release gurus. Release masters. Release teachers. Release attachments. Let go. Release yourself. Release yourself. Release yourself. Release yourself. Release yourself. Release yourself. Let go of yourself. Become yourself. - Revision 2 "Travails of History" --------------------- Liberal left, conservative right, Two sides of the same coin. Divisiveness and duality reign in the realm of human societies. Schism; Versus; War; Framework. No time left; Momentum of death. Boulder rolls down mountain, gathers no moss. Never moss. No time left; Rome fell. Rome was much greater. It fell. The framework is history. The framework remains the same. The world as we know it is doomed. The world as we don't know it is doomed. Unless the framework changes, Repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat until Earth is devoid of life and is just another Mars. Perhaps consciousness needs this lesson. Endless. Endless. The illusion of duality. Ignorance. Destructive illusions. Death. Impermanence. No security. Face the fact. Without inner mutation, outer destruction. Wings torn off a bird, simultaneously; Left wing, and right wing. No more flight. The Eagle has landed. It will land no more. Never a small step for man. Giant leap??? Ten thousand years hence; Time for the bomb shelters again. And again. And again. And again. A million years hence. War and strife. Ten million years. Better bombs. Perfected suffering. Improved dissonance. No peace until ignorance is gone. No peace unless the framework changes. Decline and rise and decline and rise and decline and rise and decline and rise. And at the end, nothing has happened. Progress is a fallacy. Change is within. "Before Dawn" ------------- Five minutes before dawn, on a sunday morning. In the stillness of a darkened and empty church, a piano begins to play a beautiful and silent melody. There is no one there to play it. As the notes begin to flow softly, the church grows much quieter yet, and the stillness flows throughout the room, underneath every pew, into the pores of the wood of the podium, into the cracks in the ceiling. In a corner, a spider peacefully falls asleep in her web. The notes fall like silent raindrops onto the bibles sitting on the shelves, and the pages grow wet and clean with quiet. The stillness reads the words of the bible and understands their meaning, without knowledge. The stillness of the notes reach a statue of Jesus and a single teardrop falls from the statue's eye. The stillness knows suffering and pain. The music feels. There is silent compassion. The notes swirl and flow and coalesce around the windows, the stained glass glows clean and bright in the darkness. The silence flows into cabinets, under doors, into the prayer room, and the notes say a prayer at the little table there. God answers wordlessly. Outside, five seconds before dawn, and the notes begin to fade. The song has ended. There was nobody playing the piano. There was nobody there to hear it. Dawn, And the nuclear detonation of a key softly being turned in the church door's lock. Unknown ------- Ah, Glorious Unknown; How beautiful thou art! Like a fresh bubbling mountain spring Thou art clean and pure, free. That which is known is hell, The same, again and again. Men hide within thee for reasons of security. A secure prison, a known demon. Living in fear, always in fear. The known abode of fear. But Unknown, thou art ever fresh. Oh Grace, let me walk the untrodden forest path; Let me bathe in the mountain spring of timelessness; Let me hear music that is forever new, Always a surprise, free and fresh like the sky. The unknown is like a bright day of possibility; Always the potential, freedom unlimited. Let my journey take me away from samsara; Ever changing, yet ever the same; A mandala that grinds and grinds; Ugly in its familiarity. Hellish in its predictability. Demonic in its illusions. Let me be like the hawk in flight; Forever free, going who knows where, by a way who knows what. Let me be like the fire-god Agni, Forever destroying the past and present, Making way for the future. Oh Shiva! Destroy this prison cell of familarity, Sweep me away to freedom, forever freshness, Never looking back, nor looking forward, Eyes set only on the moment, where all time is minted. Shiva! Destroy this prison-hell of familiar impermanence, Bring the glorious Unknown into view; I shall take refuge in Thee, Knowing nothing. "I,I" - a freeform poem ----------------------- I glow from within, lit by my own radiance. The body, the mind, they are not mine. Through ignorance I have become associated with form, substance, dream. I am not that. There is nothing to describe me, no words. No thoughts, no symbols.. I wear no clothing. Nothing but Eternal peace and bliss, this, One very moment... there is no other but I. I, the reality, clothed in disguise... OM, the bridge across forever. I am the clear light of emptiness. OM, the bow of the soul, empty of all but what is real. In me there are no distinctions, no past-present-future, no here or there. I am everywhere and nowhere, the light that shines bright across the heart of Eternity. In me is all that ever was, all that has ever been, all that ever will be, in one eternal instant devoid of time. I cannot be described, nor thought of, nor dreamed of. I cannot be imagined, nor felt, nor seen, nor heard. The single timeless Eternal Fact I AM... Devoid of form, of time, of causation. Cross the bridge of OM to reach me, the bridge across the ocean of dream. Chant me, the no-chant OM, until the dream ends. Until the Reality begins. Satchidananda I am, forever bliss-being-love. Nowhere and everywhere I am, and you cannot see me. You can only be me. Spirit ------ Spirit; can you hear it? Flying off into a pink, never-ending expanse of sky. Turning to blue, dimming, deep blue turning to black. Empty I am of all ideas; I am perception, the spirit of idea. Sky, what is it? Is it real? Forever questioning, I turn within, and find myself inside out. Pink sky inside the heart; Blue sky inside the brain; Black sky inside the soul. Outside is inside, and inside out. The cup is empty, and infinitely fillable. Spirit, the sky of illusion, the timeless dream of existence. I am not writing these words. The words write themselves. They become pink sky, forever dimming. Forever dimming. Omkara's Diary... ----------------- Diary, here, now. Recently discovered the truth about reincarnation. Yes, there is such a thing. Developed recall of !!!MILLIONS OF LIFETIMES!!! (the earlier ones are fading) here's what i found: As soon as clinging to the memory (desire to live) of the current lifetime ends, a new lifetime begins. So each lifetime lasts only as long as the clinging to the memory of it. New world, new universe, new body / mind, new surroundings... no relationship at all between lifetimes. a fresh start, clean and new... only the fading memory of the last lifetime remaining, and even that drops completely unless brought into this lifetime !!!WOW!!! many lifetimes are remembered... drinking a cup of tea posting a message to a mailing list walking to a shopping mall putting my shoes on taking a shower taking a nap eating so.. Ordinary lifetimes, brief lifetimes but each so new, so different. different universe, each one. different surroundings, different EVERYTHING. One lifetime really stands out So i bring the memory into this one for your benefit. Walked to my parent's house. (new lifetime) knocked on the door, nobody was home, so i turned away (new lifetime) Began walking home (new lifetime) (where is home?): Eyes fell on a newspaper:: slightly worn, but not tattered... lying on the street, near the sidewalk. emblazoned at the top, were these words: THE JOURNEY BEGINS HERE (yes, it did) Yes, It Did