Doors of Perception

Doors of Perception

The question arising

in Mr. Huxley's quote:

Standing between

what are the things known

and the things unknown?

If he is speaking from

non-duality

things known are not things

nor are things unknown!

However as concession to

duality

if things unknown refers

to consciousness

this is known!

and if things known refers

 to objects

these are unknown!

Shall we give Mr. Huxley

the benefit of

the doubt?

The human heart in conflict with itself

He said this and more:

There are no longer problems of the spirit...Because of this,

the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the

problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which

alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing 

about, worth the agony and the sweat...

I believe that man will not merely endure:  he will prevail.  He

is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an

inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit

capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.  The

poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things.  It is his

privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding

him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion

and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.

The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can 

be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
(William Faulkner, Nobel speech, December 10, 1950)

And this:

"There are some things He said in the Book, and some things
reported of Him that He did not say.  And I know what you
will say now;  That if truth is one thing to me and another thing
to you, how will we choose which is truth?  You don't need to
choose.  The heart already knows.  He didn't have His Book
written to be read by what must elect and choose, but by the
heart, not by the wise of the earth because maybe they don't
need it or maybe the wise no longer have any heart, but by the
doomed and lowly of the earth who have nothing else to read
with but the heart.  Because the men who wrote His Book for
Him were writing about truth and there is only one truth and it
covers all things that touch the heart,' and McCaslin
(Isaac McCaslin in Part IV, The Bear)

Emptiness

Emptiness

now in our springtime

mark's truncated story

telling of each

 our sunny mornings..

 three women

a white robed host

and all absorbing

emptiness and awe..

happiness finds those

the poor in spirit

three women

 in emptiness alive

for theirs IS

the kingdom...

Amness and Isness

Amness and Isness

Amness iterates isness

Being iterates becoming

Light iterates darkness..

These iterations are

never other than

Amness

Being

Light..

Amness expands

and returns

extending and relaxing

ever knowing

only Itself...

(See Rupert Spira's Presence..)

PERCEPTION

PERCEPTION

There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

There is no truth. There is only perception.

---Gustave Flaubert

Science is nothing but perception.

---Plato

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.”

---Paul Cezanne

Point of departure

Enviable courage and strength

these astronauts fulfilling a research wish

an expectation that someday out there

other intrepid voyagers will arrive..

Yet from a perspective of I AM

out there and in here are seamless.

Dualistic travel with end destination

may seem as a dream in our suffering time..

Before the time of that planned departure

many may wake from the dream

to declare that the destination 

lies here in our point of departure...

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are due to launch on their yearlong mission to the space station on Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with cosmonaut Gennady Padalka. Kelly and Kornienko's mission will mark the first yearlong mission aboard the station, and the first time an American has spent a continuous year in space.

"Kelly and Kornienko will spend a year on the space station to better understand how the human body reacts and adapts to the harsh environment of space," NASA officials said in a statement. "Data from the expedition will be used to determine whether there are ways to further reduce the risks on future long-duration missions to an asteroid and eventually Mars." [

Seamless

Seamless

Evolution appears

as a sequence of years but

 that apparent marching of time

we never experience..
 Someway we claim to have seen

a parade which only masks what is..

We never were there and even

those apparently there at curbside
experienced their perceptions

which colored that which is

Seamless...

Caterpillar Note

Caterpillar Note 

In the spring sun

a lone caterpillar struggles to move

in greening grasses and fall's leaves..
Tormentors arrive these ants
riding with desire and possibility
for their own timed sustenance..
Out of sight now..
Will the caterpillar transform
enduring these thwarting aims
and give someone a glimpse
of beauty in time to come..
Or...has beauty been witnessed
this struggle in a moment of
springtime warm...

Bhagavad Gita

Pillar Stretch Program

Monday, March 23rd, 2015

4:00 to 6:00 PM

MacKenzie Place

(Fillmore and Union)

No cost

Facilitator:  Charlie Coon

Topic will be "The Separate Self" as

portrayed in The Bhagavad Gita

We will view and discuss a video: 

 "The Wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita." 

The link below will take you to writer 

Stephan Mitchell's website with

information on his highly

praised new translation 

of this spiritual classic.

The excerpt (Chapter 9)

is a sample and 

good background.

http://stephenmitchellbooks.com/translations-adaptations/bhagavad-gita/

The Great Attractor

Great Attractor

Laniakea
a late perception..Hawaiian immense heaven
a boundary moving outward with doubt that this is
the end limitation..
And in a contracting mood the Great Attractor
an inward pull and seeming declaration of
our locality our mortality..
Outward and inward
might we transcend this dualism
and experience the vibration 
infinite and without locality
our true SELF...

Astronomers have determined that our own Milky Way galaxy is part of a newly identified ginormous supercluster of galaxies, which they have dubbed "Laniakea," which means "immense heaven" in Hawaiian. This discovery clarifies the boundaries of our galactic neighborhood and establishes previously unrecognized linkages among various galaxy clusters in the local Universe.The Milky Way resides in the outskirts of the supercluster, whose extent has for the first time been carefully mapped using these new techniques. This so-called Laniakea Supercluster is 500 million light-years in diameter and contains the mass of one hundred million billion Suns spread across 100,000 galaxies.

This new study also clarifies the role of the Great Attractor, a gravitational focal point in intergalactic space that influences the motion of our Local Group of galaxies and other galaxy clusters. Within the boundaries of the Laniakea Supercluster, galaxy motions are directed inward, in the same way that water streams follow descending paths toward a valley. The Great Attractor region is a large flat bottom gravitational valley with a sphere of attraction that extends across the Laniakea Supercluster. (from The Daily Galaxy)

Network News..!

Network News..!

With respect we can notice
 research locating consciousness
here close by within our brain..
Diligence has located networks of
 solid character in our headspace..
These precisions persuade some that
research paths are leading to the
illusive doorway of truth..
In the meantime such persuasions
rise to obscure the doorway
used by some to gain glimpses 
of consciousness not limited..
Yet might this network news
reporting of unified smallness
on a day quite soon
 point to the light 
leaking through that 
doorway...

Network theory suggests consciousness is global in the brain

March 16, 2015

The black dots correspond to the 264 areas of the cerebral cortex that the researchers studied; the lines correspond to the increased strength of the functional connections between each of these brain areas when subjects consciously perceive the target. The “hotter” colors are associated with stronger connections. This figure illustrates that awareness of the target corresponds to widespread increase in the strength of functional connections. (credit: Marois/Godwin).

Vanderbilt University researchers have found evidence that awareness or consciousness results from widespread communication across sensory and association areas of the cortex — challenging previous hypotheses that changes in restricted areas of the brain were responsible for producing awareness.

“Identifying the fingerprints of consciousness in humans would be a significant advancement for basic and medical research, let alone its philosophical implications on the underpinnings of the human experience,” said René Marois, professor and chair of psychology at Vanderbilt University and senior author of the study.

references:

Douglass Godwin, Robert L. Barry and René Marois. Breakdown of the brain’s functional network modularity with awareness. PNAS March 10, 2015; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1414466112

Just Who Are?

What advantages do we find

for these said to be poor..?

We look with care at

 that middle word:  IN..

These poor are empty

yet open and prepared

to recognize their place IN

a vastness found to be

empty transparent eternal..

These poor and empty 

are as a Wave:

 Aware as the Ocean

Their Kingdom is Now...

The Way

Possibilities

DO YOU EVER GET THE FEELING…?

Do you ever get the feeling 

that you live on the threshold 

of pure possibility? 

That you are life itself, 

and the power that creates galaxies

moves through you? 

And you are that power?

And every thought, every sensation,

every feeling, however intense,

however uncomfortable, however fragile,

is itself an expression of the same power?

That no thought nor sensation is against you?

That you are vast enough to hold it all?

That you are not a person becoming conscious,

nor a seeker seeking that which seekers seek,

but consciousness itself pretending to be 

a person becoming conscious,

seeking itself and delighting in the seeking?

That the wave cannot be divided from the ocean?

That you are the destination and the origin?

That love is closer than the next breath?

And infinite peace is your nature and birthright?

Do you ever get the feeling

that you live on the threshold

of pure possibility?

And all the wonders of the universe 

are already yours?

- Jeff Foster

Reaching

Reaching

to reassure himself..

 his new snow venture

such exhilaration yet 

needs grounding.. 

 a path to warmth

his hand knows

will be retraced..

But for now

let's make a

few new tracks...

Stillness

What is this self Who am I?

Your real nature is stillness, light, expansion without center or periphery. It is unconditioned being, love. But you do not see it for you are a prisoner of your imagination and of second-hand information. You have enclosed yourself in a universe of concepts and beliefs. The ego is only a function, and to identify with it is a lack of true vision. Thoughts, feelings and actions appear in succession before the witness, leaving their imprint in your brain. Recalling them makes you believe in a continuity which is actually non-existent. But memory is a present thought, thoughts of the past occur in the present. In reality there is only presence, non-dual consciousness. We mistakenly take ourselves to be this or that, but there is only the true "I am" beyond time and space.

What is the real nature of the mistake I have made?

Desiring something which is nothing but an illusion, which has no foundation whatsoever; being afraid of truth, which is pure awareness free of thought.

Why would I be afraid of truth?

Because truth is life and you are afraid of living. You take yourself for an object which is born and dies, and you fear dying because you do not know life. It is only an object which is afraid and this object tries by all means to free itself. See that the effort to become free belongs to the belief in an object. The moment you see it turn your head and look behind.

~ Jean Klein

Nada

Nada

All seemed Nada

even his prayer..

Nada pursued 

in shadows of leaves

in insomnia

in the night..

But in Nada

there appears light:

a well-lighted place

light reflected from

a soldier's brass

 a bar with a shining

 coffee machine 

 polished and clean..

Order and dignity

claimed their light..

For us to discover:

Nada is light..

See Hemingway's

"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"

Beatitudes in a Nutshell

Beatitudes in a Nutshell

Happiness finds those

who lament

and discover

in their lamenting

an experiencing

 a knowing

a new awareness..

this transforming

of consciousness...

Astonishing Notice

Astonishing Notice

the simplicity

of the discovery 

of our true nature:

Not a reward

for diligence..

Not a rational

problem solution..

Not a teaching for

fact revelation..

Silent Awareness

seemingly

drops by

for astonishing

notice

as it will...

Non-dual Beatitudes

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“An inner attitude of receptivity and openness...Thomas Merton once wrote, ‘At the center point of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and illusion, a point of pure truth, a point of spark which belongs entirely to God.”

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

“vulnerability and flow...mourning is a brutal form of emptiness...if we can stay open, we discover that a mysterious ‘something’ does indeed reach back to comfort us...”

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

“Blessed are the gentled...spiritually ‘domesticated”

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

“Righteousness:  visualize it as a force field: an energy-charged sphere of holy presence. To be ‘in the righteousness of God’ means to be directly connected to this vibrational field, to be anchored within God’s own aliveness.”

  

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

“Jesus again returns to the idea of flow. Notice that there is an exchange going on here: we give mercy and we receive mercy...Mercy is not something God has; it’s something that God is...Jesus...invites us into a deeper trust of that flow.”

  

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

“...in wisdom teaching, purity means singleness, and the proper translation of this beatitude is, really, ‘Blessed are those whose heart is not divided’ or ‘whose heart is a unified whole.”

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.

“When our hearts are gentled and single, when we’ve tamed the animal instincts, we become peacemakers...when the field of vision has been unified, the inner being comes to rest, and that inner peaceableness flows into the outer world as harmony and compassion.”

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Jesus is not talking about martyrdom here, but about freedom. The Gospel of Thomas records this beatitude...’Blessed are you in the midst of persecution who, when they hate and pursue you even to the core of your being, cannot find ‘you’ anywhere.”

(quotes from Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus , 2008)

“Recent scholarship has found that previous translations of the eight beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew are in error inasmuch as they imply a kind of passive consolation in the face of tribulations. They are instead an invitation to stand up, to arise and walk forth, no matter what pain and trouble may lie on the road ahead. When we return to the original Semitic terms underlying the Greek version of Jesus’ words in this gospel, we find that blessed should be replaced by walk forth, which restores the text’s original dynamic quality.” 

“Walk forth, you gentle and humble ones, for your gentleness is your strength. “Walk forth, you who weep, for you shall be consoled!

“Walk forth, those who starve and thirst for justice! Yes, they shall be satisfied! “Walk forth, the pure of heart! Yes, you shall see Elohim!

“Walk forth, merciful ones! You shall receive mercy!

“Walk forth, peacemakers! Yes, you shall be acclaimed sons of Elohim!

“Walk forth, those persecuted for justice’s sake! Yes, the kingdom of heaven is theirs!” 

(Jean-Yves Leloup, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, 2002)

Saturday Haiku

Saturday Haiku

gratifying

circling we planted stocking feet

haiku bloomed

Anticipation rising

Haiku writing anxiety

But not yet

Warm brick place

Winter cold respite

haiku fires

an infinite point

explosions of color and life

iterated beauty

a white screen

animals and trees and colors

made of white screen

tree of symmetry

all at once

leafing

A stroll

Sweet paths

Mountain joy

Sweet

That mountain 

My stroll

My friend, Robin Izer's

Haiku gathering

Saturday

February 28

2015