Our Tree Home... (Hesse inspired)

Our Tree Home

Trees
are the permanent
the eternal
which we forget
in our hastiness..
our identity lost
the objects of life
stand forth claiming
special reverence..
until once more 
the tree experience
states our permanence 
in which our lives
display in passing..
the silent tree
brings us home and
reintroduces ourself
to ourself...
~CC



“When we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy.”
~Hermann Hesse

https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/09/21/hermann-hesse-trees/?mc_cid=f46aa2a506&mc_eid=99bda8a7e4

West Wing 3

West Wing 3

RS:  The Direct Path
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW9kvq1qeAw&t=56s

RS:  The Great Misconception
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id56HYfqqSM&t=105s

RS:  The Laying Bare of Our Essential Self
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhbNN5whyOM

RS:  Take Refuge in the Now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufhqaiL-Qvo


Pure Seamless Intimate Experiencing

It is thoughts alone that divide the seamless intimacy of experiencing
into two apparent things; an inside self and an outside world.
Experience itself knows and says no such thing.
Experience itself knows only this pure seamless intimacy.
And all apparent objects, selves, others or world are simply modulations
of this pure, seamless, intimate experiencing.
Try to find something in your experience
that is made out of something other than experiencing:
seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, sensation.
Try to find something that takes place at a distance,
made out of something other than experiencing.

Reach out in your actual experience and see, in your experience,
do you find a self, an object, an entity, a world?
Or do you just find yourself: pure intimate experiencing?
No distance, no separation, no inside self, no outside other, no object, no world.
Scan your body.
Do you find a body there?
Do you find something solid and dense?
Or do you just find pure, intimate experiencing?
Do you find a world at a distance from this body?
Or do you just find pure, intimate experiencing?
And who is it that knows experiencing?
Is experiencing known by a separate self?
Is there a separate self or object in experiencing?
Or does experiencing just find itself, alone?
No body, no thought, no mind, no world;
Just pure intimacy ever-present
always knowing itself, being itself and loving itself
eternally Now.

~ Rupert Spira
“Pure Seamless Intimate Experiencing”
https://www.youtube.com/watch…

I am peaceful like the sky
I am open like the sea
I am empty like space
I am luminous like the sun
I shine by myself
I am the substance and reality of all seeming objects and selves
I am the light of pure knowing
Turn towards me and I will take you into myself
I play
I enjoy
I am
(from “I am” by Rupert Spira)

"The reason we all seem to share the same world is not that there is one world 'out there' known by innumerable separate minds, but rather that each of our minds is precipitated within, informed by and a modulation of the SAME infinite Consciousness. There is indeed one world that each of us shares, but that world is not made of matter; it is a vibration of mind, and all there is to mind is infinite, indivisible consciousness.
It is precisely because the word appears in and is made of infinite, indivisible Consciousness that it appears from the perspective of each finite mind to be the same world. It IS the same world, because all finite minds are refractions of the same consciousness."
~ Rupert Spira
The Nature of Consciousness, p. 148

From The Sonnets to Orpheus   Rilke
Plump apple, smooth banana, melon, peach,
gooseberry… How all this affluence
speaks death and life into the mouth… I sense…
Observe it from a child’s transparent features
while he tastes. This comes from far away.
What miracle is happening in your mouth?
Instead of words, discoveries flow out
from the ripe flesh, astonished to be free.
Dare to say what “apple” truly is.
This sweetness that feels thick, dark, dense at first;
then, exquisitely lifted in your taste,
grows clarified, awake and luminous,
double-meaninged, sunny, earthy, real—:
Oh knowledge, pleasure—inexhaustible.

Science of Consciousness


All that is ever known in experience is the knowing of it. Try now to find anything other than the knowing of your experience. Let your attention go wherever it wants. Ask yourself, ‘Do I ever know or come in contact with anything other than the knowing of experience? Could I ever come in contact with anything other than the knowing of experience?
It doesn’t sit comfortably in our culture to say, ‘I am God’. You used to get crucified for it! But to say ‘I am infinite Consciousness’ is just a confession of our most intimate and fundamental experience. It is to say ‘I am a finite self’ that is the true blasphemy. To say that there is a finite mind that knows a finite world made of matter, that is true blasphemy.
If we want to know the nature of the world, we have to know the nature of that with which the world is known. The ultimate science is not the science of physics; it is the science of Consciousness.

---Rupert Spira

Memorial..

"What comes, will go. 

What is found, will be lost again. 

But what you are is beyond coming and going and beyond description. 

YOU ARE IT "

~Rūmi

(for Bette Claytor
with 97 years
coming and going..
we know now
where your paths
were leading...)

Truth

Truth

relative truth seems to reign
we know of differing advice:
honda or subaru..marriage or not..
some of those..religiously inclined
look for truth in the vastness of 
scriptures and commentaries..
science searches in their observing
for what seems most elegant..
we all may benefit from some timely 
advice: movie actors do not find
the Truth... 

John 18:33-37 (NIV)

33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

Funk's (Robert W. Funk is the founder of the Jesus Seminar) Jesus is a person who "caught a glimpse of what the world is really like when you look at it with God's eyes and who endeavored to pass that glimpse along in disturbing short stories we call parables." But, the Gospels often conceal Funk's Jesus, so that he concludes that ""the New Testament conceals the real Jesus as frequently as it reveals him."" Funk proposes 21 theses, among them setting Jesus free from the "scriptural and creedal and experiential prisons in which we have entombed him."

Jesus Seminar

In his 1963 book, Honest to God, Bishop John A.T. Robinson questioned the ways in which the traditional Christian doctrine of God could address the concerns of a church and culture that, Robinson said, had largely left the traditional doctrine behind. How could Christians, in his words, be ""honest to God?"" Now, Robert Funk, the provocative founder of the Jesus Seminar, asks a similar question about the ways in which late-20th century Christianity can be honest to Jesus in the light of work by the Jesus Seminar and other critics that argues that the traditional portait of Jesus as a supernatural miracle worker is neither supported by the Gospels nor meaningful to a contemporary technological society. Funk's Jesus is a person who ""caught a glimpse of what the world is really like when you look at it with God's eyes and who endeavored to pass that glimpse along in disturbing short stories we call parables."" But, the Gospels often conceal Funk's Jesus, so that he concludes that ""the New Testament conceals the real Jesus as frequently as it reveals him."" Funk proposes 21 theses, among them setting Jesus free from the ""scriptural and creedal and experiential prisons in which we have entombed him""; abandoning the doctrine of the atonement based upon the blood sacrifice of Jesus; and ""declaring that the New Testament is a highly uneven and biased record of various early attempts to invent Christianity."" With this last declaration, Funk, exhibiting a self-assurance that often borders on self-righteousness, advocates revising the canon of scripture by which the Christian church has measured itself for the past 2000 years. (Nov.)
 ~Publishers Weekly Book Review

Funk mentioned several places where the Gospels water down the words of Jesus. Matthew has Jesus say, "The last will be first and the first last." Mark evidently thought this sounded unreasonable, so he wrote, "Many of the first will be last." Luke quotes Jesus as saying, "Give to everyone who begs from you," but Matthew only says, "Give to one who begs from you." Later a second century writer quotes this statement and adds a stern warning that God will punish those who beg unless they are really in need. (Didache 1:5-6). Do you see how his followers tried to fit Jesus' most extreme teachings into the realities of everyday life?

Jesus said it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. (Matthew 19:24) To make this one easier to swallow, Matthew, Mark, and Luke add a standard cliche - "but all things are possible for God." And there is a caravan pass in Israel called the Needles' Eye, which a camel can squeeze through if it's not loaded with baggage. So some claim that this is the "needle's eye" he was talking about. Funk says that "These are feeble and misguided attempts to take the sting out of the aphorism and rob Jesus' words of their edge." (The Five Gospels, p. 24)
~From:  https://mpuuc.org/sermons/jesusfunk.html

Mad winter night..

Mad winter night...

Fire in all the rooms...

All of us mad, on fire...

Who will ever sleep again?

- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi

Violence

Violence

let us tease out of the scriptures
from words antiquated and harsh
an experience of truth and hope..

asking the essential question:
Who are you..?
there are word filters to clean:
a slave lives as her limited self..
sin..after confusion of centuries..simply
connotes separation..and limitation..
a son recognizes his origin and identity
in and of eternal consciousness..
the father names that consciousness..

without this experiential discovery
of one's truthful identity
the command: Love your Enemies
falls again and again on
filters frightfully 
and violently clogged...
~CC


Broadmoor Community Church Forum
November 18th, 2018
11:15 AM to 12:15 PM, Glenview Room

Speaker:  Arthur J. Dewey (Th.D., Harvard University) is Professor of Theology at Xavier University in Cincinnati. A distinguished teacher, writer, translator and commentator, he is the author of Inventing the Passion: How the Death of Jesus was Remembered and co-author of The Complete Gospel Parallels (with Robert J. Miller, 2011) and The Authentic Letters of Paul (with Roy W. Hoover, Lane C. McGaughy, and Daryl D. Schmidt, 2010). Dewey’s poetry has appeared in Christian Century and his poetic perspective aired on the Saturday Morning Edition on Public Radio Station WVXU (91.7) in Cincinnati for more than a dozen years.

 Title:  “The Historical Jesus in an Age of Mass Violence”

Description: Utilizing a selection from John 8 and Matt 5, we will explore who the historical Jesus is and what he might have to say about our world today.

John 8 33  
<The Judeans> protested: “We’re Abraham’s descendants, and we’ve never been slaves to anyone. How can you say, ‘You’ll be liberated’?”
34 Jesus answered them, “Let me tell you this: everyone who commits sin is a slave. 35 No slave is ever a permanent member of the family; but a son is. 36 So if the son liberates you, you’ll really be free.
37 “I recognize that you are Abraham’s descendants, yet you’re trying to kill me because my teaching gets nowhere with you. 38 I’m telling you what I saw when
I was with the Father, and you do only what you learned from your own father.”
39“ Our father is Abraham,” they repeated.
Jesus says, “If you really are children of Abraham, act as Abraham did. 40 As it is, you’re trying to kill me, even though I’ve told you the truth I heard from God. Abraham never did that. 41 No, you’re doing what your father does.”
They replied, “We’re not bastards; we have only one father: God.”
42 Jesus responded, “If in fact God were your father, you’d love me, since I’ve come from God and am here—not on my own initiative; God sent me. 43 Why don’t you understand what I’m saying? It’s because you can’t hear my message. 44 You are your father’s children all right—children of the devil. And you are bent on satisfying your father’s cravings. He was a murderer from the start; he is far from truth. In fact, there’s no truth in him at all. When he tells his lies, he is expressing his nature, because he is a liar and breeds lying. 45 But since I tell the truth, you don’t <want to> believe me. 46 Who can charge me with sin? If I speak truthfully, why don’t you believe me? 47 Everyone who belongs to God can hear God’s words. That’s why you don’t listen: you don’t belong to God.”

Matt 5:43-45

"As you know, we once were told, `You are to love your neighbor' and `You are to hate your enemy.' 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors. 45 You'll then become children of your Father in the heavens. <God> causes the sun to rise on both the bad and the good, and sends rain on both the just and the unjust.

Heartpath

Heartpath

paths must be lines on maps
no matter how subtle their appearance..
there is a leap
in realizing all paths reach nowhere..
futility then is the path end
the folding of the map 
and our key to the heart...
~CC


Thanks, CP...CC

NOTE:  And follow your Heart
CP

You must always keep in mind that a path is only a path. Each path is only one of a million paths. If you feel that you must now follow it, you need not stay with it under any circumstances. Any path is only a path.
There is no affront to yourself or others in dropping a path if that is what your heart tells you to do.
But your decision to keep on a path or to leave it must be free of fear and ambition.
I caution you: look at every path closely and deliberately.
Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself and yourself alone this one question. Does this path have a heart?
All paths are the same. They lead nowhere. They are paths going through the brush or into the brush or under the brush of the Universe.
The only question is: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then it is a good path. If it doesn’t, then it is of no use.
~Carlos Castaneda

Placid

Placid

a soothing word

about a surface..

the choppy waves 

have calmed and

the evening sun 

reflects in a 

placid mirror..

our freedom..

it seems

depends on 

polishing to placid

our reflecting self...

Wind and Sand

Wind and Sand

within our Stillness

a wind arises

and paints patterns

ridges and rows 

canyons and hills

shaping our Stillness..

CharlieP meets Hamlet..

CharlieP meets Hamlet

My friend CharlieP
noted the soliloquy significance
of Hamlet's musing on suicide..
Hamlet's point-of-view
seems to be that of separation
in which a glimpse of 
the opening provided by death
beacons with fear of the
unknown..
Point-of-view is the key
which when matured
will reveal the opening
as grace...

Thanks, CP..!

CC et al -

        Mark Twain's experience in dreamland is quite interesting, and I can relate a bit, because in my dreams everything seems real and normal, but upon awakening and remembering the dream I always think:  That dream contained an activity that made no sense what so ever in real life.  (I know, some will say every dream has some kind of metaphorical meaning or message) 

        I'm certainly hoping the Afterlife is not like the dreamland I experience, 'though we are told there are similarities like..... we can create something at will. 

        The line from Shakespeare is meaningful:  "To die, to sleep - to sleep - perhaps to dream:  ay, there's the rub...... for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause"

        Of course, we all relate to dreams; they happen every night.  Do they really have a purpose?  "Of course" so many will say.  I once owned a BMW motorcycle.  Two times I dreamed I wrecked it and died from the crash.  I sold it shortly after the second dream.

CP  

The Seeming

The Seeming

that which seems

are appearances

from perceiving or

 projecting the world:

 the news

the coming election

that caravan..

these paint our canvas

and we..by habit

become the paint..

we are disturbed

as much

seems disturbing:

disturbance adds paint

to our canvas..

the times are cunning

as Shakespeare warns..

might we see through

our deceptive paint...?

("The seeming truth

which cunning times

put on to entrap

the wisest."

William Shakespeare)

The temporary..

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends
into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out
to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing, as we must,
how the vivacity of what was, is married
to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but what
else will do
if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?
So let us go on, cheerfully enough,
this and every crisping day,
though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.
~ Mary Oliver, “Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness” in A Thousand Mornings

Waves of Light

Waves of Light

You are 'there', I 'here'. Worlds separate us,
Death's angels, the void of space...
Yet I say your name, and waves of Light
Wash to me silently from your Heart.

- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi

Charlie P's Nuggets of Wisdom!

Charlie P's Nuggets of Wisdom!

1000 words he gave us:
4 years of accumulation
keepers..!
These words are about waking
waking to Who I Am:
a new identity that is not new..
with this realized identity
we know we live here and now
only here and now..and when we
venture to there and then
we find suffering as the pull of
grace..advising return...

Thanks, CP..!

CC - I found this in reviewing my keeper files created 4 years ago.  Some of these 25 messages seem to resonate quite well with some of your blogs and some of the subjects we've been kicking about rather recently.  And some are ancient wisdom.
CP

Subject: 25 Messages from God (Source)

Here, in one thousand words, is all that the human race needs to know in order to live the life for which it has yearned and which, despite trying for thousands of years, it has yet to produce. Carry these messages to your world:

1. We are all One. All things are One Thing. There is only One Thing, and all things are part of the One Thing there is. This means that you are Divine. You are not your body, you are not your mind, and you are not your soul. You are the unique combination of all three, which comprises the Totality Of You. You are an individuation of Divinity; an expression of God on Earth.

2. There’s enough. It is not necessary to compete for, much less fight over, your resources. All you have to do is share. 

3. There's nothing you have to do. There is much you will do, but nothing you are required to do. God wants nothing, demands nothing, commands nothing.

4. God talks to everyone, all the time. The question is not: To whom does God talk? The question is: Who listens?

5. There are Three Basic Principles of Life: Functionality, Adaptability, and Sustainability.

6. There is no such thing as Right and Wrong, there is only What Works and What Does Not Work, given what it is you are trying to do.

7. In the spiritual sense, there are no victims and no villains in the world, although in the human sense it appears that there surely are. Yet because you are Divine, everything that happens ultimately benefits you.

8. No one does anything inappropriate, given their model of the world.

9. There is no such place as hell, and eternal damnation does not exist.

10. Death does not exist. What you call “death” is merely a process of Re-Identification.

11. There is no such thing as Space and Time, there is only Here and Now.

12. Love is all there is.

13. You are the creator of your own reality, using the Three Tools of Creation: Thought, Word, and Action.

14. Your life has nothing to do with you. It is about everyone whose life you touch and how you touch it.

15. The purpose of your life is to re-create yourself anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You Are.

16. The moment you declare anything, everything unlike it will come into the space. This is the Law of Opposites, producing a contextual field within which that which you wish to express may be experienced.

17. There is no such thing as Absolute Truth. All truth is subjective. Within this framework there are five levels of truth telling: Tell your truth to yourself about yourself; Tell your truth to yourself about another; Tell your truth about yourself to another; Tell your truth about another to another; Tell your truth to everyone about everything.

18. The human race lives within a precise set of illusions. The Ten Illusions of Humans are Need Exists, Failure Exists, Disunity Exists, Insufficiency Exists, Requirement Exists, Judgment Exists, Condemnation Exists, Conditionality Exists, Superiority Exists, and Ignorance Exists. These illusions are meant to serve humanity, but it must learn how to use them.

19. The Three Core Concepts of Holistic Living are Honesty, Awareness, and Responsibility. Live according to these precepts and self-anger will disappear from your life.

20. Life functions within a Be-Do-Have paradigm. Most people have this backward, imagining that first one must “have” things in order to “do” things, thus to “be” what they wish to be. Reversing this process is the fastest way to experience mastery in living. 

21. There are Three Levels of Awareness: Hope, Faith and Knowing. Spiritual mastery is about living from the third level.

22. There are Five Fallacies about God that create crisis, violence, killing, and war. First, the idea that God needs something. Second, the idea that God can fail to get what He needs. Third, the idea that God has separated you from Him because you have not given Him what He needs. Fourth, the idea that God still needs what He needs so badly that God now requires you, from your separated position, to give it to Him. Fifth, the idea that God will destroy you if you do not meet His requirements.

23. There are also Five Fallacies about Life that likewise create crisis, violence, killing, and war. First, the idea that human beings are separate from each other. Second, the idea that there is not enough of what human beings need to be happy. Third, the idea that in order to get the stuff of which there is not enough, human beings must compete with each other. Fourth, the idea that some human beings are better than other human beings. Fifth, the idea that it is appropriate for human beings to resolve severe differences created by all the other fallacies by killing each other.

24. You think you are being terrorized by other people, but in truth you are being terrorized by your beliefs. Your experience of yourself and your world will shift dramatically if you adopt, collectively, the Five Steps to Peace:

• Permit yourself to acknowledge that some of your old beliefs about God and about Life are no longer working.

• Explore the possibility that there is something you do not fully understand about God and about Life, the understanding of which would change everything.

• Announce that you are willing for new understandings of God and Life to now be brought forth, understandings that could produce a new way of life on this planet.

• Courageously examine these new understandings and, if they align with your personal inner truth and knowing, enlarge your belief system to include them.

• Express your life as a demonstration of your highest beliefs, rather than as a denial of them.

25. Let there be a New Gospel for all the people of Earth: “We are all one. Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.”

Sinking

Sinking

we have a glimpse

an early understanding

of who we are..

the glimpse gained entry

via thoughts and feelings..

with this glimpse

the ego arises

draped as thought 

and feeling

and makes mention

with congratulatory 

exuberance..that we

have at long last

discovered our self..

but in quiet moments

the ego is afraid of

the vast blue sea

which we also have

glimpsed..surrounding 

these thoughts and

feelings..

we have a cultured

ego which has been

living protected for

these..our many years..

but now the sea

threatens our self:

as sea stories 

often end

in sinking...

Mark Twain dreams

Mark Twain dreams

In progress


Thanks, CP, for your thoughts!
CC et al -
        Mark Twain's experience in dreamland is quite interesting, and I can relate a bit, because in my dreams everything seems real and normal, but upon awakening and remembering the dream I always think:  That dream contained an activity that made no sense what so ever in real life.  (I know, some will say every dream has some kind of metaphorical meaning or message)
        I'm certainly hoping the Afterlife is not like the dreamland I experience, 'though we are told there are similarities like..... we can create something at will.
        The line from Shakespeare is meaningful:  "To die, to sleep - to sleep - perhaps to dream:  ay, there's the rub...... for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause"
        Of course, we all relate to dreams; they happen every night.  Do they really have a purpose?  "Of course" so many will say.  I once owned a BMW motorcycle.  Two times I dreamed I wrecked it and died from the crash.  I sold it shortly after the second dream.
CP

Mark Twain:  My Platonic Sweetheart
https://harpers.org/archive/1912/12/my-platonic-sweetheart/

Blog, Consciousness Unbound:  Mark Twain and the World of Dreams
http://consciousnessunbound.blogspot.com/2018/10/mark-twain-and-world-of-dreams.html

“For everything in a dream is more deep and strong and sharp and real than is ever its pale imitation in the unreal life that is ours when we go about awake and clothed with our artificial selves in this vague and dull-tinted artificial world.”  ~Mark Twain

“When we die we shall slough off this cheap intellect and go abroad into dreamland clothed in our real selves . . ..” ~Mark Twain

I

I

This name 

if you haven't noticed

is everyone's name..

To find our identity

all that is needed is to

consider our name..

Why do each of us

have the same name..?

after all..we all seem 

so different..

Does I really mean I..?

We must take notice:

I seems vast

but also seems limited

and located

and moving to and fro

and with this notion

we seem to forget 
our Name..

That's about it..!

(All religions are formed
after someone notices..)

Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] said, “In the vision of death, though all the senses were benumbed, the aham sphurana (Self-awareness) was

clearly evident, and so I realised that it was that awareness that we call ‘I’, and not the body. This Self-awareness never decays. It is unrelated to anything. It is Self-luminous. Even if this body is burnt, it will not be affected. Hence, I realised on that very day so clearly that that was ‘I’.”

From: Letters from Ramanashramam

Suri Nagamma

Thanks to Deepak Bee