There are no others..

There are no others..

This expression of Truth
Is often acknowledged with a
Base of reference in 
Conditioned separation..
We notice the very rapid
Changes of things..brought to us
By sciences's advances..and so
The Truth is shaded by our 
Assent..but we are deceived..
Deceived until we are jolted
That Truth is absolute..per
There are no others...






At some point when you hear the phrase: "There 'are' no others,"
It will shift beyond a simple intellectual concept that you may
accept on some level...to an absolute "knowing."  In that moment
you will realize beyond any doubt that these dramatic events and
those that act them out "are" YOU, and that they are shining Light
on your own "stuff."
~~John McIntosh, The Rising Tide of Light

Stillness

Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word.
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.
The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.
But I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.
Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.
~ Oliver, Mary (A Thousand Mornings)

Steps

Steps

This someone 

Let's call him Remember

Asserts a plan for the day

And walks to do his plan..

Remember apparently walks
On this cloudy morning

Ignoring a Remembering

Which could recompose

Her walk into Steps of

Abundant Joy..

We can hope that

One clear morning

Remember will 

Remember...!

Every time you concern yourself with the ‘separate self’ you reassert the ‘separate self'.
~Rupert Spira

THE BELL AND THE BLACKBOARD. David Whyte

THE BELL AND THE BLACKBOARD


The sound
of a bell
still reverberating,

or a blackbird
calling
from a corner
of the
field.

Asking you
to wake
into this life
or inviting you
deeper
to one that waits.

Either way
takes courage,
either way wants you
to be nothing
but that self that
is no self at all,
wants you to walk
to the place
where you find
you already know
how to give
every last thing
away.

The approach
that is also
the meeting
itself,
without any
meeting
at all.

That radiance
you have always
carried with you
as you walk
both alone
and completely
accompanied
in friendship
by every corner
of the world
crying
Allelujah.

~~David Whyte

SILENCE

SILENCE

From SILENCE
We emerge
And find a world
Of dual things..
All separated with
Clarity..and so there is
A tacit agreement 
That this clarity 
Is where we are and
Have always been..

That is..until the
Polarities in life
Are sighted..suggesting
A relational clarity
Bringing satisfaction
Now and then
Until it doesn't..

Our search continues
To find a Wholeness
Of enduring value..
To rid ourself of that
Frag feeling which
Lurks to suck us in..

Then to discover
A direct path..with a
A bypassing of
All of the trip wires
Which tripped us before..
And recognizing our
SILENCE once more
As our Wholeness 
We have ever sought... 

Survival

Survival

Apparently
Most of us on earth 
Engage each day
To just survive
For one more day..
Fear and desire dictate
A form of bondage
For most..who must
By wit and courage
Play roles which give
Credence to a reality
Of many things..while
Ignoring each her own 
Veiled Reality..
A heavy price by
Rich or poor..
Apparently Freedom
Awaits for now
Behind the veil...

Breaking News..?

Breaking News..?

In our dreamtime
We receive a gift
Which when seen
As a gift
There is immense 
Reward..
Next morning we
Can and usually ignore:
Realizing the unreality
Of the dreamtime 
Having just passed..
However..
The gift may be a glimpse
Of Wholeness separating
Within Itself and making
Of Itself appearances
Of convincing stature..
Breaking News...?









A dreamer dreams a dream. He sees the dream world with pleasures, pains. etc. But he wakes up and then loses all interest in the dream world. So it is with the waking world also. Just as the dream-world, being only a part of yourself and not different from you, ceases to interest you, so also the present world would cease to interest you if you awake from this waking dream (samsara) and realise that it is a part of your Self, and not an objective reality.
Because you think that you are apart from the objects around you, you desire a thing. But if you understand that the thing was only a thought-form you would no longer desire it.
All things are like bubbles on water. You are the water and the objects are the bubbles. They cannot exist apart from the water, but they are not quite the same as the water.
~~Ramana Maharshi

Inward quiet

Keep quiet. Do your work in the world, but inwardly keep quiet. Then all will come to you. Do not rely on your work for realization. It may profit others, but not you. Your hope lies in keeping silent in your mind and quiet in your heart. Realized people are very quiet.
.
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

Mind's End

Mind's End

A good question is
Asked from the edge 
Of a precipice..
The mind asks and
Expects the answer
From the realm
Of earlier expectation..
Yet..this question
Finds only stillness
Frightening stillness
For the mind..and a
Wish to retreat..
Until..that Jump...







The self-inquiry "who am I?"
does not wake you up.
It is the silence after you say, "who am I?"
and you keep still.
Then the time comes when the stillness wakes you up and you become free.
~Robert Adams

Glasses

Glasses

We wear glasses which
Filter an unending 
Spectrum of Light..
Our glasses
Render confinements
Of time and space..and
Add the persuasion
That we may discover 
With much diligence
Through long hours
All that can be known..
Removing our glasses
In frustration perhaps
We are disabused..and
Humbled by the Light...



RS:  Latest Videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/rupertspira?annotation_id=annotation_756070653&feature=iv&src_vid=S53mwl13u24

RS:  All Times Take Place Now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvxmdQJJob4

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

RS:  Cause and Effect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwmsFubaoz4

RS:  The Movement of Grace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrFFCaiwNZE&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR0qwjjeZfDLreJ4DObx5mr9ztWNHoC6qGL02WfRf-OjGqZ-A6BCyV1cOgQ

Make of yourself a mirror

Make of yourself a mirror

"Make of yourself a light"
Instructed the Buddha..with the
Voice of Mary Oliver..and
The fear of the crowd
Overwhelmed..

Make of yourself a mirror
Stands as an alternate
Instruction..for our 
Question of  fear..

We seem to be a mirror 
Reflecting the world:
The world appearing as   
Fears and joys..

Might we polish and
Upgrade our mirror
To reflect our Experience
Of the infinite nature of
Our appearing world...?







MARY OLIVER
THE BUDDHAS LAST INSTRUCTION.

“Make of yourself a light”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal-a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire-
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.

He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

Life flashes before our eyes

Life flashes before our eyes



in progress

An empty shell

An empty shell

in progress




"Ponder this very well. Your sadhana, your spiritual practice does not begin when you've gone to many teachers, and you've read many books. It actually begins when you give up everything. That's when real sadhana begins, when you have surrendered everything, when you've emptied yourself of all knowledge, all desires for liberation. When you have become an empty shell, then your spiritual life begins. Until that time you're only playing games with yourself."
~ Robert Adams (20th century American Advaita mystic)

The Buddhas

“All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces and comparisons. It is that which you see before you—begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error. It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood. By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind. Even though they do their utmost for a full aeon, they will not be able to attain to it. They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not the less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor is it greater for being manifested in the Buddhas.”
– Huang Po, from The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, translated by John Blofeld

Love and Death

Love and Death

Inseparable these are..

Inseparable and pointing

To the knowing

Of who we are..

Death points to our 

Frantic or calm

Entering and departing..

Love stands still

While noticing how our

Entrances and departures

Left unimpeded

Do not linger at all...

Surrender

Surrender

Is sinking

Into silence..

Letting go of

That which appears

To grasp our coattails

And clouds the Identity

Of our true Self..

This is not to inquire

Into coattail attachments

But to directly recognize

That in which

We as well as our coattails

Make our stage appearance...

Expressions

Expressions

At their best are
A dive into duality
Into our everyday
To find the words
Or the colors
Which of themselves
Quickly dissolve 
Into that from which
The inspired dive
Proceeded...




"Understand with your mind and feel with your heart that everyone and everything is an expression of a single infinite and indivisible whole and act accordingly. If we did that, there would be no conflicts, no war, no environmental problems. That's all that's necessary. Explore the nature of your experience, discover that infinite consciousness is the reality of all experience, and live in a way that is consistent with that understanding."
~ Rupert Spira

Plans

Plans






AN UNPLANNED LIFE

-John McIntosh

How do you organize your Life without planning?
You remain Silent, Open and Vulnerable with a blank canvas not referring to old ways and means and the history of what went before.

You allow all concepts of ‘fixing’ or ‘improving’ to dissolve so that LIFE can paint a New picture - Fresh and New in each Now Moment.

Using your ‘history’ … your ‘story’ allows all the conditioning that defines your false self to manifest more of the ‘same’.

Being Empty, Vulnerable and Open invites the ‘Miraculous’.

Detachment

Detachment

in progress







TO BE FREE … OR …
-John McIntosh
The Grand Dream is filled with villains and heroes and the stories and dramas are endless, like a company of actors who today play the scoundrel and tomorrow the saint on the same stage. The SELF is ever Empty, a blank screen on which the high emotions and deep sentimentality finds a brief moment for IT to ‘savor contrast’ … then release the experience to dissolve in the arms of detachment.
Identity with the stage and actors is inevitable and is inextricably bound together with suffering and bondage. Then, ultimately … fulfilled and satiated all identifications, expectations and attachments are dropped and the SELF returns to the Freedom IT ‘is’.

"star-stuff"

"star-stuff"

Carl Sagan told us of
The star-stuff within
That we are..
However..with due respect
We are not made of stuff
Star or otherwise..
Star-stuff makes an appearance
And like all stuff
Until we awaken 
Blurs the Star-Light
We surely are...








"The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
― Carl Sagan

"You would measure time

the measureless and the immeasurable.

You would adjust your conduct

and even direct the course of your spirit

according to hours and seasons.

Of time you would make a stream

upon whose bank you would sit

and watch its flowing.

Yet the timeless in you

is aware of life’s timelessness,

And knows that yesterday

is but today’s memory

and tomorrow is today’s dream.

And that that which sings

and contemplates in you is still dwelling

within the bounds of that first moment

which scattered the stars into space."

- Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931) 

What is History?

What is History?

History in schoolbooks
Is an agreed-upon memory
Codified and presented
As what happened back then:
This our conventional view..

The question for us:
When will history be discovered
As a limited memory
Created by researchers' tools
Of thoughts and perceptions..

Layered and filtered to 
Appear as pictures on a page..
To simply provide stuff for 
Our dream playing on a screen
Made of  Here and Now..?






The chains of bondage that keep the slumbering God-SELF lingering in the Grand Dream shift with the rolling tide of time [also an illusion]. In one era the glamor of Kings, Queens and conquerors captures humanity’s attention, while in another adventurers and discoverers of new worlds hold the focus of the dream with equal engaging influence. Today’s heroes of the dream are entertainers, actors and entrepreneurs who literally create even deeper layers of dreaming with which to sway the SELF’s attention away from Truth. Every era highlights another phantom attraction, which pervades every phase of the great play the sleeping masses have bought into for eons. ~~John McIntosh

Stepping toward Truth

Stepping toward Truth

"When you summon up an autobiographical memory, you engage in a kind of mental time travel. You identify your current 'remembering self' with your past 'experiencing self'—like the self that was feeling apprehensive on the first day of school. These two selves are connected, not just through a continuously existing physical body but also through a somewhat discontinuous (because interrupted by dreamless sleep) stream of consciousness. The faculty of autobiographical memory allows us to understand ourselves as beings whose existence extends over time."

- Jim Holt (1954 - )

In This Is All: Memory, meaning, and the self

Quelling the storm

Quelling the storm

When we break out
From the illusion of separation
To recognize our Identity which
Exceeds birth and death..
We can then experience the
Dance of mind and world
As spontaneous dreams arising
In our expansive Identity..
This is liberation
A quelling of the storm...







Bridging inner and outer experience..Rupert Spira
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cNo7zpZq-0

What's New?

What's New

1.
Looking around
We see things
Some seem permanent
Others seem temporary..
All seems relative..
So what..?
What else is new..?

2.
This may be new:
Consciousness is all
With nothing outside..
Permanence is all and the
Temporary lies within.. 
And Truth be told:
Permanence  is  
Temporarily at rest...

The Unconditioned

The Unconditioned

We are attuned
Conditioned
To believe there are always
Priorities in life..That we need
Be most watchful to settle on the
Important this moment..Until 
One day we discover the flaw
In all this:
Focus on importance 
Doubles down once more
On attuned separation
Delaying once again
A glimpse or more of
What has always been
Unconditioned...




Philip Glass: The Hours
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkof3nPK--Y

20/20 Valentine

20/20 Valentine

We see clearly Now
Those many years
Have rippled through
The Love we share...

Namaste...

Underground

Underground

Cheyenne Mountain
Contains a cavern
Artificially lighted
And built on springs
Absorbing vibrations..
To withstand attack
Of nuclear proportion..
Envisioned by finite mind
Of materialist bent
To continue living after
A catastrophic event..

The above
Are dark markings of
The separate self
As self protecting..
It is a product of failure
To see the illusion of
Separation as illusion..
Which when seen
Results in the death
From neglect..of all 
Such grandiose means
Of self protections...

(I worked in the Cheyenne Mountain
command post in my past life!)

Sounds

Sounds in progress




“If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.”
― John Cage

The Sneeze...volition

The Sneeze

We seem to act
Of our own volition..
Departing this place
To arrive over there..
Coffee..not tea..
Unquestioned choosing..
But does the simple sneeze
Unfurl the question:
Is there volition..?
Are all events really
Sneeze events...?





Osho...on the sneeze...
https://o-meditation.com/2020/02/09/at-the-start-of-sneezing-be-uninterruptedly-aware-osho/

You cannot sneeze voluntarily; you cannot “will” it. How can you? How helpless man is! You cannot “will” a single sneeze. Howsoever you may try, you cannot bring it out. A single sneeze – such a small thing, but you cannot will it. It is non-voluntary; volition is not needed. It does not happen because of your mind; it is because of your total organism, your total body.

Purpose

Purpose


We assign a purpose
But there is a cost..
With said purpose
We narrow our focus
Consult a few maps
Confine our freedom
Acknowledge a self..
Allowing
Is blindfolded as we
Create our world of
Purpose..

Going  for a walk... (?)

Resources

Resources

In life and art
There is a continuing search
For materials which our use
Will satisfy our need for 
A unique expression..
The search is often out there
Far and wide with intermediate
Frustrations that so far
Our search has been futile..
Until we Stop..and allow the
Materials to flow through
Guided by the Freedom
That choices are 
Already made...



“A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.” Jorge Luis Borges
https://www.brainpickings.org

Destiny

Destiny

Beneath
The assumption we are free
Is a map which guides the
Comings and goings of our day..
The assumption is a message
Relaying the truth that indeed
We are free..with newly directed
Attention to ourself as Freedom..
We are startled to find we are 
Always identified by that Freedom..
And..of that map..we recognize
It appears in Freedom and 
Will  apparently continue to 
Map our dream..now known
As a dream...





It is only when one steps off the wheel of conditioning/karma in full Awareness of the SELF They Really Are that that this destiny ceases to govern the experience of the SELF in that body. Even then, the body has its own destiny, but the SELF no longer attempts to interfere as it did while IT was ‘trapped’ in the many masks of a personal identity nor is IT molested by it.~~John McIntosh

Anger

Anger

surrounded and penetrated
by glowing Awareness..anger
is righteous and serves
to right apparent wrongs..

when anger is unleashed
with cloaked Awareness
we meet with suffering
extending the dream..

nevertheless
all is Awareness whether
Awareness acts as anger
or we suffer to waken...

Ollie

Ollie

I remember him
On the white rail
Tasting the breeze
From the faraway ocean
And the sun's warmth..
We risked allowing him
These moments of wonder
This foretaste of what
Has now become
His Home...

(Ollie...Wendell's and Sylvia's
18 year cat, who passed away..)

Sylvia Coon	8:59 AM (6 hours ago)
to me

Comforting words

Peaceful photo 

Happy memories

Appreciated 

Freedom

Freedom 

This is a

 Recognition

Of a priority
Which is not a priority

Or a sequence which

Is not a sequence..

 Recognizing our

Self as not locked

In the grip of time

And of space

Brings the Freedom

We all seek..

Allowing Freedom

To act freely to 

Declaw illusory

Beginnings and

Endings...

Waves

Waves

To the surfer
The wave requires
Her immediate attention..
To balance forces
Which may result in
Swimming not surfing..

Each morning we arise
To catch a wave..
Wishing that we might
Ride the crest today..
Some days it seems so
But others no..

Then the Recognition
Perhaps when crestfallen
We notice the enormity
Of the ocean within which our
Ocean-wave claims attention..
And at last..we are Free... 




Thought for the day....... “We do not ‘come into’ this world. We come out of it as leaves from a tree. As the ocean ‘waves,’ the universe ‘peoples.’” Alan Watts

Whatever Arises..

Whatever Arises

Whatever arises
In this writing is
What might arise..
Meanwhile Emptiness 
Swallows concerns for
Finding new words
Arising in the same
Emptiness..
Reminding us
That you and I can
Remain joyfully and
Indefinitely in
This Free and Open
Emptiness..which
We Are...




"You can’t do anything because you can’t do what you already are. You are the light, which allows creation to be. Look, it is happening right here, right now, in everything that’s taking place for you. Simply let it be there…no questions, no judgments, no wish to change anything or make it better.
Fall in love with this. Fall in love with it intimately, and everything else will “emerge". And don’t stay fixed with one thing. Let whatever arises come to the forefront and fall away back into emptiness.”
~~Tony Parsons

A few words strung together (with David Whyte)

A few words strung together

Recall our stirrings
Awaiting the signals
From where we know not
To lace together
The disparities
Of our perceiving..
Disparities may be faint
Or of pounding fury..
Yet the lines must reflect
How disparities dissolve
In our eternal sea...


“The poet lives and writes at the frontier between deep internal experience and the revelations of the outer world. There is no going back for the poet once this frontier has been reached; a new territory is visible and what has been said cannot be unsaid. The discipline of poetry is in overhearing yourself say difficult truths from which it is impossible to retreat. Poetry is a break for freedom. In a sense all poems are good; all poems are an emblem of courage and the attempt to say the unsayable; but only a few are able to speak to something universal yet personal and distinct at the same time; to create a door through which others can walk into what previously seemed unobtainable realms, in the passage of a few short lines.”
― David Whyte






David Whyte: A lyrical bridge between past, present and future/TED Talk
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_whyte_a_lyrical_bridge_between_past_present_and_future?fbclid=IwAR2KGfTxLOpI2qJsSGeaRpbI3dYgPD9KOQUiSYUFv0q3vZ-o0wJoae1tGOg

Reputation

Reputation

An image of ourself
Concocted in separation
An egoic portrait..
Which always needs
Support and protection
From those who might
Hold another image..

An endless task
As the ego finds its
Arsenal of images for
Thrust and parry..
Thus..bondage links in
Chains of reputation..until
Our image Resurrects...

"I" ...

"I" ...

This is your name
And mine..
With reflection 
We might see that
The fullness which
Seems to fill us
With sorrows and joys
Does not exceed the
Endless extensions of

"I" ...





Neither I, nor some other "I," needs to tell you,
you who are also I.
Just as when you fall asleep,
you leave the presence of yourself
to enter another presence of yourself.
You hear something from yourself
and imagine that someone else
has secretly spoken to you in a dream.
But you are not a single "you,"
my friend----you are the wide sky and the deep sea.
Your awesome "You," which is nine hundredfold,
is where a hundred of your you's will drown.”
~ Rumi