Tag Archives: truth

Look your brother in the face, Stand by him,

Posted by colettekelso in Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , , ,

Emancipation

By Priscilla Jane Thompson, from Gleanings of Quiet Hours, self published in 1907.

‘Tis a time for much rejoicing;
Let each heart be lured away;
Let each tongue, its thanks be voicing
For Emancipation Day.
Day of victory, day of glory,
For thee, many a field was gory!

Many a time in days now ended,
      Hath our fathers’ courage failed,
Patiently their tears they blended;
      Ne’er they to their, Maker, railed,
Well we know their groans, He numbered,
When dominions fell, asundered.

As of old the Red Sea parted,
      And oppressed passed safely through,
Back from the North, the bold South, started,
      And a fissure wide she drew;
Drew a cleft of Liberty,
Through it, marched our people free.

And, in memory, ever grateful,
      Of the day they reached the shore,
Meet we now, with hearts e’er faithful,
      Joyous that the storm is o’er.
Storm of Torture! May grim Past,
Hurl thee down his torrents fast.

Bring your harpers, bring your sages,
      Bid each one the story tell;
Waft it on to future ages,
      Bid descendants learn it well.
Kept it bright in minds now tender,
Teach the young their thanks to render.

Come with hearts all firm united,
In the union of a race;
With your loyalty well plighted,
Look your brother in the face,
Stand by him, forsake him never,
God is with us now, forever.

Gleanings of Quiet Hours

Thank you to Poem-a-Day, at poets.org, for the poem and link to the book online, Gleanings of Quiet Hours. And the audio recording of Emancipation.

The Triune Self – A Beautiful Read

Posted by colettekelso in Being, Expression, Non-duality, Suffering and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Doesn’t matter if you’re done, faking it, or you’ve given up–this book,  The Triune Self, Confessions of a Ruthless Seer, by Mike Singer, is worth a read. Worth reinvesting any time you’d be spending doing anything else. It is a joy and a thump-to-the-chest kind of read.

Perhaps you might, out of habit, respond–“There’s nobody out there,” or “I already get that,” or some such equivocation like, “Another spiritual book? Really?” Yes, really. Something about these words truly pierces to the heart of the matter, and I mean that almost literally. There’s something about Mike…

Such a totally and unflinchingly honest and earnest reflection. It might bring joy, or it might scare the ever-livin’ spiritual pants off of you. Perhaps a more suitable subtitle would be, “The Reluctant Sage,” though my guess is Mr. Snider might quibble with the “sage” handle.

Here are a few quotes, though I hesitate to parse it out ineptly, when the whole speaks for itself:

On life:

“I find the whole of it is benevolent imagination any way you cut it, no matter how crooked it appears.”

On effort, non-effort, pointing:

“It means nothing to those who have their most essential nature pointed out to them if they haven’t struggled for its recognition.”

On self:

“He seems to be more interested in his objectified universe than he is in the mysterious wonder that registers it.”

On the spiritual marketplace:

“All the theatrical drama that enshrouds this obvious and simple Truth we all are, pissed me off when I finally came to See.”

 The Kindle version is available here.  I cannot remember the last time I bought a book, or even how I landed on this listing, but for whatever reason, I downloaded the sample and when it ended, I just wanted to keep reading. And though I don’t seem to have much spare change these days, if there was an audio version, I’d probably buy that as well, just to hear Mr. Snyder sing it. It’s what we’re here for.

Not Two Ways of Being

Posted by colettekelso in awareness, Being, Expression, Non-duality, Suffering and tagged with , , , , , , ,

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In seeking, the assumption is that there is something else, something more–that there is some other way of being, or something or somewhere to which one gets or arrives.

There is perhaps another way of seeing, but nobody goes anywhere. It’s not out there somewhere, or down the road.

There is this appearance, or what seems like a variety of appearances, including the apparent self, or most notably some kind of feeling state, that is perceived as this way or that. Usually, some version of suffering, or not. Awake, or asleep.

There are appearances…and that’s it! To talk about “false” and “true”, or real and unreal is misleading. The false is just the way the true appears as something it’s not, through an amazing feat of creation that appears as me, as the world, as many apparent things and circumstances. But it’s all as true as it gets.

So it cannot even be said that appearances are false, and awareness, the backdrop and creative force behind appearances, is true. Because what else is there?

Form is the expression of the otherwise inexpressible Formlessness. That’s all there is. Like “all there is” to a dream.

There’s no way out of this expression. But maybe the mind just tires of its drivel, gets weary of the whole ruse of seeking. It wears out, so to speak, and sees the futility of keeping up the charade, attempting to prop up the eternal emptiness, of form. Ever been close to an elderly person as the mind and body wears out?

Yet here it is, anyway you look at it. No one ever went anywhere, like in a dream, but the dream appears to go on. Because it appears to still take some kind of form.

Isn’t that just marvelous? Nobody has to go anywhere or do anything, because there’s no parts or places. Suffering is believing there is something else, something more, something better, when here it is.

The entrance to the tunnel is seen in and from the same place as the light at the end. There is no distance. It’s an illusion, but it’s all we’ve got, for now.

 

Loops

Posted by colettekelso in Being, Expression, Non-duality and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

So it’s as if there is this imaginary line between you, and me, and everything else. The line creates loops, and looks something like this: (Me and others and experience)loopsThe wonder is that each loop tends to mistakenly believe in its own isolated identity. The interior of the loop becomes crowded with (tinyplus or tinyminus)images, feelings, ideas, beliefs, and everything seems to be experienced entirely within that loop as a function of those inner fluctuations. “I” live within, and am defined by, this loop. And all this from an imaginary line that seems to divide the world into parts. It feels very real within the loop, but it’s still a part of the imaginary line.

plus&minusLoops, by the very nature of the line, can and do change all the time. One loop (within the continuous line) can look look, at any given time–when a belief, opinion, or perspective is changed, or it just changes shape, or loses volume:

normlooptwistedloopwideloop

 

 

—–>Not discrete parts, or other than.

 

What you think you are–name–is this ever changing, expanding, contracting loop, that appears to interact with other loops. How can the illusion be maintained that you are this loop or that, given its changeability, and its unreality as a discrete entity, separate from the imaginary line that creates that loop?

What happens when you pull the line taut, and all loops disappear, along with their specific qualia, left to float free, attached to no body and no thing? No loops. No parts. Just an imaginary line that is done playing loop de loop.straightline.jpgYou are not that loop. Nor are you defined by the tinyplus or tinyminuscontained within the loop, that only seem to define you.

Please contact me if you wish to discuss your loopiness, or other distractions. Thank you.

Looking in the Wrong Direction

Posted by colettekelso in awareness, Being, Non-duality, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , ,

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The Understandascope, by Michael Leunig

“The refusal to see the snake in the rope is the necessary condition for seeing the rope.”

“Somebody likes a particular concept and passes it on to his disciples, and he gets a following. But with that, they cannot get eternal peace or satisfaction. In order to get that satisfaction, you must find the source of this primary concept “I am.” And once you know that, you can transcend it. Then you do not have anything to tell the world, because the world wants only fragmentary modifications. They want activities. So this knowledge will remain only with yourself, and there will not be any customers for it.” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

The spiritual marketplace is experience driven. One wants to feel good or just better, get a buzz, an insight, improve the life experience, and most of all, to understand–what cannot be grasped by the mind.

Turn around and see what’s behind it all, prior to experience. You can’t make sense of, or solve a problem within, the context of a dream. There is a whole lot of dream-fixing going on when really,  isn’t it much simpler to simply wake up from the dream? Isn’t manipulating images within the illusions ultimately futile and tiresome? Doesn’t it surprisingly and constantly shift and become something else, requiring more fixing, manipulation, and adjustment?

If I was observing you in the midst of a dream of being chased by a bear, would it make sense to tell you to run faster, or talk about bear safety? Wouldn’t it be kinder to jostle you out of sleep–so you’d just wake up and see there was no bear, literally never had been a threat at all, while you slept?

Can a problem be solved by moving images around or barking orders in a hologram? What does this mean? It is opposite land, literally. Instead of looking “out there” and relating to experience as a problem to solve, or something to find and gain there, how about looking in the opposite direction? The lens of the telescope is what distorts or enhances the experience, is what creates the images with which you seem to struggle. What is behind the lens, and looking through? 

Notice that something is in front of you on the screen now. Before you even read the words, or try to understand what they mean, what you truly need to know, is this awareness that comes to the page, that is already always here. Not one word that you read or see or hear is more important than that awake, alert, awareness that attends to everything that is read or seen or heard. There is no need to read a book about consciousness, or attend a spiritual event, if the awareness that precedes it–as in aware that the book is there in your hand, as in the same awareness of walking into a room and hearing noises, as in this same awareness of the screen in front of you–is simply recognized.

If you don’t come to know that, you will know nothing, no matter how many words you read or hear. If that is seen and brought to the forefront, then the Source of everything is known. What you are precedes all that is experienced. All questions dissolve here, not “out there.” And here and there merge as one.

“Deny illusions, but accept the truth.” ~ A Course in Miracles

 

 

 

 

Negative Capability

Posted by colettekelso in Being, Expression, Non-duality and tagged with , , , , , ,

20140104-142052.jpg Ignorance is not about what you don’t know. It is the inevitable condition of the mind that thinks it already knows. This is where the taint, the belligerence, of righteousness rears it’s head, keeping ignorance and the maddening itch of irritation intact.

Insight, poetry, comes from the open, wonder-ing place of uncertainty. The greatest gift is an empty box, an unfettered mind. Not full of past associations, heretofore unimagined treasures may then enter in.

None of what is written here is of any Import. What is, cannot be expressed or found in words, but is the unnoticed space in which they’re seen and known.

Let us be curious together, rather than certainly apart.

“I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” ~ John Keats

“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.” ~ Saul Bellow

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