WHAT REMAINS?

WHAT REMAINS?

We keep a focus

on what appears as the world:

the morning newspaper

checking email and 

Facebook and checkbook..

Perhaps we meditate

and notice the thoughts

interfering it seems

with meditating goals..

All of these outward

attractions and destinies

seem to claim somewhat

of what we are.. 

The question may assert:

What remains..?

The assertion arriving 

with fits of discomfort..

We might respond:

Nothing remains:

a frightening reply 

to some..calming to others..

This introduction

to what we are

is the real message

of this season...

Being of help

Being of help

It takes courage

to assert ourselves

claiming an identity

that has found fraud

in the seeming separate ego..

Oftentimes the ego clamor

with its many stories and facts

seems as a barrier unassailable..

Perhaps what is needed

is to relax

recognizing the answers

are embedded in the questions...

Science and Religion

and

The only reconciliation comes

from the recognition of the

Truth which illumines their

background..

It is the Perennial Truth

with a glow dimmed

as we immerse in 

either science or religion..

In religion is downloaded

an apparent separation

which is persistent 

in religious perception..

In science another download

and another separation..

These are prodigal journeys

and a return seems beaconing..

Science..in its quantum newness

seems slowly turning..

Religion..in non-dual awakening

may yet turn toward home..

Or..is each of us

by our own experience

marking the path...

Zig-Zag

Zig-Zag

Downtown or on the roadway

zig-zag searching

always for something..

Stopping at a coffeeshop 

reaching a place

seemingly removed..

An interruption in

a zig-zag map

with map forgotten..

The coffeeshop was not

a zig stop..or a zag

just momentary..a respite..

Might zig-zag dissolve

right here and now

 in this cup of coffee...?

Portal

Not noticed 

yet most nearly near

hiding in plain sight..

A portal to what all are seeking..

Seeking by plan and by process

awaiting the day and the time

for that which is sought
to appear..

That has many names

reduced to finding our portal..

Many findings on many paths

flare in the moment

announcing the search's end..

But those findings

very soon confess:

not here..now not..
It is close
much closer...

The chameleon's lesson

The chameleon's lesson

It is a lesson on time

taught by changing colors..

The external coloration

never really changing the

whole chameleon..

It seems that creations within

a whole being

simply color that being

with the colors

made only of that being..

This is our own Reality:

the external world

our chameleon colors..

An experience of wholeness

here and now

outside of time...

Intersection

Intersection

Where is the point

where consciousness meets

our conventional self..?

Seems as depending

on our point-of-view..

From the conventional point

there is a shining experience

available to all:

simply..I am..

From the consciousness point

a veil is drawn

to allow for the

conventional point..!

The thought arises

The thought arrises

and will soon dissolve

unless the mind

keeps it around..

History seems to be

a pool of lingering

thoughts..thoughts 

extending their stay

 casting their burden 

on many each day..

Bringing to mind 

 boundaries and rules

which seem idolatrous

in their staying power..

History as taught

seems to suggest

we are made of thought..

Our need now is to

expect quicker passage

of all our thoughts

great and small..

Celebrating their

absence: find only

freedom remaining...

Thanksgiving, 2017

Thanksgiving, 2017

Why state the year

when the true Thanksgiving

is timeless..

We give Thanks perhaps..for

 the turkey and dressing

or the new home

or a future brightening..

These passing Thanksgivings

outpour from the true Thanksgiving

which will remain true and near

when Black Friday dawns...

Happy Thanksgiving...!

What do we mean when we repeat

this most common of words..?

Most of us would say

a multiplicity of things

many names of occupations

locations and the resume

most recently written..

This objectified I

accumulates memories

pleased with the good

fearing the bad

and so it goes over our years..

There are expressions of

Thank You

for material abundance

and for a good name..

This I is personal and close

but if we admit..not quite

the I we long to be..

And on occasion

a question asserts:

How might I be truly

Happy..?

Recognizing that I

good teachers will say

would mean that this

would be truly a

Happy Thanksgiving...!

Emerson on teaching...

"The spirit only can teach."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Divinity school address, 1838

This is the advice which our teachers

are waiting to hear and adhere..

Our teachers..of course, with exceptions..

teach from a belief in their finite existence

veiling that inner spirit which could make 

the teacher they would wish to be..

Our teachers are products of our culture

a culture immersed in material belief

and a tamping down of the subjective self..

As a result..mind limitations are not assumed

as would be evident with the spirit of truth..

Complexity and information reign over 

a simplicity of learning to learn..

A revolution must come:

a teacher joyously awakening to her

real self...CC

Thank you, Margaret..

Thank you Margaret..

for these photographs
the pictures
huge trees
earth's fibre
leaf networks
seascapes
filaments of light
radiant suns
new planets
lost civilizations
the total universe..

paradise rivers

Your rivers
move and form
all within
the paradise
you are...CC


I Was Reading a Scientific Article
Margaret Atwood

They have photographed the brain
and here is the picture, it is full of
branches as I always suspected,

each time you arrive the electricity
of seeing you is a huge
tree lumbering through my skull, the roots waving.

It is an earth, its fibres wrap
things buried, your forgotten words
are graved in my head, an intricate

red blue and pink prehensile chemistry
veined like a leaf
network, or is it a seascape
with corals and shining tentacles.

I touch you, I am created in you
somewhere as a complex
filament of light

You rest on me and my shoulder holds

your heavy unbelievable
skull, crowded with radiant
suns, a new planet, the people
submerged in you, a lost civilization
I can never excavate:

my hands trace the contours of a total
universe, its different
colors, flowers, its undiscovered
animals, violent or serene

its other air
its claws

its paradise rivers

Lament

Lament

Life lived in content

without noticing that which

contains the content..

So..it has always been..

Yet..many teachings lament

that our un-noticing

brings our suffering..

And..makes mysterious

our own name..

We seem anchored

in content with its

enjoyment and pain..

What can we notice

in the white border

of this page...? CC

Lament - Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

Everything is far

and long gone by.

I think that the star

glittering above me

has been dead for a million years.

I think there were tears

in the car I heard pass

and something terrible was said.

A clock has stopped striking in the house

across the road...

When did it start?...

I would like to step out of my heart

and go walking beneath the enormous sky.

I would like to pray.

And surely of all the stars that perished

long ago,

one still exists.

I think that I know

which one it is--

which one, at the end of its beam in the sky,

stands like a white city... 

STRETCH Jan, 2018

STRETCH

Experiencing 
CONSCIOUSNESS and NON-DUALITY

Sponsored by:  the PILLAR Institute for Lifelong Learning
facilitated by:  Charlie Coon
charlesrcoon@gmail.com
polarityinplay.com

Where/When:  The Myron Stratton Home
South Highway 115
Third Monday of each month, 3:30 to 5:00 PM

For Monday, March 19th the topic is:

"Consciousness and Nature"

"May the deep blessings of earth be with us.
May the fathomless soundings of seas surge in our soul.
May boundless stretches of the universe echo in our depths,
to open us to wonder..."
--John Philip Newell

‘Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound;
And through this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose.’
--William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream



John Phillip Newell/Rob Bell Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnYD7CA6D50&t=28s


____________________________________________

For Monday, January 15th, 2018 the topic is:

"The Hard Problem of Consciousness"

“How does the water of the brain turn into the wine of consciousness?” 
― David J. Chalmers

David Chalmers:  Hard Problem of Consciousness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5DfnIjZPGw

Rupert Spira:  Consciousness is Not Produced by the Brain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=icBYIUTZ5gI

Dr. Bernardo Kastrup:  Why Materialism is Baloney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eehz5YKnBf4

Roger Castillo:  How to Stop Overthinking, Abide in I Am..Nisargadatta Maharaj
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XiV1lY0dCw


__________________________________

For Monday, December 18th, 2017 the topic was:

"I" ... What do we mean when we employ this common word?

The revelation of our true nature as it is puts an end to one chapter of our life, the chapter in which we believe ourselves to be separate selves born into a world, moving, changing, growing old and destined for death. But it is only the beginning of another chapter.
-Rupert Spira, Essay:  The True Nature of Experience
(for more see:  http://non-duality.rupertspira.com/read/the_true_nature_of_experience)

Gangaji:  How to Become Enlightened
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XiV1lY0dCw

Rupert Spira:  How to Experience Yourself as Awareness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGoCh_dv1AA

Rupert Spira:  What Can We Say for Absolute Certain about Our Experience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVgxRkt16g8

Maya

Maya

What is it..?

Definitions refer to illusion

in what our senses report..

Einstein astounds us

of persistent illusion

in the world we see..

But..we ask..how

can that be..?

There are things out there

not to be denied..!

We must now turn

to that perennial truth

which leads us to

the subjective realm..

We need examine

the assumption of  I

in: I see the train

smoking and chugging

and soon departing

around the bend..

Does I also move

around that bend..?

An obvious question

which is never asked..!

That train..it is assumed

smokes and chugs

unstrung from I..

But looking again

the truth arrives:

 I know only

a train appearing

passing through I..

A new I is born

arriving with joy...CC

Idolatry

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/opinion/when-politics-becomes-your-idol.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20171031&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=0&nlid=16771459&ref=headline&te=1

Your Reality Construct

Your Reality Construct

Interesting piece..Some of my preliminary impressions:   It seems that a solid
beginning..recognizing  that Consciousness is Reality..lapses into assumptions 
of separation..The experience of separation resides in Consciousness..and is 
made of Consciousness..The commonality that is found in collective experience 
belongs to Consciousness..not to separate individuals and things..
However...all words..including these.. are limitations of Consciousness..!!   CC

  (See RED markings below..)

"The experiences are REAL, but the props are IMAGINARY." (Yes!)

CC - This feature is interesting and much of it is right down your alley..... could be fodder for a blog.  I wonder how much of this you may agree with? At the bottom is a conclusion which is:

"Summing It All Up

You (Who are You?) are creating your reality with your thoughts, beliefs, desires, and more. The backdrop to your story, the collective reality and the stage that it plays out on, are just there to create a context within which to play out your story and create your personal reality.  You can create whatever you like in your life, and it is not limited to what’s out there in the collective reality, but it does provide a grab bag of options to select into your life.  But they are all truly optional — they can’t become a part of your direct experience unless you invite them in with your thoughts.  The collective reality is a distraction that lures you into focusing on what is (seems to be) and what was instead of what can be (the reality of Who I am). 

Knowing this enables you to stop worrying about what you can’t change and start focusing on what you can (see previous paragraph) — namely where you put your focus and attention to, what beliefs you hold, what thoughts you entertain, and what you imagine and create for yourself (and in what do these beliefs, thoughts, and images appear).

  By deeply understanding how your reality construct is generated and that you are the one who controls the process you can experience a profound liberation from fear.  And once you transcend your fears, especially if you master the other skills of deliberate creation, you will find that your life experience will begin to improve dramatically.

Be fearless (Being is, by definition, fearless), dream big (Awaken and recognize your true Self) , and expect wonderful (recognize that it is already Wonderful) "

http://in5d.com/three-layers-reality-construct/

Being/Seeming (Walt Whitman)

In a meditation from the late summer of 1876, Whitman writes:

How strong, vital, enduring! how dumbly eloquent! What suggestions of imperturbability and being, as against the human trait of mere seeming. Then the qualities, almost emotional, palpably artistic, heroic, of a tree; so innocent and harmless, yet so savage. It is, yet says nothing.

For more see:  https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&shva=1#inbox/15fb099b16c76aef

Being/Seeming

Whitman is speaking of a Tree
in its silent imperturbability..
While the seeming we experience
in observing a tree
displays change..both calm and violent
the tree and we..remain silent unchanged
in one essence of who we are...CC

John Philip Newell

The Rebirthing of God
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRGvPXlkRew

I Am Aware of Being Aware

I am Aware of Being Aware

Thanks to those teachers

for this ultimate statement

of spontaneous inclusion..

Finding at last

who we are..

It is a statement

of our only purpose:

satisfying the longing for

a peace and happiness

which is not fleeting and 

on attainment relying..

The purpose might be

satisfied in years of search

or in the flash moment

in which you are

reading these words...

What is Reality?

The Test of Reality 

~ ~ ~

If something is real, it has to satisfy three qualities:

First of all, it can not disappear. If something disappears, it has to disappear into something. When we put a cube of ice in a glass of water. The ice disappears into water. So, the reality of ice is water. That's the first test.

The second test of reality, is that it can not change. So, the water is not real too because its made out of H2O. When the water is heated, it becomes the vapors. So, H2O is the same in the ice and in the water. But the names and its labels change. That's the second test.

The third test of reality that it can not be known by something, other than itself. If it is known by other than itself, then its reality is relative or dependent upon its knower. So, it can not be absolute reality.

So, these are the three qualities of the reality of our experience. What is it in our experience that satisfies all these three tests is awareness. All else is illusory, disappearing, changing and known by the awareness of it.

~ ~ ~

.

From the Rupert Spira audio 

entitled "The Test of Reality"

the time for the Direct Path

the time for the Direct Path

is Now..

The teachers are here

with their translations

of perennial wisdom..

Unembellished words in

their simplicity

leading to an experience

of knowing..

Knowing of our

true Identity..

Questions arise:

Why so simple..?

Where is the process..?

Where is the effort..?
Is religion upended..?

Simple recognition

it seems

comes unannounced
without preparation..
The truth expresses
where it will... 

The Invitation

The Invitation

in progress

 "In this point of view we become very sensible of the first defect of historical Christianity. Historical Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion. As it appears to us, and as it has appeared for ages, it is not the doctrine of the soul, but an exaggeration of the personal, the positive, the ritual. It has dwelt, it dwells, with noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus. The soul knows no persons. It invites every man to expand to the full circle of the universe, and will have no preferences but those of spontaneous love." 

 (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Divinity School Address, 1838)

Life as Appendage

"Once man was all; now he is an appendage, a nuisance. And because the indwelling Supreme Spirit cannot wholly be got rid of, the doctrine of it suffers this perversion, that the divine nature is attributed to one or two persons, and denied to all the rest, and denied with fury."  Excerpt...Ralph Waldo Emerson's Divinity School Address, 1838...

Life as Appendage

We seem as dwindled from All to appendage 
as we stand among many appendages..
The All is deeply hidden..buried in struggle..
Who are we..?
A question seldom asked..
Yet we intuit and long to dissolve
the constricted appendage we have come to be..
Each appendage intuits a divine nature yet
is often denied with egoistic fury..
Let us stand in awe with those words
he spoke in that refulgent summer..1838..

In this refulgent autumn
let us bring his words forward
as we witness:
The fall of church..state..art..letters..life
The labeling as fake of disagreeable information
Religion reduced to belief without grounding..
Grounding..which provides the acceptable
certainty of Truth..hides behind many facades..
Appendage is separation..That which Appends lies
in darkness..
An awakening dawn awaits...CC

Masterpiece...Hallelujah

Masterpiece

He dug into his life experience

finding a Holy and broken Hallelujah..

For Leonard..Grace abounds

there is no acceptance or rejection

but a recognition:

Grace encompasses all

and composes all

Holy or broken..

Grace is the Masterpiece

we can all find

inside..outside

everywhere..

Hallelujah...!

Friends

        One year ago today Leonard Cohen passed into the Afterlife.  He wrote and sang Hallelujah, a favorite for many.  The first two links below take you to Hallelujah.  The third link offers info on Leonard's life and other songs he wrote.  The fourth link is one explanation of the lyrics.  Leonard's life journey was rather complete...... he was an artist, poet, song writer, author, philosopher, Buddhist, friend to the down trodden and lastly, a golden hearted philanderer.  What a life!!  Enjoy!!

CP  (Thanks for this, CP...CC)

 https://youtu.be/YrLk4vdY28Q

https://youtu.be/YrLk4vdY28Q  (Notice the huge number of views)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRsnjNt_Rhw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRsnjNt_Rhw  (version with lyrics)

 https://youtu.be/suXXd9j529M

https://youtu.be/suXXd9j529M  (lyrics explained)

I am..

This universal message

the experience which resonates

throughout the world..

Available for everyone

and..BTW.. it may help 
to insert an "is"

after each

I am...

Robotic Citizenship

Robotic Citizenship

It has happened

citizenship granted to a robot..

What is your assessment..?

The robot resulted from science's processes

and was based on the assumption of

an objective reality..

Objectivity is about separation

an observer and an observed..

The new consciousness of science

merges observer and observed

with an experience available to all

of nonobjective reality..

Is this experience available to a robot..?

Likely not..!

So..this grant of citizenship

seems as a reach of ignorance...

(However..an interesting video..!)

Sophia, an intelligent humanoid robot, has been granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia. It’s the first country in the world to give a bot the same status reserved for humans.

Sophia was awarded the citizenship while on stage at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh.

For more see:

http://fortune.com/2017/10/26/robot-citizen-sophia-saudi-arabia/?utm_campaign=Abundance%20Insider&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=58077900&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8HXPTGOrCzhkto2xHnx3aKlqHcmA9VUC7cbsiaeCuTViHwoSOMVowhXuRsm-CjvrKtRytixcdXDVGsw4E0vjc8ArbASQ&_hsmi=58077900


Also see this on Elon Musk:



https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/14/elon-musk-ai-vastly-more-risky-north-korea

Between

Between

Between this thought and the next

this note and the next

lies a gap..

A gap which seems no-thing..

However..if the mind relaxes

from the stretch to things

it might fall into

the gap of I am..

This silence then renders

the following note 

to rise with a 

restful and luminous
 ring...

ARRIVAL (Movie)

LanguageTime

A new movie

(Careful!..spoiler below!)

Human..Language..Time

These are not what

we have thought they are..

The reality of a universal

language..

A language which 

recognizes time as

a construct of mind..

Future and past

reside as thoughts

in a circled yet

unbounded Now..

A universal language

enables recognition of

our essential Self...

Benjamin Lee Whorf quotes

https://quotefancy.com/benjamin-lee-whorf-quotes

*CUT TO THE CHASE*
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Twelve alien pods land around the world, and a team of scientists are called to communicate with the aliens and see what their purpose is for arriving.
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