my commentary on a fragment of Empedocles

For from what does not exist at all it is impossible that anything come into being, and it is neither possible nor perceivable that being should perish completely; for things will always stand wherever one in each case shall put them. -- Empedocles (490-430 BCE)

1. For from what does not exist at all it is impossible that anything come into being. Being does not come out of what does not exist at all. Being comes from somewhere, from something. None of us know what it is. We call it different names. Some get infuriated, agitated over other's names for it, thinking their name for it is most appropriate or that it should be given no name at all. Yet we speak and write a language that names names. I call it Wellspring. I call it Source. Sometimes I call it God. Sometimes Godhead. Sometimes Father. The name I call it changes my relationship with it. It responds, is responsive. And why not? It calls me into being, energizes me, keeps me going. It is the most personal relationship possible -- this relationship with the one who breathes me. You, of course, call it whatever you want. Or do not call it at all.

2. and it is neither possible nor perceivable that being should perish completely. Completely is the key word here. Our experience of the world as perceived through our physical senses is that everything is always becoming something else, forever transforming. No abrupt start. No abrupt stop. Continuity but in differing form. Our experience of life as perceived through the transcendent eye, that true and real spiritual organ, is ongoing existence. We do not perish completely when the corpse drops. We are a continuing manifestation of the Wellspring.

3. for things will always stand wherever one in each case shall put them. Wherever we put our attentional energies now is not only where we stand now but where we stand later after the body drops. "Lay up your treasures in heaven," says Haysoos. "Die before you die," say the Sufi. Both these sayings point to the same principle. We will always stand wherever we put ourselves.

pay no mind

They say pay no mind to the understanding that we are a vile species that the earth would do well to shrug off, to exterminate like the fat bloated oil sucking ticks we are. They say that understanding leads only to self-loathing and despair.

They say pay no mind to the understanding that our brand new god Technology is even now failing us in irretrievable destruction and death. They say that understanding leads only to anger and despair.

They say pay no mind to the understanding that we have slain all other gods and regard ourselves as post-Christian and post-modern and post-post-modern and post anything else that anyone thinks of. They say that understanding leads only to no legs to stand on and despair.

They say pay no mind to the understanding that all is fair game for conversion into money and personal power and lubrication of self. They say that understanding leads only to jumping into the feeding frenzy and the endless pursuit of stupor and despair.

They say pay no mind . . .
They say pay no mind . . .
They say pay no mind . . .
They say pay no mind . . .

the four horsemen

there's one who sits in judgment
one who swallows it whole
one who questions everything
one who's just out cold

drama queens

we are all drama queens
characters in a story of our making

in the grifter language of old
we myth the mark

the wider context

Compassion. Understanding. Beyond bounds.

context

We have no meaning without context. Each of us maintains the context that gives us meaning. What happens when we dare step out to a context of no context? Is it even possible? Is this what the spiritual paths mean by dying to self?

We fear that if we step out of the snug cocoon of context we have woven about ourselves, we will die. And we will. Without context, the self we know, the self we wear like comfortable pajamas (or a hair shirt) will disappear.

We fight to maintain our context, the text by which we con ourselves. We make our living with our context. We get through the day with it, snug in its bubble.

As missionaries of self, we look to sell our context to others, while preferring to think we are giving it away.

Like dung beetles, we sit in our context, enjoying its sweet aroma, so happy to have a home.

where do i hide my mind

i hide it in a flower
i hide it in a book
i hide it in a path of love
i hide it in your look

i hide it in a project
i hide it in my kin
i hide it in my body fat
i hide it in life's din

i hide it in its seek
i seek it in its hide
i play this game endlessly
until i go inside

what we call

what we call the soul is the mind
what we call the mind is the light of awareness
what we call the light of awareness
has no beginning and no end

to make an object of the soul
is to sit stuck
slack-jawed
fasten-ated

what we call the soul
is the light of awareness
no was no will be
is

comprehensions of reality

Our comprehension of reality and our designations and definitions as to what is reality and what is fantasy are determined by our own experience and our experience of others' experiences, some of which we hold up as models and others denigrated and shunned.

Thus, our acceptance of others' experiences and the interpretive spin they put on their experiences is determined by their accord with our own experiences and our own spin. This is the way we stay encased in our same-o same-o world. A way out is opening to new experiences. This may be called personal growth.

Some are fearful of doing so, having erected a firm foundation on which to stand, though the foundation itself floats in midair. Some are too tired to make any effort. Some are righteous in their mindset (whether religious or irreligious) and believe they possess the truth (logical positivists, proponents of scientism, evolutionary psychologists, and those who cast blame on "religion"for the world's ills fall within this category).

As for myself and my spin, I tried on the mindset of those cheer-leading for a disenchanted universe. I find that mindset lacking. A large data set from our ancestors and from all cultures is lopped off, discarded as non-data. My experience is that the universe is enchanted and enchanting. I take it personally and find that I am taken Personally. I use the capital letter because I experience the cosmos as a live embodying of the Mystery just beyond the view of fundamental science.

shaman theologian

To know anything, you must "go native." You must become that which you are trying to understand. To know God, you must become God, a simultaneous leap into each other's skin, laughing and whooping with the playful joyousness of it all.

Do you think that the one who gave form to the platypus, to humans has no sense of humor? I say unto thee: Jump into while being jumped into! Leap into the leaping!

We know as we are known, and we are known as we know.

We are inquired into as deeply as we inquire.

We leap into God as God leaps into us.

This is what is meant by shaman theologian.

exercising the subtle body

A way for moving out of the sensory temporal (temporary) world is well-known. A first step is mindfulness, being here now in this moment. One is mindful while sitting and while on the move. Both practices are essential for developing capaciousness.

In sitting mindfully, one can meditate on something. This is eventually let go and one simply sits and opens.

One moves into contemplation (con-templum-ation), the templum being the clear open space required for divine seeing by our augur ancestors. It is in this open space that one hears, sees, merges with the world that exists beyond the temporal. One is developing, exercising one's subtle body. This is the body one truly is, the body that goes on after one's dense matter falls away.

In christian language, it is called laying up your treasures in heaven. In buddhist language, it is called opening to your buddha body. In taoist language, it is called waving with the ocean. In bhagavad gita language, it is called getting up off the chariot floor. In hebrew language, it is called meeting and merging with the shekinah. In persian language, it is called opening to the xvarnah, the light of glory. In zoroastrian language, it is called meeting the logos angel. In alchemical language, it is called coniunctio. In zen language, it is called but not called.

Attention directs energy. Whatever we attend to, we become.

beyond lament

There is an entire inner Infinity which encompasses and gives birth to the observable outer Infinity. As a human, each of us is a gateway between the two Infinities, which are one. In this Kali Yuga age, the tendency and rule is to give more attention to and to "lay up our treasures" in the outer Infinity, though its formation arises from the Inner.

In this age of dissolution, we celebrate appearance and form rather than that which births us, that which gives rise to formation. Lamentation is definitely in order, appropriate. But lamentation does not get us very far. We can only sit so long in the ash heap and scrape our running sores with pot shards.

We must get up and face the god we have created. This is effective only if we move out of and from a deep centering in the Inner.

The Inner is more powerful than the external, gives rise to the external. The external we have now stems from our shallowness.

Deep calls to deep.

the event of the birth of the other

Long ago, and even now,
there was and is a circle
with no circumference,
a sphere with no surface,
boundless with no origin.

A stirring formed,
compassion being born,
but not without doubt.

For how can there be compassion
with no object of compassion?

The boundless birthed the bounded,
doubt required compassion,
compassion demanded doubt.

And with that,
an eternal yearning
saturated the cosmos,
a groaning for what was,
a lamenting,
countered by the glee
of sweet release.

Twins at birth, each now
consoles the other.

Doubt
con-soul-ing
compassion
con-soul-ing
doubt. . .

The boundless
birthing the bounded
is content in its dreaming;
the cosmos rejoices
in its divisive interwhirling.

The great sacrifice has been made
and all is on the altar and is the altar,
holy fires raging with sweet incense of
burning doubt consumed by compassion.

appreciation

I hang my butt out to dry on this blog or another most every day. From that point of view (somewhat selfish), I appreciate all comments made. Mutual self-disclosure is much more satisfactory and enlightening. I like it when your butt shares the clothesline.

A friend of mine reminded me the other day that when six-year-olds are asked a question in the class room, hands shoot up everywhere, comments ready and forthcoming. As students get older, a question is asked and everyone sits in embarrassed or stuporous silence. No one wants to reveal what they are thinking lest it be WRONG. One must be RIGHT or one says nothing. RIGHT-WRONG has been manufactured and put in the hands of others. I call it the Lady Gaga Effect. Not only must one exist in stupor, but by Zeus, if one does say something, opens one's mouth, it must have STYLE.

Alan Watts said: Sincerity is simple nerve.

I have a more deeply and profoundly felt appreciation than the first one I mentioned. I appreciate the sincerity and nerve expressed by all. I do not always respond directly to each of your comments, but I am directly affected by all. I listen to what you say and I thank you.

iamyouarehesheitis

The names we give to the grammatical structure of our language can be revealing. I am specifically referring to first person, second person, and third person (I am, you are, he/she/it is and we are, you are, they are).

One always refers to oneself in and as the First Person. All others come after the I that I am. I am not talking about ego here. I am pointing to one's felt sense of being. I speak from a First Person stance. I know no others as First Person. Even if I say I do, in some fawning, falling at the feet endeavor, it is a lie.

You, whoever you are, no matter how much I love you and no matter if I sacrifice my life for you, are always "you." I, First Person, am sacrificing my life for you, Second Person.

First Person and Second Person may run along together, and may even do well with Third Person, as long as Third Person is a he or she and not an it or they.

When Third Person is a he or she, Third Person can quickly become a you, Second Person. First Person can sit in a room with many Second Persons, but there is only one First Person.

When Third Person is an it or they, Third Person has no place in the room. (Except maybe as an indentured servant with strict bounds.) An it or they Third Person is kept out there somewhere, an object of fear, mistrust, and disdain, convenient for explaining all one's woes.

There is Fourth Person but I won't go into that here. Too far out.

the language of mythopoetry

Every culture has a secular language and a spiritual language. Speaking and thinking in the secular language calls forth, produces a secular world. The consciousness called forth by a spiritual language produces a spiritual world.

Rejection of spiritual language and a total reliance on secular thought and consciousness has produced a disenchanted world. Some call living in the world of secular language "stark reality." It is stark alright but only one version of "reality."

The reality in which we live is determined by the language we speak. Spiritual language coincides with, affirms, and is produced by a spiritual consciousness or awareness. Spiritual language is the language of the life force calling all into being. Spiritual language is spoken by all wishing to bring light into the world. Spiritual language is the language of mythopoetry.

The language we speak and dwell upon in our consciousness creates the world in which we live. As within, so without. As we think, so we are. Our language is a tool for world transformation. The language of disenchantment has been spoken long enough.

knowing as we are known

The knower is not separate from the known. Learning is revelation, opening to aspects of oneself previously ignored. The opposite of revelation is ignore-ance. The knower is not separate from the known. This has profound cosmological implications.

We, in this post-postmodern era, have jettisoned all gods, a' la the presentiment of Nietzsche. Or at least we say we have. What we have done is to make gods of ourselves. And then get worried and shaky that we are not god enough. We are on the right path but have not dared to pursue it to its logical, Logos-ical end: the beginning of our life as cosmic beings.

We are spiraling around to new understandings. (No linear path here.) God is not dead. What we previously thought of as God is dead. This is no time to stand around, fists on hips, bawling our calf-like challenges to the universe while convincing ourselves we are bellowing like bulls.

We are co-creating a new knowledge of our Source. The co-creator is our Source Itself and is intimately personal. We know as we are known and when we set aside, come out of our calcified shells of bravado and despair, we open into the true being that we are: the Source sourcing.

The post-postmodern way is to make objects of ourselves and to learn who we are through this objection. We subject ourselves to our objections. We throw ourselves under the bus of our objections, forgetting that our ob-jections are pro-jections of our sub-jections. We throw (ject) one or a few aspects of what is within without and regard that part, that portion as our object, our objective.

Infinity in all directions, we project our objections, eternally hoping to build a fitting nest, a home that satisfies. And it never does. And it never will.

Eventually we may come to know that we are That which births us. To know that we must unknow. (Sunyata, kenosis, empty, of no reputation, nothing in our own eyes, not hing-ed, the gateless gate, conduits.) To be unknown is our nightmare, our fear. No fear. That which breathes us knows us.

certainty

If we wish to understand the internal cosmos, our internal nature, we have to lay ourselves on the line, no holding back. Abstract knowledge, retreating into some hypothetical bubble of a viewing point, does not work here.

Abstract knowledge is a language of uncertainty; one is considering various hypotheses as to one's being, trying them on for size.

A logic of causality and deduction, while useful for some purposes, must finally be set aside when looking to comprehend what gives birth to a logic of causality and deduction.

Certain knowledge arises out of being itself, before there is any separation, any codification, any partialing oneself off as a parcel.

That which is doing the seeking is that for which we are searching. What we are searching with is that which we seek. This is certain and moving with it is certainty.

department of the interior

We have conveniently (and are we not all about convenience these days?) divided our world into interior and exterior. We make of ourselves mobile self-contained units, particulates moving through the world, containers of fantasy and peculiar imaginations which by no means must be regarded as real.

All interior movement not conforming to a pre-defined world of the exterior must be either manipulated for and by the mass market, medicated so as not to get out of hand, or if spoken of, met with ridicule and scorn.

To redress this imbalance, we need, individually and collectively, to attend more to our department of the interior. The interior or esoteric world is real, as real as, more real than the nose on our face. The esoteric world is a spiritual world, populated with powers, forces, and entities.

"As above, so below" has been the practice reminder. Now we cry, "As within, so without!" We repeat this healing formula in every way we know how until the discrepancy, the split we have created has disappeared.

AS WITHIN, SO WITHOUT!

you-niverse: early morning reflections on soul

Many are willing to short-change themselves by believing that body is the prime material from which all else arises. From body an entire universe is born, the universe of you, the you-niverse.

In this view (and we must not forget, it is a view, not a fact), matter matters most.

From whence does matter come? What is the matter? Matter arises from mystery. The hand holding the scalpel slicing the brain is mystery slicing mystery.

Soul cannot be object-ified. Soul is the eternal subject. The soul I am is the sole "I Am."

Soul is entirely subjective, the primal realm upon which all objectivity is based. You may object but this is because you do not wish to be subject. This is the eternal rebellion.

We vacillate between the subjective and the nominative case. One way out we love to take is to say we are the verb, the vacillation itself. While this is true, and we can zip and zoom in our zen state, dropping all distinction, the question still remains, who or what is doing the zooming? Until and unless one knows (is) the answering of that question, the zooming is simply a fly ball about to land in one's fielding mitt.

When we know we are the mystery from which we spring, we are soul full. Whatever we make of that is our personal metaphysics, and we can and do make of it what we want.

Through our you-niverses, we are co-creators of the universe.

the way we are

Hale = Hearty= Health

In-hale-ing, Ex-hale-ing
Creation, Annihilation

Birthing, Dying
Condensing, Extending

Expanding, Collapsing
Opening, Centering

Condensing inward with no stopping
Falling into the Fertile Void

Expanding outward in all directions
Representing the Fertile Void

Tide in
Tide out

Ocean

sounding the matter horn

The universe is the outbreathing of the Great Mystery
hidden behind that surging of time the Big Bang boys can't see.

The outbreathing is the life force,
the in-spirit-ation or in-spire-itation of the cosmos.

The universe has no spirit-matter split.
That splitness is created by us.

Matter is an extension of spirit, of the life force.
Matter is spirit in its densest forming.

What is the matter with us? What is the matter to us?
What is the matter with us depends on what the matter is to us.

No separation. Nothing is the matter.
Separation. Everything is the matter.

like the wind

When one no longer rests in the story that one co-creates for oneself and steps back from and beyond that and beyond the beyonds while simultaneously living the story that one co-creates, this is the development of capacity, of capaciousness. One is no longer a corporeal being, skin-bound, but a vastness incomprehensible by the subject-object world.

I know. I know. We love to live our story. No problem. Do it. Live it fully and completely with all its nuances. Be the best you that will ever exist. You have no competition, other than your disparate parts.

Outside your story, what are you? What? You do not wish to consider the question? Then let the dead bury the dead. You may as well write your obituary now.

I would rather be like the wind, which "blows where it blows, and you hear its sounding, but cannot tell its final beginning nor its destination." Open. No Story. Capacious.

Lord of being

We understand only as we open to understanding. Letting go of our plots and schemes, our angers and anxieties, we open to our Lord of being. Each person's Lord is different, depending upon understanding.

heart and soul

Many of us do not like the word soul. We have been fooled too often (once is enough) and have adopted the sparse language of the day, the Occam's Razor language of science. Soul is considered as too ethereal, too ephemeral. One smells a con job.

The word heart, however, is fine. No problem there. Heart is matter, is material. Heart matters. Soul, we think, has no substance, does not matter. So we discard soul and open to heart.

Once again, as we do so often in this hard-boiled don't-give-me-that-crap era, we regard the material as the divine. Divine is defined here as what matters, what is appearing before us as matter. And since we are matter, we matter, and regard ourselves as divine.

Not that we would say it that way. Oh no. But if we could, we would kiss ourselves on the lips, smacking with self-satisfaction. (Which has its shadow side, the kicking of ourselves in the butt with self-loathing.)

We are hearty creatures with no soul. We have condensed the universe down to our selves, isolated balls of being in a vast nothingness. We are interested only in breathing out, extending our own aura into the world, forgetting that something is breathing us, and that at some point we will need to breathe in. We don't want to breathe in because we have put ourselves into a dead cosmos from which, we have decided, we receive no nourishment. Alienated protoplasmic blobs, we dance our own little boogie and that's that.

That is not the world I live in. I have soul. I am soul. I live in a thick rich nourishing environment of soul. Soul is not a noun, an objectified thing. Soul is a verb, linking subject and object. Duality vanishes when we have and are soul.

The universe, the cosmos is alive. It is not some static deadness waiting to be discovered and exploited. The cosmos is a living being with whom we play and interact. We are microcosms of that macrocosm. We are micro-cosmic, holons of the Whole One.

Heart and soul. We are heart and soul.

It's okay to breathe in.

embodyings of soul

The modern and post-modern mind has decided that the universe, the cosmos has no soul, no intelligence, and is simply mass and matter to be exploited, turned into toothpicks and toilet paper and fast food and whatever will give the stock market an upswing.

So delusional, so erroneous, so wrong.

The cosmos is soulful and we are its embodyings.

joy

Do you know what will vanquish any roots of hell that burn within you? Joy, sheer open joy.

bet you can't throw yourself over your shoulder

A logical positivist is one who says there is no meaning to life, only description and operational definition, but by that announcement pronounces meaning.

story

Must we forever be weaving stories around our personal and specie-al existence? Is a human living without story both idiot and genius, some sort of supernal fool? A consciousness in the immediacy of now, no footprints behind, no trail ahead, yet fully awake and aware. No resume', no reputation to defend, uphold.

division

"If you divide a pool into five pools, each will reflect the moon. The moon, meanwhile, also divides into five because it conforms to the pools and not because it has any inclination to do so. Thus, it is one, and yet it is not one. If you then combine the five pools into one pool, it will reflect one moon. The moon becomes one because it conforms to the pool, not because it has any inclination to do so. Thus, it is not one, and yet it is one." Chiang Wei-nung

Many pools of understanding exist on earth today. The pools are at war with each other, each claiming accurate representation of the moon. And each pool is correct with that assertion. Within that pool, the moon is accurately reflected. Where the pool tadpoles go astray is in asserting that their pool is the true and only pool.

Each pool gets its chief tadpoles to speak for it and all within the pool exclaim "Yeh!" and "Right On!" and "Stomp Those Stupid Mucker Stuckers In Those Other Pools!"

Each is reflecting the moon as seen from that pool.
Same moon. Different pond.

Each would like to give the other the moon. And do.

Meanwhile the moon is the moon, reflecting light equally upon all.

I shake my head and laugh and cry and sing.