A Poem Without Words

I decided to write a poem without words

but cognition got in my way.

Still, there's no other way to elucidate

the inexpressible,

but it will have to wait until I've nothing to say.


~Son Rivers 2009

The Relatives

Everyone is your relative in the Absolute.

In other words, as has been Said, everyone is my brother and sister in the Absolute.

How you relate to your relative is how you relate to the Absolute.

When the relative reappears, there is relationship with the Absolute. When the Absolute appears, Awareness is.

Awareness always is.

Not Absolut

Every object that I see is my interpretation of the Absolute.

Relatively speaking, we create our version of the Absolute.

Although this cup is just a cup, it holds the Absolute.

What I choose to taste, bitter or sweet, is my drink of Absolute.

TGToSR: Deconstructing

The mind loves to differentiate even when it tries to unify.

The mind loves to construct even when it’s busy deconstructing.

So let mind be mind. And let Reagan be Reagan.

I am neither. I am.


There’s only one thing I cannot deny: my existence. Everything beyond that is just my fabrication. In my mind.

Let mind be mind. Let civilization be civilization.

I am neither. I am nothing that I think I am. Even ‘I am’ only points to what I really am.


To my mind, I am beyond description. To my mind, I am emptiness, the void, nothing. To my mind, be afraid, be very afraid.

So, from my mind, create another story. Fill the emptiness with story. Avoid the void with story. Make the nothing something with story.

But let the story be story. I am not the story. I am not this character. Even this setting is not the setting. Yes, I am the pointer 'I am.'

No! Stand back! Beware! I am not a pointer! Dogma me no dogma! Exclamation me this exclamation point!


I am.

TGToSR: Real and Unreal

Just talking about it misplaces it in the space we thus create, forgets it in the time we start to make.

Ego is both the prison and the prisoner in the Story of Liberation.

The real God of most religions is Ego.

Knowledge of Awareness is still Ignorance.

I have met the enemy and he is no one.

It is Emptiness only to the inquiring mind.

Unknown, it is Satchitananda, Being-Consciousness-Bliss, the Luminous Light.

Seeing, the Seer never Sees, for there is nothing separate for the Seer to See.

The mind can never know the Truth, for if it were to know the Truth, it would cease to exist.

The movie is over when the projector itself returns to the screen.

The reality we think we see is not the reality that is.

The reality you think you are is not the reality that's you.

So the reality you think exists does not. The reality that does exist does.

Death and the resultant doubt of the body-mind's existence is the contingency on which the ego is organizationally designed to refute.

The more variable the environment and technology around it becomes, the more flexible the ego needs to be in its organization.

The more flexible the ego becomes in its organization, the more likely it becomes that it will see through itself.

The product the ego markets is itself.

But there is no product. There is no market. There is no organization called the ego.

It is called Reality [sat], to dispel the notion that It is non-existence. ~WHO

It is called Consciousness [chit], to show that It is neither insentient like inert objects, nor fitfully conscious like the mind. ~WHO

It is called Happiness [ananda] to show that in It we transcend this relativity which is essentially unhappy. ~WHO

These descriptions are positive only in form; they are negative in meaning, being intended only to dispel misconceptions. ~WHO

“Silence is the language of the Self, and it is the most perfect teaching. (...)

(...) Language is like the glow of the filament in the electric lamp; but Silence is like the current in the wire.” ~Ramana Maharshi

Things limited by time or space are not Real, since time and space are constructs of the mind, and therefore themselves are not Real.

Just because the screen is always there doesn’t mean you’re not lost in the movie.

Believing yourself (ego) to be real, you can never know the Real.

Knowing the Real; that is all.


~Son Rivers 2009

TGToSR: Zen It Good!

I know I know nothing.

I think it all begins in the mind.

I am. Am I?

Everything I am is only what I think I am except the actuality I am.

Follow the actuality.

Zen it good!

Me so zenny!

Zen Fiction: I meditated for two hours and then I killed him.

Zen Dogs: I made him meditate for two hours and then I killed him.

Zen Basterds: I haven’t seen the movie so I couldn’t kill him.

It’s really very simple. There is no meaning. Stop looking for it. All there is is is.

All the spiritual meditative stories you’ve created to give your life some meaning doesn’t.

Meaning is our greatest fiction.

Mind is a meaning machine. There are ten-thousand permutations. But being is being.

Ultimately, you’re sad.

Until you see there’s really not a you.

But this dream is probably too seductive. So keep on thinking you’re the emperor of the universe. I dare you. Double-dare you!

Triple-dare you!

The mind keeps minding.

Your little Buddhist world is just a little fiction. Kill it!

Your small agnostic world is just pure laziness. Put up or shut up!

Your atheistic world is just the mirror image of the scientific. Prove it!

Your Christian world has not a thing to do with the loving prophet Jesus. Love it!

Stop!

Look! You’re smart enough, etc. But you’re a conditioned response. Everything you think or say is borrowed or enforced. So stop.

This is where it’s at: you’ve been brainwashed. I’m sorry. You think you’re something special. You’re not. Who are you? I am.

Zen Masters would slap. Consider this a slap!


~Son Rivers 2009

The Great Real Poem

The Great Shimmer

The river is the color of
this Great Blue Heron flying by.
The shimmer in the river is
reflecting sun from great blue skies.
That sun is but a shimmer on
the Great Reality which lies
beneath this mirroring illusion
I’m creating with my eyes.

~Son Rivers 2009

A Dreamtime Story

Once upon a time a tree grew a mind and began to bark. It was bigger than its byte. And no matter what, it could not leaf.

No, it could not, should not, would not leaf. But it could and would most certainly belief. Believe you me, it would belief.

Beliefs began beginning to be as big as bangs, as big as something bigger, even bigger than a big bang, just as big as no beginning.

But beneath belief is not a leaf. And not a quark or bark of any byte of it is true. Yet it’s true there is a tree and true there is a be. See?

~Son Rivers 2009

Remembrance of Your Real Nature

For more clarity on recent posts, I’ve tried to find Ramana’s words that speak to them. So what does it mean whenever you go outside into your mind to be sure to wear devotion and authentic understanding. Or maybe more accurately, to wear devotion in authentic understanding. What exactly is the balance required between mind and Self, where one remembers its newfound truth and practices Self-Enquiry on the run.

Ramana Maharshi explains it thusly in response to a question concerning work and awareness:

You may remain where you are and go on with the work. What is the undercurrent which vivifies the mind, enables it to do all this work? It is the Self. So that is the real source of your activity. Simply be aware of it during your work and do not forget it. Contemplate in the background of your mind even whilst working. To do that, do not hurry, take your own time. Keep the remembrance of your real nature alive, even while working, and avoid haste which causes you to forget. Be deliberate. Practise meditation to still the mind and cause it to become aware of its true relationship to the Self which supports it. Do not imagine it is you who are doing the work. Think that it is the underlying current which is doing it. Identify yourself with the current. If you work unhurriedly, recollectedly, your work or service need not be a hindrance.

from 'Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi' edited by David Godman

I’ll say no more; my words dim in the light of these.

TGToSR: Awareness and Mind 2

Your home is Pure
Awareness.
But whenever you go outside
into your mind,
be sure to wear devotion
and authentic understanding.

TGToSR: Awareness and Mind

Awareness is
like the blank
white screen
of Microsoft Word
and my mind
is this sentence.

More Random Tweets In Search of a Poem

More Tweets In More Verse


All the world’s a metaphor and we are merely tenors on its vehicle.

Pithy quote taken out of context in order to make a point. ~Twitter

The world may look like a snake, hiss like a snake, and slither like a snake, but the rope of Reality is not a snake.

It's not the thinking; it's the believing.

More thoughts in more bars!

That which did not exist once, and ceases to exist later, never exists.

Before Copernicus, we believed the sun rose and set; now, we just think it.

My mind is such a tool! (in more ways than one)

After a walk: if April is the cruelest month, mixing memory with desire, then September is the kindest, exhibiting gratitude and surrender.

Ramana says the world is both real & unreal. It’s unreal in how our mind sees it. It’s real in that it’s manifestation of ultimate Reality.

The mind is surrendered to Awareness in the only way possible: thru thoughts that best it. Over & over again. Until it cries Uncle! (Faith!)

If the universe is manifested through the vibration of supersymmetric strings, no wonder music resonates with the very essence of our being.

Forget it, Jake. It's Twittertown.

"It's my mind and I'll think what I want" ~Eric Burden


~Son Rivers 2009

Bicycle Dreaming

Dreaming within awareness is really like riding a bicycle. The balance required, at least initially, is one between mind and Self. In the beginning the mind must remember its newfound truth, overcoming its old beliefs that have worn themselves so deeply in its fabric as to be articles of faith. This may actually involve the mind picturing its understanding of formless Reality in some metaphorical form. In essence, this is the first act of surrender.

The second act is in an active meditation, a Self-Enquiry on the run so to speak, in order to rest in Awareness, the Self. In doing so the intellect is surrendered to intuition, and action follows, one called non-doing, for it does not originate in the egoic self but the Real Self.

Then rinse and repeat as often as needed, like pedaling a bike, and holding one’s balance with mind and Self, until this new way of dreaming becomes as deep as Faith itself.

Poem Towards Satchitananda

Devotion in Manifestation

The body is a stem
and mind is just a flower
following the light
of Satchitananda.

~Son Rivers 2009