Some Random Late-August Son Rivers Tweets

In whatever name and form the nameless and formless is worshipped, therein lies the path of its realization. (...)

(...) Realizing one’s truth as the truth of that reality, and merging into it, is true realization. ~Ramana Maharshi

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. ~Sri Shakespeare

Guru: One who will preach reality he knows to be true to people he knows to be illusions.

Stop trying to live up to the expectations of your mind; they're all science fiction.

I was fine listening to Teddy's burial until the last moment when the grandchildren spoke. Kids are so close to reality it hurts sometimes.

There's nothing between you and the ultimate truth except whatever you choose to think there is, and that isn't either.

Keep on unlearning..... _/|\_

The human experience is binary: Beatles or Rolling Stones; Lennon or MacCarney; Yoko or no Ono; and so on and so on.

The greatest achievement of Western Civilization is indoor plumbing.

Besides Moby Dick and Will's works, the greatest Western work of fiction is science.

Sri Sri Harry: You've got to ask yourself one question: Who feels lucky? Well, who are ya, punk?

A happy person is like a well-fed person. Wait until tomorrow.

Sadness is a by-product of a thought; depression is a by-product of a thought equipped with a train, train schedule, and well-worn tracks.

All the knowledge in the world won’t mean a single thing if you don’t know first and foremost who you are.

If God is formless, then is it not wrong to worship Him in an idol? Ramana replied, “Let God alone: tell me if you have a form or not.” ~WHO

The Tao of Taos

The Tao of Taos

The Tao of Taos rested
near the pueblo, there
one thousand years beneath
the Mountain and Blue Lake:
blue corn that grows awake.

~Son Rivers 2009

Ramana on Work

The feeling 'I work' is the hindrance. Ask yourself 'Who works?' Remember who you are. Then the work will not bind you, it will go on automatically.

Make no effort either to work or to renounce; it is your effort which is the bondage.

What is destined to happen will happen. If you are destined not to work, work cannot be had even if you hunt for it. If you are destined to work, you will not be able to avoid it and you will be forced to engage yourself in it.

So, leave it to the higher power; you cannot renounce or retain as you choose.

~from 'Be As You Are-The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi' edited by David Godman [reformatted by moi]

The Osprey of Ramana Maharshi

I've been reading Ramana Maharshi's 'Forty Verses on Reality' as translated by S.S. Cohen, and came upon the 28th verse tonight, that when seen in the light of the osprey poem "I" wrote and posted earlier today, appears very much a coincidental pairing. But such coincidences have not been infrequent as of late.

The verse in question:

Like the diver who dives to recover what has fallen into deep water, controlling speech and breath and with a keen mind, one must dive into himself and find whence the 'I' emerges.

And the poem once again:

an osprey circles
high above
a mirrored slack
tide river, then
descending slowly
to a certain
seeing point,
it dives into
the undercurrent
of itself.

Of course the diver is the osprey. The deep water (ego) is 'a mirrored slack tide river.' Descending slowly is its controlling speech and breath (flight) with a keen mind (wings). And of course the 'undercurrent of itself' is whence the 'I' emerges. Such is Ramana's practice of Self-enquiry. And such is the osprey's 'certain seeing point.'

I'm not one who likes to break apart a poem in this fashion, and especially one of my own (non-)doing, but I couldn't resist this. It's nothing surprising of course. I am very familiar with these concepts, and knew what was being written. Nevertheless, in this case, the close comparisons are both interesting and edifying.

An Osprey Prays [poem]

A Certain Seeing Point

an osprey circles
high above
a mirrored slack
tide river, then
descending slowly
to a certain
seeing point,
it dives into
the undercurrent
of itself.

~Son Rivers 2009

on the duality of nonduality

In whatever name and form the nameless and formless is worshipped, therein lies the path of its realization. Realizing one’s truth as the truth of that reality, and merging into it, is true realization. ~Ramana Maharshi’s 8th verse on reality (trans. S.S. Cohen)

Look.

This verse on reality brings some insight into the variance between some contemporary practices of nonduality. All, for the most part, follow the understanding in the first sentence: the nameless and formless are understood in the form and name of the formless and nameless. For some, that fundamentalism is enough.

But it’s actually just another dualistic version of worshipping a god, albeit a nameless and formless one. In essence, it’s just another belief, and it’s often stated with the vengeance of any fundamental religious true believer.

But Ramana states that true realization happens with the actual merging into that self–realized reality, where no belief can exist, no trinity of seeing exists but only the seeing itself.

See?

Introducing the Dream-state Coach

This was the first post from my new specialty blog; Dream-state Coach

A few tweets were responsible for this specialty blog. I have united them here (some can be seen in their original state on my blog, Awakurious, and of course all somewhere in the archives of Twitter), freeing them from their 140 character existence.

Least important but most crucial to this blog being initiated:

I really detest the terminology, "life coach." "Life coach" is just some silliness drawn from the sports-crazed world, just advertising a lack of understanding in one who calls one such. Maybe I'd consider someone billing themselves a "dream-state adviser" or better yet, "dream-state dream-character-adviser." I have just registered in the Dream-state Registry of Occupational Hazards as a Dream Coach. I want you to run a pattern and then go long!

This series of tweets was written in the person of Spirit-Being-Self:

When the body-mind pattern is aware of its existence within Me, its once self-reflected reality becomes like a dream to itself. It’s now aware that only I am real. It has never existed other than as a pattern within Me. Its self-reflected reality never was. Only I am. It’s funny. The dream still dreams but now it knows its a dream. Its being is non-being. Its action is non-action. Its essence is Me—Spirit.

Many people talk about dreaming and awakening. Many, many discuss so-called manifestation. But few talk much about manifestation in awakening while dreaming (the ‘in the world but not of the world’). I will be posting some previous posts (which are mostly edits of things I have read) from my other blogs that refer to this subject. And most likely adding some new ones as well. For I am not the coach this blog title refers to, but the sat-coach within us all.

Enjoy.

The specialty blog: Dream-state Coach.

Who Am I in Twittergraphs

Before I can answer any question or undertake any project, first I need to really know “who am I?”

Never mind my purpose, my meaning, my needs, my wants. Who is the I of this my?

I do exist. But I’m not this body-mind. The body-mind exists. But it’s experienced in a relative way, in relation to its senses & thoughts.

I am not these senses and thoughts. I cannot be sensed or thought. I am beyond all words. I am nameless. But call me Spirit—Being—Self.

All meaning and purpose and wants and needs are questions concerning the body-mind. They are not of any concern to me, Spirit—Being—Self.

Stop. Don’t mistake the reality of the body. It exists. Its sensations are real. Pain is no dream. But I’m not in the body; it’s in Me.

I witness the body-mind. Its senses and thoughts are patterns within Me. Their self-reflected reality is only real to them. I witness it.

When the body-mind pattern is aware of its existence within Me, its once self-reflected reality becomes like a dream to itself.

It’s now aware that only I am real. It has never existed other than as a pattern within Me. Its self-reflected reality never was. Only I am.

It’s funny. The dream still dreams but now it knows its a dream. Its being is non-being. Its action is non-action. Its essence is Me—Spirit.

That essence has been called since earliest times Satcitananda: Existence—Consciousness—Bliss. This dream is That.

Before, this Dream thought it was real and therefore, something else. And so, not knowing its essence, it was fear and loathing: Suffering.

Now this dream knows it is That and has always been That and can be nothing but That. All there is is That: Satcitananda. Namaste.

Three Tweets from the Undylanator

The questions are blowing in the wind.

Rise Lady Rise

He not busy dying is busy being busy.

Mad Men (and Women): a late- night tweetathon

I can’t sleep, but instead I’m thinking about the TV series Mad Men and what it says about identity, if anything.

The series centers around a character who has left his previous identity behind after a WWII casualty is mistakenly identified as himself.

The twist is that he is a creative ad man on Madison Ave in the early-sixties. He is literally a no(where) man creating ads for everyman.

The further twist is that fact it is the early sixties, when the identity of the nation and its citizens is undergoing a transformation.

The ultimate twist that it doesn’t broach (at least overtly) is the nondual understanding that there is no identity; it’s all in the mind.

So we’ve a case of false identity in a business that sells to mass identity in a world of transforming identity in a reality of no identity.

No wonder my mind wouldn’t let me sleep. The poor thing. It was having trouble identifying the actual identity of the show itself.

Identity is the cause of much suffering on the series and in the dream-state in general. Out of nothing, an identity is created in thought.

So much effort has to be applied in order to maintain that identity. Otherwise all that the mind sees is the nothing in which identity came.

The great metaphor the mind has created for this situation it finds itself in is that of ‘Death,’ which it likes to think is in the future.

But it knows in its deepest recesses of thought such death is an always recurring, ever confronting situation right here right now.

It needs to re-establish its false identity almost every moment. By wanting this or that with which it can identify itself.

It only works for that short moment of time when it has tricked itself into identifying with that particular desire being fulfilled.

But the vicious cycle begins again. A false identity identifying with a transformed identity that it can be, to avoid the no identity it is.

Until the mind is stopped. And one rests in that awareness of emptiness, the nothing without the not, the no identity without the identity.

Maybe I can go back to sleep now. Good night sweet identity-less tweeps wherever you are.

The Greatest Tweets of Son Rivers (Tao)

You can probably sum up the Tao (Way) with two Chinese characters and be done with it: "wu-wei" (non-doing).

Tweets In Search of Tao (w/i 2147-2161)

Only illusion is historical. With a vengeance.

Words are perfectly made to describe illusion.

Illusion is made to be used although there's nobody to use it.

The manifest is not illusion in and of itself; only its interpretation.

The Tao is about existing in the manifest without illusion.

More to the point, the Tao is about being manifest without illusion.

Or maybe even more to the point, the Tao is about being manifest in illusion without illusion.

Or maybe even more more to the point, the Tao is about being manifesting in illusion without illusion.

All tweets are made to be revised.

Dimeter Stanzas in Search of a Quintet

Plum Island Dualities

On this island
desert of dunes,
the fog unmakes
a thousand mirages.

An ominous wave
descending down
on me like certain
Hokusai
inspired fury
meets instead
the undertow.

The sand in my sandals,
the salt in my hair,
the sea of my mind:
the after-effects
of swallowing
this thought of an ocean.

~Son Rivers 2009

The Greatest Tweets of Son Rivers 2096

A quote is like a piece of driftwood on the shore of your mind: no life left in it, but a marvelous pattern of original gist still exists.

Three Elders

In the Annals of the Youngest Elder, it is said that everything said is something other than Truth. And that’s all that it said.

In the Annals of the Middle Elder, it is said, that by the Younger Elder's very words, his Annals are a book of lies.

In the Annals of the Oldest Elder, there is just a sigh.

Tao Lite has a Home

Pssst. Created this blog to keep Tao Lite.

Fun with Tao

My Tao Lite project is still in action. I went to the library and checked out Jonathan Star’s ‘Tao Te Ching: The Definitive Edition.’ It includes a table of all the Chinese characters for a particular verse along with several possible translations. Very helpful.

For example, here’s my Lite translation of Verse 8:

As truth, like water, one helps all, vies w/ none, lives low. As Tao. All has its truth. By not resisting, one is free from illusion.

Each word in such a short translation is very meaningful, of course. Ellen Chen comments that ‘shan’ which she translates as ‘good’ is used nine times in this verse, obviously highlighting its importance, and so I use it twice. Accordingly, it’s imperative the right translation is used. I feel ‘good’ is not exactly right here: too dualistic a connotation. Star indicates that the actual meaning of the word is more like ‘dharma.’ Thus, I prefer to use ‘truth,’ something in the middle of those two.

However, the last word, ‘yu,’ is translated sometimes as ‘falsehood’ (also, confirming the use of ‘truth’) or 'error.' But in keeping with the nondual spirit of the Tao, I think ‘illusion’ works much better. A little translator’s license.

For comparison, here’s Stephen Mitchell’s translation:

The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places that people disdain.
Thus it is like the Tao.

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.

When you are content to be simply yourself
and don't compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.

Of course, not being restricted to Twitter length, Mitchell waxes poetic as does Lao Tzu (I was forced to sum up the second stanza as ‘All has its truth.’) But I’m dissatisfied with Mitchell's translation of this verse now (and surprisingly much of the rest of his translations, which at one time I loved), especially the last line, which I believe misses the point.

I'd love to find a translation with an appropriate nondual interpretation. Stay tuned; still looking.

Tao Te Tweeter (Tao Lite)

I wish to be sensitive to the flow.

In answering a question concerning the source of true motivation, Adyashanti suggested that the Tao is all about such flow.

And so I’m reading the Tao translated with commentaries by Ellen M. Chen. And other translations as well, including Mitchell and Hansen, as well as others.

But more than that, in order to be a good listener, I am creating a Tao for Twitter. Basically, I have 132-3 characters including spaces to work with, after hashtags (#T-L) and number.

In the spirit of the Gita, this is the action that is arising. I am not thinking about its completion. One at a time.

Here’s 1 through 6:

#T-L 1 No words for Tao; words are for things. To know Tao, no desire; desires are for things. Both sourced in darkness, doorway to no-thing

#T-L 2 Knowing good creates bad. But natural opposites rely on each other. So the sage does without doing. Things come & go w/o one’s acting

#T-L 3 Don’t praise people & things; public will confuse. Lead by clearing thought & will, fulfilling needs. Act by not-doing; all in peace.

#T-L 4 Tao is bottomless emptiness, seeming source of all things. Harmonizing, it perhaps exists. Its birth is unknown, image older than God

#T-L 5 The cosmos isn’t humane nor is the sage: all beings are sacrificial. The cosmos will always make more. So abide in the silent center.

#T-L 6 The valley spirit never dies; call it the feminine mystery. Its gate is the root of the cosmos. Ethereal: but in use, inexhaustible.

Tao Lite One

No words for Tao; words are for things. To know Tao, no desires; desires are for things. Both sourced in darkness, doorway to no-thing.

The Collective Human Dream

Sure, it’s a story. But it’s more than that. Or less.

This entire human experience is one vast complex dream, its history, its culture, its business, its network of relationships. None of it actually exists outside of the collective mind.

Collective is key. We believe we have an individual identity, but the collective has an identity as well. In fact, in many cultures, the individual identity is secondary to the collective, the People.

But both the individual and collective identities are dreams. They are a fantastic collection of myths.

In order to really understand the truth, it is necessary to confront this fact. There is no such thing as a human being. Humanity is a collective thought, story, dream.

That’s not to say one becomes inhuman. The Hitlers of this world were not inhuman, they were super human, monstrous. One is what one thinks one is, even if too much so, not what one isn’t.

But one is Consciousness. Awareness. Bliss. That.

Everything else, even one’s humanity, is just a story.

I like stories. ~Homer Simpson

The question is: What are you going to do with your story? My choice is to write my story with truth and with love. ~Miguel Ruiz

The Greatest Tweets of Son Rivers: #1983

It’s not that I am nothing; it’s just that I am not the something that I thought I was.

Walt Whitman from Paumanok Starting

We visited Walt Whitman’s birthplace on Saturday. Paumanok isn’t what it used to be. Rt 25A is miles and miles of strip malls interrupted by traffic lights every ¼ mile or so. But Walt’s birthplace looks like it used to be.

It isn’t of course. Much of it has been made to look as it did when Walt lived there in the first four years of his life. But the basic structure is original, and we stood in the rooms in which almost certainly he was born, and conceived for that matter.

His original energy without check came into manifest existence there. One could almost feel it.

Everything else is a story of course. His childhood, his life, even his poems. There never was a Walt, of course.

We consider ourselves human beings, and we invest our life, society, culture, history with a meaning from that fact. But it’s all a creation of our own thinking.

Within the context of an original universe thirteen billion years old and an infinite expanse unchecked, we really are quite laughable in our assumptions.

Nevertheless why not laugh and dream. And Walt’s ‘Song of Myself’ is quite the dream. There is a realization there not found in any previous (or later?) American poem.

In that house, I easily assumed what he assumed with an urge, urge, urge.

“What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?”

“To be in any form, what is that?”

“I heard what was said of the universe,... It is middling well as far as it goes . . . . but is that all? “

“Writing and talk do not prove me..., With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.”

“I do not know it . . . it is without name . . . it is a word unsaid, It is not in any dictionary or utterance or symbol.”

“Long enough have you dreamed contemptible dreams, Now I wash the gum from your eyes, You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light.”

“Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop some where waiting for you.” Yes, there he was in West Hills, Long Island, New York.

And he was true to his word.

The Greatest Tweets of Son Rivers: #1971

It all comes down to realizing two things: who you are not, and what you really are. All the rest is fun and games.