Monthly Archives: April 2024

Oh No! Another Blog About Chanting

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Not too long ago, I completed what I’m now calling my first formal (structured) study of the entire Bhagavad Gita. Of course this wasn’t my first exposure to that text: I’d been reading it on my own for a few years before I came upon a teacher to act as guide.

Anyway, since that bitter-sweet day of completion, I’ve been looking at ‘random’ verses on a more or less daily basis as a way to keep in touch and to act as a reminder of what I’ve learned.

Just opening my Bhagavad Gita at random, just to see what the universe wants me to think about.

Today, I happened to open it up at what are a series of my favourite verses. (I know I’ve got a lot of favourites; it’s that kind of book). In these particular verses, Krishna describes the meaning and significance of the mantras Om Tat Sat.

In a nutshell, these three syllables, these mantras, are a way of describing the Absolute Reality of the Universe, or God, Consciousness, the Truth, the laws of nature and the universe. Whatever names we might use to encompass all existence.

Krishna details when and why to use the mantras (it’s one mantra made of three, for the technically minded). Again in a nutshell, it’s a mantra to use whenever we perform our duties, basically any actions, with a devotional mood.

By the way, that, and the inclusion of my favourite image of Krishna, doesn’t necessarily imply that our actions have to have a ‘religious’ intent or flavour: Any action we undertake, for whatever purpose as long as it is motivated by Truth, Love and right thinking, qualifies as being devotional.

While you can see the actual verses yourself via the Om Tat Sat link above, I would like to share with you my very liberal paraphrasing of Krishna’s teaching on the mantra. Also, I am adding a few observations of my own that I hope serve to clarify this great teaching. Oh, please forgive any repetitions, if they occur.

The syllables Om Tat Sat are the symbolic representation of the Supreme Absolute Truth; what I choose to describe simply as all that is. It is called by any number of names or none. It’s existence itself.

It’s an ancient practice, this chanting of these three syllables as a mantra. It is recited when one is engaged in any action in a mood of devotional service. Meaning any act that is imbued with a prayerful attitude and feeling, and with a mood or attitude of devotion to and recognition of, Truth in all things.

And it includes any and every action we undertake, from washing the dishes, to sitting in meditation or silent contemplation. And everything in between.

Om

Om is sometimes called the primordial sound, the creative principle, the word from which all creation sprung. I’ve also heard it defined as being the Big Bang, from which the universe emerged.

Om is considered the sacred sound and word by many cultures around our world. Consider the opening of John’s Gospel in the Christian New Testament :

Om is to be chanted when beginning and performing any and all actions motivated and driven by Truth. Chanting Om assists us to actually realise or understand with our heart and not just our mind, the presence of the divine or the universal consciousness in all that we do.

Tat

Tat is chanted by those wishing to be freed from attachment to material things, which includes the desire or compulsion to enjoy the fruits or rewards of our actions.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God

John 1:1 New Testament

Attachment is when we depend for our well-being or happiness (physical, mental, or spiritual) upon another thing (money, job, status, etc), person, or desired outcome. Attachment (and clinging, extreme longing, compulsivity), Buddha told us, is the cause of suffering: when things are going well with the things or people we are attached to we are elated; when things aren’t going so well, we are miserable and we suffer.

Sat

The syllable Sat indicates both reality and goodness. In other words, Sat is used to represent that Absolute Truth or Universal Consciousness that we’ve been discussing.

Sat follows very nicely on from Tat as it helps to strengthen our Dharmic (motivated by what’s right and true) actions, so that they actually become Sat – Truth.

So, chanting Om Tat Sat when performing any or all our activities in the world (as well as within) will help us to come to realise or understand that there is only the one Absolute Reality, the one consciousness that is not only universal in nature, but is actually the universe itself.

Oh one more quick note: Often you hear the chant with an extra word up front: Hari Om Tat Sat. Hari is a way to address that which removes darkness, that aids in the shining of the light of knowledge.

It’s a word that represents that Absolute Reality that we’ve talked about here. It can also refer to King or Lord, or otherwise influential entity. I find it rounds out the chant, and I like it!

Please feel free to explore Om Tat Sat for yourself. You will find a lot of great recordings of the chant on YouTube, and the wikipedia link at the beginning of this post is very Illuminating as well.

Om Tat Sat

Insights Gained on the Kora (A Follow On Post to our last one).

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Namaste and greetings friends

The previous post on this blog was about the notion of Kora, or the circumambulation of a sacred site or object on foot as a kind of pilgrimage. If you missed it, you can find that post here.

While researching for that blog, I came across an old file in a forgotten folder which also touched on Kora as a topic. I’d forgotten all about it as it was really only a first draft of a proposed post that, at the time didn’t go any further.

Reading it again, I right away realized it was a great theme for its own post and would follow on quite nicely. So, before I share that with you, allow me a minute to set the context.

In early 2020 we had just arrived in a small outback town in central NSW. We’d planned our arrival to coincide with the onset of the very first lockdown put in effect as a response to the outbreak of Covid 19. Our hermitage remained there for about six months before that first (of several as it turned out, though we didn’t know it at the time) lockdown eased and we moved on.

As with that last post, this one features a sports ground, and my adoption of it for the purposes of my own circular pilgrimage practice.

Thank you for your patience

Across the road from the little apartment in which we took refuge a few months ago as fear of the Corona virus spread and travel was restricted, is a sports ground. In freer, safer times, they play cricket, and – in the winter – football there.

That ground, or rather the oval shaped fenceline surrounding it, has become a Kora for us. A Kora is a kind of pilgrimage in the form of a mindful and meditative Circumambulation.

Kora is a Tibetan word, but the concept of pilgrimages circling sacred sites is common to most religious traditions. I guess you might say, we’ve kind of adapted the practice to suit our purposes.

Anyway, a few days ago I noticed that markings had been painted on the grass: a set of giant squares and other lines. I realized that football must soon be returning, along with the reopening of cafes, restaurants, and so on in the town.

As I continued on my Kora that day, I began to notice that many leaves had been painted along with the grass. It occurred to me that these blue-hued leaves could be seen as a kind of symbol for at least one aspect of the current ‘crisis’ that I’d been thinking about already.

Since first adopting this ground as my own Kora, I’d often seen – and sometimes collected – leaves blown from neighbouring trees by winter winds. I’m always doing stuff like that. Sort of my way of connecting with nature.

Then, on the day in question, I saw the return of human activity to that grassy leaf-strewn space.

I make no comment here, no judgements about rights and wrongs. Life must go on. And with life, the cultural activities of all human communities must resume.

I simply point out that it seemed to me that blue paint on winter-blown leaves is an apt metaphor for the impacts that we, the human species, have on the world we live in.

Also, as you can see from my photo, that impact isn’t always ugly, or bad. In this case, I think it’s actually quite beautiful.

The other thing to say is (as I read on a sign taped to the fence on the same sports ground) please remember to social distance. (note: the pandemic is officially no longer with us, but when you think about it, it might be seen as a wise precaution at any time. There are always germs around waiting to spread!)

Oh okay, one more thing. In a time – in a world – where social distance has become a verb, remember that the only distance between any of us is purely physical and an invented mental construct. All life, despite seemingly unlimited names and forms, is one. There is no separation.

Peace and Love

Circling Sacred Sites is Good for You (Me)

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As a self-described Hermit Pilgrim, I aspire always to live a contemplative and secluded life, as far apart from wordly concerns as I can manage. At the same time, I am a pilgrim, in both the sense of the internal journey of the Self as I study and meditate, as well as in the world itself: I move from one living space to another – one temporary hermitage to another- as I feel directed or led.

In the last several years I’ve noticed how often I seem to find myself in one more temporary hermitage that ‘just happens’ to be located right next door or across the road from a sports-ground, or what’s often called ‘a local oval’.

At least three times in recent years, that I can recall. And it is so at the moment. This time the hermitage is in a suburb of a mid-size city (by Australian standards) that in reality is more a low-key and small seaside town on a peninsular.

Anyway, just as with those other occasions, I have been grateful for the oval across the road: It makes for an ideal Kora.

Kora is a Tibetan words that means the act of walking around or circumamabulating a sacred place or object.

A monk on the Kora around the home and temple of the Dalai Lama in the Indian Himalayas

Tibetan Buddhists do Kora as a form of pilgrimage and walking meditation. It is a devotional practice and it is said to have transformative powers.

Of course Buddhists are not alone in practising this kind of circumamabulation (from the Latin circum (around) and ambulare (to walk).): Muslims circle seven times around the Kaaba in Mecca as the final stage of Hajj .

Many religious traditions consider Mount Kailish in Tibet a sacred place and circling it on foot, even once, is considered by some to be the equivalant of one complete lifetime.

In south India there is another sacred hill called Mount Arunachala. Each year millions of pilgrims walk around its base, which takes a couple of days. In India, the word pradakshina is used to describe such circular acts of devotion and pilgrimage.

And the list goes on: as I said many if not most religious traditions have a practice of walking around sacred sites or places as acts of pilgrimage or devotion.

So, what has any of this have to do with me walking around local ovals or sports grounds and calling what I do a Kora? Well, my intentions are similar to those other pilgrims but perhaps more humble. Let me explain.

Not being a sports-oriented person (not into competition and team sports at all really) I can’t comment too much on the idea that a sportsground is sacred ground because of the sports played there.

I do acknowledge and understand how it is that so many people do in fact consider the games played there as sacred activity with winnings and losings and full of heroic deeds. This indeed makes these places sacred sites.

Then there is the fact that many such grounds are named in memory of local people who have been prominent in the community. And, as is the case with the oval over the road from the current hermitage, ovals do actually become sites of memory.

This one, called Lynn Oval hosts several memorials at its periphery: there are tributes to miners who have died in accidents in local mines.

And there is a lovely statue of a guide (service dog for people who have vision impairments) dog called Tessa who is famous in the area for helping to raise a lot of money for more guide dogs.

Lastly but, for me, probably the most significant ‘evidence’ for a local oval being sacred ground is that it, well it just is. Just as all ground is sacred. An affirmation borrowed from First Nations’ Peoples says it all very nicely:

We stand always on sacred ground and beneath sacred skies.

In other words, everthing, everytwhere is sacred. All the rest, the memorials, the games played, they are not what makes the ground sacred, they are the things that people layer onto the space as a way of acknowledging the inherent sacredness.

And that is how it is for me. It’s not me walking around the oval chanting mantra (or at other times ‘just thinking’) that makes it sacred ground, despite being sacred acts in their own right.

I mentioned earlier an alternative word for Kora, pradakshina. This comes from the Sanskrit for ‘to the right’, because traditionally the idea was to always circle the sacred site or object clockwise, so the sacred object remains on one’s right.

Obvioiusly there isn’t much to see on the middle of the oval as I walk around the boundary fence (it’s about 400 to 500 meters by the way). Mind you, the other day a flock of pigeons were feeding in the centre while I walked. Then, at another oval, in another town, there would often be a lone Ibis sitting almost in the centre. It’s all sacred.

This idea of centre has me realising that the whole point for me of walking around ovals chanting my mantra, is the reach my centre. The temple I’m circumamabulating is me; I’m the container so to speak, for the Consciousness which pervades and actually is all there is.

Peace and Love

Holy Wanderer: A Saddhu performs pradakshina around a shrine to Shiva in Rishikesh India

PS: I’ve written another post, also related to Kora. Please feel free to visit that post here

Truth Is (Reshared)

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Greetings. Just now as I scrolled my blog at random as I like to do from time to time, I came across a pair of posts from successive days almost exactly two years ago.

It was kind of neat rereading, so naturally I thought I would like to share them with you again.

Please enjoy

Peace and love

Truth Is

Chant the Name and Write a Blog Post!

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Even the biggest dream catcher won’t always catch the dreams

This morning I woke up restless, and extremely tired. It felt as if I hadn t slept at all, though I know I did. Who can say about these things? Perhaps dreams disturbed me or something.

Anyway, despite this grogginess/restlessness vibe, I resolved to get on with morning routines. And, in addition to breakfast and normal stuff, I set an intention to continue with my usual morning devotional practice.

So with that in mind (and a coffee in hand as an extra aid to wakefullness), I sat with that intention and in a mood of devotion.  As is my usual practice, I picked up my Bhagavad Gita.

Now, this particular edition has some pages in front and in the back that aren’t really a part of the main text. Over the years I’ve written things on these pages, and pasted in various pictures, prayers, and other things meaningful to me.

As I picked up the book, it fell open accidentally, by chance, at random, to the pages on which I had placed an image of Saraswati, as well as a page of repeated mantras to her. (I use the female personal pronouns because she is a female representation of the divine in particular aspects. More on this later).

Okay I thought: that’s a pretty clear message about where to go from here. I will chant Saraswati’s mantra for a while. Then I thought, there’s a really nice live recording of the mantra by Krishna Das. Do check it out, it’s very lovely, very meditative and soothing.

So, for about 30 minutes I chanted along with this beautiful renditon of  the mantra. Well, it’s a hymn really, a sacred song. And, now? How do I feel?

Awake! Wide awake, alert, ready to face the rest of the day. Inspired also, hence this quick post. No longer restless, well not as bad as I was anyway.

Oh, I should tell you a little about who I think Saraswati is, though of course if you click on the link on her name above, you’ll learn more.

For me, She is a personifcation, a representation, of the divine; the universal consciousness in its aspect of the arts and learning. Obviously, there’s a lot more to Saraswati than that, but for me, she is like a muse, a sort of mentor; She reminds me that art (and study which I have to get to today as well!) is an expression of all that is divine. Actually, art is the divine just as all things are.

I think that Saraswati has been busy with me this morning.  She has helped me to set down these words I share with you. Perhaps, this little story of my morning has reminded me that I can call on Her more often. One of my biggest aspirations, you see, is to share more with you here.

Oh, one last reminder: There is no such as thing as ‘accidentally’, or ‘by chance’ or ‘at random.

Peace

Aspire to a Balanced Life

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‘I pause to rest when I feel the need’.

Makes sense, don’t you think? It is a really excellent affirmation to give oneself isn’t it? A wise piece of advice also. And I agree with you: great advice, sensible, logical, very helpful for anyone and everyone. Unfortunately, it’s not something I can honestly tell you that I practise on any kind of regular basis. It’s more likely that I would have to admit to you that:

‘I am always hurrying to get things done, and until I do, there’s no rest. Doesn’t matter how I feel’.

And it doesn’t seem to matter whether I have a lot to do, or only a little – or even if there’s nothing needing my attention. Whatever the situation, you will catch me in a hurry, going as fast as I can to get whatever there is, done. ASAP.

Okay, I admit it: I am exaggerating slightly. But not by much. Always rushing, always ‘getting ahead of myself’, always in a hurry. It’s been a problem for, well, forever really.

And I know I’m not alone. The world – as in society, economics, education, and the rest – is in a never-ending race to do whatever they do, and to get it done as quickly as possible, regardless of the cost to the planet and all of us who live on Her.

And, obviously, we are all caught up in this ‘race’, in pretty much every area of our lives.

Whether it’s an exercise program we set for ourselves, or which has been forced upon on us by advertising, cultural shaming, false identification with our bodies. Or the intense and all-pervading pressure to be ‘more productive’ at work. Or the newest mobile app that will magically make even our off-work lives more productive and (supposedly) give us that extra edge in the marketplace (whatever that means).

And remember school? High school? College? The night classes you took for fun and relaxation? How many classes began with the teacher giving the following little speech:

‘Now, we can really take our time with this class/course/semester, and we will be able to take as many breaks as we like. We have plenty of time to cover all the material. So, sit back, relax, take your time and enjoy.’

Not many I’m guessing.

Now, as a hermit, you might think I lead a quiet life. And it’s true: I do. Relatively speaking that is. All of us are required to be constantly taking some kind of action in order to maintain life.

Just like everyone else I have to do whatever it takes to just be alive: Cooking, eating, cleaning, laundry, shopping, praying, meditating, relating to loved ones as well as other people I encounter.

Then there’s reading, studying, talking (way too much in my own case), thinking. Well, that’s probably enough to be getting on with, I think.

Despite my hermit life, all these and more I do. And for me, it’s always in a rush and hurry. Well, not always perhaps, but too often for my liking, and way too often for my mental health, peace of mind and for the calm, peaceful like, I aspire to.

Whatever our personal lifestyle, or way of living, we are all in the same boat, so to speak.

Fix your mind of truth and be free from the concerns of the material world.

So, what to do? How can we slow down, get some sort of equilibrium or balance in our lives? How do we stop the rush, the panic, the pressures that besiege us and sometimes overwhelm us?

Well, there’s the problem. I won’t say I have no idea. I can’t say I don’t know. But, and here’s the point, while I can tell you how I am trying to do.If you’ve read what I’ve told you already, you will realise that whatever I try only works sometimes. And a very few sometimes’s at that.

Mindfullness

I try all the time to make everything I do, even if it’s just walking down the street, or washing the dishes, a prayer. Which is really simply another way to say that I try to do everything mindfully.

Sounds really simple when I put it like this, but of course it’s not at all. It takes discipline (I want to talk about this a little more later on). It’s about focusing on how you are interacting with the world around you, and obviously this starts with being fully mindful in each moment as you take action in the world, whatever it might be.

Simplify.

Not easy, I know. Life is full of details and complications. It’s full of conflicting priorities, each with their own sense of urgency and importance. The simple advice is to do what you can. Once again, tackle all the things you have to do one step/thing at a time.

Did you notice the italics? Be alert to the old urgent vs important dichotomy: not everything is of equal importance, regardless of appearances. Equally, we have to discern a thing’s or action’s degree of urgency for ourselves. With obvious exceptions, most things aren’t as urgent or immediate as they are presented.

Minimise.

Sound familiar?

Listen carefully to the commands to buy, buy, buy, and do, do, do that we are constantly being bombarded with from all direction. Ask yourself one of the big self enquiry questions: Do I really need … ?

Related to this is the question of how much money we actually need to have a good life, support our families, and so on. No guru, teacher, book, or anything else can help with this one; we are all different and have our own unique and specific needs. Only you can know what is right for you.

Discipline.

I mentioned this aspect of the solution to bringing a calmer, slower, less pressured vibe of equilibrium to our lives. For me (self-discipline is what we’re talking about here) is not only about willpower, though of course, it’s an important part of the picture. A quote from Bhagavad Gita that I think points us in a helpful direction:

What does it mean, ‘fix your mind on truth’? While it is very often an extremely difficult thing to do, fixing your mind on truth simply means keeping your mind (and consequently your body and heart too) focused on what is actually real, important, and meaningful to you. It means staying focused on what truly resonates with you as the way you wish to live your life.

So hard is this for me to do, that I am engaged in an ongoing project (please forgive the productivity cult lingo) to keep focused on what is true and real to me. To be honest, while I’m pretty sure that it does get easier with practise, I will always be refocusing on my truth. As they say, it comes with the job description for all of us human beings.

Now, about the second half of that Bhagavad Gita quote. If we do manage to reach that stage where we are able to focus on the meaningful and important, the truth for us, will all our troubles, problems, pressures, commitments of all kinds, just magically go away? Can we eliminate completely ‘the concerns of the material world’?

Absolutely not. The only thing that will potentially cease is our constant state of  being stressed.

While the things we worry about now won’t disappear, the worry itself may lessen. Our abilities to function more effectively and happily in the world (in our family, our work, our own mind) will also improve. We really may become one of those people who always (or most of the time) take things in our stride.

But we should remember that the pressures, conflicts, health issues, the need to support ourselves and family, relationships with all their ups and downs, remain; they are part of the human condition; they are the natural order of things in this material world.

What we can do, is try as much as we can to control our minds, trying to remain focused on that which is true and meaningful to us.

Minimise, simplify as far as possible in all everything. We can focus on all that is true and meaningful in the life you are creating on an ongoing basis. And, of course, it is one considered and deliberate step at a time.

For Thoreau, going to live in the woods was the natural thing to do. It resonated with his soul and heart.

Of course going to live in the woods isn’t for everyone, but if it speaks to  you; if it is in tune with your own truth and you feel it would give your life meaning, then why not?

All of us have within us our own ‘going to the woods’ equivalent. It might be anything. Go find it! Rest there.

The last words of this post are the same as the first. Actually as I think about it now, I see more clearly that this entire post with all its words and thoughts, might be summed up very nicely by that one small affirmative statement. Well, I might add three more words of my own:

In all things, I pause to rest whenever I feel the need.
Peace and love from me to you.

It’s only words. Or is it?

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The other day, while listening to a talk by my teacher Swami Tadatmananda,  I was struck by something he said. Of course, being my teacher, there are many things that he says that have significance and that resonate with me. But these statements in particular found a home in me that day:

Words can’t get you there (ie realisation of our oneness with the Divine, God, Universal Consciousness, we may call it many things), but words can help you get rid of everything else.

Talking with my partner hermit this morning about this idea, I suddenly thought that for the vast majority of us there are only a given number of words used on a daily basis. And I think this would apply to whatever language we speak – even when you think of specialist groups like scientists, religious people, engineers, – any group.

I’m not talking here about whether me or you as an individual has a ‘wide’ vocabulary, or a ‘limited’ one; I’m just saying that there are only so many words we need to get by while living in our particular worlds.

And that thought led to a not so original idea that those words will be used to achieve all kinds of ends, including opposing goals and purposes.

In other words (no pun intended, I promise!), words may be used to attack and hurt others and ourselves; or in the relaying or writing of the news telling us (constantly and repetitively) all the bad things going on in the world; to express hate; to promote violence; in advertising for anything and everything; to threaten and dominate – have power over – other living beings or Earth herself.

Then, on the other hand, those exact same words can be used to heal others and ourselves; spread news about good things happening around us; in the prayers many of us utter every day; in the many holy scriptures and other sacred texts so many hold dear; to promote love and express love; to promote harmony and unity among peoples and with Earth and all her life; to empower ourselves and others to live well and to thrive.

So, where’s the difference? Well, I think there is a theme developing in this post: it’s going to be packed solid with obvious, even clichéd words and statements. What I’m getting at is this: Two very well worn clichés just popped into mind:

Sticks and stones might break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

And the other:

The pen (or any other means of communication) is mightier than the sword.

Behold the Mighty Pen

It seems to me that these two statements appear to be at odds with each other; kind of opposite ideas aren’t they? Well, clichés may be ‘hackneyed oft-repeated aphorisms’ (I read that definition somewhere ages ago), but I rather think that a great many clichés are merely truths passed down the ages that have been remembered and treasured precisely because they are true and have proven helpful.

Words can hurt; we have all experienced that truth for ourselves. Of course, for ‘enlightened ‘ people words might roll over them like, (forgive another cliché or two) like water off a duck’s back, or those words will go in one ear and out the other. But, I think most of us have a way to go before enlightenment, certianly it’ll be a rather high number of lifetimes before I’m even close.

Which means that before that day of enlightenment comes, words will continue to hurt. Or heal. All of us can think of many examples of words that can be used in so many ways, but let’s just take one example:

Power or powerful. In how many ways can we use that word? What does it mean if I say: ‘He’s a powerful politician’.?

Does it mean this politician is a dictator who forces people to do what he wants? Does he ban anyone who disagrees with him? Is he a believer in the myth that the people are all there to serve him? Does he raise taxes so he can live luxuriously? Does he make policies that keep people poor or hungry?

Or does it mean that this politician is a strong, good, and compassionate leader? Does he know how to empower people to move themselves and society forward? Is he sensitive to the needs of all the people he serves? Does he listen to the people and follow through on what they tell him? Does he do his best to ensure that nobody goes poor and hungry?

You probably get the point I think? Exactly the same words; two diametrically opposed meanings. Of course, we could all cite countless examples of this duality: same words, different meanings. And you know something? We all do it.

So, what’s the solution? How can we find words that don’t hurt? How are we to learn that our ‘pen’ (read voice, keyboard, paintbrush, camera, or any medium we use to ‘speak with’) is mightier? Well, until that aforementioned day of enlightenment is upon us, all we can do is practise; after all, practise makes perfect (sorry).

Okay then, how shall we practise? I can only tell you what I am trying to do myself. Focus on truth in all your actions, words, thoughts. Turn away, as your default response, from all that you know to be untrue. Develop your powers of discernment so you will know what is true and what isn’t.

And this requires that you remind yourself constantly that you already do know the difference. Your heart will tell you, so listen to it as well!

Does all this work. Yes. Maybe. Sometimes. But what I can say for sure is that practising this way of reconditioning your thoughts, words, and deeds so that they are all on the same page, (there I go again with the clichés again)  advances you ever so steadily on that road that leads to enlightenment, when we will know exactly what, when, and how to say what we need to say whenever we try to express ourselves in any given situation.

One Way to Look at Life

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Yes, it’s true: life is precious.
But gold? Silver?
And what about diamonds?
Something to think about.

Peace & love

The Road Rises Up:  A poem about journeying (Reshared with a note added)

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It’s a funny thing, but as soon as I start thinking about resharing older (let’s call them prior posts instead) all sorts of posts come up begging to be the next in line to be shared again.

Anyway, I’d sat down to write something on a quote I really like:

Forget all that and hit the road into exile.

FROM A LONG LOST DEEPLY BURIED NOTE-TAKING APP ON MY TABLET

But nothing was coming. Then suddenly I remembered: I’d already written (sort of, kind of, in a manner of speaking) about this topic, if not this particular quote.

Looking up the post, well it did its thing and said very clearly and in no uncertain terms, Post me!

So, here it is dear friends. I will let it speak for itself

Today I’d like to share a poem with you. I wrote it exactly a year ago, but it’s about a day many many years ago. At other places on this site I’ve mentioned that cliched but for me ever so real question: Am I running away from something or am I running towards something?

In one of those other places I joke about my answer: ‘Neither. I’m just a journey person’. Well, this poem began life as a story of the day I first met Jesus freaks as I hitchhiked on just one more random excursion.

Then it becomes at the same time a piece about running, or journeying towards. And, there’s more: it then speaks about the journey as the point of the journey; the movement is the thing

But the thing morphed into a rap about journey beginnings, or at least in the sense of my ongoing attempted, and until a lot of years later, futile escapes from the madness of family and circumstance. That’s the running away bit.

You see, there was something holy felt then, as now, about those seemingly random hitching trips (not that I would dream of hitching in these times). Somehow I knew the Road was the escape route from the growing madness and horror.

Of course I was only able to partially articulate this at that time, but I remember even at 17 (no, it was a year earlier when I’d made my first attempt. I’d forgotten about that) feeling a sort of specialness about the covering of new (for me) ground, the movement, then the arrival at new (for me) places, new towns and cities.

Much of this pilgrimming (for that is what it was) was done in solitude – except for interactions with drivers of course (one of whom was on the day in question one of the said Jesus Freaks) and other necessary people along the way.

I felt a sense of belonging when on the Road; a kind of being in place and in sync. A sense of belonging that I kept fucking up as I let the trickster ego with its taunting messages of fear, loneliness, greed for things and status, and the rest, take control of me and lead me on twisting and tricky roads back to madness.

And now, these 50 years later, I survey the damage done, the cost to self and others. Especially others. No use of course, to look back with wishful thoughts of what if things had been done differently, what if other choices had been made. Such is not truth, not real. Well, none of it’s real anyway is it? Samsara is all it is –  it’s all a sea of madness and illusion isn’t it?

Anyway, here is the poem. May it speak to you.
Peace

The Road Rises Up

I woke up that morning marooned in Albion
in a village of warriors, on a street, in a house,
going mad in a nest of madness
on an island of madness, in a sea of madness.
Escape, refuge, safety – waking thoughts.
Waking dreams. Looking for a way out.

The Road. The Road rose up in my mind.
The Road will save me. Not the shrink
the patriarch screamed I needed to see.
The Road was waiting; I found it waiting for me.
And my thumb in silent salutation and prayer
held aloft in supplication as I trudged on that seemingly straight but trickster road.

Welcome to the pilgrims’ way, the Road greeted me
as I trod ever more lightly
and Babylon’s chariots hurtled past me bound for far nowheres.
Or maybe somewheres.
All in the fast lanes and howling deceptively
of invitations and rejections, attractions and aversions.
Then – in time – an invitation proffered and accepted.
This pilgrim was on his way.