Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Musings on one Hermit's life & world

Sounds and Vibrations

Posted on April 17, 2025 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Today’s post opens with what I think is called an oxymoron (funny word that)

No need to repeat here that I am a hermit; there you go, I repeated it, but it’s true nonetheless: I am a hermit. The oxymoron bit comes in when I make another obvious statement to the effect of, as a hermit I very much prefer to spend the vast majority of my time right here where I am right now: in our hermitage.

This has become even more the case since our community decided to ‘settle down’ for a while in the one spot.

Obviously, just like everyone else, we have shopping and other chores that need to be done. Then there’s the occasional visit to the Doctor, and even the dreaded dentist, that will call me away from my safe-haven.

And that’s even before I mention walking for fresh air, exercise, and simple enjoyment. Or pursuing my Contemplative Photography practise. Both activities take me out and about, but usually not too far or for too long, from the Hermitage.

In any case, both these welcome (and absolutely necessary) pastimes have me mostly on my own, being quiet with heart, mind, and eyes open, or simply contemplating ‘stuff’.

No, it’s nore the occasions when I’m having to interact with people, or when there are crowds. Some might call me over-sensitive, but that label would only apply on my outgoing and gregarious days.

While that was intended as a little ironic humour, I must insist (internal editor speaking here) that I add that oftentimes said outgoingness and gregarious demeanor is an act, a cover for anxiety, and usually ends up making me feel worse anyway.

Although I guess you could also say that I’m allergic to the world and its ways, there are the occasional times when I want to, not so much ‘be around people’, as feeling the need to be somewhere where some life is going on around me. Not hectic life, as I’ve said, more like people going quietly about their business, doggies walking and playing with their humans, maybe people sitting chatting to friends. I guess you know the kind of thing.

This Mystic Tree stands for all the Tree People

The hermit gods blessed us in placing us in a hermitage which we love more and more, literally five minutes walk to a low-key, friendly indoor/outdoor café overlooking the village green with it’s big tree in the middle, and its nice lawns where the above-mentioned not so hectic life with it’s chatting, sitting, and relaxing people, and its doggies leading their humans in games and walks goes on. The coffee is okay too.

Except. People can be friendly, which in itself ,of course, is a lovely lovely thing, but as I’ve been telling you, I’m not really very good with people in those kinds of situations. Keep a low profile, is my ongoing advice to me.

The poem I share today was composed as I sat in the sun on a recent visit to that coffee shop. This visit prompted me to try to describe something – in poetic form and in ‘real time’ – of what I’ve been sharing with you here. No, what it actually describes is my strategy on that occasion for keeping said low profile.

This poem also holds a timely reminder that arrived with, what I can only think of as divinely inspired timing.

SOUNDS AND VIBRATIONS

My eyes are cast down – not downcast.
The brim of my hat pulled low.
As good, I hope,
as a Do Not Disturb sign.

For a hermit, out of his cell,
the cell must be reconstructed.
He is his cell.
Eyes focused on these words revealed;
hat brim, the walls.

I never forget, but just in case!

A chime resounds, but it does not disturb,
for I know for what it tolls:
Chant Hare Krishna, it calls to me.
So, these words must conclude;
words of praise now commence.

Hare Krishna.

God is My All: A Reaching Out, a Rap on time, & a (sort of) unrelated poem

Posted on July 14, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Namaste and Welcome to you.

I can’t remember when I wrote my last post. And of course it isn’t relevant at all is it? I mean to say that in the contemplative life, time sometimes seems to take on some other kind of character.

Or at least I should say that one’s perception of the passage of time shifts; nothing unusal there I hear you say, and of course you’re right. Just thinking out loud I suppose.

For me, having a right perception of time is an important aspect of my Sadhana, my practice: yes, it’s true: time is seen to fly, or it is frustratingly felt to drag. But my aspiration is to see time as simply a human construction that we use to limit, structure, bind, define, and place all kinds of restrictions on our lives.

Which for me, simply means that there is only presence or Presence; only the ongoing continous moment (what we often call The Now). Easier said than done mind!

Swami Ramdas (known as Papa to his followers)

In any case, here I am, just where God would have me be. Feeling strongly to reach out to you, I remember the poem (it’s not really about time in the sense we’re discussing it so far) that emerged the other day after reading a quote from Swami Ramdas that seemed to be an answer to some thoughts I’d been having.

I’m grateul for this, all of this. And for you too, the reader of these musings offered with humility and thanks.

Peace and love from me to you.

GOD IS MY ALL

Thinking thoughts
as if battered by demons.
Memories arising of my own evil deeds, selfish and cruel.
Right away I turn to God:
God is my all;
Hare Krishna

Forego repentance,
relinquish regrets;
you are filled with God,
the supreme essence of life.
God is my all;
Hare Krishna.

Through Papa Ramdas
I hear the Universe speak:
Forgiveness is from God;
and it has been granted.
God is my all;
Hare Krishna.

Broken Hill, Australia
9 July 2022

Am I Here & Now or There & Then?

Posted on April 21, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

One week today and I will be there. In other words, this time next week at this time I will have arrived in the desert city of Broken Hill. Almost in the heart of the continent and right in the middle of the Outback. In fact they call that whole area The Big Red after the colour of its tens of thousands of square kilometres of desert sands.

It’s about 1500 kilometres from the Pacific Coast where I am right now. I’d like to write about the ‘call’ to the desert, which I am finally answering, but maybe I’ll get to that in another post.

Right now I only want to say how excited I am to be going. A bit anxious too (I’ve been there before, but still …), and plain and simple looking forward to getting there.

Acturally, to be perfectly clear about it: I can’t wait to be there. But, you see, herein lies the problem: I am so keen to get there that I’m feeling as if I am no longer here. I am not present; I am not living in the moment and in the place I’m in (which I love by the way, the place I mean).

I don’t mean to say that I am some sort of Buddha who is usually fully present in each moment; or who is serene and calm when he knows change is coming. Any reader of this blog will tell you that presence isn’t necessarily my greatest strength.

But, I must say that lately I have improved (slightly) my living in the moment, being here and now, way of living. It’s just that I’ve been longing for this particular change (and all that I anticipate will come with it) so much that I just can’t help myself.

Did I mention already that this is a problem for me? Well, yes, I did, and it is. I prefer very much to be where I am and when I am and fully in the flow of the ongoing present.

Of course there is nothing wrong with wanting something to happen. The problem arises when one is so anxious for whatever it is to happen, that what’s happening here and now ceases to be where one is at—in other words: the trouble is that I stop being in the present.

Buddha taught what are called The Four Noble Truths. (which pretty much form the core of Buddhist teachings) The second of these Truths says that attachment is the cause of suffering. Suffering here means anxiety, worry, regret, fear; all those kinds of things. Whenever we say something like, ‘I can’t wait to…’, then it is a sure sign we are attached to that want or desire.

By the way, the First Noble Truth is: Life is suffering. Suffering, The Buddha taught, is simply the price of being alive. We get hungry, we are conscious of pain (in all its guises), we grieve; we grow old; we get sick; and we die.

But, right now, I want to talk more about Noble Truths three and four. Number three says that suffering can be overcome. Nice clean, clear, and not to mention, succinct little statement. Of course, it’s easy for him to say isn’t it? He is Buddha after all.

Perfectly reasonable reaction from us suffering humans. But there is hope and we will find that in Noble Truth number four which gives us the how to overcome suffering. There are quite a few ways to put this Truth into words, but the one I like best says:

The way to overcome suffering is to sit.

What? Sit? Yes, sit. Be still; stop moving. Of course if we relate this Truth to my little dilemma for wanting to so badly to be somewhere else that I’m not able to be where I am now, we can expand this Truth to something like this:

Focus your full attention on what you are doing now, and where you are now as well. As much as you can, be open to change, but be less attached to the nature or timing of that change. After all, you can make all the plans you like, but who knows what’s really going to happen—you won’t know that till it actually happens.

So, that’s what I am trying to do. Instead of saying stuff like ‘I wish I could go sooner’, or ‘it’s only x days till I go’ (yes I know, that’s what I said way up there at the top of the post), I am going to ask myself, ‘What am I doing now?’, and I plan to look around me, and engage more with the reality of this moment. And try hard to realise the ongoingness of that everlasting moment.

As Ram Dass said,

Be Here Now.

Hey, that’s a great mantra isn’t it? Chanting it whenever I start getting out of the here and now mode, might just put me back there again. I mean here—and now. You know what I mean!

Love and blessings from me to you

Paul

You Can’t Chase Happiness: You Can Only Be Happy

Posted on April 14, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Sitting down just now at the keyboard (actually to be honest it was 30 minutes ago) I thought I had an idea for a blog post. But, sure enough, the moment I opened a new document, fingers poised on the keys, it went. As in vanished from my mind, disappeared. And what remnant that was left seemed to be taunting me with ‘Why on Earth did you ever think this was a good idea?’

So, what do you think this hermit pilgrim, living the serene monkish life who goes on and on about presence did? Relaxed my poised fingers, closed my eyes, and whispered my mantra as I waited for inspiration to revisit?

Hardly. What I actually did was begin having unhappy thoughts, frustration boiling up: I had really been looking forward to writing that post, and now it’s gone. And all that’s left is this annoying frustration and growing desperation to do something.

Nevertheless, I did in the end manage to calm myself at least a little. I just stopped. Took my hands off the keyboard and just sat. Just sitting is a go to strategy for me as you know.

Thoughts emerged, wandered around my mind, crashed together, one pushing another out of the way.

‘Just typical,’ one of those thoughts ran. ‘I try to do something to make me happy and nothing happens except I make myself miserable’. Next thought: don’t I have a quote somewhere about this? Sure enough, there it was, at the other end of a search of my quote files (I’ve got lots!).

You do not become happy by pursuing happiness. You become happy by living a life that means something.

Then a quick online search revealed literally dozens of articles, books, similar quotes, podcasts, on and on, telling me the exact same thing. I didn’t know where to start, so I just closed the searches after scanning a few headlines, then sat thinking for a bit on my own, at the keyboard yes, but not poised. More like, well just thinking.

I read somewhere a long time ago that some say the word happiness comes from the verb to happen. Or put another way, happiness is living life so that we are in touch with what’s happening, when it’s happening.

Have you ever noticed that the happiest, most content people are often those who simply get on with whatever life puts before them? Whether it looks to be good or bad?

It seems to me that the pursuit of happiness has become so much more than a lofty turn of phrase; its become an almost obligatory activity to fill ones life with. All this despite those many dozens of articles etc advising against it. (Just as an aside: This says to me that we are swamped by so much information that we hardly have time, energy, or mental space to turn most of that information into knowledge we can use)

So. How do we get past this obligation? How do we get back in touch with what’s happening right now? How do we just get happy from what happens? And, then, how do we get to live a life that means something?

Let me say that I can’t give you the answers: what is meaningful to me might not be for you and vice versa. But the process is the same for us all. And it is this: ask the questions (the ones above).

It’s that simple. It is enough to ask the questions. We don’t have to worry about the answers. The answers will come when the time’s right; its just that sometimes we don’t always notice their arrival. They sort of sneak up on us!

Whatever answers we come up with, we need to remember that living life fully means living each moment, each thing that happens, as it happens. It means not being too concerned about what will happen next week or in five minutes time.

This doesn’t mean we don’t make plans or think about the consequences of our actions. In fact just the opposite is true: it is by living fully in the moment that we best prepare for the future precisely because the moment is not something that comes and is gone: it’s a flowing thing. The moment is continuous always. No past present future (well except when you have to write stuff, then there’s grammar) Only now.

So, thinking about all this I decided: don’t worry. If no idea for a blog post works, then that’s just what’s happening. Be happy, be content with that, and just move with the ever-flowing moment.

And I’m going to try to remember that everything I do, no matter how mundane it seems, has its own meaning. There’s no rush to get onto some mythical ‘next thing’. Meanwhile, blog post ideas come when they’re ready, not because I’m chasing them.

peace

Just For Today

Posted on April 13, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

There is a song by George Harrison that I like very much. Actually there are many songs of his that mean a great deal to me. He’s been a kind of mentor or teacher for me since the early 70s. But, having said that, there is something about Just for Today that really does resonate deeply within me. It’s not even one of his ‘biggies’, and was released in 1987 on the album Cloud Nine

In fact, if you read the lyrics of the song. Or even better, listen to George actually doing the song himself, you’ll most likely agree that this is more than a song. This is a refrain, a plea, even a prayer. No ordinary pop song anyway.

If just (for) today
I could try to live through this day only
Not deal with all life’s problems
Just for today

Then, the other verse (there are only two):

If just for tonight
I could feel not sad and lonely
Not be my own life’s problems
Just for one night

How many times have I made these same pleas? I don’t think I’d be able to count them. Of course I’d guess we all have at some time or other (or even quite often, all the time, every day, ahhhhh!!!!!!) wished or prayed for the problems (whatever they may be) to just go away, even for just a day. No, not even a whole day. How about just for a few minutes?

So, I’m not alone then. Still, it’s no consolation is it, to know that we all go through the same wishful thinking to be rid of the same or similar problems? I think, though, in this song George has given us a clue to what we can do to bring ourselves a little more into the present when it comes to the angst we weigh ourselves down with over ‘all life’s problems’.

And actually, he’s suggesting not that we focus fully on the present moment, the micro if you like, which can be tricky at the best of times. He’s given us a bit of a an easier task: Just look at this day only. Perhaps we can better look at a whole day than this ‘moment’ or ‘second’. A day is sort of a macro moment, a bit easier to get hold of.

But, that last little question, about always me being my own life’s problem, that’s what I really try to get to grips with. I am my own life’s problem. The problem is not the family I was born into. It’s not the less than idyllic childhood I endured. It’s not even the bullies I seem to have attracted to myself over many years in far-off school days.

The problem is not even the anxiety that I seem to have been born with, or that’s evolved over time. Nature vs nurture?

And I can’t even say that the problem is the kinds of choices I’ve made about life, work, thinking, and all the rest, over the years.

No. None of this. The problem is me. And, let’s get really trippy here: the problem isn’t even me. It’s the physical manifestation that thinks it’s me and which exists in relationship to the physical world.

So, who is the real me? Who am I? Ah, well, these are the really big questions. Asking these questions is called Self Enquiry. And I think it’s helping me.

Whenever one of those life’s problems, or anxieties pops up I try to remember to ask: ‘To whom is this feeling/thought/memory occuring?’ That answer is (obviously) to me. And then I ask, ‘Who is this me? Who am I?’ Then, for the minutest of tiny moments, it all stops. Sometimes.

You see, I’m not really able to answer that Who am I question. The best I can come up with is a never-ending list of who I’m not, or what I’m not. It’s called Neti Neti: not this, not that. So, if I keep returning to who am I every time one of those ‘I’m not …’ comes up, what happens?

Well, in theory, nothing. The idea is that asking Who am I stops the mind. It can’t answer. If a mind can’t answer, there can be no thought. And if there is no thought, then mind ceases to exist. (I’m not talking of brain here, but mind. It seems to me that the mind has no existence as a distinct entity of its own. It is more what we could say a ‘place’ that comes into being when thought happens. No thought, no mind.)

This cessation of thought is only a momentary thing. Thoughts soon come barging back (it also seems to me that while mind might not actually exist, it has a way of making its presence known in no uncertain terms). One thing I try to remember that causes me no end of extra thinking, is the fact that if we are not having a thought, then we can’t ever know it. You can’t have a conscious thought that says ‘hey, I’m not thinking now’

I see this Self Enquiry as a way (in a long term, lifetime kind of way) to rid myself of my incessant thinking and the confused (confusing too) and useless thoughts that arise all the time. For me it is, in a sense, a way to become mindless.

In that moment, when thought ceases, there is no pain. There are no questions, and there is no anxiety. There is no dread; no hope even. Basically you can say there is nothing for that tiny moment.

And that’s me, the real me. In that little moment (who can measure the length of a moment?), there is presence, as in I (the real I) am present, right here, right now.

Actually there is no time, as we measure it in the world, in that little moment (or whatever we choose to call it). Perhaps it’s more accurate to call it a state of being.

And it’s a state I’d like to be in more often. Not, as I say, that I’d know I was in it. Only by what you might call the spin-off effects of more calm, more clarity, less anxiety, all that sort of thing. In a way I would call that a state of grace.

All I can say is that it is exactly where and when and how I want to be.

Just for today.

Walk In The Waters of Life

Posted on April 2, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Since I launched this blog (a whole month and a bit ago already), I’ve had an idea for a post. A short, spontaneous, chatty but informative little piece on my favourite name and form of the Divine Feminine (often referred to as the Goddess): Saraswati.

Well, as the keenly observant among you will have noticed, no such post has appeared. Procrastination in overdrive you might say. Or perhaps it was that the Goddess just wasn’t keen on me doing the post about her?

You see, I did some research, made a ton of notes, and discovered all kinds of fascinating things and I just felt I wanted to share what I’d learned. Somehow, though, the idea didn’t go any further. I’ve thought about it from time to time, but still, nothing has come. Then, a couple of days ago, I came across my notes and reread what I’d discovered.

Now, here’s a key moment: as I reread those notes, I thought (paraphrasing here), ‘I really must post this. It’s all so fascinating and would interest a lot of people and even be helpful.’ Something like that anyway. Yet, still, it is not written.

So, despite my notes seemingly begging for my attention, I guess that maybe it’s not the time. Now my notes are safely tucked into a few nice little folders within a larger folder somewhere in the depths of my harddrive.

All that struggle; all that thinking and fretting over what was supposed to be a short, spontaneous couple of hundred words on a subject I love. Still, the episode has got me thinking about intuition and how it can disguise itself – with our help – as procrastination. And vice versa.

Yes, I know, obvious question: how can we ever know the difference? When are we inventing all kinds of reasons for putting something off, and when is it really intuition trying to guide us?

Well, it’s complicated. As creatures able to reason, we are always ready to come up with arguments for and against, to think endlessly and agonize over the smallest and most trivial details while ignoring the big stuff. Really, in my case that’s all there is to it: I just think too much.

Sticking to the Saraswati blog post episode (a catchy title don’t you think? Watch out for a post headed up ‘The Saraswati Blog Post Episode‘), I don’t recall why I didn’t just get right to writing it. It might have been any number of things: a perceived lack of time; a promise to self to ‘give it some more thought’; a resistance to the actual ‘labour’ required. Who knows?

Or, was it more that, while the idea was a good one, I just wasn’t feeling it? Maybe the timing just wasn’t right? The problem is that sometimes an intuition comes in a flash of knowing – with a capital K – that you can’t possibly miss.

Then, other times, it creeps up so slowly and quietly that it gets drowned out and ignored as our monkey mind takes over with its endless arguments for and against, pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages,

The lesson I was given here was this: What is going to get done, will get done; what is not going to get done, won’t. Sounds simple really, but so often we make it more complicated with our overthinking, our coming up with excuses. We procrastinate.

Then, at other times, we just dive in the deep end, flowing with the intuition. It may be right or it may be wrong, but it’s done. Actually, I am trying to realise that there is no right or wrong about a decision made: it just is as it is. Easy to type, hard to do.

Flowing. That’s a good word actually. Saraswati, along with many other characteristics, embodies flow. As in the flow of the river of life. She’s the Goddess of all things creative as well as any activity that helps one to discover the essence of self.

So, flash or gradual realisation; right or wrong; left or right, be the river: flow with what happens or doesn’t happen. Don’t fret about the twists and turns, the ebb and flow of tides, the rocks in the stream that force us to flow around or over, or to change direction completely. In 1946 the poet Jorge Luis Borges wrote an essay about time. In that essay, among other things he says:

Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river (emphasis is mine)
Jean Luis Borges A New Refutation of Time 1946

Reading that quote reminded me of a song that I’ve been humming on and off for a very very long time (hint: I saw the movie when it first came out).

The river flows, it flows to the sea.
Wherever that river goes, that’s where I want to be.
Flow river flow.

Peace from me to you.

PS: Thanks to my memory for giving me these lyrics from The Ballad of Easy Rider. Or was it actually Saraswati whispering in my ear?