A Canticle for The Experiential

If it’s not experiential, it’s a borrowed belief.

Beliefs may be borrowed for a limited time on faith.

If a belief is not confirmed by one’s experience, return it.

If a belief is confirmed by one’s experience, burn it.

There’s no scientific data supporting

the almost pre-Copernican-like belief

that consciousness is

an epiphenomenon of the brain.

Simple awareness sees

that the entire universe is,

including all scientific data,

in, of, and by consciousness.

Any belief indicating

consciousness is an epiphenomenon

need never have been borrowed—

at least the sun appears to circle the earth.

But the earth circles the sun.

And the sun appears in consciousness.

And consciousness is witnessed by

this reflection of awareness.

Hail Goddess

The flower doesn’t grow itself. 

It takes a seed to raise the stem. 

Without the sovereign ground, 

how would the root appear? 

Water, water, everywhere, 

and who will taste its truth? 

Sunshine is our superwoman, 

fear our only kryptonite. 

All history belongs to her 

despite a battle’s latest lie. 

She’ll always win the war 

because she never has to fight. 

Hail Mary! Hail Parvati! 

All are always hailing love! 

Every flower in the floral 

circle of this wondrous world 

is singing in her laurels.

Ouroboric Samadhi

The yin and yang of snow coats the crazy 

wisdom of ten thousand branches 

and I feel the trees are energetic 

natural appendages of myself. 

This is revelation of a native kind. 

Verily the universe is my body 

and I am the eye of the universe. 

These words are what I see. 

The sky is lit. 

The space around me is a waterfall. 

The ground is opening to unveil 

a fearless dragon swallowing its tail. 

Yes, I am the eye of all 

and all is my intent to see myself. 

Holy alchemy of realization, 

with this poem, all disappears.

Nursery Instructions

Welcome to Conditionland!

Take your face and state your view;

Rather let us form them for you.

Never try to understand;

Fill that void instead with other

Substitutes that give you pleasure,

Never using thought to measure

Thought itself as its own mother.

Always fight for your belief

Even though it isn’t yours.

Close your windows! Close your doors!

Truth is nothing but a thief.

What remains when it takes all?

Who is left to smart and die?

Never question who am I!

Always fall for our free fall.

Being born in thought is being

Dead to being, blind to seeing

That you’re only guaranteeing

Never freeing your own being.

Thoughts like these will stop your thinking;

Stop them now and start your drinking.

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

I am the leafless river. 

I am the fountain on the brink. 

And when the wind is breathless 

and night has dropped the day 

and all its industry and play, 

I am the eagle eye reflecting 

deepness of the quiet moon. 

Awaken to this revelation! 

See its prophecy alight 

the water into soundless flames. 

Feel its photovoltaic inspiration 

wash against a thoughtless shore. 

And love the intuition of the trees 

dancing in the breeze of being 

all and nevermore.

School Time Images

I was shy at school and during recess stood alone, standing up against a chain link fence, while I watched the schoolyard buzzing with its games of tag or jumping rope or shouting, chanting, laughing, crying, talking. Inside I knew I didn’t have to be that way.

One day, weeks after classroom pictures had been taken, we received a captivating envelope. Inside, besides our five-by-sevens, eight-by-tens, and wallet sized individuals, there shone a wondrous sheet with all the separate photos of my classmates smiling through.

My mother cut the universal glossy into personal existent images and I played with them while sitting on the floor, pretending we were in that busy schoolyard and I was nothing but the center of attention, playing childhood games and being infinitely happy.

Although, there were those times just two of us, me and Joanne Kerry, secreted ourselves away and climbed the coffee table, hand-in-hand, or rather edge-to-edge, and rested by a plastic apple in an emerald crystal bowl, whispering chromatics of our love for love.

In that moment, I would disappear, both physically and descriptively. What remained is now transmitting clouded memories some fifty-four years later—as if I never aged. In truth I see that consciousness was never born, and life is just this lesson trying to be learned.

Resting in Haiku

see through thought

let That do

yeah! yeah! yeah!

An Open Sonnet to the Perfect Future

The polar vortex visited last week. 

It downed three winter lagers while discussing 

consciousness with a Chinese atheist 

who worshipped at the feet of a perfect future. 

She shall have disbelieved her universe! 

Channeling deep sleep, the Weather Channel 

had woken us up to a constellation far 

below our tender surface. Her fame is unknown. 

I will have changed my name if I were her. 

All were grateful that Thanksgiving passes 

once a year. To see that science rests 

within the omnipotence of being is 

distressing to the system. Everything 

beclouded will have been always open sky.

Nisargadatta on Words

Questioner: As I listen to you I find that it is useless to ask you questions. Whatever the question, you invariably turn it upon itself and bring me to the basic fact that I am living in an illusion of my own making and that reality is inexpressible in words. Words merely add to the confusion and the only wise course is the silent search within.

Maharaj: After all, it is the mind that creates illusion and it is the mind that gets free of it. Words may aggravate illusion, words may also help dispel it. There is nothing wrong in repeating the same truth again and again until it becomes reality. Mother's work is not over with the birth of the child. She feeds it day after day, year after year until it needs her no longer. People need hearing words, until facts speak to them louder than words.

Q: So we are children to be fed on words?

M: As long as you give importance to words, you are children.

Q: All right, then be our mother.

M: Where was the child before it was born? Was it not with the mother? Because it was already with the mother it could be born.

Q: Surely, the mother did not carry the child when she was a child herself.

M: Potentially, she was the mother. Go beyond the illusion of time.

Q: Your answer is always the same. A kind of clockwork which strikes the same hours again and again.

M: It can not be helped. Just like the one sun is reflected in a billion dew drops, so is the timeless endlessly repeated. When l repeat: 'I am, I am', I merely assert and reassert an ever-present fact. You get tired of my words because you do not see the living truth behind them. Contact it and you will find the full meaning of words and of silence—both.

Turning to Be

The forms awareness deems to take 

appear to me in space and time 

but that’s a prevalent mistake, 

ridiculous, when my sublime 

nature is seen as here and now 

and all of me I disavow 

as immaterial to one 

spontaneous intent to know 

myself. It is as if the sun 

shone down upon itself to grow 

an oak which turns a leaf to see 

inside the sun it is to be.