May 23, 2005
Tonight I sit under the yellow light of a ceiling fan, my clothes scattered childishly ‘cross the floor, my burgundy blinds shutting out solar/lunar love affairs. I am blocking out the full moon on this May midnight. When I see it I feel love, shock and desire. It is a perfect symbol of unfettered inspiration, fever as life. I’'m in a time, place and body where I daily live an existence aimed at practicality and empty routine; a static existence that replaces feeling and excitement with servitude, fear and insecurity. This ideal full moon taunts me and tells me how I know too much of reality. The full moon reminds me that the nature of my realistic and maturing retardation encourages the ugliest attributes of a modern and aimless humanity to swell into my being. Strife/cheap reward. I try in this world to accept my placement; I’'m paid to smile at the soulless and soulful yet I smile not with sincerity, -I am not convincing enough in this world full of satisfied dead men. Lacking the proper enthusiasm I am left to dream on the full moon, of a glorified world filled with perfect symbols conceived by God, to fall in love with Wessexian heroines that have never breathed this physical air, and to relish artistic conceptions of stillborn art which will never see it's tactile facsimile. And when I am forced to open my eyes I feel degraded by this lone unsympathetic reality. Art and symbol are inspiration, conception, ideal, and pre-existence, they are perfection and perfection is truth. Rarely do I see truth in reality.
4 comments:
Awesome piece, in the truest meaning of awesome. I am feeling a similar irritability lately. It seems to come from both my own discouragement with myself, as well as being discouraged with the outside world.
For instance, I think cars and their impatient drivers are driving me the most insane. I know how easily I can be one of them behind the wheel again, as I used to have the same go-go-go built in me. The irony is that the small amount of time that is saved, if there is any, is most likely not truly used to the person's full potential. Just more minutes to rush and waste through. In short, I feel that cars are violence--at least bigger city roadways and artificial arterials. Power to the humble pedestrian and damn these machines.
But, a question is left to the reader at the end of your piece. First, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that you are using the word "reality" to describe the current relative world of humanity, whereas some writers use the same word to describe absolute truth. So, the question would be: Is it our own faults for not seeing the truth behind the current reality? Or is this current worldly reality blurring away the truth from us? Do we need pure nature to quiet ourselves into illumination? Or should we be able to see the still truth within the fast-paced dog-eat-dogma?
Just questions my friend...just questions...but I share your frustration with ourselves and others. And perhaps the full moon does heighten this frustration for us.
This is my latest favourite quote since I think it might sum up a continual priority through our whole lives:
"So can we...live in such a way that today is all-important? That means we have to become extraordinarily alert to our reactions, to our confusion--work like fury on ourselves. That is the only thing we can do apparently."
-J. Krishnamurti, 1981
-JY
http://www.spiritwalk.org/krishanmurti-meet-life.htm
J, I would say yeah, it is our fault for being where we are, by we I mean mankind, individual and species. We’ve fallen from grace (grace being a simpler time when man lived for necessity and love), we’ve lost much art and sanctity and almost all of it is through the pursuit of rendered knowledge; this vanity of knowing—complete illusion. This life’s many dogmas you and I both know are hard to wade through so you might say, surely we are not at fault living in unjust times, full of impenetrable dogmas and other insurmountable obstacles of “truth”, but the truth is it is a fault, not necessarily a fault as in some one thing you can BLAME or attribute as being the casual original, but it is probably a “fault” in the broader sense; as in the dictionary definition: “Something that impairs or detracts from physical perfection; a defect.” I think that this ‘fault’ would be almost innate at this point and I would say it’s a weakness that comes from mankind’s inability to balance ambition with caring. I think truth is without birth, timeless and perfect and only possibly conveyed through humble discussion, miracle or art(symbol), it is truly holy. And best of all only available to us through a striving for humility as opposed to most strivings which are vainglorious and based on actual progression. “Reality” as I understand it is man-made, at times desirable but almost always disappointing, reality is often steeped in material and worthless ambition.
I guess the reason why the full-moon arouses me so is because it is so symbolic, so mythical and such a great emblem of truth. Man stands on this planet so very sure we know all there is to know about something as mighty as the moon; we have already put a ‘check’ beside the box, as if we’ve nothing more to know about it; as if knowing it’s chemical composition is more important than the mysterious reason it exists. It shines on, not for our eyes to see but just because, and because we’ll never know why… This is but one of infinite examples of the limitless truth beyond our very limited reality.
When you ask if we need pure nature to quiet ourselves into illumination, I think it helps, but the kind of illumination I’m talking about would almost be a regression in the eyes of others. I honestly don’t like to think of illumination in terms of any linear flow or progression but if I had to guess I would say that man has, through the progression of time, fallen further from nature, with nature being “truth” incognito (the disguise is it’s own tactility)
The one thing I think we disagree on is you see truth as something that is attainable as in something that through practise or instruction can be conceptualized within the mind; something that is once attained can be taught to others and harnessed by man. Whereas I see truth as something that needn’t be sought as the very act of seeking blinds the seeker through the cloud of ambition. Nature is beyond our brain’s conception. Nature/Truth is infinite and therefore unobtainable. Through the beauty of God/symbol (art, thought, and nature)you can see murmurs and hints and slivers, yet they will only come fleetingly and most usually pay no mind to man’s harkening.
Thanks for your thoughts and comments.
To the RJB, from the JBMY, we could probably go on for a long time on this ever-expanding conversation, and I think we should and will continue on whether it be within this thread, other threads, or in person.
I agree with most of what you said, if not all of it mostly(?!). Your feelings on the moon seem to hit it bang on. And I agree and love this: "nature being “truth” incognito (the disguise is it’s own tactility)."
I would say that nature does indicate much truth, and hints at absolute truth, but I think it's important to keep in mind that it is still of the relative world.
Your last paragraph:
"The one thing I think we disagree on is you see truth as something that is attainable as in something that through practise or instruction can be conceptualized within the mind; something that is once attained can be taught to others and harnessed by man. Whereas I see truth as something that needn’t be sought as the very act of seeking blinds the seeker through the cloud of ambition. Nature is beyond our brain’s conception. Nature/Truth is infinite and therefore unobtainable. Through the beauty of God/symbol (art, thought, and nature)you can see murmurs and hints and slivers, yet they will only come fleetingly and most usually pay no mind to man’s harkening."
I think this becomes quite subtle here. I do think that truth is attainable in the form of wisdom, but only think it can be taught to another up to a certain point. The door can be pointed out but the man must open the door for himself and actually walk through it himself.
And I think there are different levels of wisdom, with no end to the expansion of consciousness, but I think this evolution takes place over lifetimes. But each lifetime within itself carries enough mini-lifetimes to worry about. I think one of the keys to opening the door to higher consciousness is the stillness and non-ambition that you mention.
And this is where I feel a disciplined moment-to-moment observing consciousness is where the light of the soul is allowed to pour in its truth and timelessness. I would say the amount that the soul is allowed to pour its light into the personality equals the amount of truth or consciousness-awareness-sensitivity one feels. Does a disciplined mind equal an ambitious mind? If the mind has the ambition to remain non-ambitious, then I think that explains a struggle is occurring. But the true silent mind is not ambitious at all, so the non-ambition would come naturally without forcing. So maybe "discipline" is the wrong word to use, but there seems to be some kind of quiet, still, observing mind (the soul itself perhaps?) that is beyond language and words in thought. It's always there so that we can be with it more entirely as soon as we choose to.
I just posted on the PG site a couple of poems that I wrote back on Salt Spring Island, in where I tried to express this same thing.
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