IT

the ultimate conundrum

 

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893
(OMG – another think coming!)

 

Contemplating the savage wisdom of one of my major mindshifters…

 

If you can forget it or remember it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can experience it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can know it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can be it, it is not you therefore discard it.

 

… I find myself scribbling some lines that say pretty much the same thing, but employ some of the more common jargon spinning around the contemporary seeker’s scene:

If you can surrender to it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can invite it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can activate it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can practice it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can lean into it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can rest in it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can embody it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can point to it, it is not you therefore discard it.

If you can master it, it is not you therefore discard it.

 

If you think you can discard anything,

you’ve got another think coming.

 

 

It cannot be invited; it is quietly present when you are absent.

 

The opening words are from Nisargadatta Maharaj. I have heard that when the realised teacher sees the efforts of the student towards their ’emptying’, they are filled with delight. Niz was not known for his patience with fools; would my application of some of the common lingo that shows up in the spiritual circus these days get his nod? Thank god it doesn’t matter.

The final words are not a quote, but my paraphrasing of the way my teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti would address the ultimate conundrum.

The image needs no introduction: Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893 – I am solely responsible for the sub-title, “OMG, another think coming!”

For those who might not be familiar with colloquial English usage:
“Another think coming” is the original form of the colloquial phrase aimed at someone who has a mistaken view. It comes from the old comical expression, “If that’s what you think, you’ve got another think coming.”

 

memo from IT to ITself

 

IT is not understood until IT is forgotten

 

IT is not understood
until IT is forgotten.

When IT is forgotten
IT can express ITself.

When IT expresses ITself
you won’t recognise IT.

If you think you recognise IT
you are mistaken.

Realising you are mistaken
about everything

 

cracks open

 &

deconstructs

 

your many-layered
me-isphere

revealing IT to ITself

perfectly.

 

“IT” in this context = reality, big R.
This post might read like a madwoman’s rant, but those who have free-fallen into Unknowing will simply smile at the play of paradox.
Such is IT’s way.

Image sourced from Facebook, where credit was not given. Please advise if it’s yours and an appropriate link will be added.

can you, do you, live this savage wisdom?

 

impossible! see

this ultimate knowingness
isn’t a teaching, a path, a doctrine
one can ‘live’ or embody

(although the earnest peddlers
of nonduality apps
would love you to buy the notion)

you can’t “live this savage wisdom”

it’s what’s living you

and not just when you’re clear and angelic
oh no
it’s living you when you’re a mess: lost, confused, angry,
seducing and story-telling

its play is infinite

it has no preferences;
it loves all that it creates and beholds

and because You and It are inseparable
your recognition of this
is ITs total fulfillment

it’s how IT gets its jollies!

 

"It's how it gets its jollies!"

 

(c’mon, wake up, don’t be a party-pooper!)

 

Uncredited image found in an archive on my hard drive and played with in Photoshop. Please contact me if you recognize it as your work and I’ll add your name.

 

noname’s lament

358

a Very Dear someone-I-know
likes to be called ‘I Am’
he says it’s the most powerful name
one can adopt
(the masters told him so)

 .

I tease him and tell him to call me
‘I’m Not’

 .

he’s unamused; he’s very earnest about
his spiritual status and frequently
sends me to Coventry
for my irreverence

 .

I’m probably over-pedantic
(blame it on my story as an ex-educator)
but from the moment it was seen
what ‘I’ is – when IT was fully unclothed
and revealed as naked Presence –
the ‘Am’ has been superfluous
(ummm
so has the ‘Am Not”, strangely enough,
but kid sisters l-o-v-e to goad)

 .

(aside)
isn’t the “I am” statement the ultimate oxymoron?
it’s both incongruous and self-contradictory…

 .

the only verb-form ‘I’ can logically take is an IS
for there’s nothing about ‘I’
that could be called personal,
given its inextricability from whatever ‘it’
knows or does

 .

and yet, our entire manner of speaking insists
that we stand as separate objects
when irreducible BE-ing is all that
anyone
actually
experiences

 .

yes, it’s grammatically incorrect
(teacher winces, adjusts glasses)
but it’s unarguably accurate
in terms of one’s experience

 .

my much-missed bro
when can I come home
and play with you again?

~

wondrous wild wonderment!

337

Jolted from slumber by a crawing crow competing with a kookaburra trio,
I sit in this little tent
watching the sky turn from quiet grey to pearl shot with apricot

The tide rides high, the water gleams like stretched silk

Big fish leap out of their watery homeland, soar into the
dangerously dry habitat of airborne breakfast-morsels
and plop! home again

 

Echoes from Emptiness: Australian Pelican

 

A pelican floats effortlessly, silently, past my perch,
and more noisily, the motor boats of small-time fishermen go by

And now there’s a deeper thrum, slower and more powerful:
the big yellow fishing boat that went out last evening returns to port,
a dozen seagulls swirling hungrily over its decks

The pelican is oblivious;
diving for some fishy morsel then surfacing,
it throws its huge pink beak open and up, and swoosh, down goes breakfast

In every direction, through every sense-portal,
the unknowable knowingness of awareness spreads itself in lavish abundance

Everything is inside IT and no-thing is outside of IT – oh

wondrous

wild

wonderment!

Image source

o m g

331

Echoes from Emptiness: this is it

 

O is for

 

Opening
to the possibility that nothing
is the way it appears to be

Observing
thought’s dynamics, especially
the compilation of dear wee-me

Obsolescence
identification with anything nameable
is suddenly … laughable

Ordinariness
is the order of the day
nothing is special, only everything

Okeydokey
no more arguments with whatever-ness
(my battle-bruises get a rest)

Others
virtual or ‘real’ turn out to be
a mirror-image of ‘me’

O M G
this … this … this
is always IT

~

Image – probably the  beautiful calligraphy of Thich Nhat Hanh – see comments. 

 

until there comes the savage shock

323

this unknowable Knowingness
– creating, impregnating all appearance
yet carrying no traces,
harboring no memories
and expecting nothing of tomorrow
ever –

we seek It as the sacred
and give It a thousand names;
we worship It as something separate,
out beyond us:
cultivable,
attainable,
experience-able

until there comes the savage shock
– a mindshift so subtle it can’t be said –

It’s simply here

(and there and everywhere)

when we drop right out and disappear

~