Junghian Quote

"We no longer live on what we have, but on promises, no longer in the present day, but in the darkness of the future, which, we expect, will at last bring the proper sunrise. We refuse to recognize that everything better is purchased at the price of something worse; that, for example, the hope of greater freedom is cancelled out by increased enslavement to the state, not to speak of the terrible perils to which the most brilliant discoveries of science expose us. The less we understand of what our [forebears] sought, the less we understand ourselves, and thus we help with all our might to rob the individual of his roots and his guiding instincts, so that he becomes a particle in the mass, ruled only by what Neitzche called the spirit of gravity." 

CG Jung

On Life...

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny 

matters compared to what lives within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

CG Jung

"With a truly tragic delusion these theologians fail to see that it is not a matter of proving the existence of the light, but of blind people who do not know that their eyes could see. It is high time we realized that it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to teach people the art of seeing". 

CG Jung

The Rainbow In My Life by Julian Colgan

The rainbow in my life is anyone who
takes great joy in liberating
sluggish mentalities from the great selfishness
of a severely watered down conception of being.

The rainbow in my life is anyone who
commits to their vow to be
a healing herb for the sick and wounded
and to be a tree of compassion for
those who have been burned by
the scorching rays of overly heated individuals.

The rainbow in my life is anyone who
deflects the impurity that is samsaric sorrow
from reaching more and more defenseless
and innocent new born children;
knowing that the future depends upon
the health and sanity of mature growing adults.

The rainbow in my life is anyone who
cannot stand the treasonous actions
of corporations who are too lustfully stupid
to know the difference between harmony and deliberate disharmony.

The rainbow in my life is anyone who
shows goods deeds and motivations
to be better than the opposite route of
criminal behavior as it morphs into pledging allegiance
to a number of flags and badges which are soaked in the blood
of past generations, present generations and future generations of bodhisattvas.

The rainbow in my life is anyone who
recognizes mara as their own unbridled and reckless minds.
Habituated to slide between the pros and cons of mindfulness,
there is only virtue and merit in learning how to
comfortably sit on the mind's disruptiveness
as a sage glides on the winds as if it were second nature.

The rainbow in my life is anyone who
loves the dharma as an ultimate guide to
navigating the ocean of suffering
which stems from unregulated desires
and uncertainty in being able to overcome
the influences of one's own deep seated desire to desire.

The rainbow in my life is anyone who
prepares for their own enlightenment
as the sun takes on its own effulgence
or as the sky looks so pure just by being so open and wide.

The rainbow in my life
is our own mind transformed
from a rock like immovable state
to a gushing and free flowing state of awakening.

by Julian Colgan (Copyright)

Awake to Buddhahood
http://emptinessofmind.blogspot.ca/2013/05/the-rainbow-in-my-life.html?view=flipcard

Now!

We met in the past over and over

We will meet in future again and again

We are always meeting

And its always NOW!

Somwang

On consciousness

 "Until you make the unconscious conscious, 

it will direct your life and you will call it fate." 

CG Jung

On worry...

 

Worry is like a rocking chair, it will give you something to do, but it won't get you anywhere.

~ Unknown

Life within...

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny 

matters compared to what lives within us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Magnificent Rainbows by Chicco, Varese.Italy

The following pictures were fortuitously taken on the occasion of the rare appearance of this magnificent double rainbow just outside my dear friend's home.   

Nature & Tao

"Express yourself completely.

Then keep quiet.

Be like the forces of nature:

when it blows, there is only wind;

when it rains, there is only rain;

when the clouds pass,

the sun shines through."

Lao-Tzu

Life's journey

It is so easy to forget,
Was it all a dream?
Moments flashing by
Time truth will beam
All answers to unfold
And the grip I had
upon my soul!

Somwang

Tribute to Stuart Wilde

At the window of tomorrow
I saw many a yesteryear.
It was easy to see where we’d come
In the intervening time–
How we’d grown, and struggled, and triumphed
Beyond the yesteryear was tomorrow’s future
It wasn’t much different than today
But a little more was added
–A little more light–
And in this way, we came to transcend
And the yesteryears moved up slowly
And the tomorrows moved down gradually
They joined in the middle and spun around each other
To become Heaven on Earth–
The one we’ve been promised.

Stuart Wilde www.stuartwilde.com

In gratitude for the enormous Opus of Insights and its ensuing legacy!

On the River of life...

Every single piece, every single moment, 

every single twist and turn of the river is what makes it what it is.
In its wandering, it is perfect...
Life is exactly the same way.
~ Jeff Anderson ~

Don’t Look for Answers – Find the Questions by Zen Gardner

Revisited an excellent article by Zen published in 2012. As always please do visit his site (links provided) for some practical grounded deep insights and wisdom. For which we are very thankful...

by Zen Gardner
Researching the internet for information has taught me so many things. First of all, explore. Remain open and take the time to follow your heart and the leads and little nudges you’re given.
I know I’m preaching to much of the choir here, but these basic principles have such a wealth of wisdom to be gleaned.
We also soon find out the deeper one gets in the labyrinth of rabbitholelandia, the lonelier it appears to become. It isn’t really in the cosmic sense, but we become estranged to our previous ways of thinking and quickly realize our very lives are about to be drastically changed when we truly adopt the new Truths that are becoming increasingly apparent.

Baby AND the Bathwater – Out They Go!

And estranged we become. Thankfully. The first period of a genuine awakening is the most difficult for most since everything, as in everything, gets reset. There’s really nothing to hold on to from your past or previous conceptions of anything if you’ve had a bonafide wake up. Oh, there are ideas and some concepts that seem to endure from tidbits learned along the way, but it’s not the same.
Everything takes on a new living, continually changing, wonderfully creative amorphous nature.
Quantum physics has one of the best explanations if you want to try to rationalize the experience of awakening to consciousness. We’re living in a land of probabilities and nothing exists except in our minds when we aim our attention in some direction. Then it theoretically “exists”. But it’s just probabilities in a bunch of empty, yet energized space, coagulated by thought and intention within the perceiver.
That clear enough? Ha!

We Really Don’t Know – Do We Even Need To?

If we look for some catch-all solution or theory of everything it can lead to a lot of frustration. Not to say it isn’t worth the pursuit, but the pursuit is ultimately the end in itself.
Besides trying to fit the ocean in a tea cup and various other apt analogies, we simply will never grasp infinity with a finite mind. Quantum physics has pretty much put Newtonian and empirical science on its head, or better yet, blew it out of the building.
And yet again, what building?
They are all constructs is my point. Some apparently are group imposed like Jung’s archetypes that float in the collective subconscious like blipping inter-dimensional star ships or something, and some are like morphing ephemeral gossamer wafting through the ether as in societal trends and fashions.
We don’t know, but we have these conscious impressions. Which, ironically, are way closer to reality than anything you can touch or feel.
The beauty of it all is that our pursuit drives us to the end of the finite mind and into the infinite–our true observing yet indwelling consciousness and connectivity to each other and everything in the Universe. And that very hunger that drives us to find that resource and manifest it is what should direct our daily lives. Because that is where all of society’s and mankind’s solutions already exist.
Once we operate in that conscious awareness and the allowing of Love and Truth to express, everything else will follow.

It’s in the Going, not the Arriving

This is a bit of an aside, but as the mind’s questions and hunger for knowledge start to get satisfied and the false construct that has been foisted upon humanity gets exposed, a tremendous peace and assurance sets in. Somehow you know all is well and as it should be. Yet you also have free choice as we keep on living within this dimension where we find ourselves within these vehicles called bodies we’re automating around.
I know, very sci-fi.
Once you find out about the wonder of it all, the temptation is to just sit back and groove on it. Yet there’s this war going on around us. Not only this fear and scarcity based prodding to constantly worry about our survival, but nasty beings have somehow positioned themselves in places of power and are abusing the vast masses of other beings here on this planet.
Herein is the dilemma. What do we do about it? What can we do about it?
And that’s for each individual to find out based on their new found connectivity with consciousness. And to act on it.

“Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Nicely summarized, wouldn’t you say? Respond.

You Have to Ask the Right Questions

As we’re seeing here, any so-called answers that may be out there are going to be fluid, adaptable, often seemingly nonsensical, and constantly changing.
In spite of a world built primarily on rational confinement, the answer’s the same.
You really can’t nail jello to a tree.

But man, asking the right questions will keep you putt-putting down the path to greater truth, love and freedom like nothing else! People ask me how I find all these cool, apt illustrations for my articles. It’s all in the search question. And sometimes I’ll spend more time looking for the right illustrations than I will on the text!
You know why?
As many of you have found out, research is all about using the right key words, especially now with CIA/Google screwing with the search algorithms or whatever the hell they’re doing lately. It used to be easier to get to the information but they’ve screwed with it to make it more difficult. I like to use Startpage but they use Google anyway for images.
Secondly, when searching you run into so many amazing articles and cool blogs! If you use the images feature things will come up that catch your attention and off you go down the rabbit hole sometimes for hours! I end up with so many tabs open I’ll almost crash my computer!
It’s so much fun!

Ask the Right Questions and Outcomes Lose their Importance.

Being aware enough to ask the right questions is a big leap in consciousness. It has a lot to do with questioning everything. That requires detachment from emotional or otherwise over-involvement in your surroundings.
Takes some doing, but it’s primarily about commitment.
Many people can’t afford to stand back from the worlds of influences around them. They’re employed by manipulative people with whom they have direct dependencies. Or they’ve submitted to a societal network of some branded form of interacting they can’t get free from, such as circles of friends with similar likes and dislikes, or family with strong cultural and/or religious ties, etc.
Breaking free from that is no easy task. But that’s only true if you value those connections more than your connection to conscious truth.
Therein lies the rub.
You very often can’t have both. You can live peaceably with the unenlightened but you can’t do it for long. You have to establish a conscious living lifestyle, and let the chips fall where they may. It’s a decision everyone faces at many levels all the time. For the real Truth researcher, it is extremely profound with vast implications, and which we absolutely revel in.
It strengthens you.
I’ve sold almost everything I own. I live simply and frugally as best I can. Most of all, I dedicate my time to what I love. And that is the pursuit and propagation of Truth spoken in Love.
It’s almost like a leaky boat in reverse. I want to punch holes in the false paradigm around us and let the vast waters of Truth flood into this arid wasteland inside their lying matrix as fast as I can. And helping others question what they’ve been handed from any and every source, including me or anyone, is a healthy pursuit for a healthy, conscious humanity.

Don’t Be Attached to the Outcome

Big tip to help anyone stay conscious. Follows from the above.
Don’t be attached to the outcome. This can be anything from a simple planned activity to attempting to achieve some lifelong accomplishment. It could be the most limiting and debilitating thing anyone can do to their life.
Society operates totally on this one-track mindset of setting goals and making everything fit to obtain that goal. Besides that, they’ll sell you their goals!
This type of thinking is like putting cats in a box. It’s idiotic.
Goals should be very temporary, very fluid. How are we going to follow life’s signs or let synchronicity lead us into its magical realm of wonder if we’re set in our ways? There’s no room to get in.  It’s like people fuming at the stop light instead of grooving on the sights around them. How often do we all fall for this “hurry, push, push, don’t think” insanity of the world around us?
It’s designed to distract and keep everyone distracted and operating in tension in the micro world of limited mind.

Cut Loose and Stay Free!

Let things pass. Cut your ties with energy wasters. Free your time to live and love and learn. Watch what occupies your mind and heart during any day. How much is worry, playing “what if” games, or spending time on regrets or longings for stuff of any sort?
Get free. Do what you can do and watch the Universe/God/Source/Chi or whatever floats your boat kick into action! But you gotta make some commitments with action. Pare down your life to the essentials. Get away from mass media,  wrong food addictions, and other energy vampires.
Just do it. One thing will lead to another. Get serious about your desire for Truth and Love in your life.
Universe responds. Because it is, always has been, and always will be! In fact, time is another illusion, but that’s for another “time”….ha!
Ah, Universe! Now that’s all the “Universe-ity” humanity needs!
Have a great continual moment!
Love always, Zen
www.zengardner.com

Four Quartets: Little Gidding by T. S. Eliot 5

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home),
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph.
And any action is a step to the block,
to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead: See, they return,
and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

The Rock...

Gentle breezes pass me by,

Scorching sun,

Raging winds,

Moonlit nights

Soothing crests caress me,

Mighty waves lash me

Lightning bolts strike me

Stormy skies unfaze me

Always steady,

never moving

Stillness without a clock

A steady spot at sea,

but that’s me: 

...a timeless rock

Somwang

Letting go of the dream

"Always recognize the dreamlike qualities of life and reduce attachment and aversion. Practice good-heartedness toward all beings. Be loving and compassionate, no matter what others do to you. What they will do will not matter so much when you see it as a dream. The trick is to have positive intention during the dream. This is the essential point. This is true spirituality."

Chakdud Tulku Rinpoche

Water....

Excellent Photograph by Dtina Kevin

Water does not resist. Water flows.

 When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress.

 Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. 

But water always goes where it wants to go, 

and nothing in the end can stand against it.

 Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone.

 Remember that, my child. 

Remember you are half water. 

If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. 

Water does. 

Margaret Atwood

On Enlightenment...

“If you spent one-tenth of the time you devoted to distractions 

like chasing women or making money to spiritual practice,

you would be enlightened in a few years!” 

RAMAKRISHNA

On the Bardo...

Now when the bardo of this life is dawning upon me,

I will abandon laziness for which life has no time,

Enter, undistracted, the path of listening and hearing, reflection and contemplation, and meditation,

Making perceptions and mind the path, and realize the “three kayas”: the enlightened mind;

Now that l have once attained a human body,

There is no time on the path for the mind to wander.

PADMASAMBHAVA

Hesse...

"So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness."

Hermann Hesse, Bäume.
                          Betrachtungen und Gedichte

On letting go...

'Don't take anything Personally.
Nothing others do is because of you....
What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream.
When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others,
you won't be the victim of needless suffering.'

Miguel Ruiz

Just Blake

To see a world in a grain of sand

 and a heaven in a wild flower. 

To hold infinity in the palm of your hand, 

and eternity in an hour. 

William Blake

Four Quartets: Little Gidding by T. S. Eliot 3 & 4

III

There are three conditions which often look alike

Yet differ completely, flourish in the same hedgerow:

Attachment to self and to things and to persons, 

detachment From self and from things and from persons; 

and, growing between them, indifference

Which resembles the others as death resembles life,

Being between two lives—unflowering, between

The live and the dead nettle. 

This is the use of memory:

For liberation—not less of love but expanding

Of love beyond desire, and so liberation

From the future as well as the past. 

Thus, love of a country

Begins as attachment to our own field of action

And comes to find that action of little importance

Though never indifferent. 

History may be servitude,

History may be freedom. 

See, now they vanish,

the faces and places, with the self which, 

as it could, loved them,

To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern.

Sin is Behovely, but All shall be well, 

and All manner of thing shall be well.

If I think, again, of this place,

And of people, not wholly commendable,

Of no immediate kin or kindness,

But of some peculiar genius,

All touched by a common genius,

United in the strife which divided them;

If I think of a king at nightfall,

Of three men, and more, on the scaffold

And a few who died forgotten

In other places, here and abroad,

And of one who died blind and quiet

Why should we celebrate

These dead men more than the dying?

It is not to ring the bell backward

Nor is it an incantation

To summon the spectre of a Rose.

We cannot revive old factions

We cannot restore old policies

Or follow an antique drum.

These men, and those who opposed them

And those whom they opposed

Accept the constitution of silence

And are folded in a single party.

Whatever we inherit from the fortunate

We have taken from the defeated

What they had to leave us—a symbol:

A symbol perfected in death.

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

By the purification of the motive

In the ground of our beseeching.

IV

The dove descending breaks the air

With flame of incandescent terror

Of which the tongues declare

The one discharge from sin and error.

The only hope, or else despair

Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? 

Love.

Love is the unfamiliar
Name Behind the hands that wove

The intolerable shirt of flame

Which human power cannot remove.

We only live, only suspire

Consumed by either fire or fire.

Four Quartets: Little Gidding by T. S. Eliot 1 & 2

Four Quartets: Little Gidding by T. S. Eliot

I

Midwinter spring is its own season

Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,

Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.

When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,

The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,

In windless cold that is the heart's heat,

Reflecting in a watery mirror

A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.

And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,

Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire

In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing

The soul's sap quivers. There is no earth smell

Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time

But not in time's covenant. Now the hedgerow

Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom

Of snow, a bloom more sudden

Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,

Not in the scheme of generation.

Where is the summer, the unimaginable

Zero summer?

If you came this way,

Taking the route you would be likely to take

From the place you would be likely to come from,

If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges

White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.

It would be the same at the end of the journey,

If you came at night like a broken king,

If you came by day not knowing what you came for,

It would be the same, when you leave the rough road

And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade

And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for

Is only a shell, a husk of meaning

From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled

If at all. Either you had no purpose

Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured

And is altered in fulfilment. There are other places

Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws,

Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city—

But this is the nearest, in place and time,

Now and in England.

If you came this way,

Taking any route, starting from anywhere,

At any time or at any season,

It would always be the same: you would have to put off

Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,

Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity

Or carry report. You are here to kneel

Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more

Than an order of words, the conscious occupation

Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.

And what the dead had no speech for, when living,

They can tell you, being dead: the communication

Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

Here, the intersection of the timeless moment

Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

II

Ash on and old man's sleeve

Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.

Dust in the air suspended

Marks the place where a story ended.

Dust inbreathed was a house—

The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,

The death of hope and despair,

This is the death of air.

There are flood and drouth

Over the eyes and in the mouth,

Dead water and dead sand

Contending for the upper hand.

The parched eviscerate soil

Gapes at the vanity of toil,

Laughs without mirth.

This is the death of earth.

Water and fire succeed

The town, the pasture and the weed.

Water and fire deride

The sacrifice that we denied.

Water and fire shall rot

The marred foundations we forgot,

Of sanctuary and choir.

This is the death of water and fire.

In the uncertain hour before the morning

Near the ending of interminable night

At the recurrent end of the unending

After the dark dove with the flickering tongue

Had passed below the horizon of his homing

While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin

Over the asphalt where no other sound was

Between three districts whence the smoke arose

I met one walking, loitering and hurried

As if blown towards me like the metal leaves

Before the urban dawn wind unresisting.

And as I fixed upon the down-turned face

That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge

The first-met stranger in the waning dusk

I caught the sudden look of some dead master

Whom I had known, forgotten, half recalled

Both one and many; in the brown baked features

The eyes of a familiar compound ghost

Both intimate and unidentifiable.

So I assumed a double part, and cried

And heard another's voice cry: 'What! are you here?'

Although we were not. I was still the same,

Knowing myself yet being someone other—

And he a face still forming; yet the words sufficed

To compel the recognition they preceded.

And so, compliant to the common wind,

Too strange to each other for misunderstanding,

In concord at this intersection time

Of meeting nowhere, no before and after,

We trod the pavement in a dead patrol.

I said: 'The wonder that I feel is easy,

Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak:

I may not comprehend, may not remember.'

And he: 'I am not eager to rehearse

My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten.

These things have served their purpose: let them be.

So with your own, and pray they be forgiven

By others, as I pray you to forgive

Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten

And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.

For last year's words belong to last year's language

And next year's words await another voice.

But, as the passage now presents no hindrance

To the spirit unappeased and peregrine

Between two worlds become much like each other,

So I find words I never thought to speak

In streets I never thought I should revisit

When I left my body on a distant shore.

Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us

To purify the dialect of the tribe

And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight,

Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age

To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort.

First, the cold friction of expiring sense

Without enchantment, offering no promise

But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit

As body and soul begin to fall asunder.

Second, the conscious impotence of rage

At human folly, and the laceration

Of laughter at what ceases to amuse.

And last, the rending pain of re-enactment

Of all that you have done, and been; the shame

Of motives late revealed, and the awareness

Of things ill done and done to others' harm

Which once you took for exercise of virtue.

Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains.

From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit

Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire

Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.'

The day was breaking. In the disfigured street

He left me, with a kind of valediction,

And faded on the blowing of the horn.