Of Lenses
A poem on differing perspectives
I felt channspired to create this poem of vardhaku, dodoitsu/Kouta, and tanka stanzas after considering the wisdom conveyed to me during a comment pane conversation with Simon Heathcote in his absolutely fucking perspicacious piece today
and in this piece as well
Lenses What color yours? Rose, both of you answer Others wearing see all the prism’s colors Perhaps Merlin’s disciples' alchemy
Life’s paradoxes Contain many teachable moments Remember wisdom of Ancient Greek philosophers Paths to Oz paved with knowledge of self Socrates Plato Aristotle land here
Different worldviews Neither right nor wrong Coping mechanisms that suit our designs Pluto God of Underworld archetype, architect and playwright Evolutionary Astrology, Boom!!
I embrace duality Some Buddhists pox on my house Dalais Simon Lori teach We are all buddhas
Yet Sidd G’s students Deny existence of soul Make sense of nonsense Reincarnation exists Thus so does eternal soul
Changing Eternal yes But not immutable Souls and humans never static Constantly evolving growing aligning and integrating for me, dissolving for others
All isms suck ass Fuckers of nuns join the church and saints commit sins All houses made of stained glass Be careful of whom ye judge
Oy vey I’ve digressed Many archetypes involved INTP whole What is my philosophy Why did I pen this poem
Yet Acceptance Moment by moment Ethics are universal Live and let live or die, life just is — live it.
In his great essay on responsibility, Simon writes:
The mind imposes too many veils on Reality for us even to begin to see who and what we really are, so we continue with the false, believing it to be real.
I commented:
I guess this is where my embrace of duality conflicts with those that seek to attain nonduality. I was reading a fine piece by Ari Love. https://readmedium.com/the-real-reason-we-incarnated-to-earth-c75ea795e20c I took exception to her calling life a simulation, saying, “I don’t like calling any of this a simulation because it’s very real while we are here and to me, it minimizes or is almost dismissive to call it a simulation.” Blaine Coleman chimed in with “I prefer to use the more accurate word for those of us living on this plane of existence: illusion. Yes, while living the illusion of being a person in this life does make this illusion important because of the emotions we experience- those are also illusions but still very real to us while we are here. Not so important to our true selves, though.”
I replied to Blaine (one of the better writers and thinkers on Medium), “Yes, which is why I choose to call it life.”
Simon replied:
Good to hear you my friend. That is a great piece you link thank you. These are subtle points, often to do with semantics as we mentioned before. I call it Maya or illusion and am not keen on modern words that make it all sound too techno for this old man. I think it is also important not to give too much weight to concepts. It is amazing how people will murder each other to hang on to their own concept and not see that it utter madness. I had one of those Eureka! moments during the whole Covid hysteria when I was puzzling over why people saw things so differently. An inner voice said, ‘Everyone is right from their own point of view.’ Bingo! Live and let live. We are all looking through different lenses, just as the divine needs us to do. Understanding your Pluto placement is really important in Evolutionary Astrology terms which is a great model. [emphasis added] The further you go around the wheel the more light floods in. Advaita is not for you in this life because you are here for another purpose which as you rightly say is for another good exploration of duality. But I would put money on the fact that at some point you will love it!
In his essay full of sudden and slow insights, Simon writes:
It is interesting how when we start our journey we have completely the wrong idea — that somehow by magic we will wind up in some blissful nirvana. Instead we find the path narrows, gets more painful as well as more joyful, and there are fewer and fewer true companions.
I commented:
I have a very different concept of nirvana that correlates with how you describe the narrowing path and it is why I cringe at those claiming to sell enlightenment but maybe I shouldn’t see them as synonyms and in any event, I wish people would stop egotistically claiming to have achieved enlightenment and simply say “more enlightened.” I quote my Rama in many of my essays: “To attain nirvana, you would go on a completely different cycle, and that usually happens after a vast number of lifetimes lived. The lifetimes that you start to choose to live [at that point] are with great suffering. Think of the severely retarded, the severely mentally ill, POWs, people who have died violently at the hands of great evil and even stillborns who give up their life experience for the host.”
Simon replied:
I don’t believe enlightenment can be achieved. It is already there hidden, our task to strip the detritus.
I replied:
I understand what you mean. That is entirely different than the nirvana I speak of and maybe I should stop making the point that a soul achieving nirvana is entirely different than a human realizing some level of enlightenment as I’m not sure there is benefit to many from understanding the difference
Simon replied:
You may be right there but I love your mind and learn a lot from you. You know I remember several relationships with women when we would spend hours fighting while all the while I was thinking and knowing that really we were saying the same thing. Yet we couldn’t get each other. Took me a long time to begin thinking in terms of lenses. Learning Evolutionary Astrology really helped. My prism is different to yours but that doesn’t mean I don’t take great value from your expression. Perhaps one day humanity will accept this [emphasis added]
Yesterday I was Everlasting soul I am Today I can change
Lori’s (Ravyne Hawke)
I interpret the quote as suggesting practicing acceptance in the moment and moment to moment but not having to accept the unacceptable as permanent….I can often find serenity in accepting at and in the moment but not accepting permanence. Patrick Paul Garlinger eloquently described this balancing act thusly in his essay 9 Signs That You’re Healing Spiritually:
“There’s a balance to be found between being present and accepting the present moment while still opening to a new way of being in the world. As you heal spiritually, you know the present moment is full of possibility and, in its own way, is perfect just as it is. Yet you also know that you are capable of co-creating with the Divine, and there are wonderful opportunities that can emerge in the future if you focus your attention and take divinely inspired action”
With respect to Patrick’s inclusion of “perfect just as it is” and the Big Book passage’s “situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment,” neither requires a belief in total predestination for one to feel impacted by those words. In fact, while I believe that soul contracts do provide for certain events with varying specificity, I believe free will, both our own and through many degrees of separation, shapes our lives. So, then how can I practice accepting that everything is as it is supposed to be? I’m actually formulating this thought as I write. Perhaps, moment by moment everything is as it is supposed to be because there is no other way for it to be because everything that caused the present moment is in the past and there is nothing I can do to change the past so therefore the only possibility for the present moment is for it to be just the way it is and since there are no other options, that is in some way the perfect occurrence.
…
Life is neither fair nor unfair. … stop judging life and other people and comparing my life to someone else’s — my life is my life — my life just is — now live it.
Joseph Lieungh presses the loop pedal
Screw cancel culture:
Long live 007 and Shakespeare — see Henya Drescher’s brilliant
and final loop pedal press:
In Rama I create, with soul energy surging through my body, inspiring me and breathing wind into my sails,
