Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

There is a stream that perpetually runs whether we are aware of it or not. We don't have to even know of its existence. The stream doesn't care. The stream is not offended. It has to flow. That is the only reason for its being. So flow it does... on and on. Never the same. always the same, the stream contains all that ever was and all that shall ever be. Others have given names to this stream but the stream again does not care for labels. The stream is ever changing but never changing, To give the stream a name makes the stream more of an object than a continually moving force that must be. But if I was to give the stream a name I would use 'pure consciousness'... that unknowable knowing that transcends all matter but somehow contains all matter. Without this stream, this pure consciousness, all would not be known or even unknown. Blackness would not even be. No thing would not even be for pure consciousness even contains no thing and all thing and has room for even more.

Metaphysically speaking this is the realm of pure consciousness, the stream that contains all in passing as it passes our shallow mind. Metaphysics - the study of the ultimate nature of being, within this world and others yet unknown. Do such places really exist? Or is this the realm of the mad... those that perceive spaces that most have never conceived? Parmenides may have to be questioned.

Those that enter these realms know of their reality, the being of spirit residing in these places, unseen but knowable. This is where all becomes one and one is pure consciousness - not a physical manifestation but solely spiritual. This is the kingdom of the god, aka Heaven. This is Nirvana where no thing exists but the spiritual oneness of all things intertwined in perpetual embrace. This is witness to the godhead that completes all pilgrims journeys in blissfulness and stillness. This is total submersion into the stream where gravity fails and negativity vaporizes into the ethers.

But yet people continue to question and doubt as they well should. The experience can only be attained by one... this journey to the absolute. But the sciences, the world's religions, the great philosophies have all spoken of this one place, this final journey. But ironically this one place has been divided into multiple places where quality of one word exceeds another to the point where it is the word that transcends the actuality.

To be a seeker requires the absence of beliefs that burdens the journey... a frightful prospect for many. Most are soothed into incompleteness by the message of others thereby making themselves incomplete.

But worry not... there are many lives to live and no timetable for the end. It is only our own physical, ego life that ends when our beating hearts choose to no longer beat... when our lungs no longer breathe - these two things our ego life has little control of. When do we awaken from sleep and request our heart to beat? When do we command ourselves to breath? These are beyond our mind as is the reality of existence beyond that very mind that limits our awareness if we only rely upon mind for our own being.

The true Self that resides within each and every form of life knows not death. This spark is always and will always be. The light never dies that illumines all of existence. Our egos may spurn the notion but that deters not the absolute which is forever streaming...


cecil
27 January 2008

My own mind complete with rapids of it's own has sold me down that same river many times...

... and sold you quite well, amigo... quite well.

Thanks for the stream Cecil.

About thirty five years ago I had some Buddhist room mates, They did a lot of chanting, it sounded like "nam-myoho-renge-kyo" or that his how I remember it. They tried to explain ego death to me but I did not like it. If I was going to die and not be me anymoreI did not want any truck with it. But now that I have had to time to think about it the idea appeals to me. I think I would be disapointed if after I died someone asked me what my social security number was. Not sure if that makes any sense.

Just wanted you to kow that I have been thinking about this stream a lot.

Hi, truck...

The chant as you wrote it sounds about right, butI think artguy would know more of that than me. Maybe he'll read this and reply

"They tried to explain ego death to me but I did not like it."

After 35 years you probably feel a bit different now knowing what you do, right? 'Ego death" is not an easy thing for most folks to digest. Afterall, how many years do we build ourselves into what we've become..?

The thing about 'ego death' is that it isn't (and can't be) a permanent state. It is a 'vacation' from our ego life... and a realization that we are more than what we (and others) see ourselves to be. I'm reminded of the Zen story about seeing the Buddha on the road and killing him... the Buddha on the road being the ego life of the one seeing their self as a Buddha. Good ol' Zen... it amuses me a great deal on various levels, but the one thing is to 'destroy' any thing that gets in the way of no thing... a great challenge but one that pays off in interesting ways.

Anyway... thanks truck for the reply. I appreciate it as usual.

Paz,

C

Can't say as I know that chant ..but as far as destroying obstacles...the 4 armed mahakhala does it for me....all though swords and khatvangas swinging about in the mystic mind....

the photo reminded me Ojo de agua in Córdoba last year. We used to drink directly from the stream without dying the next day!! Very beautiful!!!!!!
thanks for the stream, Cecil!!!!!!!!!
saludos,

Arcadia

Hola, Arcadia, amiga mia! Otro vez yo digo: 'gracias para las palabras buenas.'

The picture of the stream is a very rare sight in El Paso - it was taken during an extremely rare flood we had 2 years ago - 'do not drink the water!'

[El cuadro de la corriente es una vista muy rara en el EL Paso - fue tomado durante una inundación extremadamente rara que teníamos hace 2 años - ' no bebe el agua!' ] gracias a 'alta vista babel fish translation'