I accept and am accepted. I am all and all is me. Being the world I am not afraid of the world. Being all, what am I to be afraid of? Water is not afraid of water, nor fire of fire. Also I am not afraid because I am nothing that can experience fear, or can be in danger. I have no shape, nor name. It is attachment to a name and shape that breeds fear. I am not attached. I am nothing, and nothing is afraid of no thing. On the contrary, everything is afraid of the Nothing, for when a thing touches Nothing, it becomes nothing. It is like a bottomless well, whatever falls into it, disappears.
Monthly Archives: January 2015
# 25
25
Scriptures 2013 (Daniel , I Ching , Jung , 1 Samuel , 1 Peter , Taittiriya Upanishad)
leaped to his feet in amazement
as an image, it is fire
fire has no definite form
(but clings to the burning object and thus is bright)
‘gladdens, feeds, and forms the spiritual, perfect man’
he would feel better
harmonious and beneficent forces of the cosmos
(he achieves success)
continue to do good
acquires clarity without sharpness
(finds his place)
words and mind go to Him,
but reach Him not and return.
But he who knows the joy of Brahman, fears no more.
(L-M)
John Ashbery : (from ~ “About To Move”)
And first the goat arose and circled halfway around the lilac tree
and after that
several gazed from their windows
to observe the chaos harvesting itself
laying itself in neat rows before the circled wagons
and it was then that many left the painted cities
saying we can remember these colors it is enough
and we can go back tragically but what would be the point
and the laconic ones disappeared first
and the others backtracked and soon all was well enough
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj : (“what does it matter? … the roll of destiny unfolds itself and actualises the inevitable … the law of balance reigns supreme … there cannot be too much destruction … for the path of return naughting oneself is necessary … space is neutral — one can fill it with what one likes … the centre is a point of void and the witness a point of pure awareness … being nothing, I am all … I do nothing, I just see them happen”)
What does it matter? It is the mind that is dull or restless, not you. Look, all kinds of things happen in this room. Do I cause them to happen? They just happen. So it is with you — the roll of destiny unfolds itself and actualises the inevitable. You cannot change the course of events, but you can change your attitude and what really matters is the attitude and not the bare event.
Time squares all accounts. The law of balance reigns supreme.
Believe me, there cannot be too much destruction. For in reality nothing is of value. Be passionately dispassionate — that is all.
For the path of return (nivritti) naughting oneself is necessary.
Your mind projects a structure and you identify yourself with it. It is in the nature of desire to prompt the mind to create a world for its fulfilment. Even a small desire can start a long line of action; what about a strong desire? Desire can produce a universe; its powers are miraculous. Just as a small matchstick can set a huge forest on fire, so does a desire light the fires of manifestation. The very purpose of creation is the fulfilment of desire. The desire may be noble, or ignoble, space (akash) is neutral — one can fill it with what one likes: You must be very careful as to what you desire. And as to the people you want to help, they are in their respective worlds for the sake of
their desires; there is no way of helping them except through their desires.
God is the All-Doer, the jnani is a non-doer. God himself does not say: ‘I am doing all.’ To Him things happen by their own nature. To the jnani all is done by God. He sees no difference between God and nature. Both God and the jnani know themselves to be the immovable centre of the movable, the eternal witness of the transient. The centre is a point of void and the witness a point of pure awareness; they know themselves to be as nothing, therefore nothing can resist them.
Being nothing, I am all. Everything is me, everything is mine. Just as my body moves by my mere thinking of the movement, so do things happen as I think of them. Mind you, I do nothing. I just see them happen.
# 24
what is writing? what is literature? what is Brahms German Requiem playing as Derrida, Ashbery ,Tao Te Ching and Bhagavad Gita are read, recorded. another manifestation of the eternal return. oh yes, and also Nietzsche writing about the importance of masks and amor fati — the dionysian. we return again and again (eternally) to these all important themes, songs, instructions, suggestions, alchemy. it is the movement of language and the heartbeat of the dionysian rhythms , the strange but comfortable pulse of ashbery lines read amid the constellation, from 2013 or 2014. dissemination and then selective inheritance.
but what is being attempted here? a representation? invocation? meditation? return to particulars in your own narrative to flesh out the contours. as when i suggested to my former student, now living and studying in berlin, to write freely and daily about his experiences , in order to know what they are through the language-psyche process. then i remember that we read Borjes together in bangkok and then there is borjes story inspired by brahms requiem. and then my friend living in washington d.c. who mentions starting to read thus spake zarathustra and stopping after “the first chapter”. then, i walked around radnor lake today just as i did 25 years ago, except at the time i was listening to my reading of thus spake zarathustra (with Wagner and Miles Davis in the background).
the point is that that is not my narrative. it is narrative with no subject, no author, according to a particular theory of language and also a theory of Being. what is called for is a “call” of Being. a “call” arising from the four rivers coming out of Eden. Derrida helped us to open our understanding/deconstruction of the traditional/artificial demarcations between genres. this is one of the “reasons” we keep returning to Derrida in this blog for his commentary, his literature, his meditations are always relevant as we selectively inherit particular texts, as translations , from spiritual/mystical “traditions” while (affirmatively) deconstructing/revealing the voice(s) in ashbery and derrida’s which speak with, influencing and influenced by the intertext as any particular reader may arrange/understand this , outside/beyond the human subject or human consciousness, toward the invocation/implication of an “other” consciousness , a phenomenology of what is being pointed to, as erasure , as postmodern never ending caballa , as the “natural” extension from deconstruction of the primary (text) toward/as that understadning of “Being as grammar” , “faith” in an unconscious formulated like a language, beyond cartesian misunderstandings but not to get “ahead of our self”, “behind our self” , that Self (Atman) that radiates beyond all binaries and thus including ego-self as well as all of the particular illusions of Maya, as Brahman as beyond Being and non-Being , in and out , around , neither, both , awkward third that escapes the dialectic and thus also allowing the commentary to never end , the signified to never be “concluded”, that “play” of Maya , surfaces with no essence , language with no meaning , except as the differing and deferring as most of our readings/texts are in translation , are in deconstruction , are endlessly fulfilling the debt/poverty of the original text/language as emptiness and …
Scriptures 2013 (John , Derrida , Genesis , Jung , Ruth , Tao Te Ching , Mundaka Upanishad)
Come (and you will see)
the mission to which one is destined
the bond and the love
(which seal the marriage)
a river watering the garden flowed from Eden
three of the rivers of paradise are sensory functions
(sight, hearing, smell)
the fourth, the Euphrates, is the mouth
They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem
a good traveler has no fixed plans
(and is not intent on arriving)
the barley harvest was beginning
She who is centered in the Tao
(can go where she wishes)
Who knows God becomes God
I Ching (20) Watching : “Watching one’s life. To advance or retreat ?”
Watching one’s own life.
To advance or retreat?
– – –
Watching one’s life.
To advance or retreat?
One should not lose one’s way.
* * *
The third line is at the top of the lower gua. It is in the middle and can either advance oe retreat. The yin element at this place responds to the yang element at the top and is closer to the yang element at the fifth place. This signifies an opportunity to progress. When this yielding line alternates to a solid line , this gua changes to DEVELOPING GRADUALLY (53). DEVELOPING GRADUALLY indicates that one has time to watch one’s own condition and make a decision about advancing or retreating. The message of this gua is that one should not follow others blindly.
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Dogen : “Treading along in this dreamlike, illusory realm”
Treading along in this dreamlike, illusory realm,
Without looking for the traces I may have left;
A cuckoo’s song beckons me to return home;
Hearing this, I tilt my head to see
Who has told me to turn back;
But do not ask me where I am going,
As I travel in this limitless world,
Where every step I take is my home.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj : (“at each beat a new universe comes into being … He is the Yes and No to everything”)
Just as a sleeping man forgets all and wakes up for another day, or he dies and emerges into another life, so do the worlds of desire and fear dissolve and disappear. But the universal witness, the Supreme Self never sleeps and never dies. Eternally the Great Heart beats and at each beat a new universe comes into being.
He is beyond all that the mind conceives. He is beyond being and not being. He is the Yes and No to everything, beyond and within, creating and destroying, unimaginably real.
mark forshee 