Notice how you react...

When your beliefs are under attack...

Something you hold sacred and true...

Shot full of holes...what else can you do???

You attack the attacker...putting them down...

Making them feel unwanted around...

Then you justify your reactions as such...

Hidden in a bullshit apology...your crutch...

You blame your behavior on others...not you...

Appearing to be noble...you haven’t a clue...

You want things tidy, in a neat little row...

Nothing out of place...not even a little toe...

When things get messy or out of control...

Out comes Mr. Nasty...aka...your ego...

We are no longer dealing with what is or is not true...

The entire matter has become about you...

What to do, what to do...just save face...

Get on your knees and pray for grace...

Or just get real and really look...

Into your own fuzzy corners and deep dark nook...

What we need are open ended points of view...

New ways of knowing for me and you...

New visions, new wisdom...out with the old...

In with the new...be brave...be bold...

Within and without knowledge is alive...

Into this very moment...we MUST dive...

Beyond what we want or what we believe...

Is a way of Being that spells relief...

Even beyond this joy of being...

There is a knowing...wherein lies our freeing...

We’re wasting time with conditioned beliefs...

Just like we’re wasting time praying on our knees...

A whole world is suffering...while we pray...

And fight over differences of night and day...

Every seven seconds, a hungry child dies...

While we grow numb and deaf to their cries...

Oh how awakened all of us are...

Pay me no attention...I’m just the dust of a star...

Starlight Dancing...

prayer and guru’s are but crutches...

arise my friend and walk...

you are needed in this world...

whole, just as you are...

belief limits awareness...

to thine own self be true...

break through now to clarity...

in all you say and do...

if you must hear wisdom...

hear the wisdom of your heart...

open your mind beyond it’s limits...

honesty is where to start...

look with eyes of truth to see...

break open compassion within...

follow and live your own path...

this moment is where to begin...

allow no one to tell you...

just what your own truths are...

break free of your conditioning...

the dust of every star...

Starlight Dancing...

No matter what the spiritual tradition...

It always comes back to seeing the mountain...

As a mountain...

Better get busy climbing...

Instead of hiding in that cave you’re in...

On the side of the mountain...in your bliss...

While you can have your head in the clouds...

An alternate state of consciousness...

Does not equal an awakened mind...

Or, flying high on the wings of love...

Does not invalidate a suffering world...

Life will invariably continue to happen...

Bringing you tumbling back to earth...

For you are human being...

You cannot escape this...

No matter how hard you try...

No matter what your beliefs...

No matter what your reality...

You are Human...Being...

Some claim that life continues...

A guarantee of human rebirth...

If that is so...and if you know...

That you have walked this way before...

Wouldn’t it be wise to do something differently???

Would it make even more sense...

To dive deeper into the actual suffering...

That supposedly continues to bind us???

To create new solutions...to be truly free...

Beliefs...so humorous...so diverse...so binding...

We run from the very life we have been given...

We live in illusion...and resent the intrusion...

Of Truth...

We wish to sleep...

For to be awake...

Means to be present in sorrow and pain...

As well as in joy and pleasure...

If we continue to ignore our human potential...

We will continue to miss out on our experience of...

Humanity...

The Truth of Being...Human...

Starlight Dancing...

When you speak from your own voice...

I hear the authentic you...

Not the one pretending...

But the one that is honest and true...

When you speak with the words of others...

Immediately I feel the wall...

That you have placed between us...

Disconnecting our awe...

When we look for truth outside our-self...

It always ends up being unreal...

Caught in a web of pretending...

We forget to really feel...

We hide from the truth that we’re human...

We deny our reality as such...

We turn away from our presence of being...

And use our beliefs as a crutch...

When we live in the world of experience...

And acknowledge what it is that we feel...

Dancing in darkness our own light of day...

Our tangled lives truly can heal...

Unresolved patterns keep coming around...

To awaken reality...

Into recognizing our shadows...

And dancing them into free...

Starlight Dancing...with mum's the word...thnx for letting me use this beautiful picture with my poem...

What is light without darkness?

Why do we discredit it so?

We judge it...calling it evil...

But what do we really know?

Darkness...the womb of creativity...

The actual place of our birth...

Darkness enveloped this space before time...

Dancing itself Universe...

Exploding, expanding in time before time...

From the depths of great darkness light’s born...

From the eternal night and the blackness of all...

The light of the Star found it’s morn...

See the way dark creates shadow...

See how the shadows now dance...

Birthing a rainbow of color...

Wonder held captive in trance...

Such beauty is born of such darkness...

Such wonder created from night...

In the depths of this nothing

All things were born...

The first words of darkness were

“Let there be Light”...

Starlight Dancing...

Ignorance goes on and on... 

With nothing much to say...

Yet it speaks in volumes...

And bores along its way...

Often it judges and points it’s finger...

Self-righteous it carries on...

Thinking itself important...

Arrogance is born...

It’s forgotten that principal, that less is more...

Adding only to it’s stupidity...

It takes you on an irritating journey...

Never really setting you free...

Truth is simple...quick...to the point...

Cuts through illusion clean...

Ignorance only adds to itself...

Dribbling itself a stream...

Starlight Dancing...

Don’t bother me with nonsense...

I haven’t got the time...

If you have real solutions...

I’ll listen with my mind...

If they're full of bullshit...

My patience will not last...

You’ll lose my full attention...

The dye will then be cast...

I might seem cold and lacking heart...

I assure you that’s not true...

It’s just that I don’t play those games...

Of being verses do...

If I were meant to be and feel...

But not to use my mind...

I’d not been born with a brain...

Reason enough I find...

If I were only meant to know...

Perfect light and harmony...

I can guarantee I’d been born neath a Bodhi tree...

If it were only meant for me to meditate and pray...

I’d been born a Mantis...

Or a map that knew it’s way...

As it is awareness is a journey I call me...

I am human, being, doing, breathing energy...

Starlight Dancing...

I use to be prim and proper...

Ms. Perfect...that was me...

I thought that I was Jesus Christ...

Or that I had to be...

Always turning the other cheek...

Filled with light and love...

Trusting my heart and everything...

To that unseen God above...

Later I met da Buddha...

And sat down under his tree...

I became oh so aware...

Cut wise teeth on Wei Wu Wei...

I then read Tao of Physics...

Danced a Shiva and Physics dance...

Did a jig with Tibetan Buddhist...

And experienced that Rigpa trance...

I’ve been to the top of the mountain...

I’ve been stuck in a cave on the side...

I’ve gone round and round with my ego...

Flying high in the sky for one hell-of-a ride...

I’ve laughed at my own stupidity...

I’ve wondered at the joy of being...

I’ve come to many a conclusion...

But life’s an absolute continual freeing...

Just when you think you know it all...

Awareness surprises you with something new...

Experiencing this moment, fully, as human...

Is...the only logical truth...

Starlight Dancing...

Every color of the rainbow...

I’m the shadow of the Sun...

My dance is danced in darkness...

Where the play of light’s begun...

You cannot shine your light...

Without the darkness of my night...

You cannot have a rainbow...

With no shadow in your sight...

The depth of your own being...

Rises from the black of night...

Dancing on your light of day...

As darkness mirrors bright...

I’m the shadow of the SunStar...

Darkness is my platform...

Light’s painted on my canvas...

Every color of the rainbow...

Starlight Dancing...

I looked into the eyes of love...

I asked it where’d it been...

I told it I’d been starving...

While it was drinking gin...

I had sat neglected...

While love had gotten drunk...

I looked on with a child’s eyes...

Love beat my mother up...

My eyes were always full of tears...

My heart was full of pain...

My mind was filled with anger...

While love danced it’s dance insane...

Where was love but everywhere...

And everywhere was not...

My mother’s eyes were black and blue...

Love again forgot...

Anger at a Mother...

For not loving herself...

For putting her son second...

Love was on the shelf...

This man was drunk and raging...

His love was dirty lust...

A little boy lost in this world...

Love learned not to trust...

Now who is there that love can blame...

Who did not do their best???

The Mother that was weak...

Or the Man who was not blessed...

Surely this small precious child...

Was innocent in all...

Where was the love he needed...

His wounds open and raw...

Time has past...where is his pain...

Buried deep within...

Waiting to be uncovered...

For love to finally mend...

Mercy is what’s needed...

Mercy for them all...

Love has finally grown up...

And answered angers call...

There is no way of knowing...

Why love with held itself...

Maybe just because it needed...

Now to be deeply felt...

And so now love looks deeply...

In the child that’s still within...

Can love heal his angry heart...

And fill him to the brim???...

Starlight Dancing...

Long ago and far away...

Closely I hold the scars...

Some are still infected wounds...

Bleeding, open, raw...

I had to hold them distantly...

To ever survive them at all...

Lessons learned much later now...

Sometimes I still must crawl...

Years ago I wondered...

Why should one suffer pain???

How did I survive it all...

And who’s really to blame???

I fell out of many trees...

My mind was twisted so...

Had to stuff my anger...

No one could really know...

Good that I have so much depth...

Joy can feel me now...

Pain makes room for many things...

And anger shows me how...

Looking at it honestly...

A wiser perspective and view...

I am my own physician...

I can heal all that is true...

And so my journey continues...

Discovery of deeper deeps...

I am aware and determined...

To waken what still sleeps...

Starlight Dancing...

Footprints of a gentle soul...

Now what would they look like?

Kindness overflowing...

In the middle of lights night...

Everything is positive...

Something I can’t trust...

Worshipping this OneNess...

Ideas are but dust...

I am you and you are me...

And now we are the world...

Consciousness is all there is...

A treasure and a pearl...

Fingerprints of heart and love...

All over all that’s true...

Defining true compassion...

Impossible to do...

No matter just how hard we try...

Concepts we cannot live...

Truth is in the moment...

Our prints are what we give...

Starlight Dancing...

I long to touch your heart...

In such a way that makes you smile...

To fill you up with endless joy...

So you can live out loud...

With all the freedom you can know...

This moment waits for you...

Dance with the stars in open sky...

Go sailing on it’s blue...

I think I may have been the breeze...

Ten billion years ago...

Tickling the leaves of your tree...

Blowing you to and fro...

Or maybe I was a butterfly...

That gently kissed your dew...

Or a rose bud waiting patiently...

To open YOU full bloom...

Whatever the connection...

Be it raindrops on a rainbow...

Something strong ties us together...

Deeply wisdom knows...

And so I offer you this  poem...

Can I please have this dance...

Let’s get lost in the moment...

Where love always has a chance...

Tomorrow doesn’t mean much...

If it never does appear...

Truth is living here and now...

This time and space so dear...

There is more between us...

Then words could ever say...

But just in case you didn’t know...

I’ve loved you for always...

Starlight Dancing...

She’s a Blue Jean Baby...

A wild, wild Lady...

She’s got sunlight...sunlight in her eyes...

She’s a Blue Jean Baby...

But she’s always a Lady...

She’s got sunshine...sunshine in her smile...

Hope my Blue Jean Baby’s gonna stay with me awhile...

Hope my Blue Jean Baby’s gonna stay...

With me awhile...

When I found her on the streets...

Her life was incomplete...

She didn’t know just where to turn...

Her mind was so confused...

She’d been so abused...

There was so much she had to learn...

She was like a little child who’d lost her way...

So I took her home, and gave her a place to stay...

Now my Blue Jean Baby...she’s a Lady...

Now my Blue Jean Baby...she’s a Lady...

She’s a Blue Jean Baby...

She's a wild, wild Lady...

She’s got sunlight...sunlight in her eyes...

She’s a Blue Jean Baby...

But she’s always a Lady...

She’s got sunshine...sunshine in her smile...

Hope my Blue Jean Baby’s gonna stay with me awhile...

Hope my Blue Jean Baby’s gonna stay...

With me awhile...

The more I came to know her...

The more I came to love her...

The more she came to mean to me...

She’d had her share of losing...

She’d spent most her life using...

Now she was learning to be free...

I can still see her in her blue jeans standing there...

Tears in her eyes silently begging someone to care...

Now my Blue Jean Baby...she’s a Lady...

Now my Blue Jean Baby...she’s a Lady...

She’s a Blue Jean Baby...

A wild, wild Lady...

She’s got sunlight...sunlight in her eyes...

She’s a Blue Jean Baby...

But she’s always a Lady...

She’s got sunshine...sunshine in her smile...

Hope my Blue Jean Baby’s gonna stay with me awhile...

Hope my Blue Jean Baby’s gonna stay...

With me awhile...

Starlight Dancing...with tlcoriginals...

Eternity in a drop of now...

That is what we are...

Going further backwards...

From the dust of every star...

Stretching onward endlessly...

No limits on limitless time...

Being dances freely...

Between the space of heart and mind...

Filled with Joy of Being...

Overflowing with this knowing...

Loosens the tight hold we have...

Opening our going...

Dancing freely on the edge of time...

This way of Tao...

Including all that was and is...

Eternal Drop of Now...

Starlight Dancing...with Tai's brilliant photography...

Questioning this ‘I’ of anger...

Rising from within...

Conditioned by a lifetime...

Stories before time began...

Memories ‘I’ can’t remember...

One’s ‘I’ cannot own...

Who is this ‘I’ that claims it is...

Who claims to really know...

What was there before this ‘I’...

Latched on and came to be?

What exactly is this Being...

Without a distinct me?

When ‘I’ take my tigress off...

Who am ‘I’ really then?

Does what ‘I’ am date back

To way before a said human?

When ‘I’ was a Tiger...

Out looking for some food...

The things ‘I’ killed to stay alive...

My Tiger never knew...

And now ‘I’ hold the memory...

Of killer in my bones...

How to understand how ‘I’

Have had so many clones...

The animal within me...

Serves purpose now indeed...

The ‘I’ I Am must understand...

And fill it’s hungry need...

I’m grateful to my Tigress...

That now keeps me alive...

With passion more ‘I’ must explore...

Into Knowing ‘I’ must dive...

Deeper into Being...

Understanding all my ‘I’s’...

It is an endless journey...

Unmasking all disguise...

Dancing free in Being...

Tigress my ‘I’ still wears...

Dissolving and reclaiming ‘I’...

Along humanity's evolving stairs...

Starlight Dancing...

I’d love to claim...

         that I’m the soft pink essence of the rose...

But maybe I’m it’s prickly thorns...

         protecting it from harm’s throes...

I'd like to be the gentle way...

        the petals open up...

But maybe I’m the way the thorn rips...

        in it’s attempt to love...

Oh how I wish I were the fragrance...

        that dances on your nose...

A smell so sweet it makes you smile...

       from your head down to your toes...

I’d love to boast of beauty...

       as I bloom so in the Spring...

More than likely it is I...

       pricking your finger and making it sting...

Am I not a vital part...

       of the Picture Perfect Rose?

Is there no importance...

       in the thorns it wears as clothes?

Be careful how you pick me...

       maybe you should leave me be...

Blossoming in natures garden...

       raw beauty, naturally free...

Starlight Dancing...with Tai...thanks for allowing me to use your beautiful artwork...

Light...illuminating it’s Being...

As it dances self free of it’s I’s...

No structures, so frozen and limiting...

Just a gentle space opening inside...

A quality of warmth...touching everything you are...

A presence, feeling joy that is pure...

Not grasping as it stimulates a knowing and delight...

Allows knowledge to gently open and stir...

As you look at light softly falling on myriad form...

Not separate...in a wonder-filled dance...

The more is embraced, the more light’s revealed...

Tis Knowing...has being...in trance...

A nourishing of light now encompasses...

Infinite and limit...less...

Unfolding within thisTime and Space...

Light’s Being, as knowing...ness...

Starlight Dancing...with my muse...thnx again Tai for allowing me to use your photography...

Binding through Identity...

Scientific knowledge only offers knowledge about a world that has been given.  It never questions the self that stands in the center of knowing and claims this knowledge for itself.  By taking this ‘self’ for granted, without question, we become bound by our own identity.  Bound by our desires we are controlled in such a way that much of the time leaves us feeling smothered, suffocated.  Lacking power we can do nothing but continue to repeat the past.  Accepting what has been and what is, we give up inquiring into this ‘self’ that seems to hold the power of happiness and suffering over us like a jagged rock that could fall on our head anytime it chooses.  Can we loosen the hold that this ‘self’ has on us?  What will we find if we do?  Are there other ways of knowing besides objectively?  Can we ever intimately come to know what it is that the ‘self’ is in?  

I have been practicing observing my ‘self’ for weeks now.  Watching the ‘self’ in action, denying the ‘self’ little things here and there that it is use to having to see how this ‘self’ reacts when it’s little desires are denied.  Here is an exerpt from my journal...

Inspiration coming from someplace other than the self..

blurry-lights-14

I can really relate to this...it is as if the self is suffocated...cannot breath...and is powerless in a sense to make a change or do anything different...the change or inspiration comes from someplace other than within that focal point of the self...

I am not saying here that it must come from another human being, although sometimes that is exactly it, but it can also come from within nature...like when you open up to the sky, or you have a sense of feeling like you have been picked up by the breeze and scattered with the leaves that are dancing in front of you or all around you...(it is autumn...lol).

Something I have been contemplating as well for the past few weeks, is that this sense of Being...that is experienced without the focus of an ‘I’, while it is very open, is it not just another aspect of the self?  While it is a freer aspect, one without the tight, suffocating hold of an ‘I’, is it not still the 'self' with a more open experience?

1137281265 turesetain

It has become obvious to me that the ‘self’ lacks any real control over it’s circumstances.  While it might appear at times that the ‘self’ is actually making decisions and choices, are not all those choices based on desire?  While we continue to chase after things we desire, we spend countless hours and energy trying to accumulate things that are meaningless.  Relationships that are not intimate at all, for how can I know you if I don’t know me?  We sidestep honesty and truthful inquiry, ignoring what is really beneficial and meaningful, replacing it with preoccupation of so much that does not really matter, and then we lie to ourselves convincingly at times that ‘all is well’, ‘we are happy’, ‘life is good’, and yet deep down, we know we are trapped with no way out.  Nothing much is ever going to change anyway, and so we accept the travesty of suffering, and pretend that everything is ok as long as we don't or no one else does or life doesn't ‘rock the boat’...but eventually, just that happens. 

Here is another entry I wrote while we were on break in class...

Infinite 'I's'...

96664main galaxy string 4

 During the break that we have been taking in our TSK online class, I have continued to inquire into the self and it’s infinite positions...all the while realizing that the ‘I’ doing the inquiry is just another focus of my multifaceted mind...

Mostly I have looked at my experience that I refer to as the joy of being...as well as the ‘I’ that suffers frustration at being stuck or trapped by life...the ‘I’ that wants out so badly...the ‘I’ that thinks this life is unfair...the ‘I’ that gets bored and frustrated when things don’t go as they should...the ‘I’ that feels alienated and does not fit in...and the ‘I’ that speaks out in the face of all of this...

So many voices...so many positions...but what can really change as long as ‘I’ am operating from a position of subjectivity?  How can knowledge lead us out of the desert, when the model for obtaining knowledge is part of the problem?

In TSK we are asked to open up ideas that have been frozen, whether past or present...because if we can do this, then knowing will flow...and new knowledge can be gleamed...

 

01 - sun-rays-coming-out-of-the-clouds-in-a-blue-sky

If we could find a new way of knowing, would we?  Or will we just remain content to have identity bind us and keep us from our human potential?   Will we continue to allow scientific knowledge to tell us our physical limits, while religious conditioning tells us how we should feel and what we should believe?  Or will we begin to inquire into those very limits, opening them up to a new way of knowing and being human?

 

Starlight Dancing...in Time, Space, and Knowledge...

TSK Essays and Poetry by Star...

Entries by Davidu/current class...

The gentle touch of Being...

Soft opening within...

The feel of it is joy...

As it breathes now through your skin...

As light touches your Being...

The colors melt into...

Yet they dance alive in Space...

Rainbows dancing you...

Breathing in this knowing...

Feeling the outward flow...

The wonder of the brilliance...

Free for you to know...

The intimacy of color...

Sparkles in it’s dance...

Knowing filled with Being...

As Space and Time enhance...

Starlight Dancing...

Awaken joy within you...

Gentle as the snow...

Feel it in your senses...

Out of your Being flow...

Notice how your finger tips...

Tingle with it’s fire ...

A very sensuous feeling...

Without distinct desire...

Allow joy to surround you...

It’s wonder everywhere...

The beauty light is dancing...

Fills every space of air...

Being breathes itself into...

A tapestry of knowing...

Oh the magic of the real...

In Space Time ever flowing...

Starlight Dancing...

What does Joy taste like?

Oatmeal with razzberries...

What does Joy smell like?

This mornings gentle rain...

What does Joy sound like?

The bird that I hear singing...

What does Joy feel like?

A softness that might burst...

What does Joy look like?

Everything I see...

Starlight Dancing...

Joy rises like a twinkle...

Within your Being fills...

Then overflows so soothingly...

Each space of you it steals...

You can’t quiet tell just where joy ends...

Or where it might begin...

Joy is overflowing...

Consuming out and in...

Starlight Dancing...

Like a fire that softly bathes all that

It’s light encompasses...

Consuming it’s own darkness...

With a burning, gentle kiss...

Joy glows with warmth and beauty...

Oozing itself everywhere...

Filling every corner...

Finding it’s home there...

There’s nothing that it does not touch...

Nothing it does not fill...

Being feels such Joy...

In the Magic of the Real...

Starlight Dancing...

Joy dancing outward...

With a brilliance all it’s own...

Bubbling from within...

Can’t tell from where it’s come or gone...

Dancing itself beautiful...

In colors magical...

Light shines on knowingness...

With Joy so wonder-full...

Starlight Dancing...

Untangling all in Joy...

Bathing light in blue...

Dancing Itself into Being...

All that’s ever true...

Giving life to earth and sky...

And ocean’s Universe...

Time, Space and knowledge...

Being Joyfully births...

Starlight Dancing...

If you were to leave me...

Then my eyes would surely cry...

I promise I would meet you...

In each lovely butterfly...

My heart it would break open...

My love would overflow...

For what you really are...

Can neither come or ever go...

I know that I would miss you...

And your precious human form...

Though I know your essence...

Never dies nor is it born...

The precious human that you are...

Has taken my whole heart...

And I will miss you much...

When it is time for you to part...

Starlight Dancing...wishing Bruce a speedy recovery with love...

thnx Lars for the image...