re(cognitions

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We have reversed the usual classical notion that the independent “elementary parts” of the world are the fundamental reality, and that the various systems are merely particular contingent forms and arrangements of these parts.

Rather, we say that inseparable quantum interconnectedness of the whole universe is the fundamental reality, and that relatively independent behaving parts are merely particular and contingent forms within this whole.

—David Bohm

...

Stories come to us like new senses

a wave and an ash tree were sisters

they had been separated since they were children

but they went on believing in each other

though each was sure that the other must be lost

they cherished traits of themselves that they thought of

as family resemblances features they held in common

the sheen of the wave fluttered in remembrance

of the undersides of the leaves of the ash tree

in summer air and the limbs of the ash tree

recalled the wave as the breeze lifted it

and they wrote to each other every day

without knowing where to send the letters

some of which have come to light only now

revealing in their old but familiar language

a view of the world we could not have guessed at

but that we always wanted to believe

—W.S. Merwin

The Shadow of Sirius

...

Hush.

I am so close, I may look distant. 

So completely mixed with you, I may look separate. 

So out in the open, I appear hidden. 

So silent, because I am constantly talking with you.

—Rumi

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inter-Being

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I've always loved friends of the Way

Always held them dear

Meeting a stranger with silent springs

Greeting a guest talking zen

Talking about mysteries on a moonlit night

Searching for truth until dawn

When the tracks of our inventions

disappear and we see who we really are.

—Han Shan
(Cold Mountain)

...

In fact, my soul and yours are the same. 

You appear in me, I appear in you. 

We hide in each other.

—Rumi 

...

You are me, and I am you.

Isn’t it obvious that we “inter-are”?

You cultivate the flower in yourself,

so that I will be beautiful.

I transform the garbage in myself,

so that you will not have to suffer. 

I support you;

you support me.

I am in this world to offer you peace;

you are in this world to bring me joy.

—Thich Nhat Hanh

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2

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All being, it seemed, was built on opposites, on division. Man or woman, vagabond or citizen, lover or thinker — no breath could both be in and out, none could be man and wife, free and yet orderly, knowing the urge of life and the joy of intellect. Always the one paid for the other, though each was equally precious and essential.


—Hermann Hesse (1877 - 1962)
Narcissus and Goldmund

...

The divine manifestation is ubiquitous, only our eyes are not open to it. Awe is what moves us forward.

Live from your own center. The divine lives within you.
The separateness apparent in the world is secondary. 

Beyond the world of opposites is an unseen, but experienced, unity and identity in us all.

You must return with the bliss and integrate it.
The return is seeing that the radiance is everywhere.

The world is a match for us. We are a match for the world.
The spirit is the bouquet of nature.

Sanctify the place you are in.


—Joseph Campbell

...

God turns you from one feeling to another

and teaches by means of opposites,

so that you will have two wings to fly,

not one.


—Rumi

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beloved

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Once we dreamt that we were strangers.

We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.


—Rabindranath Tagore

...

This is how a human being can change:

There's a worm addicted to eating
grape leaves.

Suddenly, he wakes up,
call it Grace, whatever, something
wakes him, and he's no longer
a worm.

He's the entire vineyard,
and the orchard too, the fruit, the trunks,
a growing wisdom and joy
that needs not devour.


—Rumi
Coleman Barks version

...

Awake awhile.
It does not have to be
Forever,
Right now.

One step upon the Sky’s soft skirt
Would be enough.
Hafiz,
Awake awhile.

Just one True moment of Love
Will last for days.

Rest all your elaborate plans and tactics
For Knowing Him,
For they are all just frozen spring buds
Far,
So far from Summer’s Divine Gold.


Awake, my dear.
Be kind to your sleeping heart.
Take it out into the vast fields of Light
And let it breathe.

Say,
“Love,
Give me back my wings.
Lift me,
Lift me nearer.”

Say to the sun and moon,
Say to our dear Friend,

“I will take You up now, Beloved,
On that wonderful Dance You promised.”


—Hafiz

...

The world you can perceive is a very small world indeed.

And it is entirely private.

Take it to be a dream and be done with it.


—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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wakey, wakey

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Don't go back to sleep.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the
doorsill where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

–Rumi

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shanti, shanti, shanti

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Hell is in the here and now. So is heaven. 

Do not worry about hell or dream about heaven, as they are both present inside this very moment. 

Every time we fall in love, we ascend to heaven. 

Every time we hate, envy, or fight someone, we tumble straight into the fires of hell.

—Rumi

...

The day I am killed
my killer will find
tickets in my pockets:
One to peace,
one to fields and the rain,
and one
to humanity's conscience.

I beg you--please don't waste them.

I beg you, you who kill me: Go.

—Samih al-Qasim
tickets

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hush

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Hush.

I am so close, I may look distant.

So completely mixed with you, I may look separate.

So out in the open, I appear hidden.

So silent, because I am constantly talking with you.

—Rumi

...

The clear bead at the center
changes everything.

There are
no edges to my loving now.

You've heard it said there's
a window that opens from one
mind to another,

but if there's no wall,
there's no need for
fitting the window, or the latch.


—Rumi

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A thought without a body is not a star. —Aaron Shurin

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Immanuel Kant perhaps composed the longest list of defect in classical Greek “pure reason”. One that has received less publicity than most goes like this:

When an arrow gets fired from a bow toward a target it appears to move through space. However, at every instant the arrow actually occupies one position in space, not two or three or more positions. Thus, at every instant the arrow exists in one place, not in two or three or more. In other words, at every instant the arrow has a position. If the arrow has one and only one definition position at every instant, then at every instant it does not move. If it does not move at any of these instants, it never moves at all.

You cannot escape this Logic by positing instants-between-instants. In these nanotime units, the same logic holds. At each nano-instant, the arrow has some location, not several locations. Therefore, even in nano-instant, the arrow does not move at all.

It seems the only way out of this absurdity consists of claiming that the arrow does, after all, occupy two locations at the same time. Alas, this leads to worse problems, which I leave you to discover for yourself.

And that shows where Logic gets you, if uncorrected by observations. If we do not correct our Logic by comparing it with experience, we may go on for centuries elaborating our most ancient errors endlessly.

—Robert Anton Wilson
Quantum Psychology

...

Seek God in self-abasement and self-extinction,

for nothing but form is produced by thinking.

And if you derive no comfort except from form,

then the form that comes to birth within you involuntarily is best.

Suppose it is the form of a city to which you are going:

you are drawn there by a formless feeling of pleasure, O dependent one;

therefore, you are really going to that which has no location,

for pleasure is something different from time and place.

Suppose it is the form of a friend to whom you would go:

you are going for the sake of enjoying his company;

therefore, in reality you go to the formless world,

though you are unaware of that being the object of your journey.

In truth, then, God is worshiped by all, since all wayfaring

is for the sake of the pleasure of which He is the source.

—Rumi 
Mathnawi VI: 3749-3755
Camille and Kabir Helminski version

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just remember

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Just remember,
You are the only faithful student you have.
All the others leave eventually.

Have you been making yourself shallow
with making others eminent?

Just remember, when you're in union,
you don't have to fear
that you'll be drained.

The command comes to speak,
and you feel the ocean
moving through you.

Then comes, Be silent,
as when the rain stops,
and the trees in the orchard
begin to draw moisture
up into themselves.


—Rumi
Mathnawi, V, 3195-3219)
Coleman Barks version

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be(cause

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When day comes, all things emerge from the depths of unmanifest nature;
when night comes, all things dissolve into the unmanifest again.

—Bhagavad Gita

...

Moment by moment you await understanding, spiritual perception, peace and good to arrive from nonexistence. Nonexistence, then, is God's factory from which He continually produces goods.

He has caused what is nonexistent to appear magnificently existent, while the truly existent He has caused to appear as nonexistent.
He has hidden the Sea, yet made the foam visible;
He has concealed the Wind, but displayed the dust.

The dust whirls in the air higher than a minaret: does it rise by itself? You see the dust borne high, but the Wind you don't see, although you can surmise it.

You see the white-capped waves tumbling in every direction, but without the Sea the foam has no way to move.
You see the foam by sense perception and the Sea by induction: just as speech is manifest and thought is hidden.


—Rumi

...

People think that the world itself is overflowing with beauty,
but they forget that they are its cause.


—Friedrich Nietzsche
Twilight of the Idols

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question

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What is the deep listening? Sama is
a greeting from the secret ones inside

the heart, a letter. The branches of 
your intelligence grow new leaves in

the wind of this listening. The body
reaches a peace. Rooster sound comes,

reminding you of your love for dawn.
The reed flute and the singer's lips:

the knack of how spirit breathes into
us becomes as simple and ordinary as

eating and drinking. The dead rise with 
the pleasure of listening. If someone

can't hear a trumpet melody, sprinkle
dirt on his head and declare him dead.

Listen, and feel the beauty of your
separation, the unsayable absence.

There's a moon inside every human being.
Learn to be companions with it. Give

more of your life to this listening. As
brightness is to time, so you are to

the one who talks to the deep ear in
your chest. I should sell my tongue

and buy a thousand ears when that
one steps near and begins to speak.

—Rumi
from The Glance

Coleman Barks version

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