…from a recent newsletter by Neelam. The image is not discussed but is certainly a curious message. Turns out to be the album art for an Aussie musician named Ben Lee. He designed it himself. Ben’s web site is listed by Google has having malicious downloads, so I won’t link to it.
With several possible meanings, it’s all very curiously amusing…
Leave a comment about what you think it means:
It means that “waking up” is the new in thing. Seeking enlightenment, or saying you are enlightened, is another mind object people use to put themselves to sleep, to keep the dream going.
Most people I meet who say “they are on the path” are not on the path. But it is the hip thing to say. Many people talk, few people practice. You need to be awake to practice.
Automatons cannot be awake. Automatons are constructed, programmed and made to believe that they are awake. Believing we are awakes suggests we are soundly asleep.
Hi Christian
In another way, everyone is ‘on the path’ but it’s true that their concepts of a path often have little to do with their actual evolution. This can be a way to begin to be conscious of what’s going on but it can also be irrelevant.
I thought you practiced to be awake? (laughs)
Hi Pierre
Welcome to the blog. Yes, awake has nothing to do with belief. It is being. Thanks for the feedback.
The phrase also suggests the discovery that what we thought was awake is really just another form of sleep, the ‘waking dream’ as some call it. When the witness arises, we discover that waking from sleep is just changing the dream. Being in one layer less of dream.
In a clip I heard of the song being performed on the street, the singer seemed to be referring to being in a daze. (laughs)
I’d say becoming rather than being; being ground in becoming rather than becoming in being. Being is an empty shell, an illusion of sorts acquired through our ability to conceptualize. A concept is a metaphor that has shrunken down and lost its vitality: which is what being is. In any case, insanity is not excluded from this process of metaphorizing as the artists would like.
Well put, Pierre.
One could describe the awakening process as a form of insanity but there is a critical difference. Madness is a deeper falling into illusion from sustained imbalance. Stepping into a deeper balance takes one into a greater sanity, beyond the veil of illusion.
Past the veil of maya, out of our skin we leap and cover the distance unto eternity, into the One, to find ourselves again standing on bare feet, begotten into a body out of which there is no return. Illusion is at the very ground of our being: the greatest of which is “our being awake.”
Balance as a permanent state of imbalance that is built upon, incorporated, assimilated, and recognized as such: herein the artist whose home is an imperfection lusting for becoming, destruction, and the crowning in creation. An ouroboric like dance.
I agree with the “deeper balance” notion leading to “greater sanity,” although, balance is sustained through imbalance, and without ever being achieved. It’s a state of mind that serves as a test of strength, marks a person’s depth and penetration of reality, and denotes the sage.
(laughs) yes, notions of state, all perception is inherently illusion. And yes, a progression of degrees. In a way, balance is achieved when there is no longer a seeking of balance, when the perpetual imbalance of the process is allowed to be as it is. The becoming-dissolving simply flows in itself.
Hence the insurmountable tension, joy, in the very form of our existence: our value as laid by us.
I’ve here attempted to highlight this notion of being:
http://wineofwisdom.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/sedimentations/
Sedimentations, clay, infinite threads… interesting metaphors and visual cues. I don’t come from quite the same place but I appreciate where you’re coming from. And I figured with your word use, you must have a shingle somewhere. Thanks for opening that door.
“Shingle:” a new word to add to my lexicon. For some reason, I am always excited when I learn a new word, a new metaphor within which I may get to glimpse with a fresh eye some ancestral ground, some primordial realm before which our faces “now” stand effaced, remain marble-like cold even if facing the sun. A gatherer of wood in ancient forests that, in the thickness of their air, still encapsulate a breath of the human, are still alive: that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.
Thank you.
(laughs) Shingle, slang for sign. As in having a shop with a sign out front. Of course I used the term broadly. My “shingle” has a feather and fish on it. (laughs)
I’ve seen it also used occasionally for ones primary message or overt agenda. What one is “advertising”. Although in the above, I was suspecting you had a blog somewhere.
Symbolic meaning can be a treasure trove of interconnections. English is an especially rich language for unexpected meaning. (laughs)