LIFE IS BUT A DREAM
Jann Burner
August 12, 2006
The greatest part of life is a dream. Images and insights flit bat-like through our mind and condense on the walls of our brain and gradually drip down in the form of words, metaphors, and analogies to form stalagmites and stalactites upon the floor/ceiling of the cavern in which we live. These experiential mineral deposits build up over many years and give us an idea of who we are, and who we might become...
The spirit sports with time. The soul is the light that shines through and all of our earthly desire and ambition is nothing but shadow play on the cave wall. There is a secret here that we have all sworn not to reveal.
This font of image and river of intuition must be tracked to its source and exposed and shared in a fluid way. We live and work by flashes of intuition and bursts of illumination. Like a night scout behind enemy lines, we move in darkness from hand-hold to hand-hold until suddenly the surrounding countryside is illuminated beneath the ghostly light of an aerial flare. In one quick burst of illumination we scan the terrain and orient ourselves towards our perceived destination before all falls into darkness once again, and we are left.
It's as if we are all suffering from night blindness. Dazzled by the flash bulb of insight and desire popping off intermittently. When the flash of light explodes over the event horizon we are treated to a view. That momentary view; that micro-second of illumination etches a line of desire; an attitude deep within our mind much the same way a burst of light etches an image upon a piece of film within a camera. When we are then plunged back into darkness we retain that image or insight etched upon the retina of our mind's eye. We pursue this last known fix. The next time the bulb of insight goes off in our mind, we are aware of how far we are from the path of our initial desire.
When the deviation is shown to us we often become full of anguish, angst and pain; we are not closing with our desires and our aims as quickly as we might wish. We see only the ghostly trail from our phantom desires. And with each succeeding flash we seem to get further and further from our goal. This futile path of sadness and frustration becomes a pattern. We persist on our imagined path of stutter-like steps beneath the stroboscope of intermittent illumination.
The solution is to remain centered beneath the aerial bursts of illumination and not to become distracted and run off across the countryside chasing phantoms with our pitiful flash-light of ego. If we can succeed in remaining seated and centered, the intermittent stroboscopic perception of insightful consciousness will slowly brighten until a glow on the horizon will be detected. Vision will begin to be perceived without a break. The periodic bursts will lessen in intensity as the horizon brightens. Night will pass and in our centered position we will witness...The Dawn: the beginning of persistent illumination.
It will be as if we are stones dropped into a still pond. The rings of realization will begin to move out across the water in all directions with us as an apparent center. No ego involved; like windows we will allow the light of perception to shine through. Like gongs we will be struck by the idea, and together we will resonate.
The spirit sports with time. The soul is the light that shines through and all of our earthly desire and ambition is nothing but shadow play on the cave wall. There is a secret here that we have all sworn not to reveal.
This font of image and river of intuition must be tracked to its source and exposed and shared in a fluid way. We live and work by flashes of intuition and bursts of illumination. Like a night scout behind enemy lines, we move in darkness from hand-hold to hand-hold until suddenly the surrounding countryside is illuminated beneath the ghostly light of an aerial flare. In one quick burst of illumination we scan the terrain and orient ourselves towards our perceived destination before all falls into darkness once again, and we are left.
It's as if we are all suffering from night blindness. Dazzled by the flash bulb of insight and desire popping off intermittently. When the flash of light explodes over the event horizon we are treated to a view. That momentary view; that micro-second of illumination etches a line of desire; an attitude deep within our mind much the same way a burst of light etches an image upon a piece of film within a camera. When we are then plunged back into darkness we retain that image or insight etched upon the retina of our mind's eye. We pursue this last known fix. The next time the bulb of insight goes off in our mind, we are aware of how far we are from the path of our initial desire.
When the deviation is shown to us we often become full of anguish, angst and pain; we are not closing with our desires and our aims as quickly as we might wish. We see only the ghostly trail from our phantom desires. And with each succeeding flash we seem to get further and further from our goal. This futile path of sadness and frustration becomes a pattern. We persist on our imagined path of stutter-like steps beneath the stroboscope of intermittent illumination.
The solution is to remain centered beneath the aerial bursts of illumination and not to become distracted and run off across the countryside chasing phantoms with our pitiful flash-light of ego. If we can succeed in remaining seated and centered, the intermittent stroboscopic perception of insightful consciousness will slowly brighten until a glow on the horizon will be detected. Vision will begin to be perceived without a break. The periodic bursts will lessen in intensity as the horizon brightens. Night will pass and in our centered position we will witness...The Dawn: the beginning of persistent illumination.
It will be as if we are stones dropped into a still pond. The rings of realization will begin to move out across the water in all directions with us as an apparent center. No ego involved; like windows we will allow the light of perception to shine through. Like gongs we will be struck by the idea, and together we will resonate.
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