What if the world were a reflection of my consciousness?
A mirror into which I peer and judge,
Each person a fragment of my own self,
Just an interpetation, a shadow, a vapour trail,
What if we were a temporary distortion of God's thoughtlessness?
Pieces in a puzzle we are creating,
Lovers in a game of our own making,
Just an expression of life's grand will,
From this mindset, where would we then explore?
Like animals again, dumb and free,
Living the living so painlessly,
Dying in the arms of a benign reality,
Losing the will to be separate and terrified,
How would I feel without this thought of being?
Would I stop and fall like a battery dead toy?
Or would I shine with an eternal brightness?
A portion of the collective
A dancing, aimless, magnificent, unknowing child.
(The title of this poem comes from Byron Katie's book of the same name -
http://www.thework.net/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=298. I have been inspired by Byron Katie's writings and I have practised with her technique 'The Work', both on myself and with my clients - see http://www.thework.com/thework.asp. This poem plays with some of Byron Katie's thoughts on the nature of reality and also combines this with similar thoughts from the leading physicists. For example, if you read David Bohm's book 'Wholeness and the Implicate Order' http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wholeness-Implicate-Order-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415289793) , he alludes to the same possibilities, although expressing these via a logical, 'mathematical' language in contrast to the more poetic musings of Byron Katie. Whilst I do not pretend to understand or live by all that these authors decribe, I do believe that they have glimpsed something exciting and transformative. I believe that they are pioneers and that, one day, their way of looking at the world will become mainstream and that this will lead to many positive changes in all aspects of human life. Not if, but when?)
Comment from my friend, Nick Turnbull, whose rigorous grasp of modern philosophy adds a new dimension to this poem's interpretation. Brilliant words. Thanks Nick:-
ReplyDelete'The poem takes us on a journey from the experience of being an immobile entity at the centre of a universe constructed by the ego, to being a free-spirited strand of a collective consciousness. There is tension between clinging to the control granted by an ego-centric universe and a yearning to be subsumed by the flow and rhythm of life. Technically there might not be any choice in the matter as that which we perceive as being beyond us could indeed be merely an extension of our own consciousness. There is no refuting Descartes’ “Cogito ergo sum” in the sense that the only thing an individual can be sure of is that he exists, regardless of whether or not he is dreaming. The “we” in line 5 pragmatically frees us from this philosophical constraint and concedes a pluralistic universe; one which has seemingly come into being inadvertently from nothing but the elements of which have evolved an autonomous consciousness which strives to echo the pattern of life’s purpose. The poem portrays a yearning for blissful ignorance, to be free of self-consciousness and to be at one with the universe as opposed to being an observer with an acute feeling of separateness. The death-wish of the ego is tempered by an enquiry of what lies beyond – is there is any point in feeling good if you lose the ability to analyse and reflect on it or do our self-conscious tendencies block our path to unalloyed joy and fulfilment? A paradigm shift implies a step into the unknown and casts us in the role of an “unknowing child” - a state which is characteristic of those who have historically brought about paradigm shifts by spearheading the search for knowledge and understanding, having first recognised their own ignorance.'