Doubt, Doubt & More Doubt: 2022

Preface

Preface

Greetings,

While responding to an online friend’s questions about my thoughts on doubt, it occurred to me to take a look at all that had been written about it since I began scribing in 1989. Another friend had suggested I do this several years ago, and I had filed it on the back-burner of possible projects. The creative juices took hold, and this is the PDF result, with thoughts from all the major titles: The Stillness Before Time, The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim, Breadcrumbs, and The Return to Wonder.

A PDF is available at:

Doubt, Doubt & More Doubt

http://thestillnessbeforetime.com/doubtdoubtandmoredoubt.pdf

Writing has been an enjoyable process ever since I first began toying with prose; scribbling poetry, keeping journals, corresponding with friends and acquaintances during the college daze. The philosophical/mystical/whatever-you-want-to-call-them thoughts, that have been popping into mind since 1989, have always been very out-of-the-blue spontaneous. Nothing planned or forced about them. They are being shared on the off chance that others may find them of interest, though, quite frankly, it really does not matter if no one else ever even reads them, for I am, first and foremost, my own audience. I got mine, so to speak. I played my little part. I had my share of fun. And it is, as it has ever been, up to each to discern their own, on their own. There are really no followers in this Don Quixote quest; only earnest seekers, who waylay their desires and fears and dreads, enough to discern that which is the end to doubt, the end to dueling with windmills. “Yay” if it is your fate to figure it out. “Oh well” if it is not. And “so it goes” either way, really. Ecclesiastes 1:2 is always a good reminder: “Vanity of vanities,” saith the Preacher, “Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.” Awareness can only, with great effort, regain control, regain sovereignty, from the usurper, imagination, creator of all that is time, creator of all that is space. Creator of all that is illusion, has never has been anything more than illusion, will never be anything more than illusion. Only as real as the given moment.

“The Stillness Before Time” is the original work that came together in 1992, including mostly aphorisms, an essay, a newspaper question-and-answer, ten reflections, and lists of both movies and books. Though an early self-published version, long since edited and expanded, can be purchased at major booksellers, a downloadable copy is available, no charge, at the link below. There are also links to a variety of blogs of other creations by me, along with links to many writings of a similar nature, by thinkers and seers from across all times, across all geographies.

"The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim" is the second published book, and is both blogged and available as a PDF download.

The “Breadcrumbs” titles, published annually since 2015, all include the core chapters: Leftovers, Soundbites, Breadcrumbs. In the Breadcrumbs chapters, I unleash thoughts of a more personal nature than in the other two. All just to show I was ensconced in a living, breathing, relativity mundane, oftentimes foolish, mortal mind-body. An actor playing the hand that was dealt; same as everyone else, vain as everyone else. No need to sculpt me into more than I was. No need for myths, nor legends, nor fables, nor miracles, nor cult followings, nor any other fictions, any other absurdities, over to which the human mind, and all its imaginary history, has so often given itself. The Breadcrumbs chapters prove me again and again to be yet another Shakespearian player, as full of the limited and arbitrary as anyone else born into this dream of space and time. So please be sure not to shape me, or these many random thoughts, into some dogmatic absurdity. Use them as a launchpad, not an orbit.

“The Return to Wonder” blog is a compendium of aphorisms not included in the three other works: The Stillness Before Time, The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim, and Breadcrumbs. It originally totaled 3,000 pages formatted in 300 ten-page chapters written since 1990-ish. A gradual editing that will likely never be completed, is changing that dynamic into something of a mishmash.

Please note that this sort of wordplay is very haphazard, way too much work to put into any order. Probably best read it in bits and pieces in the here and there. One of those open-to-any-page works. Especially well-suited for coffee shops, coffee tables, and porcelain thrones.

Also note that all writings are always subject to updates and editing, so if you are interested in the most current version – before this house of cards comes tumbling down, and the world grows large again – downloading PDF copies every once and a while might be a reasonable discipline. This applies especially to the current year of Breadcrumbs, which could well be an annual project until the last wheezing breath, though frankly, the temptation to stop writing entirely is not off the table. It is a pleasant way to pass some of the countdown remaining, but it is unlikely there is much ground that has not been wandered by this frame of reference far more than enough already. No matter how many times Sisyphus rolls the boulder up the mountain, it is more than a little doubtful that the blind men and their true-believer followers, will ever discern, ever realize, ever embrace, the elephant in the middle of the room, without fabricating some new form of absurdity. It is the way we roll, it is the way we have always rolled, it is the way we will, far more than probably, always roll. Every species has its limitations, and we have in this mind’s eye, far-exceeded ours.

That said, if you do find these many thoughts at all worth preserving, for whatever times are ahead for this world and all its life forms, please feel free to share them with others who might also appreciate them. Else they may well swiftly slip back into the timeless oblivion from whence they came.

So it goes, either way. I played my part, I said my piece, I had my fun.

All the best,

P.S. For best viewing online, using the largest screen you have available to explore my little theme park, is suggested. Scrolling down and down on a phone screen is just not going to give you the same entrée.

P.P.S. Regarding the name Yaj Ekim ... It is just a reverse spelling of the first and middle names ... Michael Jay Holshouser ... Mike Jay ... Yaj Ekim.

P.P.P.S. Coincidently, make of it whatever you will, or will not, Yaj is an Indian boy’s name meaning worshipper, sacrifice, another name for Shiva, a sage. And Ekim is a Turkish name for October meaning “sowing” (of seeds). All kinds of absurdity can be read into that by the many, so-inclined – none of which was in mind when the idea came to reverse the letters to my name. See P.P.S. for details.

P.P.P.P.S. Yes, I am Shiva. And so are You. No, I am not Shiva. And neither are you. Irony and paradox rule.

The Stillness Before Time

Reflections From a Fellow Sojourner

Website

The Stillness Before Time
Reflections From a Fellow Sojourner
https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/

There is really only one Way.

It is without division or boundary.

It is without name or theology.

Awareness is its scripture.

Here now, its venue.

You, its witness.

Your life, the journey.

A PDF is available at:
https://thestillnessbeforetime.com/thestillnessbeforetime.pdf

One Through Thirty

One * 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 * Thirty

Essays

Of the Human Journey

Got God?

Ten Reflections

Blog and PDF

Blog * PDF

Other Resources

Books * Movies * Links * Blogs

Main Blogs & PDF's

(All blogs and PDF's subject to change, so stay tuned)

The Stillness Before Time
Reflections From a Fellow Sojourner
Blog * PDF

The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim
Blog * PDF

Breadcrumbs 2015
Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time
Blog * PDF

Breadcrumbs 2018
Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time
Blog * PDF

Breadcrumbs 2019
Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time
Blog * PDF

Breadcrumbs 2020
Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time
Blog * PDF

Breadcrumbs 2021
Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time
Blog * PDF

Breadcrumbs 2022
Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time
Blog * PDF

Breadcrumbs 2023 & Beyond
Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time
Blog * PDF

The Return to Wonder
Field Notes From the Unknown
(Major edit underway -- Edited copy colored blue)
Blog * PDF

Blogs & PDF's of Other Works

Michael's Rabbit Hole
A Selection of Breadcrumbs & Other Aphorisms
Blog * PDF

The Call of the Eternal
A Conversation With My Self
Blog * PDF

Imagination: The Great Usurper
Blog * PDF

Lost in Translation
The Human Paradigm's Linguistic Muddle
Blog * PDF

The Gordian Knot of Ethical Thinking
Blog * PDF

Jesus on Prophets
What Any Seer Likely Faces Returning to the Cave of Origin
Blog * PDF

Aftershocks Autumn 2024
Blog * PDF

Of Meaning and Purpose
Ponderings About the Futility of It All
Blog * PDF

Mystery, Mystery & More Mystery
Blog * PDF

Imagination, Imagination & More Imagination
Blog * PDF

Doubt, Doubt & More Doubt
Blog * PDF

Science, Science & More Science
Blog * PDF

History, History & More History
Blog * PDF

Patterns, Patterns & More Patterns
Blog * PDF

Reincarnation, Reincarnation & More Reincarnation
Blog * PDF

Standouts From the Return to Wonder Edit
Selections From the First Sixteen Chapters
Blog * PDF

Of the Human Journey
Along with Got God? And Ten Reflections
Blog * PDF

To Be or Not to Be
Blog * PDF

The Mystery of the Mystery
Blog * PDF

Who Was the First?
Blog * PDF

The Real is Discovering
Blog * PDF

59 Moments to The Way It Is (And Is Not)
The Scribe's Guide to the Great Whatthe#$*!?
Blog * PDF

Definitions
An Incomplete Selection 0f Contemplative Definitions
Blog * PDF

Conversations
A Variety of Letters, Emails, Texts, & Sundry Odd 'n Ends
Blog * PDF

Titles, Titles & More Titles
Blog * PDF

Even More
Blog * PDF

Sketches of the Once Upon a Time
A Few Epiphanies and Other Hallmark Moments
Blog * PDF

The Corollaries of Yaj Ekim
Blog * PDF

Possible Last Words & Epitaphs
Blog * PDF

The Standard Ripostes
The Scribe's Go-to Responses to This and That in the Day-To-Day
Blog * PDF

My (Not Quite) Haiku
Blog * PDF

Jester Amok
Blog * Facebook * Facebook (Original)

Uncle Sam Says
Blog * Facebook

Once Upon a Christmas
Blog * PDF

Ditties for the Bluegrass Pyre
Blog * PDF

A Short List of Books for the Up and Coming
Some Written Works That May Help Get the Young up to Speed
Blog * PDF

Spam Responses (a.k.a., WTF Is This Shit!?)
Blog * PDF

A Collection of Miscellaneous Creations

Final Exit and Related Links

COVID-19 Information Links

The Blind Men and the Elephant

Of A Philosophical Nature

The Four Agreements

The Joyful Curmudgeon

12 Rules You Can Live By

Quotes, Quotes & More Quotes

Fichier Circulaire de Michael

How to Work in Any Environment

50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School

Election 2016: The Rise (and Fall?) of Donald Trump

Michael's Little Warehouse of All Things Amusing, Absurd & Profound

Other Blogs and PDF's by Michael

Other Blogs and PDF's by Michael

Facebook

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Fichier Circulaire de Michael
(Michael's Circular File)

Yaj Ekim

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@YajEkim

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Michael Holshouser

Nine Translations of the Ashtavakra Gita

The Heart of Awareness (Byrom)

Ashtavakra Gita (Marshall)

Bitten by the Black Snake (Schoch)

Ashtavakra Gita (Richards)

A Duet of One (Balsekar)

Astavakra Samhita (Wood)

Ashtavakra Gita (Shastri)

Ashtavakra Gita (Saraswati)

Ashtavakra Gita (Vedic Scriptures)

PDF's of Nine Translations of the Ashtavakra Gita

The Heart of Awareness (Byrom)

Ashtavakra Gita (Marshall)

Bitten by the Black Snake (Schoch)

Ashtavakra Gita (Richards)

A Duet of One (Balsekar)

Astavakra Samhita (Wood)

Ashtavakra Gita (Shastri)

Ashtavakra Gita (Saraswati)

Ashtavakra Gita (Vedic Scriptures)

Ashtavakra Gita: I Am Shiva

Ashtavakra Gita: I Am Shiva

PDF's of Ashtavakra Gita: I Am Shiva

Ashtavakra Gita: I Am Shiva

I Am Shiva Comparison Chart

Four Translations of the Avadhuta Gita

Avadhuta Gita: Song of the Ever-Free (Marshall)

Song of the Avadhut (Abhayananda)

Avadhut Gita (Shastri)

Avadhuta Gita: The Song of the Ascetic (Sinha)

PDF's of Four Translations of the Avadhuta Gita

Avadhuta Gita: Song of the Ever-Free (Marshall)

Song of the Avadhut (Abhayananda)

Avadhut Gita (Shastri)

Avadhuta Gita: The Song of the Ascetic (Sinha)

Translations of Other Ancient Writings

Tao Te Ching: Verse One

Tao Te Ching (Marshall)

Bhagavad Gita (Marshall)

Yoga Sutras (Marshall)

Dhammapada (Marshall)

Ecclesiastes (Marshall)

Atma Bodha (Chinmayananda)

The Essence of the Ribhu Gitaj (Aiyer)

Yoga Vasishta Sara (Ramasramam)

Crest-Jewel of Discrimination (Madhavananda)

Mandukya Upanishad & Mandukya Karika of Gaudapada (Panoli)

Gaudapada: Advaita Vedanta's First Philosopher (Jones)

Translations of Ancient Writings by Bart Marshall

Avadhuta Gita: Song of the Ever-Free

Ashtavakra Gita

Tao Te Ching

Bhagavad Gita

Yoga Sutras

Dhammapada

Ecclesiastes

Writings by Bart Marshall

Verses Regarding True Nature

One Hundred Two Haiku

* * * * * * * * * *

Doubt, Doubt & More Doubt

World Rights Reserved

Michael J. Holshouser

1112 Cedar Creek Drive, Unit 4

Modesto, California 95355-5213

The United States of America

mjholshouser@gmail.com

Pronunciation: Holtzhowzer

All have the express written encouragement

To distribute this creation freely to any and all

Who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear

The mystery in which each and every one

Equally participates in so many ways

The Stillness Before Time

When in every moment

You see without a trace of doubt

That there is no master other than you,

That those many pedestaled images of great souls

Were projections of the inherent longing

To awaken to the birthright

That is prior to consciousness,

You will be free of artificial limits,

You will have triumphed over illusion,

You will have discovered the indelible truth:

That you are, indeed, sovereign, indivisibly absolute.

III

You who seek are already that which is sought.

You are the unequivocal source, the mystery, pure and simple.

Discerning it clearly in the everyday, without a trace of doubt, is the challenge.

Surrender your identity:

Your concepts and cravings,

Your fears, irritations, and doubts,

Your knowledge, opinions, and routines,

Your ambitions to achieve one glory or another.

Surrender everything you believe you are,

That you have never really been.

The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim

Sooner or later, our little creation will crash and burn.

So it goes, deal with it, get over it, move on.

Just be ready to roll with the punches,

When Mother Gaia lays down her one and only law,

And proves beyond any doubt, what has always really been in charge.

No doubt we can probably all afford,

To be a bit less pretentious, a smidgen more humble,

Considering the entire universe may well be,

About as significant as a grain of sand,

In the breadth and depth of it all.

It takes a great deal of mettle,

To doubt to the essential core of awareness.

Immortal fare is not for the meek who will inherit the earth,

And the dreaming it every moment inspires.

Any Supreme Being must surely be an amalgamation of all the greats:

Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Superman,

Harvey, Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, and Captain Hook.

Much easier to accept any given phantasm,

Than to doubt to the nth degree.

It is suffering that compels us to scrutinize our universes more closely.

We were all immortal before the manifest dream inspired us to doubt otherwise.

What a master teacher, pain, in all its ever-changing ways and means,

For as long as its lessons can be endured, and survived.

What a baffling, vexing, amazing, even astonishing thing,

To run into supposedly intelligent people who lack the doubt,

And are harbor to the critical thinking capacity of potato heads,

When it comes to superstition, and so many other absurdities.

How is it we have survived ourselves as long as we have?

The realized state cannot be forced, it cannot be persuaded.

Wisdom and insight are obviously not for all.

There is no use seeking something,

For which there is not the catalyst of doubt.

Doubt until there is nothing left to doubt.

To all who truly, earnestly doubt,

It is You, you truly pursue,

In that awareness, so matchless,

Where all trails end, at the end of You.

100

Imagine, if from your beginning,

You were among a modest, wise people,

Who clearly imparted that You were the mystery.

That You were the epicenter of your individual universe.

A guardian of this garden, and that the entire universe about You,

Was filled with teachers, each valued for their gift, whatever it might be.

And that You were also one of their teachers, likewise valued, likewise ordained.

Imagine that You were brought up with the certainty, that each and every fellow life form,

From the very smallest to the very largest, are all kin in the highest sense,

And that You are a solitary witness to the eternal song of mystery,

Never to doubt, even once, that You are truly of the One.

106

What is life for the pessimist but brief moments of serenity between great bouts of irritability.

110

Born to see it clearly or not, born to realize it beyond doubt or not,

Rest assured, rest content, rest absolute, in the good news,

That You are it, have ever been it, will ever be it.

111

You cannot free your Self without a healthy dose of doubt.

114

An absolute wellspring of irony, of paradox, of doubt, of absurdity;

Is what You must be, to wantonly, to brazenly, to fearlessly, to recklessly,

Peer prior to the sensory mind, behind the imaginary veil, of this vaporous Oz.

116

How can you help anyone who lacks the wit and courage to doubt?

133

Those many who harbor in hope,

Should beware the cynic whose light shines bright,

Upon the countless absurdities, that run amok in human mind and deed.

141

If your concept of a deity does not incorporate you as more than a sheep,

To be herded to and fro, in some groupthink-follower collective,

Then perhaps you need to incite some serious doubting,

For a very up-the-ante, worldview change-up.

Slap your Self, so to speak, very hard.

142

That so many maltreat others, in so many cruel ways, is beyond all reckoning.

Some abide the barbarity through stoic cynicism and ironic repartee,

And others through compassionate, selfless, heartfelt service.

The human dreamscape finds time and place for all.

149

We must each wander alone, through the decline, toward the demise.

Coping can include cynicism, stoicism, fatalism, absurdity, conviction.

165

Soul gorp for those who doubt; those who fathom irony and paradox.

167

Earth is earth, wind is wind, water is water, fire is fire.

Once you, without doubt, without equivocation, fully understand this,

And that these forces interact in every way imaginable,

And that you are eternal witness to it all,

What else is there to know?

168

Doubt until truth,

Becomes so Self-evident,

That all doubt dissolves into You.

177

As doubt seeps through the many cracks of the dike You have in mind erected,

You can run, but You cannot hide; like it or no, You are embarked upon an odyssey within.

You have the potential to be a Buddha, a Christ, a whatever-You-want-to-call-it,

If You can just get past the countless limitations of idolatry and dogma.

184

What inquiry can there really be, without unquenchable skepticism?

185

Identification with the body has created all this absurdity.

No doubt, that it is a good idea, to take reasonable care of it,

Elsewise, it will cause you no end of distraction of a lesser kind.

211

Irony and paradox, the keys to unraveling doubt.

242

Another day witnessing the monkey-mind play itself out.

Mass delusion and insanity on a worldwide scale.

No doubt any aliens watching us have plans,

To keep the contagion from spreading.

243

To those attached to one dogma or another,

You are either all right, or you are all wrong.

We all have to come from the same beginning,

And all assertions about it, are utterly meaningless.

So, drop the inanity, roll out the doubt, and figure it out.

246

From the now so-long-ago entry into this dream world,

You have been conditioned to believe so many things truly matter,

And have gradually discerned many of them, if not all,

To indeed be very dubious assumptions.

Where to now, Pilgrim,

Now that doubt is your filament?

248

Some are blessed, though many might argue, cursed beyond measure,

With a sense of doubt, with a capacity for irony and paradox,

With a skeptical wit that gradually transports them,

Into a transcendent, indivisible no-mind.

A rare fate, this return to wonder,

To which all are beckoned, few are chosen.

256

Endlessly fascinating how some cannot help but doubt,

While others are, even to the point of savagery, entirely incapable of it:

“What!? Make me think!? Make me question!? How dare you!! Infidel!! I will kill you!!”

260

The infant begins with no knowledge,

Of what it is seeing, hearing, touching. tasting, or smelling.

Over time, the collusion into which it has been cast, will sculpt it to its own ends.

Few will likely ever doubt with enough abide-alone courage,

To decline and return to the natural state.

262

Ignorance, being its own distorted, corrupt end;

There is really very little point in debating with any true believer.

If someone is seething dogma about anything fashioned of this manifest dreamtime,

Then it is no doubt much less bothersome to put them behind you,

And just walkabout some other direction.

269

The doubt of your doubt by others,

Can be an undermining, infecting snare.

The quest for certainty is a solitary pursuit.

You may spark others, but must ever be vigilant,

Lest the flame be inadvertently damped by ignorance.

270

To be imbued with certainty, to be without even a smidgeon of doubt,

How is that even vaguely, remotely, figuratively, tenuously possible?

282

The gentle cynic is indifferently agnostic.

293

The lack of doubt is a wall that cannot be surmounted.

296

Idolatry and dogma are the barren harvest of those who lack the seed of doubt.

299

A most challenging thing, not to grow more inflexible,

More harsh, more cynical, as the world daily takes its toll.

To be as a child; innocent, free, untainted, uncarved, unbroken;

Is a momentary awareness, only timeless minds realize.

306

Challenging as it all too often is,

Try not to be too blinded by your cynicism.

Despite the play and its players,

There is wonder in it all.

314

Who can say who or what or when or where or why or how,

The seeds of doubt are planted, take root, get watered, and grow to fruition.

It is, as all things ever are, the same ineffable mystery from all beginnings to all endings.

322

Few are inflicted with the great doubt,

That eventually conveys them all the way back,

To the ephemeral awareness prior to all consciousness.

So many temptations, so many distractions, so many delusions,

On the long and winding ever here now road home.

325

What makes no sense to most,

May be the only thing that does to You.

Standing completely alone, is really the only option,

For those whose doubting, discerns the truth within and without.

327

Only non-followers, non-believers, non-identifiers,

Those courageous and intelligent and skeptical enough, to stand alone,

Will ever have the doubting wit to discern the truth of it.

Many are called, but few are chosen.

336

Without the subtlety of great doubt, truth is veiled,

Behind every conceivable whim of imagination.

341

The smug, self-righteous arrogance of true believers,

Likely propels many a doubter even further afield.

343

What could be more yawn than sitting alone on a cloud,

Occasionally flapping a couple useless wings,

Trying to learn how to play a harp?

At least some of that fat,

Might get burnt off carousing in hell.

Going to be one heck of a wild and crazy, no doubt.

356

Buy into a meme, and your life will whirl,

Its constricted pattern for the rest of your existence.

Doubt is the saving grace from a mind chock-full of absurdity.

359

How can anyone look at all these fellow creatures small to great,

And not, without doubt, discern the obvious fact, that within each and every one,

Is the same indelible source, the same awareness, the same intelligence?

That all are the same omnipresent, omniscient witness as you.

366

What is required to awaken,

Is to inwardly pay very close attention,

In a non-intellectual, prior-to-consciousness way,

Until you very logically, without doubt, discern for your Self,

That you, the witness, the observer, are the observed.

All duality is the concoction of imagination.

371

Doubt cannot be transplanted.

387

Why do you doubt your light?

Why do you doubt your truth?

Why do you doubt your Self?

415

Freedom is in the doubting of everything imagined.

417

Who was that masked

Infant … child … adolescent … adult?

One in the same, no doubt.

423

If you do not doubt,

You may well mindlessly accept,

Traditions, dogmas, rituals, symbols, superstitions,

And delusional ignorance in general,

As the mainstays

Of that which is truth alone.

435

Surrounded as you are by the sensory play,

An ether replete with earth and air and water and fire,

You are, You have ever been, You will ever be,

Totally, without doubt, completely alone.

449

What is it like to be so without doubt, so uncritical, so unskeptical,

As to be all together complacent, consenting, to the given propaganda?

What are the circumstances, the dynamics, that fashion the true believer?

454

Doubt until you doubt it not.

461

There are, no doubt, many, many extraordinary,

Inexplicable moments in any existence.

Porcelain thrones are like that.

478

The ultimate truth, by whatever metaphors are used to describe it, is unquestionable,

Undoubtable, indisputable, unarguable, undebatable, incontestable, undeniable, irrefutable,

Incontrovertible, unmistakable, unequivocal, certain, sure, positive, definite, absolute, conclusive,

Watertight, ironclad; beyond doubt, beyond the shadow of a doubt, beyond dispute,

Beyond question, not in question, not in doubt, sure as shootin'.

480

To accept blindly is foolish; to doubt rationally is prudent.

Why should you accept anything you have not discerned for your Self?

Why accept any fable, any myth, any legend, any folktale, any fairytale, any invention,

Without some reservation, some critical inquiry, some judicious oversight?

486

As with any organism small to great born into this whirling garden world,

Human consciousness seeks out similar wavelengths within the spectrum of possibilities,

Thus preserving, spreading whatever perceptions, whatever memes, are harbored in the given mindset.

To discern one’s conditioning, and perchance to be free of it, or at least attentive to it,

Requires a skeptical, introspective nature of the highest order.

491

All the so-called scriptures were written by seers and sages,

Really no different than anyone who has pondered existence before or since.

We are all cousins of the same puddle, responding to the life and times into which we are cast.

The geography, culture, language, technology, and on and on, are inevitably different,

But guaranteed, beyond all doubt, we are all very much the same monkey-mind,

And prior to that, very much the same quantum stardust of all creation.

It is but a veiled, temporal play, in which the myriad players,

Are, in the ultimate eternal reality, one in the same.