Fool and Wise

"Men who know themselves are no longer fools. 

They stand on the threshold of the door of Wisdom."

Havelock Ellis

Intelligent vs idiots

Intelligent ones wonder

– idiots are dead sure. 

Sadhguru 

On Religions...

"No one experiences freedom until they stop pushing against others. The only thing that binds you is the pushing against that which is unwanted. And so, if a religion could just be excited about what it is, or a person within a religion could just speak with appreciation about what it is, without justifying what it is by pushing against everything else, then each religion, in all of its difference, could be just exactly what you're reaching for."

Abraham (Esther Hicks)

Water...

Knowledge & ignorance

"The greater our knowledge increases 

the more our ignorance unfolds."

John F. Kennedy

Appearances

"Though shifting appearances ceaselessly rise,

just be unattached as a child at play."

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

Is it not about time?

"If the white man wants to live in peace 

with the Indian, he can live in peace...Treat all
men alike. 

Give them all the same law.
Give them all an even chance to live and grow.

All men  were made by the same Great Spirit Chief.

They are all brothers. The Earth is the mother of all people, 

and all people should have equal rights upon it....

Let me be a free man,free to travel,

free to stop,free to work,free to trade where 

I choose my own teachers, free to follow 

the religion of my fathers,free to think 

and talk and act for myself, and I 

will obey every law, or submit to the penalty."

Heinmot Tooyalaket 

(Chief Joseph), Nez Perce Leader

Fate:

An unconscious creation!

Live through intention!

Aspire to freedom!

Inquire of wisdom!

Decide with insight!

Know heart’s might!

Act if you are true!

See it all through!

Living is not for some!

Rest only when done!

Somwang (Book of poems2)

Fear, anger, misery

"Fear, anger, misery, frustration, depression, and 

despair are all products of a mind that you have 

not taken charge of."

Sadhguru

Thinking...

"There is nothing either good or 

bad but thinking makes it so." 

William Shakespeare

Knowledge & wisdom

"Those who know it do not speak about it. 

Those who speak about it do not know it."

Tao Te Ching

A good thing....

"One good thing about music, 

when it hits you, you feel no pain." 

Bob Marley

The mind...

"The mind is society’s garbage bin. Everyone 

who passes by stuffs something into it." 

Sadhguru

Trust...

“. . . if gold rust, what then will iron do?

 For if a priest be foul in whom we trust

 No wonder that a common man should rust. . . .” 

Geoffrey Chaucer

Endless Time

Time is endless in thy hands, my lord. 

There is none to count thy minutes. 

Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. 

Thou knowest how to wait. 

Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower. 

We have no time to lose, 

and having no time we must scramble for a chance. 

We are too poor to be late. 

And thus it is that time goes by 

while I give it to every querulous man who claims it, 

and thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last. 

At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut; 

but I find that yet there is time. 

Rabindranath Tagore

Our real World

"We live now in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy education, government destroys freedom, press destroys information, religion destroys morals and our banks destroy the economy".

Chris Hedges

Pacific Radio Speech (date unknown)

USA

Clouds And Waves

Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds call out to me-
"We play from the time we wake till the day ends.
We play with the golden dawn, we play with the silver moon."
I ask, "But how am I to get up to you ?"
They answer, "Come to the edge of the earth, lift up your
hands to the sky, and you will be taken up into the clouds."
"My mother is waiting for me at home, "I say, "How can I leave
her and come?"
Then they smile and float away.
But I know a nicer game than that, mother.
I shall be the cloud and you the moon.
I shall cover you with both my hands, and our house-top will
be the blue sky.
The folk who live in the waves call out to me-
"We sing from morning till night; on and on we travel and know
not where we pass."
I ask, "But how am I to join you?"
They tell me, "Come to the edge of the shore and stand with
your eyes tight shut, and you will be carried out upon the waves."
I say, "My mother always wants me at home in the everything-
how can I leave her and go?"
They smile, dance and pass by.
But I know a better game than that.
I will be the waves and you will be a strange shore.
I shall roll on and on and on, and break upon your lap with
laughter.
And no one in the world will know where we both are.

Rabindranath Tagore

Understand...

“Any fool can know. 

The point is to understand.” 

Albert Einstein

Tomb humor...

Epitaph in a Ribbesford, England, cemetery:

The children of Israel wanted bread

And the Lord sent them manna,

Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,

And the Devil sent him Anna.

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils; 

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed- and gazed- but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude; 

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils. 

William Wordsworth

War

A young soldier grieves

Treads upon dried leaves

Yet another life and soul

Died on worn out soles!

Bright sky once so sweet

For the lost now weeps

The deluded drink & cheer!

But for all kin dark is near

As he gasps his final breath

Embraced by arms of death

An inner voice thus spoke:

“I lost my chance to “win”.

A short life: a collective sin!”

Somwang

Book of poems 2

Age...

"Age is an issue of mind over matter. 

If you don't mind, it doesn't matter." 

Mark Twain