A year and a month ago, on vacation, I saw a lightning-split tree trunk, a ponderosa, with what appeared to be a bud of new growth in the stump portion of the trunk still rooted. (The rest of the trunk had been totally split off; it wasn't a partial split.)
As a good secularist with a graduate divinity degree, I was inspired to offer thoughts based on the most famous logion in the Gospel of Thomas. Those thoughts, with photos of the trunk, are here, in one of my most popular blog posts here of the last year and beyond.
This year, I saw a similar trunk, but no growth at either end. (It appeared felled, not lightning-split.)
So, I started ruminating more explicitly secular and anti-metaphysical thought, which eventually came into poetic shape, as follows:
Split the log;
There I am not.
There is no secret, ancient, esoteric wisdom,
Nor any adepts to teach it.
There is no karmic destiny
To control your life, nor to be controlled in return.
There are no prayers or chants,
Poses or breaths,
Meditations or medications
To draw you closer to the Creator, the Revealer, the Healer
Or even the Destroyer.
Fools!
There is no Me!
No God, Brahman, Atman or Great Spirit;
No heaven or hell.
No rounds of reincarnation and no eternal recurrence.
“That thou art” is real, non-metaphysical and non-dualist.
Only you yourself, an embodied consciousness.
Split yourself and find the truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment