Easter Sermon To (From?) the Birds

Looked up on Easter morning and saw the pigeons on the tree looking down at me. I imagined this was a sermon I was giving the pigeons or was it the other way around? This could have been triggered by the fact that other folk were in church and i wasn't. The pigeons seemed to ask me – how should we be? This question i recall seemed to have come out of the sight of a butterfly flying near a pigeon and the pigeon appearing to think about going after the butterfly and then seeming to hold back as if confused or embarrassed. I replied back to the pigeons – be according to your true nature. A cuckoo started sending out its signals to the world. I interpreted this as a question from it to me – what about me? I replied to it with the same answer. It seemed to say – i am confused, what is my true nature? I asked it to be the way it felt moment by moment and to reflect if this was its true nature. I felt that doing this diligently would enable it to understand what its true nature was eventually and then to live effortlessly according to its nature. Then the thought occurred to me that things seemed so straight forward for most beings – the trees, birds, ants, plants, etc. They really didn’t seem to have any confusion about being according to their true nature. Humans on the other hand, with our infinite complexities, confusions of the mind, influences, desires, who we think we are from one moment to the next, seem to find it so much harder to understand what our true nature is and be according to it, if we ever want to in the first place that is.

Reflections at Dawn

My mind opens out to its immediate surroundings from the semi-sleep mode it is in. It looks at relationships with friends, family, nature and becomes aware of spatiality in the physical, mental and philosophical contexts. The drone of the bees as they drink nectar from the flowers reaches the ear during a period of silence from the road below. A spider’s web is caught in the sunlight among the trees. The thought occurs – is it possible for a person to live all the time in pure and complete consciousness, with it driving all his thoughts and actions, examining himself and his relationship with the world keeping his inner core of super consciousness as the center and spreading his perspective in all directions, firing up all the networks and connections in his brain in all directions and all planes to look completely outward and completely inward? What will be the impact of such a person on today’s world, positive or negative? Will that person be a source of strength, calm and peace for himself and existence, or will he be a disturbance (sometimes terrifying) depending on his relative position to those around him? I suddenly visualize my core being as a trillion mirrors reflecting everything and everybody around me. I then think that if the core is pure consciousness should it reflect anything at all or just be a column of nothing, a nothing into which all things enter and from which things emerge based on the highest potentiality at that moment? I wonder if it was like this at the moment of birth when the first sensation reaches the untainted(?) consciousness and the cycles of sensation-response began and again will it be like this at the time of death when gradually all sensations-response cease one by one till there is only pure consciousness left once again? Was it like birth at the beginning of this cycle of existence and did pure consciousness project out the universe and then start the cycles of sensations-response and will it be once again like death at the end of this cycle of existence ? Most of us believe that in the beginning everything came out of nothing and in the end it will all end up in nothing don’t we?

Then again, being pure nothing in the core will make one nobody won’t it? I recalled Roger Ebert, Johnny Depp and the quote from Ebert’s review of Dead Man against Depp’s picture on Facebook that I saw the previous night – ‘Johnny Depp is sad and lost as the opposite of Nobody, which I fear is Every Man’. The Johnny Depp connect makes me recall Absalom the smoking caterpillar and his subsequent transformation into a butterfly in the Tim Burton movie Alice in Wonderland. With my smoking and reflections I wonder if I will turn into a butterfly one day but before that I would need to become wise like Absalom i would think. Or is it not better to just become nobody and nothing? Both easier said than done.

Plant Therapy

Sat on the terrace and looked around to see ants carrying something to eat up the wall. My thoughts were drawn to views from friends on the net about man and existence. Wondered what the best thing to do at the moment was. Started watering the plants and then (maybe it is the influence of the plants) I was drawn to the thought that everything comes out of the same essence – everything around me – existence itself. And that same essence seemed in my mind to be super consciousness, the Brahman, what existed before the Big bang or whatever else you would like to call it. As i watered each plant, my thoughts seemed to be drawn to the details of each plant, focussing more on some than on others. The focus i notice is not the same everyday but dwells on different plants at different times. Often it is the vibrancy of the plants, the new leaves and flowers, sometimes I think a particular plant needs more care or water. I have started observing more than I did before about plants. Differentiating plants by their structure is not an easy process but it is starting to interest me (finally?). I recalled we had transplanted some plants a few months back and they seemed to be doing fine. Every day with these plants is a magical experience in a new way for me so much so that it is one of the actions I look forward to each day.

I stepped back and again felt the connection between myself, the plants, the building, the plastic tank, the same essence? I looked up and saw the pigeons seeming to be on high alert facing different directions focussed on group survival. Who can ever dare say that plants and birds don’t have consciousness? It is so plainly obvious.

My attention was drawn to the dried wood on the tree which looked like it would drop off. The thought occurred to me that i could use this as firewood if it ever came to that provided the tree was still around and I of course. I was drawn to the next thought, how selfish I am, thinking about ways to exploit the connection with everything around me for my benefit. This was followed by the thought that everything around me seemed to be doing the same thing, taking what it needs for its survival. A will to power that’s what life seemed like at that moment. A will to power against what? Is there any adversary when we are all of the same essence? Or is death our adversary because we are alive? But then living and dying are constantly two extremes of entry and exit onto this theatre called our reality isn’t it? Why the conflict everywhere keeping us all fighting when eventually fight or no fight this will all merge into the same essence, won’t it? Entertainment?