REFLECTION OF THINGS PAST AND FUTURE IS EMPTY OF SUBSTANCE
“I had endured my wretchedness with a quiet mind because it was mixed with neither fear nor hope. Now, on the other hand, it was the latter of these which, almost as much as fear, made my suffering intolerable.” Marcel Proust in his book Remembrance of Things Past, reveals a glimmer of truth about man’s earthly existence. Perhaps, the fall of Eden was not only symbolic but also systemic in the “gift of time” for in life’s existence comes remembrance and expectation feeding the former and latter alike. Its circumstance that weighs heavily for one or the other creating perspective …time not being an arbitrator is passive as the reflection is empty of substance. It’s not in time we find the path to a quiet mind for harmony within aloneness is timeless life. For in Eden, timelessly life is about us. We have, but to open our mind to the immediacy of life’s wonders but dwell not on reflection. These wonders as gifts can not as treasure be captured or indeed given, nor as prey sought but only as nourishment to a quiet mind experienced.
It is in this fabrication of space we travel with humanities baggage remembrance in tow as a gift to another destination in time. A gift not of desire nor choice rather of the symbolic inheritance of the reflection of humanity in the mist of the minds fabric of time. In a dimension measured with fear and its fragile reflection hope in a fabric of time nourished by the companions of emotion. For in being removed from the present time creates perspective neither of the moment nor of a future, but an illusion framed by the circumstance of remembrance within a delusion empty of substance bounded by emotion. It is in this fragile reflection that a future distorted through fear and hope fed by loneliness creates its illusion for the mind and the mind its delusion for a future. To be or not to be, merely questions from the symbolic baggage of humanity, for neither represents our harmony in aloneness with time.
Perspective like an image distorting the surface on a reflecting pool is but one step removed for there is nothing in this fragile reflection but remembrance in circumstance of another time. Harmony without humanities baggage awaits us in our solitude for this knowing is neither in time nor in the arrival of a future. From the depth the view is not self-reflection through the symbolic baggage of humanity for there is not a perspective but only the essence of being within a quiet mind. And unlike ocean waves serenading endlessly, its continual presence is only in our mind and as we travel in life serenaded by the reverberations of symbolic emptiness in search of knowing our aloneness within harmony, a search forever fruitless and only a dance to the Seiren song, a delusion. Timelessly our companion in life is an echo of a serenity forgotten, not from a future nor from the reverberations of the baggage of humanity as it is dragged through time, rather from the harmony before birth within our being. It is the total emersion, indwelling in the depth without perspective where harmony is achieved within our being. For within these depths there is not an echo of emptiness nor the emotion of loneliness, for there is no place to go within a quiet mind nor bounds for echoes, for this freedom is oneness devoid of aspiration.
Individual consciousness as a burden seeks, conveniently and appropriately, reflecting pools in search of meaning. We take up the burden again and again convinced that the reflection in the pool is more than appearances. Quite unaware, or are we, that the image does not forge a reality beyond its thin veil of surface tension and reflection, and of substance is as empty as the reverberation in loneliness. It is consensus in reflecting pools that is sought not reality. Consensus like a vessel containing water speaks not of essence but rather to the shape of the content. This being is an illusion and through the echoes of emptiness the illusion becomes a delusion not of being, but merely of the hope of a being. As water is bounded by the shape of the vessel, it is not the water that intrigues us as much as it is the vessel containing the water. For the path to the water is not a mystery shrouded in intrigue, nor a desire wrapped in perspective for these are the instruments in the Seiren Song of delusion, rather the freedom in oneness is being in harmony in knowing life’s creation.
© Candlewood Isle, November 1997, Roger C. Wise
