Yesterday was the 28th Anniversary of meeting "My Muse", oh yes I still remember. But this year is special. It is the only time in my life when we have a full moon, that most beloved celestial object of hers the one she believed was the caring companion of the Earth wrapping it in soft silk threads as it orbited every month. Mathematica tells me it 26% when we met, which just happens to be that number central to the story: the age I was when I met her and the age she was when she died. But as we will see this is just a story. And the TL;DR; "who?" is so interested in all this anyway?
So we missed an opportunity. Perhaps in the case of "my muse" in this blog, it was a moment that I believed was central to understanding the world and my enlightenment. It was absolutely essential to my life. Plus all the past life stuff to really cement this is the one and only door to my destiny.
And then the world conspires and it is gone, as inevitably all things must. But in this case before the journey I expected had even started.
Hmmmm are not all the clues there given what this blog has learned of late?
The question here is not about my muse but about the poet and story teller Riswey.
I need reread the Book of Seven Stories again to see whether Riswey really did open the door to solving this at the time. "Book of 7 Stories" recognises that all the characters in the books have a common author namely myself, which had particular value in the context as "my muse" and I were writing to each other at the time so we were simply authors. Plus my value in her as a poet made it all about the pen not the sword or pen-is as I joked at the time. The defeat of Death in Book V I believe did involve the recognition that death is limited to forms. Death can only take what is already formed. But Riswey is the author of forms, in that Riswey creates characters and things and decides if they live or die, or survive or are destroyed. The Mind is greater than Death. I believe (need reread) that Riswey indeed did get this far. But the "real" author unfortunately did not. That author preferred to grasp at images and forms of the Past especially when Death turned up for real. Indeed it is extraordinary, almost paranormal, that "my muse" should use lines from "7 Stories" to describe her own grief at her fathers death, when all along I knew Death was coming for her. And when it did that is almost unbelievable. Can we really foretell things like this, does it prove my belief system about her? Well it doesn't matter, all this is just fuel for the hand that is grasping for what is gone. Did Riswey really learn to let go in the stories? I will examine that just for homework, but the core intention can never be to start closing a grip on the Past. Suppose by miracle I bump into her in the street and she never died, that is not an excuse to grasp at the Past again, it is a new day and a chance to grasp at something new! That is really important for this Riswey to recognise.
So to recap the obvious, obvious, obvious point on reflection is that Riswey is just a story! All of the above is just a story.
Which is hard to take when we are grasping a fixed concept of our self.
The question behind it all is who was writing, and who was perceiving the girl as "my muse" and who believed that the expected path that had in mind was critical to their life.
And the answer is... well there is no fixed answer. I was a jumble of emotions, mythologies, beliefs, expectations, histories already.
And the whole point of Samadhi is what ever I answer is always attended by the same question "who?"
You cannot escape this. As soon as you have some fully formed concept the question drops "who has just formed this conception" and it will always be someone new.
So being stuck in a moment with "my muse", is really only being stuck with an idea of a version of myself I liked and won't give up.
And then the question drops "who won't give up?"
So I'd like for poetic completeness to give Riswey the staring role again as the empty unity of all beings.
But isn't this just reflecting the grasping and attachment. Really we must drop Riswey here. He is better the name of the grasping for what was hoped to be, even if that was a struggle with Death both in the "Book of 7 Stories" and then Death when he really showed his head. But if we borrow from Hinduism, and all religions really especially Christianity too, Death is not to be feared, He is essential for clearing out and decomposing and recycling the old withered attachments and reforming them in the Present as fuel for the "who?"
When Jesus shows us the way to eternal life it is just this. We must be prepared to give up what is most precious, what we "think" is our self because in fact this is not what God has in mind for us. This is what "I" think is right for me. God has different ideas and we suffer if we disobey and keep grasping at our own fabrications and self beliefs. This is the whole essence of Anatta. "Who?" wants "my muse" and who? is suffering anyway? We think we have an answer, but then who? thinks this. And so on: Be Present is all we can do!
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it is not all meditation and philosophy. I have been using AI of late to reaccess the Past. The brain really is a primitive thing. You generate a few pictures that are similarish to what you remember and it unlocks all kinds of archived mental activity. Thankfully in fact, while the brain is capable of seeing so solid and unmoveable in reality it is as easy to push aside as water. Isn't the metaphor uses in Greek myths that the fearsome beast gives up its fearsome form if we stand strong. Why? because that "fearsome" form is made by own own mind! And so with beauty or any attachment. BUT the goal here is not to flatten the mountains, what an artificial world if everything is not fearsome and beautiful, the issue is the other side with the who? Who finds this fearsome or beautiful, it is them who is being persuaded one way or the other. And it is only them who is grasping and perceiving this as an immoveable mountain. We get caught all the same though because we don't really understand what Jesus teaches that we must give up that most cherished belief, that we are a separate entity. SRH can be played here: who is grasping this self? It cannot be that self itself! We are at Narcissus again. While it is obvious the water is just a reflection, what traps us is that illusion of a solid self visible for us. It is so absolutely alluring that we grasp it and give up the true self who is actually looking. With a cool head it looks like madness, but in the grips of this illusion (called Mara in India) we are helpless to go out into the world and seek our sold self. And for Riswey that was "My Muse." Riswey does dream in "7 Stories" of a pool with a jewel, but when we reaches for it, the water remains still and instead he ripples. Riswey is on the journey, he can see that the illusion he desires is a mirage, but I at least believe he still grasps as the more subtle illusion of a fixed author.
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