The Rudra Chronicles

2011-12-12T17:04:00.001-08:00

2011-12-12T17:03:00.003-08:00

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2011-10-08T16:58:00.001-07:00

2011-10-04T13:21:00.000-07:00

2011-10-04T07:49:00.000-07:00

2011-09-28T04:54:00.001-07:00

2011-09-28T04:50:00.001-07:00

2011-09-28T04:49:00.000-07:00

2011-09-16T16:40:00.000-07:00

GALLERY OF GHOSTS

Very few of us write on a blank page,

Or eat off an empty plate.

Try not to think and you are thinking

Ignore the moment and you dream.

Rudra adapted many a strategy over the years to achieve emptiness.

He thought he had identified the enemy and began to encircle it.

A full frontal attack was followed by the infiltration of undercover agents.

Locking horns prolongs the conflict.

Strategic retreat earns respite.

But he was not looking for either of these.

Sixty years passed before he realised he was in a gallery of ghosts.

-Rudra Nua

2011-09-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

Non-Duality for golfers:

'Every hole a hole in one.'

2011-09-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

I confess I truly know nothing.
The appearance is a bafflement
The body equally so
And please dont start on the mind.

Slipping through these immense waters, nothing stirs.

Once I was surrounded with barriers,
Problems followed hot on each other's heels.
But what can be left when there is no lucky winner, no lucky loser?

-Rudra Nua

2011-09-13T08:12:00.000-07:00

TRACES

How could you

Tread in yesterday's footprint

Inhabit the space you just left

Replicate the person that stepped out of the moment just gone?

The carpet rolls up behind you

There is just the right amount of carpet where you stand.

Tent pegs will not penetrate rock

Ideal ground is right beneath you.

I once saw a fozen river

But even that thawed in the spring

Why flog a dead horse?

Leave not a trace of your existence.

-Rudra Nua

2011-09-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

THE END OF THE LINE

'Are we there yet?'

'There' will never be here.

"Is this really it?"

Yes, this really is it.

"Will everything fall into place

When I reach my destination?"

Everything is in place.

You will never reach your destination.

There will never be an end of the line.

How could there be a beginning or an end

When there is no line?

-Rudra Nua

2011-08-06T06:47:00.001-07:00

RAIN

Persistent rain thrums outside my window,
What delicious music.
So much so that I can't tell the difference between waking and sleeping.
Yet an acutely sensitive awareness and a body lie in a warm bed.
Thoughts are extruded in word form and land on a page.

What does he know?
What knows him?
Ah, the sheer impenetrable mystery of it.

The jockey stays loyal to the horse,
The horse to the jockey.
As they round the bend
Both vanish like exhausted smoke.

What is left cannot be discussed.

2011-08-06T06:36:00.000-07:00

PIMP MY PUP

Why bother tinkering with the diet,

Upgrading the kennel,

Improving the attitude,

Preening the coat,

Until the nature of the dog is known.

Pimp my pup is fine for some

But one day that pup will roar.

2011-06-26T16:49:00.000-07:00

HARBOUR WAVE

The tsunami doesn’t stop to ask people

About their beliefs.

Neither does the mountain stream quiz the rocks

On their opinions,

On its way to the sea.

To be as hollow as we can

Signifies least resistance to the waves of life.

Be slippery, be pliant

That way the path is easy.

Every last morsel can only be devoured,

Or it has a habit of devouring you.

2011-06-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

STAPLE DIET

Fatigue for breakfast

Judgement for lunch

Banter for afternoon tea

Ill humour for dinner

Late at night

He breaks out of his shell

All night long

He sings the praises of life eternal.

2011-06-12T00:01:00.001-07:00

His teacher generously relaxed the baggage restrictions so that he could take the weight of the world on board. Mysteriously it became as light as a feather.

Elegance

2011-06-02T05:39:00.001-07:00

2011-05-26T08:35:00.000-07:00

Himself

The unexpected happens moment to moment, the expected is a mere colouration of the mind.

The Curtain

2011-05-26T04:55:00.000-07:00

2011-05-25T06:06:00.001-07:00

2011-05-25T02:35:00.000-07:00

2011-05-23T16:16:00.000-07:00

Trails

2011-05-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

Whether I accept or not makes no difference to what is.

Stories

2011-05-22T12:37:00.001-07:00

We all have our story, but in most cases our story has us.

2011-05-22T12:24:00.001-07:00

It is so hands off that there are no hands.

2011-05-06T00:43:00.000-07:00

I know most when I know nothing.

2011-04-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

RETURN FROM THE FRONT

Wounded soldiers turned up at my door

Some fresh from the front lines

Others from deep cover assignments.

Most were burnt out from years of combat;

Battle weary and shell shocked.

I considered myself a pacifist,

Who had little sympathy for the politics of strife

But how could I turn them away?

For their sake and mine

It was better to make them welcome

And dress their wounds.

Gradually I saw past the camouflage.

I found myself shaking hands with old acquaintances:

Anxiety, fear, indecision, doubt

Jealousy, anger, and existential angst;

These were among their ranks.

I bow to them now for what they reveal.

2011-04-19T02:15:00.000-07:00

Clarity and confusion row the same boat but the sail does all the work.

2011-04-19T02:09:00.000-07:00

The One keeps whispering to me 'throw in the towel’ but donkey wants his carrot.

2011-04-09T05:05:00.000-07:00

Slip the moorings before you slip the moorings.

2011-04-08T13:42:00.000-07:00

This is the big dipper, always unknown and unpredictable, by its nature outside the bounds of any approach.

To set it in words is only a tease and a bind. Yet when it needs to be spoken it stammers, stammers in joy.

2011-04-01T06:30:00.000-07:00

Two students.

1. Do you practice meditation?

2. I notice that it sometimes practices me.

2011-04-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

'The path exists but not the traveller on it.' Even the first part of that statement is open to question.

2011-04-01T06:16:00.000-07:00

It is said "if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."

To tell you the truth I haven't got the energy to dispatch the blighter.

Come to think of it, why bother killing your true self.

2011-03-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

Nobodies are so big that there is no room for anything else and so small that they fit everywhere.

2011-03-15T02:29:00.001-07:00

This 5 star hotel is your birthright.

If you have to build it or maintain it, it's only a hovel.

2011-03-04T05:46:00.001-08:00

He wore many shoes over the years, some comfortable some uncomfortable. But the bare foot remained constant.

2011-02-27T03:09:00.000-08:00

I watched a concept fly up into a tree, accompanied by a magpie.

-From 'Borderline Zen', a work in progress.

HOPE

2011-02-07T05:10:00.000-08:00

Dilated Pupil: Master, what is hope?

Master: One of the most duplicitous words in the English dictionary.

From Borderline Zen, a work in progress

SAGE

2011-01-01T09:52:00.001-08:00

Sage is our nature, time our shadow.

2010-12-31T16:14:00.000-08:00

Words fail but magnificence continues.

2010-12-24T02:53:00.000-08:00

You are the monkey on your own back.

2010-12-16T15:34:00.000-08:00

May that quiet resonance of peace and joy permeate the space where body and mind once hogged the stage.

Ping Pong

2010-12-02T11:14:00.000-08:00

Dilated Pupil: Which is more productive on the path of self realisation, meditation or table tennis?

Master: You find a difference?

From Borderline Zen, a work in progress by Rudra

2010-12-02T04:06:00.000-08:00

'Who is eating my chocolate biscuit?'

From 'Borderline Zen' a work in progress by Rudra

How could it be different?

2010-11-30T15:18:00.001-08:00

Never a dull moment, even when there is a dull moment.

The snake pit of Karma

2010-11-27T06:15:00.000-08:00

There is no way out, just a matter of choice whether to go quietly or be dragged kicking and screaming. Unfortunately, it is very debatable whether there is even that choice. Fortunately, that makes it easier.

Unseen Hands

2010-11-12T03:26:00.000-08:00

When you cease to care, everything cares for you and you care for everything

Holy Place

2010-09-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

Big words, fancy theories, great understandings all swept away in the stream of simple awareness. Not condemned or accepted, just part of what is.

SANCTUARY

2010-09-24T13:38:00.001-07:00

The play unfolds quite beyond us, through us and in us. The world sees us as deluded inmates. Inmates we surely are, but inmates of the sanctuary from the insane. So few admit themselves to the lunatic asylum with the express purpose of losing their minds.

-From Borderline Zen, a work in progress by Rudra

Turn Back Now

2010-09-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

Despite most seekers clear view of the cracks in the façade they nurture a sliver of hope that the wall can be re-plastered. This despite the warning sign: ‘No help past this point, demolition underway, risk of annihilation’.

From Borderline Zen

LIGHT

2010-09-21T04:55:00.001-07:00

There is no dog, but everywhere I hear him barking.

BEFORE IDENTITY

2010-09-19T02:04:00.000-07:00

Rudra: “Please take off your shoes before you enter.”

Visitor: “But I’m not wearing any shoes.”

Rudra: “That’s it in a nutshell”.

From Borderline Zen Rudra's second book that he is working on.

THE SHOWROOM

2010-08-30T05:57:00.001-07:00

Just as a doorman beckons to the passer-by

Inviting him to view the naked ladies,

As a showroom displays the latest models

And a piece of cheese leads the mouse to his certain death

So this glittering bait leads us to a momentary contentment.

Denial of the manifest existence is a further blasphemy

As blasphemous as a shotgun marriage to it.

The intricacy of thought patterns

Taken as real

Are ever more subtle.

Hook, line and sinker come to mind.

Where does the poor me fit into all this?

Where can the ‘I’ take a rest?

Whose theory or practice will provide liberation from attachment?

A small voice whispers the timeless message

“There is no way out,

There is no ‘I’”

When the cupboard is completely bare

When even the dogs have given up sniffing around

A feast is laid.

Clean Sweep

2010-08-30T04:57:00.001-07:00

This morning he awoke with the words 'swept clean'.

Life Off The Wheel

2010-08-24T14:05:00.000-07:00

Whether I accept or not makes no difference to what is.

THE RELUCTANT WARRIOR

2010-08-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

Encased in a suit of armour

Strapped to a warhorse

He charges into battle.

He doesn’t want to be a soldier

He can’t ride a horse.

If this is what is written

There are only two choices:

Grab the reins for dear life,

Aim the lance with measured accuracy

Or release the reins

And jettison the weapon.

In both cases he is likely to lose his head,

Unless he awakens.

In that state there never was a head.

Songs of Praise

2010-08-22T15:57:00.001-07:00

When the 'me' is here I am a student. When absent there is no student and no master. Yet a flavour of gratitude and devotion lingers.

Queen of Peace

2010-08-19T11:38:00.000-07:00

Princess Dyhana

Cat Burglar

2010-08-18T01:22:00.000-07:00

Another thief caught red handed: "How am I doing on the path?"

On looking out to sea

2010-08-12T12:29:00.000-07:00

How could this be your face

Your eyes, your ears?

Your breath, your palms

Your speech, your laugh?

For that matter

How could you lay claim to all you see?

Every scrap you label as yours

is someone else's.

What a cat burglar this mind is.

See how he enters from the roof,

invades the floors below

and blocks all exits.

If none of this is yours,

Let him have what he wants.

He is only stealing stolen property.

Gratitude is too small a word for this.

The Sweetest Flag

2010-08-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

Yellow for caution

Red for Stop

Black for mourning

White; the universal solvent

Paint Stripper

2010-08-10T05:25:00.000-07:00

"The spiritual journey," says Thomas Keating, "is not a career or success story. It is a series of humiliations of the false self that becomes more and more profound."

Colleen Loehr comments:
"The world stood on its head. For decades I had been seeking accumulation and self-enhancement when in fact all along the deeper longing was for the very opposite: diminution of that heavy burden of an imaginary ego-self ."

With thanks to: http://emersonandtolle.blogspot.com/

FOREST LIFE

2010-08-10T04:15:00.000-07:00

Not a forest leaf shimmers without the grace of The Ancestor.

The wild boar can grunt all they like,

Yet even that is divine music played on cracked instruments.

The whining orchestra of this world is in another part of the forest.

Here there is no resistance.

Just home.

While all around are yelping for home.

It could never be better than this and this and this, unless we think it.

When thought colours the picture, the painting is spoilt.

O man if only you knew how to be truly lazy.

Odyssey

2010-08-06T04:10:00.000-07:00

I am at my most dangerous, and most vulnerable, when I think I know.

The school of soft knocks

2010-08-05T14:59:00.000-07:00

In the boarding school of Self-Realisation the day starts with Dis-Assembly. The pupils have to answer to 'present 'or 'not present'. Only those who affirm to both are admitted to classes. The rest go to class as usual.

No point of view

2010-07-29T02:18:00.000-07:00

On the one hand

On the other hand

There is no other hand

Master Veal Man

2010-07-25T13:50:00.000-07:00

THE DERVISH HAT

He was given a tall Turkish Hat,

Not knowing how to use it,

Or what it was for,

He asked the advice of friends.

One said 'it’s to hide your donkey's ears'

Another 'it’s so you can walk tall'

A third 'it allows the Kundalini to expand’

A fourth 'it will contain all that hot air'

A wiser one said:

‘Take it off your head,
Turn it upside down,

Empty the ego in the trash can

Then use it as a begging bowl'.

What used to own things is now on bended knee.

Sanity

2010-07-21T06:16:00.000-07:00

Wisdom appears at unscheduled moments and in unlikely places. But wherever it appears it is like gold, like a call to attention for the heart.

In sickness and in health

2010-07-21T06:01:00.000-07:00

THE PROPHET

You are the prophet

You are the scriptures,

The wisdom and the way.

You are the Buddha, the teachings,

The source from which

Abundant Kindness springs.

You are the carefree life.

You are a nobody, a nothing,

With nowhere to go

Nothing to know.

Your greatest asset your helplessness

Your jewel a supreme carelessness.

Swept here and there

By the tides of the world

Blown hither and thither

By chaos and chance

You find no rest

Yet you are rest itself.

In this understanding

A mighty heart is set free

All things fit

Into this order of abandon.

When Mary starts to sing....

2010-07-10T03:59:00.000-07:00

Rudra has been absorbing the most beautiful kind wisdom from a recently discovered blog and wants to share it with you:

http://emersonandtolle.blogspot.com/

Knowing anything at all

2010-07-05T16:36:00.000-07:00

Even knowledge of the truth is unimportant.

Going beyond and yet remaining is worth all.

What to do?

2010-07-01T12:32:00.000-07:00

A little secret: There is nothing you have to do, just do what you have to.

And that means you.

2010-07-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Death row, for the mind, is so scary and so liberating.

Luckily none of it is up to us.

Things as they are.

2010-06-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

Rudra writes to a friend:

'How changeable the mind is and how it LOVES its assessments, especally
of other people. How can we be other than what we are? That means others are as helpless as us. That's where mercy and laughter come in.'

Scared to death

2010-06-21T02:23:00.000-07:00

What a day; a day without wages, a day with every trouble imaginable. It seems to be there for the me that imagines it, and

the me appears to be so damned real. it is of course until it isnt.

Outside of that the miracle unfolds. cats and dogs are not thinking of yesterday or tomorrow the security guards at the bank on the other hand are very afraid, the dears.

Catching water with a sieve

2010-06-21T01:09:00.000-07:00

Rudra writes to a friend who, after attending Satsang, sees that there is nothing to be done:

"All I can add is that things are still done....satsang and deer hunting still take place. We remain helpless trying to improve or figure things out; trying to understand and package the message with something that will never do it. The mind's understanding can never be enough. It is like trying to contain water with a sieve. Here lies the joy of helplessness.

The power of 'satsang' in whatever form is its ability to quiet the mind..... but nothing to take home.

Nothing to take home or understand....yet it does seem we are being pulled in, despite any efforts or effortless efforts.

From this point there is no map and no directions. If you say 'not this way' it IS a way. If you say 'this way' it is also a way......What to do?????????"

Trapped? Free? What was the question again?

2010-06-18T03:34:00.001-07:00

Bliss is when there is no one left to be blissful.

Fall on your sword

2010-06-18T03:23:00.000-07:00

There is nothing to do. It is all being done

The Mother of all suffering

2010-06-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

When there is no one there, there is no birth or death. When there is an atom of a me...all hell breaks loose.

The bird of certainty

2010-06-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

The mind clings to a notion of 'something to do'. There will be a never ending succession of things to do. Yet the statement that 'there is nothing to do' is often spurious unless accompanied by a complete knowing of that truth. Better by far is attention to that which springs from branch to branch, notion to notion. This includes that which sits on a branch satisfied with its final position, its certainty. This bird must inevitably fall, undernourished, from the tree. So its back to sincerity and attention. Wherever these lead can be embraced with a grateful heart.

Freedom's Door

2010-06-04T01:42:00.000-07:00

The thought that ‘this is not my life’ is pleasant and true, but still a thought. The knowing ‘that this is not my life’ on the other hand is freedom’s door.

The Old Imposter

2010-04-06T02:45:00.000-07:00

In love there are no axes to grind and no agendas to be unfurled; it does its own thing.

A simple sign

2010-03-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

In the empty state there is nothing to worry or be scared about! In the worried state there is plenty to be scared about.

Rudra on retreat

2010-03-16T01:30:00.000-07:00

Rudra spent 3 days on retreat with Jac O'Keefe at the end of which she said something to the effect of 'if you think you have something to bring home with you, you didn't get it. If you think 'you got it' you didn't.' Rudra's friend Richard said in sotto voce "If you didn't get it, you got it".

Roushka was there too and after it was explained to him about the direct path and the progressive path he plumped for the progressive one. He justified this by the remark 'I'm built for comfort not for speed'. Little does he know that the paths meet further up the road. So we sent him a wave and wish him God Speed, the old rascal.

At the Funfare

2010-03-16T01:18:00.000-07:00

Shooting ducks at the fun-fare. Shoot one and another pops up and another. Rudra wore himself out aiming, shooting and reloading. he found it best to let them float by. After all it was only a fun-fare and not to be taken too seriously. Oddly enough he spent the whole day there and was fascinated by the display without having to lift a finger.

In an instant

2010-03-08T05:05:00.000-08:00

Years of spiritual practice flew out the door when a fish jumped near the shore.

Knock Knock

2010-03-05T08:29:00.000-08:00

Is there someone at home? Or only home being some-ones?

Sepia Man

2010-03-04T22:26:00.000-08:00

Western man with his overdeveloped thoughtscape lives here. He wants to nail the fundamental questions and establish a blueprint for living; a manual to refer to which might ease his existential angst. As long as there is an idea that this can be attained by thought so long will the ineffable be at a remove. The simple fact is that Life is bigger than mental positions although it includes them.

Tilting at windmills

2010-02-25T03:41:00.000-08:00

‘If you are wrestling with conquering the wrong, your fight is forever’

Stuart Schwartz

Redundant overseer

2010-02-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

'quod elixum est ne asato'
Don't roast what's already boiled