Friday, January 2, 2009

It's All In Your Mind

Dreaming is free...
Debbie Harry

...unfulfilled fantasies can be painful, says a friend...and yet they’re better than no fantasies at all, says I...yeah, I know, live in the here and now...and that makes sense, too...and yet there’s something to be said, while you’re living in the here and now, for letting the mind wander and stretch...even if that means mixing metaphors...to see what we can explore even as we create whatever it is that’s to be explored...that the line between creating and exploring is far hazier than we usually think...that wandering and wondering are essentially the same word...to see what pleasures are possible within the mind...since, ultimately, all pleasure is both created and experienced in the mind...it doesn’t exist anywhere else...that’s one thing you learn from antidepressants...acids flowing, momentarily flooding the grey tissue before receding...even God, they say, may exist somewhere in the frontal region of the cerebral cortex...not far from where the yogis say the third eye is located...or maybe I’m making all of this up...

‘Prisoner, tell me, who was it that wrought this unbreakable chain?’
‘It was I,’ said the prisoner, ‘who forged this chain very carefully. I thought my invincible power would hold the world captive leaving me in a freedom undisturbed. Thus night and day I worked at the chain with huge fires and cruel hard strokes. When at last the work was done and the links were complete and unbreakable, I found that it held me in its grip.’
Rabindranath Tagore

8 comments:

Lydia said...

God I love this! say I to the good feelings there in the frontal region of my cerebral cortex:
"...that the line between creating and exploring is far hazier than we usually think...that wandering and wondering are essentially the same word..."

Anonymous said...

I wish you a happy new year, sir. With this post, I think you know what that means. It's all on you. :p

Of course, I tell myself the same thing, since even in unemployment I still have enough to eat.

Anonymous said...

We are the creators of our own prisons ... in thought and deed. Too true!

Lana Gramlich said...

Another thing to learn from antidepressants, I think; better to be suicidally depressed than completely numb.
BTW, sorry for my long, recent absence. Been busy with offline life. Best to you & yours in 2009!

Ruby Isabella said...

"or maybe I'm making all of this up.." Doesn't that go for anything anyone ever said. Quantum physics is teaching us that there is no out there seperate from in your mind. Therefore, everyone is making everything up. All the more reason to let let the mind wander and stretch and mix metaphors with free abandon. I'd better stop as this is pretty heavy stuff and I'm still really a puppy.

Anonymous said...

Hey... I never said "painful". I just said unfulfilled fantasies can suck!

This post reminds me of that weird quote about science-fiction actually being the pre-cursor to a lot of stuff that was really developed. But not before it was 'created' somewhere first. Or was it ever created? Just... perhaps recognised.

I've just been reading some Paramahansa Yogananda and this quote seems appropriate:
Human beings realised that nature operates in three ways: creative, preservative, and dissolutive. A wave rising out of the ocean exemplifies the creative state, staying for a moment on the sea-breast, it is in the preservative state; and sinking back into the deep, it passes through the dissolutive state.

In my studies, I've actually learned once kundalini has risen all the way up, up, up... it comes back into the body. But not residing at anja cakra (third eye) - instead it resides in the awakened state in the heart - but not in the center. Kind of off-center, off to the side a little...

P.S. I noticed you giving me another compliment even tho you said my quota was up for the month! Sneaky, putting it on someone else's blog tho!! ;)

Rhiannon said...

Then I suppose that I'm very blessed to have had such a vivid imagination most of my entire life...and some of my dreams have even come true on and off throughout my life.

That song by Deborah Harry is one of my very favs of hers. I'm going to go check it out on Youtube right now.

"Ra is a busy God"..by Happy Rhodes.

Rhi

Gypsy at Heart said...

All true. Now how to constantly keep this realization uppermost, constantly recognize that this is the case, have that knowledge be our guiding light as we engage the world around us, THAT, is the hard part. The problem is that we forget daily that it all starts and ends within us.

Great post.