Ban and Tam discuss dualities, spirits, animals, planets and stars

The spirits applaud my recent venture
So I go forth once more
Into the Sky Womb, the Mind Tomb
Of the bright questioning twins, Ban and Tam

Ban: So you believe man a duality
Of soul and body, mind umbilical?
Then why do we see only this reality
If we are inherently given such capacity?

Tam: Belief and Truth must be two very different things
Belief evolves as further revelation rings
I infer mind’s presence through body’s acts
Spirit through mind, soul through spirit

Exploring the soul may lead to further realms’ discovery
But going beyond this now tends to overwhelm infant me

Ban: what of other animals? What of stars?
Do they exist beyond physicality?
What of great bright Sol and what of red dead Mars?
Do they live conscious in a realm beyond ours?

Tam: If they do, we can only speculate
Animals are imbued with a simplicity
Their spirits are easier to comprehend
Perhaps we will discover more about them at some later date
As for planets and stars, they’re too different for me to relate

Image : https://goo.gl/images/BtTwrP

Ban and Tam discuss Truth and Man

I eavesdrop on the twins in the Sky Womb
Clock stops its spin during their discussion
So intent are they, that they don’t notice Time’s stay
While discussing their truths in the Mind Room

Ban: Do you agree brother, when I say
That Truth is what we perceive, made sensate

Tam: I agree with what you say, dear Ban
Unseen truths can’t be grasped by mind of man

Ban: Then truth can only stem from body
Just Material physicality.

Tam: If man lacked the faculty of reason
I admit, his knowledge would be so curtailed
He would be enslaved to less complex patterns
Food, shelter, pleasure, as Darwin had detailed
Instead, man gives himself to curiosity
And so discovers his truth’s elasticity
Discovering that which transcends the physical flesh
Inferences drawn through a spiritual mesh
A fusion of the physical mind and the soul

Ban: Could this not be delusion after all,
A yearning for something Greater, a conceit?
To think that you have unseen soul and spirit
Could be born of a mind that’s very desperate
Coping mechanism to make tall the little.

Tam: in a purely mechanistic realm
Why would the mind of man be overwhelmed
By the things that do not so concern them?
Selfishness would not seem abhorrent
The mind would not come under assault
Where is the question of one coping
In a purely physical roping?
Empathy would not be possible
Short term pleasures, opioid disposables
Would rule the markets of the trade global
And bring about inevitable collapse
Survival endangered by every relapse
The mind of man would feel no need to discover
And progress would seem a futile endeavour

(To be continued… Maybe)

Image : https://goo.gl/images/BtTwrP

There’s something wrong with my furnace

The dream me looks at the asleep me, says
“There is something wrong with his furnace”
Why is he always so cryptic?
There’s something wrong with my furnace
Doesn’t he know my mind’s quite dense
There’s something wrong with my furnace
That sounds really bad, makes me tense
There’s something wrong with my furnace

It may be that I need some help with this
But I can’t even understand what’s amiss
There’s something soon wrong with my furnace

Can’t he speak in a more scientific sense
When he is viewing me with his weird dream lense?

Image: https://goo.gl/images/Yh9KsJ

Superpowers and Geography

I know this may be a little hard to digest
We’d like to think our own people are special
But the truths of history do seem to suggest
That location is what sets the level
(Of cultural and economic development)

A new discovery shakes the known world of man
Domestication of horses brings upheaval
Central Asians conquer with their cavalry van
Creating brand new geo polities
(New heirarchies and super hegemonies)

Migrations, intermingling of old and new
Elamites become Persian, Minoans become Greek
Skill and wealth move to where they feel they’ll get their due
In search for a more profitable streak

The discovery of sailing the monsoon winds
Now sea trade becomes more profitable than land
The old order crumbles, for progress here rescinds
The power of past authority, buried in sand

The discovery of motorized transport
Is the paradigm we’re living in today
And just as with all of history’s previous diction
It’s about location, location, location

Image: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/01/02/edward_quin_a_gif_of_his_atlas_displaying_the_boundaries_of_the_known_world.html

(This poem is a bit all over the place. I guess it would make more sense to write it as an essay, but I’d have found that an extremely boring task.

I find that China is a peculiar exception to this phenomenon, or at least it used to be.)

Asura, etymology

Meanings change over time
Sometimes into their opposites

(Like the way some people use ‘restive’ today)

Virtues can become crimes
Ordained by social institutes

Let’s observe the word ‘asura’
Meaning Lord in the Rig Veda
Great chief, with command over maya (illusion)
Neither good nor bad at that stage of the drama

A priestly schism between the East and the West
Or perhaps other reasons, only God knows best
The word is now used for a divine demon race
Cousins of the gods, but filled with malice, debased

(This is a rider to my previous poem.

East West schism referring to ancient Iran and North West India, circa 1000 something BCE)

The Socratic Method

Ancient dialectics, thinking things through
Sentient gymnastics, seeing things new
Until we can find a reality
Acceptable to logic’s entreaties

Examining statements from other perspectives
For example, this statement of a popular ‘guru’

“The sign of intelligence is that
you are constantly wondering.”

What does he mean by intelligence?
What does he consider as wonder?

The dog wonders if I will give it food today
When I forget to ring the Pavlovian bell
It’s probably wondering about a game to play
When it annoys me and I say, “go to hell.”

What use a sign that’s impossible to perceive
Without the use of a telepath’s mind receive

How can wonder be a constant mind state
When mortals requires restful reprieve
Sure, insomniacs can stay up in wonder late
But even they will eventually have to sleep

If the guru, by his own statement, cannot qualify as intelligent (through inconstant wonder)
Then his statement itself could only contain intelligence by accident
But I do not think that was what he was trying to convey

Apeiron, or Dark Ocean and The Bay of Light

Chaotic, wild, primordial space, undefined
Discordant, veiled, illogical face, unrefined

I could make this poem take a rhetoric spin
Appeal to your emotion rather than reason

A ship on the ocean, battling a fierce storm
Sailors, anxious to live, working, praying for calm
Men, delirious from the hard journey of strife
Hoping for landfall and a happy retired life

A crafted narrative, good and bad, life and death
Chaos and order, opposing dualities
Slim chance for a good outcome, just a little wet
Or a watery grave, human feed for the Sea

It makes good imagery, but serves little purpose
Since I seek to discover its inner nature
So I’d rather speak about a torch called Logos
An unknown space: Apeiron, and bounded Peira:
Lit bay within our control, the Understood
(Perhaps even mankind’s collective pool of Truth?)

As the light increases so do the boundaries
Chaos turns to Order, part of the Bay of Truth
But Apeiron is infinite, that vast ocean of darkness
This journey cannot end until Time loses its lastingness

Image: https://www.gotobermuda.co.uk/article/west-whale-bay-beach-southampton-parishs-secluded-gem

!

I feel a sudden urge to share this before I go offline again.

“HEAD FOR THE DOORWAY.”

An enduring earthquake image of California is a collapsed adobe home with the door frame as the only standing part. From this came our belief that a doorway is the safest place to be during an earthquake. True- if you live in an old, unreinforced adobe house. In modern houses, doorways are no stronger than any other part of the house. You are safer under a table.

Taken From: http://www.earthquakecountry.org