What is More?

And the human consciousness
so beautiful, so vast
Too great to be destroyed by a body
Doth hover over us
Like a great iceberg in the water
Inverted, where sky is water and water is sky

Peering out beneath the surface
Only a splinter of itself into the air
Concealing its wholeness above that filmy passage
In the thick and darkly waters above

So exists a splinter of the human being
inside a brain, inside a body
The rest, who knows?
The rest is more
And when one dies they are born into the more
And begin to live in that incomprehensible more-ness

And when THAT life is expired
They are born into even more
Further and further
As the universe
Self-creating
Unspiraling
Unraveling
Endlessly

And this is the mystery of infinity
This is the meaning of forever--eternal

"But shut up your pen, for it writes only emptiness"

"It tries to express what is more, the eternal"

"Has not religion done this?"

"All the sacred writings, how feebly they express this"

"Will man do better?"

"Never"

"If you know the secret, will you not pass it on?"

"Will I invent a new religion?"

"Will you?"

"That is impossible, for as feeble as it is
it is the highest form of expression of the secrets
It is the door"

The Dialogue

There are two versions to this story. A boy came to the city looking for a renown house of wisdom, but he was misinformed and wound up at an institution for the mentally unwell. Still thinking it a house of wisdom, and not having the courage to approach the great sages, he crept around the back and overheard two of the patients have the following conversation. He sat under the window long after the conversation finished, in deep reflection on what was said. He returned to his village and opened up a center for learning, and the masters he taught are still read and quoted to this day, while both the original house of wisdom and mental institution are long forgotten.

The second version is that a boy came to the city looking for an institution for the mentally unwell as his father was becoming feeble. He was misinformed and wound up at a renown house wisdom. Still thinking it a mental institution he crept around the back to spy on the situation there before admitting his dear father. Two of the greatest philosophers were sitting at a window discussing profound matters and he eavesdropped the following conversation. When they had finished he dashed home to tell his mother that they would never admit father to a place where people with such levels of dementia freely roamed and held conversation, it would certainly worsen his condition.

I'm not sure at this point which version is true, but I have reproduced here the dialogue in its entirety for your reference.

***

What is the meaning of life?

Ask not what is the meaning
ask, what is 'life'?

What is life?

Life is to live.
but what is 'to live'?

To live is to be
but what is 'to be'?

To be is to be seen
but what is 'to be seen'?

To be seen is to exist
to speak and be heard, to touch and be felt
but what then is 'to exist'?

To exist is to reach, to depend
but what is 'to depend'?

To depend is to be bound
to exist, to live, to be, all is bondage of the sight
but what is 'more'?

More is more-ness
more-ness is that which is not bound by existence
but what is freedom?

Freedom is existing beyond existence
freedom is invisibility, freedom is oneness
but what is 'oneness'?

Oneness is to come back to the breath
but what is 'the breath'?

The breath is the beginning
and the beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning
but what is both 'the end' and 'the beginning'?

The end and the beginning are meaning
but what is meaning?

Meaning is life, and all life is meaning
but what is 'life'?

Life is that which is different from the dead
but what is 'the dead'?

The dead is that which has no meaning
life is that which has

And those who ask 'what'?

Ask not 'what' but 'why'

And those who ask 'why'?

Ask not why but 'how'

And those who ask 'how'?

Ask not
simply be

The Beloved

The Beloved came unto me
He spoke not a word
But what we shared was greater far
   and deeper, than words

I could speak naught but his name
I was in love with him but could not express it

He drew me into his embrace
And I was his
My individuality
Independence
Self-will
Free choice
All like dirty clothes
Were stripped away

This fixation on life
The fear of death
The desire to be
To achieve
To matter
It all melted away
In this moment of nakedness

He was life
He was desire
And I was in his arms

He left me, as he usually does
And all such earthly things came back
   slowly, greyishly
Like the dawning of a drizzly day
He left only a longing in me
He left in me the imprint of him

A deeper sense of separation, my love!
Why then did you come unto me?
To give one sip to a traveler lost in the desert?
I can't understand you, my dear

Why do you neither give your full presence
Nor take it away?
Do you taunt me?
Do you make me dance the dance of love unrequited?
What a bitter dance

Or do you feel the same?
The pain of separation
Of this something which severs us from each other
Makes us wonder in the back of our head
   if indeed the whole affair really took place
If we are real, or a dream one to another

A figure remains in my mind
I see the day when breath expires
When brain and flesh finally rest
When flies the soul
That day is called "THE RETURN"

I see me saying
"My love, I have been away for so long
I was lost and couldn't find my way back"

And I see you saying
"You have been gone for so long
I have longed for you every day of the journey
But now you are home
Come, leave no more"

That is the day of our marriage
I see it, and don't know if it's real
But I see it, and it lives inside of me

My words! I chew on my tongue
But still they don't come
The words to say what is between us
To say what your love is
My dear, I can't say it
My Beloved, I can only say your name
I can only say your name

Strange

It is strange being me, you know

At times in love with all of humanity

Even the most odious

At times, to even the most lovely

Averse

O soul!

Where will you find your rest?

Where will you find your place?

Do such things even exist as “rest” or “place”?

Or do you search for that which has evaporated

As soon as it was expressed?

I do not want to live

I do not want to die

I do not want to struggle

I do not want to rest

Neither being nor unbeing will suit me

Neither existence nor void

Thought or emptiness

Speech or silence

Nothing, nothing!

What DO you want

O, confounded soul?

What do you want?

Courage

Courage is not the absence of fear

But more often the absence of choice

All the great acts of bravery done

Not by the brave—who is brave?

If there’d been a chance to run, to hide

They’d have done it and been forgotten

No choice was given to these fate-chosen heroes

So the fear was faced

The feat complete

Their seal upon humanity

The choice was not to live or to die

(How easy would be so to opt)

Rather the choice was to die or to die

Die well or die ill (with remorse)

Then in one blurry moment of suicidal craze

Against the strangling odds

They struck out and offered their body as forfeit

To death, the first, the quicker

Then found him like fate

Strangely, strangely like fate

Erratically benevolent

To give it all back in one chilling blow

Their lives and their loves and their fame

Die with face full into the wind?

As proud as an old mountaineer?

Or die in shame’s flight?

Last moments frozen forever?

In a terrified, petrified fossil?

The stone of the past doth keep all things well

What tales! What tales it will tell!