Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and
embrace the flag. Hope to live in that
free republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are
harvested when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the
trees every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go
cheap for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your
head in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

~Wendell Berry

Love

“to know love, to truly touch its depths,

i must let go of all my guards

-and drop with totalness into vulnerability.”

~terri st cloud

God Is Love

God is Love. How many times have we heard the word "love" being used to define that which is ultimately indefinable? I suppose it is because that's the only word that can even bring us close to grasping the ungraspable. When we use "love" to define that which is transcendent, absolute, and metaphysical, we're using it to describe qualities and attributes that are non-ordinary, that represent a higher dimension of human experience, intuition, and cognition. That is why the love that is God is transpersonal, because it points us far beyond our unique individuality or the unique individuality of any other.

—Andrew Cohen

Everything as Gift

A spiritually awake person would see everything as
gift, even suffering. We deserve nothing and yet we
so often act as though we deserve everything. Nothing
should be taken for granted. We should say thank you
every day to God and to each other for all that is
provided for us. This is one reason why fasting is
such an important spiritual discipline. Not just
fasting from food, but also fasting from cars,
shopping centres, the news - whatever we have an
inordinate attachment to. Fasting can help re-kindle
our gratitude for all that we have been given.
- Glen Argan

Making use of God

Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is
a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He
should be able to make use of us. It may be that one
of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too
much and listen too little. When prayer is at its
highest we wait in silence for God's voice to us;
we linger in His presence for His peace and His
power to flow over us and around us; we lean back
in His everlasting arms and feel the serenity of
perfect security in Him.
- William Barclay (1907-1978), The Plain Man's
Book of Prayers

Twinning

As above, so below.
The calm late evening surface of the lake
reflects perfectly the trees lining the shore.
In mirror image the uppermost branches appear to
penetrate the depths of the lake,
twinning the real with its unreal? image.

Could it be that our “reality” is
but an image of something even more Real?
Are we Real, or but an image of life’s longing for itself,
Of God’s need to express Spirit in a multiplicity of ways.
Somehow the image brings contentment,
and peace fills my being.

Love's Sweetest Gift

We can understand love either from the perspective of what it is or what it is not. Love is the uplifting experience of joy, ecstasy, fulfillment, contentment, delight, and abandon. Love is not the painful experience of fear, doubt, suspicion, jealousy, obsession, and attachment. More than anything else, I think the highest expression of true love is trust. Indeed, trust is love's sweetest gift. That is because trust gives rise to an experience that ordinary love cannot: Freedom and space. In fact, trust is the powerful experience of spiritual freedom within the context of human relationship.—Andrew Cohen

Knowing

“maybe it's not about the darkness.
and maybe it's not about the light.
maybe it's about the knowing.
the knowing there is sacred always.
even when you can't see it.
maybe it's the knowing that's the holy part.”

~terri st cloud

Prayers are Deathless

God shapes the world by prayer. Prayers are deathless.
The lips that uttered them may be closed to death, the
heart that felt them may have ceased to beat, but the
prayers live before God, and God's heart is set on them
and prayers outlive the lives of those who uttered them;
they outlive a generation, outlive an age,
outlive a world.
- E. M. Bounds

The Continuously Breaking Heart

The fully open heart rests in sweet unknowingness, safe in its own embrace, rushing to meet its own perceived need that dissolves in the grace swallowing it. Dancing its tender dance of sheer delight in its own loveliness, merging with itself everywhere, only this, exquisitely so. This may sound far off for some people, a place unattainable, a state made available only for a few, but I can assure you that it doesn't require you to change or to become different at all to know this firsthand. It only requires a willingness to stop. The more we stop and the more we let go, the more our consciousness naturally opens. The more we question our conclusions, the more the doorway opens for us to have a wider and wider vision. The deeper we see into the reality of things, the more our heart opens to include everything, because if we're really feeling into our deepest reality and truth, the heart isn't something that would want to escape from what is here and now; rather, our hearts are already embracing everything. We can allow our hearts to be big enough to be broken. My teacher called this world "the great heartbreak". When we really begin to wake up to our true nature, we become more conscious of the suffering around us. We feel the people and the events of our lives more profoundly, not less profoundly. We become more present here and now. What we see is that, even though our vision may have expanded, even though we may have woke up not just to reality, but as reality, still we can't control anyone. Everything and everyone has their own life to live, and we can't just wipe away their suffering because our hearts are open. Although we would love to have everyone wake up and be happy, part of the heartbreak is accepting this moment, this world, just as it is. Another one of my teachers said, “All true love sheds a tear. It's bittersweet,” and I've found this to be more and more true. The more deeply I love, the more I taste the bitterness with the sweet. It's not a negative bitterness, it's a bitterness that makes the sweetness even more sweet. Life is beautiful not just because of beautiful mountaintop vistas and the pristine, clear environment of a high mountain lake. Life is also beautiful in each and every moment. There is nobility and beauty even when human beings are suffering. Our hearts do not want them to suffer; we want to save them, but the heartbreak is that we can't do that. The quality of our love, the openness of our heart, still does have a profound effect on the world and others in it. Our hearts just can't control it -- nor would they ever want to. But don't ever think that your presence here -- your physical, material, individual presence -- doesn't have a great impact on everyone around you, because it does. You can't ultimately control what's going on around you, but you do have a great impact. This is the gift we have to give other: this gift of oneness, of union, of a true open heart that comes when our mind opens. Yes, it will be heartbreaking, and when our hearts break, it will be asked to open even wider, so wide that there's nothing and nobody to hold onto the heartbreak. But the heartbreak also moves through the transparency of consciousness. If we're willing to open that wide, to where we're willing to not just transcend this world, but to inhabit it and embody it, then we become the answer for which we've always been looking. Then we become the peace that all beings are seeking. Sometimes it is disturbing to realize that we've been holding onto a pocketful of dreams, but ultimately , it's liberating. We can let our hearts break; they are that big. Illusion never brings peace, never brings happiness. When we're done being disturbed by our own illusions, then we start to become astonished -- astonished that we aren't just our illusions, that we're something so vast and unexplainable. We're not something that exists within Heaven or even in the great mystery of being, but we actually are the great mystery of being. One Zen master said, “The whole universe is my true personality.” This is a very wonderful saying: “The whole universe is my true personality.” If you want to see what you truly are, open the window, and everything you see is in fact the expression of your inner reality. Can you embrace all of it? ~ From: Falling Into Grace. by Adyashanti.

Wisdom and Intelligence

Often people confuse the two terms intellect and wisdom; sometimes they use the word intellect for wisdom, sometimes wisdom for intellect. In point of fact these are two different qualities altogether. The knowledge which is learned by knowing names and forms in the outside world belongs to the intellect; but there is another source of knowledge, and that source of knowledge is within oneself.The words 'within oneself' might confuse some people. They might think 'within oneself' means inside one's body; but that is because man is ignorant of himself. Man has a very poor idea of himself, and this keeps him in ignorance of his real self. If man only knew how large, how wide, how deep, how high is his being, he would think, act, and feel differently; but with all his width, depth, and height, if man is not conscious of them he is as small as he thinks himself to be.The essence of milk is butter, the essence of the flower is honey, the essence of grapes is wine, and the essence of life is wisdom. Wisdom is not necessarily a knowledge of names and forms; wisdom is the sum total of that knowledge which one gains both from within and without. Intellectual knowledge has much to do with the brain, while wisdom comes from within the heart. In wisdom both head and heart work. One may call the brain the seat of the intellect, and the heart the throne of wisdom; but they are not actually located in the brain or in the heart. Wisdom may be called spiritual knowledge but the best definition of wisdom would be perfect knowledge, the knowledge of life within and without. How does one pursue the wisdom which is within? By first realizing that intuition exists within oneself. ...It is not meant by this that everyone should become a kind of super-being. It is not meant at all that people should be able to perform wonders or miracles; it is only intended that they should live a fuller life and become real human beings, in order to bring about better conditions in the world. What do we want? We want human beings. It is not necessary that everyone should become religious, or exceedingly pious, or too good to live. We want wise men in business, in politics, in education, in all walks of life; those who do not live only on the surface and those who do not believe only in matter, but who see life both within and without. It is such souls who will produce beauty; it is such souls who will harmonize the world, who will bring about the conditions we need today.

~Hazrat Inayat Khan, courtesy Gail Ostensen, Originally published in "Bowl of Saki"

Once Seen

“maybe some things need to be seen

before you know that they're there.

but once seen,

they are felt.

and once felt,

you are changed forever.”

~terri st. cloud

Falling

falling

“my eyes close and i can feel it

-pulling my soul back to where it longs to be.

i can hear it -over and over telling me to open to it.

still the fear tugs -until the struggle becomes too much.

and then, once again,

i release into it. falling, falling,

i brush the fingertips of god.”

terri st cloud

A Choice

"The world is like a ride at an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think that it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly coloured, and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question - is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us. They say 'Hey! Don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride.' And we...kill those people. Ha ha ha. 'Shut him up! We have a lot invested in this ride. SHUT HIM UP! Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and family. This just has to be real.' It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter because: it's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings, and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourselves off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here's what you can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defence each year, and instead spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, for ever, in peace."

~Bill Hicks

I could see God in everything

I suddenly saw that all the time it was not I who
had been seeking God, but God who had been seeking
me. I had made myself the centre of my own existence
and had my back turned to God. All the beauty and
truth which I had discovered had come to me as a
reflection of his beauty, but I had kept my eyes
fixed on the reflection and was always looking at
myself. But God had brought me to the point at
which I was compelled to turn away from the
reflection, both of myself and of the world which
could only mirror my own image. During that night
the mirror had been broken, and I had felt abandoned
because I could no longer gaze upon the image of
my own reason and the finite world which it knew.
God had brought me to my knees and made me
acknowledge my own nothingness, and out of that
knowledge I had been reborn. I was no longer the
center of my life and therefore I could see God in
everything.
- Bede Griffiths

The Divine Compulsion

Prayer is co-operation with God. It is the purest
exercise of the faculties God has given us--an
exercise that links these faculties with the Maker
to work out the intentions He had in mind in their
creation. Prayer is aligning ourselves with the
purposes of God... Prayer is commission. Out of
the quietness with God, power is generated that
turns the spiritual machinery of the world. When
you pray, you begin to feel the sense of being sent,
that the divine compulsion is upon you.
- E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), Growing Spiritually

Letting Go

“every question life could throw at her

swam in her head.

she had answers to nothing -and she was lost.

all she had was what was inside of her.

she knew that was enough if she

could just let go and trust that.

if she could just let go and trust herself.

lifting one finger at a time,

she began to loosen her grip,

she began to let go.”

~terri st. cloud