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A POET’S ADVICE TO HIS POEM
by Felix Fojas
Song, do not fret
And feel insecure
That you are not
As classy and witty
As genteel and suave
As elegant and epic
As some of the other
Poems I’ve penned.
I am unnerved by
Rhyming tantrums,
Chest-beating lines,
And hair-pulling gigs.
It’s not your fault,
Son, it’s all mine.
Perhaps a wily
Gremlin sabotaged
My inspiration
While writing you?
Or as a lame
Literary excuse,
Say my bardic
Assembly-line is
Far from perfect
And you turned out
To be a fluke,
A factory defect.
Or if you want me
To put it the other
Way around, Son,
Just say that the rest
Of my brood are
A flash-in-the-pan
And you’re the sole
Exception, which makes
You quite unique,
A rara avis, in your
Utter mediocrity. So raise
Your bowed head up
And walk tall. We all know
You’re small and there’s no
Need to brandish your
Napoleonic complex.
Just do your lousy
Song and dance act.
If there is no applause,
Just bite your lips
And shut the fuck up
Before I lose my
Poetic cool and temper,
And disown you forever.
Los Angeles
Jan. 21, 2012
6. All there is, is awareness being aware
of awareness and consciousness being
aware of consciousness as a process,
and without a subject or object of awareness
or consciousness.
7. Enlightenment is not an act of becoming
but of being. It is not engaged in the business
of acquiring more light but of divesting yourself
of darkness. Enlightenment is a war which you
will win not by capturing more light but by
surrendering to the light.
8. Enlightenment is not ontological. It is not
attained by answering the question of which
came first, the chicken or the egg, the flesh
or the spirit? Or which came first, darkness or
light? Enlightenment is both the cause and
the effect. Enlightenment is both the chicken
and the egg, matter and energy, flesh and
spirit, appearing simultaneously.
9. Enlightenment is beyond the law of causality
or law of cause and effect. Enlightenment
is and is not. There is no enlightenment,
which is just a concept, a mental construct.
There is only nothingness and the void. Nothing
more. Nothing less.
10. Just focus totally on you breathing.
Inhale and exhale slowly. And you will
become enlightened.
11. When you perform a good deed that
helps ameliorate the sufferings of your
fellowmen, without expecting the least
reward, without acknowledging that you
are the doer of the deed, then and only
then will you pluck the golden apple
of enlightenment.
12. Your ego is your greatest enemy.
But neither underestimate nor overestimate
your ego. Just be aware that your ego
is no ordinary enemy. Your ego is Alexander
the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan,
Napoleon Bonaparte, General Irwin Rommel,
and General George Patton, all rolled into
one.
You cannot defeat your ego by engaging it
in a conventional war, and fight force with
force, fight fire with fire. You will have to be
the most creative warrior in the world. You
must fight a new, unique kind of warfare.
You will only become victorious by siding
with your ego and turning it into an ally–
instead of treating your ego like your
archenemy. Then your ego will morph
from a ferocious lion into a meek lamb.
Then you ego will die a natural death.
Then you will become enlightened
without even fighting a war of attrition,
without even trying hard, without even
lifting a finger.
13. You will only annihilate the ego through
the power of objective, unconditional love
and selfless service to humanity and all
of creation.
RADIATE YOUR INNER BEAUTY
By Felix Fojas
Beauty is a word or concept that lends itself to multiple definitions, a legion of denotations and connotations, a swarm of metaphors and symbols, and seemingly wears the innumerable faces and disguises of Mata Hari herself, the queen of spies, instead of just possessing a single countenance and a set of few, fixed characteristics. Which inevitably entices us to pry open the Pandora’s box of our curiosity, unleashing a host of provocative questions like: Is beauty a purely aesthetic experience? Is it exclusively a sensual encounter with a beautiful object, whether animate or inanimate, that gives us a frisson–making our hair stand on ends and gifting us with a sublime or elevated feeling occasioned by a tingling, subtle sensation caressing our spine? Or is beauty an elusive, abstract butterfly whose astral wings are impossible to crucify with the pins of our five senses on the solid wall of reality? Is beauty skin deep or is it something that inhabits the very core of our being?
Questions inevitably beget more questions. Does beauty belong to the realm of forms or to the realm of essences, or perhaps both? Does beauty, as the cliché goes, “lie in the eye of the beholder,” or is it an enigmatic and mysterious aura, charisma or ethereal force that radiates from one’s soul or spirit? Is beauty dictated by one’s whim and fancy? Is there any scientific explanation to beauty and is it, like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, determined by one’s acceleration and position in time and space? Or can beauty be measured by a clear-cut, rigid set of universal aesthetic standards?
And how do we perceive beauty? Through a glass darkly as seen through the telescope of a woman-hater? Or through rose-colored glasses worn by a lovestruck swain? Is beauty like the many shiny, multicolored fragments in a kaleidoscope? Or is beauty best probed at extreme close-up, through the lens of a microscope, revealing minute hairs, pores and pigmentations magnified to the nth degree? Perhaps beauty is a hologram, a continuum that stretches beyond time and space, into eternity itself. Are we then forced by circumstance and necessity to invent the ultimate probing device, a newfangled “beautyscope,” to mint a novel word, if only to perceive beauty in its totality, from all possible angles and dimensions?
More questions arise and enthrall us like dancing houris. Is the appreciation of beauty inherent in man’s being? Is beauty largely conditioned by one’s cultural programming through traditional social graces and rituals as well as through brainwashing by the mass media? Is perception of beauty dictated by one’s personal state of evolution, depending on whether he is the physical, emotional, mental or spiritual type? Yet casting people into stereotypes has its obvious pitfalls. In reality, the typical man is a much more complex being and weighs beauty through a combination of so many criteria that varies from person to person. And at this point we have not even tackled the gender- sensitive question: Does man’s appreciation of beauty differ from that of woman?
Poets and philosophers throughout the ages have attempted to define the truly beautiful. When the Romantic poet Keats exclaims, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” he is not alluding to physical beauty, which is fleeting or ephemeral, but to that winged species of beauty that miraculously descends from what celestial sphere. From the aesthetic standpoint the philosopher Edmund Burke, in his treatise A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1776), gives seven specific tangible qualities of beauty:
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On the whole, the qualities of beauty, as they are merely sensible qualities, are the following: First, to be comparatively small. Second, to be smooth. Thirdly, to have a variety in the direction of the parts; but, fourthly, to have those parts not angular, but melted as it were into each other. Fifthly, to be of a delicate frame, without any remarkable appearance of strength. Sixthly, to have its colors clear and bright, but not very strong and glaring. Seventhly, or if it should have any glaring color, to have it diversified with others. These are, I believe, the properties on which beauty depends; properties that operate by nature, and are less liable to be altered by caprice, or confounded by a diversity of tastes, than any other.
So says Edmund Burke.
The latter-day writer Diane Ackerman boldly declares: “A beautiful face is enough to start the engines of love.” If indeed, beauty is purely physical, then it can be preserved and shielded against the ravages of harsh elements and old age through a fine combination of healthy diet, the skillful application of cosmetic products, wearing fashionable clothes, and reconstructive surgery. I will not belabor the point, for thousand of books and tips have already been written about the physical aspects of pulchritude. At any rate, outer beauty is skin deep, which is the impermanent manifestation of beauty that is perceived through the senses by one’s ego or lower personality. In fine contrast, inner beauty is the essence of one’s being that is perceived directly by the soul or spirit and is therefore everlasting.
In the slim book The Fragrance of Beauty, her tour de force, Joyce Landorf–a homemaker, career woman and spiritual seeker all rolled into one–shares her profound concept of inner beauty:
When a man sees a woman, he looks first at her physical qualifications. It’s a built-in natural trait with him. He’ll look at her face and her figure, but not necessarily in that order. Then, if a woman has those marvelous inner qualities that are of God, the man will see the shining reflection of God. The physical and inner looks blend into one picture, and the total woman comes into focus. The entire scene in his mind becomes one of pure joy. The woman is warm, giving, alert, fun to be with, loving and, yes, spiritual, but she also has an earthly sexiness that is uncommonly beautiful, and all he can say is, “Wow!”
St. Peter states: “Be beautiful inside, in your hearts, with the lasting charm of a gentle and quiet spirit which is so precious to God” (1Peter 3:4). The following are practical tips on how you can radiate inner beauty, no matter what your sex and gender, no matter what your age. I deliberately used the word “radiate” and not “cultivate” or “develop.” For beauty is neither outside you nor is something you must acquire. Beauty is more than an enchanting mask you have lost and must find again. Deep within, you already possess beauty that can never be lost. All you have to do is not to discover but uncover your inner beauty—that rock-encrusted gem, clean and polish its facets, and make it permanently shine like a diamond or emerald this very moment:
1. Rid your consciousness of negative emotions and thoughts. For negative emotions, like fear and anger, and negative thoughts, like wanting to deceive or harm your fellowmen, are dynamos of bad vibrations. In turn this will repel those around you who’ll find you ugly and repulsive, no matter how physically attractive you are. Moreover, these negative tendencies also drain your
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youth-preserving vitality and life force called chi in Chinese or prana in Sanskrit, causing you to age long before your time.
2. Believe in the power of daily prayer. Kneeling down or seated, with your eyes closed and your hands clasped in a gesture of prayer in the center of your chest, inhale and exhale deeply seven times and silently, fervently pray: “Lord, bless me with inner beauty and divine love.” Intone this three times and end your prayer with the word “Amen” or the phrase “So be it.” This will anchor or ground the energy of your prayer to the earth. Repeat the same prayer immediately before going to sleep.
3. Believe in the power of affirmation. After washing your face each morning, look and smile at your reflection in the mirror, and say in a low voice but with conviction three thrice: “I love myself unconditionally. I love my fellowmen unconditionally. Everybody loves me unconditionally. Like the sun I radiate unconditional love and beauty in all aspects of my being–physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.”
4. Believe in the power of visualization. Sit on a chair or on the floor (half or full lotus position) with your eyes closed and your spine erect but relaxed. Put your hands palms up on your lap with the tips of the forefinger and the thumb of each hand touching each other and forming a ring, and with the tip of your tongue lightly touching the roof of your mouth, to keep your body a closed circuit and your psychic energy from leaking out. On the first inhalation, visualize a white, luminous shaft of light coming down from heaven, entering through the top of your head, and nestling in the center of your chest. On the second inhalation, visualize another white shaft of light coming up from the center of the earth and meeting the shaft light of heaven in your chest, transforming into a white circle of light one inch in diameter. You now have a balanced polarity of yin (female) and yang (male) or negative and positive energies. Inhale and exhale seven more times.
5. Believe in the power of color meditation. Pink is the color of love and beauty. You can charge or empower yourself with pink energy anytime of the day or night. While in a kneeling, sitting, or standing position, raise your hand with open palms to heaven. Breathe in and out seven times. Every time you inhale, visualize a pink shaft of light descending from heaven, lodging in the center of your chest, and turning into a circle of pink light one inch in diameter. During exhalation, imagine the pink light expanding and filling up the entire cosmos.
Apply one or any combination of these techniques that is best suited to you. Note that the more you radiate beauty and unconditional love from your soul or quintessential self, the more outer beauty you possess. Consequently, you attract more beauty and unconditional from other men and women, from other creatures on earth, and from the entire universe itself until you become the graven image of the Supreme Cosmetologist and Beautician—the ultimate creator/creatrix of outer and inner beauty, and of love human and divine. And in nurturing and radiating your inner beauty, the old dictum “Practice makes perfect!” is of the essence.
The truth cannot be written,
The truth cannot be uttered,
The truth can only be lived.
There are no closed secrets.
All secrets are open doors.
Because no human heart can
Contain a secret in its time vault
Forever. The secret’s extreme
Pressure will make the heart crack
And burst. Thus in order to survive,
The heart is forced to open its pressure
Valve and release steam onto the lips,
Which in turn broadcast the secret
To the general public.
The moment the lady
Obstetrician pulled
Him out of his mother’s
Womb, he was already
Babbling the Alphabet
From A to Z. At three
He had memorized
Every single paragraph
In The Encyclopedia
Britannica. At seven
He refuted Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason
And by the time he
Was twelve, he wrote
A treatise that overturned
The Theory of Relativity
And Quantum Physics.
He became the first
Teenage astronaut
At fourteen and made
A record-breaking feat
By somersaulting on
Saturn and Jupiter.
At sixteen all the heads
Of state consulted him
On their internal economic
And political problems.
When he reached the age
Of eighteen, the United
Nations dumped all the tough
International crises
It couldn’t handle upon
His callow back as
If he were Atlas
The world with all that jazz
And responsibility
At about the age when
He was supposed
To be chasing his first
Crush. So being a genius
He quickly solved his
Problem by pointing
The barrel of a gun
At his throbbing temple
And blowing his brains out.
Los Angeles
Jan. 18, 2012
Last night there was
A mysterious knock
From inside my chest.
“Who’s there? I asked
Politely. “It’s me,
Your soul,” the tiny
Voice answered. “How do
I know you’re telling
The truth?” I said
Suspiciously. “Because
I’m the only one
In here. Do you hear
Any other voice?”
“No, I guess not,”
I replied. “So let
Me out,” the voice
Pleaded. “It’s time
For me to get out.
I’m mighty bored
In here.” “But what
Happens if I set
You free?” I asked.
“Nothing much. You’ll just
Expire, my bosom pal.”
“Then you can stay
In there forever.”
I said decisively,
Put a double lock
Outside my chest,
And threw away the key
Into the ocean blue.
Los Angeles
Jan. 18, 2011
Truth is a sedulous ape, a will-o’-the wisp,
a shape shifter. More often than not it will
appear in front of you in a form you won’t
recognize–like a blabbering old man, or
the village idiot, or a sunbleached skull in
the desert. So be content in observing
Falsehood instead, because if you know
the opposite of Truth, you are bound
to find the Truth smiling at you like
a newborn babe.
In his classic work on epistemology or theory of knowledge
titled the Discourses on Method, Rene Descartes proclaimed
to the world his philosophical conclusion: “I think therefore I am.”
(Cogito ergo sum). In this treatise Descartes debunked empiricism
or the use of man’s five senses to observe and measure knowledge
of the world around him. Suffice it to say that there are only two
philosophical methods of attempting to arrive at objective truth or reality:
a prior and a posteriori.
An a priori claim posits that objective knowledge can be known
independently of observation–that the truth or falsity of a thing is
self-evident and needs no further explanation. On the other hand,
an a posteriori claim supports the idea that a phenomenon can only
be known through observation using man’s five senses.
Although Descartes was a mathematician and mathematics is
an a priori method, the philosopher came to the conclusion that
to accept mathematics as the source of truth is to affirm the
existence of an Evil Genius, akin to the Devil himself, who deceives
man because there is no way of really finding out if 2+2= 4 and
whether or not mathematics is something real or just an illusion.
Moreover, Descartes rejected mathematics as an accurate
yardstick for measuring objective reality because it does not meet
or measure up to the rigorous standards of methodological doubt
through which this philosopher also discredited the a posteriori
method. In place of methematics, Descartes presented the human
mind, which he equated with the soul, as the only genuine tool
for measuring absolute truth.
The main flaw in Descartes argument is that man and the
universe also belong to the spiritual realm. In addition the mind
cannot accurately perceive objective reality simply because it
also creates its own labyrinth of deception and illusion. This
is based on the counter-proposition that man possesses a soul
which transcends his mental faculty and belongs to the more
subtle realm of the spirit. Thus the only reasonable solution
left for us is to accept the proposition that objective reality
can only be measured and analyzed through man’s spiritual
eye through the use and expansion of his spiritual consciousness
by developing such spiritual virtues or abilities such as
unconditional love, compassion, devotion, hope, charity,
humility, patience and non-violence.
What is the core of the confusion in our perception
and understanding of objective reality? It is the subtle
fact that we are living in a multi-dimensional universe
or multi-universe which Quantum Physics now speculates
to be at least composed of ten dimensions or planes of
existence, each governed by its own set of laws. But as
a point of conjecture, what lies at the other end of a black
hole, perhaps an anti-universe or an infinite series of
anti-multi-universes?
Unfortunately, aside from the awesome and mind-boggling
possibilities posedby the existence of a multi-universe and
beyond it, an anti-universe, most humans still perceive
the universe as a three dimensional reality which comprises
of matter, which in turn possesses the characteristics of length,
width, and diameter; and one that occupies space and has weight,
and which humans measure through their five senses of sight,
hearing, touch, taste and smell. Yet it has already been proven
by orthodox science that the senses as an empirical tool to
measure objective reality is defective and results in false or
inaccurate conclusions. For example, it has already been confirmed
by modern science that a humble dog can hear sounds beyond
the aural range of humans. To continue the trend of thought,
man is measuring a ten dimensional universe through three-
dimensional lenses. No wonder in this Postmodern Age, we are
still living in a world of confusion and illusion.
The universe in its totality and in the absolute sense is spiritual
and not material or physical in nature. Thus we should observe,
examine and draw our conclusions about the universe through
spiritual lenses. And how can we do this? What is the right or at
least reasonable solution here? We must expand our perception
of the universe by developing our subtle spiritual faculties which
transcend our five faulty and fallible senses. These spiritual abilities
include a strong will power and concentration,the gift of prophecy,
clairvoyance, extra sensory perception, telekinesis, and the ability
to free our consciousness from the physical body so that it could
time travel into the past and the future, or beyond time and space
into the Eternal Now. Only then can we perceive and understand
the multi-universe as well as the anti-universe with a certain
measure or modicum of success. This will give birth to a new hybrid
philosophy of science and religion we can tentatively call the Philosophy
of the Spirit.
felixfojas 