1
Did I create that sky? Yes, for, if it was
anything other than a conception in my mind I wouldnt have said
"Sky"-That is why I am the golden eternity. There
are not two of us here, reader and writer, but
one, one golden eternity, One-Which-It-Is, That-Which-
Everything-Is.
2
The awakened Buddha to show the way, the
chosen Messiah to die in the degradation of sentience, is the
golden eternity. One that is what is, the golden eternity, or,
God, or, Tathagata-the name. The Named One. The human God.
Sentient Godhood. Animate Divine. The Deified One. The Verified
One. The Free One. The Liberator. The Still One. The settled
One. The Established One. Golden Eternity. All is Well. The
Empty One. The Ready One. The Quitter. The Sitter. The Justified
One. The Happy One.
3
That sky, if it was anything other than an
illusion of my mortal mind I wouldnt have said "that sky." Thus
I made that sky, I am the golden eternity. I am Mortal Golden
Eternity.
4
I was awakened to show the way, chosen to die
in the degradation of life, because I am Mortal Golden Eternity.
5
I am the golden eternity in mortal animate
form.
6
Strictly speaking, there is no me, because all
is emptiness. I am empty, I am non-existent. All is bliss.
7
This truth law has no more reality than the
world.
8
You are the golden eternity because there is
no me and no you, only one golden eternity.
9
The Realizer. Entertain no imaginations
whatever, for the thing is a no-thing. Knowing this then is
Human Godhood.
10
This world is the movie of what everything is,
it is one movie, made of the same stuff throughout, belonging to
nobody, which is what everything is.
11
If we were not all the golden eternity we
wouldnt be here. Because we are here we cant help being pure. To
tell man to be pure on account of the punishing angel that
punishes the bad and the rewarding angel that rewards the good
would be like telling the water "Be Wet"-Never the less, all
things depend on supreme reality, which is already established
as the record of Karma earned-fate.
12
God is not outside us but is just us, the
living and the dead, the never-lived and never-died. That we
should learn it only now, is supreme reality, it was written a
long time ago in the archives of universal mind, it is already
done, there's no more to do.
13
This is the knowledge that sees the golden
eternity in all things, which is us, you, me, and which is no
longer us, you, me.
14
What name shall we give it which hath no name,
the common eternal matter of the mind? If we were to call it
essence, some might think it meant perfume, or gold, or honey.
It is not even mind. It is not even discussible, groupable into
words; it is not even endless, in fact it is not even mysterious
or inscrutably inexplicable; it is what is; it is that; it is
this. We could easily call the golden eternity "This." But
"what's in a name?" asked Shakespeare. The golden eternity by
another name would be as sweet. A Tathagata, a God, a Buddha by
another name, an Allah, a Sri Krishna, a Coyote, a Brahma, a
Mazda, a Messiah, an Amida, an Aremedeia, a Maitreya, a
Palalakonuh, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 would be as sweet. The golden
eternity is X, the golden eternity is A, the golden eternity is
/\, the golden eternity is O, the golden eternity is [ ], the
golden eternity is t-h-e-g-o-l-d-e-n-e-t-e-r- n-i-t-y. In the
beginning was the word; before the beginning, in the
beginningless infinite neverendingness, was the essence. Both
the word "god" and the essence of the word, are emptiness. The
form of emptiness which is emptiness having taken the form of
form, is what you see and hear and feel right now, and what you
taste and smell and think as you read this. Wait awhile, close
your eyes, let your breathing stop three seconds or so, listen
to the inside silence in the womb of the world, let your hands
and nerve-ends drop, re-recognize the bliss you forgot, the
emptiness and essence and ecstasy of ever having been and ever
to be the golden eternity. This is the lesson you forgot.
15
The lesson was taught long ago in the other
world systems that have naturally changed into the empty and
awake, and are here now smiling in our smile and scowling in our
scowl. It is only like the golden eternity pretending to be
smiling and scowling to itself; like a ripple on the smooth
ocean of knowing. The fate of humanity is to vanish into the
golden eternity, return pouring into its hands which are not
hands. The navel shall receive, invert, and take back what'd
issued forth; the ring of flesh shall close; the personalities
of long dead heroes are blank dirt.
16
The point is we're waiting, not how
comfortable we are while waiting. Paleolithic man waited by
caves for the realization of why he was there, and hunted;
modern men wait in beautified homes and try to forget death and
birth. We're waiting for the realization that this is the golden
eternity.
17
It came on time.
18
There is a blessedness surely to be believed,
and that is that everything abides in eternal ecstasy, now and
forever.
19
Mother Kali eats herself back. All things but
come to go. All these holy forms, unmanifest, not even forms,
truebodies of blank bright ecstasy, abiding in a trance, "in
emptiness and silence' as it is pointed out in the
Diamond-cutter, asked to be only what they are: GLAD.
20
The secret God-grin in the trees and in the
teapot, in ashes and fronds, fire and brick, flesh and mental
human hope. All things, far from yearning to be re-united with
God, had never left themselves and here they are, Dharmakaya,
the body of the truth law, the universal Thisness.
21
"Beyond the reach of change and fear, beyond
all praise and blame," the Lankavatara Scripture knows to say,
is he who is what he is in time and time-less-ness, in ego and
in ego-less-ness, in self and in self-less-ness.
22
Stare deep into the world before you as if it
were the void: innumerable holy ghosts, buddhies, and savior
gods there hide, smiling. All the atoms emitting light inside
wavehood, there is no personal separation of any of it. A
hummingbird can come into a house and a hawk will not: so rest
and be assured. While looking for the light, you may suddenly be
devoured by the darkness and find the true light.
23
Things dont tire of going and coming. The
flies end up with the delicate viands.
24
The cause of the world's woe is birth, The
cure of the world's woe is a bent stick.
25
Though it is everything, strictly speaking
there is no golden eternity because everything is nothing: there
are no things and no goings and comings: for all is emptiness,
and emptiness is these forms, emptiness is this one formhood.
26
All these selfnesses have already vanished.
Einstein measured that this present universe is an expanding
bubble, and you know what that means.
27
Discard such definite imaginations of
phenomena as your own self, thou human being, thou'rt a
numberless mass of sun-motes: each mote a shrine. The same as to
your shyness of other selves, selfness as divided into infinite
numbers of beings, or selfness as identified as one self
existing eternally. Be obliging and noble, be generous with your
time and help and possessions, and be kind, because the
emptiness of this little place of flesh you carry around and
call your soul, your entity, is the same emptiness in every
direction of space unmeasurable emptiness, the same, one, and
holy emptiness everywhere: why be selfy and unfree, Man God, in
your dream? Wake up, thou'rt selfless and free. "Even and
upright your mind abides nowhere," states Hui Neng of China.
We're all in heaven now.
28
Roaring dreams take place in a perfectly
silent mind. Now that we know this, throw the raft away.
29
Are you tightwad and are you mean, those are
the true sins, and sin is only a conception of ours, due to long
habit. Are you generous and are you kind, those are the true
virtues, and they're only conceptions. The golden eternity rests
beyond sin and virtue, is attached to neither, is attached to
nothing, is unattached, because the golden eternity is Alone.
The mold has rills but it is one mold. The field has curves but
it is one field. All things are different forms of the same
thing. I call it the golden eternity-what do you call it,
brother? for the blessing and merit of virtue, and the
punishment and bad fate of sin, are alike just so many words.
30
Sociability is a big smile, and a big smile is
nothing but teeth. Rest and be kind.
31
There's no need to deny that evil thing called
GOOGOO, which doesnt exist, just as there's no need to deny that
evil thing called Sex and Rebirth, which also doesn't exist, as
it is only a form of emptiness. The bead of semen comes from a
long line of awakened natures that were your parent, a holy
flow, a succession of saviors pouring from the womb of the dark
void and back into it, fantastic magic imagination of the
lightning, flash, plays, dreams, not even plays, dreams.
32
"The womb of exuberant fertility,"
Ashvhaghosha called it, radiating forms out of its womb of
exuberant emptiness. In emptiness there is no Why, no knowledge
of Why, no ignorance of Why, no asking and no answering of Why,
and no significance attached to this.
33
A disturbed and frightened man is like the
golden eternity experimentally pretending at feeling the
disturbed-and-frightened mood; a calm and joyous man, is like
the golden eternity pretending at experimenting with that
experience; a man experiencing his Sentient Being, is like the
golden eternity pretending at trying that out too; a man who has
no thoughts, is like the golden eternity pretending at being
itself; because the emptiness of everything has no beginning and
no end and at present is infinite.
34
"Love is all in all," said Sainte Therese,
choosing Love for her vocation and pouring out her happiness,
from her garden by the gate, with a gentle smile, pouring roses
on the earth, so that the beggar in the thunderbolt received of
the endless offering of her dark void. Man goes a-beggaring into
nothingness. "Ignorance is the father, Habit-Energy is the
Mother." Opposites are not the same for the same reason they are
the same.
35
The words "atoms of dust" and "the great
universes" are only words. The idea that they imply is only an
idea. The belief that we live here in this existence, divided
into various beings, passing food in and out of ourselves, and
casting off husks of bodies one after another with no cessation
and no definite or particular discrimination, is only an idea.
The seat of our Immortal Intelligence can be seen in that
beating light between the eyes the Wisdom Eye of the ancients:
we know what we're doing: we're not disturbed: because we're
like the golden eternity pretending at playing the magic
cardgame and making believe it's real, it's a big dream, a
joyous ecstasy of words and ideas and flesh, an ethereal flower
unfolding a folding back, a movie, an exuberant bunch of lines
bounding emptiness, the womb of Avalokitesvara, a vast secret
silence, springtime in the Void, happy young gods talking and
drinking on a cloud. Our 32,000 chillicosms bear all the marks
of excellence. Blind milky light fills our night; and the
morning is crystal.
36
Give a gift to your brother, but there's no
gift to compare with the giving of assurance that he is the
golden eternity. The true understanding of this would bring
tears to your eyes. The other shore is right here, forgive and
forget, protect and reassure. Your tormenters will be purified.
Raise thy diamond hand. Have faith and wait. The course of your
days is a river rumbling over your rocky back. You're sitting at
the bottom of the world with a head of iron. Religion is thy sad
heart. You're the golden eternity and it must be done by you.
And means one thing: Nothing-Ever-Happened. This is the golden
eternity.
37
When the Prince of the Kalinga severed the
flesh from the limbs and body of Buddha, even then the Buddha
was free from any such ideas as his own self, other self, living
beings divided into many selves, or living beings united and
identified into one eternal self. The golden eternity isnt "me."
Before you can know that you're dreaming you'll wake up, Atman.
Had the Buddha, the Awakened One, cherished any of these
imaginary judgments of and about things, he would have fallen
into impatience and hatred in his suffering. Instead, like Jesus
on the Cross he saw the light and died kind, loving all living
things.
38
The world was spun out of a blade of grass:
the world was spun out of a mind. Heaven was spun out of a blade
of grass: heaven was spun out of a mind. Neither will do you
much good, neither will do you much harm. The Oriental
imperturbed, is the golden eternity.
39
He is called a Yogi, his is called a Priest, a
Minister, a Brahmin, a Parson, a Chaplain, a Roshi, a Laoshih, a
Master, a Patriarch, a Pope, a Spiritual Commissar, a Counselor,
and Adviser, a Bodhisattva-Mahasattva, an Old Man, a Saint, a
Shaman, a Leader, who thinks nothing of himself as separate from
another self, not higher nor lower, no stages and no definite
attainments, no mysterious stigmata or secret holyhood, no wild
dark knowledge and no venerable authoritativeness, nay a
giggling sage sweeping out of the kitchen with a broom. After
supper, a silent smoke. Because there is no definite teaching:
the world is undisciplined. Nature endlessly in every direction
inward to your body and outward into space.
40
Meditate outdoors. The dark trees at night are
not really the dark trees at night, it's only the golden
eternity.
41
A mosquito as big as Mount Everest is much
bigger than you think: a horse's hoof is more delicate than it
looks. An altar consecrated to the golden eternity, filled with
roses and lotuses and diamonds, is the cell of the humble
prisoner, the cell so cold and dreary. Boethius kissed the Robe
of the Mother Truth in a Roman dungeon.
42
Do you think the emptiness of the sky will
ever crumble away? Every little child knows that everybody will
go to heaven. Knowing that nothing ever happened is not really
knowing that nothing ever happened, it's the golden eternity. In
other words, nothing can compare with telling your brother and
your sister that what happened, what is happening, and what will
happen, never really happened, is not really happening and never
will happen, it is only the golden eternity. Nothing was ever
born, nothing will ever die. Indeed, it didnt even happen that
you heard about golden eternity through the accidental reading
of this scripture. The thing is easily false. There are no
warnings whatever issuing from the golden eternity: do what you
want.
43
Even in dreams be kind, because anyway there
is no time, no space, no mind. "It's all not-born," said Bankei
of Japan, whose mother heard this from her son did what we call
"died happy." And even if she had died unhappy, dying unhappy is
not really dying unhappy, it's the golden eternity. It's
impossible to exist, it's impossible to be persecuted, it's
impossible to miss your reward.
44
Eight hundred and four thousand myriads of
Awakened Ones throughout numberless swirls of epochs appeared to
work hard to save a grain of sand, and it was only the golden
eternity. And their combined reward will be no greater and no
lesser than what will be won by a piece of dried turd. It's a
reward beyond thought.
45
When you've understood this scripture, throw
it away. If you cant understand this scripture, throw it away. I
insist on your freedom.
46
O everlasting Eternity, all things and all
truth laws are no- things, in three ways, which is the same way:
AS THINGS OF TIME they dont exist because there is no furthest
atom than can be found or weighed or grasped, it is emptiness
through and through, matter and empty space too. AS THINGS OF
MIND they dont exist, because the mind that conceives and makes
them out does so by seeing, hearing touching, smelling, tasting,
and mentally-noticing and without this mind they would not be
seen or heard or felt or smelled or tasted or mentally-noticed,
they are discriminated that which they're not necessarily by
imaginary judgments of the mind, they are actually dependent on
the mind that makes them out, by themselves they are no-things,
they are really mental, seen only of the mind, they are really
empty visions of the mind, heaven is a vision, everything is a
vision. What does it mean that I am in this endless universe
thinking I'm a man sitting under the stars on the terrace of
earth, but actually empty and awake throughout the emptiness and
awakedness of everything? It means that I am empty and awake,
knowing that I am empty and awake, and that there's no
difference between me and anything else. It means that I have
attained to that which everything is.
47
The-Attainer-To-That-Which-Everything-Is, the
Sanskrit Tathagata, has no ideas whatever but abides in essence
identically with the essence of all things, which is what it is,
in emptiness and silence. Imaginary meaning stretched to make
mountains and as far as the germ is concerned it stretched even
further to make molehills. A million souls dropped through hell
but nobody saw them or counted them. A lot of large people isnt
really a lot of large people, it's only the golden eternity.
When St. Francis went to heaven he did not add to heaven nor
detract from earth. Locate silence, possess space, spot me the
ego.
"From the beginning," said the Sixth Patriarch
of the China School, "not a thing is."
48
He who loves all life with his pity and
intelligence isnt really he who loves all life with his pity and
intelligence, it's only natural. The universe is fully known
because it is ignored. Enlightenment comes when you dont care.
This is a good tree stump I'm sitting on. You cant even grasp
your own pain let alone your eternal reward. I love you because
you're me. I love you because there's nothing else to do. It's
just the natural golden eternity.
49
What does it mean that those trees and
mountains are magic and unreal?- It means that those trees and
mountains are magic and unreal. What does it mean that those
trees and mountains are not magic but real?- it means that those
trees and mountains are not magic but real. Men are just making
imaginary judgments both ways, and all the time it's just the
same natural golden eternity.
50
If the golden eternity was anything other than
mere words, you could not have said "golden eternity." This
means that the words are used to point at the endless
nothingness of reality. If the endless nothingness of reality
was anything other than mere words, you could not have said
"endless nothingness of reality," you could not have said it.
This means that the golden eternity is out of our word-reach, it
refuses steadfastly to be described, it runs away from us and
leads us in. The name is not really the name. The same way, you
could not have said "this world" if this world was anything
other than mere words. There's nothing there but just that.
They've long known that there's nothing to life but just the
living of it. It Is What It Is and That's All It Is.
51
There's no system of teaching and no reward
for teaching the golden eternity, because nothing has happened.
In the golden eternity teaching and reward havent even vanished
let alone appeared. The golden eternity doesnt even have to be
perfect. It is very silly of me to talk about it. I talk about
it simply because here I am dreaming that I talk about it in a
dream already ended, ages ago, from which I'm already awake, and
it was only an empty dreaming, in fact nothing whatever, in fact
nothing ever happened at all. The beauty of attaining the golden
eternity is that nothing will be acquired, at last.
52
Kindness and sympathy, understanding and
encouragement, these give: they are better than just presents
and gifts: no reason in the world why not. Anyhow, be nice.
Remember the golden eternity is yourself. "If someone will
simply practice kindness," said Gotama to Subhuti, "he will soon
attain highest perfect wisdom." Then he added: "Kindness after
all is only a word and it should be done on the spot without
thought of kindness." By practicing kindness all over with
everyone you will soon come into the holy trance, infinite
distinctions of personalities will become what they really
mysteriously are, our common and eternal blissstuff, the
pureness of everything forever, the great bright essence of
mind, even and one thing everywhere the holy eternal milky love,
the white light everywhere everything, emptybliss, svaha,
shining, ready, and awake, the compassion in the sound of
silence, the swarming myriad trillionaire you are.
53
Everything's alright, form is emptiness and
emptiness is form, and we're here forever, in one form or
another, which is empty. Everything's alright, we're not here,
there, or anywhere. Everything's alright, cats sleep.
54
The everlasting and tranquil essence, look
around and see the smiling essence everywhere. How wily was the
world made, Maya, not-even-made.
55
There's the world in the daylight. If it was
completely dark you wouldnt see it but it would still be there.
If you close your eyes you really see what it's like: mysterious
particle-swarming emptiness. On the moon big mosquitos of straw
know this in the kindness of their hearts. Truly speaking,
unrecognizably sweet it all is. Don't worry about nothing.
56
Imaginary judgments about things, in the
Nothing-Ever-Happened wonderful void, you dont even have to
reject them, let alone accept them. "That looks like a tree,
let's call it a tree," said Coyote to Earthmaker at the
beginning, and they walked around the rootdrinker patting their
bellies.
57
Perfectly selfless, the beauty of it, the
butterfly doesnt take it as a personal achievement, he just
disappears through the trees. You too, kind and humble and
not-even-here, it wasnt in a greedy mood that you saw the light
that belongs to everybody.
58
Look at your little finger, the emptiness of
it is no different that the emptiness of infinity.
59
Cats yawn because they realize that there's
nothing to do.
60
Up in heaven you wont remember all these
tricks of yours. You wont even sigh "Why?" Whether as atomic
dust or as great cities, what's the difference in all this
stuff. A tree is still only a rootdrinker. The puma's twisted
face continues to look at the blue sky with sightless eyes, Ah
sweet divine and indescribable verdurous paradise planted in
mid-air! Caitanya, it's only consciousness. Not with thoughts of
your mind, but in the believing sweetness of your heart, you
snap the link and open the golden door and disappear into the
bright room, the everlasting ecstasy, eternal Now. Soldier,
follow me! - there never was a war. Arjuna, dont fight! - why
fight over nothing? Bless and sit down.
61
I remember that I'm supposed to be a man and
consciousness and I focus my eyes and the print reappears and
the words of the poor book are saying, "The world, as God has
made it" and there are no words in my pitying heart to express
the knowless loveliness of the trance there was before I read
those words, I had no such idea that there was a world.
62
This world has no marks, signs, or evidence of
existence, nor the noises in it, like accident of wind or voices
or heehawing animals, yet listen closely the eternal hush of
silence goes on and on throughout all this, and has been gong
on, and will go on and on. This is because the world is nothing
but a dream and is just thought of and the everlasting eternity
pays no attention to it. At night under the moon, or in a quiet
room, hush now, the secret music of the Unborn goes on and on,
beyond conception, awake beyond existence. Properly speaking,
awake is not really awake because the golden eternity never went
to sleep; you can tell by the constant sound of Silence which
cuts through this world like a magic diamond through the trick
of your not realizing that your mind caused the world.
63
The God of the American Plateau Indian was
Coyote. He says: "Earth! those beings living on your surface,
none of them disappearing, will all be transformed. When I have
spoken to them, when they have spoken to me, from that moment
on, their words and their bodies which they usually use to move
about with, will all change. I will not have heard them."
64
I was smelling flowers in the yard, and when I
stood up I took a deep breath and the blood all rushed to my
brain and I woke up dead on my back in the grass. I had
apparently fainted, or died, for about sixty seconds. My
neighbor saw me but he thought I had just suddenly thrown myself
on the grass to enjoy the sun. During that timeless moment of
unconsciousness I saw the golden eternity. I saw heaven. In it
nothing had ever happened, the events of a million years ago
were just as phantom and ungraspable as the events of now, or
the events of the next ten minutes. It was perfect, the golden
solitude, the golden emptiness, Something-Or- Other, something
surely humble. There was a rapturous ring of silence abiding
perfectly. There was no question of being alive or not being
alive, of likes and dislikes, of near or far, no question of
giving or gratitude, no question of mercy or judgment, or of
suffering or its opposite or anything. It was the womb itself,
aloneness, alaya vijnana the universal store, the Great Free
Treasure, the Great Victory, infinite completion, the joyful
mysterious essence of Arrangement. It seemed like one smiling
smile, one adorable adoration, one gracious and adorable
charity, everlasting safety, refreshing afternoon, roses,
infinite brilliant immaterial gold ash, the Golden Age. The
"golden" came from the sun in my eyelids, and the "eternity"
from my sudden instant realization as I woke up that I had just
been where it all came from and where it was all returning, the
everlasting So, and so never coming or going; therefore I call
it the golden eternity but you can call it anything you want. As
I regained consciousness I felt so sorry I had a body and a mind
suddenly realizing I didn't even have a body and a mind and
nothing had ever happened and everything is alright forever and
forever and forever, O thank you thank you thank you.
65
This is the first teaching from the golden
eternity.
66
The second teaching from the golden eternity
is that there never was a first teaching from the golden
eternity. So be sure.