Da Shan Five Trees- By William Samuel

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Spring Journal Notes 2008

The following piece is written by William Samuel, 1985

The mighty mountain, Da Shan.

The mountain faces all directions simultaneously, so all directions face it at the same time.

The mountain is not separate from the earth, so when we speck of the mountain, we are talking of all the earth-all the inanimate tangibility

There is another form of tangibility that lives on the mountain.. These are the forms of life. Everyone is waling somewhere on the face of Da-Shan, going uphill to one degree or another, downhill or in circles around it. We enter the tangible scene somewhere on the mountain and leave it somewhere else-hopefully a bit nearer the top. There are those in the East who say we never leave the mountain until we've reached the top. There, in absolute nothing ness of self, we become the Self of Something. There, the battles of the mountain are left behind.

Now, let me add another dimension to the Hindu cosmology of birth and rebirth. Imagine another might mountain of Reality that already exists in exquisite Simplicity. That mountain has no name, transcending all names. It can't be seen directly by those who are climbing Da-Shan but when one reaches Da-Shan's peak and stands at the very top. Balanced on one foot, he begins to perceive the Mountain Beyond Name-and sees that Da-Shan is only an image of the Mountain Beyond Name. Furthermore, he sees that Da-Shan is actually an infinite quantity of Images of the mountain Beyond Name-and because it is so many images, it has become opaque and solid.

Standing atop Da-Shan, one also finds that the body standing there is only an image of Another Identity, standing atop the Ineffable Mountain Beyond Name. That "other" Identity atop the Holy Mountain Beyond Name has a Name also-and indeed is the original One-I-Am, having never left the State of Grace of Mountain Beyond Name. Atop Da-Shan, the balanced View begins to comprehend that all beneath his feet is imaged confirmation (to infinity) of the Real. And that all beneath the balanced foot exists in time to confirm an Already Timelessness.

At each moment of time on the face of Da-Shan, the inward Child atop Mountain Beyond Name, guides our way to Da-Shan's peak wherein our time ends and we become conscious of Timelessness.

What does the Child tell us that helps the ascent? That in Truth we are there already-then, in proportion to the extent of our belief that those words are true, our tangible experience Confirms that reality.

How? As a perfect balance maintained against great worldly odds-and inward scenes of beauty and feelings of harmony beyond comprehension, rushing in to confirm the Real. This is the "proof of God" the world has sought so long.

What else does the Child tell us? It tells us of the Equation without which no one reaches the peak of Da-Shan.

What is the Equation?

The Balance, the perfect balance-and living it.

Tell me of that.

Da-Shan has four obvious sides and another not so obvious. Five sides in all. There is a perfect balance for ea of those sides, each leading to the peak. The top down view reveals the bottom up pathways. Each is a perfect balance. Therefore we look out into the world (at the slopes of Da-Shan, and find five pathways to the top-one of them a composite of the other four. Most of us must travel more than one to get all the way to the top. But at the top, all the pathways merge and all are understood. From the slopes, each way is singular-no one is better than another. At the peak one finds he has never climbed Da-Shan at all. Rather, the climb in tangible time confirms the Eternal Identity standing atop Great Godhead Beyond Names.

The Five Trees and the Five Balances.

"There are five trees in the midst of the garden whose leaves do not fall in summer or winter." Perhaps those trees are the five balances we come to perceive along the retrospective ascent of the Mountain of Life. The equation speaks for one of them-if not all. The Equation is surely akin to the Tree of Life.

There is the mysterious Playground beyond the thinking mind and one doesn't have to psyche himself into getting there. There is the place of simple being, wherein nothing physical is required but the thought that the real of us is already there/here, right where God is, and already surrendered of the belief that he is anything of himself. Oh, but surrendered in fact and not in self-deluding pretence.

No matter what the pain, no matter what the physical circumstances, the Child-soul of us is tended and caressed by God's gentle Principle of Life. We, as the Child, ask for the Peace of the Principle and we are given more than we ask for.

Now, organizations seem necessary in the linear scheme of things. People believe they need to group together and have common themes and aspirations and this is part of the marvel of living. It is wonderful to have the company of friends of similar mind, but, even that isn't necessary in the Whole Scheme. God is better than the ogre that demands we have someone to agree with us. We are never without the availability of God/peace. We are never beyond the thought and thinking of God/relief. We are never outside the companionship of God/respite. The fabled Peace beyond understanding is here, this second, exactly as the principle of unreal time is here, governing the quartz watches and calendars of the world. It is here, just as arithmetic is here this instant, even thought we're not thinking numbers and sums and balances t the moment. It is here, anyway, despite whatever aguish distorts the linear scene momentarily. It is here whether one is thinking about God or not.

All it takes, for me, is a momentary reminder that I am encompassed and governed by the marvelous, magic, unseen Principle of Life. All is takes is just the thought that the Child-I-am belongs to the Principle and has no me-ness remaining at all. And, if I'm humanly wrong on the account and there is still arrogance around, then I offer it all to God in willing self-sacrifice.

Listen, Listen

Now, please let this not be misunderstood again. This is not the say that knowledge of the Principle of Life will make ones experience go with no more hitches. This doesn't mean that the appearances of illness or trouble will vanish because one acknowledges the Presence of the ineffable Godhead as the All and Only. But, those who do acknowledge the Child-Soul within themselves begin to find their troubles diminishing. Those who do, have miracles happening in their affairs again. Those who do, find that they get exactly what they desire and ask God for, sometimes ways that can be unsettling to the me-sense. Those who do, begin feeling again as they did as children, filled with trust and confidence again, wondering what new marvel the day holds.

William Samuel-- Woodsong, 1985

The following is from William Samuel's unpublished papers ( no date as to when it was written):

How vainly, insanely, intellectually human of us to believe "mortal mind" to be capable of dreaming a fiction that Omnipotent Omniscience cannot! The Pomposity of such a view! As if only the human can know the mockingbird is not a primrose or that Now is not yesterday. The Awareness-being-I knows that red is not white and Infinity is not finite.

The simple "answer" which makes all this more palatable to the science-swinging intellect-of-us is the fact that Omniscience KNOWS the wheat from the tares, the Is from the pseudo-hypothetical, fictions Is Not, when the old nature is forever struggling between the two, attempting to hold on to one while struggling to get rid of , change, heal or correct the other-in vain-finally-to be brought to its knees, then to discern that the Is Nots serve a purpose in DELINEATING the IS---and are not, there for "enemies" to be destroyed or overcome. All the while, the ills of the world have been pointing directly to the perfect and only universe "wherein there is nothing that worketh or maketh a lie."

In the last days (of time) "There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed" and "in those days the night and the day shall be the same." Well, these are "those days"

Human science has now proven tangibly that "darkness" is absolutely hypothetical, a fiction, a dream, a fantasy, an illusion-but an illusion that serves a genuine and necessary purpose. Science shows us that darkness ("is not light"), while impossible tin absolute fact, is the illusion by means of which FORM is discernable. The form of the tree is apparent, silhouetted against "lighter" or "darker" backgrounds. At the same time, our knowledge that the pine is not the shy above, is not the earth beneath, is the not the meadow and mountains beyond, leaves a clearly delineated form named "tree". Our further knowledge says that the tree is not an oak, is not a willow, "is not" to infinity, yields the positive knowledge that our tree is a "pine." The "is nots" are delineations.

So, just as human science now admits that "darkness" is a human paradox quite necessary for the ability to distinguish the elements (quality, characteristics and attributes) that constitute that tangible universe. And yet, says this same science, is being everyone of these "elements." The same single light is the essence of all that appears as matter as well as the awareness that observes it.

So, what has been said here? That the tangible universe, the human arena, the world scene is a mathematically pure and perfect balance twixt Isness and Its own Self-delineation. We have further said that the Self-delineation is a precise balance twixt IS and IS NOT, the IS NOT clearly serving a purpose, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly.

A grand breakthrough occurred in my own experience 'pon the recognition that Isness and its delineation are all one Isness-not a dualism as we are metaphysically prone to believe at first.

You are the infinite awareness of Infinite Mind whether you admit it or not.

(copyrights all unpublished papers by William Samuel)

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