IF – from a Zen perspective
If— BY RUDYARD KIPLING
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Never more than to this day those words were more meaningful than today spoken written from the heart to the heart in which they stay forever. If, a simple word that opens up for possibilities that can only manifest if man stays true to his nature. In fact there is a lot of Zen in this poem which since Rudyard Kipling was living in India then should be a surprise to no one. Many aspects of Buddhism such as the Ying / Yang of eternal balance and the goal of becoming. What you become I cannot tell you, but that you become I do if you follow the path and are willing to do your deeds. Your actions are the fuel of the fire that is called life.
There are a lot of if in our life right now. In programming there is IF and THEN two basic functions fundamental to any algorithm. If you do this then ... There is no difference in programming a computer to programming a human being. If you vote for Trump you are a Nazi for example. Or if you speak up against aggression you are a terrorist. Or if you don't take the “vax” you are a Nazi a terrorist and should be stoned to death.
The categorization of mankind always was a mystery to me until certain things happened in my life. After a series of events that may knock any man into pulp I spend some time in self reflection as to what and how things went and what I could have done if I could have done anything to change them. I came out a different person, harder sometimes unforgiving and confrontational but in the end I connected with the child in me that I always am. The softness is stronger than strength, what does that mean? Your weakness is your strength.
It comes from Confucius and reminds us that water can destroy stones but stones can never destroy water, it reminds us that flexibility is a virtue and stubbornness is a sin because it breaks and with it you. How for example would you describe the color blue if you had no other color to compare it with? Wouldn't it be red orange or green the same it was blue? A definition by definition needs an opposition to define itself, that is true natures fact. So without opposition there is no definition this is true for most things but the self. The self is the I AM. It connects with the true self with its feelings and reaches out always absorbing never confronting. Which is essentially described in Rudyard Kipling's poem. Be strong but don't be a bully. Be soft but don't be a dweeb. Be there when you are needed even if nobody needs you. Prepare for a fight even if you don't want to.
The nature of balance is out of order because man is out of balance. Man is so confused as to what they should believe that they don't know what to believe. To this I say that: Why do you believe at all? Believe requires things to be unproven and falter upon thorough inspection thus is the nature of believing it requires faith beyond believe. As such knowledge does not require believe in fact knowledge and believe have no place together it is either / or. So if one can chose and I believe one can why should they chose believe and ignore everything that remotely contradicts their believe in favor of what they believe in. Wouldn't it be easier to take all the evidence on board none excluded lay them out and find the truth by the process of elimination?
The untruth eliminates itself because it simply can't be for example if you have a vote of 100 people and 75 vote for one person and 76 vote for the other then you have an untruth that simply can't be because it doesn't add up. If you are a vegetarian and you order a steak there is an untruth either the steak or you. But there is also one underlying truth no one noticed or everyone ignores and that is that man is nothing but can become anything. Man is a process in a process that is a process itself.
All man needs is time and all man has is time but what does man do with his time? That is the great conundrum of man, he simply does not know what to do with himself.
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
In my first year at school in my first school report the great teachers of the old German guard they wrote: “too much fantasy” which I presume they will hate to this day since they made me an enemy then. Another reason for me to dislike the German “education” propaganda system were the caning in front of the class by a female Turk unforgiving and brutal. That and other unpleasant things of my school days made me spend my breaks in the library which I must have read in its entirety at least the interesting books. So this passage of the poem is close to my heart, being a vivid dreamer and a deep thinker. You know sometimes we can over think something like a situation or rejection and sometimes we can be trapped in the whirlwind of our thoughts and there are dangers within that. One golden rule is this: You are never as good as you think you are and you are never as bad as others tell you. The Truth as always lies in the balance of things. There are three things in life one should do all the time:
Be honest Breathe Reflect
There is no replacement for honesty and truth in fact if you are lazy like me you will understand that the burden of lying isn't worth the work to continue it. Truth on the other side gives you freedom like nothing else and only truth gives you this. For example that NZ weightlifter that pretends to be a women and surely will win the women's gold medal in Tokyo will never be able to enjoy or value his achievement because there is none. He is a cheat and he will always know it no matter what. Or better the Government who bombard us with their Covid Lies they are cheats and they know it that is why they have to be very aggressive and cannot stand (or withstand) the thought of an honest conversation with a member of the public. You know I would like to see David Icke having an honest conversation with Boris Johnson on live TV, gee wouldn't that be fun?
Which brings me to breathing. Breathing is more than just filling your lungs with air, it is an art form. The Freemasons have a ritual something about the middle pillar or so in which they breathe in through the left nostril and out to the right, change direction and then breath from the middle to the outside and again change direction. That actually is stolen from Buddhism and it is called circular breathing. By this you rotate the breathing and reverse it. It actually makes you dizzy if you try it first but it is a very potent and powerful tool.
The main thing about breathing and breathing exercises is that: One has to find one's own rhythm speed and capacity and within oneself the ability to calm oneself down and be prepared. Anger makes people breath short and heavy minimizing the flow of oxygen to the brain and as a result getting more angry which result in less oxygen and a limitation of brain function. So in short anger makes you stupid. Nothing new here.
But a simple Qi Gong exercise, the “three breaths of Buddha” will calm down anyone and benefit everyone that wants to make the right decision at the right time. You should try it you might like it.
Reflection is everything, everything we see is a reflection of light. But our subconsciousness records everything even if we miss it and it tells us about that in our dream state in our dreams. In our dream state we connect to the dimensions of our creators who created us just for that purpose to be an intermediate between dimensions.
To reflect the day that's gone is to prepare for the day ahead. That means if we carry a burden from our past it becomes an even bigger burden and bigger until we go back and solve it then it disappears. To do this in a conscious way in a meditative state is a healthy endeavor. All this and more Is written in this most beautiful of poems by Rudyard Kipling which will never lose its meaning and always is like a glass of fresh water to a thirsty mind. Which leaves me with a few ifs of my own...
If there is no virus and it is all a scam If your Government lies to you and doesn't care if you know If the police fights you with weapons you have never seen If all your rights are taken and none are given If you witness your neighbor taken away because he dared to speak up If you witness your child being programmed against you
When will you speak up? When is too late actually too late? You tell me.
Fritz Freud