The Fountain of Attention by Mervyn Brady

Mervyn Brady 

(February 11, 1948-April 27, 2006)

Happy Birthday, Mervyn!

The Fountain of Attention

Self-remembering is
the beginning and end of all religion,
the goal of all philosophy,
the cure of all psychology,
the universal equaliser of theories of everything,
the origin of joy and immortality,
the source of all true art, poetry, music and paradox,
the only spiritual act in the universe.

It is what monks practice as devotion,
what ascetics practise as sacrifice,
yogis as concentration,
Sufis and saints as internal prayer,
what artists sense when they transcend their technique and create.

It is the philosophers' stone, the Holy Grail, the Golden Fleece,
Aladdin's lamp, the fountain of youth, the pearl of great price, the
buried treasure of all myth and fable,
the Golden Mean.

Self-remembering is the deliverance promised in every religion -
Moksha, Nirvana, the Kingdom of Heaven,
Dadirri - the sound of deep calling to deep.

It is religion purged of sentiment,
philosophy purged of language,
Being simplified,
Simplicity charged with meaning.

It is the same spiritual act everywhere,
the liberation of attention into the living moment.

It is renunciation, surrender,
the breaking of the spell,
the erasure of vital boundaries, over and over, forever.

It is the sword that cuts the Gordian Knot,
the knife that cuts through everything to the meaning of existence.

It is the noble simplicity and calm grandeur of the great art of the ages.
It is the only quest in the universe -
To Be or not to Be.

Self-remembering is the unqualified relationship to just this,
just now,
one long poem of presence,
the pure art of perfect attention.

It is a radical disentanglement,
a bloodless coup of Being,
the discipline of freedom,
the freedom of discipline.

It is the separation of the real and the false,
the lifting of self out of the current of dreams,
being free to see.

It is a looking and listening of serene urgency,
the attempt to penetrate the present,
absorb its contents,

and wait with trust for it to reveal the final mystery.

It is consciousness loving you into existence.

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