Will Confusion Really be our Epitaph

Today I started reading the first chapter of the book On Creativity by David Bohm.

I already wrote some posts about what struck me most in the preface of the book.

And this first chapter made it even more fascinating. Many times, while reading, I wanted to go and write a post about it.

But I also wanted to keep on reading, because it was just so very exciting. When I almost finished that chapter, an image came into my head. And music.

I had to think of an immensely overwhelming piece of music, Epitaph of King Crimson, which I saw as the essence of that chapter.

Confusion that is blocking our creative nature.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUSFHUH_0KQ&feature=related[/youtube]

The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams.
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
When silence drowns the screams.

Confusion will be my epitaph.
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back
And laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying,
Yes I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying.

Between the iron gates of fate,
The seeds of time were sown,
And watered by the deeds of those
Who know and who are known;
Knowledge is a deadly friend
If no one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools.

Confusion will be my epitaph.
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back
And laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying,
Yes I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying.

I really think the whole text (written by Peter Sinfield) is brilliant. It is from 1969 or so, and it has this shocking visionary character.

But in this context, I especially was stunned by ‘confusion will be my epitaph’, while reading the book that said:

Falling into a state of self-sustaining confusion, in which it is no longer aware of its contradictory thoughts and the painfull conflicts that result from them. In doing this, it lacks clear perception in almost any area that may be at all subtle. Thus, it can no longer see what is creative and what is mechanical. Indeed, the mind then starts to suppress real originality and creation, because these seem to threaten the apparently creative, but actually mechanical, centre that appears to be at the heart of one’s very self. It is just this action that constitutes the process of ‘falling asleep’.

So we only have to realize how important it is to change this state of confusion, to give it attention and find our creative nature. Nothing more….

Will confusion really be our epitaph

5 comments

  1. Great song indeed.

    — Not to overload you with tips, but the problem in the excerpt is examined thoroughly in Charles Tart’s brilliant book “Waking Up: Overcoming the Obstacles to Human Potential”.

    Greetings!

    1. Yeah, you’ve got to stop bringing my attention to all those interesting books and people :-) I really get not much else done this way.

      I just found an interesting video of Charles Tart. Two things that immediately stood out for me. He says that people are often advised that ‘if it is not working for you, do more of it’ which he says might be useless; and ‘spiritual teachers are too invested in their own tradition’ which he says is providing them from looking objectively at opposing views.

      I really think he is right there. And I have the feeling that he, like David Bohm, likes to look at empirical data. But empirical data that goes beyond the objective data. They both want to take into account personal experience.

      I must say that while reading Bohm, it is not so much that what he says is new to me. Most of it I heard many times before in many different ways. But most of it was in a certain (what Charles Tart said) tradition, which often comes into conflict with other traditions.

      And I love it when people are capable of looking beyond that. And base their conclusions on as many opposing facts as possible. Of course they will also have their bias at some point. But it did not get in my way yet.

      About Tart’s book, is that one new? Because the only place I could find it was on Amazon. Not by the library and bookstore I usually look.

  2. I recommended the book because it’s in my personal top 5.
    It was originally written in 1987 and re-issued in 2001, but 95% of the information is timeless wisdom. (bookdepository.co.uk is a good place to buy as well i have heard)
    Unfortunately, professor Tart’s selection of online articles is down at the moment, otherwise you could have checked a resumé of the book. He also has a very interesting blog: http://blog.paradigm-sys.com/
    The para-psychology/PSI stuff is also very intriguing, but right now i’m more focused on the core issue of people living in conflict & confusion.

    I discovered “Waking Up” only after an intense self- and world-investigation and recognized a lot of the points Tart discusses that i had encountered on my path, which is heavily inspired by the Krishnamurti-Bohm dialogues. It saves a lot of time to to formalize it all as he has done in a clear and understandable way.

    — If you have got the patience, i am working hard on the integration of the ideas of K. & Bohm, Charles Tart, Shinzen Young, and my own experiences & meditations, resulting in more web writing with minimized bias and possibly a book, maybe even a comic book – in a year or 5 or 10, we’ll see:P

    1. Ordered the book, getting very curious now!

      I have the same with para-psychology and PSI, intruiging but not so much for me right now and more intruiged by conflict and confusion as a human issue.

      My interest in the Krishnamurti-Bohm dialogues on the other hand, is just in Bohm. Somehow I can not get through the personality of Krishnamurti, I don’t know why. But maybe that will come.

      If Tart indeed got the essence in a clear and understandable way, I might get a better sense of it.

      Love to read what you have to say about the integration of those ideas.

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