I dream every time I fall asleep And it’s always one adventure or the other; Conversations with beloveds I keep, My best friend, my father, my brother, And strangers too with whom I laugh and weep And fight and love and comfort one another; The dangers are real, the emotions are deep, Every fear, every tear, every worry and bother; At times I weightless fly, or I burdened creep, Through encounters that liberate or smother, But I’m always conscious even in the Deep, As awake as a baby born out of its mother. For I have vows to keep and sowed seeds to reap - And before it gets lighter it will get darker - And miles to go and never really sleep. Che Chidi Chukwumerije Poems from the inner river
consciousness
I CANNOT REMEMBER
I cannot remember all the good I did
I cannot remember all the evil I did
People remind me
As you go through the world today
Be mindful of the things you say
And do to those who cross your way
People will remind you one day.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Poems from the inner river
ATTENTION TO DETAIL
Every shift in form takes a bit of attention away from content as the consciousness or subconscious seeks through a reappraisal of form, and an attempted understanding of the reason for the shift, to glimpse a hint at the current nature of content. So, the understanding of content – on its way from itself to itself – takes a detour via attention to and understanding of form.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
OUR BOUNDARIES
You don’t see yourself, because you are yourself and for you that is the normal, natural, only, right and best way and thing to be. You don’t sense or recognise or take cognisance of the thought or perception that you could ‘improve’, ‘change’ or grow into something or someone ‘better’. Your limits are perceived by you as being the limits, borders and boundaries of absolute reality.
The most fundamental first step on the path to self-awareness is the accrual of the recognition that there is a difference between your reality and absolute reality. And between your reality and everybody else’s realities. And between everybody else’s realities and absolute reality.
I have gone too far. ‘Absolute Reality’ is a key term. First you have to realise – i.e. internalise through repeated experiencing – that there is a difference between yours and others’ realities. The next step is considering whether there is an ‘Absolute Reality’ different from and beyond yours and those of others, one within which every consciousness and reality finds resolution, be it in dissolution or in elevation and completion. Third is the recognition that your reality can grow towards Absolute Reality without ever reaching it, for that is the character of the absolute – it forever draws you onwards.
With the recognition that your consciousness is your perception is your reality is changeable comes the realisation that it can also grow away from Absolute Reality, i.e. shrink and become smaller, and its new boundaries become again also the limits of your perception, your consciousness, your reality. We see and live things really according to how we inwardly are. Understanding is a boundary. We say things like “The boundaries of our understanding”, whereas we should probably say instead “The understanding of our boundaries”, or better still: “Our understandings are our boundaries”.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 