I Grok - Thou Art God

March 1, 1999
(last edited on April 7, 2006)

(a tribute to Michael Valentine Smith)

Realization is release—
It comes in laughter,
The unswerving companion to epiphany.

In “epiphany” there is not a goodness, nor a badness—
But perhaps there is more of a badness,
For epiphany comes from tribulation.

Perhaps there is more a goodness,
For though epiphany requires trial,
It is in the thinking that there is breakthrough.

Breakthrough comes in moments of detachment;
It is in becoming a thing that one gains trial,
And in disconnecting from that collective that one gains reflection.

One, not a human, observes detached—
This changeling learns the questions when he becomes human,
And then drinks of the questions when he views humanity again as an observer.

In laughter, there is great wrongness, for we laugh at what hurts;
In laughter, there is great repression, for we laugh to create distraction.
In laughter, there is solace from suffering, for laughter is temporal joy.

True joy is different from the temporal not-suffering;
True joy is experienced in detachment from the temporal suffering and joy,
True joy is the detachment, the abandonment to bliss.

True suffering, indeed, is drunk in fullness as a goodness,
A goodness like true joy;
It is the trueness that is joyful, not the circumstance.

True not-suffering, indeed, is neither true joy nor temporal joy;
Not-suffering is simply that,
And can be drunk as a not-feeling that is as healthy as any non-temporal goodness.

But it is in the epiphany, the detachment, that we must laugh;
For when one is an observer drinking deeply in goodness,
He sees that all are suffering—though they needn’t.