Into Ever

It Just Is

There is a proof that everything is consciousness, says Sogyal Rinpoche in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, because everything we know about our existence and the world happens in our consciousness. When you think of it, it really is the only thing we have. 

So it is kind of curious to take a step back from my awareness so as to ponder about what is in my awareness, what it is about. Here’s a poem, inspired by the beautiful hills of Dartmoor, and my oh my, how the beauty of that place first had me sink into it and then sank into me, so much that it has become a part of me.

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:00:26 Into Ever – Solo
• 00:02:26 It Just Is
• 00:11:25 Into Ever (Remix)
• 00:15:20 Outro

Transcript

Into Ever

Open meadows
Lonely land
Wind cries
The Moon

I feel the sun shine
I love the clouds
Roaming round the hills

Soft the raven crows
Colourful the heather
Wild washing mossy brook

I let the buzzing buzz
I let the sun grow gold
I kiss the last of daylight

I am who beholds
All evers
In this in-between

All eves
Forever shine
Their light
In me

©️ Laughing Brook/Peter Müller 2025

It Just Is

„The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music.“ That’s not a quote by Johann Sebastian Bach or any Pope, but a line taken from a novel by science fiction author Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse Five, if you’re curious. The novel tells a strangely weird story of a man who is experiencing a life that seems completely out of control, being like a pinball in-between forces that appear erratic, enigmatic and unsympathetic. A kafkaesque world. 

Yet, in there is this sentence about music, where music is being implicitly described as the presence of the divine. There is something so strong and touching in music, it overcomes the forces of chaos and disempowerment. It opens a sense of a greater harmony, a living and pulsating order in which all existence rests and flows. 

Now with music it all depends; some people’s pleasures are other peoples nuisance, some people’s harmony is other people’s noise. But there is a magic about music as such and what it does to us and for us. In our age of consumerism a lot of music is commoditized and has become part of the textures of our lives. Music is in every movie and video game and every supermarket, yet we do not think of movies and video games and supermarkets in terms of music. Music is a part of the fabric of the overall experience of watching a movie, playing a video game, shopping in a supermarket, and frequently we aren’t even aware of it. But it is there to touch us and direct our emotions, our experience and our behaviour, and does so very effectively. For it evokes emotions, and emotions colour the way we see the world and how we respond to it. 

It’s a curious experiment to watch commercials while turning off the sound. You will look at them with different eyes and maybe note things you haven’t been aware of before. By turning it off I may be able to detect its effect from the ”shadow“ it leaves when it is gone. Or you could experiment by wearing noise cancelling headphones in a supermarket and observe what it does to your shopping and your experience.

There is something, though, about turning my awareness directly to music, to music as such. To focus on it and truly listen. Listening intently to music will create something like an interaction. I  begin to hear the music with more clarity and depth, with a stronger understanding. But it will also do something in me, even change the way I listen and the things I am hearing in it. This can be analytical, observing instruments, rhythm, patterns, etc., but the real magic in music unfolds when I allow myself to sink into it, when it touches me in ways that words cannot describe in full. All words are an approximation at best, but easily can turn into a distraction and mislead from this numinous experience. Yet, anyone how has experienced music this way knows what I’m talking about – it’s the magic that can happen at a concert or in an ecstatic dance session.

In that regard it is indeed exactly like encountering the divine, this ever flowing stillness, this beautiful being that just is, where I simply know with every fiber of my existence that I am being held in an order that envelops everything, permeates everything, holds everything. Just like the divine, music is always in the now, that moment I am experiencing. 

When I take a step back from this and enter an observer position, I may note this divine quality that is being present in music – or is it more like music is being present in it? I might become aware how this divine presence is not only in music, but gleams in everything. And when I move on from here, I might realize how all those experiences, every now, resonates and unfolds within me, even though they don’t originate in me. I am in the presence of something beyond words. 

And isn’t God, the divine, beyond all concepts and doctrines, and practices and traditions devised around it, harmonious beauty, effortless flow, an emptiness, that is full and complete, untarnished acceptance and overflowing love? If I allow myself to sink into this, I may realize that this is my essence, and if I sink deeper, I might realize that, really, there is no such thing as ”me“. Everything just is. But what is ”everything“? It just is. 

Outro:

This episode took you a on a bit of a ride, I hope you didn’t skid out of the saddle. And just kinda staying in the same realm, but seen from a different perspective, I’m currently working on an episode called Toroidal Ambiguation. I already announced it, but sometimes life and a piece of art have a life of their own. Sometimes, ha! I for myself came to the resolution to spend this year practicing to live from Being and to act with ease, something that is quite a challenge in a work-oriented, performance-obsessed and generally restless version of ”normal“ which is running as the operating system of our minds, mine included. So, in Being means to have arrived where there is a sense of unhurriedness, which is not passiveness – anyway, sometimes that takes its time. 

My name is Laughing Brook, I am a poet, dancer, mystic, nature coach and man whisperer. If you liked this one and you would like to support me, how about a positive rating and a comment on which ever platform you are listing to this podcast. Share it with friends – it lives by recommendation. And of course, come back for the next episode, which will come in its own time.

But until then, do not despair, my friend. Feel free to take a tour of the episodes that are already online at laughingbrook.net or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for joining me today, and – keep on flowing, bumping and jumping with the stream of life.