Living backwards in time, now i remember!

I was thinking of the story of Chuang Tzu and the butterfly

One morning Chuang Tzu awoke from his sleep. He told his students, "Last night I dreamt that I was a beautiful butterfly fluttering through the fields. Now I awaken.

My question is this; how do I know if I am Chuang Tzu, who dreamt himself a butterfly, or if I am a butterfly, now dreaming itself Chuang Tzu?"

Source
His butterfly dream is a very well-known story, a Taoist parable on the nature of reality. Within this simple story we can find four important lessons;

1, Oneness - connecting himself with such a different fragile being than humans, chuang tzu wants to emphasize that all are one.

2, Life is like a dream - anything that happens in our so called life is just like this butterfly dream after all it's transient - like Heraclitus *-or

3, Eternal with transformation of things- with this example of butterfly

• A butterfly goes through larval or pupal stages;
• Human beings go through a metamorphosis after necessary knowledge over a period of time, the mind begins to process the information to extract wisdom for the soul.

4, Awakening awareness - another lesson, is also the moment of clarity and realization and in deed it is the power of now, achieving this, leads anyone make amazing discoveries.

In the dream, Chuang Tzu was clear about his identity, but after he was awakened, this became uncertain. He did not know whether it was Chuang tzu dreaming that he was a butterfly, or whether it was the butterfly dreaming that it was Chuang tzu?

Reality is subjective and dream is objective, in other words, awakening rises to ignorance or uncertainty of what is known as reality. This uncertainty hides in itself the awakening awareness.

I saw this quote by Heraclitus
"Everything changes and nothing remains still... and... you cannot step twice into the same stream"

Excerpt

... he had taught himself by questioning himself. Burnet states in any case that "... Xenophanes left Ionia before Herakleitos was born.

" Diogenes relates that as a boy Heraclitus had said he "knew nothing" but later claimed to "know everything." His statement that he "heard no one" but "questioned himself," can be placed alongside his statement that:

"the things that can be seen, heard and learned are what I prize the most"

I sometimes think of the person i was in college doing Electronics and Computers in Cork, thinking of the kind of person I'd be in the future, in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years and where and what i would be doing in in the future with the Information technology stuff i was learning?

Well now, I'm that same guy, 15 years on and I'm thinking of that same person, backwards in time, that was thinking of me, and I've been remembering who i am more and more, sometimes it's the thought that counts, yea know? It seems like a time travel plot from a HG Wells novel?


The thought that counted?

The term 'Backwards in time', reminds me of a book called 'The way of the Wizard'

Which is basically...

Life rewards Productivity, you might have the talents or gifts, but if you dont use them or if you have not discovered what they are, your life is one big 'Mottainai' 

Mottainai Grandma (Check out the translations)

Mottainai in Japanese refers to far more than just physical waste (resources) as in other cultures. It can refer to wasted and wasteful efforts and actions, activities, time, souls, talents, emotion, minds, dreams, and potential. It is even used to refer to thought patterns that give rise to wasteful action

The future is here, the time is now.

To live backwards in time you choose the outcome and react to the desired outcome and future instead of present events, focus on the outcome and choose your response, in doing so, you can create your future

Another thing i used to do was to imagine who i wanted to be in the future, and i would then try to imagine that person advising me on what to do when making important decisions

It's a buddhist meditation technique i read somewhere, i asked a buddhist meditator about it once, he told me he never heard of it, so much for that idea? But it really worked for me, so what can i say, maybe it was my idea in the first place? Who needs Buddhism, when  you have ideas like that?

I was reading Anthony Kedis autobiography (from the Chili Peppers) and he was saying how he knew

'A lot of people that got into the music business that ended up forgetting themselves and getting caught up and consumed by drugs and drink'

Now, when they started off they knew what they were about, somehow they forgot and it was game over, before long.

I remember being at Rainbow Serpent last year, one of the songs at a singing group lyrics was

'I remember who i am, I remember who i am' 

Over and over again, sometimes you need to remind yourself

I remembered this...


By remembering key moments in my life like this, it has bridged a link in my mind, it's connected me with the past, present and that seems like a good foundation for the future.

After being back in Sydney, especially in Newtown, my home for 18 months about 11 years ago, i can't believe i never swam or cycled here?

I wont even mention running as i havent been doing that too much lately either.
It's like there was a law, forbidding me from running and i obeyed that law? That would be a world's first, for me?

Me obeying a law?

Swimming and cycling being such a big part of what i do now, sure i surfed in those days, sometimes 4 times a week and that was great, i remember deciding

It's either surfing or playing the guitar?

I chose surfing as i didn't know when my lifestyle in Australia would be up, now i do neither playing guitar or surfing

Life becomes a series of habits, some good, some bad, the thing seems to replace all the bad ones with good habits (and maybe a few hobbits?) and before you know it your doing laps in swimming pools you passed to go on pub crawls

What was the dream again?


Not much has changed in Newtown or Sydney and a lot has changed, me being the biggest change and that's the change that had and did happen for me to be able to see the world in a new way, and it's funny, when i walk around (and not cycle) i can feel those times 11 years ago of who i was and now who i am.

If i was to live here all over again, i would do things differently

Like it says, same same but...