by Jack Kerouac
26
All these selfnesses have already vanished.
Einstein measured that this present universe is an
expanding bubble, and you know what that means.
27
Discard such definite imaginations of phenomena
as your own self, thou human being, thou’rt a
numberless mass of sun-motes: each mote a shrine.
The same as to your shyness of other selves,
selfness as divided into infinite numbers of beings,
or selfness as identified as one self existing
eternally. Be obliging and noble, be generous
with your time and help and possessions, and be
kind, because the emptiness of this little place
of flesh you carry around and call your soul,
your entity, is the same emptiness in every direction
of space unmeasurably emptiness, the same, one,
and holy emptiness everywhere: why be selfly and
unfree, Man God, in your dream? Wake up, thou’rt
selfless and free. “Even and upright your mind
abides nowhere,” states Hui Neng of China.
We’re all in Heaven now.
28
Roaring dreams take place in a perfectly silent
mind. Now that we know this, throw the raft away.
29
Are you tightwad and are you mean, those are
the true sins, and sin is only a conception of ours,
due to long habit. Are you generous and are
you kind, those are the true virtues, and they’re
only conceptions. The golden eternity rests beyond
sin and virtue, is attached to neither, is attached
to nothing, is unattached, because the golden
eternity is Alone. The mold has rills but it is one
mold. The field has curves but it is one field.
All things are different forms of the same thing.
I call it the golden eternity—what do you
call it, brother? For the blessing and merit
of virtue, and the punishment and bad fate
of sin, are alike just so many words.
30
Sociability is a big smile, and a big smile is
nothing but teeth. Rest and be kind.
31
There’s no need to deny that evil thing called
GOOGOO, which doesnt exist, just as there’s no
need to deny that evil thing called Sex and Rebirth,
which also doesnt exist, as it is only a form of
emptiness. The bead of semen comes from a long
line of awakened natures that were your parent,
a holy flow, a succession of saviors pouring from
the womb of the dark void and back into it,
fantastic magic imagination of the lightning, flash,
plays, dreams, not even plays, dreams.
32
“The womb of exuberant fertility,” Ashvhaghosha
called it, radiating forms out of its womb of
exuberant emptiness. In emptiness there is no
Why, no knowledge of Why, no ignorance of Why,
no asking and no answering of Why, and no
significance attached to this
33
A disturbed and frightened man is like the
golden eternity experimentally pretending at
feeling the disturbed-and-frightened mood; a
calm and joyous man, is like the golden eternity
pretending at experimenting with that experience;
a man experiencing his Sentient Being, is like
the golden eternity pretending at trying that out
too; a man who has no thoughts, is like the golden
eternity pretending at being itself; because
the emptiness of everything has no beginning
and no end and at present it is infinite.
34
“Love is all in all,” said Sainte Thérèse, choosing
Love for her vocation and pouring out her
happiness, from her garden by the gate, with
a gentle smile, pouring roses on the earth,
so that the beggar in the thunderbolt received
of the endless offering of her dark void.
Man goes a-beggaring into nothingness.
“Ignorance is the father, Habit-Energy is
the Mother.” Opposites are not the same
for the same reason they are the same.
35
The words “atoms of dust” and “the great
universes” are only words. The idea that they
imply is only an idea. The belief that we live here
in this existence, divided into various beings,
passing food in and out of ourselves, and casting off
husks of bodies one after another with no cessation
and no definite or particular discrimination, is
only an idea. The seat of our Immortal Intelligence
can be seen in that beating light between the eyes
the Wisdom Eye of the ancients: we know what
we’re doing: we’re not disturbed: because
we’re like the golden eternity pretending at
playing the magic cardgame and making believe
it’s real, it’s a big dream, a joyous ecstasy of
words and ideas and flesh, an ethereal flower
unfolding and folding back, a movie, an
exuberant bunch of lines bounding emptiness,
the womb of Avalokitesvara, a vast secret
silence, springtime in the Void, happy young
gods talking and drinking on a cloud. Our
32,000 chillicosms bear all the marks of
excellence. Blind milky light fills our night;
and the morning is a crystal.
36
Give a gift to your brother, but there’s no gift
to compare with the giving of assurance that he
is the golden eternity. The true understanding of
this would bring tears to your eyes. The other
shore is right here, forgive and forget, protect
and reassure. Your tormentors will be purified.
Raise thy diamond hand. Have faith and wait.
The course of your days is a river rumbling over
your rocky back. You’re sitting at the bottom of the
world with a head of iron. Religion is thy sad
heart. You’re the golden eternity and it must be
done by you. And means one thing: Nothing-
Ever-Happened. This is the golden eternity.
37
When the Prince of Kalinga severed the
flesh from the limbs and body of Buddha, even
then Buddha was free from any such ideas as
his own self, other self, living beings
divided into many selves, or living beings
united and identified into one eternal self.
The golden eternity isnt “me.” Before you
can know that you’re dreaming you’ll wake up,
Atman. Had the Buddha, the Awakened One,
cherished any of these imaginary judgments
of and about things, he would have fallen
into impatience and hatred in his suffering.
Instead, like Jesus on the Cross he saw the
light and died kind, loving all living things.
38
The world was spun out of a blade of grass:
the world was spun out of a mind. Heaven
was spun out of a blade of grass: heaven was spun
out of a mind. Neither will do you much good,
neither will do you much harm. The Oriental
imperturbed, is the golden eternity.
39
He is called a Yogi, he is called a Priest,
a Minister, a Brahmin, a Parson, a Chaplain,
a Rôshi, a Lao
shih, a Master, a Patriarch, a Pope,
a Spiritual Commissar, a Counselor, an Adviser,
a Bodhisattva-Mahasattva, an Old Man, a Saint,
a Shaman, a Leader, who thinks nothing of
himself as separate from another self, not
higher nor lower, no stages and no definite
attainments, no mysterious stigmata or secret
holyhood, no wild dark knowledge and no
venerable authoritativeness, nay a giggling sage
sweeping out the kitchen with a broom. After
supper, a silent smoke. Because there is no
definite teaching: the world is undisciplined
Nature endlessly in every direction inward
to your body and outward into space.
40
Meditate outdoors. The dark trees at night
are not really the dark trees at night, it’s
only the golden eternity.
41
A mosquito as big as Mount Everest is much
bigger than you think; a horse’s hoof is more
delicate than it looks. An altar consecrated to
the golden eternity, filled with roses and lotuses
and diamonds, is the cell of the humble prisoner,
the cell so cold and dreary. Boethius kissed the
Robe of the Mother Truth in a Roman dungeon.
42
Do you think the emptiness of the sky will ever
crumble away? Every little child knows that
everybody will go to heaven. Knowing that
nothing ever happened is not really knowing
that nothing ever happened, it’s the golden eternity.
In other words, nothing can compare with telling
your brother and your sister that what happened,
what is happening, and what will happen, never
really happened, is not really happening and never
will happen, it is only the golden eternity.
Nothing was ever born, nothing will ever die.
Indeed, it didnt even happen that you heard about
golden eternity through the accidental reading of
this scripture. The thing is easily false. There
are no warnings whatever issuing from the
golden eternity: do what you want.
43
Even in dreams be kind, because anyway there is
no time, no space, no mind. “It’s all not-born,”
said Bankei of Japan, whose mother heard this
from her son and did what we call “died happy.”
And even if she had died unhappy, dying unhappy
is not really dying unhappy, it’s the golden eternity.
It’s impossible to exist, it’s impossible to be
persecuted, it’s impossible to miss your reward.
44
Eight hundred and four thousand myriads of
Awakened Ones throughout numberless swirls
of epochs appeared to work hard to save a grain
of sand, and it was only the golden eternity.
And their combined reward will be no greater and
no lesser than what will be won by a piece of
dried turd. It’s a reward beyond thought.
45
When you’ve understood this scripture, throw it
away. If you cant understand this scripture,
throw it away. I insist on your freedom.
46
O Everlasting Eternity, all things and all truth
laws are no-things, in three ways, which is the
same way: AS THINGS OF TIME they dont
exist and never came, because they’re already gone
and there is no time. AS THINGS OF SPACE they
dont exist because there is no furthest atom than
can be found or weighed or grasped, it is emptiness
through and through, matter and empty space too.
AS THINGS OF MIND they dont exist, because
the mind that conceives and makes them out does
so by seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting,
and mentally-noticing and without this mind they
would not be seen or heard or felt or smelled or
tasted or mentally-noticed, they are discriminated
from that which they’re not necessarily by imaginary
judgments of the mind, they are actually dependent
on the mind that makes them out, by themselves
they are no-things, they are really mental, seen only
of the mind, they are really empty visions of the
mind, heaven is a vision, everything is a vision.
What does it mean that I am in this endless universe
thinking I’m a man sitting under the stars on the
terrace of earth, but actually empty and awake
throughout the emptiness and awakedness of
everything? It means that I am empty and
awake, knowing that I am empty and awake,
and that there’s no difference between me and
anything else. It means that I have attained
to that which everything is.
47
The-Attainer-To-That-Which-Everything-Is,
the Sanskrit Tathagata, has no ideas whatever
but abides in essence identically with the essence
of all things, which is what it is, in emptiness and
silence. Imaginary meaning stretched to make
mountains and as far as the germ is concerned it
stretched even further to make molehills. A
million souls dropped through hell but nobody
saw them or counted them. A lot of large people
isnt really a lot of large people, it’s only the
golden eternity. When St. Francis went to heaven
he did not add to heaven nor detract from earth.
Locate silence, possess space, spot me the ego.
“From the beginning,” said the Sixth Patriarch
of the China School, “not a thing is.”
48
He who loves all life with his pity and
intelligence isnt really he who loves all life
with his pity and intelligence, it’s only natural.
The universe is fully known because it is
ignored. Enlightenment comes when you dont
care. This is a good tree stump I’m sitting on.
You cant even grasp your own pain let alone
your eternal reward. I love you because you’re
me. I love you because there’s nothing else
to do. It’s just the natural golden eternity.
49
What does it mean that those trees and
mountains are magic and unreal?—It means
that those trees and mountains are magic and
unreal. What does it mean that those trees and
mountains are not magic but real?—it means
that those trees and mountains are not magic
but real. Men are just making imaginary
judgments both ways, and all the time it’s
just the same natural golden eternity.
50
If the golden eternity was anything other than
mere words, you could not have said “golden
eternity.” This means that the words are used
to point at the endless nothingness of reality.
If the endless nothingness of reality was anything
other than mere words, you could not have said
“endless nothingness of reality,” you could not
have said it. This means that the golden eternity
is out of our word-reach, it refuses steadfastly
to be described, it runs away from us and leads
us in. The name is not really the name. The same
way, you could not have said “this world” if this
world was anything ot
her than mere words. There’s
nothing there but just that. They’ve long known
that there’s nothing to life but just the living of it.
It Is What It Is and That’s All It Is.
51
There’s no system of teaching and no reward
for teaching the golden eternity, because
nothing has happened. In the golden eternity
teaching and reward havent even vanished let alone
appeared. The golden eternity doesnt even have to
be perfect. It is very silly of me to talk about
it. I talk about it because there’s no command or
warning of any kind, and also no blessing and no
reward. I talk about it simply because here I am
dreaming that I talk about it in a dream already
ended, ages ago, from which I’m already awake, and
it was only an empty dreaming, in fact nothing
whatever, in fact nothing ever happened at all.
The beauty of attaining the golden eternity is
that nothing will be acquired, at last.
52
Kindness and sympathy, understanding and
encouragement, these give: they are better
than just presents and gifts: no reason in the
world why not. Anyhow, be nice. Remember
the golden eternity is yourself. “If someone will
simply practice kindness,” said Gotama to
Subhuti, “he will soon attain highest perfect
wisdom.” Then he added: “Kindness after all
is only a word and it should be done on the spot
without thought of kindness.” By practicing
kindness all over with everyone you will soon
come into the holy trance, definite distinctions
of personalities will become what they really
mysteriously are, our common and eternal blissstuff,
the pureness of everything forever, the great bright
essence of mind, even and one thing everywhere the
holy eternal milky love, the white light everywhere
everything, emptybliss, svaha, shining, ready, and