Cottleston Pie

"Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,
A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply ...

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,
A fish can't whistle and neither can I,
Ask me a riddle and I reply ...

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,
Why does a chicken,
I don't know why.
Ask me a riddle and I reply,Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie..."

you know what.

First riddle: "A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly." Nonsense or uncommon sense? People are forever striving to be what they are not because they ignore "the clear reality of Things As They Are." The Cottleston Pie Principle says: Know your Inner Nature. Do not be alienated from yourself, forever in tension, trying to make yourself into something you are not. Accept that you are acceptable at the deepest level of your being. Come as you are. Cherish your integrity. Take time, at regular intervals, to relax into yourself and appreciate your Inner Nature.
.

Second riddle: "A fish can't whistle and neither can I." According to Benjamin Hoff, "Coming from a wise mind, such a statement would mean, 'I have certain limitations, and I know what they are.' ... There's nothing wrong with not being able to whistle, especially if you are a fish. But much is wrong with blindly trying to do what you aren't designed for."

Pooh's third Cottleston Pie riddle asks: "Why does a chicken, I don't know why." Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side. Why does he want to get to the other side, or wherever a chicken might want to go? We don't know, and I suppose the chicken doesn't fully understand it, either. Instinct is the answer; but appeal to instinct really means: We don't know, and probably nobody else does, either.

We could as well say: The chicken is acting in accord with its Inner Nature and its Limitations. But then we'd need to add: Even these do not determine what it will do, for the chicken does what it wants to do, we know not why. In the end it is unlimited, at liberty. And so are we who live within the Unlimited, a reality that is mysterious and transcends us absolutely. Lao-Tsu calls it the Tao. The freedom to choose what we will do and what we would become is our clearest link to ultimate reality; we may even call it the image of God.

For if "you don't know Which to Do / of all the things in front of you, / Then what you've got when you are through / Is just a mess without a clue ..." Which brings us back to where we began, namely to the principle of hope -- hope for "all the best that can come true / If you know What and Which and Who."

(borrowed and edited from a sermon by: Rev. Dr. George Kimmich Beach and "The Tao of Pooh" by; Benjamin Hoff)




...Be well.
(Know your inner nature, Recognize your limitations and Follow your instincts.)

Pretty simple.