POSSIBILITIES!

How many possibilities are in a moment of time? Unlimited? If so, what are we worried for? We do not even accept a possibility. We are doers, planners and doers. We strive. Every striven boy must at some time fail. If it does not kill the boy to fail, we say, Get up, strive some more! Strive on! Show us what you are made of, Boy! You can do it! Heroes and cheerleaders. Is that how we live? For myself I admit that from the time I was introduced to it, I looked for ways to cheat it. That life failed to draw me. The cheating made me feel guilty more and more. And, after awhile, I learned it was fraudulent. I was the fool. I was still striving the same as everybody else I just took more circuitous routes to get to the target. I was stuck. And I hated it.

I was lucky to find a teacher who recognized my predicament and knew he could show me where I was stuck. He asked me, How many possibilities are in a moment of time? Unlimited? If so, what are you worried for? If you could tap into the wonder of infinite ways to go and allow yourself to be carried as on a wind would you? He told me of a fountain. Showed it to me. It is inside me. He suggested I drop my myriad concerns and be filled by the fountain. As a way of life daily. He recommends I spend a minimum of one hour everyday playing in the fountain. Splashing. Giddy as a kid.

By doing this I learned what makes us strivers. Planners and doers. It is lack of faith in ourselves. Faith is intuitive knowledge. It is the fountain I mentioned, the one inside. Where it is fun to learn. To learn of the excitement of being. WE ARE GODS. I am not the first to tell this.

Athletes know of a real experience whereby they have become unbeatable for a period of time. A basketball player suddenly cannot miss the basket, for example. It happens in every sport. The zone. And it is certainly real.

Think of a thirsty man alone in a vast desert who will die if he does not find water. Once in a while such a person feels directed and follows the direction and finds water he needs to live. Maybe he is religious. He is certainly grateful. He gives thanks. Does it occur to the man to wonder whether the force that saved him can do other wonders for him? No. He returns right away to the world which created his distress and lives on as a planner and doer telling the story for money and career contacts in the striving game.

What do the athletes do with the information they receive which shows them a zone where they are unbeatable? They sell it for money in the game of striving for your living. And, know what? They feel lucky to be doing that. Others envy them. Does it occur to the athlete to wonder whether the force that made him a super star in basketball can do other wonders for him? No. Instead, he turns back to the marketplace of competition and striving and makes a deal to endorse products in advertising to influence impressionable children to scream their lungs out for their parents to go shopping! Where do they shop? In the marketplace of striving. How do they afford the products their kids cry for? Strive! Strive! Strive! And it never stops. Do you doubt the connection between all this demanding and striving to the mental breakdowns so common in society? And do you doubt how dear the cost of those mental pressures? Of course not. You feel them.

If you could tap into the wonder of infinite ways to go and allow yourself to be carried as on a wind would you?

At the pinnacle of a fulfilled life is not the time to consider dying.

No, it is a time to begin living, really, for the first time. Most have the way backward. They are living first in hope of becoming fulfilled. Until you are fulfilled you cannot live a balanced life. First balance then live. Do not even consider how to live first. Balance first. If not, you will become more and more unbalanced until you finally die.

Two had drinking problems. One quit and never drank again. The lucky one? No. Not at all. The one who quit lived in an unbalanced state, in the dark, for the remainder of life because he could; but he did not drink. He lived in fear and also died in fear. The other one who did not quit is the lucky one. That one realized that for him life as he experienced it was not worth living and so he chose to drink on. He could not quit and bear to live stumbling around in darkness for the rest of his life. But he landed face down and was carried to AA. There he met people who knew better than to tell him to quit drinking because they saw themselves standing in his shoes. Instead, they advised him to try and get balanced first. AA, you see, is for people who cannot stop drinking. The second man did seek to be balanced first. It worked. He never drank again; and, living in the light he had not known, was glad about it.  

Nobody can sell you a balanced life though many offer to do so.  Since a balanced life is a discovery of what you have, how can anyone sell it to you?  You can bet that anyone offering to sell it to you on Visa or Master card or for cash has it not themselves and is trying to pull the wool over you. No book has it.  No song will give it to you. No program no mantra no chants or prayers.  No wardrobe nor membership credentials. This blog has not got your balanced life either. 

Once a man said of a teacher who gives his work for free that what works for my teacher does not work for me and he left his teacher and all the while his teacher had been saying to him, be who you are, you have it already in you. And the man heard, be like me. Imitate me. Sad, really.

Only you have it. Listen.  Something inside calls for you to step up and receive it as your very own. Now.

This jazz is absent all agendas!

Each Human Being, a Complete Society Unto Itself,

plays with the others out of love

Each Human Being, a Complete Society Unto Itself,

plays with the others out of love

Each Human Being, a Complete Society Unto Itself,

plays with the others out of love

That means you...as you are this moment in time...wherever you live. You are a complete society with the gift of perfect balance at your finger tips that you can experience with the help of a friend who has it. Free. That is correct it will cost you nothing. It can only be received as a gift. Otherwise, you will walk forever out of whack and never know what is the source of all your troubles. Why you will sacrifice anything for gold.

What makes it possible to feel unity with others is the same thing that permitted a popular folk singer to go electric at a critical moment and cause a fury of change in a song about a rolling stone, the best song ever. That stone can be a planet filled with life forms and radiant. Or, it can be, and is, every single human child that is born on a planet like that one. In both cases, the motion is a circle the direction nowhere the destination nothing and the pilot nobody. Gravity. It is the journey that matters. What is gravity except it be love? Defined in science it is the mutual attraction of matter in the Universe or the force that attracts a body toward the center of any other physical body having mass. The general definition of the term is anything of extreme or alarming importance. They sort of gel do they not into one undefinable force?

The force behind the discovery of jazz is the same thing. And undefinable as well. This jazz is absent all agendas.

Anybody's free to build

Emptiness is your signal

that in a stretch we are fulfilled

so dip your pig tail in love's inkwell

You have resined up your bow
let each moment triumphant seize ya
You are made ready for the show
no mere mistake up there will freeze ya
Let it happen! It serves to fulfill what sages tell

play on!
Let the source of playing lead ya

M' Little Blue Eyed Rolling Stone...

a force of Extreme importance freed ya

A Life Without Words In Other Words

It now goes without question on Earth that humans are able to invent fictitious persons whose interests they serve and swear they believe that fiction to be real. Then we proceed to serve it, all the while knowing at an unconscious level the damn thing we serve was thought up by human imagination and is not real. These things are governing all people now, in spite of the facts. We modern, civilized people have fallen into disgrace. We live in packs of bloated arrogance in blind service to nonexistent concepts of our own making and hate, fear, fight, and kill one another. For how much longer is the question.

Each human being is a complete society. There is no way around that. To pretend it is otherwise is crazy. Look at us. Are we joined or separate? This is not rocket science, folks, it's simple enough for any child to answer correctly. This is pure, elementary science 101.

To behave based upon a concept that is crazy is to ask for trouble. When trouble comes as a result, to continue the crazy behavior which brought about the trouble is madness. We commit it daily, hourly.

Looked at the way it is, two or more people who agree to act as a pair or a group can only bring off the ruse by each one separately deciding to go along with the gag from moment to moment. In their minds they picture something, a mask maybe, that all of them can wear at the same time that in their imagination, and only there, combines them into one being. After playing this way for awhile, they know no other reality, and forget the mask is imaginary. They believe a third party is in the room that is known by a name they agreed to call their make believe pet, the society they dreamed up. Really weird is how the imaginary pet becomes their master subtly and without their noticing. For centuries, people who proudly call themselves modern civilization have taken orders from a myriad of fictitious persons even agreeing to murder any peoples, and as many of them as they are told to slaughter, without question, and are proud of it! The only explanation I have for it at this time is that when you lose pride in your self and no longer trust you are capable to make your own way in the world, you will sink so low.

Legally, a word nobody understands, the make believe leaders of the counterfeit nations got so excited to discover that people were this stupid, they started chartering on paper issued under their fictitious seals millions of corporations, each one of them no more than fictions but imagined to have the rights of a living person as certified by the, once again, fictitious governments and still nobody raised a stink. Now nearly everybody on Earth is on the payroll of either a fake corporation or a fake government or make their money off those who are and call themselves entrepreneurs but its the same teat. All religious bodies are corporations of the State by the way. Is there no limit to this masquerading?? Think how difficult it is these days for a young person to obtain a degree from a fake prestigious university so as to qualify to serve one of the more prestigious monsters of fakery for a living. For a living! Can you believe it?

All publishing houses which decide what you and I will read are fictitious. All owners of the giant entertainment business are fictitious. All charities, all universities, all political parties are fictitious. Talk about believing in the tooth fairy being childish, what we have here is way off the chart. All farms and the entire food industry are corporate entities. So, what you eat, what you think, what you wear, the way you fix your hair, who you vote for, all your laws and the enforcers of those laws, who you worship and how you worship are brought to you by nobodies who exist on paper only and act through colored flags waving helplessly in mid air. As symbols only do they act. Nobody is responsible and we call it modern civilization. These fake guys cannot be punished nor shamed. Worst of all, none of them has a heart or soul nor has one of them ever drawn a breath of life and since none were born, none can die. Talk about your super powers, all these fake guys are invincible. Here is the nastiest part: all the people of Earth are in bondage to them now. Of course, you need not take my word for any of this. Check it out. You know already. Merely step into a government office in or near your community and try to have in a direct manner as an equal a conversation with a worker there concerning a problem you are having . You will discover shortly that this person I am speaking with has no idea what he says or why he says it. This is a puppet.

You have to wonder whether we have been visited by extra-terrestrial beings who drugged us into such a foolish state of unconsciousness and are observing us through unknown technologies and laughing their asses off….or, did we bring this on ourselves? I watched a documentary recently concerning the work of a photographer who courageously, at the risk of his life, drew with light by camera the images of living humans in the latter part of the Twentieth Century in Africa and Europe being exterminated by governments at the hands of their human servants holding weapons they believed to be issued by a fake political society and starved to death by governments which through their human servants who believed in them denied food that was available to save them. So many, many, many innocent children died that way and will again this century.

It is a high price we pay for our jobs, folks. That is what it boils down to finally. Money and jobs. You understand what is being said. It is simple. Reconsider what you are doing. Before it is too late. Wake up.

Symbols Have No Life

No symbol can replace the people of this place; nobody speaks for the whole human race.

Only you know why you live today; so speak the common vernacular you use everyday;

present your case your way

Símbolos No Tienen Vida

Ningún símbolo puede sustituir a la gente de este lugar ; nadie habla de todo el género humano.

Sólo usted sabe por qué se vive hoy en día ; así que hable la lengua vernácula común de uso diario ;

presentar su caso su camino

How It Began

This morning I rediscovered how it began, in a word, within. That is the message.  Within you is your happiness, not outside of you. Nothing causes happiness.  Happiness is a cause. When a person finds this to be so that person feels rescued, like a drowning man, it is done. All these educated Phd's study what to do to be happy, healthy, satisfied, content (all the same condition) and recommend this and that regime. People flock to read and follow.  Still, we remain in misery much of the time. They are on the wrong track.

They are stupid.  That's correct.  They are stupid. To educate a bright person to become stupid is very expensive these days.  What a waste. Why do we do it then? Educators are stupid. (Actually, they were once bright but now they teach what they know to be stupid to students in order to hold a job and get promoted and receive benefits that they believe they must have to be happy and are seldom found to be so.)

I was educated for nineteen years. I was a doctor.

I was stupid.  I tried to fix people, correct them, as I was taught to do. How foolish!

Then I just gave up in dismay at how little effect my work had on the situation I found around me. Powerless to be of any real help to anyone, including myself, I asked someone who seemed happy if he could help me find happiness. He agreed and simply told me the happiness you seek is inside you now.  What you want you have never been without since birth. I thought he was cracked in the head. But something inside me disagreed. It was a small wave of excitement that I interpreted to mean, He's right. 

I began to take notice when that small wave of excited pleasure was present.  I realized it grew over time as I paid attention to it. When it reached a certain level I noticed I was consumed in its radiance and delighted in the simplest of experiences. It turns out that small wave was the slender reed of the joy I was missing in my life. Nurtured, it became strong. Strong enough that at a point I decided to make it the centerpiece of my existence. You see, I had had it all along.

I write this to tell one more thing.  When a man or woman is truly happy without regard to present circumstances present circumstances are somehow magically persuaded to alter themselves in a way that suits that individual to a tee. See?

Set Yourself Free

I just watched a documentary on Netflix that flatly makes the assertion that it is the role of a society to provide an environment that promotes the happiness and wellbeing of its members. This is typical today. It should be rare but it is the norm of thinking everywhere and the source of so much human suffering and depression, loneliness, and isolation. It must cease.

Society. What is one? Find one and bring it here and show us a society. Take its picture. Ask it to speak to us. If it lives it must let us know so we can ask it to do its job. We must hold it accountable. Perhaps we should pray to it? We need a symbolic idol to worship named “Our society”. Wait. We have thousands and thousands such things all around public gathering spots. They cost a lot of money but just stand there looking pretty. Normally they bear the carver's name. That's right! Should we hold the carver accountable for the failure of the symbol? They are made by the hands of a man or woman. Images. Powerless to raise a finger to help anyone, not even the pigeons on their bodies. And the flags! My God, the flags!

You get my point. This is really sad. It is a disgrace. It is humiliating to think we are so low in our understanding of the difference between the real and the unreal.

When will we learn that there are people here represented symbolically by words and sculptures and flags and address all our concern, every last bit of it, to the people who are present and alive? The word SOCIETY, even in all caps, is nothing but a symbol. It is a reflection of what is actual. The reflection has no life and no power. The power is in the people, you and me, brother and sister. We must arise and admit it.

If not, we go deeper and deeper into a fools world where it is said that you laugh but not all your

laughter, weep but not all your tears. We have such a miracle inside us as whole complete human beings. Let us make the shift to reality and replace the goofy symbols with real human effort and find out what we have been given. The reflection is not the real thing. Look in a mirror at your own face. Notice. Take up the reigns of your own life and live fully. Set yourself free!

A Former Lawyer's Brief Memoir

Remember, I’m countin’ on you to keep me out of jail, Harry remarked to me one

morning. I responded smugly. You are smart, Harry, to understand how useful a lawyer can be these days. Well, I’m lucky to have you lookin’ out for me, he said. Then he surprised me with these words.

            I had to step back. It took years to get it through my head the law serves to lay before the criminal mind reliable theories to facilitate the business of thieving. It is for convenience of the thief that laws are written, to make it feasible to practice corruption. Rules are the framework on which to weave a web of deceit. Regulations are the backdrop against which legal authority can be acquired to harm one’s fellows with a claim of right. And lawyers who write the rules break them best. Lawyers by definition partially administer injustice. I am glad to have one.

            Last year, the local University won a football championship and it was a widely celebrated affair. But I ask you…tell me…how do you suppose the administration of this large, crowded school went about the process of assembling players and coaches who could bring about such a mirage of superiority? How was it made to appear that this bunch of boys belong somehow uniquely to this University and deserve to be called “Champions”? What, in Heaven’s name, is the point? Is it to train the kids to manipulate rules as a way of life? Or, more to hypnotize the public into blind submission to a football system that produces economic wealth? Of course, it is both. And, where did the play go, I wonder? Can its football team really be proud of such a University?

           The inherent evil in any system of laws is the ten thousand systems concealed within every system that man creates. For instance, it has been applauded that a group of people in North America in 1776 desired to form an honest government of officials that would be answerable to those they serve, but look at the multitude of concealments that have come to light since the day that ideal took shape. Who claims now an honest government in America?

            Looked at closely, Americans had been pretending to serve King George who it was pretended was ordained by God Almighty to rule a false Britannia. With the stroke of a pen an imaginary leader told the Americans to believe they will now pretend to be free people. Pretense! How can anybody be so foolish as to believe a people who pretend to be free by creating a system of government with power to raise armies and to tax and to make laws to control them are free? How does that amount to freedom? There is but a simple and obvious reason people agree to this: lack of trust in themselves. The poor people believe if they were to be free they would be scoundrels, or worse, failures.

            There is a popular saying, With freedom comes responsibility. It is used by those who are given the responsibility to control the behavior of people who are supposed to be free, for example, school room teachers and judges. Have you considered the responsibility you owe to yourself? What if you knew that responsibility, the one you owe to you, is innately natural like the sweetness of an apple? What if you knew human nature to be good? If it were not so nobody would even consider the sound of freedom.

            And it may have been innocent enough when mommy and daddy decided to begin a family as they had been instructed to do but millions of books have written of the tragic consequences that have befallen the offspring of such a union and twisted them into unhappy adults. Looks suspiciously the same, no? Contrived as a system of government to control behavior it contains its own thousand clowns of evil. The ideal of fidelity creates infidelity. Laws facilitate deceit. Either you are a good person or you are not. Are you not even interested to know which?

            Every system thought up is immediately corrupt. There is no preventing it. See how the system is not less corrupt when this fact is exposed but ever more so. It seems publicity of how some scoundrels were caught holding the bag acts to encourage others to try their luck. Or maybe the cynicism that results from the impression that everybody is doing it provokes more of it. Fact is everybody is doing it. Fact is, every player needs his lawyer. Every husband and every wife needs a lawyer. One for each should come with the ceremony.

 It’s a sad thing to accept. Do you not see any hope? I asked. Harry put it this way.


It's up to each individual to choose, in his own time, to leave all systems behind. It is possible. I do not claim it is easy. Notice this is not a call to revolution. Quite the contrary, it is a call to cease all attempts to be free for all such attempts are idealistic systems with the nasty consequences we have already. It is a call to discover you are free. Nothing else is suggested.

            To know oneself. Self examination which leads to the funny brilliant recognition that as I am I am leads to an individual's own declaration of independence. The only one without hidden agendas. When laws and the crimes they define become irrelevant jails empty out on their own accord and peace prevails in the land. In the abyss each one who declares it to be so is his own authority, takes naked responsibility for his own truth, risks the moment, and shoos his own flies, calls his own dog, keeps his own counsel, accepts his own fate, blows his own whistle, draws his own conclusions, fights his own battles, sweeps his own side of the street, makes up his own mind, faces his own challenges, finds his own strength, stands on his own feet, answers his own question, has nobody to blame, and lives before he dies.

I quit.

Anything is possible where allowing dirt to be 

born alive is natural. 

Allowing what appears to be stuck to dance is

mercy. 

Allowing what seems unredeemable to join in 

is forgiveness. 

Allowing what seems to matter to wave is 

love. 

Allowing what seems defeated to prevail is

glory. 

Allowing what seems to be frozen to melt is

a miracle. 

Allowing what appears to be starving to eat

is generosity.

Allowing what has died to be reborn is 

grace.

Spanish Translation:

Cualquier cosa es posible cuando la suciedad permitiendo que sea

nacido vivo es natural.

Permitiendo que lo que parece ser pegado a bailar es

misericordia.

Permitiendo que lo que parece irredimible a participar en

es el perdón .

Permitiendo que lo que parece importar a la onda es

amor.

Permitiendo que lo que parece derrotado a prevalecer es

gloria.

Permitiendo que lo que parece estar inactiva para fundir es

un milagro.

Permitiendo que lo que parece estar muerto de hambre para comer

es generosidad.

Permitiendo que lo que ha muerto al nacer es 


gracia.

The Title Of This Piece is For You A Secret

Jeanette Winterson writes about the ego as “that hollow, screaming cadaver that has no spirit within it”. Sexing the Cherry, at 105. That is the best I've come across. She wonders if that is what people who describe the search for God as a way to be rid of oneself are referring to, the ego. She writes that ego is the ideal self run mad. She likens it to searching for one thing and quite surprisingly finding another “in a garden somewhere or on a mountain watching the rain”. She points out for me that it is easy to lose oneself, and, boy, do I know that! So it is, I think, the ego we are better off without since that spells a sane self. She goes on to say that if the ideal self, the secret self, the other life, could be found and brought home a person could live in peace and have no need for God who has no need for us, being complete. That last statement may surprise with its tender, loving message left behind for all seekers to feel no matter how they conceive of a God. A relationship with the complete goes far deeper than need nearest to effortless culmination. I now call that love, or true love. My love waves and I wave back. I recommend the writings of Jeanette Winterson to all human beings who read.

So, I am left, myself, now, with the sense that it has all been a search for who I am, a discovery I have been driven insane left to live as a hollow cadaver with no soul, and finding a way to restore sanity to my true, secret self. I, of course, have no way to know how you, in secret, feel. Your life is your own. I feel a need to reach out to others and tell what I know. Recovery is possible. But, there is no formula for it. It is more undoing than doing, more unlearning than learning. So, I say look for writers and teachers who irritate you to undo you to unlearn. The one who shits on you is not necessarily your enemy. One who pulls you out of shit is not necessarily your friend.

In secret I find mercy and forgiveness enough to light the way.

WISHES

You are going to feel foolish one day to arrive at the end of life with your bucket lists of wishes and your complaints only to discover what your inheritance had been that lay unopened or tossed in a bin.

Cynosure, a brilliant light of attraction has been yours. Cynosure, everybody wants one. Everybody needs one. Let anonymity be your cynosure and you cannot be stopped!

Your sinecure for life assured, a status requiring no effort or toil but providing adequate support for a lifetime lies in a safe no bank can rival. Christ told of it on the Mount. Consider the lilies. They toil not; neither do the spin and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these. Does your Benefactor love you not? You want to win a lottery? You won the day of your birth!

You are going to feel foolish one day to arrive at the end with your bucket lists of wishes and complaints only to discover what your inheritance had been that lay unopened or tossed in a bin as useless to you.

A candle unlit.

Planet Loco

People talk or write to feed each other. What? It has been special to me to have a friend who cannot share with me any words in my only language. Most friends talk very much. That is what people think friendship to be. Text. Email. Telephone. Facebook. Conversing.

Someone told me about a time when her mother died of cancer while she was pregnant with her first child. Many people said, both before and after the death, “I am so sorry for your loss. I know how painful it must be for you. Move to our neighborhood. We want to be close by to help you and care for you and the baby.” After the funeral, she said, not one of those people ever called or came to see her or gave any help. What kind of nourishment is that? Words of a learned language? Just words. It reminds me of the fisherman who pretends to feed a fish and his hook. Or the monkey who pulled a fish out of the water and placed it safely in a tree. Or a politician whose barfed up promises are leftovers. Or, teachers on the first day of class who know nothing but words, words, words, having never themselves lived. Or parents who reply, Because I said so. Or, religious clergy who tell us to believe them because truth is beyond our ability to comprehend. What world is this one? Surely, it is not the only one we can experience this life time. Is it?

Am I never going to meet anyone here who understands me? A clown standing in the moonlight upside down bouncing a globe with her feet winked at me and I interpreted the meaning as: there are more things here than you yet know.

MOMENTS

 This one moment we have and more than that if I find what lies inside. Carefully I abide. Not to startle any one or rattle the neighborhood. Only as a visitor come leaving no prints behind. Watch my mouth. Lips still. My fingers at my side. Teeth withdrawn. Muscles loose. Naked. No luggage. Ask deeply for a sign. No press. No fanfare. Not even a glance in the mirror. Erase all intentions. Nothing. Nobody sees me I am invisible. If I need protection it is given in stillness by the one who does nothing and leaves nothing undone. If I am to express the service it will be done. Touch no other and being certain to touch the light inside every one be out going as angels or knights are likely to be who see the invisible more clearly than they see what's gross. Sacred? Label me what is not sacred and I will tell you that your label is a lie. Layer upon layer of presence. This day two stood on a mountain before the same sky and thousands of words danced through each of them in two distinct languages and neither spoke a word and what was being felt being all they had to share they were as one who understood in a moment that was not what a moment is supposed to be but an epoch itself subdivided into ages of nonlinear chronostratigraphy wrapped around a flag pole, waving nothing.

A Mirror to Face

I listen with my full attention focused whenever my heart wants it to be thus. It takes more than a pair of ears, it takes a pair of ears attuned sharply to every aspect of the entire body. In this mode, the heart nudges. I follow.

Many teachers say, “You do not need a guru. I did not have one. Look at me, I have drawn a large crowd. Whooppeee!”

Most of them in my experience go on to teach like madmen, like their very lives depended upon it. Because they have told the listener, “Do not listen to me, you have all the answers for you”, nobody is listening except the judges. The fake teachers are off the hook, reckless even, since nobody is listening except the judges. The gurus are the entertainers. Damn good at it, some of them. But, it is still just entertainment and will not take you to your heart to realize what they are talking about. It creates a need for more entertainment is about all. To be drunk on the frivolous like politics or religious doctrine or spiritual mumbo jumbo or fortune telling nonsense. The judges want more of it. The judges require only a pair of ears and less than half a brain.

The true guru is speaking not to judges but to hearts. Knows it is not a numbers game. The way you can know one is to listen with your full attention focused because your heart wants it to be thus. It takes more than a pair of ears, it takes a pair of ears attuned sharply to every aspect of the entire body. In this mode, the heart nudges. You follow.

The so-called teachers, the entertainers, are afraid to accept the role of guru and I do not blame them. It is a tough job. They are not up to it. The guru is a mirror. The guru's function is to remain inwardly still with full attention focused in one simple message: what you are searching for, you have already. However, you need someone who is willing to tell you that over and over and over...until you get it! That is what a mirror is for. Then, free of guru. Live. Teach. Be glad. How do you teach? By being the mirror you hold before the student to show the student its own face.

There is a beautiful song called Ripple which both the Grateful Dead and Jimmie Dale Gilmore sing with so much heart. The last line goes, “if I knew the way, I would take you home”. In this way is a mirror true. NOBODY CAN TEACH YOU HOW TO LIVE WITH ALL YOUR MISTAKES AND SAFELY PENETRATE ALL DREADED INTERSECTIONS. YOU HAVE TO DO THAT. Arise!

Truth's Most Holy Ground Of Being

Anyone who knows all people are one is already at peace with all others. That cannot be taught. It is innate. It must be realized and felt in the heart to be known. Conversely, if you are not at peace with all others, you do not know all people to be one; and the bullshitter's true motives will be soon revealed.

Okay. Here's the fucking deal as I see it now. People do not trust themselves let alone each other. You decide which comes first. Everybody I have met is either indifferent to any need to make an effort in the direction of peaceable co-existence across the board or they are teaching somebody else how to do what they have never done nor have they seen done. People who claim to be peaceful are not. Instead, they are part of some group that recites, We are peaceful. We are peaceful? If I want to be peaceful I should join your group? Who is peaceful? The select group or the whole? These peace loving groups are not even peaceful at home. Teachers. These teachers espouse the practice of dissociation. Know what that is? It is the disconnecting of something from something else. Two or more somethings arise, done mentally, where there is one.

How many beloved teachers have taught, we are one? Why is the response always: Yeah, let's go fight those who are not one! (One way to fight is to cast a ballot in a voting affair. Another way is to teach others how they are wrong and you are right.)

How many arguments have there been concerning this issue: whether an individual must forgive another first or forgive himself first? Love another first or love himself first? I personally have heard more than I care to. It just might be a moot issue.

I am a participant in what?

Either I am choosing sides or I am surrendering to all. Not both. Cannot have that both ways. One cancels the other is the reason. Either we are one is obsolete or we should be one is obsolete. Which?

I learned mediation, I recall, not because of my teachers but in spite of them. I saw that originally mediation was based in the knowledge people are one. Thereafter, I ignored all the teaching we received that was in opposition to that premise, and there was plenty. I embraced with passion the times the teachers proclaimed that all people have the innate ability to resolve conflict with others. If any number of people are experiencing conflict a mediator is the one who holds to the understanding that there is no conflict and eventually the others find it in themselves and peace has to happen. Has to happen. It seems a miracle to those who have practiced dissociation to a degree which is dangerous to themselves and others; but it is simple truth.

All people at all times want the same thing; to live and work with pride and joy. All people know this. All people know how to do so. A family trying to rise above the average persons in their community by whatever means is dissociating from reality. Am I a participant in my family's desire to be excellent or in excellence for the whole of mankind? How can it be thought that to make the whole better I am to dissociate myself, my people, from the whole of mankind? That is the same insane thought as: let us fight and kill for world peace.

Anyone who knows all people are one is already at peace with all others. That cannot be taught. It is innate. It must be realized and felt in the heart to be known. And all the wars of mankind since the beginning of time added together do not match in bravery that required for one individual to rediscover lost identity with truth's most holy ground of being.

The Little Story With A Big Heart {}

I want to tell you a little story you are a part of. Around July 5 my son, Ran, wrote to me asking me to come to Costa Rica, saying, I need you. I dropped everything and began to make arrangements to come. On July 10 I arrived.

Shortly after, a woman named Linda knocked on the door where I was typing away on the keyboard of this computer thoroughly engrossed in what I was writing in great focused joy. She said she was told by another woman that I was visiting my son here. Her friend, Mary, suggested she come meet me and offer to sublet her house while she was going to be away until November. She saw I had deluxe accommodations and probably would not want to move but offered to show me the place anyway. I went with her. It is only a quarter mile or so up a dirt road from Ran's place. Man, it has this really great view and the cabin is such a marvel of construction, so fine. Linda's place is Linda! I loved it immediately but told her I'd have to speak with my son and daughter to makes sure my renting her place would not conflict with their plans or needs. But, told her that in my heart I'd already sublet her beautiful home. She smiled.

Well, you know what? A puma came to visit me there one evening. The big cats are very rarely seen though people know them to be around. Very secretive. They are protected by law here. I was honored and shaken by the experience. It has been working on me since and teaches me every day. About life, living, really living.

In the course of exchanging emails with Linda she revealed that she had been wanting really badly to see a puma since she has been here and wanted every detail of the experience I was able to give. Then she told me she had been working with a Shaman in Peru for a long time who taught her about the puma. Told her the puma is her spirit animal. I connected this information to my knowledge that Ran is going to Peru in September to hike the trail to Machu Picchu as a quest for inner peace and understanding. He was badly shaken by the death of a young boy, at his house on July 5 who fell from a cliff onto boulders below and died. He blamed himself. More, though, he was reminded of himself as a wild, young boy and felt a deep loss. That was the reason he had asked me to come.

I had a feeling that this Shaman in Peru had something to teach my son so I told Ran about Linda's revelation to me in the wake of the highly unusual visit by a puma to my back door. Ran seemed to ignore my attempt to arouse in him some wonder or curiosity at least. I sadly let it drop. It was about this time I made the decision to extend my stay here because all that was happening was too good to deny. You were somehow counted among those willing to move all my stuff out of the cabin back in Austin to make that possible for me. I know, but it's so anyway. Believe me and accept my gratitude.

Meanwhile, Ran and his family traveled to Philadelphia to take his daughter, my granddaughter, to school. Ryan is 15 and going a long way from home for the first time. They returned home yesterday and this morning we were visiting and Ran said, “Oh, by the way, you know, I told you I had reached out to Linda about a Shaman…

I immediately broke in, “No, I didn't know that!”

Ran: I thought I told you, well, she sent me contacts in Peru which I emailed and told them everything, about Kyle's death, everything, and learned that the Shaman is out of the country at this time. I was disappointed, of course, and thinking of that sadly when I got an email from one of them yesterday while sittiing on the airplane returning from Philadelphia saying the Shaman will be back in Peru at Cusco on September 19, and she wanted to know my travel plans to determine whether she can setup a meeting for me with him. Can you believe it? It's the very day I arrive! I am so excited.

I then told Ran what I wanted to say throughout our talks here but the timing had never felt right for it. Here's what I told him,

Man, in my experience, which is all I have to share with anyone, it was not until I found a living human being that I trusted without reservation to be my teacher that I was able to fully surrender my life, to sincerely ask that man to be my teacher, that my life became real to me. Until then, I had always held back something and to do that prevents absolute surrender which means I was still running my show, just gathering teachers to take pieces I was ready to let go. Which means, of course, the one who needed to change was going to make the change and that is totally not going to happen. Now, I want to say: pay attention, close attention, and when you hear a person say: I cannot teach you what you already know, I can only point you to the knowledge in your heart because you have already what you seek there- grab on to that person and let go absolutely and beg him or her to be your teacher withholding nothing. A teacher is a mirror. What happens you may not recognize for a long time but someday you will-your heart chooses the teacher and by letting it you turn the reins of your life over finally to the one friend inside who knows the secret you so badly need. That is the best I can do for you, my child.

That is the end of the little story

My teacher laughs a lot.