THE STORY OF JOHNNY WHOOPER SWAN We go to school trusting our parents. We meet a teacher there who stands up front with a big desk, and a pointer. She or he trains us in an authoritative manner. We attach mentally to a life long need for authority in order to live lives successfully. Right so far? In my case, at the age of 25 I was ready to enter the practice of law where I hoped for success and a happy life finally. Very shortly, very shortly, I became anxious. There was a foreboding. I was made more uncomfortable with each experience. Law work is nothing like what I was told it would be. The system is corrupt. But I still cling to my expectation that career success is necessary to my happiness as a man. Each day my grasp of what the fuck success amounts to after all becomes more clouded, murkier. I hear songs on the airwaves and at concerts which describe my life as the life of a fool. What am I becoming? I want to rip off my business suit to run naked in the street with my hair on fire! But I am too afraid. In strange, weird (weird comes from a word meaning wise), fragmented steps I go about a journey of my own believing myself to be the first man to have failed in such a total way which journey works so as to break up my career, end a marriage, and start an entirely new way of relating with my two children whom I love deeply. Almost magically I meet a woman who is a career counselor who asserts a beautiful message that I am made to be joyful in my work everyday and at all levels. This understanding sets me on a completely new course. It is no longer a world of systems to me but an undivided one of unlimited beauty. It reminds me of a painting. A true masterpiece. I am drawn from within to learn the truth about my identity and nobody else can teach me that. From this point onward I will use thinking capacity for mastering mechanical processes and follow my heart, which includes my whole nature, which includes your whole nature and that of every human being for all the rest. I’ll go by the name Johnny Whooper Swan who does not explain itself to anyone. By my fruits shall I be known. Watch me soar!

Saturday, September 10, 2016

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!


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