What's Going On? And What Can be Done?

Odds are, the Salvation Army Christmas bell ringer under a flag that reads Sharing Is Caring, whose silver bell is legendary now, is never going to understand his own role in the big rip off even with his hand in the cookie jar. So, forget it that a banker or a dentist or a shoe salesman will ever see through the veil he hides behind. And the protest singer who dreams of a better day financially is not likely to hear his own song and fall down on his knees and admit his complicity in the crime he sees others committing. The only difference between the victim and the culprit today is the victim is feeling the pinch of his political world at the moment and it hurts. Take away his pain and he will protest on demand in the manner prescribed by his doctor or not at all. For example, the farmer whose land is restored to him is a born again patriot overnight with no patience for whiners. An environmentalist today is one who will go to any length to keep filth out of his habitat and never notices he enjoys a habitat when others have no place at all. Every bit of the foregoing is free of politics but you will not believe me. We are all Mister Jones in the singer's lament. No matter you clearly see the crooked deal going down there will be no change in your lifetime or mine and the singer will keep on saying, You don't know what it is that is going on, do you, Mister Jones?

We all live off the war.

So, in 1969 I was told this very thing. I wanted to change things. I found I could not. No system has ever been changed from within the system. No political action brings real change. I suggest this: an outsider be. However, since you are a product of the system you wish to see change, it will require a complete letting go of all you hold dear. Notice please how the only requirement to become an outsider is to cease everything. There is nothing to be done. Just clean up and stop aggravating the wound. Let nature handle the rest. You are actually a good person if you only knew yourself. In my own experience, when a person stops what he has been doing he attracts unconditional love from others and an epidemic of love erupts. A fountain is discovered that has always been here. Life takes on new meaning. Prosperity happens with abundance for all who are free of any system. (Life is not a system.)

Now, the above, too, is free of all politics and you still will not believe me. A picture has been drawn this way-

to have love you must lose love

to have wealth you must lose wealth

to have life you must lose it

This is so, for you hold the false so tightly to your bosom you do not know what love, wealth nor life happen truly to be. Give away all you have and come and follow me was never meant to be heard as give away your holdings and come be poor, wretched, and miserable with me. Oh, no. Not that. This paragraph, too, is free of all politics and you still will not believe me.

A rich man according to the world's measuring cannot enter the Kingdom of God. There. You have it. And, this, too, is free of all politics and still you will not believe me.

There is nothing can be done.

A Poem to Mystery

(whoever is that)

Mister Wordsworth writ a poem

to impress I no not who'm

but I know not who'm

has lately read a finer poem.

He told how he can no longer see

what he once saw when he was three.

In another he wrote it that

a child is father

to every grown-up cat.

There's a mystery within that!

Standin' Around

I was standin' around when someone asked me what I do. Me? I do not give talks to groups of people is all. And, I do that by invitation only, says I. For some reason they sent me an invitation. So, here I am.
To me, it looks like we are all standing in a huge circle on the lip of a gigantic abyss of darkness and we never even mention that abyss exists. But we know. And it is awkward to say the least to stand like this at the edge of solid earth before a gaping abyss of total darkness hoping of course not to fall into its scary mouth but not mentioning it to anyone, not even ourselves, that it is here. Right here where we stand.
But, I, naturally, being myself, am not going to discuss it with you since I do not make talks to groups and I do that by invitation only. However, upon actual receipt of the invitation, it came to my attention that to refuse the invitation would amount to an agreement to appear and make a talk to a group of people which I do not do and do that by invitation only. You know...to refuse an invitation not to make a talk can be an interpreted as an acceptance of an invitation to make one...This was a problem. I lost my balance became weak and staggered, mewling, and puking my guts out.
It was at that moment I became fully aware again of that dark abyss we are all standing in a circle around for it appeared before me so dramatically and frightened me so I fell into it...and, do you know what? That abyss is .........
that abyss is.....
believe it or not that abyss is....
Love.
Good night. Thank you for listening to my explanation and I hope it straightens out the matter of my appearance here. That is all. Good night again. 

Godliness

It has come to be for me that the term God is a symbol for a phenomenon in the nature of a living experience. The feeling is best described by me as wholeness. I mean a real experience of being complete. It is a feeling inside the body who was taught to call itself me or I (as some imaginary entity that could be held responsible for any errant behavior on the part of the body in question and correspondingly praised for conduct approved of by other imaginary personalities with names). All of which is to realty's dismay at the blatant and unacceptable mistreatment of its handiwork. And what happens is to be rediscovered by everyone who is born.

By the time I was seven, it came to be that I was actually two imaginary creatures co-existing inside the body aforementioned. And these two were at odds. There arose a war that lasted for many years up to the age of forty. One of the two was the good guy respected by the society of other divided goons. The other was a bad guy who would brook no rules and caused mayhem amidst the goon world. A way to describe the nature of goon world is to label it a political world. And whosoever upsets the political world without ceasing shall find peace and inherit the Earth.

A trick that went unnoticed was that the bad guy was a label (imaginary) for the actual essence of the being that is beheld as my aforementioned body. It has been called the Shadow Side. This the first act of evil on the Planet Earth. And the liar had dressed itself up as God Imagined. The Phenomenon of Wholeness would not divide its own world or what is wholeness for? All the other goons blamed a snake. This the second act of evil (and actually it amounts to the same act of evil as the first and so there is a single evil afoot). At this, Wholeness flew out the window. Or, did it? It has arisen and probably never left the body. Probably never died. Probably never shall die. Wholeness the phenomenon, that is. The Ungraspable Phantom it is in the body of a whale and a boy and a girl and a goldfish even. A rock? Water? Fire? Air?

A word about forgiveness then. It was a surprise to discover again that this term is not at all a performance between a superior being and an inferior being who has become remorseful enough to bow and scrape before its god and beg to be given a pass to heaven. It is a matter rather of realizing the wholeness within a being and correspondingly existent within all beings, and a simple Oh, my….

That is my experience. I am seventy now. But what is a number attached to a body to me? Wholeness, I mean. After all...

LOST ALREADY

What is the forgotten language Thomas Wolfe sought to find again, in order truly to go home again? Do you ever feel you have left something important behind in your rush to join into some celebration contrived by others before you to get you on their side of things? To get you speaking their language, thinking their thoughts, doing their waltz on promises never quite delivered? Sort of like an editor at a great publishing house using tricks to shape your beloved work into what can be sold for a profit measured by dollars? He lies to you about being a person dedicated to good books while castrating your wild newborn so it will never reproduce its particular line of sensational driftwood. Who has the figures to know what has been lost already?

Feel for one brief moment breathing in and out with beating heart look inward from a third eye opened by the gentlest touch of an index finger placed at a shallow groove just above the brow directly over the nose. Tap gently there ever so lightly keeping the other two eyes closed. The shadow within is the friend you have forgotten. The one with you in the crib who never left. Next, closing up the ears with the fat part of the thumbs, listen to an ocean that lies inside the protective skull from which a body is strung like an instrument for playing music to the bottom of the feet. If you have already named one, observe that you are a sort of tree with four branches that walks upon rather than being fastened within the earth. Observe it that you are a worm, if you have named one of those, with arms and legs. When you realize you are no big deal, notice how so many demons fall silent. When that has happened how do you feel now?

The Liberated Artist

One who is attached to no system and works not for money. One who works for the sheer joy of the work alone. One who trusts: nothing is plenty. One who believes that an artist is cared for by the unseen hand of love and mercy. There need be few of us to begin.

This is a program of attraction not promotion. Let us gather experience as a small group at first until we are certain we are ready to offer a plan to others. All that is required is a sincere effort in a direction to a place we have never been after jettisoning the baggage of all our tired, old ideas. In a hopeless condition, we are a group of men and women convinced we have nothing to lose.

Let someone take from you whatever you hold onto so you may be

without and penniless that you may thirst and hunger and so be

available to receive your treasure from within.

Is it not so that the meaning of the term Blue Moon is the revelation that our calendar is a false one …and that which we call moon knows it? So, if the calendar we order ourselves by is fake, what else is unreliable as well? Let it all- one by one- be taken in order that I may know the truth. Call me Ishmael. Beloved outcast. If you say it, it will be so.

Let someone take from you whatever you hold onto so you may be

without and penniless that you may thirst and hunger and so be

available to receive your treasure from within.

What were you born to hold? Do you know? Every relationship you have named and hold onto is false. Every role you play is false. Behold the stage! All the other players. My friends. My fellows. My comrades. My wife. My husband. My children. My cousin. My boss. My employee. My mother. My father. My God. My countryman. My associate. My brother. My enemy. My teacher. My student. My lover. My beloved.

Let someone take from you whatever you hold onto so you may be

without and penniless that you may thirst and hunger and so be

available to receive your treasure from within.

Do you even know how to be real for a second? A fraction of a second? Actor, do you remember being offstage? What were you carrying with you when you came to the first audition? Do you know the actor, as an actor? Who is it then who knows the actor? Who is that one? Let me introduce you. Actor, meet your true self. True self, meet the actor.

So, hand over all your precious holdings, the roles, and all the props. And walk away. Empty now. Leave the stage. Remove your mask. Leave the theatre. Go home. They are turning out the lights now. Go home, Actor. Actor, go home!

Truth contains space, space does not contain truth.  Truth contains time.  Time does not contain truth. In our striving way we make this mistake and search for truth in what is contained by truth.  It reminded me of the ancient story of four blind people who discover an elephant for the first time.  One has the tail, another holds the trunk.  The third has a leg .  The fourth has a tusk.  From their separate points of view (touch) they describe an elephant. All are incorrect, incomplete. The science we have been taught to worship is blind in the same way. Continually, it describes truth by studying its tail or its ear or its leg, etc. It struck me with a bang that an ancient man long ago knew what fools us today and his warnings ignored. But they have not disappeared altogether. In silent surrender is found truth and that is all that is found there and the only place it will be found. We are so fortunate it cannot be spoken nor written of.  Last night I was reading Moby-Dick and enjoying it as much as before.  Fascinated.  Here is one thing Ishmael said to me-

Yes-there is death in this business of whaling-a speechless quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what then?  Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death.

Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. page 66

glass art by shannon smith, costa rica

I just this morning discovered this song by Dylan that only appears on Basement tapes. Written in 1968. Nothing Was Delivered. It beats all. It is the song closest to truth ever. Jesus hisself would agree. It is little wonder the song has not been distributed widely. We would have to close up shop...all shops. Dylan ought to be awarded a prize for this song alone. 

Once Prem Rawat said:

Nothing good can come from technology.  He was young when the tech revolution began and he has all the toys and uses them.  He flies his own jet around the world many times every year. So, he might have something to deliver. And it's free! He added this: Good can come from only one place...the human heart.

sculpture by  Johnny Smith 2016

Nothing Was Delivered

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN 

Nothing was delivered
And I tell this truth to you
Not out of spite or anger
But simply because it’s true
Now, I hope you won’t object to this
Giving back all of what you owe
The fewer words you have to waste on this
The sooner you can go

Nothing is better, nothing is best
Take heed of this and get plenty of rest

Nothing was delivered
But I can’t say I sympathize
With what your fate is going to be
Yes, for telling all those lies
Now you must provide some answers
For what you sell has not been received
And the sooner you come up with them
The sooner you can leave

Nothing is better, nothing is best
Take heed of this and get plenty rest

(Now you know)
Nothing was delivered
And it’s up to you to say
Just what you had in mind
When you made ev’rybody pay
No, nothing was delivered
Yes, ’n’ someone must explain
That as long as it takes to do this
Then that’s how long that you’ll remain

Nothing is better, nothing is best
Take heed of this and get plenty rest

Copyright © 1968, 1975 by Dwarf Music; renewed 1996 by Dwarf Music

TAKE A LEAP

What partnership is worthy of its name? I see tee-shirts, caps, bumper stickers, logos, and slogans all over the place. Is that it?

A wedding ring? A house? Schools with excellent credential for your kids while others belong to a lower world? Activities? Opportunities to form ties with other kids? Team sports? If you look closely and find all of these to be empty promises made to trap you into a marketplace of fake shit will you go?

Ask this: is a real partner, one who will stand by me, going to wear a tee-shirt stating that with artwork? Can you tell real partnership as easily as two wolves meeting in the wild? Ever try to put a tee-shirt on a wolf?

Now, I now that people at large do seek with all their might to join with others in some common purpose and are willing to lay down the lives of their youngsters to serve that. It is obviously in us. We go to such incredible lengths to show it. Boys go out for football teams with completely arbitrary colors and flags and uniforms and bands and cheerleaders and stadium lights. Others try show business in every way imaginable. People with talent useful in some trendy new business field are hailed as champions, paid huge salaries, and given wads of capital by investors to startup a corporation and hire workers to join them as a team to make money. Why? Really? Why?

Is there one person on the planet now who is inclined even to find a life...find one... that exists for that very person since the beginning with no thought for tomorrow? After all, tomorrow creeps in its petty pace from day to death...

Can you imagine a wolf that cannot understand what matters most to it and follow it naturally? What made us decide to follow a contrived plan for life? And to prefer it? It is so entrenched now it is a wonder anyone can stop. Too late? Look, I am not comparing you to a wolf out of blindness. I know you are not a wolf. I am not a wolf. I am searching for a natural being, and we all were once just that...only that. The wolf is a metaphor.

Instead, think of some human being you know about or have heard about who you think may have been loyally following his of her own inner drummer all the way. Study that life. Like your own life depends upon it, study. If you cannot think of such a person, study the life of Woody Guthrie. You have to decide. Is it wise to allow myself to be advertised as a celebrity by a club of fools who do what they do for money? Is it wise to go to a doctor who practices medicine for money?

I am asking whether you believe you have an innate ability to discern from out of the crowd a person who serves no one else's agenda and to partner with such a person for an unknown journey day-by day?

What is certain is you will never know unless you take a leap.

Eye of the Heart which sees all directs this vessel

while the I of illusion muddling about

prepares for the next test

with half a brain

The Heart of the

Matter

It was suggested recently that one should examine one's heart. Just what could that entail? Who would it be who could examine my heart if not my heart itself? And if that is so why would my heart want to examine itself? Does anyone think his heart does not know itself? In speaking of a living person what could it mean to suggest there is more to him than his heart knows? I mean is not the heart the center of all experience? And is there some real part of me that lies somehow separate from the full experience of life? And talks to me a lot?

Ahh, it's an abstraction is it not? It is a metaphor separating me from my source reducing me to some list of characteristics to make of me manageable They call it education. The Salt of the Earth is a puppet while the speaker, an abstraction, is speaking of more abstractions as real people to feed illusion. So, it's bullshit! We listen to it so we must be crazy and “all the world's a fucking stage” like Shakespeare wrote it and you an actor with an employer and a director, also actors. Someone is playing Doctor.

It has been suggested that following any tragic episode one should take time to repair one's heart. Who is the heart repair man? I mean is someone even talking to me who is referring to some function that is not me and calling it my heart and meaning it belongs to me like a wrist watch? Does that make any sense to anybody else? And if it does and my wrist watch does break to whom do I take it to be repaired?

Let us presume for a moment that anyone who thinks he is other than the essence of being to be a nut case. And furthermore, anyone who speaks as someone other than the heart of himself is wacko; or, is undergoing hypnosis. When someone says, “My heart is broken”, doesn't he mean, “I am broken”? If I break who can repair me? That is what I am getting at. That is what I need to get at. Once there remain. Be who actually I am. Leave the stage. I bet you think I have to die to exit the stage a man named Shakespeare built of words. How do you know William himself, feigning an illness, did not wish me to see through his ploy and walk off the stage a free man? That is how I read it. Who do you worship? How is something so rich with meaning as that to be decided? Who do I worship? For a long time it has been suggested by poets of the heart we do all worship something.

art by johnny smith