VAST UNBEKNOWN OF IT ALL

Old Man: Jesus is another name for the vast unbeknown of it all. You actually have separated yourself from it, have you not? You do not say, “I am the whole of life”, and remain still; you want to change this and improve that, you want to reject and to hold. You, the watcher, an immovable, permanent center in this vast movement of life are caught in conflict, in sorrow, and confusion. Now, you who are separate, how do you approach the whole? How do you come to this vastness, to the beauty of the earth and the heavens? Our lives are shallow and bound to routine; and the gods of the trivial mind are as silly and stupid as their maker. Whether we live in a palace or a village, whether we are hired hands or sit in the seats of the mighty, the fact is that our minds are petty, narrow, ambitious, envious; and it is with such minds that we want to find out if there is God, what truth is, what the perfect government is, and seek answers to the innumerable other questions that pop up….such as, What is the purpose of my life? 

First: Yes, sir, that is our life. You nailed it! What can we do?”

Old Man: Die to the past, not little by little, but totally! In this way come suddenly to the point of beginning and learn what death is while still alive. Like I said, life is circular. It’s the petty mind that tries, that struggles, that has its ideals and systems. You must die to all you think you know for the unknown to be your way. 

First: I can see that we should die to the past, but if I die to the past, what is there left then?

Old Man: You are saying – aren’t you? – that you will die to the past only when you are guaranteed a satisfactory substitute for what you have renounced. That’s not renunciation, that’s only another effort at gain. A petty mind wanting to know what there is after dying will find its own petty answer. 

First: I think each one of us has felt deeply the truth of it all. May we come again?

Old Man: Yes. You may, but let us not delay. All the great geniuses with all their great works piled together throughout history have made no real difference at all. Surely it is time we admit that to ourselves, renounce civilization as it is known to be, and take a wild chance on the vast unknown.

 

                                                             SUPPOSE

Suppose with me a little while that the cosmos as we know it can be seen as a laboratory developed by love with great precision and in absolute order to give all subjects a chance to find out clearly what it is and what it is capable of, see what is to be done, and do it. One might think of it as a place a Creator made for Itself in order to know Itself better and, more important, what that means. In this lab one separates from reality then tries to find one’s way back home. Separate from reality, it really knows nothing. It is as if the action of returning from a hopelessly lost state itself brings an understanding by no other way obtainable. And perhaps the deeper one goes into the void the better. So, God separated Itself into billions of souls and here we are. 

God meets God along the way back to Heaven many times and at each intersection one soul serves the other on its journey, sometimes by tricks. For example one might tell the other you must obey some laws, of course, and names one or two examples he knows full well will fail just in order to help the other find that no method is going to work. Some of the time it will be the most helpful way of nudging someone to the next lesson or maybe cause someone to rethink what was just told it and tell the speaker to get fucked so as to be free from any outside influence. Only to realize later, I was stuck and that coyote helped me, and laugh. Laughter is good medicine.

A hint to help you with this is to remind you that an image of who you are was planted in your brain to build a set of  memories and to believe it all happened to it…take it personally.  All its memories are limited and incomplete of course. It is robot-like and lives on Desolation Row denying it is more like a Rolling Stone than anything else. It has served as your identity ever since implanted in your brain much as Pinocchio was carved by the woodcarver he believed to be his Papa. After awhile, living as the image and gathering stored memories of your life which is not your own, you become very lost from your true identity. Something inside is telling you that you need to go home but who can it be? The story of Pinocchio was written to appeal to children who are still somewhat aware of where they came from. All that you need do is realize for a moment that something has been watching all along the drama the imposter thinks is its life and that you are that which observes the observer. At that,  the memories and the image vanish. Your real life as a brand new real child begins; all that was required of you having been a willingness to roll as far as it takes to find her.

                                                     A Greater Thing

What can be expected of a civilization of people led by its politicians? I watched a war movie the other day based on an actual war that had taken place. The army that the film was praising had been greatly outnumbered by their foes from the start of the story but were asked to hold out until reinforcements could be sent. Many lives were lost in terrible battles day after day. The heroes at the end were in a hopeless position and knew it but refused an order to retreat. They were asked by their commander, “why not?” His men replied, “We cannot tell you more than this: we will die before we leave here.” It seemed clear these young men had tapped into some truth beyond all words, and, so, beyond all thought, that has to do with the feeling one has for a dead comrade with whom one has struggled together and how great is that feeling. Greater it is than the love for one’s own life. That being said, how much greater a thing it is to follow than a politician and how far apart those two things are. I immediately thought of Muhammed Ali.

When we fail to see that those asking us to kill in their name are the same ones who brought us to a situation where that choice has to be made we are blind, blind in the sense of being ignorant. What can be expected of a civilization of people led by its politicians? Recall the story of the turtle who gave a snake a ride on his back across a river? “What did you expect, I’m a snake, it’s my nature, what else can I say?”

 I think: Therefor,

I am fucked!

That is all.

Being dominated by thought is the thought: You may go to Hell if you do not do what you should do.

And, so, acting by thought you make a choice between opposites.

And thought says: This is Hell! I have been here before in the past. I need a plan to get me out of here. I know. I’ll get a girlfriend. Another thought prevails and you act on it. 

And you wind up in Hell. And thought says : This is Hell. I have been here before in the past. And this cycle can continue for a lifetime. 

So, the question is

Can I live on some basis other than thought? Is there a pure observation of what is actually happening? One that does not rely upon the wordy translation by an idiot? 

Of course there is.

Do it.

Find Hell is not.

 CONSIDER THE TREES

Consider the trees in a forest. Many varieties are there not? Roots intertwined. Branches spreading like arms and fingers toward  the skyway….the Sun, the undisputed source of life and energy. So far, we have come to understand that the trees obey patterns that result in a harmony expressed as what we have named a forest. We accept it that these patterns have not been set by each individual tree itself operating individually and sparring with its neighbors for advantages nor by certain leader trees that stand out above the ordinary trees, each leader conceiving of a day when the tribe it leads will prevail over the other tribes of trees and monuments built to honor his memory as a great leader and generations of children made to memorize his name.  If we consider the entire make-up of the intelligence back of a forest and call it the brain it is the brain of the entire forest not the brain of any single tree or group of trees considered separately. It is a whole forest we see in operation before us and, by golly, we are so very dependent on that forest to a degree that cannot be overestimated. Our daily lives rest upon their existence. Think about it.  Search it out for yourself. When you understand life depends upon the sanctity of a forest ask yourself, “Is that not a world of love?”.

I read a quote from a famous musician who said we can either hate the ultimate power we call life or love it with all we have. It’s up to us. The trees of a forest have chosen the way of love. You have probably already done it but next will want to consider the dependence and interdependence of all the animals of a forest, large and small. Do not overlook the humans who have lived there. And get out your microscopes and examine into the invisible world inside of you and its wonder and love. Not with a motive to control it for your benefit or the benefit of your friends but to go “wow!” See for yourself, without a motive, how life has taken care for me…little ol’ me. Then decide to fully embrace it with all your heart, soul, and mind. In this way, your brain will transform itself.

 To those who have not the eyes to see how young I am I may appear to them to be old. I am so young in fact that I awaken every morning in a state of infancy. Each of my days is a new life to live. I know not what to expect so find myself empty of ideas. Back when I was older, I carried many ideas about where I came from, where I am going, how I am going to get there, and what happens after I die. It took a lot of luggage to hold all the stuff and wore me out. Now, I intuit, see, all those questions will be answered today before I sleep and I will awaken tomorrow to live again. Tomorrow, after all, comes only as today. That I can depend upon. Some days it seems my body is aging and wearing out. But other days it is as though my body is as vibrant as ever it has been. It is not the same as the body I had, say, seven years ago, but just as alert and adequate to my day. Eager and ready. 

 A time came…

When I suddenly found myself saying, “I want to know who I am more than I want the approval of another human being. Who am I really? That was my question and so strong was it there was no room for another question inside of me.

The other day I heard a talk on the subject of loyalty. The speaker came to say, as humans we should all be loyal to humanity. I shuddered at the term “should be”. It got me to thinking that I have been confronted with that term from the time other people had made me into a creature who could begin to comprehend their words…”should be”. By now,  I am deeply experienced in the way of trying to be what I should be. It began at home. Then there was the radio. Then there was television. And schools. A spouse. And bosses. And groups I said I belonged to. Exercises. Diets. Religions. Politics. Art. Music. Books. And I had failed many times to be what I should be. I began to notice more and more that, wait a minute, for every thought I have of what I should be there is the opposite thought. I have been brought slyly into a great war inside of me by all this confusion. And I call it “My Life”. I considered an attempt to end it. Then the thought came instead to risk it all and find out who I really am loyal to if anybody. Immediately the term “Loyalty” came to have new meaning. I wanted to know who I am loyal to naturally absent any effort to be loyal. I thought of my cat. She was a one-man kitty naturally. I had no doubt about that. My cat was not striving for approval at all. In fact, she was teaching me how it can be so for a living thing to just be. I was seeing it as a strong sort of stubbornness that I had to admire greatly, so foreign was it to me. I wondered whether I might have that kind of stubbornness in me when it clicked that my single question was coming from such a place.

And gradually I am aware more and more that the truth is that the moment a named virtue is cultivated it loses all sense of being virtuous for it loses the soul in its meaning which is what my cat had all along. She was what she was and asked not to be congratulated.

I want to add that a willingness to stop shopping for meaning is the same as turning a valve in me that floods me with just enough stubborn to be a real human being.

NOBODY has written this before.

 A Critic

A critic will always be hopelessly in the dark. Critics assume an attitude way off course. He tells what his conditioned brain says is the meaning of what he has seen according to that brain’s conditioning. In doing so, the critic distorts every fact he has seen. Doing this leads to a life spent in a false world that resembles not the real one at all. Such a life is disturbing and becomes gradually intolerable. By trying to change the conditioned brain one merely goes deeper into the madness. A confused mind will find only confusion. The way out is simple but extraordinarily difficult for an arrogant person to attempt. One must see clearly how the conditioned brain operates and seeing cease the practice. What remains is brilliance.

The JOKER & The THIEF

 T: Do you believe the Universe is infinite?

J: Yes.

T: There is no proof of it, is there?

J: No. No proof, but I believe it to be so.

T: Some say we are all equal.

J: There is no proof we are.

T: There is no proof we are not. 

J: That is a  dilemma. We must act first or someone else will. So, let’s make believe we are not all equal and draw up a set of rules to determine a ranking order of worth of our own design which favors our kind and enforce it.

T: Okay. But what if it turns out we are all equal?

J: We must not allow it to happen. Everybody cannot be allowed to run wild. That would be chaos. And we need order.

T: But, if we are all equal might wild be order and enforced order be chaos?

J: You mean, do you not, it might be that order was in the plan from the beginning? I suppose we will find out some day.

T: No way. People will not ever allow it to happen. I have a new feeling growing in me now that wild, not the word but the fact, just might be humility. And people fear humility more than anything.

J: Humility? That sounds like humanity. Could it be found to be our natural state?

T: Who among us is in tune with his natural state?

J: There must be some way out of here. 

 The So-Called Scientist

Let us reason together in order to see what is happening to us. I am not going to teach you anything. Listening to me is like talking to yourself. Together we learn.

The so-called scientist looks through her microscope. What she sees depends upon what she is looking for but she is unaware of the effect of that upon her work. She thinks what she sees is the way things are. She knows not that the observer is the observed. She knows not that what she sees is colored by her memory of what she has seen in the past. She believes she can cross the same river again today which she crossed yesterday. That the river is always flowing is not important to her because that would keep her from being a scientist in search of fixed knowledge which she is convinced brings control to life and destiny. She believes herself to be dedicated to bringing to all a better world. She is this way only because she thinks of herself as an intelligent scientist with a reputation for intelligence among others who think the same way. It is mere group think. She is concerned with her career. Blind to how her fixation is in the past she is arrogant. She will tell other colleagues the meaning of what she has found in a paper she will author and publish. It is folly to do that in a world in motion. Yesterday’s knowledge is dead. But she has been busy gathering a following of fools. In this manner she will be nominated to receive coveted awards and the false prestige they bring. This she believes to be practical and secure though it be nothing but illusion made by abstract thinking. A translator who is not there is busy telling her what the thing she sees means. Words. Then, the translator tells her, she can tell others what to do about it. Meanwhile, everybody alive knows everything is getting worse.

The lawyer is bound to the past in the same way as the scientist as is the physician and the psychiatrist and the minister and the businessman and the journalist and the artist and the writer and the guru and all the rest. They belong to schools of thought and are proud of it. Each school has its private language others do not understand. They argue among themselves and teach in their schools that this will lead to progress which is thought to bring excellence but which is merely cosmetic. The word”excellence” is not the thing. Trends, latest fashions, and celebrity abound in a society of idiots. And the emperor of it all is naked. Humanity is riding a train traveling faster and faster and deeper into a purgatory-like condition of its own making and none of it is real. All is illusion. Should we all laugh? At whom? It might be fun if the price were not so high in terms of violence against all who have stood in the way of self-made, arrogant, judgmental pretenders over the ages. It is a very complex and convoluted  history. They kill each other. They kill children, women, the elderly, the helpless, and the best. They are constantly sending children to school where they can be forced to learn the game and assimilate.  Two Riders approach.

The game we have been playing is unfortunately very attractive to us. Or maybe it is not unfortunate at all. Maybe there is a plan to actually get us hopelessly lost and before we find our way back home we have to admit we are lost completely and mean it. That happened to me and some others. How many will it happen to before we are too far gone already?

Thinking, as we are taught to do it, divides us. It divides us 

abstractly into a thousand nations, a thousand religions, a thousand philosophies all engaged in one form of war or another. Wars among named groups are inevitable. As individuals, it divides us from within in wars against ourselves. This is done by observing what is named to be a flaw and then creating an illusion of an ideal human being without that flaw. Then one now creates with thought a method to become that perfect human without the flaw. All the world as we know it now is caught madly in this way of living. Look around. 

There is quite another,  largely ignored, possibility. It is possible to look only at the flaw in ourselves or others without a judgment that it is a flaw or a virtue. Observe the condition as it is without words. Be practical for a change! The result astounds! It works! The flaw is not. It disintegrates. It never was. It was being created by the blind scientist who is ignorant of reality. On the outside the pure observation works the same miracle. We see suddenly the other as another human who actually wants the same thing I do when we observe them with a still mind, anchored in reality, even for a short while. That is all it takes. It happens. There is no going back to resentment and fear and hatred now. And we heal. Healed and made whole by the loving winds of reality. Mediation as practiced by aboriginal peoples all around the Earth for thousands of years taught me this. I trust it without a doubt.

All people, and that means all, want to work together with pride and joy. Excellence comes from one place and one place only…it comes from the soft, yielding hearts of human beings regardless of their present condition. There is a way home. Each one who turns to the heart assumes the attitude of humility heart when trusted brings and will have to produce excellence and excellence alone. Such a train, bound for glory, will inherit the Earth. I did not say accumulate money and property.  I said inherit the Earth. 

Welcome home.

 A Song To Bob Dylan

from  jwhooperswan

Is there an observation, an observation pure and true?

One the scientist can never reproduce with her instruments not even the most advanced and expensive telescopes and robots equipped with a computerized slide rule?

Did the child say the emperor is naked and did he notice it to be so in spite of any lesson that was taught to him at school?

How many times must an innocent say what simply is before us all to be a-seein’ before

every scientist admits I am blind, I am a fool?

And hasten to ask forgiveness and bow before the child inside each one of us who sees with a light that’s pure and true?

A Thousand years ago the American Indian told whites…who would not listen…the Earth is our Mother and still we look to science to save us at the brink of what those learned in the name of progress have brought the whole world to.

While the scientist searches for the light at the end of the tunnel the innocent one who observes the obvious reports there is no tunnel 

if you humbly look at what clearly lies before you not covered up by all the many words you were forced to learn in school.

It has taken me a lifetime to hear the answer that has all along been blowin’ in the wind

It took that long for me to learn enough about how far intuition can extend.

All of us will end the wars, put a stop to suffering, by grokking the simple truth we need nobody else to save us we are and always have been sufficient to that end. (end song)

(spoken) A lone scientist at Columbia told his classes every semester that all would receive an A in his course and only those who wished to learn were invited to bother to further attend. In that same way, this song is informing you that your initial intuition is to be honored above all thought driven rules, beliefs, and opinions if we are to find the life we’re all dreaming for. And any who do so honor intuition will find. 

That same professor and scientist made the observation that “Nobody Wanted a Light Bulb!” It is not science that serves our dream. Science serves money and personal prestige. And politicians pass out both. And they work for Corporate  Giants. Who, then, must you look to to make your dream come true?

That same professor was a musician and songwriter. He rewrote the Star Spangled Banner to make it easier to sing, saying: Do not blame the singers, if the song is poorly written, rewrite the song. Just make it easier for everybody to sing along. Is that not the dream?

                                 

 A human being is someone who realizes by the time he passes through childhood and adolescence that he is never going to know the whole truth because that is denied him and so his grownup solution is to work very hard all his life to gather as much knowledge as he can. Many become dedicated to scientific research which is an illusory escape from living as a human being. They just overlook their disordered lives and pretend to live together on Mars. As a scientist realizes that money is never going to be enough to satisfy him, his solution is to work hard all his life to gain as much money as he can. He is convinced money cannot buy happiness only drugs and other distractions to blot out its loss. Still he works hard for money. A human being recognizes he is violent. His solution is to try as hard as he can to be non-violent. A human being recognizes she is inconsistent and her life is not in order. Her solution is to work as hard a she can to achieve awards handed out for achieving the order which cannot be achieved. A human being recognizes he fails to work hard enough. Not to pick on scientists it is made clear that the very same fate awaits everyone attached to a career. 

A human being has learned all of this by observing his parents and other adults and studying his own experiences of dealing with them. They are his teachers. Is it any wonder man is a mess? Is anybody out there who is ready to address only the facts instead? For those it will be a solitary voyage with no teacher but oneself. But freedom is coming to you. See how what you have been taught from the past is creating a non-existent world you must complain about for the reason that it exists not. Humans like Walt Whitman and Albert Einstein and Bob Dylan have broken through all that to present something original in place of the  expected.

Observe that one’s society is telling one constantly what you are expected to do to become someone worthy. Not fulfilled but worthy. Worthy of what?