Key To Freedom

Recently, I was told by a friend, “Ownership of private property is the key to freedom”.  I was stunned. And I responded quite forcefully, “I do not agree with you!”

Let us look at a simple flower, a lily of the field, if you will, in a new way. Ask, does the lily search for ways to provide its needs by studying alternatives, choosing one, and working with all its might to be successful as a flower? Or rather does the flower understand itself well enough already it must act as that flower and receive, as a result, a flower’s needs as they arise? When it is told here that a flower understands itself it is a matter of expressing a state of unification within the flower that makes it behave as a flower is brilliantly designed to function. Finding that state inside yourself, a human, is true meditation. 

In the present state of society there is no such way for a baby human to do as the flower and simply be what it is. The baby is going to have dumped into its brain a formula created by other humans and that formula requires the child to grow up to be someone who has tried to become something it is not naturally in order to be labeled in some manner or other “A model citizen”. The system we all know involves a striving to obtain money to buy what one needs as a human being, which requires one to go to “expert” humans to find out a list of those requirements on the grounds that a child does not know what it needs in the way a flower is endowed by the same creator of all the living. By now do you sense the corruption in all this malarky? 

Who will benefit when the child gives itself over to society’s formula? What can become of a child who follows this path? You know. You are that child. 

Children, at different points along the path assigned to them, will suffer a sense of loss.  Asking others, it will be told that everybody is in the same boat and “get used to it”. Adjust. Seek a counselor, a guru, a priest, or. some other professional “expert” if you need help adjusting to “the real world”. Do you sense another sign of corruption? You should.  You are that child. And this world is not “real”. It is in no way healthy to adjust oneself to life in a corrupt society. 

At this point in my conversation with my friend who told me ownership of private property is the key to freedom my friend told me any other reading is a seeking of a “Utopia” which is not real and not available to humans. I know better and am counting on you to know better too. Humans are not abandoned to an unnatural system involving loneliness, separation, conflict, envy, deceit, hatred, wars, and all the rest of it, any more than are flowers.

The key to freedom happens to be to seek first the natural human within, be that, and all else will be added to you by that which feeds flowers. And corruption, for you, will cease to be as if by magic. 

 Choice is a mental operation that divides a human inside. A human being out of touch with its nature resorts to making choices. It brings conflict and suffering. Being human is being absent of choice and, so, absent of conflict and suffering and the result is right living. Be you.

 

 

 Love Song

Pass the kindness cup.

Let all, in secret, drink it up.

There is an action which comes from an intelligence not my own but from that Great Intelligence we all share.

Now pass the kindness cup.

Let all, in secret, drink it up.

 A philosopher of some influence once said, “I think therefore I am.” He became a Lord. I serve my Lord, the Thinker. 

What I see is this: I thought. I thought some more. Then thought created a thinker. Thinking took more and more of my attention. Thinking then became my almost all. Finally I was the thinker thought thought up and recorded as my self on my brain and now exist in that tiny, isolated way. So limited. So confused. So frightened. So depressed. Now I do not exist at all outside my thoughts. I see this. Beyond thinking I see Thought brings pleasure but always accompanied by its companion Pain. The source of my pleasure is the source of my pain. Let me out, please! My thoughts have killed me. Almost. Some not thought which sees thought in action has written this using thought as a tool. I have hope. Thought and hope. These two. There is no going back. I am outside the walls. I am home.

 

 We are caught in a world which we believe to be “the way things are” wherein one is to work hard over time to become something acceptable and admired by others and so rewarded in many ways. This is supposed to bring happiness, but it is very rare to find a happy person here. 

It might be better to first use all your strength and concentration to find out what you might be  without becoming something else. And whether the problems the world complains about improve over time in gradual steps or whether in truth the method of gradual improvement in increments over time actually brings us the problems we suffer. In that way, are we actually foolishly utilizing the cause of our misery to free us from the misery? I once heard a talk by a very intelligent scientist on the subject of the environmental disaster facing our world. It was interesting to listen to him but what was almost shocking was at the close when the great man was asked, “What must we do to save our world, Sir?” And the man answered, “Nothing”. He then stated the obvious. “All our damage to our home planet has been caused by a process of trying to manage and control it and that system will never bring anything except more misery. The method of striving to make the Earth behave in a way we imagine we are benefitted is the problem, not the solution. 

Is there a learning in action that is radically different from the education system of gradual improvement over time we are the demonstrable results of as we exist today? Have we tried a new way? Have we striven seriously with dedicated passion to find out what our Planet would be without our efforts to manage it?

The greatest teaching I ever received was from a gentle man who listened at length concerning the dilemma I was in at the time and then quietly remarked to me, “Jonathon, you remind me of a man desperately trying to manage his own life”. 

I want to point out one more thing. The system we employ to arrest, try, and punish people who misbehave depends upon our firm commitment to the theory a person can and ought to be managed over time to become a worthy person who will be law abiding. Who really believes that? That alone is the justification for the practice of crime and punishment. Is it sound? Or, could it actually be the very source of crime itself? If it is, boy, oh boy, are we on the wrong channel. Channel of the dumb. Plow men dig my earth.  None of them along the line know what any of it is worth. Bob Dylan. “All Along The Watchtower”.

What if rather than becoming offended by the wrongdoing of another we follow instruction from a poem of love which suggests we utilize the offending behavior as a fact to inform us that we need to change not the offender who is our brother or sister and one whose conduct in all ways points to us all. After all is said and done is the underbelly of a society ever less the thing than all the rest? And can we not look directly at a fact without a word defining it? Just look. Could it be that in the radically different approach suggested by a poet many will be spared the pain which caused the offending behavior?   If it is so, boy, would we be on the right channel. Channel of the bright! Then might happiness begin to blossom the world over and we would take care not to trample all those flowers ever again.

 BETTER I SHOULD BE KILLED OR DISCHARGED FOR WHAT I AM THAN PROMOTED FOR WHAT I AM NOT. WHAT CAN BE WORSE THAN TO BE PLACED IN A POSITION OF AUTHORITY FALSELY? AND HAS ANYONE, HONESTLY NOW, EVER BEEN PROMOTED RIGHTFULLY? A BRILLIANT MAN ONCE TAUGHT THAT THE WORST THING A BUSINESS OR OFFICE OF ANY KIND CAN DO IS TO BASE PAY ON MERIT. SUCH A PRACTICE BREEDS COMPETITION AMONG THE GROUP, THE CONCEALMENT OF INFORMATION FROM ONE’S COMPETITORS, FEAR, DECEIT, HATRED, AND ALL THE REST OF THE CORRUPTION ALL GROUPS SUFFER. IS PROMOTION EVER EVEN REMOTELY CONNECTED TO SOMEONE’S WORTH? ASK YOURSELF THIS: CAN ANY MAN JUDGE ANOTHER? IS PROMOTION ANYTHING BUT A CORRUPT GAME? IF I PROMOTE YOU MAYBE I WILL BE PROMOTED. IS THAT ALL? NOT MUCH OF A RECOMMENDATION FOR THE USE OF SUCH TACTICS, IS IT? LISTEN. WHO CAME UP WITH THE IDEA, AND IT IS ONLY AN IDEA, THAT WE SHOULD STRIVE TO PLACE THE BETTER PLAYERS TOGETHER SO AS TO CREATE A SUPER TEAM? OF WHAT POSSIBLE GOOD IS A SUPERIOR TEAM? EXAMINE WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE WHOLE SOCIETY. A LOT OF BORED DULLARDS, RIGHT? OBSERVERS. UNFULFILLED DREAMERS WHO BUY TICKETS AND STAND IN LINES AND A FEW VERY LONELY CELEBRITIES NO LONGER ABLE TO DO SIMPLE THINGS LIKE RIDE A BIKE THROUGH A PARK ON A LOVELY SPRING DAY WITH SOMEONE YOU LOVE. FOREVER BEING SPIED UPON AND HARASSED. FOR WHAT? WHEN I WAS A BOY WE MET AT A PARK ON A SATURDAY MORNING, CHOSE SIDES, AND PLAYED UNTIL WE WERE FORCED TO STOP. EVERYBODY PLAYED. WHEN I LEFT THE FIELD OF PLAY I FELT DEEPLY GOOD BY KNOWING I HAD PLAYED MY BEST AND LEARNED A NEW TRICK OR TWO. NEXT WEEK THE TEAMS WOULD BE ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT AND NO KID GAVE A DAMN. LOOK. I WAS BLESSED ONCE TO BE GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO ALLOW PEOPLE IN A GROUP OF 400 ADULTS WHO WERE COWORKERS IN AN ENTERPRISE TO EXPRESS WITHOUT FEAR OF PUNISHMENT WHAT THEY WANTED THEY DID NOT HAVE. IT HAPPENED MANY TIMES THE FIRST YEAR. NOT ONCE DID ANY EMPLOYEE ASK FOR ANY TYPE OF PERSONAL PROMOTION OR FAVOR OR PRIVILEGE. ALL ASKED FOR OPPORTUNITIES TO DO THEIR WORK BETTER. THEY REALLY WANTED MORE INFORMATION SHARING AND MORE FREEDOM TO DO THE JOB THEY WERE ASSIGNED IN EXCELLENT FASHION. AND IT NEVER FAILED THAT THEIR BOSSES WERE ASTOUNDED AND CHANGED THEIR ATTITUDES COMPLETELY. WE ALL KNOW THIS TO BE SO WE HAVE JUST FORGOTTEN. AND AS SOON AS I LEFT THAT PLACE THEY ALL BEGAN TO FORGET AGAIN. MUST IT REMAIN SO? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

                                                                  Did It My Way

There’s a phrase and it goes “to my way o’ thinkin’ “. Or, “to his way of thinkin’ “.  And so on. Should you find yourself using that phrase you will probably also think the person referred to is an independent-minded fellow in control of his life, following his own path, etc.  Kind that is swelled up with pride about things. Truth, though, is otherwise entirely. All those folks are really pathetic, fooling themselves. All the time spent following your own way of thinkin’ is gonna cost more than you ever wanted to pay. Thought thinks it can divide the indivisible and it cannot. These people will one day spend hours looking out a window and imagining what might have been and wondering why they failed to do those things that attracted them most of all. And, sadly, will they believe it is the way life is for everybody. It is not.

Anyone who finds a way to bypass their own thoughts can live in still, quiet peace with razor sharp awareness. Another expression for bypassing the thoughts of the head is to pray without ceasing. For them there will be no choices ever to be made. What to do will be clear to them. When to do nothing will also be clear. These people live truly by faith. Faith is not the word faith it is an intuitive knowing. It is keen, sharp, effective. A samurai warrior comes to mind. You see, the way to live is to be free first. Free of what? I’ll tell you. You must be free from the conditioning of others around you, your borrowed thoughts are not your own. You cannot be contained in thought.  Nobody can. Those governed by thinking are robotic and life passes them by while they are too busy for it. Imagine that! You are alive and yet too busy to live. I tell this by my own experience. I know what it is like to be a pawn in somebody else’s game. Unless you invented basketball, play it only for exercise and the joy of movement. Do not take it seriously. Or you will be looking out that window long before it is time for you to die, wondering, what happened? 

Final note: those who say they do things their way never do. Simple. My way is beyond all thought and words. People will ask someone like that how he lives and he will respond something like, “Oh, I breath in and then breathe out.” 

                          Why Is Humanity So Stupid?

Why is humanity so stupid? Yes. We all know it to be so. We are stupid. And yet, there is afoot some sly trickster who keeps away any real change. I speak of the change on behalf of which Bob Dylan sang so well 60 years ago! Times, the kid sang, are changing. To AA many have come who are desperate for change. Desperate as anyone can be. And many find a way to change. There lives improve. Within a short time they are complaining again about the rotten state of humanity. The trickster has worked on them and so even one who was desperate and changed some behavior is made to overlook the fact and return to his former state as God’s chief critic.  In that way, he does not see the greatness of what has happened in his life and does not feel a passionate need to spread the gospel that all suffering can be ended by anybody alive and in the simple way it came to him. So, he spends the remainder of his time fighting against drink. Amazingly, it escaped his notice that he was given the keys to a Kingdom of Joy. The trickster in him has by a slight of mind prevented the reformed drunkard from being filled with the power in the fact he was separated from drink by this truth- that his problem never was alcohol, but himself! Not about other people, but about himself! He was not taught by anyone else how to stop drinking. He stopped himself! Such power can free a person. But, sadly, not him. Why not him? The trickster.

That is why humanity is so stupid and unable to change. The reformed man becomes active politically, active in some organized religion, strives to cultivate virtue in himself and the people around him and they long for him to take a drink again for he has become a raving idiot. He is still drunk. As the reformed person sees it, the real problem is, once again, the unacceptable sins of others. No real change ever happens among that bunch. Trickster wins. Its concepts remain in the driver’s seat of the living creature. 

A human is conceived. The human conceives an idea. The idea conceives another idea. The idea supplants the man. What a trickster!

All swans weep

 MAKING A POINT

So, man, humankind, including all its males and females no matter of what age, has been here on Earth for many, many thousands of years, at least. Man has made numerous accomplishments he takes pride in. Bridges have been built, hospitals have been built, churches and temples  also. There are so many government offices one could never find a list including them all.  There is even one called The United Nations. Accomplishments in the arts are displayed all around the world. Books, my God, so many libraries, so many private libraries, now all stored in cyberspace. Knowledge. Man’s knowledge. But what is it actually? What does it accomplish, really? It is important to point out that one thing is common in all of this accomplishing man has bragged about…argument is its name. Shame its shadow side. 

It can be seen by anybody that the world man has developed is like a family living in a house who have an active lifestyle shown to us by the media daily…fed to us you might say… which family takes a lot from the world into the house but never, never takes out the trash. Never cleans house from top to bottom. This is a metaphor of thought. As you consider it remember that all the argument going on in the world among humans is like this little paragraph but this one is being offered to reveal some broader, hidden truth to every reader on Earth. Who is it has an interest in keeping you living in this way? In keeping your mind so full of harmful, trivial and useless junk it prevents you from noticing how it is being done. 

Okay. A few people think the rest of us to be useful tools for their benefit but those also fail to take out the trash in their heads and so are not in a better position than the least of the masses. There is a man living as a pauper somewhere reading these words who knows he is a very remarkable fellow and he is singing while he works but not for wages. Not on anybody’s schedule. He is satisfied. Content. And generous and kind. This man’s mind is clear, for he takes out the trash. Do you wonder whether your mind could possibly be so clear and you could feel so happy and content? 

Reading this far is not even a start. 

It is up to each individual to commit to an effort he makes to bring this about in his small life. It is not easy. It is simple though. Any one can do it. One needs the  willingness to try. It is something you owe to you. Nobody else. Do not ask anyone “How?” Nor demand, “Tell me what to do.” On your own find a way back to the clear mind you had on the day of your birth. It is not lost. It is not spoiled. It was placed so that it cannot be touched, injured, or destroyed  by any power in the world. This paragraph up to this point is pointing you inside and that is all anyone need do for you. This project will be for you a learning in action. Not learning from another. Learning. Question everything. It will bring about a transformation of your psyche by the psyche itself. That is all you need do to end all the corruption. In truth, there is nothing wrong with you except your doubt.

Giving complete indifference to all you have been taught since you were born, center your vision at a point between the other two eyes and just above them where a gland attached to your brain is located whereby you may see that the world is really perfect as it is or may as well be since it far excels your meager wishes for a different one and so requires no alteration by you whatsoever and you begin to relax into that stillness and take things as they come to make the most wonderful discovery. Beyond thought lies harmony with all that is and you can feel your way along the line of absolute order throughout the cosmos. Like, instead of building a bridge over troubled waters, a natural and harmonious link to the other shore will be made apparent without asking for it as soon as there is a requirement for its use. And by joining it you will harmonize with all that is and every aspect will be served. Nothing is left out. 

Living in service to thought so much is left out or obliterated it hurts. And the pain is too much to bear so we live in denial and we all know it. Won’t you try this other approach? Like I said, you have to do it. Nobody can do it for you.

 NEVER A GANG MEMBER BE

A new beginning would be to drop all fear if you can and make someone else feel it’s safe to be around you. Can you? Locate that in you which you have always known to be a true friend. Above all, trust that. And listen, Johnny, to those who suggest you do it.