HOW DO YOU SEE YOUR LIFE?

Let me tell you of a funny way of looking at your own life. A child is born. That child is ignorant and quite messed up. The child almost certainly will become more confused with time and become so much so that he or she will need help according to the thinking of the child as molded by its society. Recognizing the need, the child is teachable meat. Through a series of teachers the child will attempt to find what he has lacked all this time in order to be “normal”. Can you believe that any human being can see in that deranged way his own life? It is so. 

Another way to see one’s birth is as a wondrous event that brings forth a wholly unique being, never has there been nor will there ever again be such a being, who has the assignment from within itself to do something marvelous and has all that is necessary to do just that without ever asking anyone’s permission nor expecting any reward. Expectations are so limiting!

 What cripples the clarity of one’s own perception is a drug. Love is known only by people with clear eyes to see it. Love is not something that is possessed and then handed forth in pieces to someone’s special others like candy. It is not in any way connected to being a grandparent or a parent or a daughter or son or sibling or anyone interested in attaching to another for support and sustenance. That is all a game. Trickery. Addiction. Love is not ever going to be used for a selfish interest. Quite the contrary. Love has no motive. Like that wild nightingale it comes and goes of its own volition and sings purely when it wants to and not on command. Take it or leave it. Do not even attempt to meditate until you are first clear. Clear means no inner conflict whatsoever. 

What is being mentioned is that clarity of mind is the first priority in life. Make no mistake about it. Life is given to those who can appreciate it. When one looks closely one sees that people who are not so clear are insulting the very thing they most desire. With a crippled mind they seek to find happiness and wealth and purpose and even whether there is God, and, if so, what is God. With a crippled mind they intend to seek out the divine, if there is any, and to use it to become something great. Only those who end that will know they are great. 

Another way to say the same thing is that only free people can love. The freedom required is freedom from confusion and conflict of any kind. It is easy to listen to someone who claims to be a teacher tell you he knows and you do not. Only someone not ready to go the journey to its conclusion will follow another. This is your life. No one else can show you how to go. You want a formula, an explanation, a spelled-out doctrine, etc. All one who is not clear can do is to give a great deal of attention inwardly to that very situation. It will clear as you do. You are the watchman on the wall of existence. You are your teacher, guide, guru. So, to be a good one you need to be clear about it. It is up to each one of us. However, we can encourage and inspire each other by showing the way is within, but only by going. The word is not the thing.

ABOUT NOTHING 

Nothingness. What is that? Not a thing. What is a thing? A thing is a thought. A thought gives a name to the thing a thought has made. A number of things made in this manner are put together by thought into a set of thoughts and a system is made to be distinguished from other things. After some time a scientist is made by thought to study these systems and measure and compare thoughts which will cause the scientist to take pride in considering these contrived things in systems to be the observable world as it actually is when such is utter nonsense. And all this malarky will have been mostly brought about through pride as a manner of giving the scientist a profession to profess. Scientists, lawyers, doctors of medicine, teachers, preachers and priests, politicians, psychologists, philosophers, soldiers and their officers, artists, athletes, computer scientists, and all the rest have arisen in this manner and the list can go on forever. 

So, is nothingness what we most fear and loathe? But is it, after all, what was there before naming? Why do we fear it so? What do you know of nothingness, especially what do you know of how it feels to you? All of us had to have experienced nothingness at the beginning of our lives. Can we now? It is surely a great challenge to find out. Just one thought can blot out nothingness. 

It is like nothingness vanishes in the presence of thought. But that cannot be so, can it? That would have to mean the world created by man is more real than that that preceded it. I can understand as a fact that is not so. By that, I can at least meet up with nothingness if only for a moment before thoughts return. Meeting nothingness is the greatest feeling known by me. The question came: why can I not keep that feeling all day? The answer came: it is entirely up to you. Nothingness is always with me now even when things can be taken out in its presence for a useful purpose and then put away. A useful purpose for things is tying my shoes. When nothingness is my consciousness I have no urge to control a thing. Controlling is not. All is friendly. 

 A Worthy Effort

We share a universal consciousness with all of the rest of the people on Earth since the beginning of time whether we like it or not. When a young man out of law school in America I began to notice in a more serious way what is going on around me. I was beginning to feel a part of the world as a worker in its program. In a little while, I noticed I was feeling more and more depressed and frightened of the world. I began to sense things were wrong on a large scale and getting worse at a fast rate. I was putting it together with things I had  read and heard as I grew and forming a cynical attitude about everything as a whole. It was to grow and grow for many years. I left several jobs and a marriage folded up on me and my wife and children. This is a short version of what happened.

What I am seeing now is it was the beginning of a pattern of taking somewhat serious looks into matters of the world and wanting to know: is this world being directed purposefully by a gang, large or small, of evil criminals who are disguised as patriots and religious leaders and so on or is it really just running out of control with nobody actually in charge of anything? Today, I see finally the truth of it. It is all of us together making the world of humans what it is and has been at all times. It had a beginning, a cause, though, and so it can be ended. 

That is the news I want to spread to everyone. It began with the first one who submitted to service to a symbol rather than live in the actual truth of things as they are. This substitution was very dangerous and so dangerous was it that it has grown into what is happening worldwide now. A man killed his brother. When anyone makes the jump from truth to symbol it begins a corruption of human intelligence. Repeated, it makes the human mind, heart, and soul (one thing really) makes the psychological entity we are go lazy and weak. By now, we are awful dumb as compared to how humans are naturally. Few natural humans are living anymore as adults.  Nearly all free humans are young children who are being ignored and abused by adults. But it is so important to know that the cause is everybody who has joined a movement “to become” some symbolized product as part of some symbolized group; people everywhere are striving to become something he or she is not. And, that is practically everybody over the age of seven. 

It is so important to see that any effort to control even one human (oneself, for instance) is wasted effort and a very dangerous practice. It is all going to be symbolic, has to be. See? If I strive to control anything in the world about me or the inner world, in me, I set up an internal conflict. Who can win such a war? 

Such a war is a war between the controller and the controlled and both are who I am. And, always, symbolism has been the cause of all the suffering we have tried  to end by control, which, as we know, has never worked. Listen closely for any inquiry that begins in “how”. Immediately doubt its validity. It will be grounded in symbolism. Do not agree or disagree with me, find out for yourself. Never agree to serve words, theories, ideas, idols, flags, etc. Moving in that direction will increase the strength of the actual cause of suffering rather than lessening the suffering. We need desperately to end all this “becoming”. Simply ending it, we will be free. A free mind is to be seen in a very young child. It exists. Do not “become” like that child to influence the cessation of all controlling by humans of every region everywhere on Earth once you see it is another worthy effort. Rather, just look upon the controlling way of the world of which you are a part with all your attention and let that understanding burn away all efforts at becoming. By love you will see you have been inoculated with disillusion. 

 Peace Nations

Plains Indians in North America had both war chiefs and peace chiefs. The Peace chiefs were the more honored bunch. Well, I propose we look into the possibility of electing a Peace government since we are heavy with war governance. In keeping with solidarity, I suggest we encourage the women to play the major role in developing such a Peace Government. Both peace with other nations and peace among each other is required. Both governments should have equal funding and be of equal strength, of course. Perhaps it would be advisable, actually to make the Peace Government the priority since peace is preferred to war by all and has historically been ignored. 

I came of age in the sixties and was a young married husband in the time of Women’s Liberation in this country. At the time I was eager to surrender to the women without a struggle since I seemed to have nothing to lose and everything to gain by women being more active in life here. I certainly did not think it wise of women to take the position they wanted to do what men do in order to feel equal. That seemed very silly to me. Most of what men do, to me, was a waste of energy and divisive to the max. We struggle with each other and deceive one another and murder one another. I felt it best women stay out of such matters if possible. Men, as well. Actually these are the source of most suffering in the world for the last ten thousand years. 

I am not including these comments to be funny. I sincerely mean to tell that females have a nature of their own every bit as valuable as that of males and do not mean cleaning and scrubbing and cooking and child care and other such chores as that. No. I mean all those areas of human existence which would be categorized as peace concerns, meaning considerations which foster peace and harmony and cooperation and a sense of well-being and joy among all people. All of these and more are just as meaningful to women as men as are all aspects which prevent illness, mental and physical, prevent alienation of any from the group. The inclusion of everybody’s talents and drives on equal terms, with respect. You know what I mean. Compassion and love and softness and kindness and the willingness to serve. Humility. Patience. Creativity. Those things, for instance. Music. Dance. Color. Endurance. Dependability. Beauty. 

In summary, it is important for all humans to be fully included in the birth of a Peace Nation.

 INWARDLY, I AM ALL

The energy of thought, pain, and suffering dominates psychologically in every corner of the world of human activity. We desperately require a new energy and yet we all believe so strongly that it is the fate of man living on Earth to adjust to and live in this energy of thought, pain, and suffering. Ask anyone you meet if it is wise to take a position that we can end suffering. 

And, if we can, should we? For example, why do we not politically, as one people, vote to disarm our countries and thereby end war? Is it fear of being deprived of the illusion of security that can only really be a greater fear of the unknown? It is a tragedy for us all if the unknown amounts to Days in a Heavenly Security. The worst Joke is the one that goes everything they have done to create security brought them only more insecurity. We can break the spell by a new energy of love born of compassion for all. The compassion arises in anyone who sees immediately  

“I am the consciousness of all humanity. My heart is not my heart but that one heart… 

shared by all.”  

 There can be a war where one set of warriors lays down its weapons and shields to strip naked and dare to stand as one body-fearless and the warriors of the other side,  finding they cannot resist the truth, also lay aside weapons and shields and strip naked to stand as a part of what they always have admired most of all and we discover by our action that we all want the same thing.

 HUMANS AND BUTTERFLIES 

The moment one attaches to a concept…any concept, corruption begins that will have to unwind in a deepening mess without end and the only way out is to renounce the concept and thereby free the mind of corruption to see clearly to take instant action in a new, uncorrupted direction on a different plane altogether. No other way is going to work. You and I cannot deal with concepts, they are mirages. Cannot drink fresh water from a mirage, can you?  We can, however, deal with facts. Water, not the word, is a fact. Drink it when thirsty.

There are many places one can hear: “One day at a time”. It is critical to be able to distinguish clearly between the concept and the fact. The concept is going to take you where all of them have taken you. They are a traps. The concept to live one day at a time rather than to live some other way is just attachment to another concept going in a different direction and it will lead you again into that deepening mess you were trying to avoid. The fact is that life can only be lived one day at a time. Seeing that fact, the mess ends. I am thirsty. I find water. My thirst ends. For another example, the concept of monogamy is not monogamy as a fact. The fact is a part of one’s nature or it is not. Can one become monogamous by joining a movement to become monogamous? Why in the name of common sense would one ever want to become monogamous? Or become a communist? Or become a capitalist? Or become a Christian? Communism set out to achieve Utopia. It achieved instead a totalitarian dictatorship. All know what Christianity has wreaked upon the Earth. Why not prefer to be who you are now knowing it is a fact that tomorrow never comes? There is a big difference. See it? Trouble ends when we see.

There is a thing that has the appearance as a paradox to all of us who have been conditioned to join organizations to follow concepts. It is found in AA literature and yet the darn thing works for many people who were hopelessly lost. The statement is as follows-

As soon as you admit you cannot stop drinking you will drink no more. 

Otherwise you will die an alcoholic death.

That seeming paradox is an excellent illustration of the importance of clearly distinguishing between a fact and a concept. Simply what happens in AA is that an addicted person who seriously admits a fact “ I cannot stop” triggers a power inside himself that can. A religious conversion brings the same thing temporarily before the concepts start being poured in on the convert. When a human being is serious enough to admit I do not know how to live a decent life he triggers that same Power inside himself. Experience shows that in AA the concepts can have the effect to deprive the alcoholic of his temporary freedom from drink. Most go out to drink again. Apparently, the original experience of a Greater Power was naturally present in humans and followed without question. It was lost. Ever since, man has used concepts to hold out a promise that the group sponsoring the concept can save you. You might as well say humans have sunk to the point we try to think our way to Heaven. On inspection, it is clear organized atheism is just another organized religion. It is apparent to the writer now that the same Heaven is inside each one of us as was there in the beginning. It is free to all without joining any movement. It comes faster to those who never have been exposed to organized religions.

In migratory birds and monarch butterflies some incredible power enables an impossible journey to happen most successfully and on time each season. These birds naturally look out for each other all the way. What else is that? Are we, as humans, not at least that worthy? 

 STORIES  

Something is wrong with how, as humans, we live our lives. It is so very far from the real and true it is in a different dimension altogether.

Using the concept of linear time as if it were how life happens we tell stories to each other.  Telling stories fosters attachment to concepts. Every child must be corralled and subjected to years of heavy-duty training before the life we want for them is encoded strongly enough in their young minds to invent a mechanical thing that can be controlled through fear and made a citizen of an imaginary nation, a wife or

husband, a father or mother, a sports fan, a book reader, an organized religion’s follower, a money maker, credit card carrier,  a consumer etc. etc. etc. It is called child rearing and schooling and coaching and religious training and advertising. It is sad indeed to admit that in a few years of this the small human’s “nature” will be commonly described to be the way the indoctrinated machine functions and what the free child began as will be labeled “wild” and “beastly” and sadly condemned as evil. It is enough to make a body sick. And so it does. 

It is worth looking into the matter carefully since we follow this line of thought as our principle way of dealing with one another when it is so false. One has been taught to cherish stories by repeated doses of them beginning early in childhood. Some parents begin to read to a child in the womb. All are convinced it is so good a thing to do. Johnny went to town. Johnny was tempted to steal a plum. Johnny decided not to steal the plum. Johnny is a good boy and we like him. Johnny played ball. Johnny practiced every day and worked very hard to learn to play well. Johnny’s team won every game. We adore Johnny and want to be like him. The cop wants to hear your story. The judge wants to hear your story. The jury wants a story. Your boss wants story after story. Your wife or husband, too. Your parents. And so on. 

A cherished experience of mine took place back when I was practicing law as a career. It taught me to see through stories to find something precious. I had gotten a call that my sister and brother-in-law needed my help at court since they were being held for trial on charges my nephew had been cutting school. Parents were made by law liable for the truancy of their offspring. I immediately marched to their aid. I listened a few moments to the proceedings and picked up that the judge was expressing grave concern over the matter and was threatening to hand out severe punishment to my relatives. Quickly, I requested a moment alone with my nephew to discuss the case which request was granted. I escorted my nephew out into the hall outside the hearing of the court and asked him simply, “Why are you not going to school, Jonathon?” After a few moments the child replied, “I don’t know.” His answer pierced my heart and I wanted the judge to feel it so I took Jonathon back before the Judge without further questioning of the child and there repeated my question and we heard the same plain answer come from a place all humans recognize without doubt as real pain. That judge changed completely into an understanding friend to the whole family even expressing a promise to work patiently with us to help Jonathon work out a satisfactory outcome to any difficulty with his schooling.

Motion is not action. Action is not motion. Motion is the outcome of action. But you do not agree. You insist it is motion and it takes time precisely because you have been conditioned to think so by repeated storytelling. Seeing is action. Every action is happening to the whole Universe and has its effect throughout it. To describe such a vast happening would be totally impossible. I heard it told that a man knows as a fact that at the time of his earliest ancestor, maybe a million years ago, there was in existence in the DNA of that ancestor all that would eventually bring him forth by birth a million years later and he is living proof of that fact and furthermore it means that inside him is something as old as mankind. He has existed that long at least.

Existence occurs in a vastness that can only be approached in humblest acceptance. All can be said is it happened. And each human is aware every moment of how happenings are impacting its body. That is all we know and it is enough. The bodies are fully capable of responding to what happens as it happens in what is experienced as the present. We cannot act in the past or the future. Seeing is action. That is a fact. In our natural state a human is without conflict or the accompanying fear conflict causes. There is clarity. There is freedom. There is passion and there is love. Such is an entirely different way of living from the story telling way. In the way of truth a life is bound in love by free hearts. Johnny, in this dimension, will trust his instincts in the present where life is actually taking place and let each day be experienced for all it is worth leading to the next one. Such an attitude is in harmony with all other singers and brings shared joy in a way all the planning and striving for goals, for progress as we define it, can never possibly bring to Johnny. So many who have succeeded in their plans have testified to this fact, 

“I had it all and I was miserable”. 

This story we can tell to end stories in linear time to deprive them of their power over us. 

So why do we insist on telling stories. Well, we have decided to separate ourselves from the whole of life and live as individuals and we call it freedom because the idea that spawns the separation told us we will now be free to decide for ourselves how we want life to go.* It felt good in the same way that many drugs feel good temporarily and then abandon us. We hope we will be rewarded for the good things we do and punished for the bad things we do. We learn by society’s conditioning to proudly proclaim “ I do it my way.” Trouble is, your life and my life are not our own, they are inseparable from the life that binds all living things. 

We do not follow that fact. For very complex reasons people elect to pretend to act in the past and future and not now at all. Now is just ignored as only important for planning tomorrow or regretting yesterday. In the scheme people have invented tomorrow holds our dreams. And tomorrow never comes and we end up with a bag of empty yesterdays. We may want to explore some of those complex reasons later but for now we will concentrate on the fact that is enough to make anybody sick.

To tell a story in linear time one must be committed, locked firmly, into a really limited concept of one’s capability. So limited is it that it is a fact that it is unworthy of consideration by anyone who is sane. Since the entire universe is back of all happenings one must be willing to ignore 99.99999% of what is involved in a happening to shrink it by imagination into a story over linear time involving a limited number of actors to make a story in linear time manageable. One person opens a story “I recall my mother laughed a lot”. From that, meaning is to be conveyed. Its supposed meaning is so lacking in the consideration of an unlimited number of factors it is useless as science and so very dangerous to us all. Nations go to war based on such trivia. Doctors prescribe drugs which have an unknown number of side effects. Parents punish children based on unreliable stories based in linear time which never happen. Religious leaders promise a happy after-life based on such stories. This practice can be seen if examined closely as providing society with a means of placing blame and praise on its citizens solely to make it seem to the conditioned brains of its citizens that the society is controlling their lives for them when nothing could ever be farther from the truth. It is pure entertainment offered up by hacks that brings jerry-rigged solutions we are living with and when suffering comes, which it must, we describe it as “the way life is” unnecessarily. A mere fix is a pathetic basis for a human life. We use them everywhere now and give out awards for doing so.

It is not suggested here that any reader undertake a plan based in linear time to correct the situation described for the very reason it would be the same conduct that has afflicted us up to now, the false belief that action is motion. Seeing the dilemma will bring about a whole new approach to the vastness of life where no spelled-out particular course of action will be needed.

The only reported way out of the mess is a serious study undertaken with deepest passion into one’s own psyche in order to find what has been done to you with purpose so cruel. By that effort it is possible to be in a position to help others recover their power. One such individual has written: 

“he told me a long time ago that I need conscious contact with a power [of now] greater than myself [as a planner].  He has helped me develop that contact and I cherish the experience.” Another has written, “he helped me to put my mind, hands, and eye together to express consciously what I felt unconsciously and I got yesterday, today, and tomorrow in the same room and there’s very little you can’t imagine happening.” The talks of J Krishnamurti which graciously have been saved and are available free on the internet are an excellent resource.

______________________

 * Up to this point we have found the meaning of the Bible Story in Genesis of the fall from a garden paradise by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. One of the wisest people I have known, J Krishnamurti from India, told many times to listeners that it is so very important to see that all knowledge ALL KNOWLEDGE is limited. And would often point out that we know that because knowledge is made from experience and memory which are definitely also limited. In the story it is God’s love for us that wants us to never rely upon limited knowledge for when we do we create more problems every time. As an example it has been shown that scientists are constantly coming up with new inventions, making a whole lot of money for themselves and companies who use their inventions, only to always discover the many, sometimes deadly, consequences of the uses of the new invention. The record is clear on this yet we, in our societies, continue to repeat the tragedies and to call it “progress”. Some who find with clarity this practice is only for the most foolish will see that and the practice, for them, will end. You may want to consider a serious search yourself. According to Genesis God wants that much for all of us today and, who knows, ending it may put us back in the Garden together where we belong.

 Passion For Life

In brief, what I see now is to be spoken. The table was turned. In a flash the true creator was killed and replaced instantly by a new God-one who serves man!  A Magic Being was imagined to give us what we want when we want it in a story in linear time. The idea was, “You are gonna love this God!” Temples and rituals came in fashion as evidence this was a real, important trend to be followed by good people.

And it has not worked to anyone’s satisfaction. In fact, ever since, life for humans has been a struggle with ever-increasing difficulties. Thinking had  become so popular, though, it could not be stopped from doing that. An observer had been invented inside the brains of all children. Thinking took over and ever since thinking is busy thinking about itself and making records of itself to put in museums and libraries and call it knowledge. Thinking can put on a God mask and tell everybody lies. It invents theories to describe what it desires in place of what is. Thinkers take turns and a few are noticed and asked to come back. Thinking invented art, religion, science, nationalism, measurement, and comparison. Thinking is like a clever. It divides what is indivisible. It cuts things apart to make more things. Real quick, nobody can tell anymore what is, as if it once was and is not anymore. It hurts. The pain can be received as a call to stop what one is doing. Those who hear the call head back home, without direction, to check to see how things are there if anything is left to check on and find it all just fine and dandy so do not want anybody to find them and take them away again.  But they do feel an urge to sneak back to see if anyone there is about ready to go back home they can encourage with a snack and a map. The map mentioned is only a beginning sketch to be discarded as soon as possible once there is enough confidence that the way is obvious. All travelers, suddenly, will clearly realize “As I am” in a  silence that has nothing to do with the absence of sounds. Therein lies treasure.

 On Death

Consider for a bit the question:  What is death? 

As a human I say that it is death that matters to someone the most. We are told we die. We attend a funeral. We look upon a dead body. We read stories where death happens. We ask others and receive confirmation that we will die.  We recognize signs of aging in older people. We must wonder, at least a little, were we born to die? And then wonder what that question means and where from did it come to us to ask it. All these things mentioned so far can come to people who have no education formally and who never have read a book or written one. People who have no concept of who might be better than who nor think of themselves as smart have these experiences. Maybe this means these experiences are more trustworthy than all of that wordiness.

Now, suppose someone has experienced failure and its pain. Is that a form of death? Why not? It is a sharp experience of an ending of something important to that individual. It is certainly unwanted. It is at least kin to death. It is possible to turn a corner mentally here, at this point, and ask: Is death friendly? Does life have meaning if seen as separate from death? It is not that life is death but that it is inseparable from it. Truth is life-death. Could it be we are more than a little opposed to an ending. Not really opposed to either death or failure. Ending frightens because the unknown frightens. What is the cause of the fear of the unknown? It’s opposite…the known…is monotony. The unknown holds mystery and that is exciting. Why fear it?

 One who has been called a master has said, “The Way Out Is Within.” 

It caused me to think how it is with the computer explosion. The whole happening depends upon a tiny chip. The tinier the better…the more the power…the more can be discovered, uncovered, and understood. The deeper and wider go its influences. 

Where I live people worship the computer now more than any other resource by far. Surely it is so that we show our dedication openly by what it is that we most covet. By what we give most attention to. That is our god. How we see it as essential to our lives is astounding and growing, growing, growing. Who are we? We worship what was made by human hands. Ironically, it is going to lead us back home after much, much suffering just as has always been our destiny…unless… we see in time …less is more. Nothing is everything. The importance of every grain of sand. Beauty is found in the pointless. Unless we love.

Beauty occurs when there is no separate self around. Beauty is pointless. The pointless is beautiful. It is recommended that one do and do often as many pointless activities as one can manage. In that way can it be possible to discover the value in the beautiful. It probably is so that some scientists will see evidence to show the Universe is coming apart gradually but some think it is, actually, self -creative.

 

Beauty probably plays a big part in that aspect.