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

Thursday, September 15, 2022

 TWO OF ME


There are two of me. One a fact; the other but an illusion of who I am. These two are really not the same…not even close. The first we’ll call wheat. The other we shall call weeds. The wheat of my existence is the nameless fact. It is also undefinable and is not caused by nor can it be figured out by the weeds nor any set of them thinking, talking, or writing alike. The wheat must perceive itself. And it does. In fact, the wheat can only understand what has been written here if it knows itself to be a fact.


Even so, for decades of time I lived as the illusion, as a weed in an illusory world where weeds belong and wheat never will belong. How can an illusion ever even be actually present much less a leader of others? Whereas, wheat, a fact, is always present. All weeds are cunning enough to make it appear they are present and exist as separate persons with names and in relationship to each other. The selfish desires of these illusory weeds drive humanity on Earth. In a useless attempt to escape the terrible sorrow they constantly experience then impose on others, weeds living this illusory way have dreamed up gods, devils, angels, nations, enemies, marriages, families, and caste systems ranging from royalty to the lowest peasants, all of these as illusory as their makers. All these explanations made by thought concerning a world without a shred of existence bring more and more sorrow with every bit of temporary relief they offer. Falsehood is always loaded with side effects.


The weeds, although without existence in fact,  are cunning enough to realize that when the organism they house dies the brain will cease to think and they will end with the ending of the brain. They do not want to face death and their demise so they have invented by thought another world after death of the organism where they believe they will go and finally be happy. The other world has to be, of course, as illusory as the illusory weeds who invent it.


Time rules in the world of illusion. Every illusory weed from the richest to the poorest is striving to become over time something better.  However, the wheat, the identity of a human being as a fact, knows something that cannot be taught that makes all the difference. Nobody can teach anybody who is living in the world of illusion that particular know-how. Each weed has to find his or her own way out of illusion. This requires a very serious study of how the illusory self operates. It is necessary and possible to completely see what weeds are doing. The trickiest part of it is that the weeds are not troublemakers in the weed world at all, they are its leaders, the respected authorities who always promote other weeds to strive to become better over time. They use a system of reward and punishment to do so. And drugs.


Meanwhile, wheat knows it is already wheat and lives fully as that which it is in each moment. Time has no power over wheat. In this way a fulfilled life results. At death of the organism, the wheat is filled with profound gratitude. At death, for weeds, there is absolutely no meaning to or value in the illusory life they have suffered. They remain stuck with, “Well, it was hard and confusing but I tried.” 


The writer does not want the reader to agree with what is written here. The purpose has been to encourage a deep search within. And it must be stressed every weed is one’s own guru. Gurus are weeds. They want weeds to adjust to life as an illusion. Wheat will not even consider being a weed’s guru. It is that simple. 


This whole dialogue is based upon one thing- people invented with thinking symbols for some truth. Impressed with themselves, they began schools of symbols and soon forgot the truth. This is so of both science and religion. The new truth for people became its symbol. Why? For one thing, it is more convenient. Also, it attracts followers. Followers can be counted. Records can be kept. In Christianity, for example, people worship “Christmas” and pay no attention to the wordless truth behind it that every baby, however humble, is a savior of itself. Truth is a magnificent mystery and its discoveries great acts of purgation. Symbols are puzzle pieces that when put together amount to a totally meaningless symbolic gesture revealing nothing more than a hunger to control something-anything.


Successful hunting!

  



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