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!

Monday, April 25, 2022

 BEYOND THINKING


Perhaps something which is very complex can be spoken simply. Once upon a time people on Planet Earth acted immediately in the now. Almost exclusively. Then thinking was introduced. At first on a limited basis. It grew rapidly. Without knowing it, people crossed a line into a world where thinking dominates action. Life changed.


Thinking is built on two things. Memory of a past which anticipates a future. The past and the future are its foundation, in other words. “I have been this I will be that.” I ate strawberries in the past and I want to eat them again. Question that goes unasked is: who is it says I ate strawberries and desire to eat them again? That, whatever it is, is now in charge of your life and is going to run it from now on is why it is important to ask that question. What is it? From where did it come? How real is it? How reliable? It may seem that the one who thinks is who I am but is it so? “I am” just might be something that was here before thinking began to predominate.


A most influential book in the field of psychology was published in the 1970’s. It definitely and brazenly declared a breakdown of the bi-cameral mind (brain) occurred centuries earlier and was the dawn of consciousness for human beings. People were at that time freed from being controlled by God. And yet, people who have had extreme  difficulty adjusting to the world of man in recent times, through serious psychic exploration, have become aware, at least to an extent, of a fact that all time is in the present moment and, therefore, effective action is always clear and instant. These ones claim their life has shifted from a difficult one to a thoroughly enjoyable one for which change they cannot find sufficient words to express extreme gratitude. And they uniformly declare for them “real” consciousness arose with the reduction in the value of a separate self rather than an elevation of its importance. The consciousness they speak of includes the whole world or the big picture. 


No attempt will be here made to go any further on the matter since the writer knows only those who are truly interested will go to the trouble to find for themselves what the author is discussing. All depends on you finally. If you find you will not bother to search for the psychology book and read it as a beginning you are not ready for the challenge. Perhaps at a later time you will be moved to dig for answers if the question sufficiently pressures you to do so. The problems associated with thinking as described here cannot, of course, be resolved by more thinking in the same dimension. Albert Einstein spoke that and realized that to continue to do the same thing expecting a different result is insanity. That is why this dialog ends here.