The Little Story With A Big Heart {}

I want to tell you a little story you are a part of. Around July 5 my son, Ran, wrote to me asking me to come to Costa Rica, saying, I need you. I dropped everything and began to make arrangements to come. On July 10 I arrived.

Shortly after, a woman named Linda knocked on the door where I was typing away on the keyboard of this computer thoroughly engrossed in what I was writing in great focused joy. She said she was told by another woman that I was visiting my son here. Her friend, Mary, suggested she come meet me and offer to sublet her house while she was going to be away until November. She saw I had deluxe accommodations and probably would not want to move but offered to show me the place anyway. I went with her. It is only a quarter mile or so up a dirt road from Ran's place. Man, it has this really great view and the cabin is such a marvel of construction, so fine. Linda's place is Linda! I loved it immediately but told her I'd have to speak with my son and daughter to makes sure my renting her place would not conflict with their plans or needs. But, told her that in my heart I'd already sublet her beautiful home. She smiled.

Well, you know what? A puma came to visit me there one evening. The big cats are very rarely seen though people know them to be around. Very secretive. They are protected by law here. I was honored and shaken by the experience. It has been working on me since and teaches me every day. About life, living, really living.

In the course of exchanging emails with Linda she revealed that she had been wanting really badly to see a puma since she has been here and wanted every detail of the experience I was able to give. Then she told me she had been working with a Shaman in Peru for a long time who taught her about the puma. Told her the puma is her spirit animal. I connected this information to my knowledge that Ran is going to Peru in September to hike the trail to Machu Picchu as a quest for inner peace and understanding. He was badly shaken by the death of a young boy, at his house on July 5 who fell from a cliff onto boulders below and died. He blamed himself. More, though, he was reminded of himself as a wild, young boy and felt a deep loss. That was the reason he had asked me to come.

I had a feeling that this Shaman in Peru had something to teach my son so I told Ran about Linda's revelation to me in the wake of the highly unusual visit by a puma to my back door. Ran seemed to ignore my attempt to arouse in him some wonder or curiosity at least. I sadly let it drop. It was about this time I made the decision to extend my stay here because all that was happening was too good to deny. You were somehow counted among those willing to move all my stuff out of the cabin back in Austin to make that possible for me. I know, but it's so anyway. Believe me and accept my gratitude.

Meanwhile, Ran and his family traveled to Philadelphia to take his daughter, my granddaughter, to school. Ryan is 15 and going a long way from home for the first time. They returned home yesterday and this morning we were visiting and Ran said, “Oh, by the way, you know, I told you I had reached out to Linda about a Shaman…

I immediately broke in, “No, I didn't know that!”

Ran: I thought I told you, well, she sent me contacts in Peru which I emailed and told them everything, about Kyle's death, everything, and learned that the Shaman is out of the country at this time. I was disappointed, of course, and thinking of that sadly when I got an email from one of them yesterday while sittiing on the airplane returning from Philadelphia saying the Shaman will be back in Peru at Cusco on September 19, and she wanted to know my travel plans to determine whether she can setup a meeting for me with him. Can you believe it? It's the very day I arrive! I am so excited.

I then told Ran what I wanted to say throughout our talks here but the timing had never felt right for it. Here's what I told him,

Man, in my experience, which is all I have to share with anyone, it was not until I found a living human being that I trusted without reservation to be my teacher that I was able to fully surrender my life, to sincerely ask that man to be my teacher, that my life became real to me. Until then, I had always held back something and to do that prevents absolute surrender which means I was still running my show, just gathering teachers to take pieces I was ready to let go. Which means, of course, the one who needed to change was going to make the change and that is totally not going to happen. Now, I want to say: pay attention, close attention, and when you hear a person say: I cannot teach you what you already know, I can only point you to the knowledge in your heart because you have already what you seek there- grab on to that person and let go absolutely and beg him or her to be your teacher withholding nothing. A teacher is a mirror. What happens you may not recognize for a long time but someday you will-your heart chooses the teacher and by letting it you turn the reins of your life over finally to the one friend inside who knows the secret you so badly need. That is the best I can do for you, my child.

That is the end of the little story

My teacher laughs a lot.

A Better Place

There was a man who decided to tell people he wanted to be a writer. He tried day and night but could not get anything he wrote published. Then something happened.  He found a manuscript in a satchel his wife purchased for him at a flea market. He read it that night and wept at its beauty. Oh, how he wished he could write like that. Secretly, he typed it up and then offered it to a publisher as his own. The publisher was amazed at the manuscript and wanted to publish right away. So, the man became a famous writer.

What is important to understand is that the man did not really have any interest in writing.  He wanted something else. Something he lacked. He wanted only the results of being a published writer as set out by the culture he served. He proved that when he stole the manuscript.

So, why are we doing things we do not really have an interest in? Why are we looking outside ourselves for approval and validation? Why do we want to be loved?

We are lonely.

Why are we lonely?

We do not feel love.

Where is love?

Inside us.

How much?

An ocean.

Furthermore, had the man not stolen he would still be lonely. So, to judge him to be a thief is ridiculous and futile. He is sad. He must find the love in his own heart.  When he does, he will begin doing what he is truly interested in doing. We must help him. We must find it in our hearts to help him. Only in that way will the world become a better place.

Culture. What is it? It must have begun with a mere chronicling of something observed about some people occupying a common area of the world. A comment, nothing more; seemingly innocent and not very interesting. For example, the people here only eat one meal a day, morning, and not three as do we. But it caught on. Perhaps bored, curious people saw in it a way to occupy themselves studying somebody else to avoid looking at themselves. I am guessing. Whatever its reasons, the outcropping is a dangerous place to play. It means I risk falling into a tar pit from which nobody escapes. Here is the ugliest part: the culture once it has us in its grip tells us we only exist for the glorification of its never ending story. It claims even to hold the Supreme Being captive for us. It's a bastard!

And, by now, every nation has its layers upon layers of cultural overseers. They are all about convention. That spells death. In every one of them there is a firm belief that the culture of the nation is the important thing. More so than the life of any baby. After all, the babies belong now to the culture. In every culture on Earth a trained horde of professional workers guard it day and night as the national treasure. There is the question of food and dress and language and emergency response and education and ethics and art and literature and music and religion and architecture and laws and law enforcement and commerce and national defense and health practices and recreation and all the countless labels. It is so complex by now it cannot possibly be grasped nor comprehended to any remotely complete extent by anybody. For the purposes of this writing the foregoing is deemed a sufficient description to communicate what is known by everybody to exist. Most consider it an absolute necessity. The other thing to know is that it dominates and shapes the lives of its members from cradle to grave. Finally, it it is important to realize the damned things that dominate you do not exist! More important, it does not even think for itself. It's like a puppet people operate for show. The hands inside the puppets' handmade bodies that give to them all of their power on Earth are the marvelously adept hands of human beings like you. Gods unaware! We could do so much better if only we believed in ourselves.

How often is anyone asking why do we not? How did this happen? Is it good? It is so absurd that even the methods of rebellion against the society are created as part of the culture by the culture and carried on inside it as determined by it. In other words, absolutely nobody is fucking real anymore. I had to face the truth that my own spiritual guru is a fake. And this is important.  He is a fake, not by the force of his ego, my own. I made him up to make the transition from caged tiger to free, wild reality. 

The inquiry open here is to study how a symbol for a thing becomes the thing. It goes like this-a bunch of people settle on an island. They symbolically name the place New York City. After awhile, New York is the happening thing and the people who named it are its servants voluntarily. The symbol now taxes them, arrests them, fines them, jails them, educates them, and separates them into classifications or castes difficult or impossible to escape in a lifetime. Imagine if you brought a puppy home and named it and fed it and it grew up to tax, arrest, punish, and classify you for the rest of your life! This is worse than that! At least a puppy is alive.

Situation. People today live to serve inside a culture and the culture has no existence except in the minds of people who are thought of by the population at large as its people. In other words people belong to a culture. Everybody in the population. Reading a novel about someone hiking the Pacific Crest Trail reveals that the trail was created by long and difficult attempts for a hundred years to get the proper federal authorities to initially officially designate it as such and then build it. I bet fifty people could have done a better trail in less than three years and would have maintained it through loving care in ways unimaginable at the beginning. Think of all the famous art that was created under the official direction and control of the Catholic Church as another example of this monstrosity. All those faked religious paintings! And, all the fake memorials to famous cultural heroes, my God! Do not you know the greatest hero is one nobody remembers for being that? The ones who kept the flame of truth burning in the attics and basements and unlit alleys of the culture's over looming artificial history? Those heroes? Famous for their anonymity? Where is the statue to them to be found?  The ones who died friendless in drunken, addictive, swollen, heartbreaking misery unable to speak their desperate need to be free of convention's locked  heavy door? Where?

That is backward. Cultures should belong to people. People should define culture rather than the other way around. The children's story of the emperor's new clothes comes to mind. The purpose here is merely to point out that the emperor is naked. Culture is dull, cunning, ravenous, boring, and blind. What you serve is so naked it has no beingness no life and no heart. All the ridiculous mascots and uniforms and flags and store bought pre-assembled teams you serve, My God! They buy that colored crepe paper at the dime store for a quarter. Do you not realize you are alive?

People, on the other hand, are bright, interesting, kind, generous,  courageous, and talented. It ought to work where we simply do what we truly want to do all of our lives and a clerk, if someone is moved to be one, merely reports on that as evidence of what we have done together as people to inspire us to greater heights of glory. Come to think of it, a clerk position is totally obsolete. And that is culture enough. The culture that had none. The culture that must always be coming. Every day a new wrinkle that comes out of the places least expected of having that one.

After all, a pack of wolves runs free so why can't we?

Let us truly live.

So, when you consider that a person who loves never considers himself to be a lover you gotta wonder what have we been doing the last few thousand years? We have been honing away at ourselves, alone and in groups, to become what cannot be achieved. What must inevitably happen to people who do that? Right. Suffering.

Somebody has twisted your mind in a knot. Life is not an obstacle course of challenges. It happens. It happens like your birthday...which comes to you wherever you are every time the Earth completes another cycle around the Sun. I am reading a story about a novice hiker on a trek through wilderness to find something she cannot name. Man, she encounters so many difficulties, each of which she reports leads her to the same conclusion...keep walking. I met her only on the pages of her book but I love her.

They told me, If you don't know where you are going, any road will do. (and laughed) I say, If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. (and sigh) I am so aware just now of one thing: when I am open and empty of any motive without a clue where I want to go I am at my best and I cannot fail.

I say, we are drawn to walk, or sometimes kicked in the ass, and we walk on a journey without purpose to discover we have never fucked up. That's peace, Man. But those who walk with purpose, to save themselves from some imagined suffering, remain in limbo even though dressed in robes of salvation chanting psalms and prayers and proverbs.

Okay, someone who feels guilty may choose to whip herself continuously until she finally frees herself from the guilt only to discover she never did fuck up since the conduct she abhorred in herself led her to beat the shit out of herself which has led her to peace which is why she chose the self administered whippings. It's all good does not mean, whip Hell out of yourself, or drink yourself sick, or have sex with everybody you meet; it means whip Hell out of yourself if you want to.

p.s. You only want to when you want to. And nobody is going to change because I tell them to, real change will come when the person who changes wants it to be so.

To Understand

If you know you do not know what you are seeking, you will not ever tell yourself you are not following the correct path. And, nobody else can tell you that. Simply go where you have not yet been. You see, it is the damned if I do, damned if I don't bind that has mankind tied in dreadful knots. We don't have to be like that anymore.

Men are so very nice to know who know they do not know.

Men destroy so much when they think they know what they want,

they don't.

Take gold or oil, for instance, or love, what a mess those caused;

but when a man knows, I do not even know what I am seeking anymore

such a true friend you never have ever had before.

It is that simple to become what all living things adore.

If you feel this poem silly. Consider the facts: how can one who is all he is- nothing less or more- know what he's supposed to be wishing for? 

The very idea is like wishing not to be your self anymore.

Even those who wish for cancer's cure have no idea what's going to be behind that door. 

That means: I do not know how to keep score! 

What really is funny is how many of us are striving to get somewhere else who do not know a damn thing yet about where we are. (not to mention who or what)

I am currently living in a house with someone who speaks only Spanish while I speak only English. We two together. Nobody else. I gotta tell ya it is has been fun! As soon as one of us learns the other's language the trouble will begin. As it is we have a perfect understanding...we know we cannot understand each other. I am beginning to believe ol' Tarzan got it right. “Me Tarzan. You Jane.”

If a man be demented, does he know he is-

demented?

Keeping this truth in mind, let us consider ourselves

as we are now.

What if we are demented?

Those who are not will

appear to us to be crazy-

way off the norm-

as we perceive the norm (which is crazy)

No?

Time and time again we raise heroes up and

they fall down in a profound but ugly crash.

We say: what a pity he did not make it, but,

what if

we are crazy?

And, what if, for the sane man to survive among us

is to bear a burden of lonely isolation so great nobody has

yet to make it through, sanity intact.

So much anger arises in him with no friend -nobody gets me-nobody appreciates greatness-

nobody tries-everybody is sitting on their asses-that the sane man we admired

becomes a cruel and violent monster

striking hardest at those closest to him?

Dr. Jekyll met Mr. Hide, who said-

no friend cares what his friend says or does.

Only in that freedom greatness never dreamed,

hiding was!

Certainty, My Love?

Tell me I can count on having your love until death parts us. I cannot bear the thought of you giving your love to another. The uncertainty of this arrangement is killing me. I must know I have you.

Are you not content to have love for one night, this one night? Whatever gives you the concept of having me?

You are my dream come true. I want no other. Forever.

What makes you believe such a thing? Why must you think?

My parents married in a church before God and people and live together as man and wife to this day.

Do you really think I am the source of love, a fountain of it? Stop thinking. Can I determine where love chooses to go? Did I begin this feeling in you? Or me? It happened. How do things happen? You are lying. I do not believe you. You ask me for such a promise when we both know you, yourself cannot know who or when you will leave me for someone else? Nonsense.

Love is nonsense. Did you not know? It is meant to be crazy. It is crazy.

Then let us accept that as true. We must go mad to be in love. A crazy person is never held to promises. There is one love. It consumes promises and out beyond promises there is an open field. I met you there. Life in that field is far better than any other life. You have to trust me.

How can I?

If you cannot, have no truck with me.