The Heart of the

Matter

It was suggested recently that one should examine one's heart. Just what could that entail? Who would it be who could examine my heart if not my heart itself? And if that is so why would my heart want to examine itself? Does anyone think his heart does not know itself? In speaking of a living person what could it mean to suggest there is more to him than his heart knows? I mean is not the heart the center of all experience? And is there some real part of me that lies somehow separate from the full experience of life? And talks to me a lot?

Ahh, it's an abstraction is it not? It is a metaphor separating me from my source reducing me to some list of characteristics to make of me manageable They call it education. The Salt of the Earth is a puppet while the speaker, an abstraction, is speaking of more abstractions as real people to feed illusion. So, it's bullshit! We listen to it so we must be crazy and “all the world's a fucking stage” like Shakespeare wrote it and you an actor with an employer and a director, also actors. Someone is playing Doctor.

It has been suggested that following any tragic episode one should take time to repair one's heart. Who is the heart repair man? I mean is someone even talking to me who is referring to some function that is not me and calling it my heart and meaning it belongs to me like a wrist watch? Does that make any sense to anybody else? And if it does and my wrist watch does break to whom do I take it to be repaired?

Let us presume for a moment that anyone who thinks he is other than the essence of being to be a nut case. And furthermore, anyone who speaks as someone other than the heart of himself is wacko; or, is undergoing hypnosis. When someone says, “My heart is broken”, doesn't he mean, “I am broken”? If I break who can repair me? That is what I am getting at. That is what I need to get at. Once there remain. Be who actually I am. Leave the stage. I bet you think I have to die to exit the stage a man named Shakespeare built of words. How do you know William himself, feigning an illness, did not wish me to see through his ploy and walk off the stage a free man? That is how I read it. Who do you worship? How is something so rich with meaning as that to be decided? Who do I worship? For a long time it has been suggested by poets of the heart we do all worship something.

art by johnny smith

No Foolin'

It is so obvious we overlook it and fall for the same cockeyed shit every morning of our lives. Dumber are we than every squirrel we named. We named. The real question we should ask ourselves is how did we get to be so dumb as to be talking puppets with memorized slogans, flags, decals, cell phones, and I D badges? We pretend we have to listen to a set of media voices each day just to be reminded who we are and how we think. Jesus. All I am working to do is show one of you that.

Anyone who sees is glad that he knows what he is not. And that means he knows who he is. And there is absolutely no use naming him since he is beyond being named. It is like he is someone who changes instantly the moment you describe him. Or, someone who is always going to expand too much to fit a defined personality even for a joke. Or, someone who slips free of every attempt to bind him and breaks out of every jail faster than you can say, “What we have here...

I heard a man ask, Who in the world am I? And it struck me to reply, Nobody, Fool!

There is one thing we all can admit we know for certain and it is that nobody is any part of a world. I do not know what you think of what I just told you. So, you tell me how anyone could be a member of any organization except the one every baby has been born into like clockwork since the beginning. The obvious one. Duh?

I tell you that it is impossible to put me into a world you invent. For instance, squirrels eat seeds I place in a feeder for birds like they are entitled to eat when hungry. Don't they know? What? That they are not birds?

You don't.

The Post that grows on a vine

What if you knew you would not be alive today except that someone you cannot remember holds you in their heart who will not let you go. That you owe.  A vital debt you can never repay? One thing that is true of a whooper swan-and this is wonderful to know- is that we do not look for anyone who is not interested. We seek only those who are, and yet, that can change and always it does.

Added next morning: One lacks the proper emphasis.  The difference between a focus upon the source of the daily bread and relishing the bread itself is vast. Certainly, the difference is major between the source of it and the store which sells the bread to me.  Likewise, the source of it and the career at which one labors to get the money to buy the bread from the store that sells it to me are galaxies apart, speaking in terms of physics, that is. But, they are even more distant in terms of the heart which nobody can locate because it has no locus in physical terms. It exists all right; but in its refusal to stay put lie its sparkling wonders...its usefulness to hearts on fire.

Added next morning: Although some would say that when building a civilization it will be observed that remnants of the wild, unregulated situation being eradicated will expose the worst of natural man's indecencies which must be met with stiff rules and sharp punishments in order to progress the herd along the road to a utopian decency, even requiring death sentences to be carried out before the eyes of loved ones...all to be viewed publicly by means of electronic devices in living rooms and bedrooms and bars, and everywhere else civilized people are to be found,

I see it otherwise,

in truth the impressment of the pattern of a society made by the hands of man against the body corporate brings a tremendously painful distress to the hearts of those individuals not yet deadened by the anesthesia of its schools which are designed to prepare them to become as lobotomized citizens obedient to mental imprisonment in a most narrow world to which natural man is unaccustomed and in which unfit to live. The two views oppose one another diabolically. The focuses are in entirely different directions. When the same person who is hired to tend a garden sneaks into it under cover of darkness to damage it so as to keep his job, how can the garden be expected to grow?

The horrors of election campaigns alone contribute to the troubles politicians feed upon, like vultures to carrion-it's enough to make you puke. And, all the candidates are mere pawns in the game of how a few are to make losers of the millions. Ordinary citizens of a society, captured pawns off the board and out of play, are not a real concern. Blind office-seeking pawns argue with one another the obvious failings of their profession and the voting but nonparticipating pawns are asked to select one of them to drive the runaway train, which, lost and long off its assigned track, barreling toward oblivion, must forever fail to correct itself.

In Nature, groups act as one without hesitation and thrive. The emphasis is the proper one. It sets the course all parts follow. We, the people of the world, are like that and have been called by wise men The Salt of the Earth. How much further of course can anything be?

The good news: the answer is present, is within us, and is with us and is us. A perfect collaboration of man and the Divine is nearer than near. It is not to be built...it is present. Let go. Listen to the heart.

Added two days later: In my own life it was when I came to the crossroads that it happened.  Someone asked when I took the road less traveled, "What will you do now?" I replied in joy " I really have no clue what will come as I walk this way for it is a new way I have not tried and all I know is "I will not go back to what I just left behind me no matter what!"

Experience has shown me that no existing system can be changed from within that system.  It is not possible for someone inside to change it since that one is always performing as a part of the existing system. When in the course of human events it becomes intolerable for a human being to go on in the same way it means the existing system has become an intolerable system so one must throw off its unnatural chains in favor of freedom.

Added next morning: Bob Dylan, a pretty good poet, once told that "just because you are supporting somebody who is struggling for something doesn't mean you're being political". To see that saves a whole lot of frustration, agony, and failure which can lead to bitterness. Never expect anything from anybody or any group that tells you they exist so you can expect something from them. If you get help in life you bring it out of the other(s) with a light from your eyes. For example, when your Mama fixes you a lunch to take with you to school. Realize this.

Added next morning:  In any system of authority, no matter its nature, there will never be found fairness.  Think about this. So, you are told that perfect fairness is impossible, we do the best we can, but we must have bosses. And yet, I tell you that it happens to be so that perfect fairness does exist, is closer than the veins in your neck are close to you and me, and belongs to us by a merciful gift from the giver of life. All we need do is align ourselves with the source of breath then allow love and mercy to flow through us like water flowing to the Sea. Could we be farther off course as a species? Let us correct that error by placing the emphasis properly where it belongs to free ourselves from tragedy unnecessary.

Added Tuesday November 1: What if you believed there is but one life long commitment you need to make...only one...in order to solve all your problems...all of them at once?  And what if that commitment amounts to a full allegiance to your true Self? I tell that it is so. But you should not believe me.  Find out for yourself.  Why? You can.

Added Thursday, November 3: The present of the present is the presence. To know of a presence that is unnamed and fresh and new and unblemished who is its own authority moment to moment should not be missed. Why?  Because you can.

Added Friday morning, November 4:  Why are the people indigenous to America imprisoned on reservations to this day? And why do the rest of us take more and more of it back every time we have a reason?  Because we can...because we write and we rewrite the laws that define and enforce the treaties we forced them to sign on threat of annihilation? meaning we can change the treaties anytime in any way that suits our greedy appetites? Can we not do better by them...and ourselves? Will we ever change?

Added Monday November 7: Humans are not limited to the ground or below it. We can arise and we should be about it. It's taken so long to do nothing but talk about it. Time to rise up!

At the bottom there is politics. Politics demands leadership. Followers and leaders of followers is at the lowest rung of the human ladder. Nobody with any sand will lead somebody who will agree to follow. Step up. There are no followers at the first rung. Step up. That first step everybody takes for himself. After that, leaders will be forgotten forever. A human free soul is invited to Heaven now. Step up.

Humans are not limited to the ground or below it. We can arise and we should be about it. It's taken so long to do nothing but talk about it. Time to rise up!

Up to now, people who only talk have been willing to pass laws demanding compliance on the broken theory that people will be so afraid to be punished they will be good. All talk. Nothing changes. We still fall so short of our dreams we disgrace the whole tree of life. Even rocks are disgusted. Monkeys laugh at our politics. And our philosophers? Baboons fart in the faces of them all. Philosophers write only to each other. Nothing changes.

Humans are not limited to the ground or below it. We can arise and we should be about it. It's taken so long to do nothing but talk about it. Time to rise up!

Don't be fooled by celebrity for it is manufactured by the money grinch who crawls in the real dark world underground and do not seek the autograph of anyone, it lessens you to do that. Nobody worth his autograph will stoop to give it nor sign his name for anyone who thinks he is better off with it.

Humans are not limited to the ground or below it. We can arise and we should be about it. It's taken so long to do nothing but talk about it. Time to rise up!

Added Tuesday, November 8:  Swimming in the Ocean of All Knowledge and not knowing is enough to make you laugh.

Added a few minutes later:

When you touch

someuniversaltruth

it is beyond you.

What does that mean? Ask nobody.

There is within a human being's heart A Great Reality. It shines a bright light to the world. The Light attracts all that has been prepared for the human sojourn on Earth, about 25,000 days worth of supplies, more or less. Your stay here has been impeccably arranged and you lost the key. Funny, the key you lost, nothing has it.

Added Sunday, November 13:  Leonard Cohen wrote that a saint "rides the drifts like an escaped ski".

Added Thursday November 17: "The subject tonight is love, and for tomorrow night as well.
As a matter of fact, I know of no better topic for us to discuss until we all die!"
-Hafez

ENOUGH SAID

Getting Started

There is a chief problem that were it to be addressed and solved the rest would fall by the wayside in complete adoption of overwhelming truth. That shortcoming among us is the failure to show loyalty to the essence of who we are. Rather, we betray it many times a day. I want to be strong enough to withstand the allure of a temptation that would have me sell my soul for an offer of money. But I cannot.

What am I afraid of? I wonder. Do you know? What is it about me that wants something I do not believe I have that money can buy? What doors are opened by it? Think. What has been my actual experience? What have others told me from their experience? I recall now that every job I have ever taken has become a disappointment very soon and a thing I want to avoid but cannot. I need a pill to go to work.

I have been told of something I have that cannot be taken from me. What is it? Is there such? It is placed I am told where no thief can enter and no fire can reach and no storm can bother and no exploding bomb destroy and it is absolutely safe there. Where? Is there such a place? Think.

Were I to find this place and discover there a something that I have what might that be? I am told its nature is such that when I know I have it I will be true to my heart as if it were the most natural thing to do and never betray my own essential nature and be in love. Be in love. What if it is love? What if the place is a state, not a space? How do I find a state...of...wholeness where it all makes sense to me?

Look within? How? With my attention? How much? All of it? When? Now? How often? Daily? Always? Pray without ceasing? Are you kidding me? No?

I better get started.

Athlete: Standing up here selling these products I feel such a phony.

Manager: If you want to finance baseball so you can play in the Bigs,

we have to make enough money to finance baseball.

Seven points:

1. Is it anything but foolish to choose what you do by how much money it can make?

2. How difficult is it to decline to be used in a fraudulent manner?

3. How difficult is it to play games for the pure joy of playing them whenever and wherever that is possible with no concern for the limelight?

4. What's the limelight good for?

5. Anything?

6. How many have been made sick by fame?

7. Someone figured us out.

An Individual's Very Own 

Declaration of Independence

We hold this truth to be self evident:

When laws and the crimes they define become irrelevant jails empty out on their own accord and peace prevails in the land. And, in the abyss that lies between the past and the future in that darkness so greatly feared by people who formulate hidden agendas

lives freedom for all

where each one becomes his own authority

              takes naked responsibility for his own truth

risks the moment, and shoos his own flies

calls his own dog, keeps his own counsel,

accepts his own fate, blows his own whistle

draws his own conclusions, fights his own battles,

sweeps his own side of the street, makes up his own mind

faces his own challenges, finds his own strength,

stands on his own feet, answers his own question,

has nobody to blame,

and lives before he dies.

Hanging In The Balance

Beginning in the 1960's, a photographer named Sebastiao Salgado, of Brazil, made drawings with light by camera and they called it photography. Picturing the suffering of humanity on Earth he documented horror. Reflections in black and white on paper to show all that what people have done to themselves and to the others is deeply embedded in the ongoing psyche of every man and woman who will live here and it will be so until purged. In the quest for riches that power an empire, be it an empire of one man or millions, there is no limit to the level of disgrace to which man has willing stooped. An empire comes and it goes and another replaces it. People are enslaved, tortured, starved, annihilated. By other people. Just before dying of deep soul sickness brought on by what he had witnessed, Sebastiao discovered a truth and it changed everything for him to allow him to live on as a recovered soul. A recovered soul. The impossible story of the resurrection of a man's soul is of vital importance to many who now are ready to hear. And more who will become ready shortly.

How can it be? Sebastiao returned to his birth home. To a once thriving cattle farm carved from a splendid forest that in his absence had been transformed into a desert that would no longer support a family. His aging parents were stymied. They had no idea how to make a comeback. Sebastiao's wife suggested, Why not replant the forest? And they began, having no alternative in sight. They had no one to teach them how such a thing is to be done and no book of directions. In ten years the forest had been resurrected. Today it is a paradise to behold. The Salgado family has relinquished all claim to its ownership by returning the forest to the people of Brazil. A park.

This Sebastiao found to be true: As constant as the determination of people to destroy the planet and their own souls in the process is the determination to restore it and recover their souls in that process. This balance, unplanned by man, works by a force that has been present before first man which has been known on occasion to pass through a man as its conduit to make it so. But, only after sickness of the soul has nearly destroyed him and an admission of the sorry state wherein he finds himself some are reborn. Those living on following rebirth begin a march to fully recover lost soul.

Once, long ago, to America sick people came in ships in search of India's riches to steal them after killing Indians. Upon discovering they were not in India as planned they decided to try their luck in the New World they had found. If it contained gold and silver they would have it all after killing and raping Indians as planned. The disease spread across Europe and many countries sent ships to the New World of Indians not living in India as expected. To rape, murder, and plunder. They soon brought ships filled with Europe's undesirables as settlers to oversee the fiendish operation and share in the spoils. In record time, the Americas, (North, Central, and South) were owned by the Europeans, at first those living back in Europe who sent the ships, later by those well armed Europeans and some of the mixed bloods trained and armed by them, now living on American soil. The not-Indian Indians had no chance really. They suffered before photography developed to record it. But they suffered mightily at the hands of the greedy white invaders. The whites never have admitted the harm caused by their greedy ways nor have they even attempted to make things right, for they continue to imbibe every liquor of nastier and nastier greed to this day. And have been able to corrupt souls everywhere by now locking them in a web of ambitious and clever salesmanship in a shell game by another name.

So, it is going to happen that some who will become desperately ill with soul sickness, will, just before they are killed by the weight of it, be reborn psychically to begin the march to fully recover lost balance of psyche for the individual who wants it which will require dedicated service to the replanting and nurturing of a garden that had been in existence previously all without coercion nor an instruction manual to guide them to do it faithfully, silently, humbly, without praise, through intuitive knowledge revealed simultaneously to a band of equals who will have arisen from every conceivable circumstance to work together as brothers and sisters in love with patient attention to detail. Once bitter enemies will be recognized among them and all will be forgiven. The garden spoken of is, of course, the 

 Reality of Man.