From the outset, was it ever going to work?

I was told some kings sat on thrones in Europe in 1492 where kings and queens had ruled for a very long time under a false claim of divine right claiming that God Almighty had given them power over others not to be questioned on penalty of death. There the whole property thing had begun upon a proclamation the land all belonged to the sovereign and he or she parceled it out to select favorites on a promise they would use it to amass a lot of wealth and pay taxes to the sovereign. These land owners were then falsely made by the sovereign to be royalty also ruling in specified locations under the king or queen's authority with titles to be passed on to their heirs. Or, something like that. Whatever exactly happened it was pure bullshit and everybody with a human brain knew that.

Europe became Hell for millions of its citizens who wanted out to make a new start. You know living as a serf to a bunch of megalomaniacs is no fun. It is madness. So, someone had the idea first to send these undesirables on boats across the sea if a boat could float far enough to find land and work it.

Then some of the royal gentry realized an opportunity presented itself for them to go along in first class accommodations as bosses to actually own the land that was to be found in the name of the sovereign and keep the same basic system going in the New World, which they called it. Actually, there was nothing New about it. At the beginning the white skinned Europeans thought they had found India and so called the natives of the land they came upon to be Indians. Whatever they called the people of the New World they treated them poorly indeed. Torture, murder, and rape were common. Gold was what they hoped to find first and take as their own. Much blood was spilled. It was evil.

What is hard to explain is how somebody thought to be in charge told the other Europeans that they (the bosses) had the authority to parcel out land in this so-called New World to them that would be rightfully theirs to hold for a lifetime and pass on to heirs after death. There was probably some mumbo-jumbo to the effect God wants it to be so. It involved murder to bring it about. Knowing just this much is it not easy to understand all the wars these Europeans have engaged in throughout the centuries and all the misery they have suffered? And how the squabbles are never ending? And how they threaten now to terminate the human race?

From the outset, was it ever going to work? Being convinced, are you ready to do your small part to restore sanity to the scene? I cannot think for you. You are going to have to decide, in light of what has gone before, what is required of me to accomplish that. This is no place for excuses nor for imitation of others. Something real.

One parent says to its child: You have failed to live up to the taught as proper code of behavior designed to lead you down a straight path of righteousness and you have dishonored my name. Shame on you. You were taught better.

Another says: You have failed to live up to the taught as proper code of behavior designed to lead you down a straight path of righteousness; and, so, I must confess to you, did I fail. Remember, I told you that I had found a way to live on after that failure? Well, it is what I have to offer anyone in your shoes. There is a resource in your soul that you can contact in your hour of misery and ask in your own words for help. I suggest you try that; for in so doing, I came eventually to see my downfall as a singular benefit. It may be so for you. I love you and always will. The paths of righteousness lead invariably to Hell on Earth.

Most will say with force that they know the difference between right and wrong behavior and not one of them know truth. Beauty is truth, truth beauty, as the poet wrote. And it is all we need to know.

How'd ya like to make $250,000? Do you know any red blooded American boy who would turn that down?

Suppose what you are asked to do is a little bit shady? A good deal shady? Down right felonious? Who in the employ of a corporation of a size large enough to influence legislation is not confronted with such challenges? Is it not the expected? When does a young person find it out? First year? Even before that?

Who are we kidding? We all live off the crimes. Even the small businesses are taking chances of being caught for wrongdoing to make larger profits. It is so tempting and so contagious. What else can be expected in a society that worships wealth measured in dollar earnings? Universities cheat at football to make big dough. Universities! Elementary schools cheat the system every day. Doctors cheat patients constantly. Lawyers cheat clients. Priests cheat families. The manager cheats the artist. The fan cheats the musician. And spouses? Parents? Kids? Fact is, you would have to look very closely with a powerful microscope or a blood hound to find anyone not cheating his way to the top and one of the most outrageous myths told and retold in the public media is that before law and order was brought into the picture in a wholesale way and made to be present constantly the place was filled with crime. Then it becomes easy to convince the public that we must have ever increasing police protection. It is seemingly apparent to everyone that wild, free people are horrible people. And yet, all the evidence points to the opposite. Controlled, manipulated conforming populations are wicked beyond belief. Living wild things actually get along in a naturally balanced way with little, if any, malice present. Wealthy members of the elite corps of citizens who want to believe they got that way by hard work and honest toil (and not by cheating) go to sleep at night in expensive mansions knowing that many children in their communities are starving to death unable to sleep from the pain of hunger. Some will perish in the night not because there is no food available, but because it is not available to them.

It is not the intention here to leave an impression that the poorer members of a cash driven society are victims. They are more accurately viewed as the losers in a contest of questionable virtue. In this setting it is the intention to suggest to the losers a new way of living.

The popular message is that when the lights go out on society's fun bubble of greed all of us will eat each other raw. It is at least as likely we will all finally love one another again. I would say the odds lie heavily on the side of peace. What is known, and has been so for thousands and thousands of years by some, is that if any man or woman chooses to step free of the game being played and give reality a chance to show what it can do for someone, anyone willing to accept it, wealth beyond one's wildest dreams. What is promised is a way of life that is passionately felt, and fully realized in a fulfillment at the core of one's being. That, and only that, satisfies the human heart. The other choice is to remain in a rigged game like Las Vegas with its flashy lights knowing that even if you win the prestigious award society praises you will know it is given out by liars with dirty hands which will cancel any hint of your deserving any glory. Lest you try, you will never know the purity that is felt and so known by a completely anonymous person who has given all that he has to save another.

What's Going On? And What Can be Done?

Odds are, the Salvation Army Christmas bell ringer under a flag that reads Sharing Is Caring, whose silver bell is legendary now, is never going to understand his own role in the big rip off even with his hand in the cookie jar. So, forget it that a banker or a dentist or a shoe salesman will ever see through the veil he hides behind. And the protest singer who dreams of a better day financially is not likely to hear his own song and fall down on his knees and admit his complicity in the crime he sees others committing. The only difference between the victim and the culprit today is the victim is feeling the pinch of his political world at the moment and it hurts. Take away his pain and he will protest on demand in the manner prescribed by his doctor or not at all. For example, the farmer whose land is restored to him is a born again patriot overnight with no patience for whiners. An environmentalist today is one who will go to any length to keep filth out of his habitat and never notices he enjoys a habitat when others have no place at all. Every bit of the foregoing is free of politics but you will not believe me. We are all Mister Jones in the singer's lament. No matter you clearly see the crooked deal going down there will be no change in your lifetime or mine and the singer will keep on saying, You don't know what it is that is going on, do you, Mister Jones?

We all live off the war.

So, in 1969 I was told this very thing. I wanted to change things. I found I could not. No system has ever been changed from within the system. No political action brings real change. I suggest this: an outsider be. However, since you are a product of the system you wish to see change, it will require a complete letting go of all you hold dear. Notice please how the only requirement to become an outsider is to cease everything. There is nothing to be done. Just clean up and stop aggravating the wound. Let nature handle the rest. You are actually a good person if you only knew yourself. In my own experience, when a person stops what he has been doing he attracts unconditional love from others and an epidemic of love erupts. A fountain is discovered that has always been here. Life takes on new meaning. Prosperity happens with abundance for all who are free of any system. (Life is not a system.)

Now, the above, too, is free of all politics and you still will not believe me. A picture has been drawn this way-

to have love you must lose love

to have wealth you must lose wealth

to have life you must lose it

This is so, for you hold the false so tightly to your bosom you do not know what love, wealth nor life happen truly to be. Give away all you have and come and follow me was never meant to be heard as give away your holdings and come be poor, wretched, and miserable with me. Oh, no. Not that. This paragraph, too, is free of all politics and you still will not believe me.

A rich man according to the world's measuring cannot enter the Kingdom of God. There. You have it. And, this, too, is free of all politics and still you will not believe me.

There is nothing can be done.

A Poem to Mystery

(whoever is that)

Mister Wordsworth writ a poem

to impress I no not who'm

but I know not who'm

has lately read a finer poem.

He told how he can no longer see

what he once saw when he was three.

In another he wrote it that

a child is father

to every grown-up cat.

There's a mystery within that!

Standin' Around

I was standin' around when someone asked me what I do. Me? I do not give talks to groups of people is all. And, I do that by invitation only, says I. For some reason they sent me an invitation. So, here I am.
To me, it looks like we are all standing in a huge circle on the lip of a gigantic abyss of darkness and we never even mention that abyss exists. But we know. And it is awkward to say the least to stand like this at the edge of solid earth before a gaping abyss of total darkness hoping of course not to fall into its scary mouth but not mentioning it to anyone, not even ourselves, that it is here. Right here where we stand.
But, I, naturally, being myself, am not going to discuss it with you since I do not make talks to groups and I do that by invitation only. However, upon actual receipt of the invitation, it came to my attention that to refuse the invitation would amount to an agreement to appear and make a talk to a group of people which I do not do and do that by invitation only. You know...to refuse an invitation not to make a talk can be an interpreted as an acceptance of an invitation to make one...This was a problem. I lost my balance became weak and staggered, mewling, and puking my guts out.
It was at that moment I became fully aware again of that dark abyss we are all standing in a circle around for it appeared before me so dramatically and frightened me so I fell into it...and, do you know what? That abyss is .........
that abyss is.....
believe it or not that abyss is....
Love.
Good night. Thank you for listening to my explanation and I hope it straightens out the matter of my appearance here. That is all. Good night again. 

Godliness

It has come to be for me that the term God is a symbol for a phenomenon in the nature of a living experience. The feeling is best described by me as wholeness. I mean a real experience of being complete. It is a feeling inside the body who was taught to call itself me or I (as some imaginary entity that could be held responsible for any errant behavior on the part of the body in question and correspondingly praised for conduct approved of by other imaginary personalities with names). All of which is to realty's dismay at the blatant and unacceptable mistreatment of its handiwork. And what happens is to be rediscovered by everyone who is born.

By the time I was seven, it came to be that I was actually two imaginary creatures co-existing inside the body aforementioned. And these two were at odds. There arose a war that lasted for many years up to the age of forty. One of the two was the good guy respected by the society of other divided goons. The other was a bad guy who would brook no rules and caused mayhem amidst the goon world. A way to describe the nature of goon world is to label it a political world. And whosoever upsets the political world without ceasing shall find peace and inherit the Earth.

A trick that went unnoticed was that the bad guy was a label (imaginary) for the actual essence of the being that is beheld as my aforementioned body. It has been called the Shadow Side. This the first act of evil on the Planet Earth. And the liar had dressed itself up as God Imagined. The Phenomenon of Wholeness would not divide its own world or what is wholeness for? All the other goons blamed a snake. This the second act of evil (and actually it amounts to the same act of evil as the first and so there is a single evil afoot). At this, Wholeness flew out the window. Or, did it? It has arisen and probably never left the body. Probably never died. Probably never shall die. Wholeness the phenomenon, that is. The Ungraspable Phantom it is in the body of a whale and a boy and a girl and a goldfish even. A rock? Water? Fire? Air?

A word about forgiveness then. It was a surprise to discover again that this term is not at all a performance between a superior being and an inferior being who has become remorseful enough to bow and scrape before its god and beg to be given a pass to heaven. It is a matter rather of realizing the wholeness within a being and correspondingly existent within all beings, and a simple Oh, my….

That is my experience. I am seventy now. But what is a number attached to a body to me? Wholeness, I mean. After all...