BETTER I SHOULD BE KILLED OR DISCHARGED FOR WHAT I AM THAN PROMOTED FOR WHAT I AM NOT. WHAT CAN BE WORSE THAN TO BE PLACED IN A POSITION OF AUTHORITY FALSELY? AND HAS ANYONE, HONESTLY NOW, EVER BEEN PROMOTED RIGHTFULLY? A BRILLIANT MAN ONCE TAUGHT THAT THE WORST THING A BUSINESS OR OFFICE OF ANY KIND CAN DO IS TO BASE PAY ON MERIT. SUCH A PRACTICE BREEDS COMPETITION AMONG THE GROUP, THE CONCEALMENT OF INFORMATION FROM ONE’S COMPETITORS, FEAR, DECEIT, HATRED, AND ALL THE REST OF THE CORRUPTION ALL GROUPS SUFFER. IS PROMOTION EVER EVEN REMOTELY CONNECTED TO SOMEONE’S WORTH? ASK YOURSELF THIS: CAN ANY MAN JUDGE ANOTHER? IS PROMOTION ANYTHING BUT A CORRUPT GAME? IF I PROMOTE YOU MAYBE I WILL BE PROMOTED. IS THAT ALL? NOT MUCH OF A RECOMMENDATION FOR THE USE OF SUCH TACTICS, IS IT? LISTEN. WHO CAME UP WITH THE IDEA, AND IT IS ONLY AN IDEA, THAT WE SHOULD STRIVE TO PLACE THE BETTER PLAYERS TOGETHER SO AS TO CREATE A SUPER TEAM? OF WHAT POSSIBLE GOOD IS A SUPERIOR TEAM? EXAMINE WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE WHOLE SOCIETY. A LOT OF BORED DULLARDS, RIGHT? OBSERVERS. UNFULFILLED DREAMERS WHO BUY TICKETS AND STAND IN LINES AND A FEW VERY LONELY CELEBRITIES NO LONGER ABLE TO DO SIMPLE THINGS LIKE RIDE A BIKE THROUGH A PARK ON A LOVELY SPRING DAY WITH SOMEONE YOU LOVE. FOREVER BEING SPIED UPON AND HARASSED. FOR WHAT? WHEN I WAS A BOY WE MET AT A PARK ON A SATURDAY MORNING, CHOSE SIDES, AND PLAYED UNTIL WE WERE FORCED TO STOP. EVERYBODY PLAYED. WHEN I LEFT THE FIELD OF PLAY I FELT DEEPLY GOOD BY KNOWING I HAD PLAYED MY BEST AND LEARNED A NEW TRICK OR TWO. NEXT WEEK THE TEAMS WOULD BE ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT AND NO KID GAVE A DAMN. LOOK. I WAS BLESSED ONCE TO BE GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO ALLOW PEOPLE IN A GROUP OF 400 ADULTS WHO WERE COWORKERS IN AN ENTERPRISE TO EXPRESS WITHOUT FEAR OF PUNISHMENT WHAT THEY WANTED THEY DID NOT HAVE. IT HAPPENED MANY TIMES THE FIRST YEAR. NOT ONCE DID ANY EMPLOYEE ASK FOR ANY TYPE OF PERSONAL PROMOTION OR FAVOR OR PRIVILEGE. ALL ASKED FOR OPPORTUNITIES TO DO THEIR WORK BETTER. THEY REALLY WANTED MORE INFORMATION SHARING AND MORE FREEDOM TO DO THE JOB THEY WERE ASSIGNED IN EXCELLENT FASHION. AND IT NEVER FAILED THAT THEIR BOSSES WERE ASTOUNDED AND CHANGED THEIR ATTITUDES COMPLETELY. WE ALL KNOW THIS TO BE SO WE HAVE JUST FORGOTTEN. AND AS SOON AS I LEFT THAT PLACE THEY ALL BEGAN TO FORGET AGAIN. MUST IT REMAIN SO? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

                                                                  Did It My Way

There’s a phrase and it goes “to my way o’ thinkin’ “. Or, “to his way of thinkin’ “.  And so on. Should you find yourself using that phrase you will probably also think the person referred to is an independent-minded fellow in control of his life, following his own path, etc.  Kind that is swelled up with pride about things. Truth, though, is otherwise entirely. All those folks are really pathetic, fooling themselves. All the time spent following your own way of thinkin’ is gonna cost more than you ever wanted to pay. Thought thinks it can divide the indivisible and it cannot. These people will one day spend hours looking out a window and imagining what might have been and wondering why they failed to do those things that attracted them most of all. And, sadly, will they believe it is the way life is for everybody. It is not.

Anyone who finds a way to bypass their own thoughts can live in still, quiet peace with razor sharp awareness. Another expression for bypassing the thoughts of the head is to pray without ceasing. For them there will be no choices ever to be made. What to do will be clear to them. When to do nothing will also be clear. These people live truly by faith. Faith is not the word faith it is an intuitive knowing. It is keen, sharp, effective. A samurai warrior comes to mind. You see, the way to live is to be free first. Free of what? I’ll tell you. You must be free from the conditioning of others around you, your borrowed thoughts are not your own. You cannot be contained in thought.  Nobody can. Those governed by thinking are robotic and life passes them by while they are too busy for it. Imagine that! You are alive and yet too busy to live. I tell this by my own experience. I know what it is like to be a pawn in somebody else’s game. Unless you invented basketball, play it only for exercise and the joy of movement. Do not take it seriously. Or you will be looking out that window long before it is time for you to die, wondering, what happened? 

Final note: those who say they do things their way never do. Simple. My way is beyond all thought and words. People will ask someone like that how he lives and he will respond something like, “Oh, I breath in and then breathe out.” 

                          Why Is Humanity So Stupid?

Why is humanity so stupid? Yes. We all know it to be so. We are stupid. And yet, there is afoot some sly trickster who keeps away any real change. I speak of the change on behalf of which Bob Dylan sang so well 60 years ago! Times, the kid sang, are changing. To AA many have come who are desperate for change. Desperate as anyone can be. And many find a way to change. There lives improve. Within a short time they are complaining again about the rotten state of humanity. The trickster has worked on them and so even one who was desperate and changed some behavior is made to overlook the fact and return to his former state as God’s chief critic.  In that way, he does not see the greatness of what has happened in his life and does not feel a passionate need to spread the gospel that all suffering can be ended by anybody alive and in the simple way it came to him. So, he spends the remainder of his time fighting against drink. Amazingly, it escaped his notice that he was given the keys to a Kingdom of Joy. The trickster in him has by a slight of mind prevented the reformed drunkard from being filled with the power in the fact he was separated from drink by this truth- that his problem never was alcohol, but himself! Not about other people, but about himself! He was not taught by anyone else how to stop drinking. He stopped himself! Such power can free a person. But, sadly, not him. Why not him? The trickster.

That is why humanity is so stupid and unable to change. The reformed man becomes active politically, active in some organized religion, strives to cultivate virtue in himself and the people around him and they long for him to take a drink again for he has become a raving idiot. He is still drunk. As the reformed person sees it, the real problem is, once again, the unacceptable sins of others. No real change ever happens among that bunch. Trickster wins. Its concepts remain in the driver’s seat of the living creature. 

A human is conceived. The human conceives an idea. The idea conceives another idea. The idea supplants the man. What a trickster!

All swans weep

 MAKING A POINT

So, man, humankind, including all its males and females no matter of what age, has been here on Earth for many, many thousands of years, at least. Man has made numerous accomplishments he takes pride in. Bridges have been built, hospitals have been built, churches and temples  also. There are so many government offices one could never find a list including them all.  There is even one called The United Nations. Accomplishments in the arts are displayed all around the world. Books, my God, so many libraries, so many private libraries, now all stored in cyberspace. Knowledge. Man’s knowledge. But what is it actually? What does it accomplish, really? It is important to point out that one thing is common in all of this accomplishing man has bragged about…argument is its name. Shame its shadow side. 

It can be seen by anybody that the world man has developed is like a family living in a house who have an active lifestyle shown to us by the media daily…fed to us you might say… which family takes a lot from the world into the house but never, never takes out the trash. Never cleans house from top to bottom. This is a metaphor of thought. As you consider it remember that all the argument going on in the world among humans is like this little paragraph but this one is being offered to reveal some broader, hidden truth to every reader on Earth. Who is it has an interest in keeping you living in this way? In keeping your mind so full of harmful, trivial and useless junk it prevents you from noticing how it is being done. 

Okay. A few people think the rest of us to be useful tools for their benefit but those also fail to take out the trash in their heads and so are not in a better position than the least of the masses. There is a man living as a pauper somewhere reading these words who knows he is a very remarkable fellow and he is singing while he works but not for wages. Not on anybody’s schedule. He is satisfied. Content. And generous and kind. This man’s mind is clear, for he takes out the trash. Do you wonder whether your mind could possibly be so clear and you could feel so happy and content? 

Reading this far is not even a start. 

It is up to each individual to commit to an effort he makes to bring this about in his small life. It is not easy. It is simple though. Any one can do it. One needs the  willingness to try. It is something you owe to you. Nobody else. Do not ask anyone “How?” Nor demand, “Tell me what to do.” On your own find a way back to the clear mind you had on the day of your birth. It is not lost. It is not spoiled. It was placed so that it cannot be touched, injured, or destroyed  by any power in the world. This paragraph up to this point is pointing you inside and that is all anyone need do for you. This project will be for you a learning in action. Not learning from another. Learning. Question everything. It will bring about a transformation of your psyche by the psyche itself. That is all you need do to end all the corruption. In truth, there is nothing wrong with you except your doubt.

Giving complete indifference to all you have been taught since you were born, center your vision at a point between the other two eyes and just above them where a gland attached to your brain is located whereby you may see that the world is really perfect as it is or may as well be since it far excels your meager wishes for a different one and so requires no alteration by you whatsoever and you begin to relax into that stillness and take things as they come to make the most wonderful discovery. Beyond thought lies harmony with all that is and you can feel your way along the line of absolute order throughout the cosmos. Like, instead of building a bridge over troubled waters, a natural and harmonious link to the other shore will be made apparent without asking for it as soon as there is a requirement for its use. And by joining it you will harmonize with all that is and every aspect will be served. Nothing is left out. 

Living in service to thought so much is left out or obliterated it hurts. And the pain is too much to bear so we live in denial and we all know it. Won’t you try this other approach? Like I said, you have to do it. Nobody can do it for you.

 NEVER A GANG MEMBER BE

A new beginning would be to drop all fear if you can and make someone else feel it’s safe to be around you. Can you? Locate that in you which you have always known to be a true friend. Above all, trust that. And listen, Johnny, to those who suggest you do it.

 VAST UNBEKNOWN OF IT ALL

Old Man: Jesus is another name for the vast unbeknown of it all. You actually have separated yourself from it, have you not? You do not say, “I am the whole of life”, and remain still; you want to change this and improve that, you want to reject and to hold. You, the watcher, an immovable, permanent center in this vast movement of life are caught in conflict, in sorrow, and confusion. Now, you who are separate, how do you approach the whole? How do you come to this vastness, to the beauty of the earth and the heavens? Our lives are shallow and bound to routine; and the gods of the trivial mind are as silly and stupid as their maker. Whether we live in a palace or a village, whether we are hired hands or sit in the seats of the mighty, the fact is that our minds are petty, narrow, ambitious, envious; and it is with such minds that we want to find out if there is God, what truth is, what the perfect government is, and seek answers to the innumerable other questions that pop up….such as, What is the purpose of my life? 

First: Yes, sir, that is our life. You nailed it! What can we do?”

Old Man: Die to the past, not little by little, but totally! In this way come suddenly to the point of beginning and learn what death is while still alive. Like I said, life is circular. It’s the petty mind that tries, that struggles, that has its ideals and systems. You must die to all you think you know for the unknown to be your way. 

First: I can see that we should die to the past, but if I die to the past, what is there left then?

Old Man: You are saying – aren’t you? – that you will die to the past only when you are guaranteed a satisfactory substitute for what you have renounced. That’s not renunciation, that’s only another effort at gain. A petty mind wanting to know what there is after dying will find its own petty answer. 

First: I think each one of us has felt deeply the truth of it all. May we come again?

Old Man: Yes. You may, but let us not delay. All the great geniuses with all their great works piled together throughout history have made no real difference at all. Surely it is time we admit that to ourselves, renounce civilization as it is known to be, and take a wild chance on the vast unknown.

 

                                                             SUPPOSE

Suppose with me a little while that the cosmos as we know it can be seen as a laboratory developed by love with great precision and in absolute order to give all subjects a chance to find out clearly what it is and what it is capable of, see what is to be done, and do it. One might think of it as a place a Creator made for Itself in order to know Itself better and, more important, what that means. In this lab one separates from reality then tries to find one’s way back home. Separate from reality, it really knows nothing. It is as if the action of returning from a hopelessly lost state itself brings an understanding by no other way obtainable. And perhaps the deeper one goes into the void the better. So, God separated Itself into billions of souls and here we are. 

God meets God along the way back to Heaven many times and at each intersection one soul serves the other on its journey, sometimes by tricks. For example one might tell the other you must obey some laws, of course, and names one or two examples he knows full well will fail just in order to help the other find that no method is going to work. Some of the time it will be the most helpful way of nudging someone to the next lesson or maybe cause someone to rethink what was just told it and tell the speaker to get fucked so as to be free from any outside influence. Only to realize later, I was stuck and that coyote helped me, and laugh. Laughter is good medicine.

A hint to help you with this is to remind you that an image of who you are was planted in your brain to build a set of  memories and to believe it all happened to it…take it personally.  All its memories are limited and incomplete of course. It is robot-like and lives on Desolation Row denying it is more like a Rolling Stone than anything else. It has served as your identity ever since implanted in your brain much as Pinocchio was carved by the woodcarver he believed to be his Papa. After awhile, living as the image and gathering stored memories of your life which is not your own, you become very lost from your true identity. Something inside is telling you that you need to go home but who can it be? The story of Pinocchio was written to appeal to children who are still somewhat aware of where they came from. All that you need do is realize for a moment that something has been watching all along the drama the imposter thinks is its life and that you are that which observes the observer. At that,  the memories and the image vanish. Your real life as a brand new real child begins; all that was required of you having been a willingness to roll as far as it takes to find her.