BUSY PEOPLE LOOKING FOR AWARDS

We are each somebody busy trying to be somebody else. The poets call it dreaming.Those who would be teachers call it a good idea. Institutions hope it will lead many to join their group. Walt Disney called it imagination. Bosses call it fresh meat. Wise ones call it being a fool. Life is lived by a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard from no more…a tale told by an idiot…full of sound and fury…signifying nothing…and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. (some lines of wisdom about ambition drawn from Macbeth by W. Shakespeare)

You want to be somebody else because you want to be secure, admired, loved, accepted. Right? Being somebody else guarantees the one who wants those things will never know them. Any who know true love will be their own person. Get to know all you can about love.

Think about it. Listen. If one has got to be somebody else is it not obvious that one who is rejected by himself cannot possibly ever know love or be part of anything or belong anywhere? Life, in that case is totally wasted…lived by somebody else…and that somebody else is you mesmerizing itself. Find out who you really are.

The real you is consciously aware that he or she is the world and the world is he or she. That is the birth of true love and compassion. If I look into your eyes and recognize we are one that love is real and will not change according to time or culture or anything born of time and thought. It is altogether different from a love that arises from me (a product of culture) loving you ( only another cultural image). That love is the love of idiots. It’s a wonder they still can feed themselves. (last line borrowed from Bob Dylan song Idiot Wind) It is advised you listen carefully to a Dylan song Tombstone Blues now. I shall.

 I read this recently that at the level of skin man and woman are so different, at the level of muscle and bone we are both obviously humans and at the level of the heart we are one.

 WHO IS TO BLAME?

There ought not be wars between human beings. But there are wars. Many, in fact. Who is to blame for the wars? Hmm.

There are bands of people who all consider they belong to a named tribe or nation. Were there none of these there could be no wars. And, it is the leader of a band who declares a war. Were there none, no wars would happen. The war would be so long coming about due to argument and indecision that it would become a bore to even speak of it. And even if a king was mad enough to go to war he would look silly unless he had a huge, trained military at ready he could order to war. Or, at least he must have sufficient wealth to raise one and train and arm it or just sit and pout in his office and dream of having such might at his disposal. And it helps to have a band to play music to glorify battle. Oh, and there must be composers, uniforms, and band leaders. Also it is critical to have some method to get the message of the leader why the war is an absolute duty of the citizenry spread all over the land and build it to a crescendo in an outpouring demand that we march! It is a great help to have a religious body or two inside the band with holy priests to convince many of its people that God is on the side of the band about to go to war and will make sure of a victory.

We must not leave out that not only must the leader or king be wealthy but there must be a solid business community at ready to supply all the needs of war. And these must have plenty of laborers to make all the necessary goods of war, including things like food and bandages and medical equipment and drugs and body bags. And don’t forget plenty of alcohol and drugs and sex to help the soldiers forget what just happened. 

After the war, in case of victory, there has to be a well organized element of academic and artistic creations of all sorts to glorify the war and its fortuitous outcome and memorialize its fallen fighters. It must be made clear that all humanity is benefitted by the war and the outcome of it and that we would do it all again! Well, Hell, it’s beginning to look like it’s all of us!

War is a fact. “There are going to be times we need to go to war” is a concept. The fact is real and can be dealt with. A concept is not reality and, as such, cannot be dealt with. So, is it possible for humans to deal with the fact of war only? And end it?

Wait. I think I am a band of concepts and ideals separate from every other human. Humans go to war with each other even inside families and nations and religions.

If I ask a woman to go out with me on a date I am shopping. I am shopping for a relationship of my own making. When I shop I am confused and conflicted…this or that. A mind in conflict is a dangerous thing to rely upon. It will always lead to more conflict. As soon as I choose, no, a second before I choose even, the confused mind will say “that’s a mistake”. It cannot help it. It’s confused! The mind is arguing within itself. Clarity is hidden from me. In that state, whatever I do will be confused, so, more shopping. Eventually, another war!

I have a friend. Both of us see that the concept of marriage is not working. We feel strong attraction to one another. It is suggested by a confused mind that we marry and then, once married, we set about to make a relationship we can each be happy within. Sounds good. Must fail. Why? Do we understand yet? 

So, is it possible for two to first find clarity together and then let the purity of a clear mind that is not shopping lead? Clarity is a fact- a fact that I am beginning from where I am, as a fact, and not from some concept of where I am wanting to go. See the difference? The future is conceptual. Now, a fact. 

The way of committing to a conceptualized future and betting on being able to make it come about through effort of will is not working! I see something! Plasticity! Life already has it! No attaching to mental concepts because they are suppositions and always limited. Who needs ‘em? Come on!

 MUSIC FROM the HEART of a DRIFTER

Listening to Dylan’s songs sent to me on the internet lately I wonder..who among us all (humans) is not a Master of War? It may be The Times Are A-Changin’ to a point nobody can deny any longer…it’s me! A growing understanding wells up in my ear that insanity will only end when the human is convinced it is into myself as I am living daily I must search and not out there or up there or under there. I must begin where I am. I need more than anything to find out what changes when I change first…completely change. A change just happened inside and my action was immediate and different. At that place Bob sang wildly about on the radio of the sixties I am on my own, a complete unknown, a rolling stone with no direction (fixed) home, and surprise! there is a deep calm, a clarity, a quiet, still mind with an assurance previously so lacking. Jesus did not want me to feel guilty, the cross was about a willingness to finally die in the psyche to what is not in service to all humanity. Not to make me Christian, not at all, but to reveal in a mirror a whole human, a true lover of the indivisible kind. I see through forces of division in conditioned thinking that separates brother from sister and brothers and sisters from one another like I see through water that runs down my drain. Amen.

WHEN A WAY OF LIFE IS OVER

It seems we are at a time when the psychological view of total humanity is that we are living in a time of worldwide crisis. Many proclaimed it decades ago. And as time passed we all took up that theme. OUR WAY OF LIFE IS DONE FOR.

To me, that’s great news! There is really no reason to be offered why humans should not go. We destroyed our home. Suffering is everywhere. I live on that part of the Earth designated as The United States. There were people living here before 1492 when the white man came across the Atlantic from Europe. They say the red people at the time could not even see the ships coming it was so weird.

Real quickly the word was spoken in native camps that the whites are many and they want all our land and cannot tolerate our way of life. They will kill as many of us as necessary to end our way of life…our way of life is over. 

I have white skin and went to law school following a way of life taught me. Indians in America began early to tell the whites that one day the evil you are here to deal out to us will turn on you. That prophecy is now and a child could have spoken it from the beginning. But nobody among the whites asked the children. By the time I was 18, I could have told everybody “this is not working”. Instead, I held my tongue and went to war as part of the problem hoping it could be fixed from within. Problems do not fix themselves. It took me nearly two decades to be convinced of that. Once convinced, there came to be a completely creative way of living here outside the system of man available to me, of all people and, so, I have a simple yet powerful tool to speak about at this time.

One needs to examine carefully the exact way of life one is living to understand the self that is the source of suffering as humans. Once understood, it vanishes for it is but a bad dream. It is the essence of division among humans and loneliness is the absence of love. The word ”individual” originally meant “indivisible” or “not divisible”. Today it means to be completely divided from everybody and everything else. The good news is that self is put together by thought and love is not. This makes it possible for a human to be free of self, the essence of suffering, and to be filled with love. What this is no thoughts can say for it is not put together by thinking…but, it amounts to a completely different dimension of life right where we stand!

Many teachers who will arise will try to sell you on some way to change the corrupt system from within that system. They say “don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. I say here, now, remove the baby then throw out the dirty bath water! 

Listen carefully. Listen as if your life depends upon it. Ultimately, if it is done, the new dimension will spot a bit of consciousness free of the domination of self and will chase after and find you!

The Universe is not a store. It is a sacred house of wonder. Red men and women are still among us…more than you know. I leave for now with this. As a man without hope I realized my way of life was over. I was defeated. As much as any red man before me I knew the truth of seeing the end of my life as I knew it. Where to go from here was unknown, as in the famous song, I was on my on, a complete unknown, like a rolling stone- and as happy as a human can be. Since that day I have inhabited a new dimension of love and understanding. So, I have something very precious to express to everybody on Earth!

 Brief Introductory Remarks Of An Ordinary Human Being

Or

How Sharply Is Thy Razor?

Look into this. If I am to be truly useful to others it must flower from within me naturally and if it does so flower there is no reason for anyone to pay me for doing it. Or support my work. How sharply is thy razor? After all, I am doing what I love naturally. And will do it with no thought to be paid. And others will be served. So, what began the notion of work for pay? 

And, furthermore, can any accountant show the figures for how great is the loss to society to follow such a practice,,,work for pay…rather than naturally serving one another through compassion’s love? Of course not. Those figures are not kept for the reason that nobody pays money to free the world from money’s grip.

Accountants are so tired of their work they insist on being paid to do it. They are not alone. Is it not obvious we demand pay only when we do not want to do the work? How sharply is thy razor? Know what they call someone, especially a woman, who does work she would not do if the money were not offered? It goes even deeper than that by far. How sharply is thy razor? 

One cannot simultaneously act naturally and unnaturally. As in my story earlier, if a human being is doing work for any sort of selfish reward it means he or she is not doing what they are drawn naturally to do and there is no love. And there is so much pain in self-betrayal. Do the accountants & do-gooders have the figures for the cost in psychological and emotional terms to the human minds of a society practicing self betrayal for most of the adult years of each person’s  life? Who will calculate the weight of the huge burden of resentment, anger, remorse, envy, self-hatred, self-pity, worthlessness, loneliness, isolation suffered by such workers and all those closest to such workers, the families? NOBODY WILL CALCULATE IT! There’s no money to be made in compiling those devastating losses! Another thing. Does anyone know or care what wealth might have been created had all members of a society been acting purely by a human’s natural, inborn compassion for others? 

Laws are made to benefit a small minority of the population. A law that will benefit all would be completely unnecessary, would it not?  Think about it. So, laws will always lead immediately to conflict between citizens. Must. Think about it. There is a joke that an atheist dies and is standing before the Pearly Gates where he is met by God. The atheist says, “Sir, please give me just one tiny sign that you actually exist and I will know”. Think about it. The certainty that laws made by man divide people is that strong. Love is what we need.

I heard a native Navajo story where a boy failed to chop any wood one day as he as supposed to do and the family was caught with an approaching winter storm where several would possibly freeze to death. The boy was chastised by his mother. The boy simply had been occupied with thoughts from a book of how he could be better off than he is so was out of touch with that in him naturally responsible for the welfare others. He ran to chop wood and saved the family. We too often do not even consider what good we miss when we suffer a society that preaches and insists upon unnatural selfishness above natural compassion. So, we stand ignorant of the fact that such a world is corrupt at its core. There is a price for such grave ignorance.

Here is a great secret to consider: to live outside the law one must be honest. In truth, as Shakespeare wrote it, when one is true to himself he cannot be false to anybody else. So, decide now to do for your work what you love and do it for nothing. Work like a beaver!

We say we dropped the atomic bombs on our enemy in WWII because we needed to end that war and save American lives yet do we have any concept how many factors that led to the war in the first place stemmed directly from ignorance of our own human nature? Why not? We are blind because our culture has insisted for too long on inattention to natural wisdom.

A final word. I was raised by my family to study the life of Jesus Christ. After years of living I understand what it was all about, finally. Jesus was seen by a few as a special human and was asked to show the way to the rest. What was special about him was that he was simply and fundamentally natural. It has been so throughout the story of societies that many who had found a way out were urged to teach another what cannot and need not be taught. To undertake to carry that load for another is a hard rain. Any human born in the midst of madness must find the way out alone. Why? The way out is “stay put”. You gotta dodge all the unnatural games crazy people play. One of the last is the game of “won’t you please show us how we make sense out of  this chaos?”

We all suffer the same here…rich, poor, powerful, weak, pretty, ugly brilliant, talented, or not. We all feel an enormous lack. Whenever that is seen clearly by anyone, all comparison and measurement ceases automatically. That is what death will cause us to do everyone. Each one born dies. It is a perfect fact. And that is the great vitality in death. Take stock. How sharply is thy razor? Can one die early to live? Death is the surrendering of fear. Is resurrection possible for all living people now one at a time? The change by one will affect the whole. How sharply is thy razor?

 One might say “I need enlightenment”. Another says “I need salvation”. Another says “I need to awaken”. And so on and on. Some will say only, “ I need a peace I cannot name or describe”. Another has said it this way, “I need to find my heart”. All are after the same thing AND IT IS FLATLY “ORDINARY” AS ORDINARY CAN BE. 

Our brains, and therefore our minds, are loaded with stuff of past experiences. Memories, ideas, feelings, notions, theories of all kinds are in there. Religious dogma and political hogwash are in there. Imagined attachments are there. What is felt as a need by everyone of us humans is a call from inside to notice there is something besides all that “stuff” present that is not a part of it. It is like if a violinist has 400 violins in his music room and it is so full of them he cannot see he is there also. He is awaiting the violins to play something new to him. They cannot. He cannot move forward. He is like a walking dead man. He must think life is just this way and strive to accept that.

And this is why no one can charge a fee to make things right. There is nothing to it. Things are right. So many offer an extraordinary “experience” for a fee and make a lot of money doing it when it is a “non-experience” we began with and believe we lost. To find what is not lost…what is to be done? Well it really is so that what you are looking for is an enormous elephant in a crowded room right under your nose. It wants no name , has no possessions, and is alive. It is life. Remember? What more can be said?