ON FREEDOM

Now then, there is an illusion of freedom and there is the true experience of freedom. Freedom actually is not being trapped in illusions. So, those two are racing away from each other at the speed of light squared! Dylan wondered in song, Are birds ever free from the chains of the skyway? That is saying that if jumping over the moon is freedom and if you can what about jumping over Mars? And so on and on. 

I do not want. That is freedom. I want not water for there is more than enough. I do not want food for there is more than enough. I do not want air for there is more than enough of it. I do not want sunshine for there is always enough for everybody. That means I am content. Satisfied.

People who spend fortunes on clothes never cease talking about those times they let themselves take them off and get laid. Why bother?

You may say that there may be enough water but I may not be able to find it. Yes? Well, we are living thousands of years into a way of life that led most of us to kill others of us just to keep a supply of water and food and a territory where we can settle down in the illusion we have enough and protect with weapons our family from them and others like them. When we run short, we attack. Kill. Rape. Plunder. Lie. Cheat. Deceive. Steal. Gamble. Trick. Threaten. Coerce. Charm. So, by now, we mostly do not know how many times we turned one way instead of another and lost our capability to find what we need that is right under our feet and over our heads. We forgot. That is the source of illusion and that is the real loss of real freedom. And, by now, we have a list longer than the Milky Way of crap we want. Of kindness, honesty, integrity, dignity, courage we are unladen and poor indeed.

 The Man Who Drove Madness Away

He was famous for his anonymity.

And saved the throng by realizing his own impotence. 

He found all when he discovered nothing has what he needs.

He won the war by finding he had nothing to lose.

He was surrounded by friends when he had nothing left to give.

He had been surrounded by enemies when he held what they wanted.

Ambition is the weaker impulse.

Humility is fiercely unstoppable.

He helped them all when he realized he could not help himself.

He fed many when he understood he could not feed himself. It was like he had been given a spoon too long for his arm to reach his own mouth but exactly right for feeding any others.

They recognized him as leader when he learned how to serve others exclusively.     

He became an artist the day he had nobody to talk to but himself. Alone became, suddenly, all one.

-Johnny W

 To Seek A Love That’s True

You treat me like some half-dollar screw hound me to go out to work and bring back something new pretend you do not see me but keep me in your view;

I see ambition- 

ambition at full throttle driving you- 

while I seek a peaceful ride- one inside a love that’s true.

Would it help if I told I am the Light 

returning to save you?

I am truly outcast.

Feel so alone and blue.

No prophet sent me. This is not a place to settle down for I was born to roam.

If this is how you feel about me I believe 

it’s time I go back home.

 The Takers

Nations are to peace as toothless paper tigers are to playful children. When will we ever learn it’s never been the fault of love it is the mad lunacy of nations, boundaries, courts, kings and all the rest of it. It is therefore ambition makes all the tragic legendary stories of some imagined conflict between love and honor, between love and duty, between love and decency where conflict has never been. The Emperor has been always naked. Illusion alone clothes him. A taker. A child knows this to be so. When the game ends…really ends…peace is right here present for all beings. And it is known by all then that peace is not the absence of conflict, conflict is the absence of peace. Violence grows like weeds when people turn their backs on peace. Cease trying to end conflict (that is like trying to shovel darkness out a window) and try for a change to switch on the light of peace.

       Our Task must be to free ourselves, by widening our circle of compassion, to embrace all living things. Albert Einstein

 WHAT IS IT YOU WANT?

Do you want to know what it is you do not know, or not? Do you prefer to remain ignorant as you believe that way is safer for you than knowing?

Sounds to me like you are saying you want the unknown to be revealed but first you want to know what it is going to be, is that so?

Do you not see clearly how stupid that is? See how you have canceled what it is you ask for in the same breath?  It was promised long ago, “Ask and you shall receive” but it was not suggested you will receive what you ask not for.

I had a friend once tell me she wanted both knowledge and ignorance. I pitied her. Does she want a ridiculous and trivial thing or does she want something deeper? You are confused when you say I do not know but want to know but first want a guarantee that I will like it. Now you see clearly, make use of it for its value is beyond measure. Remain in clarity.

 It wasn’t a thing that had been learnt through choice; it had come about through sheer necessity. Anonymous