WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US?

 

It seems obvious you are at peace. So, what of all the rest of us? We have our troubles, our responsibilities as wage earners, husbands and wives, parents and so on. We worry. We are anxious. We suffer. How can we have peace?

There are many decent people with good intentions who will tell us every time they open their mouths that it is “language” and “thought” (which invent each other) that are our greatest gifts and which will save us if we use them correctly 

( and if we listen carefully they will reveal that “use them correctly” means “think like me”). Get the joke? I will tell you and mean it that the gifts of language and thought have their place, and it is a very limited one, but they always create conflict and confusion when relied upon to “save” us. The more we reason our way to the light the darker it gets. Love is the great gift. I am the world and the world is me. I am talking to myself here.

Silly. You have it. That is all there is to it. We are our only problem. We refuse to accept what are naturally our gifts. You accept breath and food and water since they do not interfere with your plans. Yet you take them for granted. You have ambitions. You treasure them. You are certain they are what divides you from the other animals, the non-human ones. You have dreams of a better world. Better than what? Look. Be honest. Better than what? It is better than right now. Better than the mess you have made and continue to make in ever-increasing degrees with ambition. What good is it? It has always distorted your appreciation of the beauty all around you. Ambition has you torturing and slaughtering people you never have met who have ambitions of their own and may one day torture and slaughter you. I am talking to myself here. Can you feel that? I am the world and the world is me.

Look. Something or somebody has caste a spell over you that makes you forever discontent. Who would do that? Who profits from you being always discontent? In earlier times they were called the “operators” and were noticeably  out of step with the others. Now, not so much. Who is not in one way or another an “operator”? A boy hunting for a girl to exploit; a girl trapping a boy, for instance?

Look. Consider the lilies. They neither toil nor do they spin. Consider the other animals. Are they parents? Do they mate and make babies? Do they act in the world? Outside the human threat do they prosper? Are they not finely tuned to the whole living Earth? You have been made by mental tricks to prefer ambition is all and that makes you suffer. Even the rich man bemoans the lack of trustworthy laborers. The husband who takes pride in his wife is jealous and suffers too. What is to be done? You fool!

You have it!

In so many ways all of us will blame “them”. Who are “they”? Oh, those of us who will not behave? If a society organized by people and served obediently by people contains “trouble-makers” can it be honestly said that they are less the society that the rest? Look. Be honest. Seek to know, not to justify your predetermined position. One will never see truth through that kind of distortion. You are the man who is only interested in proving his foolish ways are correct and God-inspired in the face of tons of undeniable failure. I am talking to myself here. I am the world and the world is me. Love us. Unconditionally, love us. 

 

 Ideals are not true. That is the chief characteristic you need to know about them…ideals, that is. Marriage as an ideal is not true. What is? Well, there is not a name for it. Just say the truth is true and you will get by fine. Why is that? Well, the place where you and I contact truth is wordless. No dictionary book is of any use there. It is beyond thinking. It is real intelligence. It may surprise you to be told your intelligence is found in a completely still, quiet mind. There you are totally aware. Nothing escapes you. How could it? How many times must a man look up before he sees the sky? “Blowin' In The Wind”, Dylan.

At some point we tipped over into a way of thinking that took us by storm is the best way to put it. Thinking told us it was our best ally in a dangerous world and that has proven to be absolutely a lie.The more we reason our way to light the darker it gets. Those who know true love and compassion found the stillness within and immediately understood undebatable truth and took pure action as if for the first time. Ask an astronaut who has seen the beautiful Earth while standing on the Moon. You are that wise all the time if only we know.

 And death set me free…

that death that is a re-awakening of the psychic human with strength enough to withstand society’s mad web of thoughts attached to an image placed inside my brain, with a name and a false clock, that truly can never be me. And, so, I learned to trust Death as a friend to the quiet, still, nameless, loving mind eternal. And I find death erases only images completely dependent upon images completely dependent upon more and more images and all the while there is naked freedom and an unshakable ground to stand upon. Complete, total attention of mind, heart, nerves is unshakable for there are no false images to interfere…only complete attention. It is really quite simple. Nothing there is exclusive about it. All or none.

Complete attention and death are one. At the same time there happens to be no perfect love and nothing else but perfect love. Perfect love banishes fear.

 In a world where only you can sing you will be told by everybody that you are terrible and should not sing at all.

 Nobody has ever even seen me here.

When they consider me at all which is seldom they see some image they have concocted standing on my feet. 

Nobody cares. Not really.

I’m invisible.

I do not matter.

I may as well eat worms and die.

When I hear myself say these words I am undressed, unburdened from carrying heavy rocks not my own and it can make happiness seem to be all there is about me and I am free. And that makes no sense, but is true. 

There it is. It is an understanding for all…there can be a knowing that makes no sense and it can be proven to be so.  So, maybe what makes sense to someone looking for it is always nonsense. There goes another one of those rascals that escaped ordinary good sense. This is a strange, esoteric truth known to everybody and practiced by few. I’ll show you why that is.

There is a very popular statement widely in use. It is “everybody knows!” In a family of 8 persons it will be used when maybe two or three of the family know some rumor. In a crowd of fifty people it will be used when maybe only 20 people know the rumor. Among some group of ten thousand it will be used when only one thousand know the rumor. A popular kid in a school will be known by a mere half or fewer of the fellow students. We are trying to live inside a world where “everybody knows” does not come close to the truth but is commonly used anyway. This is one of many examples concerning how limited are words and thoughts in our world and yet we torture and kill others by force of language. In short, we are crazy. 

If I tell you that although unpopular among the crowd I am in fact well known by them all would you believe me? I am the same reason all people at rare times experience moments of awe whereby all concepts of their identity are erased from consciousness and they feel indivisible from all else that exists though nameless without a single concern. All humans know this but very few practice it. What if we did?

Wise people have always told others when you feel bad do not try to escape the feeling or deny it live inside it; it is who you are for the moment. Should you fail to examine into it you will always remain ignorant and be one whose picture will remain incomplete in your own mind. And that is a tragedy because we are always complete but seldom know it. Should you crawl inside the bad feeling when it comes there is every likelihood it will be exposed as nonsense and that feeling is freedom from thinking! Not freedom from stupid people but free of what they think having just been one. And that makes enlightened beingness. And that is followed by a pure action otherwise incomprehensible. And then you call it "art".

As in the language of Bob Dylan we all chase a shadow that really is who we are and wish to be it all the time. “Mr. Tambourine Man” It seems to be up to each of us to discover we can be then dance beneath the diamond sky.

 LIFE WITHOUT THE IDEAL of a SEPARATION

Ideals are not real. Earlier it was written that the most important belief to which { I am } is committed is I am a separate individual. I must be ambitious. I must compete. I must succeed. I must strive to become more. I have dreams of my own you know. You must see that belief, all belief, is put together by thought and is in conflict with reality and causes all your suffering. See it now. Not later on. Now.

Thinking has brought about a world where everyone is a taker as separate individuals must be . For takers, every act of giving is a taking. They say, “Have a great day” and they do not mean it. They say, “I love you” and do not mean it. They say, “it is my job to teach you humility and compassion” and they do not mean it. They say, “Trust me” and they do not mean it. How could they? Their only job has been to sucker punch you. They have dreams of their own, must be ambitious, must compete, must succeed. The world of man is disgusting. Presidents are criminals. Presidents are murdered. Millions starve. All are lonely. Children are brainwashed, deceived, and used. And all the rest of the mess. 

It is not just that life is only lived now it is that life is only lived when it is only now. That’s the kicker! So, for only now to be experienced you must realize first that you cannot ever know it is only now because you as you know you is made by thought in time. However, you as you do not know you knows that in the present there is the past and the future. That is to say the you you are ignorant about which has not been put together by thinking is aware that the past is memory and not really present and the future is only a  mental projection from memories of a past and so also unreal. All this also means that you must be free from the grip of thinking to actually live. Ask your mind if it can be so? Wait for the answer. For goodness sake do not make up an answer by thinking. Find out whether the mind, left to it, can be aware of itself. And, being aware, can it change itself? You better hope so. 

Suppose you fall in love deeply and then learn that the beloved has been told by doctors he or she is going to die soon. You feel that something terribly wrong has happened. However, the unknown by you you knows this is not bad at all because you can only really live if it is only now with no past and no future. So, even if your sweetheart were to live another 100 years you can only love now. A memory of love is certainly not love…the thoughts ”I love” or “I will love” or “I have loved” are not love. Suddenly, by grace, everybody is seen by you to be in the same boat together with no exception! How does it feel? Free? A bit like something eternal is exposed? Adieu.

 HERE, NOW

Explanations have been the boat on which to cross to the other shore. The man on the other shore says “There is no boat, cross.” 

J. Krishnamurti. 

Home is where you cease finally any escape. Mellow out. An empty MIND is full of energy. To be grounded in love’s way is the incorruptible wilderness. The outer wilderness has been corrupted by man. However, the inner wilderness is the incorruptible. Other notables have spoken of the no boat escape. What you are looking for is what you are. In the 1950’s I was a child and it was so popular then that movies tell of a gentle doctor, always handsome by popular standards, who carried a black medical bag he received upon completing a thorough education. In explanations. 

According to plot, the handsome doctor traveled to a remote area on Earth where savages were the only humans that lived. Or, all people were savages there, strikingly unlike the handsome doctor with his bag of explanations. This was a setup. No what that is? It was especially effective with parents and their children.

At this point, there is no need to discuss yet the plot makers but I point out here that this was aimed at uncorrupted children. The point in time was believed to be the dawning of America, white America, as the dominate force of the whole wide world. The idea was that everywhere that was not America was inhabited by savages, and there was strong evidence to support this theoretical explanation in the aftermath of not one but two world wars in the first half of the century. A child like me was practically defenseless but not really for the simple reason that “there is no boat”. I was incorruptibly there, but did not know it…yet 

Flash forward 40 years. After putting away my particular bag of explanations I was befriended by a desert in West Texas where the Rio Grande takes its mighty bend back to the north. At this place God apparently stored all the rocks left over from the Creation of Earth, metaphorically speaking. Walking alone there over a period of years it came to me that those stories of the handsome, gentle doctor with his bag were a complete hoax perpetrated upon kids. These corrupted kids grew up, rebelled, not aware of what for, then settled for what appeared to be the only opportunity available…the bag of explanations. Even Bob Dylan. In Bob’s case, he did all he could from the first to tell everybody he did not come to explain anything. He simply wrote songs and sang them, as a minstrel. What opened up in the desert written of here was the incorruptible wilderness within us all. You, the reader, for instance. Clearly was the corrupt plot seen. Not by “me”, the black bag of explanations, but seen none the less. According to plot, the handsome doctor always saved the life of the chief’s young son and was worshipped by the savages who had no black bag but wanted one now to replace the medicine man of the tribe. This “holy” guy was always ugly and bitter, according to plot. The explanation was that the sacred is a hoax! And a bitter one, too. Yet, it was suddenly clear to an empty mind in that desert that the plot ignored the fact! The fact is that NO BAG OF EXPLANATIONS EVER HAS HEALED A HUMAN BEING. The savage boy simply healed. And nobody knows what part the medicine man may have played in setting the scene for natural healing.

The first step in any hoax is to plant in the minds of people that they are separate individuals who want to cross a river of ignorance and will definitely need a boat. You can sort this out. In the first place, an individual cannot be divided. There is no river to cross and nobody to cross one. There are many types of desert. Remember, though, there are two ways to die in a desert..too little water and too much water. We need just enough. When that is our truth we harmonize with the incorruptible. You can sort that out. 

At this juncture we are, hopefully, seeing together that what we are taught to believe is “wild” is not at all so, and what we are taught to believe is “civilized” is empty, meaningless chaos with very much suffering. We came here wild gods. We have settled for trivia. We say “have a great day” and we don’t mean it.