I’m no fan of pie-in-the-sky dreaming.
Of reductionist thought that answers the real problems of real people in the real world with deeper truth platitudes that end discussion and leave people foundering, sullen and silently fuming as their issues are relegated to meaninglessness in the face of the absolute. This is not to say that being aware of the absolute truth of reality is problematic. Rather, it is to say that confronting the limited and material truths of our reality with the Absolute is not a solution, but is instead a communicative, verbal and vibratory weapon often designed to overwhelm less eternal truths.
An example of this is saying that race does not matter because we are all human. Most people do believe this is true. But bringing this truth up in a conversation about the Israeli/Palestinian problem, or the issue of black incarceration in the Prison Industrial Complex in the United States does not forward the discussion, nor does it offer any practical solutions that can be implemented in the resolution of the problem.
Solutions are what are needed. Heart-centered solutions that speak to the necessity of all people to have their sovereign rights as incarnate souls respected. This is a basic human right of existence that cannot be gainsayed by any political ideology, philosophical treaties or religious creed.
The good news is that hearts and minds are opening daily. That consciousness is spreading like wildfire across the world as the inter connectivity provided by the internet becomes the ubiquitous mode of communication for the majority of the world’s citizens. Seeking solutions and salvation beyond the self in groups and institutions must be accompanied by a search for solutions within each of us for our own problems and issues. There can be no real movement for peace and unity when we do not each individually possess those qualities within ourselves.
A slight qualification of the above statement is in order: there can be such movements and have been and probably will be, but those movements will be corrupted at their heart and soul if those who comprise the movement are corrupted in their hearts and souls. The body of membership of any organization is the sum of that membership, inculcating their dreams and desires, which then become the mission and purpose of the group. No matter what their stated principles are, the words and actions of the group will reflect the collective will of their membership, manifesting even their unconscious dreams and desires, masked beneath an rhetorical facade that usually only pays lip service to the ideology publically espoused.
This is why politicians are always caught with their pants down and their bank accounts open, their integrity compromised. This is why corporate raiders and profiteers are concerned primarily with the bottom line, lining their pockets with obscene bonuses and wondering why anybody would complain. This is why preachers and priests do terrible things to children and the emotionally compromised. This is why we hate ourselves, secretly in our inner hearts and souls, desperately seeking salavation outside of ourselves because to look within and actually do something about what we find there is too painful to work with directly.
It’s all well and good to speak words of wisdom or quote the spiritual and philosophical masters and enlightened ones when that sharing is done in the spirit of giving and not in the spirit of taking. In this sense, taking praise from others, likes from the multitude, the verbal praise of having something that others lack, of being able to see into the heart of situations and to share what is seen there in an empathic and seemingly loving manner is a gift of the spirit and can be easily recognized for its resonance factor and embodiment of higher energetic frequencies. Conversely, doing such in the context of a personal battle of wills or in the making of points that emphasize an individual and egoistic attachment to self-gratification through the adulation of the hoi polloi serve to densify and further stratify personality in a hierarchical and energetically vampiric structure of vanity and egoism. Differentiating between these two types of expression is a stark but necessary maneuver for those who seek to recognize the real from the facade. Platitudes and truisms used as weapons in order to win an argument or in response to a perceived slight on the part of others are platitudes and truisms used in vain.
They are indicative of BEingness that is self-centered and ego-centric. Granted, that consciousness may be and probably is on the road of spiritual and philosophical enlightenment, but in that particular instance they have been waylaid by the intellect of ego and the densification of anger, affront or judgement, which renders their judgement faulty. This is a condition of creation and material incarnation and there is no fault in living in the real and being cognizant of the process of gradual evolution, which is indeed a process, meaning, it does not happen instantaneously for most people. It takes a while to grow and learn through experience how to truly become wise instead of just appearing so.
The solutions to all of the world’s problems are already known. The way to get there has already been laid out. The world’s problems are the same as each of our individual problems, just magnified and fractalized at a larger scale of macrocosmic occurrence. It is in the application of this knowledge to ourselves that we fail to apply the solutions that the world needs. And it will only be when we begin as a collective to recognize our individual failings and the interconnectivity of all consciousness that we will understand that by helping ourselves we are indeed helping the world.
The change begins with each of us. It has already begun and is well in progress. Are you a part of the solutions? Or a part of the problem?
Make a difference. Beyond the platitudes and quotes, we must indeed be the change we want to see in the world. Words must lead to actions in order for the shift to be actualized and manifest for us and our children and our children’s children to enjoy a world based upon a very different paradigm than the one that is failing around us in this very moment.
This is not so because life is perfect. It is not because things are either good or bad. The reason has nothing to do with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, the trials and tribulations of life. The reason has to do only with the fact that living in 
Our thought patterns and emotions are often so repetitive and so bodily overwhelming that we become mired in thought patterns of self-imposed suffering, flights of inpure fantasy and imaginative armaggedons that threaten life as we know it daily.
In the face of this kind of ignorance, the subjective siren song of the body and its needs consume our thoughts and direct our actions. The two brains, the one in our head and the one in our stomach, combine to send impressions, feelings, cravings and random bodily sensations to our consciousness which has to deal with those plus the functions of the higher mind that leave us lost in the past and future as our bodies navigate the Now for us, more or less successfully, given our penchant for distraction. Given the state of modern Western society and the physical and psychological ills that affect many of its inhabitants it should not come as a surprise that perspective is difficult to inculcate and retain.
The perspective of the Divine is beyond pain. It is beyond petty needs and desires, it is beyond jealousies, envy and greed. Since my spider friends and teachers are in direct and constant commune with the Source of All That Is without the distractions that we humans are bombarded by for much of the days and years their return to that essence and final goodbye to their bodies and this world were without the kind of turmoil that humans, when faced with imminent death, are subjected – by their fears – to. The religious and culturally-derived fear of death that permeates our present milieu is a direct result of the loss of that direct and constant commune with the Source of All That Is.
There has been no return to my previous state of mind or being. In fact, there has been a further deepening of the condition. As discussed in previous articles in the Practical Enlightenment series, there was a flattening of my emotional ties to past events and traumas that has continued. While that remains the case, as mentioned previously as well, old patterns of thought and behavior do continue to echo, although, for the most part, they grow fainter and fainter. A few behaviors continue that are deeper rooted within my psyche. According to Sadhguru, once Full Enlightenment is reached, the spirit automatically leaves the body. That is, unless something of the Earth is held on to. Some desire. Mine pertain to my family and mission.
For some who attain enlightenment in these days and times it comes out of the blue. Some were not previously on a spiritual path while others had been seeking for years. It can occur spontaneously or it can be the culmination of a long period – potentially many lifetimes in the making – of mind-training and meditative practice. For many who attain Enlightenment, there has been no previous meditative immersion to the extent and intensity that Shakyamuni practiced. There has been no clearing of the neural networks. And so, for these souls, the process must occur after Satori. For me, I achieved the state first when I was 12 years old.
The remaining primary and secondary school years were revelations of difference and I was an observer, even of my own participation. I had no context outside of the terror of 
The above-related event occurred in the middle of August, 1987. The Harmonic Convergence, as predicted by the Maya – ending the 5,125 year Great Cycle of History and beginning the 25 year energetic shift culminating on December 21, 2012 – occurred on August 16-17, 1987. The Harmonic Convergence was marked by a number of planets in Leo trining Jupiter in Aries and that also trine Saturn and Uranus in Saggitarius, an auspicious alignment, indicative of a collective energetic realignment and unification of purpose. This event marked the planetary embarkation upon a direct, spiritual path of evolution and ascension. As that has been the primary impetus of my life-path thus far, the correlation of my kenshō experiences with significant astronomical and astrological alignments is not lost on me. As I cannot date my initial experience, its relationship to astronomical factors remains a mystery.
I suppose a lot of that has to do with culture wars and people being raised in different kinds of environments. Not everybody has what we used to call “home training”. What that meant in the culture that I come from – Southern, Black and Baptist – was that children were generally seen and not heard, Elders were respected, conversation was polite and families took care of their own. And others too, if it became necessary.
The correct answer, or truth, in a debate, is always the clearest and most concise argument put forth that presents an answer in a format that fulfills the conditions set by the intial question. In a debate, specious arguments, arguments without foundation and arguments that do not address the main points are quickly seen for what they are. Informal debates turn into arguments that turn into fights.
The ramifications of this acceptance hold grave consequences for the plans of the currently in-fighting Elite factions and their minions; those who have invested in the suppression of the Great Secret. The investiture of belief and support into paradigm-changing secrets is tantamount to giving your life to the secret. Therefore, once the secret is revealed, the life based upon it dissipates, leaving the individual so invested bereft, left drifting upon an ideological, philosophical and spiritual raft rapidly breaking apart beneath them.
The revelation of the Great Secret will destroy the institutional edifice of formal religion. It will destroy the institutional bedrock of the political, legal and economic systems. It will even draw the wind from the sails of those who consider themselves on an alternate path, especially those who have not challenged and overcome their most basic assumptions about reality.
I will end by telling you that you are exposed to the Great Secret daily. Every one of you. If not in your home then out on the streets. You see it on the internet or in the movies; you can watch it on television or hear it on the radio or your ipod. You learn about it from grade school to college. You see it at the heights of social acclaim and at its dregs. You may feel pity when you see it. You may feel anger or hate. Or you may love it without really knowing why. You may distrust it and look away from it or you may embrace it and attempt to move closer to it.
In too many movies to name we are given sympathetic protagonists to whom some wrong has been done. In the processing of the grief, anger and revenge become the most celebrated methods of dealing with suffering. But anger is an imposition, a lack of clarity of vision and thought, as much as it is a pervasive theme leading characters and real people into situations that then require an oppositional release of energy in order to remedy.
Accepting the reality that bad things must be just as good things must be and just as neutral things must be is a necessary part of becoming aware of the nature of perception. Accepting the truth not only of our existence and participation in life and the world, but also of our relation to all other expressions of collective consciousness and discrete expressions of individuated consciousness. The will to act then takes on a larger role within our personal perceptive fields when we recognize the full extent of our choice matrix and act according to our orientation. The inevitable realization is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the world. That everything that happens is exactly as it should be. While those of a “good” orientation combat those of a “bad” orientation those in the “middle” co-exist and the world goes on, as it must.
All the world’s a stage,
It remains amazing how life applies force, through the medium of experience, in order to let us know when it is time to move on. Conversely, it remains amazing to recognize how we often work against this force in order to stay where we are at. Opportunities arise at seemingly coincidental stages that give us the option to move out in a new direction, to optimize our experiences by adding on to what we already know with new things, infinite possibilities. But the old, familiar beliefs beckon, whisper in our ear, urge us to remain planted, feet firmly on the ground, resisting all temptation to strike out into the unknown. Life is irresistable though, and each time we resist movement, we invite harder and more painful lessons into our life, until that force then forces us to embrace change.
When social and personal imperatives elevate the importance of material success, personal strength as exemplified by well-developed egocentric personality constructs become the norm, sublimating the inner, spiritual core that undergirds the ego, bolsters it, informs it at its foundation. Success as defined by worldly pursuits minimizes empathy, compassion and the importance of the collective over the individual. The Cult of I proliferates and the spirit is sublimated beneath the chorus of experiences that chatter incessantly, drowning out the quiet voice that originates in our center. Past and future take on real and threatening aspects that obscure the moment. As we regret and worry, the petty events of our days and nights, our interactions with others, all lead us into the cause and effect creation of karmic debt that then limits the cast of possible future situations, while simultaneously hardening the imprint of past situations and their related choices. We are then pushed remorselessly into temporally impenetrable future choices and situations that, once we make them, also seem as inevitable as the originating choices and situations themselves.
It really is that simple. All knowledge is internal not external, and we know the answer to all of our questions before we even ask them. Once we realize a few things about ourselves, consciousness and the world around us, we realize that things we’ve always believed to be true about life just aren’t, and that there is more to existence than the pursuit of material satisfaction, happiness or riches. Perfecting clarity, or removing the multiplicity of experientially-biased lenses that we and society have created in order to limit our perception, becomes the only goal worth achieving, at this point. And this means going above and beyond, shifting our efforts from external pursuits to internal. Undergoing a life-review in extensive and personal detail, finding out where our most deeply held beliefs were born, where our most secret disfunctions live, where our most intimate desires are whispering for us to go. Clearing a lifetime of mental and emotional detritus, all of which are spattered viscous and gross, like bugs on the windshield of perception, causing Self to squint and crane in the attempt to see past the mess and interpret incoming stimuli accurately and in the service of our best karmic and dharmic interests. Life deserves our best effort, and we can only give it if we obtain Knowledge of Self first, and then use that to better the lot of those around us, in service of the Divine that we finally realize is manifest in every single aspect of Creation, from the most humble beggar to the most arrogant Moabite.
I’m finding it harder and harder to make myself worry. I’m like everybody else, I’ve got plenty to worry about. But, whenever I try to do it, it just doesn’t work the way it used to. We all know the process, right? You think of a problem that you have, either stemming from past actions or from perceived future reprecussions, and then you think of all the bad things that can happen as a result of the choices you made, and you dwell, and you dwell, and you dwell. You continue to think about it, continue to visualize negativity until your body enters the fight or flight state and endorphins are released and, finding no fight, and no obvious reason to flee, just cycle and utilize precious resources, leaving you drained, exhausted and mentally wore out. I’m not sure what is wrong with me.
Am I hurt? Are my children ok? Does someone require something of me right this moment? Am I about to be evicted? Upon going through this mental checklist I find myself, inevitably, calming down, experiencing a sensation of peace as my presence arises, obliterating regrets of the past or worries about the future, I find myself feeling lighter, as if a serious weight has been lifted from me, I find myself even smiling, even if the day is overcast, or rain is falling, or I’m being accosted by some minor annoyance or another.
At the level of the family, we are indoctrinated into love relationships, the idea and practice of which differ across cultures. Pain and heartache become intimate companions as we learn the ins and outs of emotional interactions, of power relationships and intergenerational disfunction. In our own, American/Western European culture, the ideal of romantic, chivalrous love has a long and sordid history, leading directly to our current state of disfunction and perennial unhappiness/happiness, conditions between which we swing like pendulums on a remorseless, emotional clock, the idea of seeking one’s completion and happiness within another person also tossed by the tides of emotional instability being a dubious prospect at best.
Society is a remorseless force permeating our daily existence, codified by institutions and regulations that are so pervasive that they become static, monumental sub-realities of a paradigm unquestioned, the assumptive basis of reality itself, as we define it during the nascent stages of our development. And as we age, these assumptions become ingrained, and we forget that it is even possible to question the fundamental basis upon which our social indoctrination was conceived. External success, keeping up with the Joneses, getting paid, looking like a model, working that 6-pack, wearing the newest clothes, driving the best car, living in the biggest house. Even those of us who decry those leavings of materialism are, by definition, in opposition. And opposition, being a function of duality, is only half of a whole, and therefore, a part of that whole.
How about those times when you’ve been in a situation of extreme stress, the onset of which was sudden and surprising? Perhaps a car accident, perhaps a fight, perhaps an earthquake or a sporting event, or even a test of some sort where your concentration was engaged far past the usual. In those instances, time slowed, didn’t it. Everything around you appeared in greater detail and clarity, your thought process was curiously detached, and an eternity seemed to exist right there between seconds, between impressions, and affecting the perceptive world of your surroundings to the extent that it seemed to be moving in slow motion.
When you think about it, Now is all we have. Right this moment. We are not promised tommorrow. We are not promised even 5 minutes from Now. So that’s why it’s important for me to know where I am right Now. Right this moment. So I close my eyes, bringing my presence to bear and awaken my inner-body consciousness to begin the process of examining the state of my spirit and the situation of my soul. And, right this moment?
At some point I became lucid, aware that I was dreaming. My Guru and I were intent upon confronting a Witch (a feminine soul of conscious, and unbound, potentiality) of sorts, and I – and perhaps one other – was to engage her directly, while he observed, entering the contest only if necessary. The dreamscape was quixotic, and all I can remember was a severely urbanized environment, the structures wierdly gyrated and elongated, with senseless egresses and entrances. The point of my fixation and conscious entry into the dreamscape turned out to be nearer the ending rather than the beginning, the rest having been lost to the wilds of the subconscious, although I vaguely recall opening doors, and seeking…something, with these two companions, a sojourn, during the course of which, my Guru continued to instruct us in the ways of navigating surrealistic landscapes in a conscious manner.
It was then that I became something else, some part of the building and its associated machinery and I recall myself connected to some kind of structure, moving up and down, closer and further away from her, and her amusement permeated the room. I could feel myself becoming lost in the identity of the structure, a remorseless complacency and sense of purpose replacing the single-mindedness of our mission. It is at that point that I clearly remember my Guru saying, as if from a far distance, ”Touch something real.”
I touched the grass and returned instantly to bipedal form. I touched her on her shoulder and she stiffened and turned partly in total surprise. My feeling of triumph coalesced with her auric sense of defeat, causing the dreamscape to swirl in tumultous acknowledgement of our shifting consciousnesses.
I soon realized my excitement was getting the best of me and concentrated on the breath until, after 10, 15 minutes, my thoughts began to still and the space behind Ego revealed itself to me once again. My Guru’s words came to me then, “Touch something real”, drifting across the surface of my consciousness and something shifted, moved, in a directionless sense, back, further into something larger, all-encompassing, and I experienced the sensation of shadows moving across a lighted background, although there was no external source of ambient light – or material energies, moving across my field of vision – strong enough to create such patterns. This passed quickly, heralding the birth of deep purple, red, green blobs of lightforms that pulsed from down to up, before coalescing in a dance of purposeful patterning, the swirling colors that swam through the sea of blackness then concentrating in a pinpointed, spiraling motion while the feeling of vertigo caused by all of this activity increased the sensation of movement, although I was sitting still, in my living room. I felt myself touching, somespace, somewhen, somewho, something real, beyond me, beyond the sense of Ego. Some core function of consciousness, while simultaneously being intimately aware of my outer surroundings.
