Don’t Outsmart Yourself: Participating in a civilized and elevated society

I used to think I was people-smart. Meaning, that I understood the motivations of other people. And by understanding their motivations, I could read, understand and explain their behavior. I thought I was people-smart because I’ve been known to be right, to be able to predict people’s behavior, before. I think we all pride ourselves on being able to do this to one extent or another.

I now realize that being people-smart in the way that I was proud of being is not a virtue. It is instead an indication of the nature of my own thought processes and is not necessarily where they are coming from. There’s a saying that I’ve used for years that I generally understood the meaning of, but that I never really applied to me and my behavior at every level that it should be applied.

“We hate most in others what we hate most about ourselves.”

I understood on the surface what that meant: if someone likes to get angry at other people, I used to feel a self-righteous anger because they were getting angry. I would think to myself, how dare they impose their anger on someone else and express it that way? They are wrong for that and I am righteous for being upset that they are so wrong. Or, how dare they speak to someone that way? They are wrong for that and I am righteous for being upset that they are so wrong.

Sometimes it’s hard to hold a mirror up to ourselves to see the insanity of our own behavior.

I went around for many years doing this. In fact, I still have to catch myself doing it sometimes. Observing people, watching them, looking at their behavior and predicting why they do certain things. Engaging in entire flights of fancy regarding their thought processes, motivations and the possible consequences as they pertained to current and future actions and the ramifications of those actions. I could look at someone’s expression and tell you matter-of-factly what they were thinking. I could listen to a conversation and tell you what something someone said really meant. I could do this by observing their body language, listening to the words they used, the tone, watching and listening for the subtle clues that give an indication of underlying motives, of where words and actions do not necessarily coincide.

Don’t get me wrong, as I said before, I was right some of the time. I’ve studied body language, learned how to tell how people lie, why they lie, when they lie, where their eyes look when they’re making the lie up, the way hands or legs twitch or move or grasp each other when they’re telling the lie, the way shoulders are hunched or not when they’re lying to cover up the original lie, toes tapping, body rocking, lip or nail-biting, ear-pulling, tone-shifting, practically all of the little tell-tale signs that indicate the thought processes underlying the words as the lies pile up on top of each other. We can all do this to a greater and lesser extent, but I prided myself on having actually gone out to learn specifically how to do so in order to increase my abilities that much more.

But it is all vanity, in the end. Because what I have ultimately learned is that we can never know for certain where someone is coming from, what someone is thinking. We can look at their eyes and body language and listen to their words and come to an approximation. We can observe all of the signs and clues and come up with an idea. But we can never know for sure what is going through another person’s head.

But even more importantly than that, is that we shouldn’t try. To the extent that it evolves into more than assuring our basic survival it becomes another ego-tool utilized as a way of controlling one’s environment and other people; it is, in essence, an act of aggression and an energetic imposition of structure upon what should be and is, essentially, structure-less. And, by attempting to read another person in depth we are ignoring what we should be paying more attention to: ourselves. We are not responsible for other people. Other people’s actions are not our responsibility. What other people are doing, how they are acting, even as it affects us, is not our problem. It is theirs. Let me say that again, another way: anything anybody else does around you or to you is their business, not yours.

If someone does something that affects you negatively, then it is necessary that we look at ourselves in order to determine what we did to exacerbate the situation. If you get in an argument with someone and they harangue and berate you, then you need to look at how you set yourself up to be in that position in the first place. How did you set that person off? What did you do or say that brought that negative energy out in them?

Does that sound like too much for you to take on? Does it sound insane to you? I realize that this is not a popular way to be. It can even be said that this is not a natural way to be, if being under the sway of the emotions is considered to be our natural state. But it is the compassionate way to be. It is the civilized way to be. It is the elevated way to be. It is the way forward that leads to a civilized and elevated interaction. To civilized and elevated relationships. To civilized and elevated societies.

By allowing people the sovereignty of their own thoughts and behavior and accepting responsibility for your own, you are driving all blame into one. You are making the decision to become sovereign yourself, to no longer accept the cop-out of blaming others, of placing sovereignty outside of yourself and being a victim. It’s way too easy to blame other people for your problems, for your situation. It’s way too easy to blame your ex for your emotional disfunction. It’s way too easy to blame your old boss for your current lack of a job. It’s way too easy to blame your parents for your childhood. It’s way too easy to blame God for your tribulations.

People will surprise you when given the chance. Some people, I should amend. Some will do exactly what you think they will, what the signs show and tell you they will, each and every time. But it is not your place to pidgeon-hole them like that. It’s not our place to limit their potentiality in that manner, even if it is only in our own minds. Because when we expect someone to speak or act in a certain way, we then adapt our own speech and behavior in anticipation of that response and by so doing project that framework onto and into the other person. You are, in essence, using the emotional energetic link you are engaged in to create a holographic reality through the force of your imagination that limits the potentialities of the moment to the extent that the other person is incapable of transcending the contextuality of the interaction, which is difficult, given the tendency of emotions to sync in conflict approximating a cause and effect feedback loop that, generally, can only escalate unless outside intervention occurs. Is it then little wonder that they live up to your expectations by engaging in the behavior that you have set them up to fulfill?

By taking the opportunity to examine your own behavior and seeing where you caused your current situation or emotional state, you are recapitulating your life. You are engaging in a life-review, something that most people only do at the time of death. By doing it early you are taking control of your personal ethical and spiritual evolution. You are making a statement to the universe that you accept the responsibility of being a sovereign soul. You are releasing others to eventually become responsible for their own thoughts, words and actions by removing yourself from their equation, not letting your thoughts, words and actions give them the excuse to engage in karma-building behavior. You are making the choice to move forward into the future in control of your thoughts, in control of your words and in control of your actions.

There are so few people walking around the planet right now that are in full control of their thoughts, words and actions that by being one of those who are, you are courting the state of awakening and contributing directly to the overall state of enlightenment of the human race. Because, of course, this is an integral part of the overall Enlightenment process. An important realization on the way to understanding that love and compassion, as the expressions of relative bodhicitta, are the direct pathways to manifesting ultimate bodhicitta, which is resting in permanent abiding and silencing the nigh-automatic discursiveness of the uncontrolled mentality.

For many of us, it’s an ingrained habit to attempt to control our immediate environment by projecting our own thought processes onto others. And it gets worse every time we get lucky and turn out to be right. Because then we think we’re on to something, we get all high and mighty, proud and self-congratulatory. It is ego-clinging to the extreme. Egocentricity. The mind holding itself above others, prideful, disdainful, presumptuous. These are qualities to be culled from the personality structure and the only way to do so is by driving all blame into one. Accepting responsibility for our part in the dual or multiple-nodal collaborations that our interpersonal interactivity represents within the flow of time and space that we call our lives.

This teaching is not for everybody.  Some will read this and think, what?!  And that is fine.

Drive all blame into one. Take responsibility for everything. Even things that you really do think are other people’s fault. Make it a mental exercise where you are trying to find the place in the sequence of events where you last take responsibility for the outcome. Eventually, the teaching will become second nature and you will find that your own nature becomes more civilized, more elevated.

More Enlightened.

For those with eyes to see, let them see. For those with ears to hear, let them hear.

All others will come to understanding in their own time.

A Comedy of Errors: True responsibility versus the social compact

People use the word responsibility all the time. Some times in reference to things that they feel that they have to take care of and other times in reference to other people and their lack thereof. The word can be comforting or it can cause pain. It can be a weapon or a healing balm. It’s use and meaning can vary over time and space. To different people, it can mean different things. In different parts of the world it can mean different things. And yet, for such a powerful term, it is curiously unremarked upon.

re·spon·si·bil·i·ty (r-spns-bl-t)

n. pl. re·spon·si·bil·i·ties

1. The state, quality, or fact of being responsible.

2. Something for which one is responsible; a duty, obligation, or burden.

If you break the word down into its component parts it looks something like this:

re·sponse  (r-spns)

n.

1. The act of responding.

2. A reply or an answer.

3. A reaction, as that of an organism or a mechanism, to a specific stimulus.

a·ble (bl)

adj. a·bler, a·blest

1. Having sufficient power or resources to accomplish something: a singer able to reach high notes; a detergent able to remove stains.

2. Usage Problem Susceptible to action or treatment: The brakes were able to be fixed.

3. Especially capable or talented.

 A duty then. A burden, an obligation to respond, reply, react or give an answer and being capable or having the resources or power to accomplish it.

We are responsible according to our own personal choices to self, family, friends and society to varying degrees. We each have examples in our lives of things that we feel that we are responsible for. Responsibility is a choice.

It is a choice to respond and the ability to do so. To react to a situation in a capable manner.

Individually, we are each responsible for our own thoughts, words and actions. Because the mind can be controlled, every thought that we have is a choice. Because the muscles that move the body can be controlled, every word we say and action we take is also a choice.

We don’t have to think certain things. If we choose to and practice, we can turn off the constant running chatter of thoughts that passes through our brain. Dwelling on the past and the future is not necessary. Dwelling on thoughts of people and situations that give rise to feelings of jealousy, avarice, hatred, passion or even love is a conscious choice. It is a choice that takes us out of the moment, out of the Now, and into the indeterminate space of contemplation, removing us from our outer environment and immersing us within the inner creative environment of imagination and emotivity.

The thoughts we allow our minds to entertain are always of the imaginative variety as none of them are based in reality in any way other than containing a cast of characters based upon real people, or a series of events based upon what we think are potential occurrences given the information that we possess at the time. How we recall the past, how we create the future with our thoughts is totally constructed by the series of synapses and connections within our neural nets and the emotional content that the images give rise to and that we use to determine which potential path holds the best possible outcome for our current emotional state and belief system.

None of it is real until we attempt to make it so. We remember selectively. Our perceptions are bounded by our capacity to process information and our knowledge bases, which limits our ability to understand everything going on around us. Often, things did not happen in the past in the manner that we envisioned, nor did the events hold the emotive weights to others that we might have given them at the time.

When we think about current events, our perceptions fail us as well. We do not have all of the information, and yet we attempt to forecast other people’s actions, or how situations will play out. None of it comes to pass outside of our minds and in the ‘real world’ in exactly the manner we had envisioned it either because there are other actors involved. Other people who are acting out the plays they’ve also envisioned in their minds. The Comedy of Errors that our lives then become is in direct correlation to the lack of clarity and knowledge that we bring to the table in each circumstance and instance of interaction with other sentient beings and the natural world.

The interplay of multiple consciousnesses engaged in personal, mental dramas upon the sound-stage of 3D reality is life as we know it. Our engagement with the social system and our interpersonal connections to others comprise our levels of responsibility. The social compacts that we agree to as we mature within the different cultural realms of production across the world determine the nature of that responsibility.

As individuals living within greater systems that integrate ritual and belief in a criss-crossing interweaving of institutions and interactions, lesser and greater forms of coalescence around ideologies and material manifestations of such in all areas of people activity including capacity limitation, intellectual bounding, moral culpability, interpersonal interactivity and individual and collective responsibility, we make the conscious choice to maintain the system with our acquiescence and our mental and physical support. We become the system and uphold the system as an agreement with others within the system.

Our responsibilities are then determined by outside forces that we have internalized. Our choices are then bounded by a complex of ideas and formulations that limit our capacity to respond creatively to life and to the unlimited potentialities that surround us because of this mental encapsulation that we subscribe to and represent in our words and actions, if not our thoughts. We become beholden to family, to friends, to society. We limit our thoughts, our words, our actions based upon what others think of us or because of our fear of the potential ramifications of going beyond the boundaries and the imposed responsibility of societal production.

Responsibility in the cultural sense often has to do with the continued propagation of society. Inter-generational societal production. It is almost as if cultures were alive, thinking and conscious entities comprised of countless individual souls who live and die within them much like cells within organic bodies. They are born and die without remark but the body lives on. Humans engage different processes of societal production during their lifetimes, acting very much like cells and we often attempt to pass on our roles to our children, who then pass them on to theirs. We re-create what are often outdated memes as we are conditioned to do even as the world changes around us. Culture must conform to the world within it is expressed, response must be commiserate with ability.

At a certain point, those who seek freedom through spiritual practice come to recognize the limitations of societal responsibility and make different choices. It becomes possible to recognize personal responsibility and to cast off imposed structures that are not necessary for one’s own progress in life. But the ramifications of such are not without consequence. Social censure and castigation, banishment or disowning, disapproval, anger, disappointment and every other form of emotional and physical punishment available, even unto bodily harm and death, are the potential costs an individual must pay for their mental and physical freedom.

The higher notions of philosophical and spiritual responsibility of collective involvement and interactivity is bolstered by the quantum realities of entanglement and superposition. Everything and everyone is connected in a web of consciousness and choice is a matter of perception and attention resulting in the collapse of the wave function into a pattern of lived reality corresponding to personal knowledge or belief. We are individuals acting within a collective, affecting it but possessing our own unique perspectives. We engage others’ perspectives and enter into and exit different time-lines and realities with the course of each series of thoughts, words and actions. This is the real nature of responsibility: to be true to ourselves and, by doing so, being true to the whole.

The only physical responsibility we are born with is to ourselves. Whatever we do is our destiny; is the way it is supposed to be. The only spiritual responsibility we are born with is to our own  evolution of consciousness. However we individually evolve is of benefit to the All, is an expression of exactly how things are supposed to turn out. Everything else that we pick up along the way that cause us to doubt ourselves, to self-flaggelate and to entertain worry and regret is to misunderstand the nature of incarnation and life and to misappropriate time and energy upon pointless recrimination.

Life is not designed to be thought out, it is designed to be lived. Taking it as it comes, immersing yourself in the Now opens up the vistas of possibility unto the infinite, releases flows of energetic potentiality that expand human ability beyond dreams and material limitations. Choose your responsibilities wisely and make the choices that lighten your soul instead of those that increase the burden. Accept where you are and what you can do based upon your options in the Now. Be prepared for immediate change by keeping your mind clear and open and watching for the synchronicities that lead you upon your soul’s perfect path.

But mostly, do what you have to do. Own your thoughts, words and actions without regret. It is our most pressing responsibility in life.

The Rules of Capitalization: The spiritual lies we live

It is often difficult for people to handle the Truth. We all have our “little t” truths, but when it comes to the “big T” Truths that speak to aspects of “big S” Self as opposed to “little s” self, we often do not want to hear it. People can go an entire lifetime running from Self and Truth. In fact, even understanding that there is a difference between self and Self, truth and Truth can be too much for many to handle. Here are two examples of “little t” truth versus “big T” Truth:

Money will make you happy. That is a “little t” truth. Money will give you the capacity to pay your bills, to buy gifts for people during birthdays and special celebrations, to get things that you desire and think you need in your life.

More money, more problems. That is a “big T” Truth. Money will not only allow you to take care of the material things in your life that you need, it will also allow you to engage in behavior that you may desire, which is not the same as need. Indulging our desires is the quickest way to find out who we truly are and, sometimes, that is not necessarily a good thing.

Now here are two examples of “little s” self versus “big S” Self.

I’m an individual. I like certain things and dislike other things. This is an example of the “little s” self. There are things that happen in life that make us happy and sad. Naturally, we like the things that make us happy and we dislike the things that make us sad. Our bodies react to our thoughts by sending a cascade of chemicals out from the hypothalamus (neuro-peptides) that suffuse our cells, changing their state, which we call having an emotional reaction. Being happy, being sad, etc. Chemical reactions which are imminently controllable, if we so choose. Our emotions are powerful and they are often an important factor in the decisions we make in our lives.

We are One. We are all a part of God.  This is an example of the “big S” Self. Also called the Higher Self or one of the 72 Names of God, we are, individually, like cells in a human body or like droplets in the ocean, a part of something larger and beyond our individuated consciousnesses. Being such, we are not our egos or personalities, we are the silent stillness of Awareness that lies beneath the thoughts that often course remorselessly through our minds. This Awareness is our connection to our Higher Self and to that higher Divinity which lies beyond. This is who we really are. The core of our BEing, that which is aligned with the Eternal and Infinite.

Coming to understand these differences between self and Self, between truth and Truth is coming to terms with the reality of the holographic matrix within which we live and carry out the conditions of our lifetimes. Our “little t and s” truths and selves are the ego-bound, personality-driven, limited almost mechanical constructs through which we view the world and our interactions. They are the product of our upbringings, our family values, our societal mores and our conceptions of dualistic existence. It consists of our likes and dislikes, our rights and wrongs, our goods and bads, our positives and negatives.

Our “big T and S” Truths and Selves are our connection to each other, to the world and to the cosmos and the Infinite and Eternal beyond even that. They are our resonant response to the thrill and joy of existence, to the contradictory and yet supportive conditions of a limited material existence and an unlimited immaterial existence. The contradictory understanding that we will die, and yet we will live again. That we have only a short while upon this earth, yet there is no end to what lies beyond.

A general response to these Truths that lie beyond the ken of too many is an immersion within the daily grind. A concentration upon minutia. An over exaggeration of our physical bodies to the detriment of our spiritual bodies. An elevation of the emotional and personal entrapment to the exclusion of a greater form of emotional and personal detachment. We often desperately hold on to the “I”, to the “me”, so that we don’t have to admit the existence of a greater “We”. The contradictions of our existences demand this willful blindness to the Truth in favor of our truths.

To enjoy material life in the Western cultures is to celebrate the “I” and the “me” over the “We”. To live within a capitalist culture is to celebrate the “I” and the “me” over the “We”. To continue to internalize the inherently separative qualities of our culture, we must create a virtual battlezone within ourselves between self and Other, the Other in this instance being everyone outside of self, to include family members and friends. This results in the fundamental schism of a lifetime, when considering the fact that, in order to alienate others, we must first create division and separation within ourselves. This division and separation comes at the cost of the greater “We” and often occurs at a very young age.

The journey of a lifetime then becomes a reclaiming of the innocence of childhood; an innocence that recognizes the Truth of Oneness and a resonant, compassionate understanding in the collectivity of BEingness. We are alike, we share more in common than may be immediately obvious, your good fortune is mine, your happiness is my joy. Being happy for your sister because she is happy, celebrating your friend’s good fortune because it is also yours, honoring the stranger because you have also been a stranger before and know how it feels.

Awakening to the necessity of piercing the “little t’s and s’s” is one of the first steps along the journey of reconnecting with your spiritual and greater Self. Controlling your emotional states and the inner dialogue, finding out who you truly are within and living life in the Present and not the Past and the Future are all attainable goals, if and when you decide to embark upon that path. Going within to meet your Inner Child, seeking to heal her or him and send that part of yourself on a journey of re-connection with your Higher Self will lead to sustained and constant spiritual growth and a more joyous and connected experiential journey through the days of your life. This is the goal of an incarnation, at heart. Not money, not security, not happiness. These things are ephemeral and do not last. Only what is within and reflected without, lasts, and only what is within and reflected without, is Truth. Only what is beneath the inner-voice, beyond the thoughts, is Self.

Learn to recognize the Rules of Capitalization. Then live your life seeking to internalize them with eyes and hearts wide open to experience.

The Serene State of Illogicality

Illogic: the quality or state of being illogical: Illogicality

We can all be illogical sometimes, in fact, I’d say that it was our particular gift as humans, to bring a sense of the peculiar, of the subjective to our experiences and many would argue that, thusly perceived, illogicality is the natural state of humanity rather than its diametrically opposed counter, logicality.

Who doesn’t love to take a stand and tell somebody no and just immerse yourself in that immediate gratification of solidity, of positional irrationality that comes from a steady obstinence and willingness to broach any societal nicety, just for the sheer, sensual pleasure of being right? Even if you’re wrong? Of anger,and the rushing adrenelin of an innately confused mental state within which all perceptions are stained a bloody and scintillating crimson, our bodies and minds trembling and vibrating with the sheer force of impassioned kundalini risen upon command and applied toward the total negation of all conscious thought.

It’s so wonderful to let go, to feel the power as anger rises and overtakes, so much so that it acts like a drug in our systems. Lifetimes of acting on anger produce automatic responses after certain ages. Changing those responses becomes changing one’s total Self for those who see themselves as thier personality complexes, which I define as the totality of our social selves, the person other’s meet and friends and family love, although the closest of these see beyond the social veneer to our true selves, which is that person we’ve always been in the quietest of moments, as well as the person we are striving to be, whom, in many cases, those who love us can see clearer than we can ourselves.

Illogic allows us to be God-like, our word becomes the law, any challenge to which gives rise to the righteous anger of the divinely-inspired. Illogic can also be related to a mythopoeic mindstate, wherein the world is a magical place, gods and goddesses exist, and magic makes women mad and men fall in love without recourse. Logic, again as the inverse, implies the non-existence of differentiation, of a steady-state creation of Oneness, where purity and stability reign.

Of course, we know that both are true to the extent that Creation is inclusive of All, holism the law and rule, the Beginning and the End. In the Lower Worlds, within which we toil and live our lives, duality is the expression of Oneness, rationality must coexist with irrationality, both complimentary, one could not exist without the other. In the Higher Worlds, it is clear that these expressions are complimentary. THe preceding is stated consciously, with the recognition that all Worlds exist Here and Now, simultaneously and coterminously and, as is always the case, As Above, So Below. In personal relationships, they say that opposites attract. But does this also mean that they meet, that they are meant to interact as well? On a personal level, does this mean that a woman of peace and love is supposed to love and live with a man of anger and hate?

Here’s the personal vignette for this topic:

When I was much younger, I was a good boy. In the third grade, when we lived in Crete, Greece, I joined the Cub Scouts upon the insistence of my father. My first camping trip was there, and I can still recall the visceral experience of camping in what passed for forests on Crete, which included piney stands of intense sensuality, the smell of which comes to me now, in this insistence and sheer, wondrous intensity.

From there, to Del City, Oklahoma, achieving the Arrow of Light, entering Webelos and then, joyously, Boy Scouts and the summer between sixth and seventh grade. The troop was all white, except for me, but, through my first real experience of political intrigue, I somehow wrangled the position of Senior Patrol Leader from what I now recognize as a natural intrest group formed by two close friends and their extended network of sycophants and hangers-on, giving me the votes needed as a reciprocal payment for appointing one friend as Quartermaster because he, apparently, liked the sound of it.

I often mention racism in these stories because it has been an integral part of my experience in life, in America, and has formed the backdrop for many of my most important life-lessons. This story is no different.

The older kids, scouts, one in particular, would often tell nigger jokes, or make snide comments around me. But this was Del City, Oklahoma, one of the Tri-City region which included Oklahoma City, Midwest City and Del City. Oklahoma City, at that time (late-70s), was where the black population was concentrated, although black folks lived througout the entire tri-city region in relatively large numbers. So, the neighborhood where I lived had its share of bigots. People who would rush outside when I’d walk on their grass, or who would let their kids play with me, but who wouldn’t let me swim in their pools, or come into their houses.

At that age, it’s life, and I reflected this by becoming very inwardly focused, reading a lot and dealing with events as they came to me, with a seriousness, early maturity and a sense of morosity that must have contributed to the spiritual awakening that I experienced during this stage of my life, which I’ve spoken on in other blog entries.

But anyway, Tommy Pierce (yes, that’s his real name) was my age; brown hair, pale skin, normal size for a sixth grader. He was brash, spoke before he thought, but not really the worst kind of guy. We didn’t really like each other, but we respected each other. On this particular camping trip, we were placed together in a tent, along with two other kids.

One night, we all went to sleep, each of us correspondingly lying on one of the four sides of the tent, with the middle, an area of about 5 square feet, left open, holding our jackets, packs and other sundry items. Around two or three in the morning, I was awakened by Tommy, screaming at me. I remember looking at him, his face swollen by sleep and ugly with anger, yelling at me, telling me that I had stolen his spot. That I had, somehow, moved him while he was sleeping, and taken his postion in the tent.

No matter what I, or the other two scouts, who had of course also awakened and were sitting up staring at this boy, said, he refused to budge from his conviction that I had engaged in some sort of evil plot to move him and take his side of the tent. I don’t remember the other boys names, but after Tommy started in calling me nigger this and nigger that the looks of embarassment and shame that they felt at his behavior permeated our small tent and, eventually, Tommy’s bellicose behavior subsided, although he never did come around to admitting that he was on the same side of the tent when he awoke as he had been when he’d fallen asleep, the evening before.

I have faint memories of one of the boys apologizing to me the next day or something, but Tommy never did, of course. Never admitted he was wrong, in fact, I dont remember if he ever brought it up again, although I know that it became one of the stories told through the troop, known as the night that Tommy went crazy.

Tommy and I never did get along after that, and we did come to fisticuffs once, a contest that was quickly broken up by other scouts. But Tommy’s illogic never left me, and I’ve seen many examples of it since, and have engaged upon similar courses of action myself for different reasons, I suppose, although in the end, none of them are really meaningful outside of my own subjective take upon reality.

I quit Boy Scouts when we moved to Scott Air Force Base, outside of Bellville, Illinois. I went through Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class and Star, ending up earning a Life Scouting badge, which is one below Eagle Scout. This was an expression of Illogicality on my part, quitting because I’d been ‘traded’ between troops during a sickness, giving up an entire youth’s commitment because of a feeling of betrayal by scouts that I really didn’t have much of a personal relationship with anyway. If it can be called this, I suppose it is one regret that I have in life, not finishing the entire Scouting program and reaching the highly vaunted rank of Eagle Scout.

There is a certain zen calm that is reached at the highest state of Illogicality. A feeling of self-righteousness and egocentricity that can fool a person into thinking that he or she is actually evidencing an abstract spiritual state, or give them cause to believe that they have, somehow, transcended the complex of emotional instability that all humans experience, and have reached a higher plateau of consciousness, when, in fact, what they’ve done is barricaded themselves within the finite torus of intellectual posturing gifded by kundalini mis-applied, which is one of the greatest traps that any spiritual aspirant could fall prey to.

Let me tell you what it feels like, when you’ve gone down the wrong path. A knot, right behind the center of your chest. A knot that feels like it can’t be unbound, ever. It is a tension that struggles against the boundary of the body. It feels like you can’t catch your breath, even if you can breath in and out fully, it doesn’t feel like enough, like you need more air, a bigger chest, something, bigger, in order to release that knot, let it out, open your chest, your heart to the universe to receive, something, something larger, outside of yourself within, to replace that little, angry, misanthropic knot that is bound so tightly, conscious of your every attempt to untangle it, and craftily aware of your every move to root it out from the core of your very Self.

The bible speaks of the hardened heart, and the point at which compassion and love become foreign to certain people who cultivate Illogicality and its corresponding effect of egocentricity. That book also states that once the heart achieves this state, it can’t be changed. But that we have infinite chances to release it all to God, through the medium of Jesus the Christ. Divine grace is our birthright, on this point, almost all religions agree. The contemplation of Eternity through the lense of Life is, as stated in 1st Corinthians 13:12:

“For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

Illogicality works against charity. It prosyletizes the judgement of the One over compassion for the Other. While, on the face of it, selfishness seems to jibe with some Darwin-ish view of Life as a game of ‘Survival of the Fittest’, the highest human qualities are those which separate us from the animals, and which speak to the capacity of humanity to rise above our lower natures and seek out the high ground, where compassion and charity live.

My own illogicality is often followed quickly by remorse and apologetics. If any of y’all reading recognize any of this in yourself, I reach out to you with compassion and understanding, and universal love. Only recognition and the commitment to consciously working against Illogicality can change a lifetime of response-patterns. But we have to do it, if we’re ever going to be the people we were born to be, which can only be done if we release that knot, give in to something Greater, and share the love, rather than holding it, jealously, inside, where it can only fester and die, taking us, struggling, along with it.

From Here to There: Savannas of clarity and light

Free Will and Destiny always make good topics of conversation.

In watching the Matrix I movie again the other night, I was struck by Morpheus’ question to Neo regarding his thoughts about Destiny, Fate, and Neo’s response that he didn’t like the idea that he didn’t have control over his outcomes.

When considering it in the context of Creation as laid out by the Ancients, the reality seems to be that our choices are indeed Free, as we make them, but since we are ensconced within a time-space continuum that is bubble-like, with other aspects of Creation lying outside of that bubble, the many precognitive abilities that seem to be supernatural in nature are merely extended human perceptual capacities that allow us to span the realms of reality that lie outside of our normal five senses and our limited experience of an eternal and infinite Creation.

We do this daily. The feelings that we get when we meet someone for the first time. The thoughts we have that seem to come from outside of our thought processes and affect our lived reality. The ability we have, sometimes, to know things we haven’t learned. The strange coincidences that arises from our thoughts and actions, and lead to some change in our circumstances. Little things, in the larger scheme of things, but meaningful things, when they come to our experiences of this world.

Relationships have been very difficult for me lately. Friend relationships and intimate relationships alike. Determining my own needs has run directly into fulfilling others needs, and the result has been chaotic, to say the very least. It is often an underlying part of our realities that the societal context within which we live determines the way that we carry out our relationships. When we live within a sick society, often, our so-called personal choices come from places of sickness that are reflections of our early childhood learning, and the patterns that we witnessed and internalized during that time-frame.

Growing out of those patterns does not happen unless we make the conscious decision to leave them behind at a certain point in our lifetimes. Making that conscious decision can only happen if our experiences leave us in a place where we are forced to confront our choices and beliefs and determine whether or not they truly help us or hinder us during our sojourn through life. Doing so requires a sober and in-depth exploration of personality and Self, which is a task many of us run away from instead of toward.

It’s hard. Very hard. For anyone who has been told about themselves and has had to look in the mirror and realize that you’re not all that you thought that you were, you know that your first instinct is to look away. To never look in a mirror again and walk around not even thinking about whatever your problem is – the problem that is, apparently, very obvious to those close and not so close to you – but which has been hidden from you, by you yourself. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? That we can hide things from ourselves? Or, see them, and then make the conscious decision to ignore them?

“I am who I am, love me or leave me.”

“I always been this way, and I ain’t gonna change.”

“I’mo do me, no matter what.”

“You ain’t no better.”

I want to change. Maybe you do to. In fact, many of us want to change, but the problem arises when we look at the current state of our lives, and try to figure out how to get from here to there, how to stumble our way through the briar-patch mess that we’ve made of our lives into the clear fields surrounding, out of the forest and onto the Savannas of Clarity and Light. How do we change our situations so that we can be that avatar of ourselves that we see within, living the lives we want to live, being the people we want to be?

Some people will tell you to just stop. Get rid of all of the negative influences in your life and change right then and there. And that is a valid choice. Itoften results in the accumulation of unresolved karma and also doesn’ttake into account the reality that sometimes we are in life-situationsthat we can’t get out of realistically without drastic consequences. And, sometimes, those consequences are necessary. Sometimes, an abused spouse has to run away from her or his abuser, just pack the bags and go for theirs or the children’s sake. Other times, we have to cut off a relationship that we can see is no good for us, even if we are still emotionally or chemically attached to that individual. Stopping is a valid response, and one that we sometimes wait. But there are other options as well.

Continuing within a negative pattern, changing it as we go along, until the outcome is one that has brought us into the light. This is more difficult, obviously, because the possibilities of succumbing, of continuing the negative pattern are strong. This is the case in just stopping the negative pattern as well, as any ex-smoker still loving his or her tobacco can tell you. It requires a firm will and a clear goal to make it through, if the choice is made to allow a situation to continue, seeking ways to direct the situation in a positive manner, leading to a positive outcome. Also, when you take this path, you have to be very observant of the many forks and side-paths along the way. Synchronicity is the key factor to the decision-making process, when you are seeking direction in life, and the opportunities may often arise alongside distractions designed to obscure opportunity’s facade and keep you blinded and headed down the wrong tracks, well on your way to a dark and painful end.

Stopping or continuing. Both valid choices, both valid ways to experience life, and to change your situation. The key to either’s success is the clarity of the goal. Whether or not you can see where you want to be in the end, and if you have the willpower necessary to sustain your effort until you arrive there. There will be dark days, and times when you say to yourself that there is no G-d, or the Light is too far away. There will arise emotional despair, strong enough to cause some to think of black-hole dissolution and service-to-self in the form of suicide and the immerson of Self into even more negative practices that are life-threatening and immolatory in nature.

Burn, burn, burn on the cross like Jesus in the Devil’s favorite dream, what’s the point, my life is meaningless and nobody will miss me anyway.

We can’t really please anybody. Everyone sees themselves in everyone else anyway, and what we love about others is usually what we love about ourselves, and our fascination with seeing that reflection so clearly. Some call that love, at least.

Whatever it is we’re doing here has implications beyond our petty wishes and banal experiences. Whatever kind of experiment this is, whether it is an insignificant play on an obscure stage somewhere on the fringes of the known universe, or whether it is a cosmic stage of intense importance to all sentient beings everywhere, really matters little when it comes to our own individual experiences of life.

It seems to all be about choices. And whether those choices lead us to a better or worse outcome for ourselves, and, in that sense, whether our spirits and lives are fulfilled by our actions, or whether they are not. How we actually feel, emotionally, is tangential to the central question of whether or not we are fulfilled. Feelings come and go – both positive and negative – but that sense of pervasive peace and contentment that comes from the fulfillment of a personal purpose in life is something else altogether.

Fulfilling our individual purposes, be they in the Darkness or the Light, is the goal. Finding out what that purpose is and how to fulfill it, our journey through experience. It’s my journey. It’s your journey. No one else can tell us how to travel it.

I gotta do what I gotta do to get from here to there. And so do you. So let’s agree to do whatever it is we gotta do the best way we know how, no matter what anyone else wants us to or thinks we should do. Even our mistakes are ours and ours alone. We make them because we need to, for whatever reason. Advice is good, but doesn’t trump experience, and some’a y’all, like me, got hard-ass heads.

Even when it seems like we are not making a choice, we are making a choice. No choice at all is a valid expression of Free Will, and often has consequences, just as making a choice in one direction or another does. Destiny happens, Fate is the book written, the story told before, during and after the events take place.

As we play our assigned roles, perhaps we should keep in mind that we are only part of the cast, and that the starring role rotates. Also that there are infinite stages, set for an eternal audience that includes us all in the roles of actor and audience at different points of consciousness outside the boundaries of time and space.

The Stars of Tomorrow

Watching the news is an exercise in curiosity these days. Listening to Obama and the Democrats warring with those Independent and Republican factions intent upon deepening their engineered depression. Listening to the right-wing chorus line and political pundits talking all around the fact that the only logical explanation for the current conservative agenda is political, economic and social armegeddon. Religious too, when it comes down to it.

Everybody’s feeling the end times bug. Even if they don’t know what to call it. In my classes, the kids used to be eager to hear about money creation and the voracious nature of the fractional reserve system. They eat up Inner-Earth mythology, Tesla, HAARP and quantum entanglement even as we compare them to plate tectonics and the earth’s theorized internal composition, atmospheric layers and the electromagnetic spectrum. The great big world outside of our individual and collective dramas, within which we endeavor, intrigues the cool, non-traditional and disaffected alike, and they always brought up 2012, not I.

Every method of media is culling every last iota of energy they can from a newly sensitized and tuned electorate. The rumbles, sparks and sulfurous belching of xenophobia battle the song of Oneness sung by the People crying for change. Our political theater continues as political powerhouses battle for direction and control of the NOW and the world’s future. The internal power politics of the military-industrial complex seek their corruption and compromise as many pray and send energy fervently, hoping against hope that, somehow, they can prevail and this slow-motion systems crash we are experiencing won’t really be as bad as it seems to be becoming with each and every price increase, job loss and medical emergency. That World War III will not reach the stage of nuclear fusion and that we can continue to live complacent lives, lost in our enjoyment of our worlds.

The movies prepare us. Say the things we know through lived experience about psychic phenomenon, ghosts, visitations, aliens and possible near-future scenarios. They contain hidden messages in symbols and archetypes, and tales told that precisely follow a pyramidal structure passed across time from the earliest cultures in this age, remnants of earlier cultures who went the same way, even if through different cosmic mechanisms.

Shia LaBeouf, Will Smith, Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Lopez and so many other media luminaries are the chosen representatives of what is, in essence, a globalized phenomenon of a shared and collective recognition of the import of the times. They, and we, are the Stars of Tommorrow, writ large upon the sky today, our multi-ethnic/racial solidarity as citizens of the multiverse solidifying a shared cultural milieu that binds us together in a global American-based mythos of immense philosophical and spiritual proportions and which will perhaps outlast the material incarnation of this culture’s ultimate triumph.

Seeing the disconnect individually. Knowing individuals in your own lives who seem to represent two oppositional sides in live reality, with every expression of variability within the whole. My friend Deepam says that life is like a movie, the mind being the screen. A movie that, if only we realize it is such, can be an enjoyable experience, even while we’re going through what looks to be misery on the screen. The screen we’re all co-creating, in our own individualized ways. With each vote, purchase, engagement in the system, we confirm it, engage in action designed to propagate it. We are commoditized and consumed.

Ejection from the system is akin to the abyss. The unknown lies beyond a fading illusion as critical junctures are reached for us as a species, our planet, solar system and galaxy as a whole. Real, material changes will transform our planet during our lifetimes and that realization is dawning upon the entire world.

This is the backdrop to the evening news. To the smoldering agonies of life in tumultous times. To each of our own personal dramas. This is the backdrop that, instead of fading into comfortable, sepia-toned anonymity, is sharply clarifying with each moment, outlined against the transcendent glory of creation at every level of being. At this stage, it’s simply our task to retain awareness. To find a state of equilibrium between ourselves and the world, to find the central truth of our existences, and come closer to manifesting it in our lives. The sublime beauty of the Grand Design is only apparent from a distance, and only the conscious cultivation of this distance allows each of us to move beyond our dramas and see the larger pattern of our lives as they weave into the greater tapestry of each of our interactions intertwined into eternity.

The work of self-remembering, as pronounced by Gurdjieff and later Ouspensky and as known by every spiritual culture preceding the presently ascended one. The work of enlightenment, which is the work of living consciously.

Turning off the news, because there are more important things to do. Taking care of the day to day, while also taking time to feed your soul with good company and contemplation. Consciously cultivating a peaceful persona in preparation for action, using your daily experiences as the quizzes preparing you for the test to come. Paying attention to the Now, catching the synchronicities and using them to propel yourself further into your destiny, using each opportunity to serve others by giving of yourself in a way that only you can.

As the future unfolds day by day, life remains intimate. We’re all in this together. Even the talking heads can’t help but recognize the sheer absurdity of current world conditions. Sometimes, you have to laugh to keep yourself from crying. The curiosity factor is satisfied with this confirmation that these are strange days indeed and that the only way out is through the burning building. Since we’ve all worked so hard to keep the fire going nice and high, the only entertainment left is seeing who makes it out alive, if any of us.

Submerging Self

There are no new things under the sun. The Earth remains the garden, the flora and fauna proliferating as expressions of consciousness, diverging from Oneness as manifestations of the Infinite and Eternal.

Broken dreams have fallen before, hearts have been lost, desires frustrated. What I feel is no different from what most feel, what you feel has been felt by me.

Beautiful phrases and impressive words express ideas that have been thought before, spoken and written in contexts that may differ in detail, but remain the same in underlying meaning.

People today are no smarter than people who lived 100 years ago, 1,000 years ago, or 1,000,000 years ago. The brain, spirit and soul remain a constant expression of what lies beyond, only manifest in flesh to gain the gift of experience in the further evolution of the multiverse.

All experience is One experience, all thought is One thought, all feeling is One feeling, flowing through all of Creation, to greater or lesser degrees.

Every act of repression results in an act of freedom. Every lie brings forth the truth. Every miscarriage of justice births reparations.

The observation of this fundamental unity of experience arises through the interaction of time and space. Every thought manifests as reality in the act of creation, reverbrating throughout the infinite material worlds.

Rising to meet the challenge of living life cognizant of these truths can only occur when our own experience of reality conforms with some base experiential perception that lies beyond the capacity of most, who are content fomenting illusion. Cutting through the mental and emotional detritus we’ve built up during a lifetime of indoctrination is a task so formidable that it has been relegated to the status of myth and legend.

We don’t believe in Avatars or Shamans or Gurus, because they represent a level of consciousness that we have not achieved, so how could they have achieved it?

We are all equal, no one is better than another, and no one can certainly achieve impossible heights of psychic and ethical accomplishment that shatter the laws of reality that we subconsciously co-create with each successive thought.

Even those who don’t believe they create their own reality live in realities in which the act of disbelief is an end in and of itself. It justifies its own existence and melds the perception of truth accordingly. A society of such demi-gods can conquer the world, has indeed conquered the world, subjecting the people of the world to realities that tend toward the accumulative and the material, decrying the spiritual as impossible, inconceiveable and irrelevant, in any case.

Such extremes must exist in opposition to those who essay that pathless path, leaving footprints in the sky. For every ascending soul there is an equal and oppositional descending soul, for every angel, a demon. For every kind-hearted soul, a hard-hearted one, for every believer, a disbeliever.

Living in the knowledge of opposition reinforces the perception of fundamental Oneness. Recognizing the paths of ascention and descent boils the individual choice down to personal preference, karmic destiny and each choice we make. Free Will is a law of Creation and makes us all responsible for the situations we find ourselves in, regardless of the outcome or our perceptions thereof.

There is no one to blame but ourselves, no one to pray to outside of ourselves. And yet, everyone else is to blame but us, and there are infinite powers to pray to, inside of ourselves. Seemingly contradictory realities clash within the Halls of Creation like Valkyries and Trolls upon the fields of Valhalla, or like the spider Anansi and Tiger, in the earliest days of this world.

Chaos is the illusion and Order, the underlying truth. The trials and tribulations that pain us build us up, preparing us for more to come. What we are going through is what people have always gone through, there is no qualitative difference that makes our individual plights any different from anyone elses. The seeming good life that some live is just as much of an illusion as the seeming horror that others endure. My tragedies in this lifetime are equaled by your tragedies in another.

The sun watches ever, shining its many-horned splendor upon the good and bad alike, while synchronicities play havoc with our plans and dreams. Nothing new threatens the continuity of Creation, and all works out as it is supposed to, no matter how it looks from our vantage point. Submerging Self within the experience demands our full attention and the constant call of awakening to the illusion a slumbering insistence that awakens every once and again in the attempt to shoulder past the ego’s rude pronunciations.

But life still goes on and the days continue to pass, one following the next, until we awaken to the fact that they do so at our insistence and that, at any time, we can collectively choose otherwise. When that day comes, a pivotal instance will have been reached that takes us, collectively, from one state of consciousness to another.

Then, and only then, can we state that there is something new under the sun, because by then, we will have become One with it, the planets and the infinite stars and worlds beyond, returning to a state of existence inconceivable to us now.

Oneness in diversity, multiplicity through holism. Reconciling the illusion, with the real.

Self-Help and Self-Knowledge: Are we the sum of our material conditions?

“G-d helps those who help themselves.”

This is a quote that may be familiar to some of us, as something our parents or a mentor might have said to us during a time period when we were wondering what direction to go in, what path to take, which mountain to climb, or not. Although it is often thought to have originated in the bible, Ben Franklin was actually one of the first to state it in that particular way, although there are older quotes attributed to others that basically say the same thing:

“Help thyself, heaven will help thee.” LaFontaine, Book VI, fable 18

“Heaven ne’er helps the men who will not act.” Sophocles

“Help thyself and G-d will help thee.” George Herbert (1593-1633), Jocula Prudentum

Understanding this term is pretty subjective, I think, and depends upon the context and our own personal belief systems. For me, it means that my active participation in the course of my life trumps sitting back and waiting for blessings to rain down upon me. That by moving toward my goals, I create activity that allows G-d to move with me, presenting opportunities and circumstances that bring me closer to the place and life that G-d desires for me to live. This works in the area of synchronicities, where me taking advantage of coincidences that seem to pop up miraculously move me closer to my goals. The fact that these coincidences would not have occured if I had not previously been moving toward my goals is never lost upon me and speaks to a larger constellation of possibilities that transcends religions, that makes it clear that such things do not just happen to Christians alone, but that lies beyond religion in the realm of spirituality, and is the gift and blessing of all of humanity.

Considering the importance of a state of mind, it becomes very clear that we are what we think, and our possibilities are only circumscribed by the limitations of our dreams and desires. The lives that we live, even though they may seem as if they are incontrovertible, and, perhaps, forced upon us by fate, are largely a matter of choice. Moving past one’s personal circumstances then is dependent upon us making the choice to do so, and that is so much easier said than done, especially when our identities are tied up in the material conditions around us, which includes the possessions, the friends, the families, and the society in general.

What does this mean to people who live in ghettos? Trailer parks? The urban wastelands in the underdeveloped countries of the world? Who are stuck in systems of education and economics that leave them foundering, attempting to prosper in a system that seems to relegate them to the margins? And what about those who charge such individuals with responsibility for their conditions? Who state that they must rise above their surroundings and be all they can be, rather than remain, complaining, mired in the morass of abject poverty and engaged in morally reprehensible behavior?

Is this, then, the spiritual equivalent to a bootstrap philosophy as espoused by so many that seem to want those underpriviledged individuals to remain in their impoverished conditions? I submit to you that political posturing, while seeming to mirror higher, spiritual truths, is often based upon personal gain or agendas that require that the words serve a hurtful purpose, and are not accompanied by corresponding actions meant to relieve these people from the desperation of their conditions. Also, talking at people is different from talking to people and judgement of others always invites judgement of Self, and hypocrisy is an ever-present condemnation of those who seek to gain power over others by misapplying spiritual truisms out of context. While the words themselves may act to empower an individual who hears them to make positive change in her or his life, the responsbility inherent within speaking such words invites the creation of karma for the person speaking, dependent upon the intention, context, applicability and effects of the words spoken.

But it must never be forgotten that we are, indeed, free agents of sorts, and that we are responsible for our conditions to the extent that we can change them ourselves, be that an individual task or something better charged to groups of like-minded people, bent upon changing their worlds. The interpretation of our material conditions being subjective – and dependent upon our frame of mind and experiences – we must always recall that some of the happiest people in the world have very few material goods, and that this lack of wealth does not seem to affect their spirituality negatively at all. Which gives rise to that perennial question:

Are we, then, the sum of our material conditions? Am I that person who got raped when I was  ten years old? That person that was bullied when I was twelve? That person who won all those championships when I was eighteen? that person who got fired for doing something stupid on that job when I was twenty-nine? That person who did this and received those benefits during that time in this place?  And, if we decide that yes, that is who we are, what does that mean for us today? Are we the same person now as we were then?

What if we make another choice? A choice not to be that person anymore? What if we choose to be who we are right Now and let all of that go? Let the past go, forget it; let the future go, let it come on it’s own, and create ourselves anew with each moment, manifesting the truth of who we are right this moment. Is that possible? Realistic? Desireable?

Self-knowledge is perhaps the greatest journey that any individual can make. Going within one’s Self is a more fateful and fearful journey than climbing Mount Everest, or crossing the Sahara, or swimming the English Channel. Making that trip into one’s past in order to clear terrible memories, going deep within in order to confront fears and phobias is a trip that we would much rather put off for our entire lifetimes. Somehow, we believe that repressing these memories and feelings is a proper response to them. Often, the feelings that we get that make us keep secrets, or deny what we’re feeling, come from some sense of familial or societal pressure to conform to some abstract conception of normalcy, and we fester beneath the smiles and loud talk, living lives of quiet desperation as we die inside, our visages and postures twisted over the years as the ugliness within us grows stronger, the fear more palpable, the memories stronger and more present, taking over our present and making our future a reflection of what has been, rather than what should be.

The act of changing one’s destiny, then, means that we must know who we are, fully. We must recognize our fears and phobias and move to diffuse their power over us. The practice of repressing feelings and memories must be seen as an automatic fear response coming from ego, that feeds upon these buried emotions and feelings, solidifying its position as the sole purveyor and interpreter of your, our, reality. Beyond ego lies the Watcher, the observer, the seat of the soul and consciousness, where our true Self lies waiting for us to activate the power that we possess from birth, the ability to manifest whatever we desire in our lives and in the world around us.

“For G-d has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and self-control.” 2 Timothy 1:7

Beyond denomination and religion lies Truth. Conscious intention and creative visualization allow us to manifest our realities beyond the ability of any perceived circumstance to maintain itself as our one and only everlasting truth.  The way others see us and even the way we see ourselves are illusions based upon our addiction to the past and future,  our need for continuity and our fear of the unknown, the unknown in this case being ourselves, the “I” that lies beyond the experiences in our past and that lies waiting for us to remove the blinders and reveal what has been hidden within us each for far too long and allow ourselves to blaze forth like stars, shouting in triumph to the multiverse as we finally open our eyes and awaken to the truth of who, and what, we truly are.

You know that this is true. Think back. Think about situations that have occured in your life when you have made an incontrovertible decision. When you have known – I mean, absolutely known for a fact – that you just had to do something. That there was no way around it, and, more importantly, that you did not want to get around it, you wanted to do it, had to do it. You felt powerful, didn’t you? You felt very clear, knew what you had to do, how you had to do it, why and when. And you did it, didn’t you, and everything turned out the way that it was supposed to, moving you forward into your destiny and bringing you to this moment, right here, right now, where you are reading this and realizing that you know all of this already and that all these words are doing is releasing that power again, awakening your memory of visualization, pinging that Self purposefully obscured by the ego’s selfish machinations and bringing a great big smile to the face of your soul as it strengthens, and as the ego weakens, just that much more. This conversation that we’re having right now is a conversation with yourself, as you consider and realize that you are not the sum of your material conditions and that you are exactly who and what you decide to be, right now, and right here, in this moment.

That’s powerful, isn’t it? And do you feel that power fading right this moment, right Now, as thoughts about your circumstances arise to do combat with your feeling of invincibility? For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Are you having thoughts about the lack of money in your pockets and the perceived inevitability of you ever having enough money in your pockets? Do these thoughts make you feel weaker? Do you feel the helplessness, the hopelessness increasing as you lose yourself in past memories of failure or future hopes of prosperity, and the Now recedes? What about the situation you find yourself in with your significant other? The impossibility of carrying on normal relationships with your father? Your mother? Close your eyes and remember that feeling of power and control, and let it rise to pervade your consciousness while you let all of these negative thoughts dissipate into the moment and you feel the Now awakening, manifesting in your life. Open your eyes and notice how crisp and clear everything is, how colors are brighter when you’re not wasting your time worrying about the past and fearing the future, how your every sense is focusing upon the moment, upon the Now, upon life as lived, not as we force it to be through the imposition of the past and future upon the life we’re living right this second.

Awaken the G-d within your Self and manifest your chosen reality. Tap that divine power that is your birthright and be who you know you are, letting no one or no thing distract you from this goal and watch, and see, as the multiverse laughs in sublime delight and moves with you, presenting you with opportunities and circumstances that lead you directly into that life that you were born to live.

Manifestation of Being: I desire

1. Divinity/Multiversal Awareness/G-d knows us each more intimately than our ego-bound consciousnesses ever could.

2. Words define, limit and circumscribe possibility.

3. By allowing the free flow of Divinity/Multiversal Awareness/G-d, we free Creation to create the life of our dreams.

I was thinking tonight, as I was driving to the store. I know I know, I think only when I must. In this instance, I was thinking that, often, we get exactly what we ask for. By that I mean, that if we fixate upon an object or person, if we want it badly enough, visualize (daydream, imagine) it often enough, and do what it takes to make it happen, we often achieve our goal and end up with that object or person. 

If it is a new car, that first moment of sitting in it, smelling the new car smell, feeling the nice, new-car feel of the seat, looking at the shiny exterior and gadgety interior, the satisfaction that we feel in that moment is equally smug and possessive. We thought this reality into being, we think as we caress the steering wheel. We own this object, we think as we imagine ourselves driving around in it, being envied and admired. Unless it’s a Hoopty. Then we’re just glad to be rollin’. If it is a person, the first weeks or months are filled with kisses and soft nothings cooed in quiet corners or public spaces, and nights full of passion and eros. We thought this reality into being, we think as we caress soft or hard bodies, and are caressed in turn. We own this object, we think as we imagine ourselves being seen with this person, making a life with this person, being envied and admired. Unless we have low self esteem. Then we’re just glad not to be alone.

In either case, the same dynamic is in motion. The same feelings of ego-gratification are being satisfied, and the limits of the ego’s satisfaction with the current state of affairs are quickly approached as time and space conspire to create other desires, other wants, other needs. The car isn’t as fast as other cars, the man doesn’t have a 6-pack. The car rattles over bumps, the woman has love handles. The car is a gas guzzler and the man stinks up the bedroom in the early mornings. The monthly car payment is too high and the woman whines and complains all the time. We retreat back into our dreams and desires as reality checks us, and we quickly find out that the reality that we envisioned was limited, and, while we succeeded in manifesting our desires in the material world, the effect of that manifestation was only to create more desires, more wants, more needs.

The ego’s limitations are obvious. We envision things in an imcomplete fashion; there is no way that we can consider all of the infinite permutations that might be able to satisfy the depthless well of desire that we all tap into. But we are used to daydreaming about the perfect love, that car that could drive us into the sunset of all of our future imaginings, that house that we could live out our wildest fantasies in, or our most domestic dreams. By focusing our visualizations, Creation itself conspires to make the images real in our lives, be they positive or negative. And often, we don’t realize it when our desires, which seem so wonderful and positive on the surface, harbor deeper, darker aspects that reveal our true feelings and shortcomings. These  only become apparent when that visualization has manifested in our lives, and our reactions to and with it come to the forefront.

People often wonder why lottery winners often become bankrupt, battle with family and friends, or commit suicide. The symptoms only point to the cause of the disease: we speed from place to place in our brand new cars because we’re impatient, and get ticket after ticket. The beautiful woman becomes an object of jealous fixation. We wash the car incessantly, spending our paychecks on it. The man’s human shortcomings become an opportunity to harp on his every mistake. We think about the car incessantly and our pride grows out of control. We belittle and denigrate the woman, cause she doesn’t satisfy us sexually or clean the house, exactly as we would like for her to. The constant yearning and the impossibility of finding satisfaction in any and all material things are only the symptoms of the disease we call our desires and wants, which often mask themselves as needs. Only after we’ve attained our material goals, do we realize that they were not needs at all. Only ephemeral fancies that often pass in dramatic fashion, as we crash both the cars and the relationships into the Wall of Realization, and we finally figure out that we’d only gotten it partially right, this time and every time.

But before I begin to sound too pessimistic, what other possibilities are there? How is it possible to achieve the life and the material satisfaction we desire without falling into the trap of ownership and possessiveness, of pride and hubris? The key lies in letting go and letting G-d. Loving someone and setting them free. Being in the world but not of the world. Ending desire, and thereby, ending suffering. Refusing to play the egoic game anymore and releasing the habits that form the patterns of material consciousness that we are all so familiar with. Making the decision to commit to spirituality with your whole being, rather than just paying lip service to it on Sunday mornings, or during 15-minute meditation practices the third day of every other week.

Doing so – refusing to play the egoic game – will make you weird, guaranteed. Why? Because most people don’t do it, don’t want it and can’t understand it, and by committing yourself to self-knowledge and the pathless path, you commit yourself to leaving footprints in the sky, as my friend Deepam might say. Letting go of the race after material things goes against the worldly mindset and lifestyle, and by giving up the race you threaten those around you who value these things, and are still racing, as fast as they can. But you’ve crashed your dream car. Your dream relationship is over. Where do you go from there? What do you have to lose? What do you have to gain?

Your deepest wishes and desires are only a reflection of your birthright, our birthright, which is the manifestation of perfection upon the material plane. Not perfection as we imagine it to be, but perfection as evidenced by a life filled with mistakes, tragedies and the resultant growth and realization that reflects the beauty of Creation in its infinite ability to manifest Duality, thereby fulfilling the necessary conditions of Incarnation, in all of its multi-faceted wonder and beauty.

We hardly dare dream this dream, do we. We fear success more than we fear failure, often. We fear to even envision it, because we believe in our heart of hearts that we are not worthy. Concepts of original sin, Heaven and Hell, our petty imperfections and limited abilities; our social or cultural statuses, and our neuroses and foibles all conspire to limit our aspirations by killing them before they are even born. But the ability of the spirit to awaken us to our destinies shines through the darkness that we often embrace and encloak ourselves within, giving us glimpses of the dignity and nobility that seeks ever to come forth, that giving and loving heart that wants to share, to find the beauty in all people, and live lives of honor and respect, despite our externally-applied and internally-supported concepts of self-worth.

Making the simple choice to open yourself to the cosmos only means that we’re looking past thought. Doing so will automatically improve the quality of our lives. As the Law of Attraction states, it is possible to bring very specific realities into fruition, through our visualizations and our movement in the directions that open up in our lives as a result of those visualizations. But remembering that those visualizations are dependent upon our state of Being and our mindsets at the time that we are visualizing them should keep us mindful that their manifestation will probably be accompanied by unforeseeable disappointments. Therefore, keeping the images and feelings that go into our visualizations as general, open and expansive as possible allows Divinity/Multiversal Awareness/G-d to manifest realities according to our deepest desires, independent of our specific concerns and shortcomings; keeps them free of our ‘issues’, as much as is possible, given the incontrovertible conditions of Incarnation.

What does this mean? Don’t envision a specific kind of material object or a specific person. Think instead of being able to get where you need to go comfortably, and being able to take care of your business. Feel the warmth of the love you desire to give to another, and the mirror-effect of that love, as it is passed back to you, from that loving other. Immerse yourself in the feelings, let the images pass by in fleeting snapshots, concentrating instead upon the process of Becoming, and not the specific manifestations of objectification that tie us to the world and the objects therein.

Not desiring any thing or any one at all, of course, would be the inevitable goal of such a way of life. But that’s a subject for another time. For right now, let it be enough for us to realize that we do not have to be slave to our desires, just as we do not have to be slave to our egos. That they serve us, are tools of our Selves, to be used to bring us closer to Divinity/Multiversal Awareness/G-d, rather than to take us further away. Living our lifes in that realization guarantees the manifestation of that deepest desire of all, true joy – which lies beyond the duality of happiness and sadness – despite any and all material conditions.

By wanting and desiring less and less, we gain more and more. Sounds like a miracle, doesn’t it. And who could ask for any more than that?

Subjective Perceptivity: The greenness or pinkness of love

I wonder if it is possible sometimes for people to feel things the same way; if, perchance, they have the same idea about what a feeling is, if, they experience emotions the same way. It’s like that question, does everybody see the same color red, or is my red your orange and your orange my green. The subjectivity of perception…

What does Love
mean to
You?

Is it warm and
fuzzy like a
deep, vibrant red
or does it open your
soul and go straight
to your head?

Do the fits, starts
and bumps make you
trip, fall and stump
your heart on the
hard rocks of life?

Or do the pitfalls
and pratfalls
enthrall you
then stall you
as life then
befalls you and
love’s call
leaves you…

crawling.

Bemoaning and
groaning, intoning
entreaties to G-d
to release you
(from this pain)
appease you
(in this game)
to treat you …

…as you deserve to be treated. Which is the crux of the issue, I think. My green is your pink and my intentions in Love, especially worldly, romantic Love, probably do not match yours. Why not? Because I have been socialized differently perhaps, because I have different needs and desires, different goals and wishes for my future. Because I’m a man and you’re a woman and we’re two halves of a whole, which means our perspectives come from oppositional centers, meeting at the junction of functionality and destiny. And yet, beneath the material veneer we are souls in synch, our experiences correspond and, at some level, become One Experience immeasurably intricate in nature and yet simple at the same time, expressed as a feeling, a certain knowledge that yes, this is Love, what I’m feeling, this is Love, what I’m experiencing, this is Love, what I’m giving, this is Love, what I am receiving from you.

Beyond the subjectivity of our feelings and experiences is the realization that something is missing in the common expression of the collection of emotional outbursts and social mores that ritualize the dating procedure in a modern day interpretation of primal biological and spiritual imperatives, as pheremones begin the dance of attraction and rejection, drawing biologically compatible individuals together and instigating the mating imperative. Social evolution over millenia formalized the flirting and mating process and we tread, barely cognizant of the flow of time and space, down the path followed by our ancestors, leading toward the tree, the cave, the hut, where the soft whispers of Love and desire find expression in the passing Oneness of sexual union – and, perhaps, procreation – fulfilling our quota of pleasure and desire, if only for the fleeting moments of the orgasm, also called the little death (la petite mort), for good reason.

Waking in your arms
the soft sheen of light
illuminating you
breath low, mouth
slightly open
lost
in dreams desirous of
knowledge…

I wonder you.

Touch you softly,
amazed,
dreaming your dream
in mine,
not knowing, really,
what exactly it is, I’m
trying to find.

Possessiveness, jealousy, desire and greed equates to need in the egocentric game of Love that we live, believing that we are answering the call of destiny while, in the final instance, it is the quota of Love we share that makes us memorable in the lives of others. The kind moments of selfless giving, the power of presence, of being there, supportive and open, when a friend or loved one is in need. The tumultous romances, the passionate orgies of lust and desire, pale in comparison to the quiet, simple presence of Love as expressed by true unconditionality. Usually reserved for children and old people, and strangers in extraordinary moments of release, this kind of love is the base upon which our romantic and courtly, chivalrous love is based, that which we call love but which is actually attraction cubed, since love transcends the call of the senses and takes us outside of ourselves when experienced truly, and requires us to give all of ourselves in homage to the sublime sense of awe of being in the presence of Divinity, which can, truly, be seen in the visage of another who is, truly, not other in any sense of the term.

The blessing of recognition, when another soul has been found which vibrates on the same wavelength as your own. The experiences of attraction and revulsion, as knowledge grows and we build layers upon layers of subjective conclusions based upon past experiences with others, presenting our intentions overtly and covertly, always watching, judging, counting the marks for and against, hardening and softening our hearts as we catch occasional glimpses of that love we first felt through the sharp and jagged spikes of our conditions, needs and expectations.

Can this be love
that I’m
feeling?

Is this truly love
that calls me to you,
that feels so
true?

Do you love me
the way that I love
you?

If so,
then why do I feel so
blue?

My blue is your green and we coexist in between moments of innate recognition of Divinity and Humanity, our higher urges drawn back down into the morass by our Egoic insistence upon applying past experiences to the Now. But what else can we do? How can we not judge X’s behavior by our experiences with Y, some years ago? The situation…seems…similar. So…they must be the same…right? And so we treat them the same, punishing X out of our pain caused  by Y out of fear of being denied our quota of love and rather than be hurt, we’d all rather hurt instead, isn’t that so?

Isn’t it?

Re-conditioning ourselves away from limited conceptions of Love frees us to be, frees us to experience the very essence of Creation through the awakening of the Divine within us all, that which binds us and makes us whole, which makes us, One.