imagination

All is Imagination.
This does not mean Not Real.
This means Most Real.
Change the Imagination,
change the World.

***

We are the Imaginings 
of the Unimaginable.

adventures of a spiritual geek

I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut about my cosmogeek endeavors. I’ve seen people’s eyes glaze over. But here lately I’m not keeping quiet. A large part of it is I want to report back before I kick off. The geek speaks! How do I want to present several decades of data? Chronologically would be way too boring (for me, if not for you). How do I download this hard drive?

A definition common among self-identified geeks is: "one who is primarily motivated by passion, indicating somebody whose reasoning and decision making is always first and foremost based on his personal passions rather than things like financial reward or social acceptance…. A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream. This could be due to the intensity, depth, or subject of their interest." –Wikipedia

My entire life has been spent, and no doubt will continue to be spent in looking to comprehend what it means to be a human, what it’s all about.

A fisherwoman told me the other day if you want to catch fish you have to know what they are biting. You match the hatch and the catch, she said. You find the hatch under rocks and logs. It’s not just lying around, she said. You have to look for it.That’s a useful metaphor for what I have been doing in my life as a CosmoGeek: turning over rocks in odd places. Trying to understand the hatch and what it catches, the bait-fish duo, then opening to comprehending the stream and its environs, the astronomical seasons, the astrological signs, the state and extent of the cosmos, and back to who it is holding the pole anyway? And wasn’t I, when it got right down to it, trying to catch myself? Well, I’m getting ahead of myself, but you see how it goes with a geeko mind.

While other boys were exploring four-barrel carburetors and/or the intricacies of the female anatomy, I was looking to comprehend belief systems, thought communities, religions, ways of life, philosophies, superordinates, supra ordinates.

Why, I pondered later, in the ‘70s, did R. Crumb’s Mr. Natural, when asked what it all means, reply “Don’t mean sheeit?” This puzzled me. Was this profundity? Or simply a casual tossed-off expression of a tortured mind? And if it don’t mean sheeit, what does it mean?

No one wished to talk about it.

biopsy

I was born into this world with a clear and open heart. I wanted to please the Large Ones, who seemed to know what they were doing. I found that some of them were ill of heart. Others were heart itself. I followed the heartfelt ones and kept a wary eye on the heartsick. I learned well and yet never totally adapted. My inner world with which I was born was different and I would not let it go, for to do so would be to die. I made myself proficient in all the ways of the external world: physically, mentally, emotionally, socially. I invaded the external world, opened into it and, as far as possible, did not let it invade me. I followed the inner laws and understandings. Doing so brought conflict with the dogma of external ways. At times I was lost with nothing to follow but the beating of my heart. I began to understand that I was being breathed, not breathing myself. I saw the interflow of all existing, seen and unseen. The boundary between internal and external dropped away. Awareness and understanding continue increasing. I see the earth vehicle, the physical body, beginning its demise. This is as it should be. I am graduating. On graduation day, I will leave this world as a clear and open heart, the way I came in, but different.

looking to express the inexpressible

Two major forms of human consciousness exist: quantitative (linear historical) and qualitative (beyond the conceptual domains of space and time).

Quantitative consciousness relies on an imaginative discernment of discrete quanta which follow each other in logical procession. Qualitative consciousness opens into a boundless realm  of the immeasurable: of Love and Truth and Beauty.

Quantitative consciousness believes in fact, not minding that facts are ephemera arising from one’s own subjective state. A person existing in quantitative consciousness lives in linear time, clings to history and its perceived ongoing march into the unknown as reality.

Qualitative consciousness lies beyond, within, and outside the bounded and limited capacity of quantitative consciousness. Qualitative consciousness is a deep and expansive visionary experiencing of that which brings quantitative consciousness into being.

Quantitative consciousness is the imaginary. Qualitative consciousness is the Imaginal.Quantitative consciousness is linear. Qualitative consciousness is holoarchical. Quantitative consciousness is historical. Qualitative consciousness is the eternal now.

Quantitative consciousness is so-called “normal” consciousness. Qualitative consciousness is so-called “transcendent” consciousness.

With qualitative consciousness, we live in a roller coaster ride of drama. With quantitative consciousness, we are always already home.

ice tray and templum

One form of consciousness attends to life in terms of pre-existing categories, like an ice tray with delineations into which water is poured. That which can take on ANY shape is given THIS shape and THIS shape is regarded as Truth and Reality.

Another form of consciousness allows life to disclose itself. Categories are loosened and released, axes for grinding are set aside. Contemplation arises: con-templum-ation. A templum is a clear open space in which one arrives with either a question or no question at all. One sits (or walks) quietly and allows disclosure, revelation.

Two forms of consciousness: one imposes itself upon the world and attempts to wrestle it into submission; one allows the world to disclose itself.

Ice tray and templum.

once upon a time

Once upon a time there were people on a planet. Each had a story of What Is Going On. Each of course thought their story was true and right. Squabbles resulted. They threw literal and metaphoric bombs at each other. Metastories began to emerge with such story titles as Members of the Navel Tribe, Embodyings of the Cosmos, and Get Back In The Soup. Each began to see their story was part of A Larger Story. What's that? How did it come out? Oh, it's still coming out.

On Thought Systems

If one is firmly anchored in the grounding of the Cosmos, one can readily move into the core of each thought system and adopt its energetic matrix without losing one’s cosmic center. One is thus “converted” to each thought system without becoming a member of its institutionality while simultaneously comprehending its depths and essence. This is what Ewert Cousins called shamanistic epistemology.

This is also what a certain type of therapist does on an individual level when opening into the thought system of her client. He becomes his client without losing his own core identity. (“Enter and blend” is the Aikido maxim.) This is partly accomplished through opening to the metaphor and imagery used by the other. S/he becomes empty so s/he may be full. There is nothing mysterious about this, though it is out of the ordinary. It is called Listening and Seeing.

Of course one can stay seated in one’s own home bounds without venturing out of one’s adopted thought system. This is not my choice nor predilection. My practice is to open to the thought systems of the world (religions and philosophies) and comprehend their depths and meaning.

Thoughtology

We consist of a continuous stream of thought packets, arising from our ground of being, bubbling up as if from a volcanic floor in deep ocean. The thought packets arise and disappear, unless we attach ourselves to them, call them our own, call them “me.” We then build a personality around specific thought packets, magnifying them, clustering them as if they are eggs in a nest which we fuss over, keep warm, and hope to hatch.

Each thought packet consists of three distinct but interwoven aspects: cognition or belief, emotion, and imagery. The thought packets to which we cling, disallowing their flow through, their going by, are formed into an identity composed of all dualities: belief - disbelief, strong emotion for - strong emotion against, images of salvation and of doom. We cling to this identity and will defend it to the death (which it is).

We call these favored and solidified clusters of thought packets our self. We make it inviolable territory and walk it through each day.

An alternative is to allow packet flow with no clinging. We are the volcanic floor from which they arise. We are the vast boundless ocean through which they flow. We are the cosmic sky above to which they rise and merge. We are this vastness with thought packets forming and unforming, arising and disappearing. No clinging.

burning

We burn for that which we do not have. This is a peculiar form of hell -- a small version. After we get it, we stop burning. Meister Eckhart says that what burns in hell is what we are not. When we are fire, fire does not burn us. When we do not open to the Mystery that births us, we burn. We burn in anger, in fear, in separation. We burn for That which we do not have. And yet It is here within us all the while. We are children of the Mystery, offspring of the Source. When we truly know that, identify with, become identical to that, we stop burning. We leave hell. The heat changes to Light.

Realms

Three Realms:
-- Realm of Surface Crawler Consciousness
-- Realm of the Imaginal, Mythopoesis
-- Realm of Mystery, Where No Words Hold

saboteur

Saboteur: one who commits sabotage, the throwing of a sabot, a wooden shoe, into the machinery. We have our own personal Saboteur, an aspect of ourselves, that keeps us from transforming. The Saboteur can operate at a physical level, but I speak here of consciousness change.

sui-cision

We are surrounded by mystery. Yet we each have de-cided, made de-cisions (made mystery smaller via in-cisions, incisiveness) to carve out portions of mystery into recognizable THINGS and live within this narrow world. We create, as individuals and as a society, a tomb in which we dwell. (To de-cide, in this sense, is a form of sui-cide.)

Most others around us agree that the world created by this de-cisive process is Reality, so we blithely continue in this self-hypnotic state supported by our culture and our local thought community.  Mystery dwells within the outer and the inner infinity which we are. And not just within. We ARE this mystery.

When we know this, the world transforms.

meta

Languages consist of words, images, and emotions. Each word produces imagery and emotion. This is true for both written and spoken language. A metalanguage is a linguistic attempt to describe IT ALL. 

When one zooms back far enough, one sees the existence of many metalanguages. Some are called religious, some scientific. Some are called spiritual, some material. Regardless of what they are called, they are a metalanguage.

In looking at the planet from the cosmos, one sees that each human is fond of a particular metalanguage. Humans group themselves accordingly, generally stay within their own language bounds. and if pushed become fierce defenders of their particular metalanguage.

From whence and where do these metalanguages arise? From the cosmos Itself. The cosmos births the Earth which births the humans who give rise to metalanguages. Metalanguages are the humans singing to the cosmos. In essence, metalanguages are the cosmos singing to Itself.

preparation for ejection

Since this vehicle is temporary, we may well prepare for ejection. Some say that the brain produces consciousness; end of brain, end of story. I say consciousness produces brain. The habitual thought patterns of the mind will continue. Now is the time to rearrange or discard furniture. Clear open awareness is the aim and the practice. Galeropsis: clear and cheerful vision. We galerope down the road without end.

banana

The culmination of all meditative practices: B.A.N.A.N.A. -- Bare Ass Naked Awareness Now Abiding.

death-and-life

We tend to think we are life and that death is our enemy. No, no. We are death and life together, as one. We are life-and-death. We are death-and-life. When we know that, we have died before we die. Now we fully live.

the other side

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

We are already on the other side. The other side is here now. We live in this side, are enthralled by (made a thrall to) this side. Embodying produces this effect. We thrill to the body, as a body. A great journey, this embodying. Pain and suffering. Joy and bliss.

We are already on the other side. Attention, like a narrow beam of light in a vast room with no walls, does not let us see this. We attend to bodily existence. We joy in our attending. We PAY attention. Attention has a price. The price of not seeing.

We are already on the other side. We stop our narrow attending and open Awareness. Something is breathing us. We do not breathe ourselves. Something is giving us mouth to mouth resuscitation. This Something is the other side. When it withdraws, we withdraw with it. Even now, our every exhalation is Its inhalation. Our every inhalation, Its inbreathing breath. We are breathed by the other side.

We are already on the other side. The other side is as close as our very breath. Closer.

Face to face. The faces merge.

out of this quiet space all emerges

Images arise and disappear within our consciousness. Images of this person, of that person. Images of dream. Images of future hopes and past regrets. Images of personal triumphs and of failures. And so on. Images arise and disappear.

One form of consciousness is image attachment consciousness. Rather than let the images that arise disappear, we cling to them, to certain ones in particular. At those times we are effectively dead to the world around us. We ruminate like cows, belching up what was once chewed and swallowed, standing with unseeing eyes, chewing our cud. Velcro’d to our vomit, we are only partially here, if at all. Image attachment consciousness.

For clear seeing, non-attachment is needed. The images rise and fall, appear and disappear. We are aware of the images but do not get caught up in them. The images arise, give us their juice, their energy, their emotional surge that passes through us like an electric current, They move on. Non-attachment consciousness.

Yet a third form of consciousness exists. No images arise at all. One simply is. Right here. Right now. Now is all there is. No time-space. Fully functioning, wide awake, alert, aware. No bounds. The Silence out of which all arises. Silent consciousness.

Out of this quiet space all emerges.

fourth dimension

We cannot solve the problems produced by three-dimensional consciousness by staying in three-dimensional consciousness. We must open beyond space-time.

palingenesis

Our Fate on Earth is unfolding out of who we Were (and many still Are). Our Salvation and Redemption (two honorable words) unfold out of our moving to and unfolding from Higher Ground. Palingenesis, Born Again (three honorable words).

spheres of awareness

Rather than using the old ladder model of consciousness, in which the subconscious is below and the supraconscious above, you may wish to see yourself as a sphere of awareness with Awareness (the supraconscious) all around you. The semi-permeable membrane of the sphere you are allows Awareness to flow in, blocked only by membrane opaqueness which you have learned to produce so well. The greater the membrane transparency (diaphaneity), the greater the Awareness.

calling

I was born a sensitive, an empath.
Psychology called it hyper-vigilant.
The Marines called it necessary.
I call it capaciousness.

confluent

Reality is what we say it is. I say it is spiritual -- though that very word throw some (they throw themselves) into discombobulation. Spiritual: operating as a sphere of energetic energy radiating outward from a core, from a center beneath and beyond "I-me-mine" and its emotional slingings and graspings. Reality is that we are spheres of radiant energy within a vast arena that knows no bounds. All spheres interconnect, interflow like stars and galaxies in the cosmos. We are confluent, influencing the nature, the quality of It All.

consciousness mutation

A mutation in consciousness is going on. Human consciousness has been generally split into three sections which interbleed: past, present, and future. This three dimensional awareness results in humans often not being present, but entertaining themselves in non-existent realms they call into being.

This “entertainment” is both anxiety provoking and pleasure inducing. The physical body fluctuates in this self-induced pain-pleasure cycle as a result, not knowing that this sad and painful memory or this anxious future are not real. This is the old tri-state awareness that we as a species are leaving behind. 

The consciousness that is emerging, that has been emerging for centuries, first in a few individuals, then in an increasing flow, is fourth dimensional, beyond past and future, beyond space and time: the eternal Now. To live in (and more importantly, as) the Now is to live with full vigor with no self-induced hindrance.

Make no mistake. This is not the smug little three-dimensional self sitting snugly in the fourth dimension and looking to work the controls for 3D-self explorations. This is a radical shift in consciousness, called by some an orthogonal rotation in consciousness. One actually lives beyond space-time. One joins the new beings walking the earth.

One finds that there is no past, no future. Here is only Now. One has released all the baggage one has so carefully dragged around. Transparency occurs. Diaphaneity. One’s consciousness has no space-time bounds. Here is the Eternal Flow forever coming into being. One lives one’s life within a human society created by three dimensional consciousness while establishing by one’s very being a human society continuously being born through the Eternal Flow of Now.

One has become what I call a cosmic citizen.

transition

As one comes out of sleep into wakefulness, one hardens into the attitudinal frame one assumes and becomes for the day. Spiritual practice allows for both a slowing of the concretization and an increase in diaphaneity. Some enjoy the quickset into their long-assumed "personality" and its resultant obtuseness and give no thought to this remarkable skill.

symbols

As Henry Corbin points out in his deep and abiding commentary on visionary recitals (stories that show the path, the stages, the phases of spiritual birth and rebirth), symbols are not designed for rational explanations and their inevitable hardening into dogma, but for transmorphing into, merging, and becoming. One becomes the Cross. One becomes the Caduceus. One becomes the Tao Sign. In doing so, one has moved into invisible realms far beyond the world of so-called ordinary (ordinal, linear) consciousness into the Poetic, the Imaginal -- the realms the ordinary call phantasy and the unreal (if bothering to call them anything at all). Yet for those who have made the transposition, who have become those symbols of eternal energetic flow, for whom the ordinal is a desiccated cocoon they have shed, nothing is more real. One does not bow at the foot of a symbol and worship it. One becomes that symbol.

daring of spiritual adventure

I read some words by Henry Corbin a few minutes ago concerning the spiritual universe of Avicenna that appear to me to directly relate to the state of Christianity today. Here they are (I insert "Christianity" instead of "Avicennan" and "Jesus" instead of "Avicenna"): 

The future of Christianity "can be decided in a positive sense only on one condition--that the traditional philosophy, nourished on Christian motifs, shall not drowse on in the murmur of the old formulas but shall be capable of again daring, on its own account and in our present-day world, the spiritual adventure that Jesus himself dared."

helmet heads

If you slow down enough you will see that your thoughts are an overlay to what is.

For those who do not purposely meditate, this experience may come only in the morning upon awaking. At times, the process of "putting oneself together"is a slow one with a gradual understanding of who you are, where you are, and what your business of the day is. At other times, you may leap into your self suit immediately. In both instances you are re-inventing you, fashioning you into the fashion you have adopted and others expect. In other words, you put on the virtual reality helmet you wore yesterday, the one you have carefully and not so carefully constructed over the years.

This is self-hypnosis. We live in the world we live in as individuals and as a society because of the hypnotic state we have adopted. Of course we call this individual and mass hypnosis "Reality" and derogate anyone who sees otherwise.

We do not dare and may not even be capable of riding helmet-free.

little gods prancing

Each of us has a reality picture. Much of it is subliminal (below the light of awareness). We fit whatever happens into our reality picture. Distortions or, if you prefer, creative ingenuities occur. Perhaps even more disturbing is that we ARE our reality picture. [Kudos to William Gibson for the "reality picture" term.]

post-eden

It is not I think, therefore I am. Thinking is.
It is not I feel, therefore I am. Feeling is.
It is not I perceive, therefore I am. Perceiving is.
No self. We insist on "having" a self.
We tend to believe in this illusion.
We are an interflow of sensing, thinking, feeling, perceiving.
Self is an attempt to separate out from this interflow.
This is the Fall. This is the expulsion from the Garden.
Knowing that we are dynamic interflow is returning Home.

ancient wisdom

Ancient wisdom: The sun gives both heat and light. Our planetary sun is a representation of the spiritual sun, which also gives both heat and light.  Heat is the warmth of love. Light is the clarity of wisdom. Both are offered to us. Reception depends upon will and attention. 

transition

The Body is the Cocoon of the Life Force Spirit working its Work upon the transforming Soul. Our inner Life is our True Life and over Time we can see that now the Body is in the Soul. The Soul radiates out from the Body and is felt by Others. At some point we drop the Body and the Soul has even more Freedom to expand.

Birth Right

We have the sensory world, the world revealed to us by our physical senses, which is but a flickering in the deep expanse of the Infinite. We have presented to us the suprasensory world, the world revealed to us through Love. I use the words “revealed” and “presented” purposely. All of us see by the light of our physical senses. Yet this light extends into the darkness only so far, not very far at all. A greater realm of sight is presented to us and is ours if we but accept it and practice walking by its vision.

We move from sensory encapsulation, from tiny creatures blinded by our own light, to open radiance in which the entire cosmos becomes our home. We move from being creatures shining little flashlights in the dark seeing nothing but what the flashlight reveals to radiant beings in no need of blinding flashlights. We now see in the dark. And the dark is light, the light of Love.

I speak here not of physical love, though that has its place, but of celestial Love. The Cosmos is Love. And our Home is the Cosmos.

We move from being sluggish worms crawling the surface of the earth seeking what we might devour, seeing nothing but immediate gratification of need and want (what use can I make of that? how can this profit me?) to cosmic citizenry. The transition is more than from caterpillar to butterfly though that analogy has its merits. The transformation is from sensory being to spiritual being to celestial being. 

This is the Call being made. Transformation to that which we already are. The reclaiming of our Birth Right.

mythopoesis

Mythopoesis: the making or creation of story. I first came across the word in Darren Middleton's "Novel Theology: Nikos Kazantzakis's Encounter with Whiteheadian Process Theism" and in conversations with Bradley Olson.

Each of us is a receiver and creator of story. Each of us has accepted and refashioned a Story Of What Is Going On. Each of us is born into a story community. The story is told through the actions and the teachings of the community members. That story provides a basis for our being, for our consciousness, for our actions.

Some of us believe that story for the rest of our lives. Some of us rebel against the story and stay in continuous rebellion the rest of our lives, thus living in accord with the old old story of anticonformity. Some of us range out beyond the story's bonds and look to create new story: wider, deeper, more inclusive. These latter are the mythopoets of this day.

condensation

I seem to live in a micro moment universe of great vastness. All, all comes into existence and passes away, births and dies, rises and falls in and as this micro moment. All past, all future is here in this eternal now. I go about my daily business as this vastness condensing into human form.

talem eum vidi qualem capere potui

We receive according to our capacity to receive. We see according to our capacity to see. We receive knowledge, understanding, wisdom according to our capacity, our capaciousness. When full of ourselves, we have little or no capacity. Some of us decide to stay full of ourselves until the body dies. Others of us look to increase our capacity.

How does one do this? Through centering and opening, through mindful lovingkindness, through relentless surrender, through calm action. All eight practices increase our capaciousness and thus room for knowledge, wisdom, understanding provided directly by That which calls us into Being. 

clanking into the fray

We clothe the core of our being with plan and desire. We wear a cloak of expectation and should.  We do not hear the words: "Throw off all your clothes and trample them beneath your feet." We pitch little fits of exasperation, insisting on donning the latest fashion of ourselves. We refuse to stand naked and vulnerable and open. We clank around in our armor. Our souls chafe. At times, despite our best efforts, we fall into joy. Joy needs no protection, no garb. Joy is open radiance with no end. Until we end it and decide that we must "go to work" or "face the world" or whatever other hypnotic suggestion of containment with which we trance ourselves. No joy for us! We contract rather than condense. We protect ourselves by becoming more dead. We ward off the expected assassin's strike by stabbing ourselves. We put on our armor and clank into the fray.

more public art

We once made Cosmic Maps which included the Planets, Angels, the Names of God, the Elements. Now we have, this current society has, relegated those aspects of the Cosmos to the Museum of Incredulity. We now live in a Cosmos devoid of such beings.

We began to worship Number. We made Number the basis of all Things. We work for Number. We are paid in Number. Those who have the most Numbers are seen as having power. Everyone wants to be Number One. This is a view that will seem absurd to our descendants and is beginning to be seen as absurd even now.

My forecast is that Number will be teetered off its Throne and come crashing to the Ground of Existence. We are trying through Number to eat the Earth alive, to transform the Living Womb of our Being into Number, into ever more numbers which can then be traded for ever more Things which are constantly replenished by eating the Earth alive. In doing so, we are becoming numb-er.

What will replace the numbness of Number? Art. Ourselves as Art. Our lives as Art. Art performed publicly. This is already happening. As we awaken out of our numbness, we will discover that our Cosmic Map is that of a friendly Location more than willing to assist us in the Creation of our lives in the most Artistic way.

Replace your Autism with Artism. We are Works of Art, Plays of Art.

The folk who are painting a mural on a wall in our town gave me a little sticker that I stuck to the bookcase immediately in front of me as a reminder of the Motto of the New Cosmic Map:

More Public Art. 

the consciousness state of the world

Past symbols of consciousness have come down to us, or over across to us: Jacob’s Ladder on which angels ascend and descend, the Caduceus with its intertwined snakes of healing and their chakra points, the Star of David which is a Jacob’s Ladder without the angels and the rungs, the Kabbalah: the lightning bolt of the emanations of God, the Enso or empty circle which inflates into a sphere with no surface whose center is everywhere, and so on.

What is the symbol of today? A skateboard. A flat surface of small dimension that rolls along on four wheels in a more or less straight line that one pumps with one leg and allows one-leg standing while tuning out the world through earbuds while texting. It’s also good for breaking up concrete.

You may think this does not apply to you because you are older. Well, it certainly does. It is the symbol of the world today, of the consciousness state today. You have your little piece of the action you claim as yours and you stand on it and possess it and pump furiously on a horizontal line through the day headed for your daily destination of non-pumping. You keep your ears full of the daily chit-chat: NPR, Facebook, text messages, and all the other background music that accompanies your pumping. You use one leg of your dualistic split to stand on (your conservative stance no matter how liberal you are) and its other leg (your liberal or liberated leg) to pump furiously on a horizontal line to nowhere except pump rest. This is your consciousness. This is your consciousness state.

This is the consciousness state of the world.

journey

Each of us is born into a thought community.

We take on the thought system of that thought community.

The thought system tells us who we are, where we came from, what is important, how to live, where we are going.

Some of us stay within that thought system all our lives.

Some of us leave the thought system and adopt a different thought system.

The different thought system adopted may be that of another thought community.

Some of us then stay within the thought system of our new community.

Some of us who have adopted the thought system of a new community leave that community and open to a different thought system.

Some of us explore all thought systems and find a common underpinning to them all. If that commonality fits our experience thus far, we adopt that underpinning as the basis for our idiosyncratic thought system.

And so on.

We are born again and again. Unless we stop thinking and decide to stay where we are until we die.

dear unborn kin

Dear Unborn Kin, The people with money now own our government. The people with money now ARE our government. The money bubble will eventually burst. But this is the way it is right now. We with little money far outnumber those who own and make a profit off almost everything. We are hooked deeply into the system however and see no easy way out. We serve the Empire. Many of us act as if we don't, saying that we live in higher realms, but we still have to obey money flow and thus continue to be loyal servants. I hope by your time we humans have figured out a better way. I hope our overlords are off playing other games elsewhere. Or the market has finally crashed and money is worthless and they are on the streets like all the rest of us. Suffering either way. As for me, I appreciate the graciousness of the Cosmos. As one of those who lives in higher wider deeper realms, I know that everyone eventually gets their comeuppance. A higher law prevails. We keep lovingkindness, generosity, and open awareness in our hearts and refuse to be contaminated by those who do not. Blessings to you, Your Loving Ancestor

Cosmic Download: The Empty Circle (Chapter Twelve)

I follow a path that most will not even or ever consider, much less follow: the path of the empty circle, the path of becoming as nothing. Most, it seems, want to become something (some thing) or somebody (some body), not realizing that things and bodies are invented chimera doomed to dissolution. (My aim here is not to counter dissolution, which aim would be just another groping for false identity.)

The science path shoves aside the nature of the mind as of little or no importance and, at best, relegates it to a fog arising off the neural substrate which disappears when the meat rots. The religious path insists upon identity, proclaiming that those who follow the path (whether buddhist, christian, jewish, islamic, hindu, wiccan, republican, democrat, etc.) will be “saved.”

The two paths have in common the taking of a stance. The science path believes in sub stance. The religious path believes in supra stance. Each takes the circle of existence (circum stance) and fills it with their favorite flavor and their imagery of what is.

I hesitate to write about the path of the empty circle not only because to write about it I have to fill it, but because in writing about it the danger arises of it too becoming a path with ritual and rank and certificates of graduation with some being in the “in” club and giving each other the empty circle handshake and zooming off to the latest empty circle conference as advertised on the Oprah show.

Few have followed this path, become this path. I will point to some of them, their concepts and their lives.

My initiation into this journey began a few decades ago when I was told in no uncertain terms: “Confront the lion in his den. Accept the empty circle."

humanoid

There are those of melancholic disposition, back of hand to brow in fitful resignation and despairing fortitude. My disposition is more that of the sun with the shining of radiant energy in all directions, no holding back. Joy and exuberance come naturally. What can I do? I've tried depression, melancholy, angst, sarcasm, irony, irritation, the seeking of filling all bodily orifices with pleasure, power over, neurotic anxiety, detachment, smugness, superiority, inferiority, rampant political sloganry, buddhism, taoism, christianism, and all the other slots and holes the human pinball falls into and can stay in none of them for long. My nature is to shine in infinite space, no bounds. Radiance. I've tried and I have tried but there is nothing else I can do. I accept my fate with joy.

dear unborn kin

Dear Unborn Kin,

A few decades ago the culture of this time killed God or left Him alone in an abandoned room to die. The postmodern (as some call today's world) sensibility is to regard no one as having any greater understanding of the origin and purpose of life than Me. Me rules everything.

Now Me stands alone as an orphan of the cosmos seeking shelter where Me may. Me finds such shelter in the company of like-minded Me's. A campfire is built attracting other Me's of similar nature, mood, and circumstance.

Campfires have sprung up all over with one rigid requirement: I may group with You but no one knows better than Me. This is the cry and the necessity of the orphan, the cosmic orphan.

Many continue to regard themselves as Cosmic Citizens, as members of a group that never meets because always meeting. Even to name the group meets resistance for fear a church might be formed and the Cosmic Me be confronted with a Cosmic Other.

We humans are so fun.

Hope all is well there in the future,

Your Loving Ancestor

Cosmic Download: Duende (Chapter Eleven)

We respond to the deep song of our soul. We transform out of the ordinal everyday human-created world into the power of the cosmos that we are. Mysterious, unknown, even and especially to ourselves. Responding as song so deep within, the groaning and moaning of creation borning, birthing, exclaiming, shouting, sighing, deepening, releasing.

Duende. Spirit moving. Spirit on the move. Calling all to life and love, to pain, to the despair of a cup too small to hold the exuberance, the passion, the joy. 

The call. The calling. The how-ling of no why-ning, no caul.

Fluid cosmic streamings of the Alone birthing the Alone. Finding voice in all capaciousness, in all willing opening, fluting with all hollow reeds.

Intense spontaneity, spontaneous intensity. Synchronous and synthronous.

Interspiraling interflow. Wailing and weeping, chanting and singing, birthing and letting go. Allowing go.

Duende. Confronting the lion in his den and devouring each other whole.

Deep laughter bubbling from the Wellspring.

Cosmic Download: Space (Chapter Ten)

We generally think of space as empty. Not so. We are the ones who make it empty and dead or lively and dynamic. The space between two strangers withdrawn into themselves, wishing they were elsewhere, is dead space, at best sluggish and murky. When one notices the unobserving other, a dynamic unidirectional river flows through space. The other feels it, notices. The river becomes an interflow, then an ocean. The space between the two persons enlivens. No longer is there a between. Now it is an among.

Friendship and love are qualities of space. So is enmity. We affect the quality of space around us through emotional discharge. We create a certain atmosphere. This can be and usually is quite subtle. The red space of anger and the black space of despair are extremes. 

Many of us have a public face for public space. We don this face like a mask as we move into the world. The mask is one we have carefully cultivated. We have a different mask for different groups. 

We carefully orchestrate our facial muscles to (temporarily) fool ourselves and trick the other into our sociodrama. We do this without thought. The space around us and between us and others is no longer lively, creative, freeflowing and dynamic. It is a stage, a theater. We dominate the space and turn it into our own production. We entrance the other with our glamor. The space has become a spider’s trap for pouncing.

Not me, you say. But any time that we look at another with desire and intent, not necessarily amorous, we transform the space between us. Space is qualitative. Babies sense it. Dogs respond to it. Cats see it. We all feel the quality of space, the atmosphere of a room, the transformation of room atmosphere when certain folk enter or leave. 

We have a default space quality, a surrounding energy field that we create, fall into and wear through the day, transforming space as we go. The default mode we continue to choose affects our physiology, our breathing, our soul. Your default mode is YOU. Default modes of space transformation range from a self-created monster inflicting terror, pain, and suffering within self and others to an angel of delight and joy. Many seem to occupy a middle ground of bland indifference.

The spatial quality of ourselves and others determines our movement mode. We move toward and look to move into radiant space. We move away from and move against alarming space. We move with identical space, the spaces most like our own. 

We are space beings who think ourselves solid. Space calls us into being. Space is our home.

Cosmic Download: No Thing (Chapter Nine)

No Thing

Cosmic Download: The Circulatory System of the Gods (Chapter Eight)

A coming to awareness of the circulation system of diaphaneity, of transparency, in which we are all engaged, not just with humans but with the Entirety, was exampled in Chapter Seven: Circulation. Let us now open to the realm of the Imaginal, which is more “real” than many would imagine. 

We each have our gods. For some, the god is God: the One both producing and behind the Seens, the Scenes. For others of a less monotheistic nature, a god is an energy packet with perhaps and probably a human face: the face of one who walked the earth before or exists in the translucent reality of myth, of story. For those of a more prosaic nature, a god is that clung to in times of desperation. A god gives us energy, solace, and understanding.

The circulatory system produced when we invoke our god, when we open to personal relationship with the spiritual energy packet to which we have grown accustomed, involves not just the heart but one’s whole being. The heart is only part of the circulatory system, vital to be sure, yet of what use if it pumped energy into nothingness? 

The eyes of my god look deeply into mine and in doing so sends energy much as energy was sent from tree to us and us to tree as described in Chapter Seven. That energy moves down and through my energetic or spiritual body along definite circulatory pathways, down into the ground of my being which is also the ground of my god’s being and up through my god and back around to me so that one vibrant system comes into play, is established. 

But wait. We are not done. Now we reverse the flow. We send energy to our god. We are not followers and takers only but co-partners. We give. We look deeply into the eyes of our god with love and joy. We send energies of lovingkindness down into the crown of our god, through the body, and into the ground of being. It returns and moves up through me and is sent out again.

Both circuits, the giving and receiving, merge as one. Now energy is a freeflowing dynamic sphere. We are vibrant with life. We affect all that is. As Arthur Eddington once remarked: "When the electron vibrates, the universe shakes."

We are twins. My god and I are twins with one heart, one mind, one circulation system.

I can be religious with this, enclosing it within one system that has its doctrine and bounds or I can live life freestyle with the boundless openness of continuous transformation. My god(s) and I choose the latter.

Cosmic Download: Circulation (Chapter Seven)

A tree is faced, not just any tree, but a tree that calls, that stands out from all other trees. This mutual calling, or intercalling, is also an answering, a calling and an answering. You are called out of your trance state. You are called into relationship. You are called into the circulatory system of the cosmos. You answer. A tree will do to start.

Purposeful interplay in and as this energetic circulatory system jumpstarts you out of the human societal cha-cha into the smooth, rhythmic, and highly energetic cosmos tango.

You face the tree. The tree faces you. Interface. Your hands move with the directional flow of already existing energy, up the trunk of the tree, out through its crown, into the air above and down into your crown, through your trunk, your roots, into and through the earth, into tree roots, up the trunk and around again. And again. A circulatory system is acknowledged, made more clear. Both tree and human are transformed, transforming.

The circle of energy is now reversed. The tree has been giving its heart, its energy to you. You have been receiving this energetic transfusion and acknowledging it with the connection of your roots to tree roots. Now you give. You give of your heartful energy to the tree. Not to worry. Your heart is always full.

Your hands move up your trunk, out through your crown, across and into the crown of the tree, down its bodily trunk, into its roots below, through the earth, into your roots and up your trunk. You give energy to the tree. The tree receives.

These two circulatory systems, giving and receiving, exist simultaneously and continuously with all life, from the subatomic to the metagalactic, a large conversational interflow in which one is rejuvenated and rejuvenates.

To fully participate, you come out of your identificatory trance that you have developed since birth as a shell of security, defiance, and protection. You stand, walk, move, breathe as an energetic interflow of the cosmos. You are diaphanous, transparent, fully disclosing. Your blood, the cosmos blood, same blood.

You move through the day. This day.

Cosmic Download Chapter Six: The Constellation of the Soul

I dreamed last night of seven glowing circles. I awoke with the vision still glowing before my eyes. I sat quietly and listened for understanding.

The two above were close to each other but not touching. 

O O 

Commentary: Biune twins, the heaven angel and the earth angel, the right and left brain, the interbreathing of God and Man, of man and god that Peter Sloterdijk describes so beautifully in his “Bubbles: Spheres I.” The interbreathing of O and O creates an infinity sign.

The two glowing circles in the middle of the constellation, below The Interbreathing Twins, were further apart as if they were the “sides” of the soul.

O        O 

Commentary: These glowing sides present consideration, the seeing of all sides, and by this seeing the bringing together of the infinities of division while allowing all separation to continue. As The Ribs they are breathed into, allowing and producing deflation and expansion.

The three “stars” at the base of the constellation present The Foundation.

O        O        O 

Commentary: The eternal uniting, unifying. Trinity uniting all dual. Each of the three is a separate blaze of energy while moving and residing as one. I am reminded also of the Crescent Moon and Child supporting Our Lady of Guadalupe and the rocker arm assembly in automotive language where radial movement is converted into linear.

The vision is a mapping of The Constellation of Our Soul.

Cosmic Download: Gun Barrels, Targets, Boats, and Photos (Chapter Five)

Any consensus of opinion is an aligning of individual points of view into a singular focus then sighting down that gun barrel to a target created by the gun barrel itself. The individual opinions call the target into existence and their consensus makes the target more real, more clearly defined. The clearer the target, the greater the attachment to the target -- one feels as if one is getting somewhere.

A target school is formed with educational material, teachers, and orthodox target journals. The target school and thus the target becomes a target itself through the dissension of the unorthodox, the unwashed, the heretic.

This continuous formation of targets through opinion consensus appears to be a favorite entertainment system of humans. One builds a boat and then gets in it. From a larger point of view, it is the Cosmos, forever restless, solidifying and dissolving, perhaps in order to take a look at Itself; the boundless coming into bounds for a quick peek, a photo, putting that into the album and moving on.

The Cosmos moves on while humans still stand gazing at the photo.

Cosmic Download: Curious (Chapter Four)

One is either curious about our origin and the journey we are on or not. Some seem to have no curiosity in this realm at all. Amongst those who are curious, a subset seems to settle into an explanation (religion or science, metaphysics or materialism) and become uncurious except within the bounds of the accepted explanatory system. A few keep an open curiosity yet give the matter little further thought unless prompted by a conversation or reading. Fewer still stay openly and assertively curious, refusing to create or follow a designated system of conceptual explanation, including the two current horses in this explanatory race: theism and science.

 Who are we? Where do we come from and where are we going? The easy answer is an Imitation Zen one (for which I have no patience) uttered with vacuous sincerity: “We are no one going no where which is now here.” Bam! Slap you silly! One has given up one’s curiosity for a false nirvana.

My wide ranging deep thinking friend, Brad Olson, and I were puzzling over these questions of origin and journey this very morning at breakfast. Well, not so much with the questions but with the value of wrestling with them. (In previous conversations, we called it wrestling with the Angel, making reference to the story in Genesis of Jacob wrestling with the angel all night, refusing to let go until a blessing was received, even though he suffered a wounding (hip put out of joint) in doing so. (Perhaps this is why many folk don’t want to wrestle with these questions and settle into a schema: a less pain free life is sought, an explanatory blanket one can snuggle into.)

One is always wounded when struggling with these questions yet one always receives a blessing: a transformation of consciousness, increased awareness. One does not stop there. One explores the new territory with both intuition and logic. The new territory is only a temporary base of operation. At some point, one will be called to go out again, beyond all bounds and see. Future, past, and now collapse into one, one so vast and deep it will never be understood yet will always be understanding.

One remains curiously open to Cosmic Download.

Cosmic Download: Story (Chapter Three)

For the clarity of my own thinking, I am now substituting STORY for RELIGION, for SCIENCE, and for all other positional assumptions about the origin and process of life. STORY is neither true nor false; that dichotomy does not hold here. STORY is simply STORY.  Each STORY can be entered (and left) as with any other physical or social domain.

STORY is an imaginal realm and imaginal is real. Imagine a snake and you will have a visceral reaction. The body understands deeply the reality of the IMAGINAL.

STORY is like a virtual reality helmet. One can put a STORY on and take it off. Scorners and scoffers of STORY other than their own (whether RELIGION, SCIENCE, or MYTH) appear to have their helmet firmly welded to their head.

Is it possible to go outside all STORY? My affirmative answer is based upon experience which when described becomes another STORY. A subset of Zen practitioners, contemplators, and mindful folk will understand this. For those who do not wish to admit such a possibility, that a STORYless space exists, you can perhaps consider that your mind, your awareness can move from one STORY to another, can adopt at least temporarily a STORY other than you  DEFAULT STORY. (Ewert Cousins has called this STORY adoption ability "shamanistic epistemology.")

I find adopting the view that all views are STORY, as is this view itself, rids you of scorn, scoff, prejudice, hierarchical rankings and general negativity when regarding anyone's STORY. You are pleased to be converted to that STORY for a moment or many moments, delight in its nuance and its adventuresomeness and move on, always able to come back for another and no doubt deeper telling.

Cosmic Download: Urge (Chapter Two)

From whence and where do urges come? How is it that we have the urge to do something? What is an urge? What is the urgency of understanding our urges? Are there levels of urges? Are some urges more urgent than others? Is there a difference in the urge to scratch a physical itch and the urge to scratch a spiritual itch?

An urge is a compelling need for action. Some urges appear to be more compelling than others. Urges exist in differing realms: physical urges, emotional urges, cognitive urges (the desire to luxuriate or obsess in certain thought domains), social urges, spiritual urges (the desire for deep knowing and moving in accord).

Some say that all urges arise from the meat we are, from our physiology. Others say that urges are a characteristic of our consciousness state or of our soul. Others ask who it is doing this saying.

If we perceive that we are in a hierarchy, we follow a chain of command. It becomes urgent that we follow the orders from “above” and that those “below” us follow our orders. Our urges are constrained within a militaristic code of conduct. All is in order and we know our place in the universe. We are a thing among things. Somewhere above us is the Great Thing which knows all things.

If we perceive that we are in a holoarchy, a concentric universe in which spheres of awareness are nested within spheres ad infinitum, we live in an instructional interflow. We realize that we are not our body, not our emotions, not our mind. As Roberto Assagioli used to say: “I have a body but I am not my body. I have emotions but I am not my emotions. I have a mind but I am not my mind.” I would add to this: I have urges but I am not my urges.

All becomes less urgent and transforms into emergent. I follow what is unfolding in this moment now. Here is no next moment. Here is only momentum.

Cosmic Download: Opening To The Vertical (Chapter One)

Some years ago, as a Marine on Okinawa, I began learning the moves and principles of hand to hand combat under the tutelage of Tatsuo Shimabuku Sensei, founder of Isshinryu Karate. I followed and taught those practices over the years and added Jujutsu, Tai Chi, Chi Gung, and the Ki principles of Aikido to my repertoire.

Along the way, I saw that most people would not practice the martial arts so I began focusing on understanding and teaching the application of martial art principles to daily life. (All martial arts are relationship arts, defining the encounter between and among people. Thus the martial teachings are directly applicable to interpersonal communication.)

I developed a simple structure that seemed to me to encompass all martial art principles, hence all relationship art principles. I called it The Wheel Of Keen Weapons. Each "weapon" is a necessary tool for engaging in effective relations with oneself, with others, and with the world at large.

I am not so interested, for purposes of this writing, in the weapons depicted in the diagram, though they are useful in living one's daily life, as I am in the empty space at the core of the diagram. This empty space is at the core of our being if we but allow it, get out of our way and ways, stop standing in our own light. This empty space is the conduit through which the informational energies of love and wisdom flow.

Eventually I began to call the diagram "The Wheel of Radiance." You are this wheel. Imagine that you are standing with legs apart and with arms extended into the heavens. Your legs and arms form an X. Your right leg represents the practice of Relentless Intent, your left leg Mindful Presence. Your seat or lower body between the two legs represents Grounding & Deepening.

Your right arm extending into the heavens at about a 45 degree angle represents Compassion, your left arm Surrendering Attachments. Your head and crown represent Opening, opening to the infinity of the heavens.

Two horizontal lines are at your waist level. The horizontal is the plane of action in this world. The horizontal line extending to your left represents the practice of Calmness, to your right Firm Action.

The warrior of spirit (life force) embodies all of these at once, though each may be practiced separately: Grounding and Opening, Relentless while Surrendering, Mindfully Present Compassion, and Calm Action.

At your core where these eight lines potentially intersect is Vast Openness of your heart. This open space is the conduit for the inflow and outflow of the Life Force that forms us, that calls us into being. Here is great wisdom, true power and strength. This is the realm of Emptiness, empty of our little fearful selves that clutch and cling, empty of our man-you-factured identity. We must be empty to be filled. The conduit must be open, unclogged. This is spirit-ual practice.

We are born of the cosmos. We are the cosmos embodying. When we realize (real eyes) that, we open to our true being. When we are at home in the cosmos, we relax and begin to learn from our Source.

[Note: A more complete description of these eight principles and accompanying practices can be found in my book "Embodying Spirit: The Inner Work of the Warrior" online for free.]

yes

Centering and Opening! All else is of entertainment value.

cleaning my room

An old note I found this morn while cleaning my room:

When any of us says something is true, we are saying we believe it. "It is part of my belief system, therefore true."

Some parts of one's belief system are held as true by most, hence a popular delusion that works for the moment and only works within a certain context, i.e., the current worldview or generic thought domain.

The next realm's thought domain, as evidenced by the Copernican, Newtonian, Einsteinian, and Quarkian progression, might and probably will reveal our current metaview as old-fashioned, ignore-ant, even prmitive.

I don't know that there is anything to be done about this, except to acknowledge it, and to step outside our belief system, our thought domain. Of course, for many this is unthinkable and will not be thought (or unthought). For others it is understood but seen as too much trouble; attention is best directed elsewhere. For some, however, the possibility / probability of existing outside thought, without reflection, is attractive and seen as a worthy endeavor.

comprehension

Only a mystic will comprehend a mystic. All others are involved in the affairs of the sensorium.

percival lowell and the intranaut

An inscription on Percival Lowell's tomb at Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff is also true of the intranaut, the mystic, the explorer of the holocosmic: "Astronomy now demands bodily abstraction of its devotee... To see into the beyond requires purity... and the securing it makes him perforce a hermit from his kind... He must abandon cities and forego plains... Only in places above and aloof from men can he profitably pursue his search. He must learn to wait upon his opportunities and no less to wait for mankind's acceptance of his results... for in common with most explorers he will encounter on his return that final penalty of penetration - the certainty at first of being disbelieved."

extension

Let us say that you are sitting in a chair reading and a passage you have just read produces the inclination to go to your computer across the room to look up a word or make a note. You are now neither here nor there but are stretched across the room between the you in the chair and the you at the computer. As long as this extension is maintained and not consummated, you are stretched between the two and ineffective.

our ghostly endeavors

You have a perception of yourself. It is not real, at least in three-dimensional space. No one else sees it except perhaps in glimpses. It is a ghost. You are wed to your ghost. So-called enlightenment is knowing you have a self-created ghost. That is Enlightenment One. Enlightenment One A is dissolution of the ghost: Ghost Dissolving 101. Enlightenment 2 is strong laughter at the very thought.

dear unborn kin

Dear Unborn Kin,

Bush the Second gave us the formula: Keep on shopping while the government wages war. War on what? Why, anything that gets in the way of course: people, forests, lands, ocean, air, species. In the way of what? The Juggernaut: the Beast that focuses on Quantity over Quality, on Money and Power.

We the people are dying of Consumption, but we live our satiated lives of instant gratification.

Can the Intranaut overcome the Juggernaut? We shall see.

Blessings to you, Dear Ones.

Your Loving Ancestor

Psychopomp

A twitter novel: 140 characters or less per chapter

George Breed 

Chapter One
Mountain trail. Sheer drop right. Cliff face left. Wind blasts, shrieking energy threatening footing. Nothing personal. But real.

Chapter Two
Around hairpin. Out of wind. Safety. What!? Piercing luminous eyes matching his. No advance. No retreat. Heart thumping fear rage. Impasse.

Chapter Three
Nietzsche laughed. Ironic bitter joy. Was this his doppelganger, his death twin? His doom and salvation in one package. He moved in.

Chapter Four
Japan opens doors. Tesshu leaps through. “Zen warrior relentless openness seeks Prussian intellectual fire.” Fair trade.

Chapter Five
2 yamabushi clash. Mountain warriors. Highest peaks of awareness. Alpine thought sword, Fuji no-thought sword. Stand-off. Zanshin.

Chapter Six
Thinking! rails Nietzsche. Not-thinking! thunders Tesshu. Swords locked they stand. 1 and 0 in eternal combat.

Chapter Seven
USA. Two bulls. Dakota field. Horns locked, eyes bulging, foreheads bleeding, snot and drool, shit running down back legs. Relentless.

Chapter Eight
No backing up. Sheer cliff face. No backing down. Sheer abyss drop. The two masters see no opening. No way to close.

Chapter Nine Alpine clash. An eagle flies down, rests on their immovable X-crossed blades. Without-thinking, it sighs. Flies away.

Chapter Ten
"Without-thinking!" the two cogno-warriors simul-shouted, tossing philosoph-swords into abyss. Laughing and pounding each other’s back.

The Beginning

two questions

I have only two questions: Is my heart open to the plight of those around me (not just the humanimals but ALL around me)? Am I following the guidance of the Angel of my Being?

encapsulation

We humans encapsulate ourselves in at least three forms of imagery: recall imagery, second-hand imagery, and spontaneous imagery.(Plus first-hand imagery)

psychic atmosphere

We breathe in not just air. We breathe in our own psychic atmosphere. We breathe out not just air. We breathe out to all around our own psychic atmosphere. The quality of our own psychic atmosphere determines whether we pollute or heal. Our psychic atmosphere quality is determined by the imagery of our thoughts. We either have a cloud around our head or open light, smog or sun. We breathe in that atmosphere to ourselves, polluting or healing. We breathe out that atmosphere to others around us, polluting or healing. We breathe not just air. We breathe our psychic atmosphere.

notes on recall and second-hand imagery

Recall imagery is loaded with emotional energy, will overwhelm present awareness if not careful (cher - full, attentive from the heart, from one's very core). Second-hand imagery, imagery painted by words of others, written or spoken, has much less emotional impact, unless one has direct experience, pre-existing or called forth, of that imagery. Hence, spiritual (vertical) and political (horizontal) imagery are less impactful unless directly experienced by the person. That is why some are on fire and some are not. In my experience, the vertical realm trumps (but can lend energy to) the horizontal realm.

for the erg of me

We must reclaim our merge-inity. "M-erg-e" is composed of "erg" (a unit of life force) and "me." When the life force is in the midst of me, I have reclaimed my merge-inity. I am now a mergion once again.

"Merge" is our true and deep reality.

Our emotions are not our true and deep reality. They are an integral part of the humanimal we are. but not our true and deep reality. When the body dies, the emotions disappear.

Our cognitive frame, the careful (and perhaps not so careful) structure we have built for making sense of the world, for viewing our surrounds is not our true reality. When the body dies, our cognitive frame will disappear.

[Cognitive frame joke -- Judge: "Are you guilty or not guilty?" Response: "I was framed, your honor!"]

Our merge is our deep and true reality. As mergions, our emotions do not sweep us away. We have emotions, but we are not our emotions. As mergions,our cognitive frames fall away. We recognize our cognitive frame and step beyond it.

How do we do this? How do we reclaim our merginity? By sitting in the seat at the center of our soul. Then opening with no bounds. We move through the world as mergions once again.

Up and Atom

Consider this.

You are a sphere of energy that radiates outward in all directions, infinitely.

The quality of energy that you are depends upon
(1) whether you are centering or off center,
(2) upon what center you choose, and
(3) upon your centering default mode (your habitual place of centering).

The quality of energy that you are radiates outward in all directions, infinitely.

When you are transformed, the cosmos is transformed.
When you are a zit, the cosmos becomes more zit-like.
When you are a harmonious presence, the cosmos becomes more harmonious.

The quality of energy that you are radiates outward in all directions, infinitely. If you wish to transform the world, transform yourself. When you are transformed, the world is transformed.

How is this so?

The cosmos (which includes the human societal world) is an eternal now, an Eternal Now. The cosmos is eternally nowing. Out of this eternal now springs all that is. More accurately (less statically), this eternal now continues springing.

This eternally springing forever now is Interflowing, is supreme connectioning. This Interflowing knows no bounds, is boundless, is forever bounding. When centering and opening, we too are boundless. We have no bounds. The sphere of energy that we are knows no bounds. We are the Inteflow flowing.

Unless. Unless we center ourselves in a zit, a sidepool of angry and despairing stagnation.
A zit can become our default energy mode.
We are unhappy and ensure that all around us is unhappy.
We extend zit energy outward in all directions.
We are pissed about the world and the way it is.
In doing so, we are making the world a pissy place.
So much for zit mode.
 
The quality of energy that we are depends upon
(1) whether we are centering or off center,
(2) upon what center we choose, and
(3) upon our centering default mode (our habitual place of centering).

What is the highest, widest, deepest, most powerfully transcendent mode one can embody? You tell me. Better still. Embody it. Transform the world.

Embodying means that all one's actions flow out of the quality of the centering we choose. We do not sit in woowoo land. We are Up and Atom.

We are spheres of energy that radiate outward in all directions, infinitely.

beyond the bones

We can turn our attention outward, to "nature" and to the co-created human society of bombs and money and celebrations and chat-fests, and we can turn our attention inward. By inward I certainly do not mean focusing awareness on the organs or the bones, though that can be a worthy endeavor. I mean the vast inner stillness and openness without bound. In essence (essentiality: what is absolutely required and at the "bottom" of it all), we become aware of awareness itself. And when the "we" that is becoming aware of awareness disappears, only Awareness remains. I capitalize it to point out, to emphasize that It is one without a second. It is the Ground which is the Sky. And why should I bother telling "you" of this? Or writing these words except so "I" can see It more clearly and appreciate Its openness and power -- the powers of creation? And when the I (eye) that is looking and the It that is looked at merge, only Silence exists with deep cello notes of Melancholy accompanied by vibrato of Laughter in the deepness of the Deep of the Living Belly and an explosive outdawning of Joy. When "we" turn "our" attention "inward."

embodying

All that is required of us is to move with the spirit (the life force) of love, of truth, of beauty. We include, but move beyond the cha-cha mind, the rooftop chatter, the ratio intellect of plan and scheme. We live and move and work in this horizontal world while infused with energy from the vertical realm, from The One Who Breathes Us. We embody Spirit. We embody the Life Force.

remembrance

I remember The One Who Births Me.
I arise like a phoenix from the ashes of my soul.

spiritual intelligence

Spiritual Intelligence -- To be spiritually intelligent is to deliberately open to, co-create, and embody a state of consciousness and way of living each moment that resonates with the lifeforce that breathes us (the Source, the Origin).

Core components of spiritual intelligence are, in my view: the ability to recognize self as a planetary and universal citizen (as well as a member of a nation, tribe, or community); the ability to feel and be at home in the universe; the ability to sense the sacred in the common and the common in the sacred; the ability to recognize the difference between separative (I-it) and unitive (I-Thou) consciousness; the ability to practice living in unitive consciousness while attending to the affairs of the day; the ability to open to unitive consciousness for solving problems in living; the ability to engage in right relationship (facing and dealing with all that arises while embodying forgiveness, appreciation, and compassion with relentless intent and calm).

one star blazing

You sit in the middle of the universe you are. You choose what you contain and what are your bounds. One star blazing in an infinity of stars, connected, always and ever connecting with all, adding the qualities you represent to the Totality, the All.

we seek

We seek to understand and to be understood,
to comfort and to be comforted,
to forgive and to be forgiven.

monk

I meditate within this cave called Daily Life.
I neither sit cross-legged nor perform yogic feats.
Centering deeply, opening boundlessly, merging with what is.
Facing and dealing with all that arises. No face. No deal.

pedaling my recycle

I said, "I do not want to go." "It is time," they said. "I like it here, have grown comfortable, do not want to leave," I said. "That is what you said last time," they said. I said, "Yes, I was happy and here you came, saying it was time to go." "Don't be snippy," they said. "It's not good for your journey."

The "last time" they referred to was when I was floating in the Cosmic Ocean of the Mystery. Then they said I had to go. "I do not want to go." I said. "Part of your contract," they said.

I went. I found myself floating in the birth chamber of a human female. I became happy there. Everything I wanted was provided instantly. "Not so bad," I thought. Then they came again and said, "It is time." "I do not want to go," I said.

I have been out of that birth chamber for many decades now. I like it here, have grown comfortable, do not want to leave. Here they come again. One says, "Your departure time is drawing near." "I do not want to go," I said. "I'm just now learning how to do this. I have work yet unfinished." They look at each other and smile. "He has new arguments now," they said.

I smile.

different ways of sitting

Each of us "has a different way in which we sit in the cosmos" (Zalman Schachter- Shalomi). The cosmos we wear like a suit is the cosmos of our own devising. As we are, so is our cosmos. As we are, so is our world.

mind

My mind is much more immense than my knowledge. Mind is like the cosmos and knowledge like various subsets of galaxies and black holes, each spinning or containing at its own warp pace. The trick is to not take any galactic objectivity or black hole subjective consumption as truth, especially as THE truth, and to continue identifying with the interstitial, the inbetween: that which touches all while remaining unconfined. Capaciousness with no bounds allowing bounded exploration.

happening

What happens when you do not entertain the body? What happens when you do not entertain the mind? What happens when you do not entertain the boredom? What happens when you do not entertain the joy? What happens when you do not entertain what happens when you do not entertain? What happens when you do not take a happen stance?

emergence

We are born into a worldview, a thought frame, and we evolve out of that (or not). All along the path of our unfolding, of our creative emergence, we have opportunities to stop and weave ourselves a suit of seamless sanctimony. We can encase ourselves in this sarcophagus and lie there entombed awaiting our resurrection, a form of spiritual cryogenics. We are effectively dead. We have become a bloated fish washed up on some barren shore while the ocean of the cosmos surges ever on spawning new life forms capable of accepting its boundless energy. We are born into a worldview, a thought frame, and we evolve out of that (or not).