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).

mental cases

In the world of dream, what arises through our creation is simultaneously perceived as real. What we are imagining (image-ing) is perceived as true. What we are perceiving as true and real, we are imagining. The two co-arise.

We are caught in, are firmly continuing to establish ourselves in that space of no-space between our perception and our creation (our percepting and our creating).

We are Prometheus chained to the rock of our own devisings, a perpetual suffering machine. We continue to create our sufferings and simultaneously perceive them.We are in a dream of suffering. We are a dream of suffering. We eat our own liver with our own eagle.

Those who are joyous awaken from this dream.

the imaginal

If you can see it, you can experience it, and not only CAN you experience it, you DO experience it. AS you see it, you experience it. This level of experience is the realm of the imaginal. When you imagine a snake, you experience a snake. When you imagine love, you experience love.

The sensual (the input of the senses), the rational (ratio logic), and the perceptual (the processing of sensory input) provide modes of experience that are oriented more toward the practical functioning of day to day life. In that sense, they are more body oriented and in favor of the body's wants and needs.

The imaginal attends to a more subtle realm than body. The imaginal cannot be seen by the physical sensations and perceptions. The imaginal cannot be ratio-nalized; if one looks to do so, the imaginal is no more.

The imaginal attends to our becoming, to what we are moving toward being. When we are courteous and respectful with our imagining, when allowing and encouraging the expansiveness of our imaginal, we are developing our consciousness. This developing has no limit, no end.

magi

Our imagination does not arise from our experience; rather, our experience of the world emerges from our imagination. Our imagination is not mere fantasy to be poo-pooed with a dismissive invitation to come down to earth, to "get real." Our imagination is the essence of our consciousness, is the most real of all that is real. The closer we are to materialistic form devoid of all imagination, the less conscious we are.

We are magi, mages, magicians, imagineers. We are "made in God's own image;" we are imaginings of the Source. What power! As imaginings of the Life Force, our imaginings partake of the same vibrancy, the same "juice" as the creative imagination producing all that is.

What we imagine, we become. What we "think in our heart," so we are.

Yet we so often succumb to form, especially to the form of our physical body. We experience it as a weight, as an anchor, especially if it is sick. And here is the news: the body is always sick. We are, as Yeats said, "fastened to a dying animal." The Zen dudes put it this way: "Who is it dragging this corpse around?"

The physical body is a base of operation. An excellent base. The only base we have in this world of form. From it arises the imagination; in its vertical ascent and expansion, we co-create a new and everchanging world.

This is the second birth.

If someone chastises you again for staring out the window, do not come back into the room with its walls. Live in the realm of the boundless. Otherwise you are nothing but a breathing corpse.

Dear Unborn Kin

Dear Unborn Kin,

Some years back, for several months, I had dreams with the same adventurous theme: I was driving a vehicle (sometimes a car, sometimes a truck) with its driver's seat and operating apparatus (steering wheel, brake, accelerator, gear shift) way up in the sky and its tires upon the road down below.

I had to be aware of both places at once so as not to hurt anyone down below yet remain at the controls above. It was especially tricky going over bridges. Somehow I was able to do it. (Centering while opening was the essential mode of being.) Eventually the dreams disappeared. My training session was evidently over.

It takes no spiritual genius to decipher the meaning. We walk the earth as spiritual beings. Guidance comes from "above," from the realm of the Invisible. I am reminded of the words in the Christian Holy Book: "We walk by faith and not by sight." In this case, driving. We move through each nanosecond of each day by faith in the Source at our core and not by physical eye vision.

Hope all is well with you,

Your Loving Ancestor

this and that

Our worlds are built on the friction of opposition. No "this" exists without a "that." "This" is our salvation. "That" is our enemy. We swim in a sea of "this." We are wary of "that."

We choose friends and groups who swear to our "this." We revel in our mutual thisness. We distrust, dislike "those" who swear to "that." We wonder why "they" cannot, do not come live in our thisness.

We champion the hero of "our" thisness. We detest the hero of "their" thatness.

We do not realize that what we see as thatness, "they" see as thisness and wonder why "we" are so peculiar in our thatness.

the interflowing

I am mere mortal man. And yet it has been granted me to peer into Eternity. I see vast realms of Energy, interflowing. When we remove our accretions, our hesitations, our doubts, our fears, our stand-offishness, we also are this flow. This, this interflowing, is what I teach.

cortical adventure

The cynical part of me slides across a slick flat smoothness of my brain, no fissures to catch hold allowing deeper understanding, unending desert scenery unchanging.

The wiser part of me experiences brain as crags and hills, caves, canyons and ridges where calm and joyous exploration advances into adventurous unknowns.

I have also fallen into a crevasse and sat trapped in the dank cold at its bottom, peering up at times in hope of glimpsing a tiny strip of sky where breathes sweet air of release.

Adventurer, cynic, prisoner: my primary mode is and always has been the first. No crevasse entrapment for many years. But when looking at the human species, I must watch out for the gnarly grumblings of the cynic.

Solution: keep my eyes upon the infinite unfolding of being and the wondrous mystery of this existence, of this existing. Adventuring continues.

the personification of creative forces

This world in which we live and which we are is an interflow of creative forces. Ibn 'Arabi does a good job of describing these forces in his "The Bezels of Wisdom." The forces are personified (which creates horror among some these days and sends them shrieking holding their heads in their hands).

Not only do I find it of great value to personify these forces, I will go a step further and say this is the only fruitful way that I have found to be intimately acquainted with these forces.

The creative force I follow that surges through this world is personified as Jesus or Yeshua. The historical Jesus embodied this force. This powerful creative energy of light flowing from the Origin for a brief time flowed through that human body, then bounced back out into the unrestricted space of Now.

You may say this is just a story. Ah well. Then so it is to you. Blessings to you and the story you follow and in which you embed yourself and are embedded.

As for me, this is living experience that I can no more step out of than I can step out of this life force continuously calling me into existence. They are one and the same.

Yeshua is the force I follow and Yeshua continues calling me into existence.

our common core

As humans, we divide the world into two, lots of two's. We ourselves are built this way. We are a trunk from which extrude two sides. We call one right, the other left. They are quite different from each other. Even our face is made up of two different faces. Our right face and our left face are not the same.

Yet we are not split apart. We have a core, a seamless core where the two cooperate, work together. Oh sure, we can be at odds with ourselves, split into twoness, but that can't last for long. We have to re-solve this di-lemma (living with two lemmas).

The healthy natural way of re-solution is to come back to our core. Our body shows us how to do this. Walking is not possible without our twoness cooperating. We do it effortlessly. "After you!" No, after you!" "Okay, thank you." And by the lords and lordesses, there we are walking!

There is hope, dear friends. There is hope.

the cult of individualism

We say that images and soul are inside us.
Not so. We live inside Image and Soul.

We say we "have" images, we "have" a soul.
They are our possessions.

Another feeble attempt to establish our authority:
that we are the author of all things.

Madness lies in thinking we are possessors.
We do not possess. We are possessed.

warrior

Concern is expressed from time to time about my predilection for the martial arts and their teachings and about my use of the term "warrior" in the path I follow and teach.

At the beginning of my book "Embodying Spirit: The Inner Work of the Warrior," I have this quote from Nietzsche: "And if ye cannot be saints of knowledge, then, I pray you, be at least its warriors. They are the companions and forerunners of such saintship."

I am no saint. A saint is one with no blemishes. I am very much human. I am a warrior.

A warrior is not a soldier. A soldier marches along following orders. A warrior dances and the dance is unpredictable in its rhythm and expression. The warrior dances to the rhythm of the cosmos, of the ever-flowing life force and to no human-created form.

If form follows function, then the purpose of the form is to reveal and to realize (make real) its function. If the function is the continuously creative and unpredictable unfolding of the life force, one's form is the form of no form. All forming is unforming. This is the warrior way.

When the forming is made into a form and one is looking to persuade others to follow that form, to adopt that form as the only way to solve-ation and no other, one has become a soldier and has soldered one's spirit to a frame.

The light around a saint is one of beatific holiness. A saint has nothing to do with this world, has gone on. The light around a warrior is the light of the blazing of the heart, consuming all human-created form. I follow the example of the warrior. I am no saint.

worry wart

Worry is the repeated visualization of disaster. As such, it is a demonic prayer form. Whatever we visualize, we now are. When we visualize disaster, we experience that disaster. Physiologically. Every cell of our body responds as if that disaster is actually taking place. Therefore it is.

The word originally meant "to strangle." Then it devolved into "to grab by the throat and shake." Now, in our more polite and abstract discourse concerning our self-harm, it refers to the causing of anxiety and distress through repetition of our favorite potential disasters. A worrier is a conjurer of black magic, one who sits and shits their spiritual pants. To worry is to forecast doom and to lend energy to making that doom happen.

The antidote to worry is not positive thinking, floating around as if everything is butterflies and roses. The antidote to worry is going out of one's mind. Not to worry, you won't miss it a bit. It will still be around. You just won't be caught up in it and grabbing yourself by the throat and shaking.

froth

Everything is being born. Continuously. Everything is dying. Continuously. Everything is turning into everything. Continuously. The One-without-a-second is forming and unforming. This froth on this wave of the Ocean chatters to itself and to the other frothiness. Prayers are sometimes sent out. Prayers of adoration and thankfulness. Prayers of petition. The petitionary frothing says to the waving of the Ocean make it this way, please. No matter which way the waving waves it is then called the Ocean's will. The adoring thankful frothing rides the wave and its waving with a heart of bliss and an inner smile. No petitions. It knows it is the Ocean frothing.

holding a world view is like a cat licking itself

Every world view is justified by self esteem. World views are held for their result -- you feel better in your own eyes -- and you are so much better off than THOSE -- those who do not share your point of view.

We have absolutely no grounds for holding any world view whatever -- except the grounds of making us feel more secure in our clung-to encapsulation. As long as you are clinging to the world view that world views are necessary, you will not understand this at all.

 If you praise yourself for understanding it, you have just trapped yourself again.

the new psyche of humans

I understand now. I have it all backwards.

In the present age, one lives in the external world as if it is the internal. In other words, there is no internal. The external is the internal.

This explains why folk are all caught up in politics and money and chemical and surgical alteration and theme parks and continuous feeding and searching for new thrills and why the news is now entertainment. This is the new psyche of humans. Nothing exists but the external.

I am a throwback to a previous age, with this rich internal life of relationship with the unseen, with the unborn that continues birthing. From my poor primitive point of view, not in sync with the times, I even pray. I pray that the internal will once again become the focal point and operating base of human consciousness.This makes me either a dangerous revolutionary or a pathetic remnant of a best forgotten human past. 

a radiant sun of the cosmos

What is my function here but to open as a radiant sun of the cosmos birthing out of and extending into all infinities simultaneously, rather than as a hypnotized member of a herd of skittering creatures taking little chipmunk bites at manufactured life?

Only thus am I a sphere of confluence and influence allowing a radiance, a flowthrough of these turbulent energies known as life-and-death, with no attachment, no clinging to the various forms of manufactured twinkies we call god and business and progress and love.

What is my function here but to open as a sun of this cosmos birthing? I do so and simultaneously die and am reborn every nanosecond, both within and outside all space and time.

merry-go-rounds and ferris wheels

"This is the place for dialogical (non-dialectical) dialogue as a necessary instrument for any cross-cultural encounter. It is the function of this dialogue to disclose or eventually create the field in which a symbolic consciousness can operate." Raimon Panikkar, The Rhythm of Being.

If your merry-go-round of thought cannot meet my merry-go-round of thought, perhaps we could stand them on end and create a mutual ferris wheel that reaches high into the Divine and brings back the living waters of understanding and mutual awareness.

Merry-go-rounds, being inclusive in their nature (only so many passengers are allowed and the same old music accompanies the eternal spin going nowhere) spin along on their horizontal plane and create friction, unless well-cogged, when meeting the merry-go-round of another. The cog fit is rare and usually sparks and flames arise from friction.

I speak of individual and cultural (religions and philosophies ingrained in each culture) merry-go-rounds here.

We create new space when, instead of spinning around and around AT each other, we create a mutual uprise into a higher awareness. We move from exclusion to inclusion. This is the hope of the world today.

crucifixion

A human is dualistic in nature. Here is always this or that. To be crucified means to be caught, suspended, nailed between all dualities, experiencing them all simultaneously, burning with the fire of this experience. The Self feels it all, whereas the self wants only one side of it, pleasure and no pain, honor and no dishonor, heat and no cold, cold and no heat, ad infinitum. To feel it all is suffering, is to be on fire, is crucifixion. One rises beyond all opposites, simultaneously conquers hell and ascends to heaven. Neither heaven nor hell exist. Only this. The Self is born once again. The ladder of duality disappears and one is whole.

make like a tree and leave

All the religions and philosophies and socio-political worldviews are like leaves on a tree. When one's attention is stuck on looking at one leaf exclusively, no other leaves can be seen, nor can one see the whole tree. When one takes a step back and allows the whole tree to disclose itself, all leaves can be seen as an integral part of the whole. All leaf bickering ceases. One leaves off all shouting of leaf exclusiveness and turns to the purpose of one's own leaf and all leaves: the providing of light and nourishment to the whole tree.

the nature of the mind

We are creatures and creations of story. We love to tell ourselves story. We speak story to ourselves all the time. We say this is true and real. We say that is not true and not real. (By saying something is not true, we bring it into existence.) We define ourselves to ourselves constantly.

We listen to our self-talk and believe it is real. What we do not do is look to see what is talking. The talk absorbs our attention like bubbles on the surface of a body of water bubbling up from somewhere. We take our bubbling as Reality and spend our life as froth.

We love our story of ourselves even when we hate it. We are story-spinners. We keep ourselves endlessly entertained. Can we drop our stories and just be? Can we go beyond the nature of our mind, track the bubblings to the wellspring and open from that realmless realm? Do we dare go out of our little minds?

explaining jesus away

You see, they say that the divine could not become human. Some say there is no divine to begin with: end of argument. But that is such an easy way out and a self-made prison. Reflected in their own glory, they preen their feathers. Some say the divine manifests in all of us, in all things all the time. That is true, but evades the understanding, the claim that the divine decided to walk the earth and invaded history. Myth, they say, like all the other hero and salvation myths of virgin births and stealing fire from the gods and resultant forms of crucified punishment. But who is to say that these are not test cases, trial runs of consciousness of the inevitable: the actual birthing of the divine in human form? Oh, now you are taking a metaphor literally, they say. Don't you know that all is story, in this case a powerful story to be sure, embedded in human consciousness across and beyond time? Well yes, and if that is the case, your story that all is story is a story and am I to believe your story that all is story and there is no place to rest my feet? You ask me to believe you and your story and thus explain Jesus away. Jesus is stuck in our craw and we cannot get him out. He is the gravel that grinds all human corn. Muslims say that he is one of a line of prophets and not even the final one. Buddhists say he is a bodhisattva, an enlightened being looking for and working for the salvation of the world. What are we going to do with Jesus? He won't stay put, won't stay confined to one box. Everyone thinks they have him pegged. But wasn't he pegged once and then he escaped all attempts to nail him down?

the furtherest outpost

Word has it that we are a stepping down (or stepping out) of energies from the Source. Those energies that some call Angels are nearest to and live in harmony with this Radiance that births all dark and light. The radiant energy continues to step down through contiguous realms of being until it reaches us, brings us into being, the furtherest outpost. Beyond us is darkness. We can colonize this darkness but only while maintaining a strong link with and embodying as the energies of our Source. This is the basis, the foundation of all religion, all spiritual paths, all practical journeying of the soul.

hardening of the oughteries

We know that when many different people stand and look at the same thing, they will have different points of view. We do not say that one person's view is more right than others, or that all are to dismiss their point of view as erroneous and adopt one single person's point of view as the only true one.

It is the same with cosmo-philosopho belief systems. And yet every religion (and I include agnosticism, atheism, conservatism, liberalism, and scientism here) claims it is the only true view and the other viewers are dupes and their view is false and, if not false, at least less worthy.

When we gaze in adoration and awe at our Source, at Reality, at That-Which-Breathes-Us, we fall silent. This energizing humbling silence dissolves our b.s. (belief systems) and we stand in naked openness, wordless.

islands of convenience

Explanations are islands of convenience upon which we erect rigid structures to describe the Ocean. We stay upon our little islands, sanctify the structures, and gaze in puzzlement and condemnation at other islands. Every religion, every belief system, every thought structure is such an explanation. Oh how I long for a Tsunami of Spirit to wash away all structure and rigidity so that all is Ocean.

legs on the angel

When I first awaken, I am in the diaphanous, transparent, or celestial mode. I have not yet formed into and as this physicality. In this mode of light and open consciousness, I comprehend more deeply and more fully the nature and origin of this universe and life. It is a gnosis, a knowing. The soul that I am smiles in loving appreciation.

It is at this time that I can read the writings of the true philosophers, the mystics of intellect and comprehensive awareness, with their meanings reverberating through my soul. I listen with a deep ear. I hear. I see. I join in.

As the earth night moves toward dawn, I am born more fully into my body, this body, the one typing. I settle into, center in. I smile with its familiarity, its weight, its aches, its promise as a sturdy embodying for active practice of the gnosis, the knowing. Legs on the angel, so to speak.

As the body gets more tired toward mid-afternoon, the celestial mode tends to fade yet not disappear. Physical fatigue and cosmic consciousness seem to have an inverse correlation. It is at this time I practice patience with myself. I smile as I remember that it is hard embodying as a human. I breathe and ask for help and move on.

undoing

The purpose of contemplation or meditation is not to accomplish something, but to unaccomplish: to dismantle the cogno-emotional veil that we use to hide us from the essence of our being. We are not trying to do something. We are opening to the undoing of something.

the poverty of the secular mind

A secular mind shuts out all thought of energetic beings not visible to the secular thought system, a continuing self-hypnosis of limitation. What is declared to not exist cannot be seen, felt, experienced. This deliberate self-will is the pride of humankind. As a result no angels can be seen, felt, experienced. No Jesus. No Buddha. No Imam. No Elijah. No Melchizedek. No God.

The poverty of the secular mind is beyond imagination. Yet it will defend itself ruthlessly, declaring that it both IS and SEES the only true reality. The ironic humor of it is that the secular mind is surrounded by a richness and thickness of Being, a Womb which births the mind that shuts it out, a Womb teeming with life, with energetic beings in innumerable dimensions and realms. The secular mind is a weak candle blinded by its own light which if extinguished will see what it once thought was dark.

confluential

We cannot not create. Our every conception creates. We are spheres of influence in an influential cosmos. We are spheres of confluence in a confluential cosmos. All interflows except for the walls we build, walls of positive negativity. Disbelief kills us. Vulnerability and surrender are essential aspects of our being. We surrender while continuing a firm and open centering.

willful blindness

Being positive of a negation makes little sense. The negation of the positivity of a negation is the beginning of wisdom. "I am positive unicorns do not exist." Well, they do. They exist in a realm you have decided to give no legitimacy. "I am positive God does not exist." Well, God does. God exists in a realm you have decided to give no legitimacy. In clinging only to the sensory world, for example, one is ignoring realm upon realm of being. In negating one's positively negatory stance, one is negating one's ignore-ance.

an ember in the ashes of our being

Take a look at yourself, at the people around you. We are animals. Animals who hide their genitalia. Animals with woefully inadequate teeth and claws. We have developed an animal society. Our actions are triggered by animal impulses. And yet, a gentle and powerful Spirit calls to us, woos us, reminds us of that from which we came. We are asked to return to the Spirit of ourselves, that small light which still burns like an ember in the ashes of our being.

combobulations

God (wups! as soon as I have said the G word some minds have already slammed shut) is no farther than our own consciousness. This does not mean that we are God nor that God does not exist. Some of us at times make up God, but at those times God is a god, worth about two cents, if that. We are the ones who are made up, current combobulations of the evolutionary flow, and we keep making ourselves up. This is part of the wondrousness of being alive; in part we are on a fixed course (characters all!) and, in part, we are the directors of our own stage show. Lord knows, we've got plenty of material to work with!

boundless

Don't look back. For it is the voices of the living that cause the dead to mourn, to halt, to grieve. You think your loss is great? Her loss is even greater. You lost one. She lost a whole world. Keep opening and she will move with you, unencumbered, neither of you held down by any wounding. The wound is the portal to new being.

zzzzzz

We recognize something by its form. We know it through its formlessness. Many humans do not see the formless. This is why it is said they are asleep.

changing the world

The nature and state of my soul is the nature and state of the world in which I live. If I wish to change the nature and state of the world in which I live, I must change the nature and state of my soul. The twin energies of humility and relentless intent are a good start.

spiritual intelligence

To be spiritually intelligent means to live in accord with that one single beam of Radiance which brings all into being. Within this Beam is all Awareness, all Life, all Time, all Space, all Nurturance, all Destruction, all Creation. One can give lip service to this Radiant Beam and even fool oneself with one's marvelous expressiveness, but it amounts to nothing. One can become all emotional about the existence and power of the Beam, but that is only emotion and not the Radiance. One can act as if one possesses the Beam, but its Radiance is not possessed. One can sit in mindful meditation and achieve a state of quiescence, but no matter how lovely and stress reducing, that is a side pocket of existence, a self light and not the Radiant Beam. To be spiritually intelligent is to live in accord with the Radiant Beam. Straight is its Way and narrow is its Path. Yet it is closer than one's very breath. Be careful when you say you have It, for when you say you have It, you don't. Likewise, be careful when you think or you feel you have It. You do not have It. It has you: this Radiant Beam of Grace and Light and Knowing.

the boundless sea

Here is a boundless sea. We are that sea and do not know it. A toothpick floats on the surface of this sea with no shore. We cling to it with all our might for fear of drowning. Ha ha ha! We are so funny. We are this sea and do not know it.

an interplay of forces

This world in which we live has no linear time. It is a surging, an interplay of forces.

That we see through metaphor is only part of the truth. Metaphor also sees through us. Symbols and metaphor exist to help us see and be seen. We know as we are known. Symbols and metaphor and the forces they represent are two-way passages of transformation. When we become the symbol, when we are the metaphor, we are an interchange of lower and higher energies. The alchemical process has begun and ever begins.

The collective unconscious is the pre-human life, the world out of which humanity arises -- our still existing cousins and kin. These are the depths from which we spring and which we still are while moving beyond. The supra-consciousness is above ground and opens as the infinity of becoming. The two are connected as a tree's roots are joined with the waters and the light of heaven. The symbol of the upside down tree is also relevant here with its roots in the heavens and its branches extending here below. This represents the collective supra-consciousness.

the moving of the unmoved mover

Within consciousness itself, what is the basis of understanding? If we live in and as a sphere of metaphor, what gives rise to metaphor? If I give it a word, I am lost -- it is nailed down and becomes a doctrine. I give it a name anyway: Awareness. Bare Ass Naked Awareness. And yet, have I not just shifted the focus of the question and not answered it? What is the basis of Awareness? It seems I cannot profitably question my roots. That is, if I want my answers in spoken and written language. All language is removed from the mover, while simultaneously creating the mover.

the melding and the melting

This melting melds and rises, this rising falls and melts. Ceaselessly, smoothly, this goes on and on. So smooth it is beneath our notice, this notice, this notice here: "I am somebody." This melting and melding, this rising and falling creates an identity and trots it through a world. The ceaseless surge and release becomes a puppet master inseparable from its puppet. The puppet cries and moans, desires and seeks, goes through all the melodrama puppets do. Meanwhile the melding melts and falls to rise and fall again. Ever new, ever changing.

failure

An essay from Brad Olson that I wish to share.

the threshold

I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more

-- Van Morrison

In a brilliant discourse on human immortality at Harvard in 1898, William James shows the illogic of the belief that human consciousness arises and perishes with the brain, a belief held by many today who consider themselves to be of extreme rational clarity. The brain is born, hello; the brain dies, bye-bye. The belief system in which this belief is embedded is called materialism or scientism. Many of its proponents believe that this belief system is not a belief system, but is reality. Only other folk (outside the materialistic belief system) are deluded by belief systems and hence inferior thinkers. The irony! The irony!

James’ major thesis is that the proponents of human consciousness death at brain death don’t go far enough in their thinking. “My thesis now is this: that, when we think of the law that thought is a function of the brain, we are not required to think of productive function only; we are entitled also to consider permissive or transmissive function. And this the ordinary psycho-physiologist leaves out of his account.”

The permissive or releasing function is like that of a crossbow. When the physical impediment is removed by pulling the trigger, says James, what was held is let fly. The transmissive function is like that of the relationship between the energy of light and a prism. "The energy of light, no matter how produced, is by the glass sifted and limited in color, and by the lens or prism determined to a certain path and shape." When the prism is removed, the light remains.

Though highly appreciative of James’ arguments (much more subtle and extensive than my summary of them), I am more concerned with his idea of thresholds: that there is a higher, wider deeper consciousness that births our ordinal or ordinary one, that we are in tune with it at certain times more than other times, and the level of attunement has to do with the bar at which our threshold is set. When fatigued, for example, our bar is high and attunement is less felt.

My question is: what can we do to lower the bar? Now. In this life now.

cups of water

Water is freely given. Water rests within a cup and in no cup at all. A cup that says it is the only cup there is forgets that its purpose is to bear water. Cup worship forms and cup wars break out.

Water flows as it will and has its way, regardless of the will of the cup. Water takes on the shape of every container. When containers break or prove inept, water flows merrily on its way.

The cup is the horizontal, human made, and is in the realm of history and of time. We can see how cups go weird, get snobbish, say they are the only true cup, forgetting that the water is the worth, not the cup.

Water is the vertical, not made by humans, coming from above, falling to the below. Water always moves from the high to the low, and cycles back again, replenishing, vivifying all it moves through.

All cups proclaiming their cuppiness and forgetting their true mission of holding the water long enough for someone to get a drink are spurned and ridiculed and rightly so. Water is of the essence. Cups come and go.

(If this writing arouses within you the desire to castigate your favorite cup you love to hate, rest assured that you are engaging in cuppiness. "Be water, my friend.")

pleasing and displeasing the monkey

When you are pleased with yourself, you are simply reflecting energy back to an illusion -- a process of ghostly masturbation. When displeased with yourself, you are slicing this self with knives -- an act of ghostly mutilation.

Both are ways of enhancing your ghost, that you made up so long ago and have carried around like a monkey on your back for so long you think your back is your core. Please the monkey. Taunt the monkey. A monkey that does not exist.

Have no thoughts of pleasure or displeasure toward your self. 
Have no thoughts of your self at all.
If they do arise, smile at them gently and let them go.

re-flect: throw back

A reason self-reflective thoughts are regarded as foolish and a dwelling in illusion is because there is no self to reflect, only a reflection. One can't get rid of ego because there is none. To wrestle with an illusion is a form of insanity. To deny oneself is not an act of self-sacrifice; it is to awaken from the illusion of self. The ouroboros quits biting its tail and spinning round and round.

(We make up a self as children to deal with the trauma of powerlessness. We continue making up a self and selves as we go.)

An Interwoven Web of Harmony of Cataclysmic Forces

Just as we are composed of descending spheres of overlapping energy, we are embedded in ascending energetic spheres. We are not "midway" between such spheres. We are the bottom rung of a Holoarchic Ladder. At the very summit is a sphere of energy that encompasses and births all.

In addition to this vertical realm of "above and below," from which and through which all Awareness, Understanding, and Life develop and emerge, there exists a horizontal flow of Time with its vast aeons and cycles. Each aeon is composed of a rising and falling of energies such as that depicted in our own psychophysiological ultradian rhythm.

At the advent of each aeon is a rising or opening of Awareness followed by a decline or fall. Human existence right now is at the end of an aeon and the beginning of a new. Though being human, I am pleased with this, I am a thousandfold more energized by the vision and direct experiencing of the Holoarchic Ladder of the Life Force.

shrouds of the soul

And humans think, and cast interpretations upon existence, and these interpretations are shrouds to their souls.

And those with similar interpretations band together and rejoice.

And there are those who stand naked and vulnerable and open, having cast the shroud from their soul. They neither band together nor rejoice. Neither do they mourn. Yet they do not stand alone. For there is no separation.

the primacy of the invisible

I believe we will get through this -- this decline of the dominatrix, the decline of this most current attempt across aeons of time to put humans above all other life forms.

I believe in "the primacy of the invisible" -- concentric spheres of wisdom and intelligence thoroughly active from the submolecular to the metagalactic.

Let us call these concentric spheres, this interwoven network in which all life forms are both manifested and joined, the Holoarchy.

We will move through this by living in accord with the Holoarchy, by knowing deeply (no lip service) that all life forms are interdependent and living accordingly. When we do (and stop looking for the salvation of our own sorry separate souls), we will be continually surprised by what we find.

We ARE this interflow. We are a planetary and cosmic community. To build a society of separation and dominance is suicidal madness. The evidence is in, once again, that this is so.

As the juggernaut crashes around us, we will get through this. We will get through this by living in accord with the primacy of the invisible, which is not invisible for those with eyes to see.

travelling across thought communities

Each religion, including a-gnosis and a-theism, is a thought community. Each thought community opens to and receives knowledge according to its capacity, its bounds, and emotio-mental form. Thought community members recognize each other and congratulate each other for their perspicacity. Those able to be "converted" to all thought communities see and sense and feel their common ground. The exoteric (form struck) members of a thought community do not comprehend this, think their form is the only form. The esoteric (essence seen) members are the ones able to go beyond form and make this voyage.

the cross and the empty tomb

Life itself is a crucifixion. Each of us is, as Yeats said, "fastened to a dying animal." We are nailed to the spot, on the cross of space and time. We die, time and again, from this agony; a series of "little deaths" followed at some point by full bodily death.

And yet there is a resurrection. We may "die daily" as Paul said, but we are also born again each moment. More than that, when we turn within, turn to the inner Light and cast our fortunes with this Light, we identify with (become identical to) the Light which births us. We are a new bunny. We are the cosmic egg.

Nailed to the cross of life, we die, descending into the hell of our existence and blessing all there. We rise up. No longer identifying with the body (the tomb is empty), we open into the Light and Radiance of the resurrected Spirit we are.

This is the message of Easter, a reminder and reaffirmation of Transformation.

like bugs skating and yelling

We are like bugs skating on the thin film of the surface of a deep and wide pond continuously produced by a fathomless Spring and yelling with glee,"There is no Wellspring! There is only us and we are magnificent!"

off the grid

Every human has a thought structure. Developed from previous pain, desire, need, and want, this thought structure is a rigid grid limiting all future possibility. One tends to love one's thought structure and clings to it as if it were the Ultimate. In reality, it is a toothpick to which we cling as our life raft in a vast ocean. Our transformation as humans requires that it be let go.

Inspired Mind and Ratio Mind

Ratio mind looks to fit the world into its ratio-nale. What does not fit its ratio form is chopped off, seen as non-existent, derided. Ratio mind likes conclusions, seeks to bring things to an end, loves the bottom line.

Inspired mind keeps ratio mind in its pocket along with a measuring tape and pencil stub. Inspired mind breathes in the aspirations of the Divine, of the Source. With Inspired mind, all things are possible. Inspired mind is the mind of fresh beginning.

For the past 200 years or so, Western culture has put Ratio mind on the throne. In this year 2012, we put it back in its proper place -- a small, very small, subset of Inspired Mind, about the size of a dime in the vast Ocean.

We look to be ruled by Inspired Mind, not by Ratio.

two minds

Profane:
Pro ("in front of" or "outside")
Fanum ("temple" or "sacred")

Templum (temple): The clear and open space in which one receptively sits, open to the Divine and to the "divining" (seeking and finding) of Wisdom and Understanding.

Contemplation: Con-templum-ation. Sitting receptively in the clear and open space with either a question or problem for resolution or with open minded alert awareness.

Profane mind: Everyday chitter-chatter blah-blah-blah mind.

Sacred mind: Templum mind.

the laughter is our own

We love to scare ourselves, put ourselves in a bind. We tell ourselves we are an encapsulated ego. Separate and fearful, yet denying our fear, we seek security through power, power over, not power with. Faith and money are not far afield in this seeking. Faith is spiritual money. Money is physical faith. Ah! We feel better. We have woven a net over the Abyss. Something laughs. The net disappears. Once again we have no place to stand. We listen. The laughter is our own.

the realm of dynamic energy

Those who have made peace with their active intellect, who cam pick it up, use it, and put it down like the tool it is, find themselves in a realm of dynamic energy, of which portions are personified.

This is the imaginal realm, the realm of gods, of angels, of archetypes with whom one wrestles, dances, walks, and converses. This is the realm of those who have gone before and guide the way.

The active intellect and the emotional desire for security keep us pinned to the material world and our desire to be sucklings at its breast while making war on those seen as threatening our suck. We like to project this on other cultures, religions, and political groups but it is a tendency of us all. This has produced the divisive conditions of today.

The dynamic energy realm is here with us, IS us. To REAL-ize it is simple. All one has to do is go out of one's mind.

what is the sound of one flea sucking?

Every flea is sucking on the Lion. The leg fleas swear the leg is the only Lion. The chest fleas swear the chest is the only Lion. The throat fleas swear the throat is the only Lion. None of the fleas know they are the Lion. Those who do leap and jump with joy.

the two lemmas

The human body shows clearly our psychospiritual dilemma (di-lemma: caught between two lemmas). We are only roughly symmetrical. Our right half is different from our left half, yet the two are joined. We act as if we are one, yet we are forever caught between two opposing positions: "on the one hand" and "on the other hand." This is both hilarious and tragic.

The human body also shows a way out of this dualistic split in which we fight our daily duels (with ourselves, of course). A center line exists, our pivot point, our hinge on which we turn. When we reside at our center, when we ARE this centering, all contra-diction (contrary speaking) disappears. The two lemmas become one Cheshire Cat which becomes a smile which slowly fades away. An internal smile is born.

negating the negations

Becoming or being "friends" with all humanity, with the entire world, with the cosmos, with the universe is not about forming (FORM-ing) relationships or stepping outside of oneself, outside of one's small defined circle and looking to create some dynamic synthesis, is not an emergence, but is a submersion into the Ground of being, a step back, a negation of all the negations one has made and makes. The negations are not abolished, nor transcended, but are released through this stepping back into a richer deeper realm. The differentiation of self and other (via these negations) continues to exist but recedes in its significance due to this step back, this dwelling in the common Ground.

when we understand

When we understand -- deeply and truly understand -- that internal reality and external reality are the same reality, the world transforms. When I drop my bombs over there, I am killing and maiming myself. When I poison the Grand Canyon with my uranium mining and with the building of a huge Theme Park city at its gateway, I desecrate, eliminate forever a wild, unspoiled part of me. When profit is my god, I walk on the faces of the impoverished, of that portion of me that refuses to give up its open heart and stern dignity to my relentless tread. When I see that my soul and the world soul are the same soul, I tremble with fear and anticipation. For the world to change, I must change, for I and the world are the same.

downloading the One

In following the thought of Plotinus, four realms exist: The One gave birth to, expanded outward into Intelligence, then Soul, then Mattering. The four now co-exist simultaneously. We are Soul tending to the garden of Mattering. We are also Intelligence and the One. We are the downloading of the One and Intelligence through Soul. When we realize (make real) this, instead of ignoring it or merely giving it lip service, we come into our full powers as Soul.

born into a larger realm

When we understand, deeply and truly understand, that internal reality and external reality are the same reality, the world transforms. When I drop my bombs over there, I am killing and maiming myself. When I poison the Grand Canyon with my uranium mining and with the building of a huge Theme Park city at its gateway, I desecrate, eliminate forever a wild unspoiled part of me. When profit is my god, I walk on the faces of the impoverished, of that portion of me that refuses to give up its open heart and stern dignity to my relentless tread. When I see that my soul and the world soul are the same soul, I tremble with fear and anticipation. For the world to change, I must change, for I and the world are the same.

psychic nimbus

I see the entire human endeavor as the successive emergence of states of consciousness: defined and qualified by their inclusiveness, by their number and quality of psychic clusters, and by their internal ability to externalize and observe.

A state of consciousness that rigidifies itself is dead on the vine.

I value states of consciousness with high categorical differentiation, the differentiation accomplished by the continuous birth of cells of gnosis (knowing) with semi-permeable membranes.

A state of consciousness with few cells of differentiation and with rigid cell walls (no permeability) is that of a true idiot. It once passed for normal but is now giving way under the current world-wide flood of information.

Don't tell me your politics or your religion. Reveal your state of consciousness.

a few sizes too small

Have you ever loved someone who did not have the capacity to receive it? It is like the ocean in love with a thimble. We need someone worthy of our love. Worthy means enough room. How can the boundless love the bounded? It's not easy. It's like struggling to put on pants several sizes too small. This is God's continuing dilemma. He laughs, his big toe filling our body suit and says: Honey, you need to gain some room!

ordinary, planetary, and cosmic consciousness

Among humans, there is ordinary consciousness, planetary consciousness, and cosmic consciousness. We all possess (or, perhaps more accurately, are possessed by) ordinary consciousness: ordinal or linear consciousness allowing us to do the busyness of the human societal world.

Planetary consciousness opens to the understanding that Earth is an alive organism, an interflow of interconnecting life. Planetary consciousness does not just know this as one of many isolated "facts." Planetary consciousness experiences this, sees with the vision of Earth herself.

Cosmic consciousness expands beyond all bounds set by ordinary consciousness. Where ordinary consciousness sees with eyes of flesh, cosmic consciousness sees with eyes of fire (Henry Corbin's apt and accurate terminology). We are either born with cosmic awareness or it is granted to us along the way. Many seem satisfied, satiated by eyes of flesh and seem to never even consider the possibility of this state of consciousness for themselves. For more on cosmic consciousness, see Richard Bucke and see Tom Cheetham.

The Mystery of Consciousness (Part Three)

The Mystery of Consciousness (Part Two)

The Heart of Transformation -- Consciousness

This is the complete unedited video of my and Brad Olson's January 15, 2012 conversation about consciousness. In the video, we take a break at 51:10 and return at 1:01:23, so you may wish to skip that portion.

The Mystery of Consciousness (Part One)

This is the first portion of my and Brad Olson's conversation about the mystery of consciousness on January 29, 2012,

the shaman and hu tzu

A video of my talk this morning at Wu Chi Ku -- I read and comment on Chapter 16 of the Tao Te Ching

Brad Olson and I talk a little about consciousness transformation

This is a portion of my and Brad Olson's conversation about Story as the heart or core of consciousness on January 22, 2012.

Faith

Two powers that move, that transform our world are faith and reason. Reason operates predominately in the horizontal world, the historical linear realm, the reality that most swear to and live in. Faith has, up to this point, mostly operated in the vertical dimension, the reality of the above and the below, with faith in the above to counter and balance the misdeeds of the below. That must change. Faith must now operate in both dimensions, the vertical and the horizontal. This is the cross of our existence.

Faith in what? Faith in the Power that brings us into being, in the life energy coursing through us. Faith in our Source, God, the Wellspring, Allah, YHWH, Wakan Tanka, the One closer to us than our own breath. It is a willful choice. We either continue to have faith in our own reasoning as a species (which has led us to our current critical situation on this planet) or we have faith in The One Who Breathes Us. This is not a sweet bye and bye faith. It is a Faith of Now. We are embodyings of our Source. As such, we know each moment what to do.

On the missionary nature of the human species and the urge to create and deliver spiritual commercials

A metaphor is a vehicle of transformation (you are a "child of God"). A symbol is an open door for that transformation: Cross, Seal of Solomon, Caduceus, Grail, Wu Chi, Tai Chi, etc.

"I have found these metaphors and these symbols to be of transformative value and I highly recommend them to you." Thus we refer others to our symbology, our metaphor, our imagery as powerful tools of transformation.

If we get too insistent on this referral, too shrill, it becomes fundamentalism and our mentalism is no fun anymore. This is true for all metaphorical realms: science, religion, philosophy included. Deep metaphors and symbols do not need our salesmanship. They sell themselves.

The Heart of Transformation (Part One)

Bradley Olson and I converse about The Heart Of Transformation

thank you very much

We tried the God is Dead approach and wound up standing on an atom with great explosive force, gnawing at each other's souls with sharp and greedy teeth. Now can we please open as the shining core of that atom and know that God is Alive and Doing Very Well Thank You Very Much.

opportunity to re-member

Day after day we are given opportunity to remember.
Re-member: to call all our members together again.
The organs of vision, seeing, illumination;
of reason, thought, understanding;
of hearing, receiving, comprehending;
of heart opening, surrendering, loving;
of felt experience, immersion in the All.
We are members of a Higher Order, a Cosmic Body.
Day after day we are given opportunity to re-member.

relationship and story

Here is relationship, direct relationship with our Spiritual Teacher, with our Source. Merging of Love and Fire and Light. And here is story, the story we weave around ourselves as we go. Relationship and Story, this is our composition, who we are!

our cup is but a thimble

Our spiritual understanding cannot exceed our capacity to understand.  How then can we extend, broaden, deepen our capacity? By seeing through the form we use for understanding and by eventually dropping it altogether. In clinging to a rigid form, our cup is but a thimble. Capaciousness leads to no cup, no cup at all. Great capacity is open relationship.

in-form-ation and un-form-ation

On theology, doctrine, and creed: 

Once you climb the ladder there is no need to carry it around. 

Climb to the top, then leap!

fire as a log arhythm

I see the dream out of which I awaken.
I do not see the dream I am in,
the dream I am.

All is fire, heat, and light
opening joyously
to join its Burning.

heart and soul

We are embodyings of the lifeforce. We call it karmic streaming and genetic flow and look to make sense of it that way. We are the springing of the Wellspring, its latest presenting. Keys on a piano, each sounding its own note. One piano. Every person and everything we call a "thing" is making music. Can you hear it? The inanimate is animate. Embodyings of the lifeforce.

the Light returns

Solstice, Christmas, and all Festivals of Lights are celebrations of rejoicing that the Light has once again overcome the Darkness, that Light is born into the Earth and into our hearts and souls. Where would we be if this did not happen? This is an affirmation of the Cosmos, of the Source of our Being, that we are cared for, looked after, held as worthy, appreciated. In our rejoicing, in the gladness of our hearts, we return the caring and appreciation to each other and to all that Is. A circuit is completed. The Light so freely given is reflected and returned. The reverberation of Light glows throughout the planet. We rejoice, re-juice, gain new Energy by giving it away. When our hearts open, allowing this, we smile, laugh aloud. We sing. We dance. This is the meaning of Merry.

the PRT crowd

Philosophy, religion, and theoretical physics ("theo" "rhetoric": god talk) continue to re-visit the substrate of thought: the universe is observing itself. Most folk don't give a hoot, are busy pondering other consequentials. But for those of us in the PRT crowd, that conclusion and the resultant awareness is always startling. One is looking to understand that which is looking to understand. In religio-speak, God is looking through our eyes.

soulular energy

I cannot see the soul you are unless I see with the eyes of the soul I am. You cannot see the soul I am unless you see with soul eyes. We cannot see with soul eyes unless we move beyond appearance, unless we see through appearance. When our eyes stop at the surface of others and of the world, we live in the superficial. We are not even one molecule deep.

"Deep calls unto deep." When the deep eyes of the soul I am see the depths of you and you look back, a connection occurs that overthrows the superficial, that is the salvation, the transformation, of the superficial world. We live in epiphany -- a deep understanding of and resonance with the soulular, the interflow and open connectedness of our true being.

This is the nature of "the second birth," of being "born again." We are borne (carried) out of the superficial, out of the realm of appearance. We are born now not of water (the amniotic fluid) but of spirit (the lifeforce of The-One-That-Breathes-Us). We are no longer humanimals but spiritual beings. We see, operate, move through time and outside of time (Love knows no time) as the souls we are.

All the spiritual paths, the "consciousness disciplines," know this and teach this. When we give up the world of appearance, we gain soul. "And what shall a person give, in exchange for their soul?"

dressing in the thought patterns of yesteryear

Talem eum vidi qualem capere potui ("I saw him in such a form as I was able to take in"). -- Acts of Peter

We cannot see beyond our capacity. When our minds are filled with the usual stuff, we cannot see beyond the usual stuff. We are surrounded by wonders and see only our fears, our angers, our desires. We fill our consciousness with this, with that. In order to see, we need to create room. We need to have a clearance sale. Better yet, vanquish all those thoughts to other realms.

We get up in the morning and put on the same old clothes, dressing ourselves in the thought patterns of yesterday and yesteryear and yesterdecade. If we want to see, the best thing to do is to have no clothing at all. We are naked anyway, maintaining only the illusion of clothing. Our souls are bare. Our hearts are open. Our wounds are showing and speak with loud voices. The social contract is to act as if this is all covered. Ignore as you are ignored.

We wish to know the meaning of life, yet we keep ourselves occupied. This is the sign we place on our soul's door: Occupied. Do Not Disturb. We can keep ourselves in this soporific trance all our life. No one will fault us for it. It is expected.

If we truly wish to see, we clear. We open room.

Talem eum vidi qualem capere potui ("I saw him in such a form as I was able to take in").

consumed

Do not come to me with your latest salvational plan! I find solace only in the burning flame of my heart. This heart! The only heart I have and am. This is where new birth arises!

Get out of my way with your pre-structured visions of Christ! I do not want to be welcomed into your holy order. I experience Christ anew, each moment, as He and I move in harmony and disharmony, as I learn His Eternal Tango -- the Tango of the Blazing Heart.

This is the time for us all to shed our doctrinal clothes, even you Buddhists with your non-doctrine doctrine, your thin transparent raincoat of no thing. And you Christians, with your smug self-satisfaction of a reserved seat in the celestial choir. And you Taoists who want to be the water without ingestion for fear of choking and drowning. And you Muslims shrouded in a Law with no taste of the open-hearted surgery of Rumi and Hafiz. I have no time nor inclination to mention all the rest of the blustering clusterings, but you know who you are, you Legion of Doctrinaires!

Goodbye! I have no time for you! I live in and as this roaring alchemical furnace. One walks with me here in this burning, this heart flaming. And don't tell me you know Him, because you don't! To know is to possess and no one possesses this eternal One.

Stop staring at me, let your own heart burn!

gnosis and a-gnosis

There are those who live in the world of Appearance and know nothing of the realm that births these Apparitions. They live in the external and know nothing of the internal, suppress it even if there is opportunity. They say there is nothing hidden and, even if there was, one cannot know it. A-gnosis. Not knowing.

There are those who live in the world of Appearance whose feet walk another Ground, whose hearts are open to the tastes of wider Mystery. They occupy both external and internal, knowing that the internal is the Eternal. They too say there is nothing hidden. It is here for all to see. Gnosis. Knowing.

four realms

Supraconscious: Identification with the Interflow of All.
Mesoconscious: Hovering above the conscious, knowing there is something more.
Conscious: Attending to societal daily life.
Subconscious: Propelled by animal desire and fear.

radiant interflow

And Man said, Let us open to the Radiant Interflow of all things, human and otherwise, the molecular, the submolecular, the bodily, the cosmic, and the supracosmic. Let us open our Hearts to each other, all and everywhere, and stop stomping each other into the dirt. Let us feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and speak Truth from the core of our being. Let the Radiant Interflow be the guide of our actions. And it was so. And the Babe of 2012 was born. Galeropia 4: 10 - 12.

genesis

And Man said to himself, Let us build an earthly paradise with new kitchen appliances and earn our living by the manipulation of money which is no sweat at all and become dependent on long-distance trucking for our food and put a pot on every belly and a frenzy for new gadgets and f**k all this spiritual crap from ages past. And Man did. And Man surveyed his domain and saw that it was bad, very bad. II Melanoma 2: 1-3.

fruit-bearing tree

Whatever we follow, we become.
Follow means to be absorbed by.
When we follow music, we become music.
When we follow justice, we become justice.
When we follow understanding, we become understanding.
Whatever we follow, we become.

I follow the God-Man Jesus.
I do not follow the doctrine.
I do not follow the common conceptions.
I follow the God-Man.
In following the God-Man, I become Joy.
I become an embodying of the Unseen and the Seen.

You follow what you follow.
I follow Heart-Music and Joy.
I do the Wu Chi Ku in my soul.
I "dance before the Lord with all my might."
Whatever you follow, you become.
In following the God-Man, I am becoming a god-man.
This tree is bearing fruit.