Chapter 70: Life, Love, and Death on Infinite Bandwidth
All that is gold does not glitter,
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
—J.R.R. Tolkien
We have arrived at the final chapter of my guided tour of our spiritual universe. If you made it this far, you have more than brushed against the life lived on unlimited bandwidth. Just consider those 600 pages you read as guiding lights and the necessary sights along the way to your personal experience of the spiritual universe we all may inhabit. On the path of awakening, there are endless special sights for the soul to behold. Prayer, dreams, visions, and a deeper understanding of our histories can become integral parts of this eternally unfolding scenery.
I no longer seek light in the darkness. I have found my light, one that dispels the shadows of others and of my past. This book is my evidence and experience of a power and a life greater than any limited sense of self. Though I lost my childhood dreams, I lived into new ones, where I learned how to explore the spiritual galaxy that is our true home. This world transitioned from a living hell to a peaceful paradise where I became a conscious traveler through the infinite regions of inner space—Consciousness itself. My spiritual launching pad awaited my letting go of the controls to be catapulted into the mysterious, healing potential of the infinite. My spirit rocket now lifts off daily, unencumbered by religious and cultural conditioning. Love and acceptance of myself and all others, including all animal life, is my primary, life-affirming propellant.
To find the light of truth, we must release ourselves from the control of the crowd—whether it’s the crowd of old thoughts or those who blindly follow others. To be guided by the Universe’s infinite bandwidth into love, transformation, and higher intelligence requires cutting all ties with ideas that keep us pilloried to the past. Words like “strange,” “mystical,” and “transcendent” are often used to describe the phenomena associated with this spiritual liberation, a freedom that words struggle to define.
Life can be an extremely humbling experience. As a young man, my dream was to be an astronaut, to explore the farthest reaches of space. I held onto that dream until self-destruction came to define much of my teenage years, with my childhood hopes exploding on the launching pad of life. Dysfunctional relationships created through poor self-esteem, despair, judgment, alcohol and drug abuse, and mental illness are not the proper fuel to launch a life into Love’s Great Unknown and live a life on its unlimited bandwidth.
Even if you are lost in the shadows, walking on your own dark side of the moon, there is still hope. Every healing dream begins as a wish for a better life experience, be it better health for us or for our relationships. Hope is the vague expectation that something better might happen, yet we are not yet sure how to help our cause. While overcome with disease, my dreams and hopes for a better life waited for the day when I truly opened up to the possibility that a new life experience was possible. This wait for a better day eventually bore great fruit, but it was not passively acquired. I first had to confront my own suffering and the sources within my mind and heart that pushed me toward self-annihilation. I had to embark on a search for Truth and experience a spiritual renaissance. Suffering need not be a death sentence for those who choose to awaken.
Mass hypnosis, oppression, mental illness, and addiction—and their most oppressive spawn, suicide—have long been scourges upon human consciousness. These afflictions begin with a loss of meaning and purpose, accompanied by depression, alienation, and despair. Drug overdoses and suicide are ultimate acts of self-oppression and are cruel acts of violence against oneself and the community. Yet, for those who feel they have reached the end of their options, they are perceived as the only solutions. Society continues to churn out despairing and lonely people, and drug abusing and potential suicide victims at a catastrophic rate. I have known and buried too many friends and family who were waiting for a better day while abusing substances, oppressed by short-sighted agendas, or collapsing into mental illness. The statement a drug overdose or suicide victim makes about our diseased society is almost impossible for a confused, non-self-reflective civilization engaged in a continuing conspiracy of silence to process.
To be insane in an insane world is the new normal for many. How we deal with this insanity determines whether we remain imprisoned or find freedom. Blaming others is self-defeating, the first response of an immature mind unwilling to make the necessary course corrections. To make dramatic changes, the desire had to come from deep within me. I did not change because others told me to. I had to value myself differently and become conscious that my behavior was causing irreparable harm. I understood my behavior was insane, that I had a death wish. I sought a higher power within myself to overcome it.
Most forms of insanity can be healed without a lifetime of therapy or medication if we recognize that their source is our psychic pain bodies—habituated thoughts and feelings from spiritual wounding. Insight reveals these pain bodies, and through seeing, healing arises. With our internal headlights on bright, we can change our attitude, our behavior, and our lives. To change my world, I first changed myself through insight, meditation, and making amends. I continue to die daily to all that is not my true nature. Healing a situation is about recognizing what we are not doing well and where we can improve, right now. Positive change follows the heart’s intentions, if the heart is pure. If it is a desire from the Heart, never stop seeking what seems unattainable, for it is the Heart itself seeking its own highest expression.
Those blessed few who stop resisting and accept defeat are the most susceptible to healing. When we are defeated, we become most receptive to life-affirming change because we finally see the futility of continuing a life directed by our accrued knowledge. Then we can accept personal responsibility, knowing that the willingness to change our attitudes and behaviors can become our higher power. I do not need pills or philosophies to separate me from life’s goodness. I now see the good that is truly good, and all the illusions of self that I and others offer up for conditional acceptance.
Built into the fabric of life is death itself. Up to fifty trillion cells in our bodies are constantly dying and being replaced so we can live and evolve. So too must our old thoughts die off, replaced by newer, more vibrant creations. Those who do not do the work to shed the old ways will remain susceptible to disease and deterioration. It is impossible to be present in the past or future, though we can draw from the past to find the source of our issues. How long dare we wait until NOW unfolds in our lives?
I have seen that our collective consciousness is filled with suggestions and temptations, many revolving around fear, diseases of the body and mind, and mutual distrust and the rejection of our spirit of love. Yet, within this mysterious energy field lies an infinite potential for healing and transformation. Our thoughts and prayers often hold life-affirming potential, yet their power is presently insignificant compared to the underlying intentions of our collective consciousness. The path to conscious awareness and miraculous healing involves sorting our true thoughts from the stray noise of the human energy field and protecting ourselves from the dangerous frequencies we tune into, intentionally or not.
One need only witness the mind-numbing statements from 2nd Amendment promoting Christians, politicians and gun dealers after daily acts of gun violence to understand this. I want no part of their collective consciousness of abhorrent thoughts and prayers, which emanate from cowardly, hateful minds. To not do so is to continue our collective experience of war, hatred, economic inequality, racism, and mental illness. We are free to choose which energy to manifest. If we do not want the diseased status quo to lead to our collective Armageddon, we must all make necessary changes to the paths we now follow.
I have attempted to capture lightning in a bottle by articulating this message. May none of us despair in our attempts to reach for this energy populating the universe’s infinite bandwidth and express its love. To live a better life, we must access new parts of our infinite self. A primary law of consciousness is that “We find what we are looking for,” so be sure to look for what you truly want, not what others suggest. We must explore spiritual possibilities, lest we remain addicted to our old ways of interpreting the world.
Can we experience a spiritual awakening where we accept a new way of being, of seeing life, and finally free ourselves from the limitations created by our time-based thinking? Can we approach life not from our conditioned backgrounds, our childhood wounds, or even our most educated minds? Will we allow ourselves the immense uncertainty—and ultimate privilege—of accessing new paths of consciousness where love, empathy, and compassion are our eternal companions? If we could move past our collective discomfort, we might learn something about mercy and justice and connect with a majesty that transcends our limited vision. We might finally know “God,” “Buddha,” “Allah,” and “Our Self” not as separate concepts, but as parts of a great whole.
For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.— Isaiah 65:17
Always remember that WE—all of humanity—are the “I” in that verse, once we make conscious contact with the ultimate truth of existence.
Theoretical physicists now recognize the possibility of alternate universes and enhanced connections within our own. Science defines the laws governing what we can observe, but unlike enlightened spirituality, it offers no principles to predict or support humanity’s potential. We won’t fully understand quantum mechanics until we replace our self-centered perspective with the understanding that the individual, the collective and the cosmic self all exist within each of us at every moment. The impact we have on one another is not yet fully understood, but practices like prayer, meditation, and mindfulness prepare the mind for the unknown, where all true creation originates from. Being human is a far more collaborative effort than our conscious minds currently grasp.
I am saddened that humanity is becoming more dependent on technology for communication while failing to develop the sensitivity to connect with the shared energy that continuously flows between us. Our handheld devices, used for entertainment and self-hypnosis, often just perpetuate the past, offering no real alternatives to the corrupted choices humanity seems resigned to making. Technology is only a tool, though it has become a new world religion for many. Our world shows the collective effects of failing to meet our spiritual needs. The world exists in a state of hypnosis. We can pull our eyes from the phone display for a moment and engage the person next to us. We will all benefit.
The quickest way to prepare for the new world order is to get outside and acquaint yourself with the great outdoors. Free from daily encumbrances, we may be more receptive to the call of our spirit. We are not connected to God through our technology; in fact, it often separates us from the quiet state of being that allows God’s will to be accepted. Our mother Earth, Gaia, is a living being. God’s face is seen clearly once the detritus of human misunderstanding is moved aside. Ultimately, science, religion, medicine, and technology will unite as expressions of mankind’s true being.
“We need a real awakening, enlightenment, to change our way of thinking and seeing things. To breathe in and be aware of your body and look deeply into it, realize you are the Earth, and your consciousness is also the consciousness of the Earth.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Mysticism is at the core of all true religions. I remain concerned about the unaware ignorance prevalent in our society, including within the American Christian church. Using a church to get to the truth can be like using an old Volkswagen Beetle to drive around the world with an outdated map. While Christianity offers comfort, for many of us it is a clumsy vehicle for consciousness, with restrictive dogma that postpones a conceptualized heaven to a fantasy future after death. Much of present-day Christianity has strayed far, far away from Jesus of Nazareth’s message, instead becoming an arm of politicized power and an agent of the anti-Christ.
Religions, however, often move in tight circles, excluding others. Those who point to non-religious spiritual enlightenment are often regarded with suspicion, even as manifestations of evil, by those who claim to be religious. The experience of enlightenment allows for love for all people and respect for all love-based philosophies yet promotes no single dogma. The prerequisites are a desire for change, self-honesty, insight, and the ability to see beyond cultural mirages.
Each of us is a mystic once we shed the oppressive energies of conditioning. Each of us should become the leader of our own internal movement toward truth, beauty, and love. What is the difference between the mind of God and the mind of man? The answer is there for you to discover. Never accept my answers without your deepest inquiries. The trail each of us blazes is as important as any path made by any prophet. It is only our ego, or the egos of hero-worshipers who have not realized their highest truth, that would say otherwise.
This book has presented only a portion of my journey. As each individual is unique, do not use my experience to minimize or maximize your own. We must find our direction, learn to think for ourselves, and also learn to think and feel with others. We can be one with others in a non-controlling, non-judgmental manner, with compassion and in communion. I value who I am, not who I was or what I might become. The mind must be clear so the heart can hold others near.
It is healthy to acknowledge that we need each other. I cannot do this life alone. Each moment can be a new beginning or a continuation of a painful past. It is our choice. I must be willing to travel new paths of consciousness and not become too attached to any particular teaching. It is up to me to work out my salvation. When I let go of the controls, of time-based expectations, and trust the life force that has always supported me, I am truly free.
While in human form, we can only witness the projections of our minds, individually and collectively. All we will ever see is ourselves. So, the most important question is, “How will I see myself today?” The answer determines whether I see through the eyes of truth or the limited eyes of an oppressive, failing culture or a dead past. Each person I meet is either an infinite manifestation of God, deserving ultimate respect, or another illusion of my conditioned mind. Insight gained through self-examination can erase the blocks to Love’s awareness. Why settle for Zen Buddhism’s cautionary teaching about our fascination with words, or the “finger pointing at the moon”, when you could delight in life’s unique and direct light without a mind clouded with verbiage?
Be ever vigilant with the internalized image of anything or anyone. Note how the desire for the image, rather than the truth that underlies it, will distort your view. Lust, greed, and hatred all play to the structure of individualized images. Seeing each other through wholeness and love disempowers these fragmenting images. This is another way of saying “giving forgiveness,” which allows for right action in a broken world.
The ultimate truth is that “You can’t be real.” Do not be threatened by that truth, be inspired by it! In God’s eyes, there is only One Self, one love, one existence. There is no room for you and me in ultimate truth, though we must make room for humanity’s favorite illusion through forgiveness until the final ascension into enlightenment. Finding the true connecting link is the journey our human race must undertake to survive. When we see our brother and sister as our self, then we are at the doorstep to our real home. This link is not found through digital devices or our best thinking. It will unfold when we have a direct experience of ultimate reality and learn to think eternity-based thoughts.
The longer I have lived on the healing frequencies of infinite bandwidth, the more anonymous I have become, and the more my story has become about the truth of life. My story may have little value to you, yet there is a story long neglected within your own heart, patiently awaiting its delivery. Your world awaits the King or Queen within you. You only need to pick up your own unique crown of truth and wear it with integrity and love while accessing Infinite Bandwidth.
Never let someone speak for you; you are responsible for bringing your voice into the world. Never take for granted your right to freedom of speech. Find a way to express yourself without sacrificing your integrity. You will cast your pearls before swine. Our hard-earned truths have little value to the hypnotized citizens of this diseased culture if they cannot see how your wisdom will increase their bank accounts, prestige, or appeal to their ego. “A prophet is never respected in their hometown.”
It is vital to remember two great acts of insanity that are integral to the Conspiracy of Silence, the Silence that keeps us all stuck to the whipping post of collective ignorance and denial. One is the perception that we are all of questionable value, a classic component of Christian religion within the Common Knowledge Game. This error in thought either goads the follower into cult-like obedience to their congregation’s misunderstanding of Jesus’s teachings or creates so much suffering for others that they either self-annihilate, wallow in despair, become depressed, over-immerse in entertainment and distraction, become over-achievers or overly competitive, or, for the one with real curiosity, begin a search for truth to find their real value. The number two component of the conspiracy of silence is that our individual voice does not have any real value, and that we should defer to the prevailing powers of the age, be they religious, spiritual, political, familial, cultural, or economic, and hope that they speak up for us.
These are critical parts of the conspiracy of silence. We become invisible to each other, less curious about others while becoming unwilling to communicate with each other, and therefore we remain less curious about ourselves. We become invisible to ourselves when we sit on our voices and fail to listen to our essence as our inner voice cries out for justice, peace, healing, collaboration, and change.
The conspiracy of silence is built right into the framework of our collective consciousness. Dead men tell no tales, but the rest of us must continue to tell our stories, with respect for ourselves and others, until our civilization finally wakes up. To not express ourselves honestly and openly results in our early demise, spiritually as well as physically. We each must penetrate the conspiracy of silence and bring the light of a loving heart and healing words to the hidden darkness. My conditioned response would be to keep silent, as I have nothing of value to share with the world, and/or the world could give a shit about what I have to say anyway. Extrapolate that response to all of life, and we can perceive the isolating framework that imprisons much of the American male psyche.
Always question the prevailing attitudes of those in power. Healthy skepticism is warranted when any person or organization pressures individuals to conform. Never sit idly by while witnessing injustice. By your silence, you support the ignorant and the evildoers. Do not join their conspiracy of silence. To remain healthy, we must be willing to “punch a Nazi,” figuratively speaking—not those projections from our own wounded past, but instead the real-world antagonistic elements now embedded within society. We first deal with personal issues through self-insight and enhanced communication and then take our spiritually empowered voice to the world.
The light of our country, though still burning brightly for the healing and the hopeful, still attracts all manners of darkness to it, as evidenced by heartless terrorists, sociopathic billionaires and overzealous capitalists, and MAGA politicians victimizing our most innocent of beings. While witnessing victims of persecution and oppression within our own homeland, including our immigrants, minorities, homeless, mentally ill, children, old, diseased, poor, disabled, sacred animals, or environment itself, it can be difficult to feel the miracle of life that is constantly with us. Yet, to not have that experience, is to live a life devoid of much of the greater meaning available to us as human beings.
Taking dominion over the world and destroying it was never part of God’s will. It was always part of a worn-out patriarchal attitude that still pollutes human awareness. The greed and self-serving interests of our ancestors have been glorified over the preservation of our planet. Our politicians and corporate leaders use our economic system to pillage the Earth. The mark of the beast is seen daily in the attitudes of those who promote environmental destruction and incite hatred.
The American male carries most of the self-destructive, earth destructive, socially destructive, and feminine destructive energy within humanity, while paying a huge spiritual and physical price for the errors in both the presentation of our lives to the world and the experience of others’ contributions to our own lives. We, as a gender, continue to carry the historical fallout from many generations of intergenerational trauma, callous indifference to the needs of others, and neglect of our own spiritual needs for wholeness, love, healing, and compassion.
“Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”-St. Augustine of Hippo
Healthy anger at injustice is not only acceptable but required for honoring the truth and retaining spiritual integrity. Do not follow those who claim all anger is hatred, as that is not true. Anger becomes dangerous when it arises not from the moment, but from religious and cultural conditioning. Institutionalized anger, or hatred, is born of memory, inadequate education, and emotional immaturity. It is stoked by leaders with ignorant and divisive agendas and is the source of racism, xenophobia, war, and cultural insanity.
Freedom may not be for everybody now, but it is for me, now and for all eternity. I am grateful for my wife, Sharon White, who shares in this new/old insight. May all sentient beings be freed from their suffering. But first, they must become conscious of the options available. Pay attention to the person behind the curtain. Get to know that person at the deepest level. And then, do not give up finding truth, beauty, and love until the real Miracle appears in your life.
Like my father asked when I was nearly four and finally learned how to talk:
“Will that boy ever run out of things to talk about?” and
“Bruce, would you please shut up!”
Once I started talking, I proved I had the capacity for a lot of speech. Yet, my voice disappeared after years of oppression. The long-term effects of the conspiracy of silence that prevents our access to Universal Bandwidth plaguing will continue to limit our potential for happiness, longevity, and love. That was certainly the case for my life, which nearly ended at thirty years of age.
I am humbled by the miracle eternally embedded in Sacred Silence, as well as its bridge to human consciousness through the Word. May the Word take a form unique to each of us and lift us into a unity of love and a new shared story of world healing. May the Word spontaneously arise from our Sacred Silence, not from the chaos of our troubled past.
As I contemplate my life, a simple truth arises. Silence born of ignorance brings suffering. Silence born of healing brings joy and love. This same Silence brings the capacity to listen with the heart for the deepest meaning in all of life and returns dignity to each sacred manifestation. Those who learn how to truly listen are able to hear the voice for God. We finally get to live in the creation Love provides when we accept Love’s vision as our own. This is a life lived on Universal Bandwidth.
And, no, Father, in whatever form you may take, I will never shut up.
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
Is anybody really listening? Have we given up trying to communicate with those who trouble us? We all have had problems listening to each other and to ourselves. Yet, our stories must be told, and we must listen to the “other’s” story with respect and compassion. Every good story has an ending, and so do our bad ones. What value is a story if never told? What value is love if never shared? What is the value of speaking if nobody is listening?
We all have infinite value, whether it is ever recognized by another or not. Discover, enjoy, and celebrate Infinity, rather than the limitations thrust upon us by the deafness of our culture and families.
Sing your song like your life depended on it, because it does. All our lives depend on each other’s stories. Those who will not listen to our story, and will not share their own, are still stuck in their story of repression. They are unconscious participants in our culture’s Conspiracy of Silence.
The sun shines, and the artist interprets its light upon the beautiful landscape, and paints a classic piece of art. The wolf howls in the lonely, cold, snow-covered wilderness, and, miraculously, another wolf a great distance away howls back at him, reassuring both that each other is still there. The bird sings alone in the forest, yet, a hiker stops for a moment, listens, and her heart begins to sing and soar with the bird. The divorced and lonely man sings in the shower, and the salesman at the door hears him, and is so impressed by the man’s voice that he encourages him to try out for a local band. An isolated man stumbles upon the miracle of silence within his being, and a resultant bridge of words subsequently connects this sacred silence to his latest writings, creating poetry and healing balms for all.
As I look at my life’s history, I bear witness to Love and its healing Mystery. I have penetrated the Conspiracy of Silence and have lived well beyond my expiration date. My miracle experiment continues in earnest. I have found my home on the universe’s infinite bandwidth.
My world can never be the same.
How about yours?
