Book 8: Our Trauma, The Conspiracy Of Silence, And Our Healing Potential

This has not yet been edited, but here it is, for only the adventurous, and the truly curious among us.

666,311 word total, well over 700 pages. Photographs did not make it to semi-final version, but I will see what I can do.

Contents:

Chapter 1: Troubleshooting And Repairing Broken Systems
Chapter 2: Born In A Forgotten Past, Reborn In the Now
Chapter 3: Disrupting The Conspiracy Of Silence
Chapter 4: The Search For Truth Begins
Chapter 5: Ignorance, Suffering< and Moving Away From Toxicity
Chapter 6: Just Say No: Approaching Trauma Consciously
Chapter 7: Stranger In A Strange Land: Defender Dan
Chapter 8: The Common Knowledge Game
Chapter 9: Male Toxicity
Chapter 10: Differences Between Men and Women
Chapter 11: The Divine Feminine, and All The Healing Things We can Know
Chapter 12: Empathy and the Mystery Of the Path Between You and Me
Chapter 13: Anger, Self Awareness, and Mastery
Chapter 14: An Electrician’s Guide To The Galaxy
Chapter 15: Knowledge, Facts, Insight, and The Whim
Chapter 16: The Labyrinth, An Exit Strategy, A New Path Of Awakening
Chapter 17: Reimagining Our Journey Through Consciousness
Chapter 18: The Uncommon Knowledge Theory
Chapter 19: Dreams As Guides In Slaying The Minotaur
Chapter 20: The Master Teacher Speaks
Chapter 21: Experimenting With Consciousness
Chapter 22: Enlightenment
Chapter 23: Thoughts On That Which Is Beyond All Thought

Prologue, or Epilogue, or Part Of Last Chapter

It is what it is, but its not what it seems—–the voice of intelligence and spiritual discernment

The Truth is free, but ignorance will cost you everything—Elisha Scott

You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free–Jesus of Nazareth

I am a “seer” of sorts. This mysterious ability began for me at four years of age, when I first saw a chair made in the 19^th century, which our great Uncle Worth had constructed. I placed my hands on the chair, and it was if I was shown an abbreviated internal video of the chair’s complete construction. I claimed that chair for myself then (it had been a gift to my grandfather ’from Uncle Worth). This ability has never really left me, but it has taken many different forms since then.

I have been asked, if I could condense my entire works down into one or two paragraphs, what would I say?

First of all, I would say that this is counterproductive. The reader will assume that by just reading these one, two, or twenty paragraphs that they have the message, but it will just slide on through their minds like water through a sieve, like all of our other cultural soundbites, and nonsense. We will not find our greatest good in daily 5 minute meditations, or practicing yoga, while bypassing the profound inner healing work necessary.

(if this is the epilogue, or part of last chapter, use the following sentence)

But since you have made it so far through this vast work, I will offer this much to you.

When mankind mythologically left the Garden of Eden, they became entrapped in the labyrinth of the human mind.. And, there is always a Minotaur awaiting there, seeking to feast on all of our creative natures. Mankind, through its collective and individual mind, creates walls between itself and others, and even between itself and its SELF. The mind, being what it is, weighs and measures EVERYTHING by naming and defining, and creating concepts. This is neither good nor bad, it just is what it is. Through our minds, we fix, or merge, a dynamic process infused with the energy of infinity and eternity into mortal concepts, which are forever limited and stuck in time, and foreign to our hearts, or to Truth.. Through this process of creating these conceptual walls, the mind becomes inspired to create ladders over the walls, to try to reach others, and even to try to reach back to itself. It even creates religions to bridge the gap between the Divine, the Universe, Mother Earth, and to its own limited sense of self, which it also created through its own misunderstanding. How then may we escape the labyrinth, defeat the Minotaur, and return to the Garden of Eden?

STOP CREATING WALLS. STOP CREATING THE FLAMING SWORDS OF THE CHERUBIM.

All that we see, or will ever see, unto eternity, is our Self. The illusory and hypnotic quality of our thinking makes us believe that others are responsible for our own perceptual errors. When we stop trusting the thoughts that create walls, judgements, religions, and false bridges back to our SELF, our humbled minds will finally find a measure of peace. Focus on that peace, extend it out as far as possible, through meditation, contemplation, prayer, walks through NATURE, yoga, Pilates, tuned breathing exercises, communing with other spiritually minded souls. Listen to the whispers within our SOUL.

There WILL BE A TIME, when the Universe, God, Love, Truth, Peace will speak to us.

When we learn to entrain ourselves with this SILENCE, it will speak through us, and then we are home again, in our own unique spiritual garden..

This is our spiritual heritage.

This is our starting point, and this is our destination.

Jesus will not work out your salvation for you, unless your name is also Jesus. Our salvation is dependent upon our intentions, personal work and understanding, and our own movements back to our SILENCE. If you live in the pseudo-Christian fantasy world of the rapture, or playing a harp in heaven with Jesus, you might want to get a little more grounded in reality for this work to have any positive impact upon you, but it is up to you what to believe.

And, this TRUTH has never left us. We just let our minds, our past, our traumas and wounding, our hubris, and our social dependencies upon others’ points of view overrun its eternal music, and replace it with noise. When we let go of the controls of our parents, our culture and our wounded history, we can stop thinking damaged thoughts, and travel upon the enlightened new paths of a healing, spiritualized consciousness. We can practice gratitude for who we are, and settle into the mystery of our unique identity, as well. There will be moments when only awe, wonder, and gratitude fills our minds, and our hearts. Love will become the stream that carries us into eternity.

There can be a new Conspiracy Of Silence within our humanity, where the SILENCE conspires with our memories, knowledge, and insight, to create a new reality, and a wider sense of wholeness within our self, and within our world. When our civilization allows the evolution of its Common Knowledge Game to fully embrace collective dignity, love, and freedom for all, our world will be a safer place, and humanity will finally reach its potential for greatness.

Remember, because of the way our brains are wired, and programmed,

WE FIND WHAT WE LOOK FOR,

whether it is good, bad, or a complicated mixture of both assessments..

Are you looking for freedom, for liberation, and for INFINITY?

Who is ready to travel upon new paths of consciousness?

I AM!

Chapter 1: Troubleshooting And Repairing A Broken System

There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness;….and, to know, rather consists in opening out a way where the imprisoned splendor may escape, then in effecting entry for a light supposed to be without.” —-Robert Browning

Being a broken human being rarely gets a lot of positive feedback, or life affirming attention from others. It certainly is not a lifestyle choice for those who finally choose to awaken, which I finally did at the age of 31 years. How did I attempt to bring healing to my broken interior? . I acknowledged that, of myself and my old ways, I was heading nowhere, and that I was doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again I did not have childhood training nor spontaneously developed capacities for insight, positive change and growth until late in life. I needed to develop the emotional and spiritual fortitude to look at the entirety of my life, and then incorporate the experience for my greater good, which also impacts the whole of life in a more positive manner. By developing the power of insight, I brought a new level of healing and awareness into this new, present moment of experience. Some call this process “mindfulness:, though I just call it ‘taking personal inventory’, and improving my “conscious contact with my higher power” as I learned through practicing the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have come to believe that there is a power greater than my past understandings that lives within me, restoring me to sanity, no matter how often I might fall.

Part of maintaining sanity is to allow for a continuous evolution of understanding and experience of who we are, and what God or Higher Power is, apart from religious dogma, ignorance, politics, and superstition. If we only continue to believe in things that we don’t understand, like our religions and their man-made, or God inspired, theories, it becomes nothing short of superstitious reasoning, if we are not also already inspired internally by this Truth. We must attempt to understand the mental ecology, and the history, of human beings, as we are the ones who creates and embraces ideas. This insight is essential if we want to cultivate any hope at all of troubleshooting and repairing any damaged human system.

There was no minister, church, support group, therapist, Care Unit counselor, Indian guru, psychiatrist, mother, father, sister, wife, friend, daughter, son, pet dog, or Jesus Christ figure that could dig into my unique version of the human soul, and remove the thorns/swords that had been thrust into my side since my birth. My internal wounding and the resultant unsustainable suffering became the impetus to begin my inward journey, to face the absolute darkest areas of life itself, and then mine the treasure from my unique relationship with the dark force or shadow. To not face myself would mean to continue living the second-hand/passed down story of dysfunction that I inherited from our culture and from my ancestors, from which we cannot ever completely heal, without first becoming aware of our internalized, unconscious subservience to those controlling agendas.

It takes some prior understanding to interpret this schematic representation of a transistor logic circuit

For my work career, I was paid to install functional electrical systems and/or observe existing installations and systems, identify problems and inefficiencies, and offer solutions. I progressed to troubleshooting my less than optimal self, beginning in earnest in 1987. I eventually identified my common issues by connecting the dots to the rest of humanity. It is amazing how many human systems, like I was prior to 1987, are resistant to healing change, however! The cultural hypnotism with its imprisonment continues, mostly unabated. Yet, healing is a powerful current that runs through us, whether we recognize its presence, or not. Those that recognize it have the potential for an amazing life. Those that don’t by offering resistance to their greatest good are certainly taking their chances.

I needed to use some of the same basic observational and functional skills that psychologists and therapists use while witnessing patients, while both assessing their stories, and working cooperatively with the patient. The intention is to help the broken or under performing person experience enhanced functionality and, thus, experience a greater good. Therapists and psychologists have exposed and developed many therapeutic clues and tools over the last four or five generations as to how to identify he sources of suffering, as well as techniques for its treatment. Basic psychological/spiritual maps or schematics, such as those derived through studying conflicted internal family systems and resultant control issues, human archetypes, and the long term effects of family trauma, have been created. This background gives them an enhanced understanding, finer tuned intuition, and abilities to help troubleshoot and, hopefully, bring repair to the willing, though suffering patients.

I came to intuit that complex control systems and processes that were electro-mechanical and/or chemical equivalents for some limited functions of the human mind. We come to expect that certain “inputs” will deliver desired “outputs”, while maintaining some sort of balance within the whole process. But we need good information, and a well ordered and maintained internal system, to get the desired results.

I have witnessed many failed, or failing systems, human and mechanical, for most of my life. The first failing system that I ever witnessed was our American capitalistic inspired religious and economic philosophies, especially as they negatively, and eventually, catastrophically influenced our world, the family system, and myself. If we can find the errors in reasoning and historical conditioning, which contributes mightily to each of our personal narratives, we can begin a search for the underlying truth behind all situations, while shedding the cloaks of illusion that continues to clothe so much of the human race.

Stories where our unique personal value have been sacrificed to maintain some unloving sense of family and/or cultural order, or disorder, will be fertile grounds for exploration. Also, the over processed junk food narratives of the collective human experience can become coupled to our own unique and vulnerable, sense of self. This promotes the creation of the stampede of self, and other, defeating perceptions, rather than exposing new pathways to an sense of our self enhanced with profound experiences of wonder, love of our self and each other, and an appreciation for the totality of life on this planet. Regardless of the perfection, or the imperfection of our upbringing, problems inevitably arise throughout the entirety of life, within this world that we share.. Yet, if they can be seen within a more expansive context, where we can become more self-aware, consciously engage in troubleshooting and repairing our own issues, and become open to traveling new paths of consciousness, the negative effects can be minimized, and resilience and spiritual competency can be maximized.

We need a life guided and informed by the understanding of the totality of our lives, with the threads of our life’s meaning stretching from our sense of self towards infinity and back again, rather than as an imprisoning cocoon around our lives. We can live a purpose filled life, inspired by the desire to be the best version of ourselves, while serving the highest interests of each other and the Earth with all of its life. Without overcoming our wounding by cultivating a spiritually enhanced meaning and purpose, life’s inevitable vicissitudes may cause our lapse into the depths of despair, depression, powerlessness, and extraordinary suffering, with little hope for our escape. The Big Bang of our entry into Consciousness itself might just turn into the Big Bust, if we unconsciously cling to an unhealed understanding of Life.

Troubleshooting Logic and Technique

The desire to fix a treasured object that has been damaged, bring a cure to a child’s disease, or to end one’s suffering is the manifestation of love. Love must be the guiding light while facilitating repairs and regeneration of any broken person, place, or thing. Bringing a hammer to a situation that requires a jeweler’s screw driver is a typical overreaction, is self defeating and reveals a life needing greater sensitivity and insight into itself. It is our desire to repair and improve, not damage further and destroy, so a conscious process must be undertaken to initiate repairs to any malfunctioning system, human or mechanical.

Some people just want to watch the world prosper, and to end the unhealed other’s need to keep it burning.

Troubleshooting is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine, a system, or even a human life. It is a logical, systematic search for the source of a problem in order to solve it, and make the product, process or person functional again.

The first step in good problem analysis is to describe the problem completely. Without a problem description, we will not know where to start investigating the cause of the problem. Is it a systemic failure, is it limited to just one component or individual, is it transient or constant in nature.

This step includes asking ourselves such basic questions as:

What are the symptoms?
Where is the problem happening?
When does the problem happen?
Under which conditions does the problem happen?
Is there a fundamental flaw in the design or its very nature?

What Are The Symptoms?

When starting to describe a problem, the most obvious question is “What is the problem?” This might seem like a straightforward question; however, it can be broken down into several other questions to create a more descriptive picture of the problem. These questions can include:

.Who or what is reporting the problem?
What are the symptoms and feedback messages?
How do we fail? For example: loop or repetition of unnecessary or unwanted behavior, hang or quitting or stopping before a process is successfully completed, is it intentional or unintentional performance degradation, is it an incorrect attitude and belief?.
What is the affect on all relationships?

Where Is The Problem Happening?

Determining where the problem originates is not always easy, but it is one of the most important steps in resolving a problem. Many layers of (mis)understanding can exist between the reporting and failing components of the personal system under review. The supporting society, family, and network of friends are only a few components to be considered when we are investigating problems.

Is the problem isolated and specific, or common to multiple arenas within life?
Is the current environment and understanding capable of being supported by a personal healing intention, or are broader, more socially encompassing changes necessary?
Are reports of problems originating within the self, others, or a combination of the two?
Are there currently cultural power brokers attempting to dictate the way life’s route should be traveled?
Is the source of the history of the problem purely an individual one, or universal in its expression?

These types of questions will help us isolate the problem layer, and are necessary to determine the problem source. Remember that just because one layer or part of our self is reporting a problem, it does not always mean the root cause exists there. Part of identifying where a problem is occurring is understanding the environment in which it exists. For instance, sometimes it is our overactive limbic system, including our ancient reptilian brain, that tries to take control when the fear and anxiety response is overactive. Mindfulness helps to reroute our response through higher intelligence regions of the brain such as the neo-cortex to deal with these types of events, where necessary.

We should always take some time to completely describe the problem environment, including the historical mindset, its present understanding, all corresponding intentions, and biological health information. Confirm that we are operating within an environment that can be of support to us, or that, conversely, we can give support to, as many problems can be explained by discovering understandings and agendas that are not meant to run together, or have not previously been successfully used together.

When and Under Which Conditions Does The Problem Happen?

Developing a detailed time line of events leading up to a failure is another necessary step in problem analysis, especially for those cases that are one-time occurrences. We can most easily do this by working backwards –start at the time an error was reported (as exact as possible, perhaps using the timeline approach), and work backwards through available memory and history. Usually we only have to look as far as the latest event that we have experienced conflict or despair, however, this is not always easy to do and will only come with practice. Knowing when to stop is especially difficult when there are potentially multiple layers of dysfunction, each with its own diagnostic information. The intersection of society with the individual always creates multiple layers of interaction and mutual expectations, with the potential for far more “failures” than “successes”.

Does the problem only happen at a certain period of one’s life?
How often does it happen?
What sequence of events leads up to the time the problem is reported?
Does the problem happen after an environment change such as after creating new friendships, getting another job, or moving to a new neighborhood?

Responding to questions like this will help us create a detailed time line of events, and will provide us with a frame of reference in which to investigate.

Under Which Conditions Does The Problem Happen?

Knowing what else is happening at the time of a problem is important for any complete problem description. If a problem occurs in a certain environment or under certain conditions, that can be a key indicator of the problem cause.

Does the problem always occur when performing the same task, or with the same people?
Does a certain sequence of events need to occur for the problem to surface?
Do other aspects of our lives fail at the same time?

Asking, then attempting to answer these types of questions will help us to explain the environment in which the problem occurs, and correlate any relationship dependencies. Remember that just because multiple problems might have occurred around the same time, it does not necessarily mean that they are always related.

Is there a fundamental flaw in the system, does it appear ubiquitously?

Some designs just never quite reach their true potential for system’s operation and stability, and require a total paradigm shift, or adjustment, to see the process differently, and bring repairs to it. If we have tested all available solutions, and nothing works, we have either approached the problem incorrectly, or we have exposed a flaw in the designer’s understanding and/or a failure in the implementation of the designer’s intention. We may have reached the most recalcitrant of problems, which are those that are expressions of a normalized unconscious dysfunction.

We live and operate in the background of our oft times toxic patriarchal culture, know that a collective healing message will not be spoken and cannot be acknowledged because of the Conspiracy of Silence predominating within our culture. Our culture is broken, which leads to broken people, and families. Yet, collectively, America has created a culture of denial, where we don’t look at our fundamental problems together, and confront them directly. To the extent that the broken individual might indicate a brokenness of our culture, is the extent that the broken individual is marginalized and minimized by the entrenched power brokers of our civilization and their sycophants. There are many economic, religious, and political leaders who have derived the greatest personal and economic benefits through the exploitation of the those who have no voice, and it is perceived as an existential threat for them to examine the damaged structure that gave rise to their own predominance.

To summarize troubleshooting theory, I have included the following:

My troubleshooting questions;

What is the history and intention behind the original system design?
Has the system ever worked properly?
Does the system presently work?
If not, what are the present day ;problems?.
What are the history of the problems?
Are the problems a failure of the system and its original design, poor overall maintenance, and/or ignorance or malfeasance by the human operator?
Can this process be improved, or stabilized without a total rebuild?
What are the best options for repair?
Who is going to help me?
How much can I help myself?

This is BIG PICTURE troubleshooting, for sure. In some religious mythology, mankind is seen to have been born with a tragic flaw, which resists all attempts to correct it. In Christian mythology, mankind is referred to as “fallen” as if an angel has fallen to earth. It is implied here that the “designer” is not at fault, it is the system operator, or human being, who has embraced disorder and chaos as primary system operating parameters. People that unconsciously practice the principles of toxic masculinity, the dark aspects of the common knowledge game, and follow the herd like the proverbial lemmings are most susceptible to this kind of system failure. These people appear to be constitutionally incapable of finding an honest, collaborative, loving way to see themselves, and to express their interconnections with all of life.

“Some people just want to watch their worlds burn”

becomes an indictment against these “fallen angels”. This system will not right itself, and will resist all attempts from others to bring repair and functionality to it. Without the intervention of a miracle, they are doomed to a life characterized by the failure of all life support systems, with the inevitable loss of good health, peace with an ordered existence, and balance. In the purported words of Jesus, they are “the seeds that have been thrown upon rocky ground”..Stupidity takes on many forms, and those who cling most ferociously to their faults have more than a nodding familiarity with attenuated intelligence.

Are we ready to fearlessly search for the root causes for our individual and collective brokenness, or are we just looking for justification to stay the course, and continue on without any further self-examination and a deepening desire for change?

Growing up, I was not provided with many clues for how to successfully manage the labyrinth of life, and of my mind. The maps provided for me were incomplete, and mostly inaccurate. My life had been characterized by early and intermittent, and mostly unintentional wounding by my parents, especially by my father and older sister, as well as by the culture that supported us. My early exposure to Christian religion was also traumatizing. My young self could see through its parade of self debasing interpretations of God and of Jesus, and I was confused and often repulsed by many so-called Christian stories. Yet I was not to find other helpful guides, other than consistent loving support from my mother and my mother’s parents, who always wanted the best for me, and my father, though he sometimes appeared to me as a confusing trickster..

There is one shining example of the poor guidance available for me in the story of Defender Dan. In 1968 at the age of thirteen years, I was given a Defender Dan toy machine gun for a Christmas present. It was not a new toy, as it had “minor internal damage that made it an acceptable toy only for a boy, and a father with mechanical skills, who might be able to troubleshoot and repair it. My father had no interest in assisting me, so if I wanted a functional toy, it was up to me to do something about it. I was confused as to what was expected from me. .

Why was I given a gift that had known problems?
Didn’t I deserve something that was new and perfect?

I certainly did not have a fully developed skill package in troubleshooting and repairing this fairly complex mechanical system, but I liked a good challenge, and I thought that this endeavor might be worthwhile. At the time I was hoping to understand the thought processes behind the creation and assembly of this toy, perhaps so that I might learn how to harvest my own unexpressed creative potential, and someday design and build unique contraptions of my own.. I tried to get Defender Dan to work, but I could not get it to function properly and with consistency. Though I had no diagram defining the internal parts, and their relationship to each other, I began dismantling it, trying to understand how the parts were related to each other, and how it worked so that I could find the problem and attempt to repair it. Dad saw the gun parts spread out all over the floor, accused me of destroying the gift, and then proceeded to remove his belt, and whip the hell out of me. .

That beating hurt in a lot of different ways, for sure. I was horribly shamed, with the feeling of shame not being unusual to me. I picked up all of the parts, and deposited them in the garbage can. The belt swiftly made another visit to my still sore behind, of course. The punchline, er, the belt line, is that, like my father, our life, and our world, will punish us if we cannot fix our lives, even though we may have been provided with inaccurate repair diagrams and maps for living.. An insightful person can see how this story captures the essence of our confusion as human beings seeking wholeness while receiving conflicted and inadequate support from others. .

In April of 1984, I checked myself into the Lovejoy Care Unit, a hospital converted to alcoholism care and recovery. I had been a drug addict and alcoholic, as well as a person consciously suffering from inner turmoil, since my sophomore year of high school, in 1971. My most important initial consideration was keeping my job at the US Postal Service, where I worked as a maintenance electrician and instrument technician in training, which I was about to lose if I did not stop substance abuse. I was to stay in the Unit for thirty days, while learning, at a puerile, kindergarten level, enough about my disease, and myself, that there might be hope for me. After an interview with my parents, Claire, my counselor, informed me that one of the burdens that I was carrying was that my father was still trying to live his life through me. As my primary desire was to find inner peace, a totally alien concept for me up to that point, that information would be helpful in the future, but I was too unconscious at the time to understand its oppressive implications.. .

Poetry: The Clues Imprisoning Me Within My Personal Labyrinth Prior To 1987

PAIN (written while in the Care Unit, 1984)

Though the dark cloud looms on the horizon, it is also hidden within myself.

It appears to hover in the distance, just beyond my reach, and it patiently waits my most vulnerable moment.

I then feel the initial mist from its clouds, suspecting that I am its intentional target.

A piercing wind picks up, hugging me with its frozen arms, and I vainly look for protection

As the torrential downpour begins, I feel my tenuous hold on peace and safety eroding beneath my feet.

As it strips back, layer, upon layer, upon layer, upon layer, of my consciousness, exposing a bedrock bereft of sanity.

Exposing long forgotten mental relics, threatening old, unhealed memories, and dangerous old habits,

Stinging, piercing, hurting me at my core, obscuring visions of glorious, yet impossibly distant futures,

Washing away all tenuously held possessions of sanity, and hope.

Uprooting the feeble foundation of a life desperately, but futilely, attempting to, yet again, reconstruct itself,

Carrying a powerless, helpless, desperate soul back into toxic chemical valleys, amid a dark, swirling depression, Ravaging, drowning, then decaying.

Pain,

Why?

Pain Part II

Growing without roots, with a will that won’t bend,

Weathering life’s storms, which never seem to end.

No longer waiting for the sun that was once promised to arise,

How could truth’s light possibly shine in dimmed eyes?

Having reached with futility for all the high goals of life,

With no spiritual growth, while consumed by inner strife.

Devoid of healing affection, and a stranger to real love,

Unrealistic hope was what my failed dreams were all made of.

Despair meets each day, summer has now changed into fall,

Looking at life, I am totally disgusted by it all.

Dying of loneliness, and holding life by only a thread,

With me rotting inside, hopefully, I soon will be dead.

Pain,

Why?

THE FOOLS

You know who we are, there is no need for our names

We may be outwardly different, but inside we are the same

We vacation on ego trips, and with the world play strange mind games

While striving for material success, and its dubious fame

We remain graceless souls trying to blend into life’s masses

Some affirming our uniqueness, though we remain stuck in the same class

With our delusions of grandeur, while appearing just like an ass

And steering clear of self-awareness, Oh our transparency of glass!

At times spewing words of wisdom, but with only another dogs’ bark

Seeking to make a good life, but on life’s script still leaving just a shit mark

Believing we may have seen light, but, if so, why is our life always so dark?

Needing more purifying inner flames, while snuffing every divine spark

Though we think that we have blossomed, we do not possess Love’s flower,

We hope for a life carried by the river of sweetness, while we still wade through the sour

Never realizing that, over life, we hold very little power

We can only avoid the reality of our lives, while living in our ivory tower

We tend to bring up life’s rear, though we think that we should be first

And from life we want all of the best, somebody else deserves the worst!

We think that our life should be more blessed, why on earth do we feel cursed?

Our lives are overblown toxic gas bubbles, just waiting to be burst!

The poetry indeed proved helpful in providing many clues for me, in my desire to leave the knowns of my suffering, and search for truth, peace, and a much more fulfilling life. In June of 1984, while still working at the US Postal Service, I was sent to their national training center in Norman, Oklahoma, for a three week class on repairing mail sorting equipment. I was also there to challenge a digital logic course, which was a prerequisite to advanced training. As I had already mastered similar subject matter in previous computer engineering courses at the University of Portland, I asked to challenge their version of this course work. I needed to pass this test to have any hope for advanced placement, which would elevate me into a new, more challenging career as a computer technician, which was, potentially, far more interesting than my mundane, regular job as a maintenance electrician.

After my three week training on sorting systems, on the last day that I was in Norman, I was given the test for advanced placement. There were two parts to the test, which I needed a 75% score to succeed. The major portion of the test, I aced, scoring 70 out of 70 on the digital logic portion. The last 30% of the test was devoted to complex schematics of electronic control systems supporting optical character readers and other equipment I had not yet worked on. I had no prior experience with this equipment, and could not properly interpret the representative symbology. I failed, scoring zero out of that the last thirty points, failing the test by a mere five points. On the flight home, I relapsed back into drinking behavior from a recently achieved sobriety at the Care Unit. I was so disappointed at this seemingly unfair turn of events, that I became re-dedicated to my own self annihilation, even ignoring and hiding from the presence of my Care Unit counselor Claire, who serendipitously appeared on the same plane back to Portland,

Thus, my sobriety lasted for less than three months, for I did not quite connect with ” the healing threads” that I needed to escape my personal hell. Peace was not found until after I descended fully into a dark underworld, where I attempted suicide in January of 1986, and then began my search for truth. My search for truth in Portland’s underworld community ended on March 17, 1987 when an undercover Federal agent that I had befriended drove me to my father’s doorstep, and told me that he could no longer offer support or protect me from the dangerous characters that had become my running mates. We had talked extensively many times over the last several months,, and he knew of my “search”, and stated to me, unequivocally, that my search would either end in death, or with the healing of my relationship with my father. I had to finally face troubling relationship issues with my father, my family, and my society, and my unconscious, trauma inspired incomplete responses to them. Working the 12 Steps of AA, initially in my recovery, and practicing meditation and mindfulness helped me to find the threads of meaning that would lead me out of my desire for self annihilation, while also finding a great measure of inner peace.

I was eventually to find that my father represented, in a perfect way, how my life experience had become overshadowed by the needs and concerns of our culture, and its own unconscious needs to dominate, control, and oppress, especially those who did not conform to its often conflicting, twisted values. My father had great difficulty, in times of stress, in recognizing the intrinsic value of all life, including my “baby self”, and my essence as a young boy. My father showed to me, in a perfect way, what that dark, negative end point looks like from a lifetime lacking in true collaboration and emotional integrity while sharing life force with others. My father achieved his goals in life, yet at what cost did they come to him, and to the people who he influenced and controlled? What cost did I have to pay in my reactions, over the years of my life, against what my father represented, without having a clue about better alternatives? Just what is the cost to a society that blindly plows forward while supporting ideals that do not conform to the development of its children’s highest nature, and truth? .

In any electrical circuit, resistance to the flow of current is ubiquitous. To reduce resistance, we can either tune the system by adding capacitors and inductors, shortening conductor length or increasing its size, or increasing the applied voltage, all of which effectively reduces resistance. There are also the 2nd law of thermodynamics issues, which are entropy, heat related circuit degradation, and eventual chaos. For humanity, the resistance to the flow of healing energy is also ubiquitous. Yet, we also have options for tuning our own spiritual system, by increasing our capacity to embrace, understand, carry and transmit higher consciousness, which utilizes its own unique healing algorithm.. Like in a high resistance electrical circuit, those who vehemently resist change and do not embrace their healing potential will eventually have their life system ruled by the spiritual equivalent of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, where degradation and chaos reigns supreme. .

My Clues For Defeating The Minotaur, and Exiting the Labyrinth, From 1987:

My arrows of perception became radically redirected inward in the spring and summer of 1987, after a series of three most profound spiritual experiences and my exuberant practicing of meditation, coupled with a newfound willingness to travel upon new paths of consciousness,. The period of May 24 through July 21 gave me major clues/clews for transcending my limited and limiting life experience. I was given a vision to bring healing to myself, through allowing the Divine Feminine to love and nurture me unconditionally, while also learning how to pass that healing energy to others.

I was shown how my perception can be transformed, so that I no longer just see myself, and the world, as two separate experiences or entities. All the world is populated with my brothers and sisters, be they human, animal or plant manifestations of the Great Spirit. I was to have to make peace with the fact that all of the insanity that I witnessed with the world was also an expression of the insanity within myself, even if it had not yet been made conscious of all of its ramifications. Yet, all of the love I witnessed within the world was also an extension of myself.

I saw that I had a choice to make, moment to moment, as to how to see the world, for how I saw the world also defines how I see myself. The arrow of perception always returns back to me, much like a boomerang. The last of the big three experiences, on July 21, 1987, revealed to me an incredible amount of new and unique wisdom, when I was to somehow, miraculously, “sit in the lap of my True Self”. My long lost self starting speaking, and I was the vocal cords for amazing revelations during an apocalyptic meditation event.

A short summary is that I was released from my body of thought (“let go of the controls”), and entered into a place of infinite peace, and silence. I was shown that “no teacher will effect our salvation, we must each work it out for ourselves”. I was shown how to “think no thoughts derived from the past”, while embracing the new necessity to “travel new paths of consciousness”. I was shown that there was no such thing as a “me” or “you” in an awakened reality, and to laugh at any perceptions that create duality and separation from my planet, the rest of the human race, and the animal kingdom. I was shown how past trauma attaches itself to our field of energy, sapping us of life force. In a rare moment when I could actually witness my “life force energy field”, or, using Rupert Sheldrake’s terminology, my morphogenetic field. In an incredible moment of inner seeing, I “witnessed” two embedded entities freeloading on my energy field. Once again, not yet being too conscious I did not know what to do about the dynamic, destructive duo, which I intuitively named my tricksters. I immediately intuited that they were not part of me for my greater good.

Through these experiences, and many following years of introspection and intuitive detective work, I was shown that I had suffered two major wounds, or traumas, which had attached themselves to my field of energy, or life force, causing me to be tethered to a troubled past with its dark interior modeling of reality. I was shown the very nature of the perceptions that kept me tethered to the past. I was shown how to let go of the toxic masculinity derived controls which imprisoned me. I was shown, at the very foundation of myself, is an infinite creative potential that does not recognize the “you” or the “me”, but only its own infinite life, and this creative energy can, literally, only laugh at the constructs of our perceptual universe. I was shown if I could follow new paths of consciousness which were not time dependent, I could let go of my controlling traumas, my heartbreaks, my separation from my true self and others, and share in the joy, and the laughter, of a universe that loves itself, while being amused at the wayward creations that keep popping up that would tell us otherwise.

A mathematical equation was given to me as a clue and, ultimately, was revealed to me as a guide for how to let go of those controls from my past which kept me tethered to its whipping post of my own ignorance and disease. The healing spirit within all blesses us with a unique clew/clue, if we are earnest and dedicated in our desire to seek for and find the real truth about our existence.

Oh marionette’s dancing image trapped on the screen of mankind’s mind, With suffering and pain inspired beliefs in control , what freedom is there to find? Find release from those controlling, self-imprisoning strings To prepare the revelation of inner wisdom that only liberated Intelligence brings. .

I truly was a disfigured marionette’s powerless toy on the end of a suffering life’s strings

A revealing, and quite fascinating mathematical equation was also given to me. My Spirit knew full well my extensive experience with mathematics intuitive understanding of some of its complexities. If you are not a mathematician, do not despair, the equations intent will be developed through a written understanding.. If you never took differential and integral calculus, just continue your reading on the next sentence after “solution”.

Equation: LIM dT/dt=Truth, as dt approaches zero, where d=delta (or the change in a value or quantity), T =F(t,y), where F=the function of, t=f(time), y=f(timeless) Solution: Lim dT(t,y)/dt=Constant(s) + INFINITY (If thought were only a function of time, then the rate of change of thought with the change of time would create some collection of constants (connecting links between memories, knowledge, traumatic wounds and their resultant perceptual stream, etc.). Yet, if thought were not a function of time, then as the change in time approaches zero, timeless thought would be considered infinite in relative value. Examples of the domain of timeless thoughts might be within peace, joy, beauty, wonder, curiosity, and love, amongst many names indicating passageways to the unknown of the present moment)

This is a simple “rate of change” expression, and, in theory, its solution provides an understanding of how one quantity changes with a change in another quantity. It is my clew/clue for how to successfully enter the labyrinth, confront the Minotaur, and find my way back out again. If I remain stuck in time based, trauma supported memories and perceptions, I also remain stuck in the labyrinth, PERIOD, perpetually fighting new and more creative iterations of Minotaurs..

My constants had to be recognized for what they were: habits of thought and perception, all based upon past knowledge After much, much meditation and mindfulness, and writing about traumatic influences in my life, I saw that the vast majority of my constants are what we call our “once irrefutable yet now questionable knowns”, all of which has a decided time frame reference in the past, even as we access them in the present moment in bringing forward new perceptions..

It is important to remember that the arrow of perception is mostly shot outward by the sensory and time biased I, or self, that we are. We also coexist with a creative, timeless nature, as well, which has a much more difficult time communicating with the time-based part, because of time’s incessant, almost bullying activity that overlays the timeless…Yet, if the arrow of perception were pointed to our center, where both time and time-less based selves are dancing internally, we would be having a much different life experience. And this arrow of perception is shot from our meditative heart. .

To be in realization of Truth Is to find God’s High Mount another cultural illusion to climb

Created by fearful, despairing minds caught on the merry-go-round of time

The unillumined. restless mind remains forever bereft of Love’s Rhyme and Truth’s Reason

Forever chasing the next mirage, until it sees time’s movements are guilty of treason.

In a recent development, my sister wanted to accompany my wife Sharon and I on a trip to Hawaii. My wife was hesitant to go on another vacation with my sister. The last trip to Belize in 2019 was a fabulous trip, except for a two hour period when the worst aspects of my sister’s dysfunctional attitudes made themselves evident. My sister needs to be always right, and heaven help the person who calls her out when she is obviously mistaken. My wife called her on an obvious mistake about directions, and we all suffered the wrath of an unhealed tyrant. That experience, though revealing of my sister’s agenda, was no fucking fun, for sure.

Late in 2021, we vacationed at a resort on the Big Island of Hawaii. On our second evening there, we had a nice dinner planned at one of the on site restaurants. My sister decided it was time to reveal some parts of her hidden past, when she was a rookie firefighter for the US Forest Service in the 1970’s. My wife and I listened intently and with some amusement at her escapes. There was no arc to her story curve, and it left me feeling a little flat. Yet, since it appeared to be the time for family sharing, I felt that I could share a snippet of my search for truth, my descent into the underworld, and my return to wholeness. My sister ended up calling my search for truth stupid and worthless, and that I should have chosen the happy, carefree path,

HUH?.

My sister was the perfect representative for our father’s poor positive acknowledgement and listening skills. Some of our family dysfunction could be characterized by poor personal and interpersonal valuations. A healthy sense of self esteem was an alien concept. In one fell swoop, my sister negated 34 years of my life experience. My sister continued in her role as enforcer of the dysfunctional family code.

There is a psychic door that began to creek open, behind which all manners of potential disease, division. fragmentation with its spiritual disfigurement, and self-defeating attitudes. The very self-destructive mechanisms that had been overcome by my search for truth were revealed to still be alive, though living in suspended animation since I found the reason for continuing to live, where I had found the actual personal meaning for my own life.

In software terms, many times the creators installed a “back door” where the NSA or other spy agencies could access files otherwise inaccessible to the general public. My own personal software had its own “back door” where only someone with special knowledge could access it, and set in motion the momentum for self destruction. And, of course, it was my sister who held the key.

I did not stand idly by this time and let the family virus reinfect me, however, like I did for the first 31 years of my life. I confronted her, got angry with her, and let her know that the rules of the family no longer apply to me. She had always assumed the role of my father in his absence when we were growing up, and she had a particularly cruel, unfeeling way to punish me when I was quite young and vulnerable. There is no one like a family member who can locate the difficult emotional buttons, and push them until the desired outcome is achieved. In this case, it was to minimize my value, and my life, just like my father had a tendency to do. .

Those who have made their own hero’s journey away from personal, family, and cultural toxicity are much more open to self-healing, rather than self-destruction. Those on the healing path reset their bodies and minds to a healthier baseline, or to a state of peaceful homeostasis. Most will learn to practice healthier eating and sleep patterns, stress reduction techniques, such as meditation and mindfulness, conscious breathing, perform exercises such as Tai Chi, Yoga, Pilates, etc., practice the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and/or mindfulness techniques, enlist the help of a therapist, and/or meet another person who has transcended their own suffering and self-destructive tendencies. They will have plowed the fertile healing grounds, and may anticipate the healthiest present state of existence, with the most productive spiritual harvest..

Our country and its citizens owe an apology and reparations to all of the minorities it has persecuted and punished, such as the Indians, the Blacks, Browns, Reds, the Hispanics, the Immigrants, the Gays, Lesbians, and Transgenders, the Infirm, the Old, and the Poor. Our Christian religion owes an apology to the Muslims, homosexuals, to the infidels, to the secular, to the “Jewish faith who crucified Jesus”, and to all who have been persecuted because they were non-believers or non-conformers.

The temptation to follow the herd, or to swim with the lemming, is built right into the foundational nature of our socialized existence. Life is always a self-fulfilling prophecy, yet whose self are we fulfilling? What if your life is fulfilling the prophecies of your religion and culture, rather than that of your true self? While unenlightened forces dominate human consciousness, oppression and repression are born, and nurtured. This creates more damaged human beings, who continue to remain unconscious, and this unconsciousness is overpopulating our planet. The fate of these damaged people is to continue to damage themselves, each other, and the very planet that supports and sustains them, until they find their self and its truth.

Find the self, and the life that has a great future, and discard the one that will die with our rotting civilization. Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I see a great future for our planet, if enough of us break free from the effects of the collective oppression by others and, ultimately, the repression of our Spirit. If enough of us find the only self that can be free, collective liberation becomes more of a possibility. What on Earth is humanity waiting for? This moment, we can all be free. Our normal individual life experience is replete with examples of our relationships to Mother Nature, to our family, to our neighborhood, to our nation, to the principles behind our economy, to our natural or adopted life philosophy and spirituality, to our religion and any associated prophets and/or deities (if any), and to all of our wounding and suffering. These intended and unintended connections give us ample opportunities for understanding what influences take us away from, or towards our personal truth and to a better place to live spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Heaven need not be an arcane concept for the hope for some sort off after death paradise, but attainable as an actual living reality for the present moment. .

Let us praise and honor the light that has shown through our lives at every juncture, from birth until now, and whether we recognized it or not, for that is the only Christ that may be experienced, in our narratives, and in the now. If we are still looking to Jesus for our salvation, it is time to consider looking for the unique threads of timelessness within our self, and our own infancy, childhood, and life experiences. That is where we crucified and buried the Christ. Are the threads of love wound stronger around our heart than the unraveling intentions of an often hateful, indifferent world that can mercilessly tug at them? We have the power to resurrect the dead within us, so what is our choice for today? Healing of trauma precedes full awareness of our noble nature, once the labyrinth created by our wounding is finally made conscious and exited. The liberated life no longer sees the Minotaur at every turn, and the release from the labyrinthine mind reveals infinite new paths of consciousness to travel upon, and results in life long effects on our potential for and experience of joy, creative expression, and spiritual evolution.

Please, save yourself.

The 12 Steps of AA Revised To Reflect My Present Spiritual Understanding

Through our own extended suffering, we finally found the desire to want it to end. We admitted that when we become self-destructively habituated to any substance, situation, perception, or judgement and/or lack of forgiveness in our relationships with others, we lose our freedom of choice, bring unnecessary trauma into our lives, and into the lives of others, and, thus, fail to achieve any lasting sense of inner peace and joy. We finally realize that our lives have been lived unconsciously, and have become unmanageable as a result of that neglect.
With our new found hope and openness for change, came the desire to begin to awaken to higher possibilities for our lives. We realized that, in our essence, we have an interior, though neglected, power that will heal us and restore us to balance, if we pursue it in earnest. We now realize that we have not been living up to our full potential as human beings.
We made a decision to turn our will, and our lives, over to the care of our higher interior power. We become open to the possibility of embracing a new Truth for our lives. We want to access the power to continuously evolve, and we want to cultivate our heart to be more loving to ourselves and to others. We decide to let go of ANYTHING that impedes our progress towards happiness, healing and wholeness. We realize that without the deepest of desires, and intentions, to change our behavior, we will not be transformed.
We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. We have lived a life without a high sense of self-esteem, and we have made unfortunate choices because of the scarcity consciousness that has resulted from it. We realize that when we find the blocks to our evolution, and become willing to remove them, our new found insight will guide our paths with precision to the Truth of our existence. This is our entrance onto the path of mindfulness and higher consciousness.
We admitted that we were not being truthful with ourselves and with others, and by talking with another who we may trust, yet not be beholden to, about our errors in judgement and in actions towards our self and others, we can better deal with the shame and self-judgement that so often arises from the deadly secrets that we once felt that we must keep. Just by honestly talking with someone else, our burdens can be lifted. Our secrets need no longer keep us imprisoned, and mentally ill. When two or more people come together in the spirit of truth and honesty, mutual compassion and empathy also become part of the gathering.
We became entirely willing to let go of our attachments to unhealthy attitudes, behavior, and people. We wish to see clearly, without the limitations of our past, of our family history, and of our cultural conditioning, with all of their embedded trauma.
We open our hearts through humility and the willingness to change to embrace a new possibility for our life. Our new found sense of connection with our higher interior power inspires us to become more grateful for the gifts that we now have, and we are now spiritually preparing to finally give back to the world in a meaningful, positive way. We want to finally let go of all of the emotional charged memories which keep us trapped in a dead past. Rejoice, for the old demons are being transformed into the new angels!
While we were unconscious to our higher potential as human beings, we brought emotional, spiritual and perhaps even physical harm to other innocent beings, and we want to try bring healing and peace to those who have suffered from the effects of our ignorance. We realize that through the mirror of all of our relationships, dysfunctional or otherwise, we are granted a view into how we truly see ourselves. We want to see through the eyes of Truth, and not through the pain and suffering that unfulfilled relationships may have brought to us.
We made direct amends wherever possible to all people we may have brought harm to, except when to do so would bring further injury to them or to others. Our guilt will not be assuaged at the expense of others. We make full application of our new found wisdom, and our renewed desire to bring no harm to any sentient being. We want our world, and our own personal sense of self, to feel safe from further attacks from us, and our honest disclosure of our mistakes to those impacted by our errors in judgement will continue to support that intention.
We continued to take personal inventory, and, when wrong, promptly admit it. We have become honest with ourselves. We practice mindfulness, and continue to develop our capacity for insight into ourselves. We now know ourselves, and we now know many of the potential impediments to experiencing and expressing the Truth of our being. We no longer solely abide in old modes of thought, and now we are more focused on the beauty of the present moment.
We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with the Truth of our being, praying only for knowledge of Truth, and the willingness to live within its infinite domain. We now understand that this whole process of recovery is a meditation on life, and that the evolving, healing life that we are now experiencing is our living prayer. Each time we drink from the deep interior waters revealed to us by meditation, more of our painful dreams are dissolved. We finally realize that the capacity to change, to evolve, to grow in our infinite spirit is the whole point of our human existence. We are now traveling upon new paths of consciousness.
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we attempted to carry our message of recovery to our world, while continuing to practice these principles in all our affairs. We have finally become whole, and are now conscious, caring human beings. We have accepted full personal responsibility for our lives, including healing our past, and keeping our present balanced and harmonious, and we no longer blame others for who we are now. We are now experiencing prosperity on many levels, and have witnessed the healing of ourselves. We have saved the world—from ourselves. Our life is now our truest teacher. We realize that we have no power to bring salvation to others, yet, it is our responsibility to point to the way of healing for others who may still be suffering, and who may finally become interested in overcoming their own limitations.

Without the light of love, and connections with each other and our world with our full heart and soul, whatever threads we are holding onto will break, and the Minotaur will have won.

What is our choice?

Chapter 2: To Be Born In A Forgotten Past, To Be Reborn In The Now (check other version before submittal)

“The past is not real, it is only a collection of related assumptions”—-Elisha Scott

We are about to take a creative, whirlwind tour through history, dating back to , perhaps, a million years ago or more. The last thing I want to do is to create “alternative facts” and implant false memories that were never real, just like the ignorant biblical scholars, malicious fake news generators and conspiracy theorists of today attempt to do. The best way to get to new answers to old questions, is to discard the old questions, and ask new questions. So, here we go!

What was our mental atmosphere like back then, when mankind was first becoming conscious?
With humanity’s dark history, the survival of the fittest evolutionary imperative, and the fear of dangerous animals (which includes human strangers not of one’s tribe and not prone to collaborative behavior) what can we speculate about the original nature of that consciousness?
Based upon our present understanding, could one surmise that trauma and suffering has-been with mankind from the beginning?
Is the Garden of Eden story, and many other myths and legends from other cultures, merely stories created by ancient peoples seeking the same answers?

The previous questions are riddled with assumptions, and the answers that we might supply to questions of this nature are subject to both speculation and revisionist history. We must apply the tools of historical, anthropological, sociological, psychological, mythological, cinematic, and spiritual analysis and discernment in any endeavor of this nature. I will only touch upon the highlights of this epoch of mankind, and you should not believe me, any more than you might believe the scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and biblical writers who have already undertaken their own studies and vain attempts at understanding.

We only need to look within ourselves, and to our pasts, to see how uncertain our memories are, and extrapolate that to our human history, which is also plagued by short term, medium term, and long term memory loss. We can see how impossible it is to accurately recall and recreate memories from times long past, especially of the times when we were babies or children, though the recollections of others, coupled with insight can help in this daunting journey of discovery. Yet, as the evolution of our biological being can be witnessed through observing the stages of the development of the human embryo through its birth, so might we be able to observe the historical, evolutionary unfoldment of humanity, replicated in a compressed form through our own unfoldment, from an unconscious state as a newborn baby into the consciousness of a personal sense of self, to see if a parallel understanding may be derived.

Without a recorded history, and supersubstantial archeological records, a careless investigation and exploration can become yet another Rorschach test for all inquisitors, and we will only mostly confirm what we already think that we know. We can attempt to create our best representation for what we think their truths might have been in the earliest iterations of mankind, the times that existed before there were verbal accounts being passed down through the generations. Even though our present history has only about 5000 years of written records, some cultures have historical narratives that appear to have been passed down for at least 30,000 years. The aborigines of Australia claim a 60,000 year narrative, while Central and South American indigenous peoples and their shamans also claim lineages of tens of thousands of years.

Western European civilization appears to be an outgrowth of the migration of African tribal members at least 13000-30000 years ago. Cave drawings in Spain and France show sophisticated art capabilities, and, apparently, versions of animal and spirit worship. Many ancient cultures created sculpted objects resembling the human penis, and the pregnant woman, so the need for fertility and the reverence for all associated body parts appears to be a fundamental need for our race. Other caves have been found showing even earlier creative endeavors. in a remarkable recent, though questionable discovery, a cave was discovered that is purported to possess chiseled storage cubicles dating back one million years ago, according to carbon dating. The human race has a long history, indeed, though finding a physical, or even spiritual, starting point is probably impossible.

The earliest human creatures spoke primarily with gestures, grunts, and body language, with their evolving vocal chords eventually joining in the conversation at some unknown point in the distant past. They eventually standardized certain verbal sounds, sounds that became words that were supposed to represent that which they were seeing, doing, using, or eating. Eventually mankind made the quantum leap to symbolic writing, where animal and plant forms once used to symbolically represent life were replaced by crude symbols, which eventually evolved into hieroglyphics, and then cuneiform alphabets. It must have seemed like magic to the first humans who realized, and then taught others, that their thoughts could be approximated and shared through words, and then an ever evolving symbolic representation.

It appears that the creation, or formation of a new world had been made possible through words and concepts that were arising in the evolving consciousness. Formerly, there were mainly biological systems with limited freedom of choice responding to environmental influences, with a more instinctual response to meeting the needs of the body, and of whatever family or community that existed. We could call that world the “real world”, as it dealt with the harsh realities of a world not yet under the subjugation of the human mind. With the advent of symbolic representation of the real world, a concurrent, though alternate “reality” was created which only existed in the minds of those entertaining those new concepts and symbols. To the point that this alternate reality created within the mind, both individually and culturally, matched up with the conditions of the real world, one could say that becoming verbally conscious was an amazing evolutionary leap for humanity. They now lived in two intimately related and interdependent worlds, that of their biology, and that of their minds.

Once symbology is introduced into the human mind, absolutely remarkable, if not miraculous, phenomenon start appearing. Consciousness expressing through symbology appears to have a self-organizing principle innate to it, and as it weighs and measures and assigns names to the objects of its awareness, a personal sense of being is also introduced into the biological system entertaining the symbology. Thus, the “word” or the act of first recognizing that a verbal sound or a specific set of symbols can represent an environmental influence is the initial generative force behind the creation, or the awakening of the personal sense of self.

I began this chapter with a question about when mankind first became “conscious”, and the story of Helen Keller is a remarkable account of that very universal process happening to a handicapped individual. Helen Keller gives an outstanding narrative of the beginning of her own sense of self, a new self which seemed to arise out of her more instinctual, or even chaotic biological response to life. Once she recognized that the letters W A T E R represented the substance that she washed with, and drank, her own unique sense of being herself also arose..Literally, understanding the word and its symbolism opened the miraculous door to her self, and both phenomenon seem to have arisen concurrently. Helen Keller’s new sense of self arose out of a life-giving and sustaining symbol, and she grew into a creative, profound, and spiritually wise human being, beloved by all who knew her. Literally the word “water” became flesh to her, covering her biological skeleton with the flesh of a life imbued with the meaning of words.

So far, neuroscientists have fount that there are no images, videos, or sound bites in our brains. There are only patterns of synapses firing. Everything our senses see, hear, smell, taste, and feel is converted into these patterns. This is the one and only way we know the world. The sight, warmth, and flavor of our favorite foods all exist for us only as synapses firing in specific patterns. Even the obsession for chocolate bars is just a pattern. Our brains process all sensory data in the same way, whether it comes from our eyes, ears, mouth, fingers, or nose, or even ares not under public scutiny. Any pattern in the world that our senses can sense gets mapped by our synapses in pretty much the same way.

Helen Keller’s , and our own, experience happened because our brains own activity became another source of sensory input. This one seemingly small change would allow our brains to become aware of their own processes, and themselves. To become conscious. And it would allow us–for the first time in history–to develop a sense of self. And this is a direct result of the profound mystery of the development of the word that is first recognized within an individual self, and then shared with others.

How do our brain do this, or is this a manifestation of something beyond the brain? Brains can process electromagnetic light waves, auditory sound waves, and molecules of aroma, but how, exactly, does it process the Word? Is just the sound of the word sufficient? As we now know, just the sound of the word IS NOT SUFFICIENT FOR THE CREATION OF THIS INTERIOR INSIGHT AND UNDERSTANDING. Something now is playing the keys of our brains interior synapses, and the music we hear is the melody of OUR SELF. Are our neural patterns actually creating our sense of self? Ha, the mystery remains, as well as our sense of self..

Once humans evolved consciousness, our internal sensations, emotions, and thoughts went online and became available to make us aware of who we are. Our internally observed neural activity told us:

what we like, and don’t like
who we love, and don’t love
how things make us feel, or how there is only numbness where feelings should be
what we think, and what we think about what we think
how, and maybe why, we behave the sometimes odd ways that we do
what we want, and how far beyond our moral boundaries we’ve increasingly gone to get it

Because this inward directed, self-sensing part of our brain can itself be seen as an input, we can be aware of ourselves being aware of ourselves being aware our ourselves, times infinity.

The experience of having conscious awareness happens on levels beyond the physical plane, without typical sensorial awareness. It can feel so extraordinary and exalted that it seems like it must be the result of something more than just brain chemistry, perhaps even a manifestation of something of an otherworldly, or even divine, nature. Our nervous systems are a vast universe of sensations, feelings, and thoughts. Conscious awareness has added a window to this interior dimension where the immeasurable and the unknowable may be accessed, caressed, or manhandled, by our sense of self.

Consciousness has completely changed the nature of our experience, as well as the state of nature across the entire planet. There are real mysteries here, what exactly is, or isn’t consciousness, and what does it feel like to have it?

It can be argued that once the mind of man finally became conscious of its own individual self, and then that others also might also have a self, it opened the doors to a collective mind that entertained and hosted the symbolic representations of all of the other individual life forms, human or animal, that it was witnessing, as well as it itself. It also opened Pandora’s Box, or the doors to all manners of mistaken judgement of others, and of self, opening the internal windows to illusion and fantasy, and that tragic fact of the unfoldment of consciousness remains not only a historical fact , but a present reality.

When was mankind’s first W A T E R moment? Some neurobiologists guess that it happened when our neo-cortex first came online, about 30-60 thousand years ago. I am not so sure. It could be said that individual man, and collective man, may have left its Garden Of Eden state with that same evolutionary unfoldment in consciousness.

In the mystical literature of the Bible, as recorded through the words of New Testament scribe John:

“The Word.became flesh, and dwelt among us”.

We cannot be certain as to what the first words taught to each other in the dawning times of human consciousness were, but by historical evidence, it would appear that the language of survival, defense, killing, eating, and sexual activity probably dominated early language building cultures.

With the advent of symbolic representation, our history was no longer totally dependent upon oral transmission, yet oral transmission still, to this very day remains a powerful, and primary, form of communication, especially for those not proficient in their reading ability, and lacking in intellectual and spiritual discernment. Words spoken in groups of people have infinitely more power in the present moment than words read from a book by an individual in the privacy of the home. We all have witnessed the remarkable power of the mob mind, and need only look at the insurrection on January 6, 2021 to see the absolutely insane, crazy making energy they can stir up within people disconnected from reality.

There are two or more sides to every story, and the epoch of mankind certainly could have been defined historically by its nearly infinite number of interactions between members of our worldwide community, past and present, and all of the resultant stories derived through those connections, be they ordered or chaotic in nature. But, in the interest of brevity and our need to create meaning and bring order out of apparent chaos of the limitless multitudes, we tend to select the stories that appear to not only carry the ethos of the age in which they originated, but also appear to support the perceptual agendas of the writers..

Our present civilization now proudly touts its written “recorded history”. History is created and maintained by the institutionalized powers, and transferred to all members of the community. Our history continues to be written to accommodate the prevailing victorious powers and understandings of the age in which it was first written.

In the distant past, and even today among the few uncivilized indigenous tribes left, the mother, father, and whatever tribe or supportive community transferred all of their wisdom and knowledge about hunting, weapon construction and use, tool construction and use, gathering, childbirth and rearing, wound care, fire building, and survival to the children, until they were of age, and could join their father, or their mother, in the daily grind, or branch out and seek their own fortune elsewhere. Today, our parents and our culture continue the same process, transferring their knowledge, sacred or otherwise, to our children. So, not only do we live in two worlds, we also have two identities to deal with. Our collective/cultural self and our individual sense of self are rarely one person, though both now travel with us, wherever we might travel. The civilized being is plagued by schizophrenia, whether we want to face that difficult truth, or not.

We have more than a biological evolution, we also have an ongoing emotional, intellectual, and spiritual evolution. Our latter history, which is written, shows our ability to philosophize, and to form creative narratives about what the world once was, what it is now, and where it might be going in the future. Our vision of what the world once was will always be just a best guess, and, just like now, our ancestors writing their own histories, proposed myths and legends to explain that which was pre-existent to their own lives. Our myths and legends serve us well in this regard, and many times they complement what we have discovered through all of the sciences, spiritual literature, as well as through our intuitive natures.

Who tells the story? Many times, the greatest, most courageous and intelligent heroes of our race remain anonymous, though their stories were captured by others.. They died before they could even create a story, thus the survivors, usually less qualified and relatively more uninformed, are the historians, and their story, not the story of the real heroes, are accepted as the narrative. Religious texts abound with such exposition. Our American history also has suffered under the need to present the prevailing propaganda of the time, as it looks back and interprets other’s historical accounts of what actually transpired, and molds it into a more self-supporting and self-aggrandizing cultural ethos and narrative.

When we were under the law of “survival of the fittest”, we really had to measure up, and use all of our physical, emotional, and intuitive resources at maximum power, coupled with community and individual knowledge (wisdom) to have any hope of not becoming a meal for a stronger and hungrier predator than we were, or a victim of a hunter/aggressor from another tribe.. Biologically, the men of our species usually were blessed with the greatest physical assets, while the women, through their capacity for becoming impregnated, were the carriers of the species future, plus messengers from a deeper realm of human potential through their heightened intuition and Earth centered wisdom. Women within many ancient cultures were regarded as healers and carriers of “medicine”. They were loved, honored, respected, and protected by the community for those very reasons. Modern anthropological studies continue to confirm that early indigenous women were held in at least as high esteem as the hunter/gatherer/warriors of ancient times, so it can be surmised that in our pre-history the balance of the masculine and the feminine through mutual understanding, acknowledgement, and equality existed and supported the good for all.

The larger the community became, the more the equilibrium between men and women became disturbed, Size indicates prosperity, and the bigger communities either traded with friendly neighbors, or were attacked by others seeking to help their own tribes. As our history shows an almost universal, steady progression of conflict and war, cultures took their strongest citizens and made them into defenders, or aggressors, to preserve the tribe’s rights to resources, which were usually scarce. Biologically, the male warrior usually was considered as the best choice, and a whole consciousness eventually developed around that difference in biology. The best male might be considered the one who brings home the most game, gather the most berries, raise the most crops (a more recent development) and/or are most fearless and aggressive, within certain community proscribed limits. The best female might be considered the one most willing to support the hunter/gatherer and the defenders, through family support, maintenance of the home, meal preparation, healing of wounds, and birthing and raising the family, especially while the men go about their business.

Yet, mankind’s story, when told by the historical progression of women, would be much different than the story told by the history that men might present. History is rarely described and defined by the ones who were stuck at home caring for the wounded and the children, by the submissive ones, by the artists or sculptors, or by the losers in any conflict. Our history is no different, being described, and defined, by those in power, which are predominantly white male influences..

There is an imbalance within the field of the human spirit. Masculine energy has dominated our specie’s relationship with the universe, the world, the plants and animals, and with each other for most of recorded time, and well before the human race had any capacity to keep records. Men carried the seed for life, yet they did not have the love, respect, and nurturing ability that the female of the species seemed to naturally possess. Was this merely an environmental response, or a biological response, or a combination of the two?

In the Hebrew based mythological story of The Garden Of Eden, we even see the beginning of male denial and scapegoating of the female for listening to the voice of the serpent, which now becomes the voice for the development of consciousness itself. With eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man, and woman, now may hesitantly approach divine knowledge, yet forever remain outside of their original ignorant unconscious state of being. The “flamings swords of the cherubim” guard the Garden and keep us out, for eternity.

The serpent in the Garden of Eden remains a fascinating, enlightening archetypal image. The serpent is always in contact with the ground, or with the limbs in the trees, depending upon where it lives, so it serves as a great metaphor for those in continuous contact with our planet. And, mothers have a much more earth centered understanding of life, being the bearers of human life itself, so the snake is also a metaphor for the earth centered and connected woman. As the Earth gave life to us, so did the woman give life to the human. Women learned early about the Earth’s capacity to heal us, through judicious application of its plants and herbs, and spiritual awareness and empathy. Women tended to see a more complete picture than did the men, due to the very constitution of their neural networks. Women tended to see the forests and the trees, while the men remained obsessed about the trees. And, in a later development, the more earth attuned women were actually persecuted and burned at the stake for being witches.

The serpent is also recognized for the way that it winds around its victims, or coils before it strikes. It is an obvious reference to the cunning nature of thought itself, winding around its victims, and coiling before it strikes. Our limited thinking, even with all of its knowledge, attempts to baffle us with its bullshit, while it instinctively strikes out at others when feeling threatened. The serpent metaphor does successfully represent our biological and instinctual needs, like our unevolved thinking nature, our natural reflexes, our unenlightened sexual activity and our need for self preservation. In some early cultures, the serpent was even worshiped as a God, or even feared as the devil, probably because of the pain, suffering, and sometimes death that ensued from failing to follow its edicts, such as avoiding contact with others, or thoughts within ourselves, of a poisonous nature.

Before I enter the portion discussing the Common Knowledge Game in detail, it is beneficial to provide some information about the physiological similarities and differences in the brain between men and women, and how we process information and express ourselves, as a result of those differences and similarities. I will also post some quotes from the New Testament of the Christian Bible, to show how men have attempted to suppress the nature of the feminine, both within the women in their lives and culture, and within their own “masculine” minds. Both of these factors have ultimate importance in the Common Knowledge game, providing the basic foundation for perception for our collective consciousness, and unconsciousness.

Wow, there really is a difference! How did THAT get in there?!

It’s no secret that men and women are different, biologically, historically, emotionally, and spiritually, and extend beyond what the eye can see. Research reveals major distinctions between male and female brains. Scientists generally study several areas of difference in male and female brains: including structure, activity, processing, and chemistry. The differences between male and female brains in these areas show up all over the world, but scientists also have discovered exceptions to every so-called gender rule. Some men are very sensitive, immensely talkative about their feelings, and naturally eschew the masculine way of doing things. As with all gender differences, no one way of doing things is better or worse. The differences are simply generalized differences in typical brain functioning, and it is important to remember that all differences have advantages and disadvantages.

The male and female brain are structurally different. “Structural” refers to actual parts of the brain and the way they are built, including their size and/or mass. Females often have a larger hippocampus, our human memory center. Females also often have a higher density of neural connections into the hippocampus. As a result, women tend to input or absorb more sensorial and emotive information than males do. Women tend to sense a lot more of what is going on around them throughout the day, and they retain that sensorial information more than men.

Before birth, the male and female brains develop somewhat differently, with the right and left hemispheres of the male and female brains showing distinctive paths of development. Females tend to have verbal centers on both sides of the brain, while males tend to have verbal centers on only the left hemisphere. This is a significant difference, as females tend to use more words when discussing or describing objects of their concern. Males have fewer verbal centers in general and have less connectivity between their word centers and their memories or feelings. When it comes to discussing feelings and emotions and senses together, women tend to have an advantage.

Another difference worth looking closely at is the activity difference between male and female brains. The female brain, in part thanks to far more natural blood flow throughout the brain at any given moment (more white matter processing), and because of a higher degree of blood flow in a concentration part of the brain called the cingulate gyrus, will often ruminate on and revisit emotional memories more than the male brain. Males, in general, are designed a bit differently. Males tend, after reflecting more briefly on an emotive memory, to analyze it somewhat, then move onto the next task. During this process, they may also choose to change course and do something active and unrelated to feelings rather than analyze their feelings at all. Thus, observers may mistakenly believe that men avoid feelings in comparison to women or move to problem-solving too quickly.

Scientists have discovered approximately 100 gender differences in the brain, and the importance of these differences cannot be overstated. Understanding gender differences from a neurological perspective not only opens the door to greater appreciation of the different genders, it also calls into question how we parent, educate, and support our children from a young age. None of us are doomed to remain tethered to a solely male or a female perspective, though our culture and our religions certainly have dedicated much time, historically, to maintain the status quo and the division between the sexes.

There appears to be a physiological reason in the brain for why men and women see life differently from each other. Men and women tend to process information and emotions somewhat differently. Women tend to think more globally, and outwardly network with others, and also within all centers of their own brains, better than males. Yet, there are aspects of many styles of processing available to both men, and women, depending on their own internal natures, and intentions. And, through proper training, intention, and insight, men can actually process information and emotions in more intelligent, balanced, loving manners. And men can become much more interested in, and sensitive to the needs of others, and their own emotional needs, if this becomes a conscious intention for them. Studies have also shown that the internal nature of all brains can be changed, even after one reaches adulthood. Men can become much more “feminine” in the way their brain processes emotions and information, showing the powerful transformative force that conscious “nurture” has upon “nature”.

The bible has so many revealing statements and texts about the subjugation and disempowering of women, all in the name of maintaining “Godly” relations. The Christian bible is replete with aphorisms and statements relegating women to the background of the “church”, and in all relations with life. This oppression of women, and repression of so-called “feminine characteristics” within the male have been historically inculcated into the history and traditions of so-called “religious people”, and it reflects in the diseased and imbalanced relationships between some Christian and Jewish bodies of thought, and the world in general.

These religious principles have also become established as conscious, and unconscious, norms for perception within the collective consciousness of America, and mankind in general. Just having a political and philosophical need to keep the church and the state separate is not quite enough, apparently, to establish healthier norms for relationships between the sexes. And, an unfortunate and dangerous outcome to this division between the man and woman is that the man is unconsciously conditioned to see the ‘feminine” aspects of himself in an objectified manner, and tries to oppress, control and dominate those aspects, emotions, and tendencies as if those parts were his “Christian wife”, rather than integrate them into a complete holism within himself.

For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.-—1 Peter 3:1
Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a world by the conduct of their wives-–1 Corinthians
The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church—-1 Timothy 2:12-14
I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.—-1 Timothy 2:
To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.“—–Genesis 3:16

So how on Earth, or in Heaven, do we bring balance back to ourselves, and with our relationships to each other, with our men and women, and with our planet Earth?

Before I leave this discussion about myths and our origins, and the differences between the sexes, I would like to speculate that if I had a different early childhood, and if the first word that I learned was the unifying, life giving word W A T E R, rather than the conflicted, confused, sometimes abandoned experience that I had around the words M O T H E R and F A T H E R, I too, might have had a much less fragmented understanding of life, and a more positive experience as a child and young adult. My early life experience and how consciousness ordered my sense of self was definitely not of the same nature as the beloved Helen Keller’s, though I was at least was loved by my grandparents, parents and pets.

Once we become conscious, there does not appear to be any obvious way of going back to permanent unconsciousness of our self, except through neurological damage or disease. Yet, many seekers of truth and knowledge throughout time have claimed that by meditating upon their body, their biology, and their breath, rather than the endless stream of words, thoughts, and concepts that seem to be constantly present, a door may open revealing the possibility of such an experience, however.

I propose that there is a way to be born again, but it is an unusual path, characterized by much pain and suffering, The aspirant must be absolutely disgusted with the past, willing to be freed from it, and to be open to new possibilities for a refreshed life experience.

Does anyone really know the way back “home”?

Would we return to a pre-verbal or non verbal state of being, or would we recognize words for what they are, and use them with more love and care, or perhaps a conscious blend of the two states? Perhaps we will discover that words only have limited, relative value rather than absolute value, in the search for our real origins.

Jesus, in the New Testament, proclaims:

“Unless you are born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.“, and
““It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”, and, finally
“My Kingdom is not of this world”.

So, even prophets and biblical writers understood the difficulty of such an undertaking.

Most of the human race continues to be born into ancient times, using the tools of ancient, unenlightened thought, and they embody a continuation of the same mental and material processes that our ancient ancestors practiced. There is an exciting alternative to the repetition and continuation of our human and personal history, however, but to be a part of that evolutionary leap, we must be “born again”.

Like the King James Bible, you don’t need to study my works to find the Truth, you just need to learn how to study yourself. You are the greatest teacher, healer, and redeemer that you will ever find, once you tune up your understanding. Have fun and learn, and then teach your children well! The rest of you? Well, you will do what you feel that you need to do, without question, and your learning will continue to come with much suffering and pain.

Why would anybody want to change, anyway?

I changed, because I was going to die, and I wanted to see if life had any lasting, eternal meaning. I had to stop telling Life solely what it meant to me, and be watchful and silent enough so that Life could reveal more of its undiscovered meaning to me. I had to let go of my misunderstandings of the words that I used, and applied to Creation that I had oppressed and limited by using them ignorantly..

Are you ready to transmogrify?

Welcome to the next chapter!

Chapter 3: Disrupting The Conspiracy Of Silence

“Our lives begin to end, the moment that we become silent about things that matter” —-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Choose wisely, oh mankind, the painful secrets that we must keep, if we choose to silently suffer, we will not awaken, but instead die anxious, lonely and asleep —- Elisha Scott

A conspiracy of silence is an agreement, either formal or tacit, between two or more parties not to discuss some matter nor to reveal any information concerning it, especially in order to avoid blame, embarrassment, or other discomfort. It also points to the promises that we keep that we may have never made consciously, and which become the strongest pillars supporting the platform of our culture. There are multitudes of societal requirements that are not written down, and we all unconsciously obey these edicts, edicts which we never would have obeyed, had we been given a conscious choice. They become either the shell that we must emerge from, or remain the ball and chain attached to our spiritual ankles.

According to the famous introduction to the movie “Alien”

“IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM.”

This statement, tragically, is also true on modern day planet Earth. We are all part of an economic, social, and religious system that not only cannot or will not hear our screams, but are also the causal agents behind much of the suffering that inspires our agonized cries. Calls to 911 or to 988 may work for some, but for most others that need help will ignore or bypass those options. Our unwillingness to speak, or to reveal our deepest, truest self revolves around issues of compromised senses of safety and emotional security, which are exacerbated by trauma, shame, and denial, and by our often times oppressive, life devaluing surrounding culture.

I started building a narrative around my life at a fairly late age, when I was about sixty years old, and I have developed a unique and rarely communicated perspective. My insight is derived from my personal involvement with toxic masculinity, toxic religion, and toxic capitalism, as well as my human capacity for healing from those wounds, and to be spiritually transformed. These issues are challenging to recognize and successfully address, due to thousands of years of cultural normalization of unacceptable attitudes and behavior, and a conspiracy of silence maintained to preserve and protect the status quo.

Personal family, and/or cultural toxicities tend to stay ignored, overlooked, or even denied by those with little time for insight, introspection, or interest in other people’s points of view on these troubling issues. Healing is not an option for many suffering people, who, for a variety of reasons, remain helpless, and tend to ignore personal responsibility for the healing of their problems.

We must ask difficult questions, and each of us begin the search for the truth of our existence.

What value is there to our life and to our story, if we refuse to tell the world about it?
What is the value of our love, if it is never shared with all others?
What is the value of our vocal abilities, if we neglect or refuse to use them, and what is the value of our voice, if we perceive that few care to listen to us anyway?

A Master Teacher once spoke to me, and said

No teacher shall effect your salvation, you must work it out for yourself”

This book represents my personal work towards that ultimate end.

I have had a target on my back for much of my life, and I never understood why until later in adulthood. Like most everyone else on this planet, I have been subjected to the family and cultural forces of oppression and repression and crazy making communication and behavior. I have found that most people do NOT appreciate feedback about their errant behavior, and if I wanted to make more ‘friends” and be accepted by groups of damaged people I certainly would not offer to the world this book. I would probably have written a vacuous book about

four minute meditations for success, or a
three step enlightenment techniques for transcendence in your spare time.

But that is NOT me. This book is not for people who want an easy life fix, or to stay grounded in their own unconsciousness, but instead for those who want to understand why they are not soaring upward into new dimensions of being and doing, for in the complete seeing, is the new being revealed.

My life has become a “Miracle Experiment”, in which I attempt to penetrate our cultural conspiracy of silence, the conspiracy that keeps mankind imbalanced and diseased, and prevents humanity from achieving its collective potential. Note that the title indicates that I am disrupting the conspiracy of silence rather than dispelling it, as the power of the collective experience still dominates human consciousness. My life was not lived in vain, however, for I am a part of a massive movement to heal the American soul. I will continue to write, and to speak out, until I am no more.

Over the years, I became deeply disturbed by the developments within our shared world, within my individual consciousness, and the points of connection between self and other, through language, religion, and philosophy, that have created oppression, repression, and personal and social disease. Within myself, I have seen how a lifetime of oppression, and repression, had brought about self destructive addictive cycles and suicidal ideation. I saw how a dark force, common to all of humanity, lived, moved, and had its being enshrined within my own heart and soul. I also saw how the medical, economic, religious, cultural, political, and spiritual traditions had failed to honor and provide for my most fundamental, innermost needs of being valued for my basic essence, and to have my voice listened to by those who occupy positions of power and influence..

Virtually all of humanity has experienced oppression, repression, and personal and social disease at some point in their lives, and we have been both the victims, and the conscious and unconscious perpetrators, of this broken behavior. We have all attempted to manage our symptoms in our own unique, yet all too often broken and dysfunctional ways.

I wanted to help myself, my father and several of my male friends, to develop greater insight into these issues over the years, but I did not find any consistent interest expressed by others. I knew that greater vistas were available for all of us, yet few had the time or energy to pursue them. I liken this process to a chick breaking out of an egg. It will die if it does emerge from its shell, yet Mother Nature usually gives it enough energy to do so. Like those chicks, our own faith in our spiritual connection will give us the energy to break free from our shells, yet many of us continue to die daily, at least spiritually, if not physically. I know this tragic truth intimately, as I am one of the multitudes who almost did not break free. Yet break free, I ultimately did, through a rather dramatic, almost miraculous process that was mysteriously connected with my long term friend, Marty C.

Marty and I, and our wives, and one other couple shared a friendship group for twenty-five years together, and Marty and his wife Eddy also shared a book club experience with my wife Sharon and I for the last four years of his life., Marty and I were quite friendly with each other, yet rarely spoke at great length or depth, or showed extraordinary interest in developing a deeper friendship apart from our wives. I noted how his wife organized and dominated his life over the years that I had known him, and how she would all too often speak for him, or even verbally run over him in group meetings. It was common knowledge that when his wife was present, Marty would not consistently reveal himself and his own story, and he would instead defer to Eddy through his silence.

My own experience of Eddy was that she was usually quite encouraging to me, and willing to listen to what I had to say initially, but if I paused, or drew a breath, she would often fill the empty space with herself, rather than wait for me to finish whatever message I might be trying to deliver, and all further communication would end between us. Eddy was not a bad person, or intentionally oppressive, yet her relationship with Marty exhibited how repressed people remain that way, until they break free of the shackles on their own voice box, and assert and affirm their presence in public.

Marty (center), Sharon, and I the day before Marty died, September 11, 2017

Marty was living on borrowed time, having malignant melanoma, though he was in a period of remission from 2013 through 2017. Marty began to show great interest in my Facebook posts beginning late in 2016, and this opened the door to a different level of sharing between the two of us. We began to discuss difficult issues we had never touched upon before. I saw how similar Marty was to me, and that we both shared a hesitancy to speak our truth, even though we were both considered to be intelligent people. Marty acknowledged to me that he was stuck, and hoping to have a spiritual breakthrough, yet felt helpless as to how to make it happen, short of a miracle occurring. I still was stuck, too, yet I had hope that I might be able to marshal the necessary spiritual resources to take me to the next level. Little did both of us know how inextricably intertwined our own life processes were about to become.

On January 11th of 2017, I had my first seizure. I awoke at 2:45 in the morning, and went into my office and sat down. Suddenly, I lost all ability to move, and to even think, though I remained quite aware during this approximately one minute process. It was then that I became aware of a black mass, almost the size of a golf ball, in the left portion of the brain area of my inner field of body awareness. This was the first time that I had awareness of the life energy field of my body since my only other experience of it in July of 1987. I became quite concerned by this whole experience, though I kept it to myself initially. Every subsequent time I looked internally, I could still see the dark mass. The next month, I had yet another seizure, this time much milder, and in a public setting, while playing cards at a mutual friend’s home. I did not talk about the seizures, or the black mass, initially, because I thought that I might be losing my mind. I later began talking about it with my wife, and some friends, and it was theorized that it might be related to something spiritual or psychic in nature. But I came to know it as death, at least in a spiritual sense. I saw that there was no negotiating with it. Prayers, meditations, affirmations, reading, talking with others, nothing seemed to have any impact on the dark mass. I knew that some sort of spiritual death was coming my way, and I felt little need to discuss it with a doctor, though I did tell my family physician that I feared that my own death might precede my father’s, when I took my disabled father to see her on January 17th of 2017.

On March 5, 2017 our friend Marty also suffered a seizure and was hospitalized at OHSU (Oregon Health Sciences University). Marty had been in a four-year recovery phase from malignant melanoma, a process first diagnosed in late 2012. He appeared to have been successfully treated with Interleuken II therapy, a powerful immunotherapy regimen. Now, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, a8th golf ball sized tumor in his left brain hemisphere, and it would need to be surgically removed. Sharon and I visited with Marty in the hospital. Marty and I talked about our seizures, and I was struck by the similarity of his seizures with my own. I told Marty that my perception was that Death was making itself known to me, through the dark mass that I could see in my own energy field. I hoped that Marty’s mass did not indicate a death for him. Yet, this was to begin the era of death terrors for my dear friend, and I was to experience my own peculiar version of the terror, as well.

That next day, Wednesday, at noon, I had an episode of anxiety of such intensity, and duration, that I dared not even attempt to get up from the couch. I had previously arose from the couch, and briefly lost consciousness, yet I still had no desire to get a doctor involved.

Sharon came home later that afternoon from her creative writing class, and found me quite compromised. She listened to my story, and accepted my decision not to seek further medical attention, since this was perceived as a spiritual crisis, while she offered her own love and care. She monitored my blood pressure, and when she noted that my breathing became shallow, she offered me a paper bag to breathe into, lest I sink into a panic attack. Each time I tried to get off the couch, I became dizzy. I continued feeling physically subdued, and the anxiety reaction continued with my body/mind. I then began losing my ability to talk. It took all of the power that I could muster to force words out. It was reminiscent of a time 31 years before, when for two days I had an event that prevented me from speaking during my trip through the underworld.

The present time, I actually felt like my consciousness was trying to escape, and it took all of my resources just to hold it together. I characterized this present event to my wife Sharon as losing my mind.

I did not want anything to do with another neurological exam, having been through that horror several years before, when I had experienced excruciating headaches. I tried to go about my normal activities, while being grateful that I did not have to provide care for my disabled father, whose care that week was taken over by others. Thursday came, and I had not improved much. It also was the day that Marty’s tumor was being removed. I had dual concerns, for Marty, and for myself. I went about my limited daily activities as best I could, but I became quite conscious of my own fear and anxiety around Death, both of my self, and of Marty.

I continued to listen to the spiritual wisdom tapes of some of my past teachers, hoping to hear something that might bring me comfort. Jack Boland was one of my favorites from the 1980’s. He was a nationally renowned speaker and master of the recovery process. I owned a tape where he referred to me personally, said he knew me, probably better than I knew myself. He then stated on the tape that he wished pain, not peace of mind, to all who had not yet fulfilled their interior spiritual obligation to cleanse their hearts, as this is the great precursor to any lasting spiritual progress . Those who understand this statement

UNDERSTAND.

And here I thought that I had already performed that process! How wrong that I was.

After yet another nearly sleepless night, I got up and sat in the family room, and awaited for Sharon to join me . My life’s message was bubbling up within me, and I felt a compulsion to share it with my world. Yet I also knew that there were few, if any, people presently in my life who had the time, or even the interest, in listening to what Spirit was trying to pour through me. As I lay out on the couch, feeling my own emotional/spiritual death about to overtake me, I cried out in despair to Sharon.

“Sharon, please share my message, since I don’t have the capacity to deliver it in a way that others could hear, or understand!”.

Sharon looked at me with acceptance, love, and compassion. Sharon had been listening to my story for close to thirty years, and she had witnessed me sitting on my voice, and my occasional connections with THE MYSTERY, for most of that time.

“Your message is your own, and it must be spoken through you, or it will never be delivered!”

Even my tears, and begging, would not change her mind. I was in such pain and agony, that I knew that I could not go on with my life… I had the perception that people experienced me as less of a human being than I am, starting with my own loving, but diseased father, followed by a steady progression of angry, and sometimes hateful, judgmental male and female power figures (with a few notable exceptions), and I did not know how to act or feel differently. My voice had been silenced by myself and others, even in many settings where spiritually aware, conscious people gathered to celebrate ‘connection’.

This loving act on her part by refusing to speak for me was instrumental in the recovery of my ability to speak and to write. I could not let myself die again emotionally and spiritually, so I asked my Spirit how to best deliver my message.

A prayer from my past, first created from a dream in 1992, formed in my mind

“Grandfather, Great Spirit, Thank You”.

All of a sudden, I was COMPELLED to write, and I did not stop writing until fifteen pages of a story were written by me. My Spirit chose the format of a parable, perhaps because part of me perceived that it would be discarded, without reading, by those who already believed that they knew me… It took less than two days to write, and it was the first story that I have ever written.

The dark mass in my field of body energy disappeared, coincidentally at about the same time that Marty’s tumor was surgically removed.

To this day, I remain healed of that darkness, though I am often compelled to write, and to share with, the One who listens.

The process of writing this book has been a great challenge for me. I am learning about writing, while also learning a lot about myself and my world through this process. What I have learned is that much of my early life can be characterized by the hypnotism or mesmerizing of me through all traumatic influences that I experienced. Trauma’s most damaging impact upon a human being is its capacity to attenuate, or even block, normal emotional expression and interchange with others, It stifles my willingness to communicate with others. And, this unexpressed energy is stored within the body and mind, creating black holes of negative influence, sucking away opportunities for healthy bodily function, and happy human interchange.

The investigation of personal trauma, my response to it, and my search for truth is an exercise in compassion, understanding, and healing, and need not be maudlin in nature., My intention for this writing was not to bring harm to myself, or to just indict the world and dismiss it in anger and resentment, but rather to bring a message about the suffering that the world so casually creates, and then denies its own culpability. I want to give voice to the millions who have already died, went insane, or have been imprisoned because of our shared disease of the spirit, and the collective conspiracy of silence around society’s and religion’s responsibility for it. My hope is to give a voice to the suffering of our world, while pointing in the direction towards where our healing might be found.

In July of 2021, after I finished the underworld chapter of 1986-1987, I took a long drive in my sports car. Typically, I find great joy and happiness through such a drive, but this time there was no such release. As I slowed down and began to end the drive about an hour from home, a dove changed direction, and flew to my car, and led me for about 20 seconds, until I stopped the car. I wondered what this experience meant.. I then remembered that In spiritual circles, the dove leading me meant that my guiding spirit was still with me, forever leading me back onto the paths of peace and healing. I cried for two minutes. And, with the tears, I found forgiveness and compassion for myself.

What greater gift to self can there be?

This book may not be for the healthy, wealthy, and wise among us. It is designed, however, for those seeking to create their own unique bridge to our healing potential.

The search for truth continues.

May you find what you are looking for.

There are times shells, or walls, are necessary, but more often we can rote the ourselves by being who we are. Neither hiding nor revealing ourselves will prevent our share of pain, but in being who we are, we get to be part of the Universal stream, not just a nut in a shell waiting to fall.–Mark Nepo

We must speak truth to power, or lose our breath, and become oppressed and overcome by it.

We don’t have to die to find our final freedom.

True freedom is the path, and the goal, of all healthy life experience, and the only reason that I am still here.. . .

The world, if it could muster a collective opinion, would probably prefer that I just have a joint and/or a few drinks, or await an imaginary empyrean realm after death, and just move on with the daily drudgery of existence..

Such is the way of our traumatized, disillusioned world.

Yet, we have other choices.

We can be healed.

Not only did humanity make it to the moon (why do moon landing deniers even exist?), each of us also has the potential to reach God, Truth, Love, Compassion, Healing, and Light, after we leave the launchpads of our own lives. My goal in life was certainly not to become a diseased human being, attempt recovery from that disease, write a book about the process, and, establish myself as an authority on subject matter that makes me irrelevant to all who have no interest in healing or in my journey. Life is more about building a better state of consciousness, with enhancing the life-affirming qualities, and the cultivation of greater insight, than the books that get written, and the foes that get smitten.

Literally, the words of my story are the vapor trails of my journey through the space and time, and no one should set out as a goal to just chase my trails, or anyone else’s, for that matter. We are all capable of making our own unique paths on our journey to the higher dimensions of our life experience and its supporting consciousness, and we can develop the willingness to share those inspired words with others… Through our resonance with the wise ones of our age, and of all ages, we may yet drum up sufficient support for a healing change in collective and individual consciousness, before our planet fails, and our civilization collapses upon itself.

This book is written by a man who never had anything to say, or a desire to say it, until nearly dying in 1986. It only took another thirty five years to finally put life experiences to words, after more brushes with DEATH.. Death is the final and greatest frontier, and motivator for the procrastinator.. Early death threatens everybody, including our planet Earth. It will be noted that on several occasions in this book, I will be speaking up for Mother Earth, as her voice has been drowned out by the American Capitalist concerns coupled with the pseudo-Christian religious beliefs and their historical malpractice that dominates our time..

What is your choice?

I have been criticized, especially by my own self-talk, yet I still find a way to thrive, in spite of the ill informed opinions and ignorance of others, and my conditioned reluctance to speak my truth..

Speak our truth, and hold our self, and others, accountable. How else do we find the potential for healing?

Climate change causes our world to burn

Gun fire and murder makes our stomachs churn,

billionaires rape our civilization while they over zealously earn

Lonely, grieving hearts can only ache and yearn

And, our world continues to fail to learn

The deadly Conspiracy Of Silence continues, are you part of it?

Develop a healing message,

Walk the talk,

Share the journey with others.

Prepare for the indifference, and to be ignored by many friends and family members, blog subscribers, and Facebook friends.

Prepare to share love with the multitudes of fellow travelers on this lifelong journey.

Sometimes, the salvation of this planet, and our self, demands that we speak our truth, act upon it with others, and, finally, grow into the somebody that we were destined to become.

Are we ready to be liberated from our pasts, and claim our spiritual inheritance?

I am!!!

But first, let’s take a long walk on my wild side.

Speak not of evil, see no evil, hear no evil, HEAL NO EVIL

Chapter 4: 1986 And My Search For Truth

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won’t understand

Don’t accept that what’s happening
Is just a case of others’ suffering
Or you’ll find that you’re joining in
The turning away

It’s a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting its shroud
Over all we have known

Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we’re all alone
In the dream of the proud

On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite in a silent accord

Using words, you will find, are strange
Mesmerised as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside

Just a world that we all must share
It’s not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there’ll be
No more turning away?

Written By Pink Floyd

It remains no mystery to me as to why many people choose continued addiction, or suicide over recovery and healing. Invisible wounds are the hardest to heal and the easiest to stay in denial about their life-threatening potentials. I was starting to see the end of my own road, with my out-of-control car crashing through all of the safety guardrails and continuing the race towards the finish line of my dead-end life. I knew that my problems could not be solved, at least not on my level, and I knew of no other levels that were accessible, or available to me. The time period of January of 1986, through March of 1987, was to become the time container for my descent into the furthest reaches of hell and darkness.

I moved back in with Randy, my lifelong friend, in December of 1985, after ending my relationship with my latest relationship mistake, Alcindia in a rather dramatic fashion, and I continued to stay with him until March of 1986. He had relocated into a smaller apartment in Beaverton, from the apartment that we had shared in 1984, after my divorce from my first wife, Donelle. (note: at this point, Donelle, though still quite mentally ill, was no longer living on the streets of Portland as a homeless person). On January 26th, 1986, after yet another night of fighting depression with the hops and yeast antidepressants, I woke up upon Randy’s living room couch at 8:45am, with him emerging from his bedroom, screaming to my clouded mind:

“BRUCE, WAKE UP AND TURN ON THE TV!! THE CHALLENGER JUST EXPLODED!!!”

Challenger Explosion January 28, 1986

After watching that horrific event over and over, I had the crushing realization that my life was also over. Of course, to me, the explosion of the Challenger represented the final destruction of my childhood dreams of becoming a US Air Force pilot, and, ultimately, a NASA Astronaut. I saw mirrored in the Challenger disaster the total destruction of all of my hopes of realizing my life’s potential, and I made the decision right then and there to end it all, and fulfill a 15 year pledge that I had made to myself when I was just 15 years old. I had known since then that I was a hopeless alcoholic and drug addict, and if I could not shake the disease by age 30 (and if the disease itself had not already killed me) I would take matters into my own hands. I just held on as best that I could for the intervening years, and I tried my best to adapt to my self-destructive life situation. I never told another soul of my self-imposed 15 year “pull date”, should I fail at sobering up.

I only needed to refill a prescription for some antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication that I already had secured from Dr. Dan Beavers, a psychiatrist that I had been seeing since 1985, and I was going to take them all at once, and call it a life. I went to the pharmacist, with the intention of seeing the deed completed immediately. While standing in line, I was to see Mike L. who also was at the same Fred Meyer pharmacy. Mike was Alcindia’s sister’s friend, who I had known through a few parties organized by Alcindia, and I started to share the smallest part of my story with him. He immediately shut me down, stating that he had no time for other people’s problems, which reaffirmed my understanding of the other people’s tendencies towards indifference to each other..

The pharmacist would not fill the prescriptions, however, even though I had one refill left on each one, and he told me that I needed to see the shrink again. I was not to be deterred. I scheduled an emergency visit to my psychiatrist for that afternoon. He perceived what might be happening within me, and he elicited a promise from me that I would not kill myself with the medication. Dr. Dan had just had another patient, Scott M. kill himself using the same medication that I had prescribed to me, and Dan was still grieving mightily, and could not tolerate another such event from a patient of his. So, he got the empty promise from me that I would not commit suicide. I immediately placed those pills under the front seat of my car, for easy access and immediate use, should the conditions of my life prove that it needed immediate termination. I never intended to take those pills as prescribed, instead telling myself that unless I found a reason to live, that I was leaving this planet, without a rocket ship. Thus, began my official “search for truth”.

The look of a new death experience.

JANUARY 1986 PASSPORT – How I looked near the day of my planned death

I called my old high school friend, Sean, who was still stationed in Madrid, Spain for the US Air Force. I was still suicidal, and told him that I had a fatal brain tumor, and that I was going to die soon. He offered for me to stay with him in Madrid for a while. The thought of a geographic change brought a little hope to me, so I secured my passport, and applied for my pension from the US Postal Service. I was going to take that money, and use it for airfare and support to get me to Spain.

I also filed for unemployment benefits, to help with my immediate income needs. I filed for bankruptcy, as I had no intention of meeting my financial obligations, which were immense. I had student loans, credit card debts, credit union loan debts, personal debts to my father, and other debts that totaled close to forty thousand dollars. I wanted the slate to be clear by the time I was gone, and bankruptcy seemed like the right process to engage in. The bankruptcy was to eventually become official on the exact day of my thirty-first birthday, November 20, 1986, the final day of the expiration year that I had long ago accepted to be my own.

I happened to run into DiDi again, in early February. when I was driving back to Randy’s apartment. I had known DiDi since 1981, and I had a brief, but intense relationship with her in 1984, after exiting the Care Unit. I saw her walking near her own apartment near the infamous Facet Tavern. I was see her again two weeks later at a bar in Beaverton, and we then decided to travel to the beach together to Seaside the next day to spend a few days together. She was somewhat distracted, and in the intervening eighteen months since I seen her last she had deteriorated in her appearance, looking a little worn.

We traveled to Seaside together the following day, and I did not really know what to expect, other than there would probably be some more partying, and maybe some connecting on a more personal level. We drank at several local Seaside bars until late in the evening, until I no longer had any desire to drink anymore. I told her that I was going back to the hotel room, and left her the extra key. She stated that she wanted to keep the party going, and continued drinking and carrying on with some of the local folks. She returned to the hotel room at two in the morning, all excited about some new “friends” that she had made, and the great cocaine that they had shared together. She wanted to bring the two guys back into the hotel room to continue the party.

“No thanks, this is where I take my leave!”

I announced in a rather angry tone of voice. I grabbed my overnight bag, and headed towards home, even though I was drunk, almost to the point of being in a blackout. Somewhere along Highway 26, beyond the Elderberry Inn, I crashed my car into a guard rail, nearly going over a cliff in the process. I could not get out of the driver’s side door, it was so crashed in. I quickly got the car back onto the road, in my attempt to get home before any more trouble befell me. When I finally reached North Plains, I fell asleep at the wheel again, stepped on the accelerator, and rammed into the back of another car at freeway speeds. We both pulled over, and I was able to bribe the owner of the car not to call the police, since I was DRUNK, by writing him a check for $471, which was every last penny that I had in my checking account. My car was totaled, but somehow I was able to make it home, miraculously escaping death or a DUI citation.

Di DI called me a month later, wanting to talk, and wanting a copy of the love poem that I had given her two years before. When we met, she told me that the poem was the most beautiful gift that anybody had ever given her, and that she was sorry that she did not find the spot in her life for me. We both cried, and parted company on rather sad terms. We were never to see each other again. She died one year later, when she was killed in a drunken driving related automobile wreck in Lake Oswego.

I was to receive the retirement money by the end of March. By this time, my immersion into the Portland underworld was about to get underway. I felt under incredible obligation to repay my father what I owed to him, which was nearly $3,000. I no longer had enough money to give me sufficient support for a final trip to Spain, so I was stuck at home. I then began to travel the darkest, most desperate roads that our city had to offer. I needed every bit of my retirement money from working at the US Postal Service, where I had worked for close to ten years. This money supported me as I wandered through the city’s dark underbelly. I lived out of my 1977 Datsun 310, when I was not crashing in abandoned or empty homes with other homeless people, while connecting with all manners and types of damaged, and dangerous, people..

My mobile home 1986-1987, and nearly my morgue.

It is a funny thing, I was nearly dead, or so I thought, so I had little fear as I met new people and befriended them. Most were people who I never would have associated with in my more ordered past, but in this phase of my life, I did have a strong curiosity to get to know those who I would have avoided in the past. My only intention was to find the truth of living and of being , IF THERE WAS SUCH A THING, and I intuited that the Truth might be hidden somewhere in this darkness and unknown. I engaged will all types of individuals, and I had conversations with them about what life meant to them, and what they felt about God, Good, Evil, Darkness, Light, and human relationships.

I carried my suicide drugs under my car seat, so that when the pain got too real again, I would make my departure from my world of little or no meaning, no peace of mind, and extreme personal suffering. My Datsun sedan was to become my main home for the next year, having eschewed all associations with family, and friends from my past. This vehicle served me well.

I then began to undertake my own unique journey, which took me into Portland’s underworld community of drug manufacturing and distribution, homelessness, witnessing of crimes against self and other, associating with and befriending homeless teenage victims of sexual predators and child abuse, friendships with members of motorcycle gangs and their hit men, felons, murderers, and undercover federal agents, some of whom were still investigating the criminal tentacles remaining from the Stephen Kessler, Wayne Harsh era when in 1982 a prison guard was murdered during the famous prison escape from Rocky Butte Jail, and, also, when DEA records were stolen from a federal facility by the same, infamous, Stephen Kessler..

I ran with my new “friends”, and my only intention was to be the best person that I could be, while living out the final moments, days, or weeks of my life. My intention was to bring harm to no one, and to practice the 12 steps of AA, even while still avoiding recovery from drug addiction and alcoholism, which I had totally given up on ever successfully completing. My AA book, which I carried in my car wherever I went, would later come in handy, but not in the way Bill Wilson, the originator of AA, ever had in mind when he co-wrote it..

My first “realization” was that I needed to avoid sex. I committed to no new relationships with women, including no sexual encounters (pretty easy decision for me, as I was so beat up by my history of misadventures with women over the previous 14 years).

My second “realization” was that I could no longer smoke pot, because it made me feel paranoid, and wanting to keep isolated, and in my need to find ‘truth”, those characteristics were counterproductive. Pot also dulled my emotions, intellect, resourcefulness, and curiosity, and I needed those qualities of being to survive in my new world, with all of the new people who I was to associate with. I made a commitment to hang with the type of people who, in the past, I never would have befriended. The way I saw it, the people who I had judged against may well have had some of the answers that I was searching for. In my mind, I was already a dead man walking, so past fear of society’s undesirables receded into the background, and I now considered myself a fellow traveler in darkness.

I met well over a hundred new acquaintances over the next year. I spent hundreds of hours in conversations with all manners and types of emotionally disfigured human beings, the same human beings, that while living my life of “white middle class privilege”, I never would have associated with. Yet in my “final journey through life”, these oppressed, maligned, and misrepresented human beings became my best, and only friends. I was to later realize that the same spiritual disease that afflicted my underworld friends also terrorized my privileged white middle class friends, only the privileged had better ways to mask their disease from themselves and others.

Methedrine, crank, speed, go-juice, or one of any number of other street names of the same street stimulant became my primary drug of choice, as it made me feel “social”, connected and conversational with all others. I would not sleep for up to one week at a time, while running with my peer group. The Punjab tavern on Foster Road became my main hub or center for social contact with many of the social branches of the tree of death that I was now climbing. Many a night, and after hours’ parties, were spent with a revolving group of my new friends there, with a main core group of people who had mutual interests.

I don’t know how to tell the rest of this phase of the story, except for inserting a series of “vignettes”, where I am able to document and describe some of my major interactions with others. The following descriptions will, once again, appear fragmented and incomplete, which is a great descriptor for my life during this same period of time.

I will begin my story of the underworld with Ralph. Ralph was from Scappoose, Oregon, or so he said. He was the center point for much underworld activity, and I quickly became his friend, and driver, through many underworld adventures. Through him I met drug chemists, motorcycle gang members, hit men, armed robbers, practicing felons in possession of firearms, prostitutes, homeless victims of child abuse, heroin addicts, and Steve (not his real name), who was an undercover federal agent, and who would figure strongly in my future release from personal HELL. Steve deserves a story devoted all to his self, as he saved my life when I stood at the final brink, early in March of 1987.

I learned to really love Ralph, who was an incredibly damaged soul, and his excessive drug use would sometimes cause concern for me. I noticed that paranoia was creeping into his mind, and we would joke about it, but he became my first living example of the damage that excess meth use causes. He was one of my “protectors” in the underworld, and would redirect others who were tempted to bring harm to me, because I did not fit in too well at times with Portland’s dark underbelly, being too healthy looking, too educated, and too well spoken. My appearance would quickly change, however, as I lost 70 pounds, receding to 136 pounds by November. My big vocabulary betrayed me on several occasions, and I was counseled to use smaller words wherever possible. One time I was “busted” for using the word “magnanimous” while sitting at the bar, and I was told that people who use “quarter words” where a “nickel word” is enough were not welcome there.

One quick little story about Ralph before I leave him for now. Once, I had all four tires of my car slashed while parked overnight for a party with Ralph and his minions. Ralph put the word out on the streets that this was unacceptable behavior, and whoever did the deed would answer to him personally, and to lay off of that car. I felt strangely safe, and protected, while with Ralph, even though there were continue threats against my safety and well-being. While jacking up my car for tire replacements, I had to use my AA book to help with extra elevation, which attracted some strange looks from those who already thought that I was a stranger in this strange land. Hey, I had finally found a constructive use for the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I actually felt a little pleased with myself. Ralph told me to “ditch that evil book”, and I kept it hidden from all sight from that point on, though to this day, I still own that very same book.

AA Book, AKA extra car jack mount

In his appreciation for me, Ralph also offered to me Sarah, his long-term girlfriend, who he had an “open relationship” with. But I had already eschewed all connections with women, other than platonic ones, because I feared that they would distract me from achieving my goal of either killing myself, or finding some new truth that would sustain my will to carry on. But I did share many adventures with Sarah.

While hanging out with Sarah, we would occasionally visit incarcerated friends at the local jails. One day, she decided that we needed to visit Jake, who was being held in Clackamas County Jail until his transfer was completed to a federal penitentiary. I knew Jake on the outside, and he was always so kind and friendly towards me. I wanted so much to express my sorrow at his long-term imprisonment. It was on the way there that I learned that our “friend” was a “hit man” for a regional motorcycle gang that distributed drugs, and one ”hit” went horribly wrong for him, apparently.

Sarah and I snorted some of the latest designer meth creations from our favorite local chemist just before arriving at the jail. It was just after that I had either a stroke, a prolonged seizure, or I was struck dumb, and speechless, for two full days, perhaps by the realization of the potential danger that I was in. When we met Jake at the reception area for the jail, all that would come out of my mouth were awkward grunts and squawks. Yes, the stress created by the meeting, coupled with the drug interactions, probably caused my loss of the ability to speak, thus contributing to the “conspiracy of silence” that my own drug use and addiction enabled.

I cannot comment at length on Wayne Harsh (this is his real name) right now, as it would be inappropriate. I met Wayne one day while with Sarah, and he actually seemed to remember me from our childhood. The last time that I had seen Wayne was in the late 1970″s, when he was a Clackamas County Sheriff. I had seen him driving his police car, and I had thought, at the time, what a great coup it was for him to become a sheriff, based upon my limited understanding of who he was as a person. He and my childhood neighbor Jack Brownlee actually took a chainsaw to one of the fir trees supporting my tree house, causing it to fall in the woods. This was the same tree that I had fallen out of when I was in fifth grade, while waving to Jack’s younger sister, Marcia, who I could see in the next cul-de-sac from my elevated vantage point. Wayne and I talked briefly, yet I was not to befriend him under these conditions. I wish Wayne nothing but the best, and I remain unconvinced that he is the “bad person” that the press made him out to be, for supplying the getaway car to Stephen Kessler..

Hal was a tall, lanky fellow, who wore black rim glasses. He had always seemed to have a cigarette going, which was common with the crowd that I was now running with. Hal was the alternate transportation for Ralph, when I was unavailable. Hal lived in downtown Portland, near the Scientology office. We became friends for a while, and spent a lot of time processing information together about the insane people and situations that we were experiencing while hanging with Ralph and Sarah. There was never a dull moment, that was for sure.

Hal was from a devout Catholic family background. His family was economically disadvantaged (POOR), and Hal had to work even while in high school to help his mother make ends meet financially. He had taken four years of college, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in forestry, and he was no dummy, that was for sure. He had a strong work ethic, when he was employable, but now he was suffering from the after effects of some sort of emotional breakdown. To support his income stream, he peddled speed at some of the local strip bars and taverns. It was a high risk proposition, as he had to make exchanges with some really damaged people, as well as potential exposure to informants and snitches.

He tried to present a happy face, though whenever I saw him. I felt a strange, sad feeling. One time, while visiting him at his home, I saw a copy of his college degree from Oregon State University. His photograph was next to it, and it was only from six years previous. yet, he looked twenty-five years older now. I was a little surprised that I could feel my own heartbreak around the loss of human potential for somebody else, yet not even feel it for myself.

From time to time, we would get involved in discussions about religion, philosophy, psychology, and society, in between snorting lines of our latest shipments. He was the best person for animated discussions, which were accentuated by the stimulants that we liberally used together. Hal loved to make extensive commentary about the Pope, or about the state of American Catholicism. I would usually just listen to him after he got all “fired up” because I just did not share the same sense of oppression that he experienced because of his religion while he was growing up. I certainly was oppressed, no doubt, but at this point I did not have a really good clue as to why I felt that way.

He would always end his religious take downs by stating, unequivocally, that heaven and hell are right here on earth, nobody has to die to get there. Just look around, he would say, the evidence is obvious.

“I carry heaven and hell in my own mind, Bruce. I don’t need the Church to tell me how to feel, behave, or believe, for they just add more layers of hell for me to sort through to find my own little piece of heaven”.

“Hal, I don’t really follow the Christian religion, or Catholicism too much. I only know that I carry more than a nodding familiarity with Hell. Since I do not experience anything resembling heaven on earth, I guess that is why the church people hope that it exists after we die, because we sure aren’t drinking from its fountains right now!”

“Bruce, there was a time when I occasionally knew peace of mind, and that is when I first knew that I did not need any God, any Jesus and his crucifix, or any Pope to lead me into my own greater good. But after walking through this world for the piece of time that I have, I have somehow lost all hope that it will return anytime soon. The damage in the world is becoming the damage in my own mind. I despair that the world will ever change, and I doubt that any change is even possible for myself”

“Hal, wow, I actually might be your long-lost brother from another mother. I don’t have any answers. I stopped using pot because I wanted to see if it was preventing me from accessing important parts of myself. I use speed now, because it helps keep me engaged with the world in a more social way, yet I am no happier than I was before. I stopped using antidepressants last year, and now I am just riding this bucking bronco until I get tossed for the last time. I am not planning on picking myself up again, when I hit the dirt the next time.”

Yes, our discussions never ended on a positive, life-affirming note, but how could they? Hal was to get arrested, and charged with drug distribution, when another “friend” of ours, Cowboy Ron, snitched on Hal to save his own, sorry ass.

I won’t give Cowboy Ron the honor of much comment. No, I did not change Cowboy Ron’s name here. I only hope that he sees himself here someday, if he survived his own private hell. Cowboy Ron hurt a lot of people, including his wife and children, but that is another story, for another day. Sometimes the predator becomes the prey, and maybe that was what he was really looking for, in the end. People do bad things to hurt themselves, and other people sometimes just become collateral damage. I did not enter the underworld to judge anyone, including Cowboy Ron. I sometimes ran with the wolves, but this rabid dog challenged me in ways that made my flesh crawl.

Robert was a convicted armed robber, who was recently released from prison in May of 1986. One night, fate gathered us both together to sit at the bar in the Punjab tavern. The bar was a long, semi-circular arc, which seated up to 14 souls. The bar had two pool tables, and several tables and booths where people could be comfortably seated. And, there were several video games, which drew my attention at “after hours’ parties” where I was usually quite wired, and needing extra entertainment.

I was sitting at the bar yet again one evening, conversing with the owner Jack, who was to become another friend to me, when Robert slid in, and sat right next to me. He was dressed in a leather jacket, which was popular at that time, and fairly new jeans. He was about my age, 30 years old, and looked like he wanted to talk. Let us “tune in” to a conversation that we engaged in that evening:

Robert: Hey, I have a plan for this seat, is it OK for me to sit next to you for while?

Me: Why, of course! Where are you coming from, you appear to be already having a good time.

Robert: Well, tonight is the night for good times, for sure. I just needed to get out, and get some “fresh air” and hook up with some old friends. I have been out of the neighborhood for a long time, and I am hoping to find some old friends.

Me: Well, maybe a new friend might show up, say, right next to you this evening?!

Robert: That would sure be nice.

Me: My only requirements are that you are not a murderer, because if my life has to end tonight, I want it to be by my own hands (I said this half-jokingly)

Robert: Hmm, I was just released from prison, having spent ten years behind bars for a pretty famous robbery committed in 1975.

Me: Oh, really? You really made the news, eh? I think that your notoriety won’t get in the way.

Robert: Umm, I killed a man while committing the robbery.

Me: (gulping, I am feeling rather uncomfortable and stupid now, and my thoughts began racing). Robert, everybody deserves a second chance, let me buy you another beer, and let’s turn our attention to the present.

Robert: Sounds good!

We clink our glasses together, and each take a big drink. An ‘old friend’ of Robert’s comes up to the bar, and accompanies Robert into the restroom, leaving me at the bar. I ask the bartender for a shot of whiskey, which I quickly down, and then wash the bitter flavor away with a big drink of beer.

Robert returns to the bar, sans his “old friend”.

Me: Well, what is up for the rest of the evening?

Robert: (slurring his words noticeably, and his eyes had lost their luster) I think that I will just hang out here for as long as I can, then move on down the road a piece.

He then closes his eyes, and slumps down, face onto the bar. Then, he falls off of the chair, and tries to right himself on the floor.

Me: Bartender, I think that my friend here just got sick, should we call an ambulance?

Jack: Heck no, Bruce, he is right where he wants to be. If you could, please help him over to a booth in the corner where he can try to get his shit back together.

Me: Jack, did he just shoot heroin, or something? Why would he do that to himself? I just don’t understand, because I want and need to talk to people now, and that would be so counterproductive.

Jack: Bruce, SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST WAITING FOR A BETTER DAY. Today is not the better day for Robert, and it may never arrive for him.

Me: Wow, thanks for that, Jack, I did not really understand, but I think that I do now. Let me get him out of view before we all get into trouble.

The Conspiracy Of Silence claims yet another human being. The heroin completely shut him down to his humanity, and left me wondering what my own fate might be,.

This story goes on, through an almost endless array of struggling, spiritually darkened humanity. I will continue this story with many other human beings that I had the privilege, honor, and distress to meet and converse with. Each one of them helped me to find the next step on my own path to recovery, and to finally embracing the path to truth and love within my own heart.

Dorothy was a young woman in her early 20’s, who had two young children. I was invited over to her house one evening, and was privileged to have a fairly intense discussion with her about our life’s issues. She was a heroin user, becoming dominated by the needs to use, and she was also “shadowed” by a former lover, Jakob, who was incarcerated in jail at the time of our connection. While I was there, I noted her “scraping” used spoons, so that she could get together enough heroin residues to give her a fix. Her supply was out, and she was waiting for her next delivery, so things were getting a little “tense” for her We spoke of what we thought the real powers of this world were, and it got a little interesting.

She did not believe in the power of “God” or “Jesus”, having long eschewed any connection with such concepts. She lived for the moment, and knew all too well that “shit happened” regardless of how “good” or “bad” a person was. She believed that her criminal boyfriend, Jakob, had extraordinary powers, and could “astrally project himself” out of prison at night. As long as she had company (friends, or heroin), Jakob could not materialize into her home, and threaten her and dominate her, as he did when he was not imprisoned.

“There is only darkness, Bruce, and all of the people who attempt to use it. Those who use to help others are considered “good people” yet, these same people will turn against others in a heartbeat, should the need arise. Good people do not really exist, just fucked-up people who occasionally make helpful choices for themselves or, inadvertently, for others, usually while they are really just trying to selfishly take care of themselves”.

“Dorothy, I believe that we all have both energies, and it may only be that if we stumble upon the right understanding, we can act more from a not-so-dark, not so selfish position, and occasionally help ourselves and each other to have better lives”

“Well, how much time and energy do you put into having a better understanding of yourself, and being more helpful to others?”

“Good point, Dorothy. But I actually try to look at the forces of darkness within myself, to see where I might also be negatively impacting myself and others through a lifetime of not fearlessly confronting those energies. I have no idea what will be revealed, if anything, if I ever successfully overcome my own darkness.

I continue to search for the reasons to stay around here, and see if there is any real value to staying alive. My old way of seeing life sure has not brought any lasting happiness or social responsibility to me. If there is no Truth to stumble upon to keep me going, then I may as well allow the darkness that I already know to finish swallowing me up, and take me away from my own suffering”.

“Heroin is quite helpful for me, Bruce, have you considered trying it? My supplier will be here shortly, and I can give you a little bit.”

“Dorothy, thanks for talking with me, and making the offer to share with me, but I have to return to some other business that I am attending to, so time for me to leave”.

My search for Truth would have ended that day, had I stuck around Dorothy’s home. I was only minimally tempted to try heroin that day, as I felt quite disturbed by the darkness that I felt coming through Dorothy. I never saw her again.

Steve belongs in a special story all to himself, but I will include him here because he had ultimate importance in my “search for truth”. I met Steve at the same time that I met Ralph. Steve was a very intelligent, well-dressed man, about 8 years older than me. He drove a nice 1982 Chevrolet, which somebody had tricked out (I did not think that he did it, however). Shortly after becoming a “peripheral person” in our rotating community of characters, his car became impounded by the police, and he could not get it released back into his care (or so he said). That is where I first became “suspicious” of Steve, because I sensed that he was looking for somebody who might have an “inside track” into our Portland Police Department, and its inner workings.

Steve and I shared a lot of time together over the 12 months that I wandered over the underworld landscape. I could always count on him to give me good insight into others, though he held the truths about himself close to his chest. He became a ‘big brother” to me, at times, and would not spare me criticism, if I appeared out-of-place, or out of touch. He would criticize Ralph’s excessive drug use, all the while using extremely small amounts of the same stuff, which he poured from a very tiny vile. He initially could not understand why I thought it necessary to be where I was, either, though he was the only person that I ever told that I was on a “search for truth”, while continuing to use speed, and alcohol. I did not understand, at the time, how he could “get by” with so little use of drugs.

From time to time, Steve would seem to “test” me, by exposing me to new situations and people who required some sort of help or intervention. Through Steve I met Georgette, a 15-year-old runaway girl, who was escaping a sexually abusive father by being homeless in the southeast Portland area. She was hanging out with another sexually abused homeless young man, named Greg, who was three years her senior, and already skilled in the art and science of locating abandoned or temporarily vacated homes, for their own temporary residences. Greg was always accompanied by five to ten other “friends”, who would be his assistants in illicitly securing property or goods for resale, and, I was to learn, help distribute freshly manufactured methamphetamine. Greg, I would learn, was also about to “peddle” Georgette, for added income.

Georgette was a tiny young woman, no more than five foot two inches, and ninety-five pounds. When I first met her, I noted her innocence, and my heart almost broke, and I felt helpless, though I wanted so much to protect her from her fate. She had developed “pink eye”, and I saw an opportunity to break her free from this group of itinerant thieves and junkies. I had her grab her meager belongings, and I placed her in my car, and we talked for hours. She was the younger sister, or daughter that I never had, and I wanted to keep her safe. I finally whisked her away from the gang, and drove her to Outside In, where she could get necessary medical help and counseling. I had recently received a retirement payout from my 10 years working at the Postal Service, and so I had some extra money, which I stuffed into her pocket. I told her, in no uncertain terms, that I never wanted to see her again with her “friends”, or there would be serious hell to pay. I never saw her again, though a tape recorded message of my conversation with her would mysteriously show up a few days later.

One evening the next week, I was sitting at the bar in the Punjab tavern, which was my second home, talking with Jack and a couple of acquaintances when a cassette tape was thrust across the floor, originating from a table on the other side of the tavern. There were four men seated at the table, and none would maintain eye contact with me when I looked their way. I got off of my bar stool, leaned over and picked up the cassette tape, and looked at it with Jack and the two men sitting on either side of me. We discussed what it might be, and none of us wanted to confront the table where the tape originated from, for we all had our own paranoia and suspicions of strangers. Jack walked to the back of the bar, and grabbed a cassette recorder, and inserted the tape into the player. My voice started speaking from the machine, and a fear took over me like I had never felt before. When I saw what the subject matter was about, I asked Jack to please stop playing the tape, as it was making me extremely uncomfortable. I asked Jack for the tape, which he gave to me. The other people at the bar started regarding me suspiciously, as well, and all that I could offer to the listeners was that Georgette must have been miked, and that somebody in the bar wanted to “out me” for having befriended her.

Greg (Georgette’s ‘handler’) was to later engage me, and asked to speak to me in private.

“Bruce, I hear that you might be able to help in my situation. I have a friend who has set up a trailer near 82nd avenue, and we can hang out there, and use it as our base of operations”

“Greg, I am not sure what you are asking of me. My time is quickly running out, I am afraid, and whatever “help” that you are seeking, I probably do have sufficient assets to draw from”.

“Well, we have a pretty good operation going right now. I am getting lots of merchandise stockpiled, and, in fact, we have filled an entire basement near 52nd avenue. Before you say no to anything, let’s go over and check it out”.

“OK, but I can’t be tied down to any one place, any one situation, or any one person. I certainly do not have any interest in buying or selling stolen items. I will go over with you and have a look at the house, though.”

We drove over together to the home on Duke Ave. near Brentwood City Park in my Datsun 310, talking about a wide range of subjects. Greg appeared to be only about 17 years old, yet he told me that he had been on the street for over six years. I could tell that he was “feeling me out”, asking me many leading questions. My paranoia, which was a gradually increasing inner experience for me over the last several weeks, was barking at me, the closer we got to the safe house. As we entered the driveway to the home, Greg then asked me

“Bruce, you sure don’t talk like anybody that I have ever met. You talk about things that I don’t like to think about, or would normally not even consider. You are so different, and you sound a little strange at times, I think.

I think that we should be partners. I can tell that you do not like women by the way you have ignored all the girls we hang out with, and you should know that I have little attraction for women, as well. I only feel a strong bond to men”.

I think that I then swallowed a golf ball sized lump in my throat

“Greg, I don’t think that you understand. I am not sexually attracted to ANYBODY. I want to meet people and make friends with no ties, sexual or otherwise to anyone. I have to travel light, because I am going to be leaving very soon.”

“I have heard you say that before. Where the hell do you think that you are going to go”?

“I got a passport earlier this year, with the intent to travel to Spain, to start a new life, or maybe to die. I think that my journey will not be taking me too far from home now, though”.

“I don’t understand. Why do you talk of death? Are you dying?”

“I am really not sure what I mean anymore. I know that something feels like it is dying inside of me. I won’t know until more time passes, and I meet more people. I will then know for sure what I mean”

“You don’t make any sense. Maybe when you see what we have in the basement, it will be easier to make up your mind whether to stay or to go”.

We exited the car, and walked up to the front door together. Greg knocked on the door, and a nearly fifty year old woman of unkempt appearance answered.

“Greg, come on it! I have missed you! Umm, I have not been able to organize everything yet.”

“Martha, this is Bruce. He is OK, don’t be afraid of him, I’ve known him forever Don’t worry about the mess, we can take care of that later”

There was some more small talk, and then we walked downstairs. Martha had merchandise almost stacked to the ceiling covering almost the entire basement, of which I estimated it was 1500 square feet. There were brand new boxes of retail merchandise, as well as some “used” items of very good condition. It was like an unofficial hardware section of Home Depot, and the clothing section of Fred Meyer. I saw chain saws, table saws, drill motors, hand guns, shotguns, military style guns like an HK 91, toys, kitchen pots and pans, appliances, car parts, lawn mowers, bicycles, clothes, shoes, and just about anything one could imagine.

We walked into a closed off section of the basement, with Martha becoming quiet, and almost reverential.

“I want to show you how the lab is progressing. Dieter has made great progress, and has secured all of the hardware and chemicals necessary to get started. We have not been able to get Jeff bailed out of jail yet, so we may have to kidnap one of our other chemists for a week to run a test batch or two”

She opened the door, and there were three tables filled with Erlenmeyer flasks, beakers of various sizes, Bunson burners, propane tanks and fittings, glass cookware, coffee filters, some sort of automatic stirring or mixing device, stainless steel pressure cookers, and a host of other tools that I did not immediately recognize, even though I had taken chemistry lab several years before. There were also several Mason jars and mayonnaise jars filled with substances of various colors, some of which were liquid in nature. I do not remember if they had made provisions for ventilation, though there was a window that looked north located near the ceiling that would have been adequate. I made sure not to offer up to them the fact that I had some background in chemistry, as the thought of being trapped in a lab as an assistant for a week or more sounded a bit like imprisonment to me, no matter how much free drugs might be made available to me.

“Well, let’s smoke a joint, and celebrate the good fortune that we are about to have!”

Martha then pulled out a stick and lit it up. When it got to me, I declined.

“Aren’t you a partaker of the wacky tobacky?”

“Not today. I’ll stick to my crank now. I need to keep my head clear, and the joint just gets in the way of what I am trying to do”.

“I don’t get it. Pot is the best stress relief available, save for the brown or black holiday”.

“I am trying to figure some things out. It is hard for me to function at the level I need to while high on pot”.

“Are you sure you are OK?”

“Oh yes. By the way, I could use a line of crystal, can you send me a life line?”

“Now you are talking! Let’s get the party started.”

And with this group, another one week run starts, with no sleep, little food, and too much conversation. I was never quite sure what to make of Martha. I never saw her again.

Greg lost interest in me, and found himself a “friend” to hang out with him at his trailer. I saw him from time to time after that. He looked worse and worse every time that I saw him, and I think that he reflected back to me my own disease and disfigurement.

I continued an incredible downward spiral into addiction, and Steve commented to me, in November, how I looked like I could be the “Aids Poster Boy” because I had become so slight of figure, and so unhealthy looking. I had started “hearing voices”, and I had become paranoid, as well. Yet, I did not let on to others that I had become so disfigured internally, though the signs were starting to appear. I “heard” that there was a major undercover operation active in Portland, and that dozens of criminal indictments were immanent. In reality, that was partially the truth, yet I should not have known that, let alone warn a few others of those “facts”.

Steve wanted to know how I knew of these indictments, and I would not tell him. I noted that people were tailing me almost all of the time now, and that some of my conversations were being recorded in my car. One day I tore my car apart, searching for the transmitter, or the recorder. I had two different people stop by, and try to interrupt me from the search, which only added to my own paranoia. I did not locate the transmitter, but I really began to fuck with any listeners’ mind, by talking dark shit, and renaming myself “the Wild Card”. I let my world know, in no uncertain terms, that I was no longer aligned with anyone, as I was on my way to my own death.

I will fast forward through three months more of Hell. My main core group had collapsed, with Ralph relocating himself to protect himself. I had lost touch with Steve, my last connection with sanity. I was running with a new group, and most were intravenous drug users. I met Doctor Dave, a short, friendly man, with a severely pockmarked face, a man who also recently was released from jail. He introduced me to intravenous drug use. He ever so carefully shot me up with speed, for my first time of ever using the needle, and most subsequent times, as well. I could not shoot up by myself, as I feared needles so much. But the incredible rush I received from intravenous drug use made me want to use this hastened path to Death frequently for the final two months of my drug abusing life.

I will share a story of Frank, and Steve’s providential return to my life. Another house had been commandeered near the intersection of Holgate and McLoughlin Blvd, and that became our new hangout. Our new leader, Frank, organized a big party, and we had over 70 people show up. This was in early March of 1987, and I was ready for my swan song. My mental health was irreparably damaged, and my “search for truth” had apparently only uncovered a hastened path to Death for me. Frank had just secured a fresh batch of speed, and heroin (which I had never used before), and he was mixing up his renowned “witches brew”, and invited me to join him. Sure, why not? I had nothing to lose, but a life that was already dead. I started to accompany Frank to an upstairs room, when I spotted Steve talking with a healthy looking 30-year-old woman, a person that I might have been attracted to, had i been healthy. I overheard her calling his name, and it was NOT Steve. “Steve” saw that I heard his real name, and he then knew that I knew.

Steve took me aside, and tried to explain. I instead stopped him, and told him that I had suspected him all along of being undercover. I also told him that his secret was safe with me. I told him my journey was about to end, that I was going upstairs with Frank, and if I survived that experience, I was going to return to my car, and grab the pills under my front seat, and finish business, once and for all. Yes, I was finished.

“Steve” grabbed my arm, excused himself from his ‘girlfriend’, and took me outside to his car. We then drove to my father’s house, and “Steve” then commanded to me “Bruce, I can no longer keep you protected and safe. Your search for truth has to end within this dangerous world. Now your real search for truth must begin, starting with your relationship with your father. I never want to see you again, but believe me, I am going to try to help you, any way I can. You deserve so much better of a life than you have given to yourself.”

We arrived at my father’s house, and he let me out. He and his partner drove my car to my dad’s house later that evening, and I never saw him again. The pills had disappeared from under the driver’s seat, as well. There was no way that I was going to go back to Dr. Beavers, as I was too ashamed to have anybody see me in the state that I was in.

Note 1: One year later, he called me, to check and see how I was doing. I was a year clean and sober, and, in tears, I gushed with my love and gratitude for “Steve”. He was the best friend that I never knew I had.

Randy Olson was to return to my life, yet again. I was still a mess, strung out from months of drug abuse, alcoholism, gambling, and I still only weighed a mere 135 pounds. My face was all broke out, and I had the most horrific shakes, and I “heard voices”. I had experienced convulsions several times.. I was still drinking, but I was no longer using drugs very much. I invited Randy Olson over on March 13 of 1987. He came over, and he, and his girlfriend and I proceeded to down an inordinate amount of my fathers’ booze and wine. My parents were still “snow birding” in Arizona, and would not be home until the end of the month, so I was still able to keep my dysfunctional momentum going. Well, after partying with Randy until about 10:00 PM, Randy had to go home, so I was left alone with my horrible problems.

HURT, Sung by Johnny Cash written by Nine Inch Nails

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1Pwfnh5pc

It was then that I entered into a blackout, and picked up one of my father’s loaded guns, and drove, quite drunk, to Brock’s home in the Milwaukie area. This person was an associate of one of the drug chemists in the underworld culture that I had just emerged from. I have no idea why I went down there, but I awoke from my blackout when the gun in my lap discharged, shooting a hole in the front door of his apartment. He had two sleeping children on one room, and a sleeping wife in another room, and I was fortunate to have not brought harm to anyone.

He then brought a hypodermic needle out, and injected me with crank/speed (I still would not inject myself.) I immediately snapped out of my drunkenness, and proceeded to talk with this guy for 24 hours. I got one more injection, and then clarity finally hit me.

Literally, a light went on in my mind, and I saw the utter insanity of the person I was with, and the insanity of my life. I stood up, laughed at the guy, called him, and myself, nuts, and walked out of the front door, got into my car, and drove back to my parents’ home. I was changed, though I just didn’t know how much at the time. As I had only five dollars left to my name, I needed to make a decision. Either I needed to buy more beer and cigarettes, or I needed to get some gasoline for my car, and go visit my grandparents in north Portland. I kept the five dollars, and drove to family. My grandparents were happy to see me, but were concerned for my appearance. I claimed to have the flu, and grandmother nursed me back to some semblance of health over the next five days, while I detoxified and had withdrawals from cessation of cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs, all at the same time.

I returned home to my parents’ home after a week at the grandparents. It is another funny thing, two days later, out of the blue, Craig Salter called me, for the first connection in three years (he was a childhood friend that both Randy and I had known since the 5th grade, and the same person that I chose to have my relapse with after my Care Unit experience), and asked me if I wanted to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with him. He was required to attend meetings due to the conditions of the court that had prosecuted him for a DUI. Of course, Craig was not an alcoholic; at least he thought that he wasn’t. I knew that he was, though. I, in fact, was the person that got him drunk the first time in High School, when Craig was 17 years old. I actually may have started him on his own horrific decline into his own alcoholism, just like Randy Olson had started me on my first drug, which was marijuana, and may have indirectly contributed to my own eventual decline.

Anyway, I went to that AA meeting, because the way I figured it, since God was such a big part of AA, and since I was searching for TRUTH, there must be a relationship between those two forces, and AA must have an angle on that. I proceeded to attend over 270 meetings in my first 90 days, since I had nothing else to do, having lost my job, and, basically, my life, to my disease. Craig eventually stopped going to meetings, after his court ordered attendance ended. I continued to attend them, feeling like I had finally found my spiritual home. I did fall into a temporary trap at the HInson Baptist Church, thinking that my personal TRUTH must somehow be hidden in the church system, and that I could unearth some more by attending church, and being baptized.

I then literally spent thousands of hours over the next several years in AA meetings, communication, investigation, reading, writing, meditation, associating with all types and manners of people, and, eventually, healing my relationship with my parents (especially my father).

I was enlightened by a new teacher, a recovering alcoholic by the name of Jack Boland, who had released to the world many series of tapes on recovery and spirituality. I was given one of his tape series of recovery by a co-worker at the Fred Meyer warehouse, John Johnson, of whom I will be eternally grateful to, on May 16, 1987. I then listened to these tapes over and over, during the Memorial Day weekend, and something miraculous happened afterwards, probably as a result of my openness to the experience brought about by listening to these tapes, and practicing some simple steps from the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous Alcoholic Anonymous Twelve Steps

1). We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2). Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3). Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4). Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5). Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6). Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7). Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8). Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9). Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10). Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11). Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12). Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

My search for Truth, which had taken me through the darkest regions of hell, was about to give me wings, and enable me to fly to the sun, and beyond.

Yet, the prison guard with one of the primary keys to release me from my own spiritual imprisonment was my own unhealed relationship with my father. Overcoming a lifetime of oppression and control by others is no easy task. It also must be done clean and sober, for the true depth and healing of the experience to permanently take hold. I began a new relationship with my father, starting with my new-found sobriety. The real fruitage of healing from the relationship was not to become apparent until many, many years later. That is another story, for later.

Note: Stephen Kessler was recently denied parole in 2018, and spent the rest of his life in prison. He was regarded as the most dangerous criminal ever encountered, by several federal agents. He died in 2019, while still in prison.

Wayne Harsh was a friend of my neighbor while I grew up near Rex Putnam High School, and he eventually became a Clackamas County Sheriff prior to his own fall. We knew of each other, and he was well-known for his connections with automobiles, and, in fact, either intentionally or inadvertently supplied the getaway vehicle to Stephen Kessler during his prison escape.

Coincidentally, I was roommates with Tom Cravens in the Physicians and Surgeons Hospital Care Unit in 1984, when we both sought sobriety (Tom was successful, but I was not). Tom was one of six co-conspirators with Stephen Kessler during the 1968 prison riot, where a lot of the Oregon State Prison in Salem was burnt down,, and shame was brought to our Oregon Governor, Tom McCall. While growing up into the beast that he became, Stephen Kessler also shared the same school as my present wife, Sharon White, and, in fact, beat up a teacher while in the same classroom that he shared with my wife (end note)

After that era of my life, I certainly was ready to move away from ignorance, the effects of trauma, and suffering.

Chapter 5: Minimizing the Effects of Ignorance, Trauma, And Suffering

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

—– James Baldwin

We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say ‘It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes. Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort.

— Fred Rogers

Evolutionary growth happens when the insignificant finally touches the transcendent. It is also true that through the understanding about what is NOT TRUE, and why it isn’t, that our native intelligence may finally connect with what might be true. The search for truth is a lifelong journey, and we should never just rely on other people’s, or religion’s, understanding.

—-Elisha Scott

When I look at our culture, I see the rising waters of anguish and despair flooding through it. There are so many broken promises and dreams, so many shattered expectations, so many lost possibilities, are these wounds are now defining the day to day life of far too many of our citizens. . Is a happy and fulfilled life even possible in times like these? As most of us know, it’s not easy living right now, as we live in an abusive society. The abuse of power has many manifestations, but the most distressing ones are the impacts upon our sacred values of decency, equality, truth and meaning. The abuse of each other, and now, of ourselves has become institutionalized and normalized within this sick culture of which we find ourselves living. We have to begin protecting ourselves from all that, to become healthy people, retain our sanity and our humanity, instead of being consumed by despair, fatalism and anger.

It’s not our fault that so much of our shared existence

FLAT FUCKING SUCKS.

In the words of Michael Franti

“Life is amazing, and then it sucks, and then its amazing again”

Who amongst us does not want life to lean more towards AMAZING, rather than just sucking?

Things don’t often work out according to our best laid plans. If we seek out many of society’s treasured goals, we find that goal didn’t live up to our expectations. The problem is not our plans, expectations, dreams, or aspirations. They are sacred things and we must retain them. The point is that

it’s not solely our fault.

We have been let down in ways we never should have been. We have been neglected, in ways that genuinely hurts and endures. Our possibilities shrank not because of something we did, or didn’t do — but for a much, much bigger reason. Much of it was beyond our control, and therefore, the fault is not solely ours, but once we can see what other options are available to us, we can find our reservoir of hope…

I can no longer keep silent in the face of the injustice, ignorance, oppression, and collective darkness masquerading as the light within our culture. In this time when divisiveness seems to rule the United States, wars, or the threats of war, dominate the news cycles, when heartless Americans use guns to bully and terrorize others, and politicians, policemen, and judges victimize our most innocent of citizens, it is difficult to feel the miracle of life that is constantly with us. Yet, to not have that more loving, peaceful, and spiritually guided experience is to live a life devoid of the greater meaning available to us as human beings. Without a collectively shared intention to honor each other’s dignity, and the dignity of ALL LIFE on our planet, the oppression of our spirits and the continued destruction of our planet will remain the guiding forces dominating mankind, until our tragic, and unnecessary self destructive end.

We all must speak out against the injustices of the world, and attempt to be inclusive of all those who suffer, as this is an act of compassion, empathy, and spiritual justice. But, finding the courage to speak out brings the risk that the speaker will be seen as yet another voice of oppression against those already burdened by their own unique version of suffering, and who have not yet claimed their own personal power and moral responsibility. Wisdom dictates that I avoid becoming the voice for a resentment, injustice, or the grievances of others, unless I have already experienced the difficult truth behind their pain. But, I have lived a life inclusive of this intense pain and suffering, and I know this path intimately, having nearly sacrificed my life at thirty years of age to its cumulative effects, as it manifested through my life..

Our country, our world, and ourselves are all out of balance. And we are not remedying this matter through our politics, or our religions. Men, and women, tend to clamor for politicians and religious leaders who do not challenge them, and who continue to support them in their complacency and ignorance. The election of Donald Trump is the perfect example, and he has become the symbol for all of the ills of our culture. To the extent that the men within our culture continue to practice his unholy principles of engagement with the world and the women and men within it, they also share in his disease of mind, body, and spirit. Men seek to run in packs with others of similar mindsets, and they remain a most powerful, deadly force to be reckoned with.

What happens to a society that remains out of balance within itself?
What happens to a culture dominated by the oppressive effects of toxic men parading around in their emperor’s new clothes of mistaken self- identifications?
What happens to a culture where the majority of its citizens remain staunch adherents of world destructive capitalism and pseudo-religious misunderstanding?
What happens to a civilization where women and indigenous people are oppressed, and their holistic wisdom, is neglected in favor of self serving ideology?
What happens to a man, a culture, and a world defeated by the dark energy of unhealed masculinity?

As we witness our families, watch the news and read the newspaper, we can see the tragic answers are the creation and promotion of cultural and individual insanity, with its resultant suffering.. This insanity continues to expand and explode all around us, with lies being propagated by our spiritual and political leaders, and ultimately becoming accepted by the naive, and the stupid. Mass murders, early deaths, suicides, drug addiction, alcoholism, abuses of woman and children, racism, extinction of species, destruction of our ecology, and all of the damaged relationships that fail to find healing will continue to predominate within the collective mind of mankind until we make conscious contact with intelligence, love, and sanity.

Our world is filled with an infinite supply of life affirming meaning, if we can just tune into it, and our whole self Yet, news in recent years has been dominated by references to the actions of people living meaningless lives as indicated by the opioid epidemic, alcoholism, gun violence, murder, mental illness, poor diets insufficient exercise, and suicide have become major contributors to the upswing in mortality rates, These factors are a small part of the real story, and I continue to address the disease of Spirit that has targeted Americans and the people who I have known who have been struck down by it. I have seen, and I believe at the deepest level of my own being, that disease in the mind of mankind is directly related to disease within the body of mankind. This is a difficult but essential truth to contemplate and to perceive: our society has created many of the conditions for our early demise through our lack of shared meaning and values..

There is so much suffering in the world, and it brings a universally humbling, painful reality. Human suffering and evil are two spiritually destructive forces that humanity has dealt with each moment of its existence. Failure to address these issues directly and consciously only leads to more suffering, and enhances the collective perception of the presence and growth of evil in our world. Many causes of suffering are preventable, however, and they have their origins within our broken, unhealed minds and a non-supportive culture unwilling to embrace the possibility for change. Suffering comes in many forms, and has many causal agents. Yet suffering eventually touches all of us, through its many different manifestations. Suffering may arise

as a direct result of trauma experienced at any point in life
through living a meaningless life, with a resistance to change and evolution
through an action of intentional hostility by others
through incurable diseases of the body, or of the mind.
spontaneously as a reaction to the vicissitudes of life.
from an inability to do what is right.
through the witnessing horrific acts of violence.
from the inability to reconcile the belief in God with one’s own grief and loss.
from becoming addicted to substances that were designed to take our pain away.
from the perceived inability to speak one’s truth
from not having one’s voice heard in the face of oppressive powers
from contemplating the continuation of our daily pains into a distant, unknown future.
from continued bullying or threatening behavior from peers, employers, religions, politicians, or family members

There is no mystery to me as to why some people choose suicide, continued ignorance, or continued addictions over becoming more consciously aware. In 1986, my choice was for continued addictions and, ultimately, suicide, until I awoke to the potential for healing in my life in 1987, after beginning my search for a Truth that could sustain me. The potential for recovery is only that, a potential, unless one develops a conscious intention to break free from the tight grip of grief, loss, and heartbreak. Pain, and suffering, without any hope for healing, brings anger, despair, depression, loneliness, and suicidal ideation. Yet, where is real hope to be found?

Those who do not want to stay grounded in their own unconsciousness, but instead want to understand why they are not soaring upward into the new, unexplored dimensions of love, being and doing, will find value in this work. For in the complete seeing of the old, the damaged, the diseased, the suffering, and the distraught, will the door of true insight be opened to a new way of being in our minds, hearts, and in the world. Yet, we must see, not only what our own mistakes might be, but understand what the erroneous fundamental conditions supporting our culture, and our collective consciousness, are, for all of these forces work to keep us from our greater good.

While being an unconscious man, I have been a contributor to this disease of the spirit, and to the overall relationship dysfunctions within the world. I have been subjected to the same family and cultural forces of oppression and repression, spawned by cultural and family mutual control dramas,,which daily contributes to crazy making communication and behavior between all of us. Being a family man, I have taken note of the mutual blame game and scapegoating that is continuously circulated which serves as justification for each individual holding onto their own version of our cultural disease. All of this just leads to more suffering by innocent family members, friends, acquaintances, community members, and myself.

My male heritage and my experiences as both a son to a often times toxic father, and working with many damaged men in the electrical trades and in general employment, provided the background for much of my understanding . Patriarchy, as expressed through men as a collective consciousness, is mostly responsible for creating the present day conditions of our diseased world. Men in power would rather have our neighbors, wives and children assaulted, raped, overdosed through drug use, or murdered through gun violence, than to promote and enforce healing changes. Thus, we need more women in positions of power and influence, and men need to get in touch with their potential for toxic behavior and attitudes, and begin to make necessary course changes in their hearts and souls. Yet both men and women are directly influenced, and often controlled like puppets, by the vary collective consciousness that we all access, and share.

What, then, is collective consciousness? Wikipedia states:

Collective consciousness, collective conscience, or collective conscious is the set of shared beliefs, ideas, and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society. In general, it does not refer to the specifically moral conscience, but to a shared understanding of social norms.

Collective consciousness has a source in our ancestral and genetic predispositions, and all of the answers that our culture, our families, and all of our individual selves have dreamed up to some of the great questions of life. The answers have become part of our philosophy, our history, our religion, the substance of our hopes and dreams, and the foundation for all of our nightmares. This is the seed consciousness behind the development of our sense of self, where our own answers to the important questions of life give rise to fragmented interpretation of life, and of the universe. Incomplete and inaccurate answers become the unstable foundation for our journey through collective consciousness.And, while the marionette continues its controls over us, we have little hope to hear the silenced voice for our Mother Earth, the Universe, and our own unique sense of wholeness.

We are not alone in our ignorance and misunderstanding. We will see later how intimately connected collective consciousness is to the common knowledge game, which I will go into in great detail in a later chapter. Do we know what new questions to ask of ourselves, questions that will place us on a new, healthier path of the evolution of our consciousness? Our best answers to these questions point to foundational facts that most of us encounter or employ in our efforts to meet the needs for economic security, establish our place in society, relieve stress and keep ourselves at least marginally happy, and pursue family fulfillment, including ones sexual gratification.

Questions that I have pondered:

Why does suffering exist, and why does it visit me so often?
Who and what am I?
Is happiness, joy, and freedom possible in my life?
What am I really looking for, and will I ever find it?
What really is prayer?
Does religion have relevance anymore?
Can there be any truth. love, or justice to be found in the 21st century version of American Christianity?
What happened to the moral and ethical authority once touted as being endemic to Christianity?
Does religion hinder or help a modern-day seeker of God?
What is a “well lived life” and how do I achieve it?
What is good mental health, or what does it mean to be normal?
Who are my “people”, and where are they located?
Why do people cling to certain groups of people, and reject all others, and why do I feel rejected so often?
Why don’t people get along better with each other, and why have I become so isolated?
Will I ever fit in? Will anyone ever notice me?
Why don’t I feel peace of mind?
What is death, and what does it mean to die to myself?
Why does our society and much of the world’s population continue to not experience peace of mind, with beauty, wonder, and the innate internal integrity of our (potentially) divine nature, and what might I do to attain these qualities?
Why is history defined predominantly by male energy, and why does my own life story spin so tightly around the male gender and its destructive byproducts?
Why do some men become spiritually and emotionally disfigured by their desire for sex?
What is the role of objectifying people in ignorance, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and sexism?
Can men ever completely overcome objectifying women in their relationships with them?
Why do some men exercise excessive emotional control over their partners?
Why do I not feel satisfaction when I achieve the goals that I have set up for myself?
Why do I not feel joy when others achieve greatness, or accomplish great things for themselves?
Why do I sometimes feel threatened by others’ successes?
Why do I internally try to hold others back from success and positive social acknowledgement?
Why do I always seem to “self-destruct” right at the moment when I am about to achieve great success?
Will I ever completely understand myself, and others?
What is oppression, and what is my relationship to it?
What is repression, and why do I participate in it?
Why is expressing real human emotions such a double-edged sword, and why are my feelings so hard to identify sometimes?
Why are some people always so angry, indifferent, detached, or depressed, and can these people ever see me for who I am?
Why is anxiety the defining feeling of this age, and why is it so hard to heal from it?
Where is the love that I feel is missing from my life?
Why don’t I feel more love for myself or for others?
Why do I continue to experience poor self-esteem?
Why is our culture so focused on youth and physical appearance?
Why am I so self-conscious, and will I ever be accepted for who I am?
Why do I feel that I have to always be competitive, or “better than the others” just to fit in?
Why is competition and greed, as presently coupled with Capitalism, the predominant economic system in our world?
Why does shame and guilt control so much of my life’s experience?
Is it possible to speak or live a lie long enough that we no longer can accept or believe the truth?
Is a person’s silence because of an absence of opinion, or from a fear of speaking the truth?
Why can’t some people be more emotionally and spiritually present for others?
Why do people feel that they need to engage in mutual “control dramas”?
Why do people endlessly pursue entertainment and/or use drugs and alcohol to excess, and ignore their own personal transformation and healing?
Why is just more knowledge or repetition of someone else’sunderstanding so much more important than intuition, wisdom and insight to most men and left brained dominated women?
Why is collaboration such a dirty word for a national political process?
Why do I have no desire to contribute to society in a more generous and meaningful way?
Will America Ever Fully Awaken?

To answer all of these questions successfully would require a 5000 page book, and they would be suitable to few people anyway. My intention is not to provide a universal answer, but to stimulate interest and curiosity within the reader to pursue their own answers. I will indicate a path for a more holistic approach to the answer for some of these questions, and my answers may have a more universal application than just my limited life experience. We must keep in mind the profound impact that our parental upbringing, and our immersion in our culture over the duration of our lives, has upon any potential superficial answers that we might give. It is of utmost importance to understand the fundamental dynamics of our own unique sense of self, and how we may not answer these questions in such a way that honors a more fundamental, and unknown, spiritual essence that we all have.

I have attempted meditation upon my own source of pain and suffering, and what came to me was how most of what I know about myself, and my reactions to the world, was created by my fundamental relationship with my parents, and then with my culture. Missing from this was any accommodations to my relationship to my world, the universe, or any concept of a higher power.. My sense of self in my early years revolved around internalizing many of my parents’ attitudes. I was acutely aware of what my mother and father expected from me, what I could or could not give back to them to attempt to please them, and my defense mechanisms for managing the fallout when I failed to please them. Beginning early in my life, I also developed the desire to protect them and myself from the results of the conflict that arose in our house, either when I made yet another mistake, or when father overreacted to any situation that brought a sense of fear or threat into the home environment. I developed a need to balance whatever energy was being over expressed at any particular moment, and I was very unskilled at those kind of efforts.

With the death of my father in 2017, it ended the era of subservience to his needs, and the need to protect my mother from my perception of his aggression towards her.. It also ended the era of incomplete grieving for my own mother’s death in 2009. I had to immediately support my mentally deteriorating father when mother died, and I had never completely worked through the grieving process. I was finally an “orphan”, and all of the entanglements that kept me wound around their lives were now physically removed. With my fathers’ spirit no longer overshadowing my own life, I was allowed to develop more fully into whatever, or whoever I am.

For me this was an extraordinary release, because the formation of my sense of self was influenced by parental bonding issues just after birth, and through my first 4-5 years. Being placed on “formula” right after birth, and being placed in a chilly car in the garage at night so that my father could sleep better, as I was a “damned crying baby” left me as a young being feeling abandoned, and lonely, from the beginning. Though I loved my parents, I certainly did not want to grow up and be like them. Yet, I was not able to offer to my developing self a viable alternative to being like my father, being extremely limited creatively, and my resultant dull, though at times insightful, personality reflected that darkness. Yet, I had assembled my sense of self to the best of my ability, while being assisted by an internal self creation mechanism that neuroscientists and psychologists are still studying, understanding, and defining..

In our world, there are countless examples of “self organizing systems”, and all creatures, and the minds of those creatures, are examples of that miracle in action. The evolution of all of Earth’s creatures appear to be primarily organized through the pattern created by the history of the species, and it’s interactions and successful adaptions with its earthly environment. The DNA appears to carry much of that history as a guide for the self-replicating pattern within all ccells.There may even be a unique, and perhaps even shared life force field for each creature, which Rupert Sheldrake has named the morphogenetic field.

In recent years, genetics and epigenetics continue to be studied, and mined for the great knowledge about our predispositions to certain characteristics, and behaviors. Epigenetics is the study of how our behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way our genes work. Yet, for humans, epigenetic research has recently shown that some of these patterns may not necessarily be unchangeable, but may be open to suggestions from changing the external environmental, or even making attitude and/or lifestyle adjustments. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change our DNA sequence, but they can change how our body reads a DNA sequence. Up to 5 percent of our genes may be amenable to epigenetic suggestions, or adaptations, and the future may show that many more genes may be turned off, or on, depending on the need of the organism. And, in a most encouraging development, there are scientists now proposing that as individual human beings, we may be an integral part of the Bigger Self that is organizing, or reorganizing, our own consciousness, and have greater influence upon our own biological system.

Our consciousness has a self-organizing principle, as it organizes itself into our unique personal sense of being, while also categorizing data, accruing knowledge, and forming perceptions.. The uncertainty of self-organization in consciousness is a great mystery of life, though we now know that a healthy integration revolves around how well the impressionable being feels accepted by, and connected to the environment that the human body travels through. Thus, happier, self-loving ordered senses of self arise, and are supported, by myriads of “successful” interactions with its social and physical environment. First and foremost is the beings’ acceptance and integration into the primary family cell, or group. If we do not get the requisite positive feedback from our parents early on, we face tremendous odds against forming a happy, well-adjusted self organizing principle, or ego. And the enlightening 1995 Kaiser study of adverse childhood experiences shows the deleterious effects on our health as adults from damaging parental behaviors, either through omission or commission, or other traumatic environmental influences when we were children.

Coping mechanisms such as passive/aggressive behavior became my normal response to the daily challenges of life. Toxic masculinity, or, more precisely, an unskilled capacity to relate to people in a peaceful and mutually accepting manner, was to become a defining characteristic of my life. I had internalized and normalized an incomplete composite creative advisor, or as I call it now, a trickster of who I thought my father and mother were, which were to become a source of self-talk and feedback for me as a child, and then as an unconscious adult. The same process occurs for our social self, too. There is another identity within us, virtually independent of. our inner parental feedback creations, which we create internal cultural advisors.

As an individual within a culture, I applied the same unskilled balancing mechanism within consciousness, where I would weigh and measure societal needs of me, and others that I love, with whatever my personal needs may have been. Argh, there were two misunderstandings attempting to assert control within my mind at any particular point in time, so no wonder I felt out of control over so much of my own life, while feeling divided, fragmented, and so unsure of which direction to point my life towards.! In several recovery programs, this fragmentation is called the committee, and we all need to do some ferocious work to get that fucking committee to permanently adjourn! There is no peace of mind, otherwise.

We must not normalize and internalize what our failed society is, and make it part of the unchangeable forces within our consciousness.. We must not bear the burden of our society’s pending collapse. It’s easy to internalize the failings of a society that literally fails to provide security to its innocent citizens, from its insouciance in the face of 2nd Amendment fanatical gun owners, its failure to provide adequate healthcare for all, its failure to provide the majority of its citizens sufficient resources for daily living and then their retirement, its failure in providing affordable education, its failure to insulate women from wayward religious patriarchal zealots who want to control all of our bodies according to their beliefs, and all of the other oppressive nonsense that our society supports, and often touts as being for our own good.

While we are under control of this diseased culture, we have internalized our society’s failures, and have mistaken its failures for our own.. Society’s job was to co-parent us with our own parental influences, and to provide a sound foundation of support for us in this way, and it failed at that. We dare not internalize its failings, or the oppressive qualities of this abusive culture will become part of who we are. Maturity is preventing the suffering that we, ourselves have experienced.What is the growth of a soul, really? When we mature — when we really learn our life’s lessons, then we come to have one overriding purpose in our lives. To prevent suffering. But not in any random way. To prevent and limit precisely the suffering we ourselves have experienced. This is the mark of a mature soul — and only a mature soul is capable of adult forms of happiness, like fulfillment, meaning, purpose, grace, truth.

If enough people do rise up and rebel against the prevailing order (disorder) of the day, dramatic and positive change can be made. This is, in fact, how all evolutionary change is to be successfully made in a diseased, structured society like our own. When a living system becomes infected with toxins, it must rid itself of the offenders, lest the disease spread, and destroy the entire system. The compromised system must fight back with love’s most powerful antibodies

Domestic violence, sexual abuse, and patriarchal attitudes are a set of learned behaviors with the emphasis on exerting unhealthy power and control over others, and can be unlearned — but it takes consistent work on the part of the person who caused harm well beyond the immediate crisis. Complex ideas about gender roles and expectations are often at the root of abusive behavior, many times having been instilled from childhood.

Gentle confrontation with the offending person is a first step towards healing. The person may be unaware of his negative influence over others, or may feel powerless to do anything about it. Counseling can be the next step towards healing, though it would take the mutual accountability through the controls exerted by the common knowledge game for the rest of our population to move towards change. It takes ongoing attention and progress checks from the community, family members, and friends to ensure a true change of behavior. And, people who harm others should allow justice to be determined by the survivor. The perpetrators should publicly own up to their behavior, apologize, and describe how they’re trying to change. This is how we change norms around the conspiracy of silence that permeates domestic violence — by showing others using harm that accountability is necessary and healing is possible.

Creating the basic conditions that support emotional and spiritual growth might be beneficial to the entirety of our human race. Men, and women have basic needs regarding personal safety, security, and placement within the society. Here are some simple, and not so simple, human needs coupled with spiritual intention:

To belong, to feel safe while belonging, including the desire to help and protect others while helping oneself,
To speak up, and feel like we really were heard, and not have our spirit layered over with others’ errors in reasoning and judgement,
To be able to listen to another at the deepest level possible, and be present in the spirit of understanding, cooperation, and collaboration.
To feel whole, and to be able to recognize that wholeness, not only within ourselves, but within all others, even those living in alternative realities.
To love all others, as well as to be accepted, and loved, with as few conditions attached as possible. Unconditional love was never meant to be reserved just for a mothers’ love for her child, so it is a great evolutionary objective to attempt to be a channel for it.
To evolve, for if we do not, we become subject to the forces of friction and chaos inherent within a closed mind, and system, resulting in higher physical and mental disease and dysfunction.

FAILURE TO HONOR THESE NEEDS WILL RESULT IN THE CONTINUATION OF OUR PRESENT DAY CULTURAL CHAOS AND DYSFUNCTION, WITH LITTLE POTENTIAL FOR OUR NATIONAL HEALING.

Make America Great Again?[/caption]

Make America Great Again? Normalize that which should never have been acceptable? Get real, and start healing, fellow Americans! Greatness only comes after we, as a society, face our collective darkness and see how we have institutionalized ignorance, acknowledge its damaging impacts on others, makes amends to ALL we have harmed, and find integrity, and stay on a more humane path in the future.

The Buddha had his own ideas about what constitutes mental health, and by his definition anyone who isn’t well on the way to Enlightenment is insane. Quite how literally he meant it when he said “All humans are mad” is hard to say, but when he looked at ordinary people like us going about their daily business he saw a world out of balance — and a world that by necessity is out of balance, because it is composed of those same off-kilter individuals. He viewed this imbalance as a form of perversion, inversion, and/or derangement He understood that we, collectively, misunderstand the world that we live in, misunderstand ourselves, thus we all end up living in a virtual reality of delusion, confusion, and distortion. What’s more, we largely share the same delusions, which mean that we don’t even realize that our minds are disturbed

As Krishnamurti suggests, it’s possible to think that we’re spiritually and mentally healthy because we share our mistaken values and understandings with those around us. Collectively, our ill minds create social circles, or society that is itself ill, and we consider ourselves healthy because we see our values reflected in our spiritually sick fellow travelers.

Jesus of Nazareth stated quite clearly that “My kingdom is not of this world”. Also he stated “Be in this world, yet do not be of it”. And, “Do not attempt to remove the sliver from each other’s eye, before first removing the log from your own eye”. Finally, he also stated “Straight is the way, and narrow is the gate, and very few there are who will enter in”. “Truly I tell you,” Jesus also said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Buddha, Jesus Christ, Krishnamurti, and even Fred Rogers are dead, yet we all can still become a hero for healing and transcendence.

To become a healing hero, we must first understand what has us under control, before we can learn how to let go of what controls us.

Chapter 6: Just Say No: Approaching Trauma More Consciously

It is no measure of good health to be well adapted to a sick society.”-—Jiddhu Krishnamurti

Our civilized world has been built upon the backs of an unconscious, overachieving, traumatized humanity. . Do we remain in the conspiracy of silence and inaction, or do we confront our resistance to the truth, and become part of a collaborative healing adventure?—-Elisha Scot

.In the 1980’s, during America’s campaign to reduce the proliferation of drug addiction, Nancy Reagan made the famous statement:

“JUST SAY NO!”

The understanding at the time was that addiction was a personal choice, and by reversing the “yes” that was being said to drug use to a “no”, the problem would just disappear. In the absolute, that is quite true. Our real problem as a human race is that we have had our desire to just say NO to perceived negative situations or behavior gets overrun by a lack of alternatives to choose from, peer pressure, family and religious training, and our own failure to develop, or maintain the ability to set healthy boundaries for our self.

Just why does not our civilization say NO to the proliferation of traumatic events, and the wounding of the innocent?
Does not society and religion have a say in this matter?
What about the role of our family, and the values that we are taught?
Is the human race addicted to the idea that being less than loving with each other is acceptable behavior?
Has that horrific misunderstanding become our collective “God”?

The “Golden Rule”, which states

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, or “Love your neighbor as yourself”

does not bring great hope or direction to huge segments of the human population, religious or otherwise, that are ignorant of love’s need for the release of emotional controls over others, self-care, peace of mind, and adherence to collaborative and compassionate principle.

As the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu had said:

“We are made for goodness. We are greatness in the making”.

What happened to our goodness?
Why is our greatness not to be found right now?
Why do so many continue to bring harm to their self, to other human beings, to animals, and to our Mother Earth?

The history of humanity indicates that, collectively, it is acceptable to pass unfair judgements against our self and each other, approve of the distribution of weapons of war to countries and to individuals, promote inequitable distribution of resources and wealth with a now monetized Mother Earth’s resources, cultivate excesses and greed as aspects of positive capitalism, incite division, violence, murder, and war, continue injustice and inequity, defend racism and white supremacy, promote religious and philosophical persecution, and create and continue the conditions for addiction, and suicide. This self-destructive behavior continues, seemingly unabated.. And there are large groups of humanity who would rather watch their world burn than collaborate with it to bring a measure of healing to all.

Why Is it acceptable to bring harm to the innocent creatures of our world? Why do we promote needless suffering in feedlots and kill stations, with the traumatizing of cows, pigs, chickens, and even ocean fish to meet humanity’s need for protein? Our whole meat industry is based upon the idea that other sentient beings must die, so that the human race can eat, and continue its overpopulation of the planet. And, as humanity inexorably expands its presence, natural habitats are destroyed. Many thousands of species are either threatened with extinction or are gone forever, having been traumatized and murdered by the mostly indifferent human horde. It is no mystery to me as to why it remains acceptable to traumatize each other, as the human race continues its “dog eat dog” capitalistic consciousness, where we think that we deserve to thrive, often at the expense of others with lesser physical ability, or intellectual, educational, economic, religious, and/or racial standing ..

Traumatic wounding has been institutionalized and normalized within our world since ancient times. The world continues to create and spread its own self-serving narrative, thus enforcing a code supporting a collective conspiracy of silence and denial around all of our responsibility towards the ills of our self, each other, and the damage wrought upon our Mother Earth.. The Minotaur of trauma and its effects roams free within the collective labyrinth of the human mind, and we all will continue to suffer accordingly, until enough spiritual heroes find their clues for defeating the dark beast, and escaping the maze of the confused and damaged mind.

Over the course of my development as a growing person, like most others within our world I was trained as to how to use my mind, while continuing to be guided by all of our so-called authorities. Knowing that these authorities, who become, in effect, our Gods, and the knowledge that they supposedly represent, are the road signs that direct and guide us on the path of life, it is important to know who is trying to control us, how they are doing it, and what is their intention, lest we will blindly drive off of the road and crash.. And as psychologists, philosophers, and theologians have found, the Gods created by our wayward understanding of our self and of life seem to be immortal, and impervious to change, even by the best human reasoning skills.

Our flight or fight mechanism is the way that all higher intelligence animals respond to threats within the environment. It operates at a nearly instinctual level for many animals, though the human response can be made more malleable, depending also upon the situation, our individual value system and cultural conditioning. What seems to separate many animals from humans is that humans appear to react not only to whatever situation presents itself, but also to their embedded memories, so we respond in an individualistic two fold manner to any threat. We tend to think before we react, and our thinking draws from hints from our biological hardware, our historical patterns of behavior, our genetics, and our training.

Society, in combination with humanity’s neural-linguistic capacity, has provided,certain mental software subroutines, or apps, that enable us to process and act upon information to not only keep us safe, but also to act in efficient and, mostly, culturally acceptable manners. The problem is that many of these subroutines act below the conscious level and are fundamentally defective, having become habits of thoughts, with many perceptions being created from a dead past. Added to this are self generated subroutines created through traumatic wounding, and it may be seen how the concept of free will may only be a concept, until the self is made wholly conscious, healed and whole.

All of these subroutines become sacred cows, or golden idols, that are not only erroneous representations of truth, but also are extraordinarily resistant to change. Add to this the influences from ancestral archetypes, and other unconscious influences, and we can see that we may not be the true masters of our destiny. We remain trapped within a limited radius around the whipping post of our own personal and collective ignorance, and our unwillingness to change.

The human race remains a breeding ground for violence of all types, with its traumatic impacts upon all of us. For the last forty years the United States has created its own subculture where the traumatic wounding of innocent people has become approved, normalized, and institutionalized within our culture, under the umbrella of the tragically misunderstood 2nd Constitutional amendment… We are culturally inculcated into ignoring the distressing objects of our perceptions, by the scapegoating of others and denying our unconscious support in the very reality that we are witnessing, and, perhaps, violently reacting against… Pretending not to see, or not speaking of the evil that we see or hear results in no healing potential, FOR ANYBODY.

Several recent news articles and studies have indicated that there has been an epidemic of younger, white, middle class men who have been dying at earlier ages than would be statistically forecast, for at least the past 30 years. There are many references to environmental causes, gun violence, to the opioid/fentanyl epidemic, painkiller addiction, heroin addiction, alcohol abuse, or poor diets as leading causal agents. There is also the so-called “white man’s despair”, an expression recently coined that encompasses a wide range of unhappy and unhealed American white male attitudes and behaviors. . I have seen, and I believe at the deepest level of my own being, that this disease in the mind of mankind is directly related to many of the diseases within the body of mankind.

There is a disease of the human spirit that has targeted and used masculinity for thousands of years to victimize everybody, all in the name of religion, progress, security, and economic growth. We don’t need to look too far to see that the insanity and disease around us, such as the

mass murders,
early deaths,
suicides,
drug addiction,
alcoholism,
rape and abuse of woman and children,
extinction of species, and
destruction of our world’s ecological balance

will continue to a very bleak future, unless this world awakens, and rebels against the prevailing dark attitudes and resultant traumatic influences being wrought upon our dying culture and damaged planet. We have major issues bubbling up under the surface of our American society, much like the magma within an angry volcano preparing for a cataclysmic blast Our present day political dialogue around the BIG LIE of the 45th president, and the conspiracy of silence by many from the fringes, and in the mainstream, of the Republican Party, shows just how traumatic a politician’s, and their support groups, ideologies and actions may be on the general public.

Does anybody still think that the suicide victim, lone wolf arsonist, abusive alcoholic, mentally ill person shot by a policeman, drug overdose victim, morbidly obese person, corrupted national politician and/or reality TV star, or mass murderer, is a unique being, with no relationship to the rest of the very humanity that spawned him? As a culture, we need to remember that the traumatized of our culture, the mentally ill, the diseased and damaged population, which includes the addicts and the alcoholics, are society’s “canaries in the gold mine”. Their diminished lives are direct evidence of a cultural disease, and they become part of the narrative of cultural and spiritual dysfunction.

We are all susceptible to the damages incurred by spiritual asphyxiation, should we neglect to listen to the stories being told by our most vulnerable family members. The sensitive and the oppressed of our culture define the leading edge of the journey of our own shared human experience and are indicators of our collective spiritual condition.

Underground miners know best. So too should concerned citizens pay attention to the signs.

The conspiracy of silence is built right into the framework of our collective consciousness. Dead men tell no tales, but the nearly dead MUST continue to tell their stories, with respect for themselves and others, until our civilization finally wakes up. To not express ourselves honestly and openly results in our own 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. Can we bring our sense of self, with all of our historical wounding and suffering, and look at it honestly and openly with our self, and others? We can then bring hope to all of the other canaries in our society who are now struggling for air.

The Christian religion is supposed to offer some sort of healing option for our damaged and diseased humanity. Yet, historically, its often times wayward practitioners create further imbalances through their continuing allegiance to patriarchal values and their institution’s own superstitious reasoning, fear of science, historical ignorance and continuing spiritual degradation. Awakening people, and those tired of being bullied and burned by the collective ignorance and indifference of institutions, are finally starting to pay attention to themselves and their own suffering and making other choices for the community of the spirit…

The Christian church has promoted for centuries the idea that we are all byproducts of original sin, that we are sinners, and that our only salvation lies in believing that Jesus Christ died for our sins. Somehow our dirty slate is cleaned, if we only believe in Jesus and the mythology attributed to him strongly enough. Otherwise, we all share in the same shame and guilt that the rest of humanity wallows in while living a Jesus free life. In this understanding, we are required to accept the religious world’s understanding of sins as our own, while also accepting the Christian church’s assumptions, thus traumatizing our self by this act of spiritual misunderstanding and violence against our innocent self. A truth here is that much of the Christian world would still set a Barnabas type criminal free to wreak havoc and trauma upon the world, rather than let a saintly figure have free reign (see the white Evangelical movement and its controversial and corrupt promotion and support of the 45th president). Our present world situation continues to display this sad, profound reality

Religion and trauma: Pastor Mark Burns, a loyal supporter of former President Donald Trump and a Republican congressional candidate, said earlier this week that parents and teachers who communicate with children about LGBTQ issues pose a “national security threat” to the United States and added that those found guilty of “treason” should be executed. He also said that Congress should relaunch the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to hold people “accountable for treason,”

Our spiritual maladjustment to the troubled marriage of our Capitalist economic system with the Christian religion has created the perfect conditions for our population to

traumatize each other, our sacred land and sea based life, and upset our entire planetary balance while destroying its land, plants and animals, all in the spirit of the outdated biblical adage”be fruitful, and multiply” and
greed fueled income stratification and the proliferation of cultural indifference paradigms, ignore or minimize the needs of low income households, their babies and young children, senior citizens, the disabled, immigrants, and
practice violence against others through war, oppression, racism, misogyny, homophobia, and
MAD-or mutual assured destruction with the proliferation of weapons of war on our streets and other unregulated firearms caused by 2nd Amendment adherent’s lies and misrepresentations
the practice of violence against the self through repression, overeating, addictive cycles, and suicide.

Picture of priest blessing AR-15’s The religion that lives by the gun, dies by the gun

We have institutionalized and normalized self-destructive narratives and fantasies, and these are most resistant to any form of collective reasoning or change. Some citizen activists become so frustrated by the lack of progress of our culture in addressing issues of inequity and injustice that they despair and lose enthusiasm for their causes. Some may resort to violence and other outward forms of chaos. Others continue the spiritual work on themselves, hoping that a new evolutionary imperative starting with each individual will eventually lead to a collective healing response. Thus is my motivation for continuing this chapter of this book, a book which has become a life’s mission for me.

Be mindful, oh Mankind, of all of the painful secrets that we must keep, For, by our suffering silence, we will not awaken, but just die alone, powerless, and asleep. —–Elisha Scott

Like most of us, I have had many traumatic events in my life, thus I have first hand knowledge of their potential and actual impacts. Trauma results in damage to, or loss of, connection to ourselves, to our bodies, to our families, to others, and to the world around us. This disconnection is often hard to recognize because it doesn’t always happen all at once but rather over time. We make early accommodations to our traumas, with the wounds, and our need to feel safer and more secure, creating spinoffs of our real self that were designed to manage our suffering, and to reduce further attacks upon our self. These spinoffs become aspects of our defense mechanisms, and actually dominate our awareness to the point of making us believe that this is all that we are, in spirit and in truth. Often, the damage wrought by the original wounding does not become evident for decades after the original trauma.

I can never forget the dark feelings of abandonment as a four year old, the pain of a whipping by a belt from the ages of four through thirteen years, the helpless feeling of being bullied by classmates all the way into my freshman year of high school, the disgrace of being humiliated and betrayed by my father during a baseball game in which I was pitching at 12 years old, the horror of watching my first dog get run over by a car, the falling from the top of a seventy foot fir tree and sustaining bad bruising from hitting every tree branch on my way down at nine years old, the witnessing of my great grandfather’s lifeless body as a seven year old, and the tortured endless nights of nightmares, and bed wetting, until after eight years of age because of my fear of getting out of bed.. I don’t remember having been a baby who was stored in a garaged car many cold evenings, though my parents and some of their acquaintances have confirmed that disturbing fact..

One of the several subroutines that my consciousness ran, or”spinoffs” of Self as I now call them, resulted from an accommodation to early trauma that I experienced. This part of me was of the nature of the “savior” archetype, which was a part of myself that believed that, ,for anybody to ever love me, I would have to, literally, ,save them from death, or do something heroic in nature. This fantasy became conscious, briefly, when I was about six years old. I no longer wonder where my need to overachieve arose from, and my excessive loyalty to other damaged human beings who would not have been in my spiritual orbit otherwise. This resulted in my experience of overpowering grief and incredible guilt and shame every time I witnessed failing health and/or death in friends and family members, including pets. I also could not tolerate abuse in any form, especially when I witnessed male friends exhibiting controlling and/or misogynistic behavior towards their female partners. Sadly, my needs ended more than one long term friendship..

Like all others within our society,, I have also been traumatized by our culture and religion in both profound and subtler ways. Trauma seems to be a natural outcome of our collisions with life shattering events, and less intense though destabilizing experiences that we were not able to adequately process and heal from at the time of their origin. It is now known that trauma can arise through actual acts, or through the careless or unconscious omission of necessary love at strategic life junctures. Yet, some even claim that there is no greater trauma than our passage through the birth canal, and that the rest of our lives are defined by our response to that expulsion from the safe womb of mother. Trauma must be understood and dealt with, or we will be limited by our instinctual responses to its experience.

Many people within our society have lost all freedom of choice. I have much compassion for those who still struggle with the sometimes lifelong effects of trauma with its resultant suffering, and its deadly spawn of fear, indifference to others, disassociation from one’s own self, mental illness and alcoholism/drug addiction.. It is no mystery to me as to why those who still suffer choose death through suicide or continued dysfunction over an uncertain healing path. Why would any sane, or insane, individual seek for help from institutions that continue to promote the propagation of the very diseases that they are suffering from, anyway?

Fortunately, we have other places to travel to find our healing, and there already are awakening people to observe and learn from, to gain hints on how to find our way back home to our own innate goodness..

Historically, since at least the Greco-Roman times, it has been primarily men who establish the rules of mutual engagement in our world. I have deeply investigated, and, ultimately, brought indictments against, our world culture’s dominant male energy, its propensity for creating toxic and traumatic engagement with its world, and their resultant patriarchal systems of political, religious and economic understanding that maintains its status quo through a multitude of forms of oppression.. Yet the status quo remains quite imbalanced, and it continues to bring harm, even to the proponents of these systems, and the perpetrators of toxic behavior. To this day, men continue to struggle with trauma inspired feelings of poor self-esteem, and its breeding ground continues to be our unconscious fathers, and the influences of our oft-times wayward ancestors, religions, and cultures. Unhealed and unconscious human beings in the present day keep this disfiguring system of engagement with the world solidly in place.

Women can also be the perpetrators of trauma and suffering, but the statistics are obvious as to which sex is the major perpetrator of crimes against self and other through intentional, and unintentional, traumatic assaults. Men outpace women by an almost 20 to 1 ratio, so it is not even close. Men are the primary vehicles for the delivery of darkness, and are impacted by the poisoning within their own spiritual ecosystem that carrying such energy would predispose them to. Yet, both passive and aggressive males and females can both benefit from understanding the effects of trauma in their own lives, and we can all take enormous strides to bring healing to ourselves.

Let’s fly united in our potential for healing!There are a number of choices that most men make in our efforts to cope with an often times distressing and threatening life experience.

We may fear being seen negatively or receiving a negative evaluation by those people familiar to us. We may fear being placed in an unfamiliar situation over which we have no control. We have developed a trauma inspired brain that seeks to avoid any experience that reminds us of a time when we were helpless, and unable to escape threats or discomforts. We spend extraordinary amounts of time perfecting the passive/aggressive role, where we don’t reveal ourselves directly to others, but instead make our presence known through secretive behavior and hiding activities (fellow back stabbers line up here! No, wait, stand in a circle facing its center, instead! No knives out, please!)

We may participate in trauma inspired anxiety reactions or accommodations to our wounding, such as:

Don’t answer or initiate phone calls (after all, the phone is the heaviest object in the universe!)
Be silent, or shut down after brief sharing, whenever in group settings, such as family events or community gatherings.(well, they didn’t want to hear what I had to say anyway!)
Hide from difficult feelings through overeating or excess drinking of alcohol (hey, these are two prized self-treatment options, what gives here?)
hyperactivity and vigilance around keeping a safe position, in restaurants, religious events, or social encounters (keep that exit in sight, you never know when you might need to run for it!)
Being apologetic for almost anything negative that occurs around us, even if we are not at fault (well, it sometimes is a race to get to the victim’s role!)
Poor self-esteem, don’t care for self, instead focus on others. Ignore the self, often to the point of masochistic emotional abuse.
ignoring our own feelings( especially anger) and any warning signals from our bodies, and not communicating honestly with others, through avoiding difficult feelings and perceptions, and maintaining people pleasing behavior
excess competitiveness with others while engaging with greed and the “keeping up with the Jones’“,
proving self-worth in environments where self, and others’, worth is disrespected, and try to fit in where we don’t belong
stockpiling weapons of mass destruction,
not speaking up for ourselves or for others that are oppressed for fear of being marginalized,
over immersion in entertainment,
not exercising, not respecting the body’s needs.
use of recreational drugs to the point of habituation (including marijuana)
smoking, vaping, or chewing tobacco
using sex as a way to manipulate others, to artificially build self-esteem, or as a disguise for loneliness
workaholism, perfectionism
addiction to risky behaviors and activities in general

These attitudes and behaviors are guaranteed to bring poor emotional and physical health to the damaged ones, and only encourages the further repression and traumatizing of our self. Life certainly can be quite the complicated challenge, and our responses to it determine whether we can maintain reasonable health and a sense of joy and well-being, or collapse into a deteriorating life situation.

The possibility of bringing balance and a sense of wholeness into life must be embraced, and conscious movements towards healing will greatly reduce trauma’s burden upon us. When healing from the impacts of trauma is not pursued in earnest, many negative outcomes become possible: Some become addicted to the idea that their only function is to provide for their family, and, having achieved success or failure, they become disillusioned. Some may eventually lose their sense of meaning and direction in life with the loss of a career, marriage, or community. They may become lonely and depressed, and may develop profound mental illness and/or become addicted to drugs and alcohol if not treated. Those who somehow hang in there, waiting for a better day may never see it.

What is the real back story to traumatized men (and the women and children impacted by their disease) and their lives that may not have been told to their families, to their religions, to their culture, to their employer and co-workers, and to their Gods?

Were any of our male victims of society able to listen to themselves, and identify their traumatic wounding and their own unique pain and suffering?
Why weren’t they able to bring their suffering to the light of Love and Reason, to search for, and eventually find a newer path to healing and meaning?
Did they just blindly follow down the well-worn path of premature deterioration and death that unconscious humanity is doomed to trudge upon?

What happens to a human being who remains defeated by his own internalized dark energy? One only needs to look around, and view the effects of toxic masculinity, and its ugly spawn, toxic religion, toxic politics, and toxic capitalism, to see that repression of our feminine nature, and the Divine, is built right into the very fabric of our cultural existence. The former President Trump is the perfect representation for all of the ills of our culture, and to the extent that the men within our culture practice his unholy principles of engagement with the world, and the women, and men, within it, the men also share in this culturally derived disease of mind, body, and spirit.

There are no affirmations to say or to practice that will make a defective system repair itself. For most of us there is no healing teacher just waiting to lead us into our own unique “promised land”. When affirming a truth, or practicing 3, 5, 7, or 12 steps to achieve a goal, or change a behavior, these practices occur within a corrupted environment, and we are only changing the furniture around in our unique prison cells. We can affirm the truth all we want, but if the conditions for its birth and nurturing have not been honored, then we are only treating symptoms, and not causes. Spiritual bypass, that pervasive misunderstanding that has plagued meta physicians and some present day spiritual healers and teachers, is just a form of denial and avoidance of the mind’s dark corners, and nothing fundamental ever changes. Thus, the cycle of fix and failure may become built into the very system that we think that we want to repair or improve.

Our culture has a propensity for creating traumatic situations with all of the subsequent self-destructive and other-destructive mental programming adopted by its victims. Our collective cultural mindset, or ethos, was created through societal, historical and genetic predispositions. Individual and collective ignorance, and the human male’s propensity for using our reptilian brain to express traumatizing vitriolic, bullying, war-mongering behaviors. These factors are the foundation under which our house of consciousness has been built. If the foundation is failing, how can we expect the house to survive during the inevitable storms that life brings? Have you ever painted a house right before it was to be remodeled, or even demolished? The point here being that our foundations must be understood, seen for what they are, what they provide to or for us, and where there needs to be repair and/or replacement to keep our house from collapsing.

People, religions, politicians, and writers, who promise you a “quick fix” are a part of the problem, for they make promises in the world of effect, but we must reach back into the source for our consciousness, where the real cause of our problems exists, if we ever expect to make lasting changes. If we can develop insight into it these unconscious subroutines, we can find freedom from the darker aspects of them.

I have included five quotes which capture much of humanity’s spirit when directly challenged by pain inducing, emotionally troubling situations.

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come fro8 ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”—–Dr. Seuss
We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”—General Douglas MacArthur “
Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you. They’re supposed to help you discover who you are.”—-Bernice Johnson Reagon
“The underbelly of the human psyche, what is often referred to as our dark side, is the origin of every act of self-sabotage. Birthed out of shame, fear, and denial, it misdirects our good intentions and drives us to unthinkable acts of self-destruction and not-so-unbelievable acts of self-sabotage.-“—-Debbie Ford “
Oh shadow boxer of evil, when will you ever tire? It is the champion of a lonely dream world to which you aspire! Stop resuscitating those dead illusions with your mental pugilist blows. Your healing life will then reveal to you the One that Peace eternally knows!”—-Elisha Scott

Through these five quotes, we can see several options available to us for addressing all of the traumas, threats or attacks against us that we have faced over the course of our life. As a response to each of the above quotes, we may:

(1) fight our foes, and engage in continuous struggle and confrontation with our problems,
(2) run away from them if we are not yet up to the challenge,
(3) become paralyzed by them, and a passive witness while waiting for a better day to address them
(4) deny their very existence, or make believe all is well, even while experiencing cognitive dissonance.
(5) develop insight into them, and thus find a healing peace.. Face them directly with honesty, by seeing our self through the mirror of our relationships with the people who have been perceived as the source of threats to us..

These five options are not mutually exclusive, and through healing intention they may be embraced singly, in several different combinations, or all may become united in a powerful healing synergy. The primary question derived through our reaction to quote #1-#5 may become:

(1) Do I have the physical and emotional capacity to defend myself against the assaults levelled against me by others?
(2) Can I accept that sometimes falling back and reevaluating where I am can make me stronger in the long run?
(3) Rather than remaining a passive, indifferent, or even paralyzed witness to life, can I find why I have closed down to other proactive possibilities and choices for experiencing life?
(4) How do I stop myself from burning my spiritual house down again?
(5) What is my responsibility for the creation, and the continuation, of whatever problems that I am currently facing?

Trauma and its wounding results in extreme contraction of our spirit. We fail to develop the capacity to move freely through our lives, instead remaining tethered to the pillories of our painful pasts, until we become willing to face ourselves, and our grief, traumas, and suffering..

“And the Day Came When the Risk to Remain Tight In a Bud Was More Painful Than the Risk It Took to Blossom.—Anais Nin

For those who may need help refreshing their memories, or understanding if healing from trauma should be a serious consideration, taking the following test may be of help. The Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Questionnaire is a 10-item self-report measure developed for the ACE study to identify childhood experiences of abuse and neglect. The study posits that childhood trauma and stress early in life, apart from potentially impairing social, emotional, and cognitive development, indicates a higher risk of developing health problems in adulthood.

Here is the questionnaire. Prior to your 18th birthday:

Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often… Swear at you, insult you, put you down, or humiliate you? or Act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt? No___If Yes, enter 1 __
Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often… Push, grab, slap, or throw something at you? or Ever hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured? No___If Yes, enter 1 __
Did an adult or person at least 5 years older than you ever… Touch or fondle you or have you touch their body in a sexual way? or Attempt or actually have oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse with you? No___If Yes, enter 1 __
Did you often or very often feel that … No one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special? or Your family didn’t look out for each other, feel close to each other, or support each other? No___If Yes, enter 1 __
Did you often or very often feel that … You didn’t have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect you? or Your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you or take you to the doctor if you needed it? No___If Yes, enter 1 __
Were your parents ever separated or divorced? No___If Yes, enter 1 __
Was your mother or stepmother: Often or very often pushed, grabbed, slapped, or had something thrown at her? or Sometimes, often, or very often kicked, bitten, hit with a fist, or hit with something hard? or Ever repeatedly hit over at least a few minutes or threatened with a gun or knife? No___If Yes, enter 1 __
Did you live with anyone who was a problem drinker or alcoholic, or who used street drugs? No___If Yes, enter 1 __
Was a household member depressed or mentally ill, or did a household member attempt suicide? No___If Yes, enter 1 __
Did a household member go to prison? No___If Yes, enter 1 __

If you answered more than two questions in the affirmative, you are potentially predisposed to a cluster of poor health choices, the continuing of traumatizing of self and others, suffering within the self and, in general creating a generally troubled life experience. The embodied stress of trauma causes cortisol to be injected into the bloodstream for, potentially, decades of time, causing stress and inflammation related illness and disease.

Recently, a Canadian study was published which supported Kaiser’s research. Individuals exposed to adverse childhood experiences tend to be biologically older than their counterparts, as reported within the scientific journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.. The authors of the new study were interested in whether accelerated biological aging could help explain the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and poor health outcomes later in life. Their findings suggest that harms in early life takes many forms and can lead to health consequences many years down the road. The study showed that the consequences of early trauma manifested as perturbation to multiple biological systems. These traumatic experiences included various forms of abuse and neglect, witnessing intimate partner violence, parental death or serious illness, parental divorce or separation, and psychiatric illness of a family member. The researchers found that the link between adverse childhood experiences and biological age was stronger for more sever forms of adversity, such as physical and sexual abuse.

I scored high on the ACE test. As a child, I had several health issues, and I was restless, discontented, and suffered from a feeling of not being heard or fully accepted as a child. My parents and my culture made their compelling arguments for trying to convince me that their paths and understandings were righteous, and I just needed to pick myself up by my bootstraps, and be mature enough to understand and find where I fit in this challenging place. All that I know is that the world sure appeared to be a fucked up place. And those who have successfully adapted to this fucked up place sure don’t like to be told the truth that they are also living in a fucked up place, and that their adjustments with and accommodations to the fucked up world keep the world, as well as their own puny little life, all fucked up. As a culture, we are predisposed to a spiritual version of the psycho-neurological disease of anosognosia.

Kevin Trudeau, the memory expert who was well known in the 1990’s, uses one method called “pegging” when he wanted to memorize large files of information. He visualizes a body part, say the fingers, toes, bodily organs, and then assigns new information to that body part. In this way, the “body” stores the memory, so to speak. In the mind, the information and the body part become equivalent. The same process happens in traumatic wounding. Some times, we internalize a trauma into a body part, sometimes within a section of the body that was most active when a traumatic event occurs In some instances this can result in repetitive injuries to, or chronic pain in the same area of the body. Sometimes, the whole body stores the trauma, with its dark essence enveloping the entire matrix of bodily consciousness and awareness. This results in a predisposition to disease, accidents, a poor body image, defensive/offensive posturing, and low self-esteem.

The greatest trauma to the human soul is the early damage to our sense of self that causes poor self-esteem, and all of the compensating behavior that occurs downstream from the wounding. Without even knowing it, we traumatize others with variations of our own original trauma. If our trauma created a sense of self that is insecure and feeling unloved, or unlovable, our relationships will be held back by just that much, and will not dynamically evolve into the fullest of their innate potential. We remain pilloried to the past, and lost within the unconscious response patterns of a mind trapped in the labyrinth created by that activity..Knowing now that we have been traumatized, what are our options for healing?

Create a visual timeline. Write onto a piece of paper, a long piece of paper, the years of your life. Start with the birth year, and carry it forward to the present moment.
Listen To Music From Time When Wounding Occured. It will open up emotional vistas, using the wholeness of the self
Write extensively about the time in question.
Work in conjunction with therapist trained in traumatic wounding
Perform ceremony that indicates finding the wounds, and freeing them from our tissues.
Listen to the stories from family members, friends of family, and, especially,, friends of the parents who may have witnessed aspects of your upbringing.
Have an incredibly supportive partner, or a therapist, to watch with you the emotions that arise during the turbulent periods of the introspection.
Make a decision to make amends to the world for unconsciously wounding events .

My friend Paul Zilka, during a meditation experience in the early 1990’s, literally saw a small semi-human form, vaguely resembling his young self, erupt from a historical wound in his back, crawl up to his shoulder, and fly away. Thirty years of back pain disappeared through that amazing exercise, facilitated by Jerry Jones, the famous meditation teacher..

In 1987, during a profound meditation, I was also shown two complete identity matrices attached to my own bodily energy field. I did not recognize them as creations from damaged parts of myself. I was ignorant of trauma and its potential impact at the time, and all I could do was to note that they were not there for my greater good, and I intuitively knew them to be “tricksters”. They stayed with me for years afterwards, for I did not know what to do with the information. I did not know it at the time, but I performed a “spiritual bypass” where I was able to postpone dealing directly with them, until I had the requisite insight and knowledge as to deal with them effectively.

If it weren’t for the incredible spiritual strength, and wisdom, of my life partner, Sharon White, I would not have been able to have, what some people call, the following “cathartic event”. I finally accessed one of my tricksters (hell, it might have been both of them!), and began the final process of removal It was on a Thursday morning in February 2018, and I was preparing to go to the Pilates class that Sharon and I attended each Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at our athletic club. Typically, I wanted to get there a little early, so that we could warm up on an exercise bicycle, with a little aerobic activity that I still enjoyed participating in, since I no longer ran, having retired late last year after a lifetime of enjoyment, and pain.

It was 9:15, and I was fully prepared to leave, while Sharon remained on the telephone, talking with a friend. As it turned 9:19, I spoke to her, in my most innocent of voice, “can we go now?” Sharon had a series of responses that I won’t repeat here, but three things that she said coincided with me entering a “spell”. I felt the presence of something so basic, so fundamental, so raw, so real, so hurt, that I raged for a couple of minutes, declaring several times:

“There is something fundamental here!”

The trapped energy of a lifetime was released. I became aware of a pain so deep, and so all-encompassing, resulting in an anger from a source that I had never touched before, at least as a verbally conscious human being, Sharon and I went our separate ways for a few hours, while we both tried to understand what the heck had just transpired. Leading up to this experience, I had been intensely exploring the entirety of my life experience, having written 70 pages about my early childhood and trauma, my maturation process, addictive and self-destructive cycles, while providing glimpses into higher possibilities for living. All of this writing had placed me, without me realizing it, into the psychic world of all of my past pain and suffering.

After a meditation, I had a realization. My wounded essence, and the issues stored in my bodily tissues had actually cried out for the first time and I actually listened to it, without my ego repressing it as it had for 61 years. And I also saw, for the first time, the wounding process that I shared with my father. I felt an incredible compassion, love, and acceptance for my father, who had also suffered immensely under the spiritually destructive parenting of his own diseased parents.

I finally had experienced the most basic nameless suffering of an ignored child, or baby, and I have now given it verbal description: MY VOICE IS WORTHLESS, I HAVE NO VALUE. I MUST BE ALONE IN THIS WORLD. Sharon paid the price for a couple of hours, while I acknowledged the wounded baby within me. But, I had an insight that still informs me daily. I saw how we, as humans, keep layering ourselves and our ideas upon what somebody else is saying, rather than meeting the being where they are, and responding according to the dictates of our “heart center”, which in most people, ESPECIALLY MEN, has been scabbed over by our own early spiritual wounding. Men typically inflict their own wounding on everybody else, in subtle, or not so subtle ways. Usually, this manifests in dominating, or being dominated, by others. Philosophies of oppression, and of the monetization of reality, arise out of this wounding. Women are usually victimized, or those with sensitive natures.

Trauma and suffering are not synonymous, though suffering may arise from failure to directly address traumatic wounding, and only leads to more suffering, and the unconscious predisposition towards creating new traumatic life events.. Many causes of suffering are preventable, however, and they have their origins within broken, unhealed minds unwilling to embrace the possibility of personal change. And, most of these assaults against our Spirit originate within the family, though environmental influences from a corrupted societal norms and religious malfeasance also play major roles in the origin and proliferation of traumatic wounding.

It is the resistance to change and evolution that becomes the bellows for the fires of suffering and the proliferation of trauma. Never forget that racism, misogyny, xenophobia, genocide, and war are culturally generated and individually accepted activities that victimize and traumatize innocent populations. To this day these malevolent attitudes are still being promoted by powerful cultural and religious figures, and we all suffer under its oppressive weight.

Yet, our culture’s propensity for promoting its self-serving lies while supporting powerful proponents of the status quo means that we will encounter resistance as we attempt to move beyond the institutionalized and culturally conforming wounded versions of ourselves. It is important to keep in mind that the Christian religion has immortalized and institutionalized mankind’s “fallen nature”, while many sects still promote the sad, mistaken idea that we are all byproducts of original sin. If “original sin” were seen to be the traumatic influence that we exert over each other, and the planet, I might be able to accept that theological contention.

My first 31 years of life reflected the internalized horror of a life suppressed and traumatized by the conspiracy of silence, a silence created by my misguided need to preserve and protect a limited, damaged image of self, and of all others. My own true nature had been masked over, or silenced, through that process. A lifetime of oppression of myself and the unconscious repression of several aspects of my feeling, loving nature had brought to me a series of near fatal illnesses, physiological as well as spiritual. I saw how a dark force, common to all of humanity continued to live, move, and have its being enshrined within my own heart and soul. I saw how the medical, economic, religious, cultural, political, and spiritual traditions remain burdened by their own limitations of understanding and intelligence.. I saw that my own suffering was shared by most of the other people that I knew. I saw that those who suffer have little energy to provide emotional support for others who still suffer, as well.

Tragically, many of us have experienced great difficulties, traumatic impacts, and suffering through our relationship with our family, our family’s religion, and our culture. Some of the traumas most resistant to healing happened in our early years, or even before we became verbal as young children. And most victims go through life, never knowing the source of their chronic pain, be it physical and/or emotional, and having a name, or a conscious experience of its original collision with us.

Traumatic experiences, grief, and suffering may arise through an action of intentional hostility, or it may arise spontaneously as a reaction to the vicissitudes of life. Suffering may arise from an inability to do what is right. Suffering may arise through incurable diseases of the body, or of the mind. Suffering may arise through the trauma of witnessing horrific acts of violence. Suffering may arise from the inability to reconcile the belief in God with one’s own grief and loss. Suffering may arise from becoming addicted to substances that were designed to take our pain away. Suffering may arise from the perceived inability to speak one’s truth and to have one’s voice heard in the face of the oppressive powers of the day. Suffering may also arise from contemplating the continuation of our daily pains into a distant, unknown future.

Most of us did not embark upon the spiritual path because our life was a resounding success. Even if we had attained material wealth and comfort, we only delay the inevitable distress and chaos of a life lived with a fragmented self, without spiritual relevance and meaning.. Those not satisfied with their present version of the “status quo” may have already buckled under the oppressive weight of a lifetime of accumulated pain and suffering, have heard their long ignored interior voice crying out for change, or heard others’ voices promising release from troubles through traveling new paths of consciousness.

We know all too well where we are now, and for those that do not like their present state of awareness, we do have options. We know that there must be another way to live life, but we do not yet have a clue as to how to live into a new, suffering reduced future. We realize that the path that we are presently on only leads to failure, yet we do not know how to enter onto new paths. We may ask ourselves, or of others:.

What is holding us back?
What is our life’s work?
What gets us all fired up, and will our own internal fire ever burn brightly for us?
Are we too tired to face the truth about our own life, and the life that we share with the rest of humanity?
Will the facts that we have accumulated, and our personal and family interpretations of those facts, provide accurate enough clews/clues for escaping our pain and suffering?
Has someone been able to find freedom from my experience of this HELL before?
Did this someone leave a clue for us as to how to proceed?
Is this path the only one that I can travel to succeed in attaining my own release from this HELL?

If our pilot light is on, but our energy output is tethered to the lowest setting, we are not going to warm up to our highest expression of human kinetic energy. By turning our internal dials to a higher setting, we can accomplish more in our lives. If the dials are frozen in place due to past traumas and emotional wounding, we cannot adjust with fluidity and grace to an ever changing life situation.

Our fires burn brightest when we can burn with others in a collaborative and healing fashion. If too many in our community are also traumatized, and have “frozen dials”, then community resistance to any change will be high, and our capacity for collective growth and evolution will remain compromised.

I am sure that there are many blessed people in this world, yet I never have met the lucky one who had the perfect birth, infancy, and childhood. Like me, childhood was probably a mixed bag for the majority of people on this planet. And, there are a few of us who were born physically handicapped, and it leaves us to wonder why the creative energy of that being manifested itself in such a unique way. These physical handicaps are visible to all who look their way. Those who transcend their physical handicaps are honored for their courage, and their achievements in life. Yet, what about the rest of us, who may have been born with another type of handicap, a handicap of the human spirit, caused by a dysfunctional culturally inculcated consciousness?

Trauma must be recognized for what it is, which is psychological wounding as a result of a single experience, the repetition of similar experiences many times, or a combination of different experiences which have attacked one’s safety and security over an extended period of time. It is an assault against our innocence, an oppressive act, or series of actions, against our essence, and the unskilled way we have dealt with it becomes the source of much of our repressive tendencies and sufferings.

Fight, flight, and/or shock and paralysis are all instinctual ways the human animal has learned to respond to attack, and to fearful or misunderstood phenomenon. It is a behavior that is common to most of the other mammalian species, and we need not judge ourselves for having a natural predisposition towards the use of these tools for dealing with difficult objects of actual and/or perceptual reality. In our beginning strides on the spiritual path, we usually start with a motivating assumption, an assumption offered by others, yet probably also informed by our intuition and our long lost innocence:

Though we are not experiencing it now, there must be a better, or even a perfect state of being available to us. There must be a God, or a Truth, or a Love that can bring transformation to us, and release us from the suffering and sorrow of being a damaged human being. There must be a cause or reason that we are not experiencing this blissful state. Is it because of an error in our thought, behavior, upbringing, acculturation, or even a fundamental flaw in our being ?

I do not have the impramatur from the latest experts on the effects and impacts of trauma, yet my own life experience remains a good evidential starting point for any discussion.. I am sure that there are not many blessed people who had the perfect birth, infancy, and childhood, thus most of our young lives were probably a mixed bag of family love, and various combinations of social, religious, and traumatic influences.. There are a few who were born physically handicapped, leaving us to wonder why the creative energy of Being manifested itself in such a unique way. These handicaps are visible to all who look their way. Those who transcend their physical handicaps are honored for their courage, and for their achievements in life. Yet, what about the rest of us, who may have another type of handicap, an invisible handicap of the human spirit caused by a combination of personal trauma co-creating havoc and chaos within our personal ecosphere and our already dysfunctional cultural consciousness?

Virtually all of the interesting characters in history have struggled with, been entombed by, and have overcome, at least to some degree, this dark force, and it is their journey that becomes the stuff of great stories and legends. And, you and I have the potential to be chiseled out of the same marble that once entombed these heroic souls. The next chapter will cover my own childhood traumatic wounding, a wounding which encased me within an almost impenetrable block of marble. Anybody know where Michelangelo is?

Some wounds can be so deep, primal, and/or traumatic that they cannot readily be identified by the sufferers, which was the case for much of my life. On January 28, 1986 I began my search for Truth, after the Challenger space shuttle explosion signaled to me that it was time to end my life. With that day’s unsuccessful attempt at “death with indignity”, I traveled through Portland’s underworld community, seeking a light in the darkest days of my life, My life prior to 1987 was an often times meaningless and anxiety ridden journey, and had it not been for some deep need to understand my life, I would have passed away long ago due to poor health choices and their outcomes, or suicide.

My personal story reveals the level of my resistance to life, an extreme resistance that may have begun in my mother’s womb, or, maybe, it extends all the way back to the beginning of human consciousness. The start date is unimportant. What is important is my intention to seek healing, Can i join a path where my instincts, emotions, insight, and intellect may combine into a unique healing synthesis?.

The latest experts on human psychology, spirituality, and neurobiology impress all of us with the multitudes of names and descriptions for our unconscious journey through darkness, and our potential for release from it. I have looked at my traumatic wounding at the deepest level, experienced a total disillusionment with the total lie of a life that just accommodating and normalizing trauma may become, and then reawakened to infinite new possibilities for living. As a general rule of healing, if we can see the problem completely, without self deception, then the very power of that insight generates new pathways for the healing traveler to walk upon. It is time for all of humanity to also become experts in our own unique life experience, and understand the impacts of malicious and/or unskilled behavior upon all of us.

The greatest trauma to the human soul is the early damage to our sense of self that causes poor self-esteem, and all of the compensating behavior that occurs downstream from the wounding. Without even knowing it, we traumatize others with variations of our own original trauma. If our trauma created a sense of self that is insecure and feeling unloved, or unlovable, our relationships will be held back by just that much, and will not dynamically evolve into the fullest of their innate potential. We remain marionettes controlled by the past, and we are lost within the unconscious response patterns of a mind trapped in the labyrinth created by that activity.

As an important step in becoming a doctor, medical students must take the Hippocratic Oath. And one of the promises within that oath is “first, do no harm” (or “primum non nocere”). That is a very important principle to doctors, and for me. I believe that all of humanity should take the Hippocratic Oath, and continuously remind each other of its practicality and heart. There never will be peace, until each member of the human race feels that they can have a sense of safety with each other, and know that they are not going to be diminished for who they are, and that their needs are not going to be maliciously ignored.

As a infant, my parents placed a blanket around my baby body, and deposited me in a car in their garage so that my father could get at least 5 hours of sleep a night. My father was “chasing the American Dream”, and worked two jobs at the time. It is now ” common knowledge” that there are profoundly damaging effects of denying love and interactive time to a developing human being. What I might need to remind myself at times is that others, no matter what their age, or how much that I think that I know them, deserve my undivided attention, as they attempt to reveal who they are in this moment.

We all deserve to be listened to. I don’t need to remind any of my readers of the potential of the damaging impacts to our relationships with others, by merely not taking the time to listen with our hearts, to the other’s deepest meaning. We are all developing human beings, no matter what our age may be. And, we are all God’s children, and God speaks to and through us, whether we can hear the “truth”, or not. Sometimes the “truth” is so difficult to hear, that we shut down emotionally, and we either ignore what is said, or substitute our own story for what our bodies, our pain, our “God” or the “other” is trying to communicate.

Please, listen to others.

Please listen to yourself,

Please listen

I do not want a life that has been lived in vain. I also see a world where the many of us still suffer from the effects of trauma, abuse, loneliness, and grief. Denial continues to. reign supreme, though I still have hope that the “personal truth” that I have conveyed here will actually be heard, and applied by others that I care about which now includes the entirety of our beautiful planet Earth.

May the reader make their own unique journey to the center of their discontent, and find their own source of strength and healing.

“There is something fundamental here.”

My life has transformed from a trauma induced static state of distress and emotional stagnation to a dynamic, ever changing experience of life’s infinite possibilities for healing, new perceptions and enhanced spiritual experiences. I say YES to the present state of evolving enlightenment, and NO to the diseased mind stuck in the past.

It is time for humanity to just say NO to being agents for the proliferation of traumatic wounding.

LOVE’S REUNION (poem by Elisha Scott)

I stumbled over the frozen wilderness for oh, so long!

With a hole in my heart that life could just not fill

Until I stopped to rest, and heard a gentle voice singing a long forgotten song

That promised of my release from this winter world of painful chill

Her lyrics spoke of the return of Life to freedom

And the release of shivering minds from darkness’ frozen, fearful hands

She drew me closer without any further verbal tethers

And prepared me for the walk back to Love’s now awakening lands

Her warming presence melted the icy hardness that I used to know

Inspiring within me the courage, to myself and my world, to say

That, to all of my past memories’ barren trees of lifeless knowledge, I now refuse to go

I will now accept only the lessons learned along Love’s Infinite Way

Yes, she met me while I was with the dark companion

But it was to her pleasure to take me home to share her loving lights

And give me the shelter of Love’s never setting summer sun

She changed my cold mourning into happier, heavenly nights!

By freely offering of herself and all of her sacred charms

She moves me through life’s clamorous valleys unto its silent peaks

I can now retire from a life of fruitless wanderings

To live in the Source of Peace of which mankind forever seeks

Her life is resplendent with Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty

For these are the robes with which she clothes her being

The gift of Love now unwraps before my inviting eyes

To reveal her ecstatic vision, which is now all seeing

My search for Truth and Love Sublime has finally ended

For, I now fill my empty cup from her joyous running streams

I have reunited with my eternally fulfilling lover

And, her healing waters dissolve all of my painful dreams

I only seek to remain within her all-embracing arms

While through all life she extends her ever unfolding surprise

My first waking breath each morning brings the certainty

That, from my bed, joined as one, we again shall arise

My broken heart and shattered life is finally mending

And, wedded to her life, I now call her my faithful bride

Life no longer has a fearful road ahead to travel

For, One with God, on Love’s lighted path, I now gratefully stride

Chapter 7: Strangers In A Strange Land: The Defender Dan Story

Defender Dan

With our final insight into the true nature of Consciousness and God, and our identity embedded within this creative principle of the Universe, we see that we can become either agents of a loving, regenerative force, or, in our ignorance, become the malevolent architects of Armageddon, and our own destruction—Elisha Scott

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

― C.G. Jung

Politicians and religious “leaders” prey on people who don’t understand the world, and their relationship to it. People continue to wonder why the world is the way that it is, without investigating their own role in its creation from moment to moment in their own consciousness.. I don’t. wonder about such things anymore. I just wonder how long civilization will continue before either healing through addressing these issues, or disintegrating into chaos and civil war, as ignorance ignites itself into its inevitable self-destructive fire..

History will eventually record for the remnants of American civilization how easily gun promoters gaslit the rest of society through their distorted and evil interpretations of the 2nd Amendment. These outliers pretended to be spokesmen for American’s basic rights, all the while denying all Americans the sense of safety and security from the dire, deadly threats by the many deranged men within society. The gun promoters rallied around the most flawed reasoning, manifesting a cult of death and mutual destruction. They railed against their own interests, believing in their own obvious cultural con. The disaster spreads like a virus with the continued normalization of this gun loving insanity..

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, America’s economy was booming, and our country also grew into its role as world policeman, which followed its involvement in World War II. As a country, it was pleasant to think of ourselves as the defenders of freedom and liberty, and the liberator of the damned, especially after its world saving performance of WWII.

The Defender Dan story serves as an allegory for my understanding of the American male experience of the brain and its function, and the “Baby Boomer” generation in general, of which I am a qualified member. At the top of the page I have inserted a picture of Defender Dan, a toy machine gun which was produced and marketed in the 1960’s, and which continues to carry immense symbolic value for me.

Defender Dan was a plastic and metal representation for a powerful tool of war, and served our culture’s need to normalize and promote aggressive role playing behavior for males. This machine delivered simulated death by plastic bullets, and was a manifestation of the cultural perception that a need for such violent toys existed.

The promotion of the use of these toy weapons happened concurrently with the execution of the Vietnam War, but one can review history to see that in each era that there has been war, there has also been toy weapons made available for children.

These toy weapons represent our culture’s unconscious support for common knowledge based attack/defense postures and the mutual bullying behaviors that frequently appear in human relationships. Symbolically, these weapons helped to prepare our male population for continuing as unconscious human beings, who, when feeling threatened, would rather “shoot first, and ask questions later”. This toy perfectly represents the tool for manifesting that intention.

Men, especially those from lower economic and educational backgrounds, were to be enforcement agents and soldiers for war, for our American economic and philosophical imperialism. Psychologically susceptible American boys, through the practice with and the use of such toy weapons were being prepared to continue in their father’s footsteps. Our leaders stressed that our international bullying behavior was intended to enhance world peace and protect individual freedom and liberties.

The clinging to and the use of “adult versions” of weapons of war by spiritually underdeveloped citizens such as white supremacist terrorists, shows the power of the potential for evil arising from excess fear and the perceived need for protection from the effects of one’s errant philosophies.

My physical relationship with Defender Dan began in 1968. At that time, my mother worked at the Oak Lodge Fire Department as a dispatcher. The department had an annual toy drive, where they collected and distributed donated toys to disadvantaged children within the local community. One of the toys donated was called a Defender Dan Machine Gun. It was not a new toy, as it had “minor damage” that made it an acceptable toy only for a boy, and a father with mechanical skills, who might be able to troubleshoot and repair it. It was reckoned that there would be a real disappointment to a family if the toy was given to them and they could not fix it, so the toy was pulled from the pool of gifts. My mother asked for it, and she was “gifted” with the defective toy, which she gave to me for a Christmas gift..

I was thirteen years old at the time, and when I opened up the gift at Christmas, I thought that I might be a “little too old” to be receiving and playing with a toy gun, even one as massive as this huge gun. I mean, this thing took up a lot of space (as do hurtful and self-destructive and other-destructive thoughts and judgements within our minds)! It was quite an intimidating looking piece of hardware. I set the machine gun up, and proceeded to fire about 20 plastic bullets at my sister (also symbolic of the fact that all war is fratricide) before the gun jammed up internally, and it would only misfire after that. Some friends of my parents showed up with their teenage daughter to visit, and it was then requested that I move the machine of war to the basement, much to my sister’s and to my parent’s relief..

I was confused as to what was expected from me. Why was I given something to play with that had known problems? Didn’t I deserve something that was new and perfect? My dad was disinterested in helping me fix it, and, in fact, he was not mechanically inclined enough to offer much help. I certainly did not have a fully developed skill package in troubleshooting and repairing this fairly complex mechanical system, but I liked a good challenge, and I thought that this endeavor might be worthwhile.

Ann C., a daughter of the friends of my parents, came downstairs to talk with me, while her parents continued to talk with mine. I tried one final time to get Defender Dan to work, but I could not get it to function properly and with consistency. I began dismantling it, trying to understand how it worked so that I could find the problem and attempt to repair it. And I also thought that I might be able to impress Ann just a little bit, if I were to succeed in fixing the machine. Dad came downstairs and saw the gun parts spread all over the basement floor, accused me of destroying the gift, and then proceeded to remove his belt, and whip the hell out of me, right in front of Ann. That one hurt a lot of different ways, for sure. In one sense I succeeded, because I am sure that the sight of a thirteen year old boy getting his ass beat with a belt was impressive. I was horribly shamed, with the feeling of shame not being unusual to me. Defender Dan, and all of the supporting behavior and attitudes behind its existence, was to become synonymous with fear, and shame, in my own mind.

My response to my father’s attack was to give up troubleshooting and repairing the toy. I did not treasure Defender Dan, and after my initial attempts at its repair failed, and my father’s shaming behavior, I took that as further affirmation of my lack of competence and value, so I took a hammer to the toy, smashing it into smaller, more useless pieces.

“Some men just want to watch the world burn”,

and this is one example of that principle in action, and why it arises in the first place. I placed the heap into the garbage can, while trying to forget about my latest “failure”. I then moved onto the next challenge facing me as a thirteen year old young man, which was to come up with a good story that might prevent another beating.

Designers and builders of machinery , or creators of ideas or new forms of art, are encouraged and empowered by their society and their own “creator within” to bring into the world of form their latest creations. Creators are happiest when they actually bring something new, or an updated version of the old, into the world. With the power of creation carrying us across the ocean of life, we can’t help but use that power to make idols, icons, and images that represent that which we are grateful for, or what has given us protection or sustenance. I am sure that fathers over the history of humanity have given crude versions of their primary tools of trade or weapons of war to their boys since the idea of gifting first arose. And, the father encouraged the boys interest in protecting himself, his family, and in a more recent evolutionary development, even his ideology. Yet I have to wonder how giving the gift of fear, isolation, shame, aggression, and the potential for violence is really the highest quality gift that our “creator” has to offer to us

Each human child is dependent upon the quality of love, safety, and prosperity of the family household, and these are primary factors that greatly influence a growing child’s evolutionary path through consciousness. The parents are by intention also designers, builders, and co-creators of the early life and consciousness of the new child, even if it is the DNA that determines a greater portion of the heritage. My father spent five years at a local university learning about psychology, child development, logic, philosophy and religion, and yet his successful mastering of these subjects in school did not translate into insight as to how to best parent his children. My mother studied Dr. Spock and others, yet did not develop the insight necessary to know that placing a blanket wrapped crying baby in a car in the garage at night until dad left for work so that he could sleep missed the bulls eye for perfect child care by the widest of margins. All creators strive for perfection, and most parents are no exceptions, yet that desire for excellence is difficult to identify in dysfunctional families, especially by children who were negatively impacted by chronic parental mismanagement. Victims of wounding carry the pain well into adulthood, and even unto death, in situations where the trauma is never made conscious or gets addressed in a loving, healing manner.

I never have met the lucky ones who had the perfect birth, infancy, and childhoods. Like me, childhood was probably a mixed bag for the majority of people on this planet. And, there are a few of us who were born physically handicapped, and it leaves us to wonder why human biological creative energy manifested itself in such a unique way. These physical handicaps are visible to all who look their way. And, those who transcend their physical handicaps are honored for their courage, and their achievements in life. Yet, what about the rest of us, who may have been born with another type of handicap, a handicap of the human spirit, caused by a diseased culturally inculcated consciousness?

True freedom is NOT about accumulating guns, money, or politicized religion as damaged males continue to interpret these symbols

I might have been born with a predisposition towards an overly ignorant, fearful mind, or those deficiencies could have evolved from my parent’s faltering attempts at nurturing. I do know that I was handed and told to repair a ‘defective piece of equipment” over the course of my education as a young person. Just what was this “defective piece of equipment” that I am referring to? Of course I am referring to self-destructive mental programming created through societal, historical and genetic predispositions , cultural conditioning, individual and collective ignorance, and all vitriolic, bullying, war-mongering behaviors.The “piece” consisted of poor self esteem, and a sense of being ignored, undervalued, and lonely. I was hyperactive, restless and discontented, and I suffered from a feeling of not being heard or fully accepted as a child. I would let the immune system of my mind run overtime, resulting in excessive attacks against myself and others, and excessive posturing in passive/aggressive approaches to insecure and troubled relationships

My parents and my culture made their compelling arguments for trying to convince me that their paths and understandings were righteous, and I just needed to become mature enough to understand and find where I fit in this challenging place. All that I know is that the world sure appeared to be a fucked up place. And those who have successfully adapted to this fucked up place sure don’t like to be told the truth that they are also living in a fucked up place, and that their adjustments with and accommodations to the fucked up world keep the world, as well as their own puny little life, all fucked up, whether they are aware of that fact, or not..

My parents and my culture told me to become the best person that I could be. Yet, they insisted that I make do with their conflicted standards of understanding and behavior, adapt to it somehow, and to live my life with it. I could also try to “fix it”, if I had the time, inclination, and courage to learn more about it, interact with it on a different level, and become a conscious witness to its healing evolution. I have written extensively about toxic masculinity, and there is a direct relationship between the damaged American male, and the incidence of gun marketing, distribution, sales, use, murder and terrorism within our country. Enough is enough, my fellow male (and supporting female) citizens who are hypnotized by the destructive potential of their judgements AND their weapons of war and by the extremists that so effectively promote twisted values to our diseased society.

The floodwaters of gun violence have been created by the unleashing of weapons upon our society by the twisted advocates of the 2nd Amendment, gun manufacturers, the NRA, and insane minds who understand nothing but fear, self-preservation, and hatred. It is impossible to save ourselves from the ravages of flooding brought about by the dam of public mental health bursting, so why don’t we work on preventing the dam from bursting in the first place? Human and Civil rights are not equivalent to gun rights, period, and, in fact, supersede all philosophical claims to dominion by extremist gun rights advocates. The 2nd Amendment has been fine tuned by neurotic, overzealous gun rights advocates to promote ideals not conforming to a rational, effective approach to gun safety and ownership. Gun violence against innocent Americans is NOT SUPPORTED BY OUR CONSTITUTION, no matter what those who blindly support the 2nd Amendment claim. No individual is a militia, no matter how megalomaniacal they may be, and it is utter nonsense that paranoid people use that as an excuse to stockpile weapons of mass-destruction.

This is not a political statement to me. This is a statement of common sense, law, reason, and love. Those who “politicize” this issue with divisive, hateful reasoning, form their deadly alliances around their fears, and this prevents our society from healing. It is up to us to challenge these defective ideas in open forum, and to vote out of office all politicians who support politically sanctioned mass murder,. It is time to strictly regulate or ban the weapons used to assault our families, our own bodies, and our sensibilities, and it is time to change the dirty diaper that characterizes much of masculine thought in our country..

An American society dominated by the self-destructive and other-destructive fantasies of sick minds, (including the ultra-conservative “Christian followers” who believe in Armageddon, and who are doing everything in their power to create the conditions for it), have created this unsafe, upside down world where weapons of mass destruction are worshiped as tools of freedom and safety, rather than being seen for what they are, which are tools for murder, propagation of fear, bullying, and self-righteousness.

Freedom is not preserved and protected through the threatened use of lethal force of one citizen upon another with guns. Freedom is preserved and protected through the understanding that the enemy lies within our own consciousness, and then healing our world through insight, and the cultivation of collaboration, unity, justice, and love. To the extent that Christian America believes in their weapons, is the extent that they do not believe in their supposed Christian ideals, period. The ultra-conservative “Christian” gun promoter is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and should be recognized as such.

Time to listen up, America. Time to shut up, NRA, and the politician’s feeding at their troughs of gun violence, death and insanity.I just have to wonder when terrorism will hit these individuals in political power right where it hurts most, and then they can finally decide that their pro-gun, pro NRA positions are steeped in insanity and nonsense. When they start to feel the pain of the rest of our country, then they will act on behalf of gun control, rather than obfuscate the issues while monetarily profiting from our suffering, as they have in the past. People that profit from the deaths of innocent civilians are worse than terrorists. Why does America support domestic terrorism? Do we understand that our culture is disfigured, diseased, and in need of dramatic change? Guns kill people, and the people who supply guns to people KILL PEOPLE.

There are those who prefer to gloss over the darkness in our society, and call the evil, bullying, and cruelty by names other than what represents the truth of the matter. Learn to recognize these people, and remember that in any coercive society, including Hitler’s Germany, these types of individuals were part of darkness’ support network, whether inadvertently by their own ignorance, or intentionally by their own malevolence.

I have spoken out against guns and gun violence since 1980, and my voice has been drowned out by those who speak louder than me. Now, I am starting to believe that the silent majority is finally going to assert itself, and our country steer towards more rational approaches to gun ownership, and control. Our culture is INSANE, as are the people who support the unfettered DISTRIBUTION AND SALE OF GUNS AND AUTOMATIC WEAPONS. Once again, their specious reasoning and heartless, hollow arguments are filled with holes, the bullet holes of death to our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

NRA and the politicians who do not act to reduce the proliferation of automatic weapons are sponsors of national terrorism. Just how many automatic weapons does it take to make you feel safe? It is just that many weapons that it takes to make you unhealthy, insane, fearful, and outside of the picture of potential national healing. Gun violence directly stems from a national mental illness, and guns are never the proper medication to alleviate the symptoms.

Atomic weapons don’t kill people, people kill people. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. These are silly, though equivalent arguments, only differing by the degree of devastation that their use creates. Attitudes don’t kill people, people kill people. Anger, hatred, war, and despair don’t kill people, people kill people. Whatever position that one attempts to strike, the fundamental fact remains that people are the source of all of the attitudes, conflicts, hatred, fear, and other forms of ignorance that predicates the need for weapons of war, be they mechanical or philosophical in nature. Yet, guns created the very conditions making mass murderers much more possible. Does the chicken or the egg come first? That is an invalid question, because both the chicken and the egg are mutually causative, and are the effects of consciousness.. If you eliminate all eggs, the chickens disappear, and vice versa. Guns, and people’s choices, are the effects of consciousness, as well. If weapons of war, or of the mouth, are eliminated, people will learn to make other choices, PERIOD.

As a world civilization, we try to regulate our atomic weapons, yet we let other weapons of mass destruction run free. Would you allow the arming of groups of mad men with nuclear weapons (white supremacists like our POTUS or Kim Jung Un notwithstanding)? We all must be protected from the atom bombs. We all must be protected from the guns that are designed for and used to kill people. It is impossible to protect us from all of the bullying lunatics out there in the world brandishing their weapons of mass murder, so we must act rationally, and decisively, to thwart the self-destructive and other-destructive tendencies of unevolved, fear based males. We don’t allow children to drive cars, which are dangerous in their immature hands. Men who think they need guns to protect themselves from philosophical extensions of their own fear, ignorance, and hatred are also children, and should be treated accordingly. Politicians who cater to children deny the ability of the culture to accept and adopt more rational, healing approaches to the biological/neurological, historical and cultural predisposition to male violence.

Automatic weapons are the tool of choice for mass murder and oppression now. Those who support the use of automatic weapons, are unwitting dupes for an evil that far transcends their limited understanding. It continues to be the time to turn these “swords into plowshares”, and create and enhance the conditions for honoring diversity and brotherhood between all peoples and nations. It is insanity to continue the proliferation of weapons of war, and there is NO sound argument, to continue distributing them in our country, as well. There sure are a lot of weak arguments, however, and the wayward pseudo-religious people and politicians who have failed to create the conditions for peace and safety within our society need to grow up, and assert what is true and right for humanity, and not what is right for ideologues and the immature male elements within our world culture. Have you ever tried to take a favorite toy away from your son? It continues to be hard to separate stubborn boys from their murderous toys.

Disempowered males identify themselves with weapons of war, giving themselves a sense of control over a life that they feel is threatening to them, and which they feel ill-equipped to deal with in a rational, even spiritual manner. Weapons of war are men’s spiritually impoverished substitution for true individual power, If we love ourselves, and our fellow man, we have no need for weapons of war, PERIOD.

Lenin wrote, “When it comes time to hang the capitalists, they will vie with each other for the rope contract.”

When it comes to time for human beings to murder and kill each other, they will clamor for the rights to own guns and ammunition to do so, and, in darkened America, they will point to misguided interpretations of the 2nd Amendment. Just like many wayward Christians point to passages in the bible to justify continued judgement, evil and hatred against others not of their tribe, sexual preferences, or unlike themselves in other ways. My heart breaks, and goes out to the victims, and the victims families, of the massacres in America, Sri Lanka, France, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

The eternal fires of evil are always being fanned, and uses our weapons of war to accomplish its goals. It is sad, tragic, and, at times, evil that gun toting bullies determine the rules for engagement with the world.

It is time to grow up, and become part of the healing process of the human race. It is time to stop letting the unconscious male children run the world into ruination.

Men, as a collective, would rather have our neighbors, wives and children assaulted, raped, overdosed through drug use, or murdered through gun violence, than make the necessary changes to our culture, and to our hearts and soul. We need more women in positions of power and influence, and men need to get in touch with their potential for toxic behavior and attitudes, and begin to make necessary course changes in their hearts and souls

The rate of gun deaths in the United States rose in 2016 to about 12 per 100,000 people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report released in late 2017. That was up from a rate of about 11 for every 100,000 people in 2015, and it reflected the second consecutive year that the mortality rate increased. Men, as a collective, appear helpless as to how to address the problems of violence, addiction, and failed families and successfully find solutions. Continued insouciance and/or reluctance to face problems places our neighbors, wives and children at higher risks of being assaulted, raped, overdosed through drug use, or murdered through gun violence. We must make the necessary changes to our culture, and to our hearts and soul. We need more women in positions of power and influence because of their ability to think and act globally, and more men to integrate more compassion, insight and mindfulness into their behaviors and attitudes, and together begin or continue to make necessary course changes in all hearts and souls.

A rational human being would posit that ALL rates are unacceptable, and that the American culture needs to treat ALL conditions seriously and equally. Why are we so self-destructive and irrational as a culture that we allow gun violence, sexual violence, and drug additive violence to continue against our fellow citizens? You already know the answer, and it continues to propagate in the genitals, and the damaged minds, of many men in power.

Collectively we really are not a very religious nation, let alone a “Christian nation”. This may not be a bad thing, taking all factors into consideration, especially the spiritual destruction that our supposed “National Religion” has experienced through recent political raping and pillaging. I believe that much of Christianity is in hibernation in this country, and in its slumber has been taken over by politicians and zealots intent on the disfigurement of our society, through contortions of our nation to conform to their own dark, superstitious, and selfish needs and agendas. These economic and political bullies continue to co-create an imbalanced, disfigured world where economic and social disparity reigns supreme, and where violence and mass murder have become culturally acceptable byproducts of the need to serve their own conscious desires for self-promotion, corporate welfare, as well as their NRA masters. Little do they understand, that these are also unconscious desires for their own self-destruction, and the destruction of all others unlike their own mistaken understanding of their selves.

I am not an American Christian, nor have I claimed to be since 1987. I am appalled and disgusted by those in political power who profess a belief in Christian religious ideology, and go ahead and rape and pillage America in the name of their corrupt Gods of power, hubris, death, and greed. .I follow the directions that Truth and Love create for me in my life. I am not afraid to confront darkness, wherever it might appear, in the Church, in the NRA, Congress and in the White House, in our corporations, in my family, or even if it is within my own mind and heart

What is the true source of your fear, those who stockpile weapons, cultivate hate and discontent, and fear monger? Patriotism does not support terrorism, Christianity does not support gun violence and terrorism, and true patriots, be they Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, or atheists, do not get confused by this

If these latest assaults against our Spirit has not brought us to tears, if we are not impacted by all gun violence, then all is lost for us, and I am sad for all of us, and for the people who count on us. We can’t make America safe or great, by blindly following the idiots that profit from our own self-destruction

Thoughts and prayers ALONE are for those who can’t or won’t act.

I want people to ACT, while your thoughts and prayers keep you spiritually in the game, and acting courageously against the oppressors and the evil-doers in Congress, the White House, automatic weapons manufacturers, distributors, and vendors, and the NRA

Jesus, in whatever form he spiritually exists today would take his “spiritual sword”, and hack the ideas behind 2nd Amendment hooligans to pieces. If you are seeking for guns, and for weapons of war, you are not seeking for peace.

Holster that weapon, partner, and start working for real, lasting peace!

That is what Jesus would do.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world
(of guns, greed, gonads, or gold) gives, give I unto you. Let not your
heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. —-John 14:27 (NT)

—–Jesus of Nazareth, and every sane human being left on this planet.

Freedom. liberty, and justice can not be preserved and protected solely through the threatened use of lethal force of one citizen upon another with guns. Freedom is preserved and protected through the understanding that the fundamental enemy lies within our own consciousness, and then healing our world through insight, and the cultivation of collaboration, unity, justice, and love. To the extent that Christian America believes in their weapons, is the extent that they do not believe in their supposed Christian ideals, period. The ultra-conservative “Christian” gun promoter is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and should be recognized as such.

I wrote this chapter as a direct reaction to my relationships with my father, my father’s and my male friends and acquaintances over my lifetime, and my employment experience while working with toxic men in the electrical trades from 1987 to 2016, and at the US Postal Service from 1975-1985. The historical legacy of the American white man, and his support network of unconscious, disempowered, fearful and/or cowardly family and community members, continues unto today. America has normalized that which should never have been acceptable. How can we possibly “make America great, again”? Greatness only comes after we, as a society, face our collective darkness, cease our threatening or bellicose behavior against all we disagree with, acknowledge the damaging impacts of our fears on others, makes amends to ALL we have harmed, and find integrity, and stay on a more humane path in the future.

The foundational consciousness that spawned “Defender Dan”, and which contributed mightily to the development of my young mind, continues to energize citizens into unhealthy attachments to their own weapons of war, be they philosophical or physical in nature. With the collective normalization of destructive behavior and attitudes that have become historically ingrained within consciousness, the deferral of sound heart sense to irrational fears has dictated the continued need for and proliferation of all such weapons of death, bullying, and control. For me to disassemble and examine the Defender Dan unit, and then to attempt to reassemble it into a higher functioning manner, was symbolic for and the prelude to the search for healing for my own loneliness, shame and fear-based mind through recovery endeavors in adulthood.

I long ago made a decision to lay down my arms.

The world will never be completely safe, until everybody else does so, as well.

Religions and governments use their population as unwitting agents for their own imperialism, propaganda, and persecution of others. US vs THEM? TRIBALISM?

We have met the enemy, and the enemy is US!

Chapter 8: The Common Knowledge Game, Voodoo, Black Magic, The Lemming Effect, and Culturally Normalized Trauma

“Your words are prayers spoken aloud so that others may share in your devotion. . . . What unknown deity, either good or evil in nature, are you praying to today?”–Elisha Scott

“What you do speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you say”.–Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words may never hurt me “- hopeful childhood proverb

The hullabaloo at the 2022 Academy Awards show between Will Smith and Chris Rock continues to generate much discussion, and monologues, by many observers who promote their own world views. But, the observer with deep insight into this situation sees that what was displayed for all to see was a perfect representation of our cultural Common Knowledge Game, where people make gains for themselves, at the expense of others, through socially acceptable forms of violence, which we call comedy. Badinage, persiflage, repartee, and mutual put downs are part of the tool kit that the human race employs to keep us focused on the failings of others, while also building up our own sense of worth. We laugh at the acceptable insanity that manifests itself through this disparity in self valuations. In the absolute, there is little difference between these exchanges, and the black magic and voodoo practices of old times.

Voodoo queens and kings were spiritual and political figures of power. The core belief of Voodoo is that one God does not interfere in daily lives, but that spirits do. Connection with these spirits can be obtained through various rituals such as dance, music, chanting, and snakes. A darker side of this belief system was the development of voodoo dolls, and the sticking of needles into them, as a way to punish unbelievers, or those antagonistic to the practitioner’s more godly, or selfish aims. The intention behind the voodoo practice was to bring the greatest good into their own lives, through accessing and harnessing the power of the invisible spirits, either dark or light who have the power to bring all such benefits. Yet, these “spirits” always have a direct relationship with the words, incantations, chants, and songs that the practitioners utilize, showing the direct connection between the spoken word, and the power of the “spirit” being summoned.

Black magic has traditionally referred to the use of supernatural powers or magic for evil and selfish purposes; or magic associated with the devil or other evil spirits. It is also sometimes referred to as the “left-hand path”, (its right-hand path counterpart being benevolent white magic). In modern times, some find that the definition of black magic has been convoluted by people who define magic or ritualistic practices that they disapprove of as black magic. Yet, how many of those who judge against ” black magic” seek to control others, as if their own puppets, through harsh, inaccurate, and/or unforgiving perceptions of others?

Voodoo, black magic, and the common knowledge game are intimately connected to each other.

How might these seemingly disparate elements of human consciousness actually be related?
Are not the innaccurate and disparaging perceptions created and shared by white supremacists and other racists, homophobes, misogynists, xenophobes, religious fundamentalists, and other unskilled and unloving elements of our world in the same dark category as black magic, or those who practice voodoo doll impalations?

Each and every one of us has the capacity to be an oppressor. I want to encourage each and every one of us to interrogate how we might be an oppressor and how we might be able to become liberators for ourselves and for each other.

— Laverne Cox

The labyrinth of the human mind has many aspects to it, and has been recognized for its creative abilities, both to entrap the unwary traveler, or to provide pathways to transcendence from its wayward inclinations. If we each were truly independent beings, and not involved in an infinite collaborative effort with other members of our species, our path would be a simpler one, for we would be beholden to no one, and thus distracted or diverted by no others. Alas, we are social beings, and we have major hardwired centers in our brains that encourage us to associate with each other, and to work towards our common good. It is important to understand how that biological hardware, as well as our cultural software, work together to try keep our natures more directed to order, than to chaos. Yet, many of our ordering social algorithms are counter-productive, incite our unaddressed minotaurs to riot, and induce further imbalances into our cultural, as well our personal realities..

The common knowledge game (CKG) is a newer name for a form of consensus social understanding used in collective consciousness since humans first became verbal, and used more than just body language to communicate with their peers. The lemming effect has also been with us from the beginning, and its most powerful energy takes the form of peer pressure. There are several good books to be read on these matters, and many articles on gaming theory and the common knowledge game are now available on the internet.. My thanks to several writers for providing some of the background for my discussion about personal perceptions, the common knowledge game, and the lemming effect.

The common knowledge game is a phenomena well-studied in the last generation by Nobel Prize winners, mathematicians, and New York Times best-selling authors and philosophers. What has not been adequately developed is its unconscious component, which is the common unconscious knowledge game, an area where hidden pain and suffering, instincts, intuitions, and archetypes rule, and which also informs and drives all unenlightened human thought and behavior, in co-creation with the CKG. The combination of the CKG and the CUKG, in addition to the related lemming effect, has been called many other names by seers and seekers over the millennia. The word “Maya” has been given as the name from Hinduism and Buddhism for the tendency to both individually and collectively create a fragmented perceptual universe, where in truth there is only the unity of the Universe.

In the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, he mentions that

“My father’s house/mansion has many rooms“

“My kingdom is not of this world”, and

“be in the world, don’t be of the world”

which are pointers to the fact that there are two possibilities for living, as a sleeping being in a dark, disfigured world, or as an awakening being in a multi-dimensional human relationship with infinity. The sleeping beings are those who live in the world of Maya or hypnosis without being aware of the many illusions of thought that dominate their minds and lives. The awakening ones no longer are subservient to socially promoted and accepted ignorant and illusory foundations for knowledge and communication that characterize.the CKG.

The CKG adaptation and acculturation process has become so ingrained in consciousness, so accepted, so standardized, so normalized that the individual who even casually practices its dark side continues to contribute to the collective imprisonment of all of mankind through this process. Black magic, and voodoo dolls, take on a new meaning and significance when it is recognized that they all are manifestations of the CKG ‘s dark side. In future chapters I will extensively develop some of the principles of toxic masculinity that dominates the CKG, the CUKG, and the lemming effect, which will help the reader understand at a deeper level why our society has normalized the corruption continuously being created by our wayward masculine energy.

The CKG and the CUKG informs our understanding of our own lives, how we see others, and how to use it’s often times twisted knowledge of poor self-esteem and negative judgments of others to help inform our decisions about actions we can take in our own lives. The CKG and the CUKG can provide to us both a blessing, and a curse, depending on the messages that we mine and successfully apply to our lives from conformance to its social principles. But, regardless of the messages that we hear and apply, we are still directly influenced by ALL messages, no matter how much in conflict that they may be with each other, until we have had enough insight into this process to heal ourselves of unconscious adherence to its confusing, conflicting principles. We each have an internal pendulum which swings gently, or erratically, between all of the poles, and our shared consciousness reflects those sometimes divisive inner rhythms.

Effectively, there are two sides to the CKG, dark and light.. What sets up the darker side of the CKG in our minds and hearts is continuous internal access to our negative assessments, or judgements of others, and of our self, both of our physical form and our spiritual essence. These negative assessments also include our perceptions of what we believe others think negatively about us, as well, which is another self-defeating component of the CKG. This becomes one of the pillars, albeit a dark one, for the CKG, and the reason for the spiritual imprisonment for all of us. What might set up a liberating side of the CKG is the potential energy of a shared belief that we are all good people at heart, and/or that we are all practicing the spiritual understanding that the word “namaste” represents.. These internalized collective beliefs are social processes of consciousness that may become culturally inculcated into our awareness, and thus we all might share in the benefits, and the detriments, of collective consciousness as well as collective unconsciousness.

An item of information is common knowledge if all of the relevant citizens of a community know it to be so (it is mutual knowledge) and all of the citizens know that all other citizens know it and all other citizens know that all other citizens know that all other citizens know it, and so on. This is much more than simply saying that something is known by all, but also implies that the fact that “what is known by me” is also known by all, etc. Thus, common knowledge implies not only that we all know some piece of information, but can also be absolutely confident that the rest know it, and that the rest know that we know it, and so on.

I first consciously encountered the darker side of the CKG in my employment with the US Postal Service during the time period from 1975 to 1985. There were several boundary conditions of the Common Knowledge Game for my continuing employment with that agency. Many of my co-workers, as well as myself, worked there because we felt that we could do no other work, and that we did not have the skills, qualification, competency, or motivation to try anything else. Everybody knew that truth including members of the management team, not only about our selves, but also about all of our co-workers, which in turn, was what the co-workers understood about each other, as well. It was part of shared story that we told to ourselves and joked about with each other on many occasions.

As an apprentice electrician in 1989, I also encountered this “common knowledge” limitation. I was an extremely well regarded electrician, whom due to the requirements of the Local 48 union apprenticeship, was required to rotate through various employers, so as to diversify my experience. I went from a highly regarded electrician with Oregon Electric Group, to an ignored, and disparaged one with EC, another large electrical construction company. The foreman made sure to keep me in the most menial of jobs, and put down “humor” permeated the exchanges between many long term workers, and those not considered to be company insiders, which was me, and a few other new hires.. When I was laid off, a short time into my employment with this company, I was told by Ken Garver, my foreman, as he gave me my lay off slip, to

“ Don’t be so fucking good Bruce, you need to learn how to just blend in with everybody else as they could give a shit about what you know or what your skills are”

In addition to the CKG, many of us also shared a common foe, chemical dependency, which adds several critical internal self-defeating calculations to the CKG. These baseline understandings helped to define my relationship to the Post Office career, as well. I really enjoyed my time working as a machine clerk, however, as the fast pace of the job, and the fact that it was a lifetime guaranteed job, kept me from feeling too bad about my personal and employment decisions. Even though I felt “trapped” by my own insecurities and dysfunctions, through the use of drugs and alcohol I found a way to sing in my cage often enough to delay the inevitable crush of despair that was to follow in earnest later on in my career after I joined the sorting machine maintenance department.

Consider the example of a sexually abused woman, say, a woman abused by a powerful man while she was in high school or college. There are many “common knowledge parameters” to be considered here, but the following are several items to consider, from the women’s perspective: Depending on her religious upbringing, she may believe the following about herself:

(In the CKG understanding of reality, we should begin each one of the following statements with “Everybody knows that . .) .”.

1). I must be subservient to the male, whatever he says, I must obey. I dare not raise my voice against any man

2). I will bring shame to my family by being truthful, so I must keep silent about the abuse.

3). Nobody would believe my word against a powerful man, so I must keep silent

4). I should have known better than to wear that dress, or to place myself in such a defenseless position.

5). I should have known better than to be in this person’s presence, and it is my fault that I was attacked

6). If I speak out against this man, I will be crushed by him, and be considered a whore, or a person of poor morals by others.

And on and on it could go, the foundational logic embedded within the common knowledge game that would keep a woman silent in the face of sexual abuse by another.

Consider competitive work environments where there are several jealous office workers seeking to demean a common foe, be it a boss or a motivated co-worker, through practicing racism, sexism, religious persecution, etc. This can be several employees practicing typical mutually inaccurate assessments of a party not currently in their presence, such as through agism, racism and/or sexism, and also typical of what happens in big companies, politics and Donald Trump style “tweet attacks” , high school, or in church. The participants will not attack unless they are sure that the other will attack at exactly the same time, as nobody wants to be the lone attacker, becoming vulnerable and thus expose their own intent for aggression. This is indicative of the “mob mind”, and how it acts in the real world. The first person sends out a “feeler” (verbal exchange of internalized culturally inculcated negative assessments of others, or even self) to the other parties with the message “You know, I am really unhappy with Mr. X, he is problematic.” Yes, we warm up for the attack, by gently degrading the third-party, while awaiting the others reply within the group physically or emotionally present, which, hopefully affirms our intent. Our verbal or written means of attempting to communicate with the other conspirators may be misinterpreted, so we initially have no collective security in adopting the attack mode. If however, the message of attack is received simultaneously by others within the group, which it does in “common knowledge modes of thought”, then the attack is on. Note that all parties already know the message. If they are all males and sexist, white supremacists and racists, or fundamentalist religious fanatics, the judgements against others is already built into their shared social algorithms.. They all knew in advance that the “other attackers” had the message as well, because it is COMMON KNOWLEDGE that others share at least some of their negative perceptions, and they will attack the other, because they always have before, and they have already prepared their internal fortifications, as well as their “verbal and social weapons” for such an experience.

This is the classic attack/defense posture or mechanism that the entirety of the human race is now participating in. Anybody who has worked in the construction trades, or in work areas dominated by men, know this process quite well. The terms repartee, badinage, bantering, persiflage, etc. are the kind names given to this culturally accepted, and sometimes revered process, whereby we “lightly and without intentional malice” impugn the dignity and reputation of others, through pokes at each other. We call this “humor”, and some may feel almost hurt when others do not engage in this behavior with us. This has been an accepted standard of behavior (though we are finally awakening to darker aspects of this by identifying hostile work environments, and instituting regulations for reducing persecution, racial discrimination, age discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual discrimination in the workplace).

In schools, the wimps, greasers, jocks, nerds, eggheads, goths, transsexuals, homosexuals, hippies, outcasts, or whatever name that defines the “out group” outside of the popular, socially accepted standards of behavior that characterize a grouping, can be quite susceptible to aggression, antagonism, and bullying. I think that everyone who has attended school has had experience with this phenomenon. There only needs to be one in an “in” group, in the presence of others from that group, who may want to impress their peer group, and they begin by attacking a member of the ‘out” group. It may be only verbal, or it can be a combination of both physical and verbal, but the rules of engagement have already been worked out generations in advance of any new bullying behavior. It follows standards paths of aggression, hostility, belittlement, and debasement, and somehow the aggressor becomes elevated in stature, at the expense of the victim. Of course, these are the same behaviors that get translated into our adult life as racism, xenophobia, and the callous judgement against the poor, old, disabled, and the rest of the compromised members of society, that our conservative leaning politicians and wayward POTU$ continue to try to abuse and deprive of health care and welfare.

Human appearance certainly figures strongly in the CKG and CUKG, and the Lemming Effect, especially in regards to sexual intentions for males viewing females, and females viewing males. It might not be especially surprising that evolution wired the male brain to find attractive bodies rewarding, but this unconscious fact is another pillar within the CKG and the CUKG. Watching a curvaceous woman can feel like a reward in the brain of men, much as drinking alcohol or taking drugs might, research has revealed. These new findings might help explain the preoccupation men can have with “checking out” the figures of all women that they encounter. Shapely hips in women are linked with fertility, peer acceptance and overall health. As such, it makes sense evolutionarily speaking that studies across cultures have shown men typically find the hourglass figures quite sexy and worth extra attention.

Guys who check out the sexy female models in magazines have more body-image problems than those males who do not, as well, so curiosity may lead to some forms of suffering. While it is fairly well-known that women feel worse about their bodies after viewing other “more attractive” females. guys apparently take the same knock after perusing the images of lingerie-clad women. The researchers have found that by looking at idealized, sexualized women, guys feel inadequate because they start thinking they need to measure up on the attractiveness scale to snag such a mate. Men make the inference that in order to be sexual and romantic with women of the similar caliber they see in magazines or on the internet, they also need to be attractive.

Women find similar optimally female human bodies as attention-grabbing, but for different reasons. Women size up other women in an effort to determine their own relative attractiveness and to maintain mate guarding. In other words, insecure women must keep their mate away from optimally designed females. Thus, the intersections of the worlds of both common and unconscious knowledge rules our experience in human sexual interactions.

Be aware, once again, of what the “common knowledge game” really is. Briefly, it is the process whereby we have internalized the verbal understandings of all others, whereby ignorant, judgmental, limiting, obfuscating, damaging, soul-destroying concepts of self and other are “socially acceptable” modes for assessing and understanding the self, and the other. This are internalized, and socialized, and this “knowledge” becomes a collectively shared experience. And, we all know that everybody else knows what we know, while we know what everybody else knows. Within the Christian churches with backwoods understanding, we are all “sinners”, we are “corrupt”, we have no hope for “salvation”, etc. unless we believe a certain way, and bow down before certain philosophies and religious and political leaders. Who wants to be damned to hell for eternity for not following the religious path? Everybody knows that everybody knows that HELL is where you go when you disobey the laws that are represented in the bible, or expounded upon by the minister.

Through a process which has existed since verbal consciousness first formed in humanity, we develop verbal constructs to represent the outside world in our own internal universe. Yet, none of these internalized assessments are 100% accurate, NOR COULD THEY EVER BE, even though the entirety of human consciousness now shares in the illusion that what they do represent what is actually “out there” as represented by their current misunderstanding of their fellow human being, and their current relationship to the other (“the finger pointing at the moon can never be the moon”). And what exactly, does despair, optimism, faith and hope look like? We chase their true meaning with our words. How can our infinite spiritual heritage ever be adequately measured through words?

We use verbal constructs to oppress, repress, and deny the other, all the while unconsciously honoring the culturally inculcated process of mutual oppression, and repression of feminine energy and the Divine. We are all potential scapegoats for “the other”, especially when collaboration in a process is not a value, and much of our energy may become directed to prevention of us from becoming blamed or accused of behavior everybody is already responsible for, with or without us, anyway. PROJECTION IS PAINFUL, and we all feel its wrath from time to time.

Our culture shows many examples of this process playing out in movies, on TV programs, and, of course, we all experience this in our day-to-day lives, as we interact with our social and cultural environment. The implications are vast, and insidious. Please consider the following excerpt from the movie COOL HAND LUKE

Captain: You gonna get used to wearing those chains after a while, Luke. Don’t you never stop listening to them clinking, ‘cause they gonna remind you what I been saying for your own good.

Luke: I wish you’d stop being so good to me, Cap’n.

Captain: Don’t you ever talk that way to me. NEVER! NEVER! [Captain hits Luke, who rolls down the hill to the other prisoners] What we’ve got here is … failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. I don’t like it any more than you men.

The “failed” communication of the Captain to Luke is the basis for the successful communication of the Captain to the prisoners: subvert my rules and you will be crushed. The brutal message is made in public, not so that all the prisoners can see what happens to Luke, but so that all the prisoners can see all the prisoners seeing what happens to Luke.

In environments like prisons, the education system, the military, and larger groups up to, and including, American society, behavioral decisions based on private information (“I saw Luke beaten down for breaking the rules. If I break the rules I might get beaten, too.”) are almost always weaker than behavioral decisions based on Common Knowledge (“Everyone knows that if you break the rules like Luke you will be beaten down. Why would I even think about breaking the rules?”). The latter has more binding power, because, in effect, the prisoners themselves end up enforcing the warden’s (or society’s) rules. Even if you privately believe that you and your fellow prisoners could make a break for it, so long as you believe that “everyone knows” that you will be punished for breaking the rules, then you do not believe that you will receive any support from your fellow prisoners (fellow citizens, or friends). It is irrational to even raise the subject with your fellow prisoners, as you will mark yourself as someone who is either too stupid or too dangerous not to recognize what everyone else knows that everyone else knows. And because everyone is making a similar calculation, no one ever makes an escape attempt and the Common Knowledge grows stronger over time, as does the no-escaping binding attitudes. This is why the Captain goes to such lengths not just to punish Luke for his escape attempts, but to break Luke, and not just to break Luke, but to break Luke as publicly as possible.

A variation of the Common Knowledge game appears in a story first presented in ancient times. Plato has Socrates describe a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners’ reality. Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not reality at all, for he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the manufactured reality that is the shadows seen by the prisoners.

The inmates of this place do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life. The prisoners manage to break their bonds one day, and discover that their reality was not what they thought it was. They discovered the sun, which Plato uses as an analogy for the fire that man cannot see behind. Like the fire that cast light on the walls of the cave, the human condition is forever bound to the impressions that are received through the senses. Even if these interpretations are an absurd misrepresentation of reality, we cannot somehow break free from the bonds of our human condition – we cannot free ourselves from phenomenal state just as the prisoners could not free themselves from their chains. If, however, we were to miraculously escape our bondage, we would find a world that we could not understand – the sun is incomprehensible for someone who has never seen it. In other words, we would encounter another “realm,” a place incomprehensible because, theoretically, it is the source of a higher reality than the one we have always known; it is the realm of pure Form, pure fact.

Because of the Common Knowledge game, there is enormous power in making a public spectacle out of information, which is why our local and national news, especially those tainted by the present day propaganda generators (see Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting), Presidential Twitter posts, terminations from employment, public humiliations, coronations and executions (remember Timothy McVey?) alike are carried out in front of live audiences, posted to Facebook, broadcast through Twitter feeds, and/or are televised. This lesson in behavioral influence – the crowd doesn’t just need to see the event, the crowd needs to see the crowd seeing the event – is why religious revival events, rock concerts, and so many of our modern social institutions – from political campaigns to American Idol – are staged in front of live audiences. When you sit in front of your TV set and watch, say, a national political convention, you are infinitely more engaged with the event when you see a crowd than when you don’t. We can’t help our self. It doesn’t even matter if the live audience is faked and we know that the audience is faked … have you ever listened to a sitcom without a laugh track? It’s just not as funny. The fact is that humans are social animals. We are hard-wired to look for and respond to Common Knowledge, and smart people – from political leaders to religious leaders to business leaders and concert organizers– have taken advantage of this for years.

What happens in the diseased family structure (alcoholism and drug addiction, physical and sexual abuse, psychological abuse of all types) in many situations of discipline and control exactly parallel the common knowledge game? Eventually, the children learn not to attempt to act out, or break free from, the oppressive qualities of an abusive parent, or parents, their church and its interpretation of “religious thought”, and their educational experience. Breaking the spirit of the abused child, and making sure that other members know that such “punishment” will also come their way keeps children under control, but also victimized, and traumatized. Children entering the school system where bullies are allowed to run free get to experience this process once again, in a bigger social setting. And, children who attend a church where the dignity of the individual is constantly degraded through their religious philosophy (you are a sinner, you always have been a sinner, and unless you believe the way we do, you are evil, and doomed to an eternity in hell) also will feel the horrific abuse of the COMMON KNOWLEDGE GAME. If any of us were to speak out against our oppressors, we will be punished severely, and we will be smacked down, and “roll down the hill” just like what happened to Paul Newman in the movie Cool Hand Luke. The character Luke, like all of us do frequently, gets smacked, and we are roll down the hill and confirm everybody’s bias, until we come out from under our oppressors.

Well, I am not an atheist, or an agnostic, or a believer, or a disbeliever. I am awake.

There are two great acts of insanity that members of our family, and our culture, engage in, which are integral to the Conspiracy Of Silence, and the Common Knowledge Game of human perception:

1). There is the perception that if an authoritative political or religious leader or family member brings harm or damage to another, the victim must have somehow deserved it, and they should not expect an explanation, change of behavior, or apology from the aggressor. In fact, the victim of the aggression will be judged and punished even more harshly by calling a foul, or claiming harm, from the offensive behavior.

2). There is a perception that we all are of questionable origin, and value, except for, maybe, our self, depending upon who we are unfairly comparing our self to. This is a classic component of the Common Knowledge Game. Depending on the needs of the tribe we belong to, and how much we are acculturated within the group, we may devalue our self and all others, until we heal, and find our own unique voice and true value.

The mind must be clear so that the heart can hold others near and dear..

Our COMMON KNOWLEDGE GAME keeps all of us in some sort of order, albeit one that affirms the false truth that we are all broken human beings, with our only hope for salvation lying with chaotic, and insane, orders of unreality that continue to be inculcated into our collective consciousness. In other words, unless we march to the drummer of our religious and cultural past, we will be judged, persecuted, marginalized, and otherwise thrown to the wolves, with little hope for our own redemption. Woe to the brave individual that strikes out on his own, and attempts to find a new way of being in this world of chaos, distraction, and torment.

Far too many men engage in our cultural conspiracy of silence daily, which is a most deadly component of the CKG. These include the following admonitions:

don’t talk

don’t tell

don’t touch

don’t feel

don’t engage

don’t listen

don’t change

Caricature of men working things out between themselves.

This is a pretty clear message, for those who have “ears to hear”.

Implicit bias and unconscious discrimination against others is an autonomic response, and shields the practitioner from their own malfeasance of attitude and behavior. This is the unconscious knowledge component which supports and advises the common knowledge game-. Those that believe that they are the chosen of God, to the diminishment and detriment of others of differing racial, ethnic, or national origin, are promoters and perpetrators of the biggest , most heinous lie ever told. We all are either the chosen of God, or none of us are. White supremacist pseudo-Christians use their filiality to Judaism through the Jewish prophet Jesus to justify their illusions of importance and placement in the eyes of their own mistaken understanding of the divine energy of our universe.

Pockets of conscious, self-aware, healthy people have been sprouting up among the weeds of American misunderstanding since the beginning of our time together as a people and nation. Perhaps these pockets will someday be woven into a national garment of spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and physical well-being, to be worn by all. This is not happening while I am still alive, however, and may not ever be realized in our time, or any time for that matter. Changes must happen within consciousness itself, and the “common knowledge game” that we all unconsciously play must be examined, and re-examined again and again, until we are no longer subjugated to its darker sides of oppression and repression of human spirit.

Yes, our country is in a downward spiral, where telling the truth is no longer a virtue, but instead it is bastardized, and spun into alternate reality fantasies, to be just another tool to be abused by propagandists. Propagandists are masters at manipulating fear, distrust, lies, half-truths, and specious reasoning, which also help to create new channels of control in the Common Knowledge Game. We are in a war of ideologies, and the “first victim of war is the truth”. Supporting and promoting Pseudo-Christian Apocalyptic irrationality, and making “America Great Again” for the rich, for the polluting energy industry, and for the military, spells doom for the rest of us, and for our precious world. Donald Trump and his family constitute non-holistic capitalism, and, at times, a borderline criminal enterprise. It is both a reflection on Donald Trump, and of America itself, that a known liar, cheater, manipulator, and one time Russian money dependent bankrupt businessman would have been elected as Commander-in-Chief, if only for one term.

The most corrupt human being to have occupied the White House in many, many generations (maybe ever?) knows a little about corruption and lying. It is kind of hard not too, since he is a master at both. Accusing others of his own bad behavior is typical of all “projectionists”, especially when guilty of all charges, and unable to mount a rational defense. The only fake news here is when Donald Trump opens his hyperbolic mouth, and entertains his minions with his verbal drooling. This dirty diaper of a human being needs to be changed, QUICKLY.

TREASON: Trump Related Extreme Anxiety Strikes Our Nation.

Also a most insidious part of the CKG, coupled with the Lemming Effect is the belief in our leaders and religious texts without exposing their message to the light of reason and truth. We have tens of millions of Americans who believe in their “leaders” no matter what (and many of these “blanket believers” also regard their religious “reasoning” AS BEYOND QUESTION), thus insanity and irrationality are built right into most of our collective understandings, and our individual personalities. i have little or no hope for that backward segment of our country, and the poor will always be among us and have a need to be dealt with. The laziness of their obese minds, overweight with rampant materialism, distrust of others unlike themselves, and ignorance, coupled with the rest of America’s present ineffectiveness at dealing with this national disgrace known as our past POTU$, Dobald Trump, will potentially rain down all sorts of cruel and unfortunate outcomes upon all of us.

The healthy, sane, spiritually inspired individual steps outside of the COMMON KNOWLEDGE GAME, and practices seeing him or herself through a new lens with few or NO VERBAL CONSTRUCTS from our personal pasts, and our culturally damaged memories. This is the only “place” where a “heart centered experience” of the other becomes possible. Ultimately, if there is any words to be shared about what is experienced, it serves only as a temporary bridge to understanding, to be discarded at the earliest possible moment, as truth reveals itself MOMENT TO MOMENT, and not just through the shared verbal constructs of a dead past that may have arisen. When two people are observing the same beautiful sunset, there is little need for words, other than to affirm one’s joy in witnessing it.

In mystical Christianity, The WORD was meant to represent the spiritually realized person, whose very being, and words, come from the Truth as it exists in this eternal moment. Historically, some religious interpreters mistakenly believe that the Word becomes flesh in only one human form (Jesus), and dwelt among us some 2000 years ago (sorry, to those who misinterpret the first Christian mystic, St. Paul and his main disciple through the New Testament book of John). The Word actually points to a loving, non-verbal reality, far above and beyond the limiting verbal beliefs and insane actions of man in the world, and it also points to the human beings who through all time have been able to access that energy, express it in new, unique, loving ways, while practicing its universal principles in all of their affairs.

To ultimately transform the Common Knowledge Game of mutual imprisonment, we need to become aware of how we are seeing others seeing ourselves. Changing the way we allow our own perceptions of how others expect us to behave opens the door out of our own uniquely created prison cells. This is not to say that others’ intentions are always bad or nefarious towards us, as most of us want what is best for us as individuals, and hope that our best expectations for ourselves are also good for others, as well. To see how we have ignorantly been controlled by others, or, more insidiously, how we have used our perceptions of how others expect us to behave and believe, grants insight into the whole process, and opens the door to a new way of seeing life, and being in life with others in more supportive, holistic, healthy manners. Our words can then carry all of the potential of the love behind the collective good heart of mankind.

Those blessed few in this world who can finally see the complete matrix of the CKG within their own consciousness and awareness, will no longer be unconsciously controlled by its often times imprisoning parameters. In the seeing of the matrix, is the liberation of the mind from its bondage to other people’s opinions, and freedom from our own wayward ideas, as well. To finally break free of the Common Knowledge Game, and the Lemming Effect, is find our UNCOMMON knowledge, where wonder, awe, love of each other, love of self, love of earth and all of its animals, and the desire to help alleviate all suffering in the world, spontaneously arises within consciousness itself, and finally guides us to our own unique promised land. We finally can leave the world of our pseudo knowns, to explore the real world where newness, love, and truth’s unfolding goodness predominates.

Those in realization of truth find God’s high mount just another illusion to climb, Created by fearful and desirous minds caught on a merry- go-round of time The dark and restless mind is bereft of love’s rhyme and truth’s reason And only chases each new mirage, until it sees its movements are guilty of treason —–Elisha Scott

THE LEMMING EFFECT

Now that we have thoroughly investigated human collective consciousness, we have found through the common knowledge game (conscious and/or unconscious) that there are many unconscious or unwritten rules for engagement between all members of society, in addition to the conscious and/or written ones.. The unconscious rules have been with us from the beginning, well before the introduction of mega-cities and civilizations, when mankind first falteringly attempted to both explore and to define inner experience. The conscious “rules” or laws have been developed over the last two hundred or more generations with the intention of establishing and maintaining the best order and harmony for the ever enlarging populations congregating together into the structure of cities or settlements. Hammurabi’s code of conduct and the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament are two great examples from our distant past of the documentation and implementation of rules defining acceptable conduct. The human race may continue to evolve in spirit and in truth as long as it is able to provide a minimum foundation of safety and security for all of its members, so it is important to remember that not all requirements to conform are misguided or evil in intent.

Yes, I finally stopped running with the disempowered, tribal minions of our economy and religions (one too many fast descents off of the cliff)[/caption]

A great allegory for the social behavior of humans is that of the story of the life cycle of some populations of lemmings. Lemmings are little rodents that live near the cold northern Arctic regions. They are focused animals by nature, meeting only to mate and then going their separate ways, but like all rodents, they have a high reproductive rate when food is plentiful. When population density becomes too high, some of the lemming species migrate in large quantities and since they can swim, they choose to cross the water in search of a new habitat. Lemmings have been known to follow each other as they plunge off the edge of cliffs into the water below. Even though lemmings have been found to be “swimming migrants” rather than victims of collective suicidal ideation, the myth of mass suicide is still called the Lemming Effect.

Regardless of the lemmings real intentions, the lemming story has become a metaphor for people who go along unquestioningly with a group, with potentially dangerous consequences. The “Lemming Effect” is an innate psychological phenomenon, a survival trait, an inborn instinct in the majority of people. We see this happening in many occurrences from bad collective investment decisions such as the dot com boom of the late 1990’s, craving the latest Apple I Phone releases, excessive alcohol consumption at a party, following theological assertions such as “the blood of Jesus is the sacrifice to God that saves our soul”, to modern day automobile and fashion trends.

This Lemming Effect enables entire segments of a society to lose their sense of judgment and the application of personal wisdom all at the same time. It can be linked to the “mob mind” phenomenon inherent within collective consciousness itself. Anybody who has witnessed a Trump rally understands this mindset, and the participant may feel threatened, or even be appalled by such crowd behavior if not presently an active member of the violent tribe.. If you have ever been a member in good standing in the problem drinking division at the local bar, you have intimate understanding of the suspension of wisdom and good judgement with your drinking decisions, as well

We are all alive today due to the self-organizing principles of life itself. In manufacturing and industrial processes, in our planet Earth and its journey through the solar system, and even in the human mind, we bear witness to the wonders and mysteries of self-organizing systems. The human brain has evolved into a capable predictive mechanism since the introduction of language as a tool for communication. Words are used for the measure of our experience, and are now our primary avenue for communication with each other. Words are forever containers for energy, and are not the actual energy itself, being only pointers towards that energy. Yet the introduction of words into the conscious void of the ancient human being must have been the most transformational, apocalyptic event in human history, probably being more important than the harnessing of the power of fire and water for the creation of the conditions for safety, security, and even society itself.

The development and the evolution of human language itself has had the effect of bringing the hope for new or enhanced order to the chaos inherent within the unconscious human experience, at least through the structure of words used to represent the world that one is experiencing. We only need witness the “committee”, or the “monkey mind” operating overtime within our minds while it unsuccessfully tries to make sense, or bring order, out of the background chaos forever present in our lives. Those who are neophytes in meditation, and even some of us when troubled by current events, experience this hyperactivity and perceive it as a block to peace of mind. In truth, this internal mental chaos, when reinterpreted, becomes a gateway or portal to be passed through so as to access deeper, more peaceful and benign regions of our spiritual identify.

There is an interesting interpretation of the Pauli Exclusion Principle which carries great relevancy to our understanding of the word. The Principle simply states that in our effort to describe or define any particle, or object, or to establish its exact location in the universe, we can never know all of the characteristics of the object of observation at one time, such as its angular momentum, direction, speed, and mass, being limited to three out of the four descriptors. Like our imperfect attempts at locating a particle in space, our words, literally, are our sincere, though incomplete, collective measurements, or representations, of reality, or our theories for how things now are, or could become in the future. We attempt to measure and locate eternally elusive phenomenon, and our words are perpetually in a state of “catch up” with an ever-unfolding new reality.

If establishing or maintaining order is our concern, we can effectively channel all relevant knowledge into intelligent systems of control that will maintain maximum stability wherever necessary, but only under those conditions where we understand most or all of the variables.. The basic process control theory underlying all modern industrial and manufacturing systems has an equivalent in the human mind, where we use feedback and feedforward information loops for refining and maintaining order (mindfulness, personal inventory, and meditation). For humans, though our primary system of control is through the laws of our society and of our religions, we have not yet developed the understanding of all of the boundary conditions for our human experience. Humanity’s egregious blunder has been in attempting to bring stability to itself while disregarding the laws of our spiritual heritage and of Mother Nature, which mankind continues to ignore, at its own peril. The instability introduced into our collective Earth life system by humanity’s ignorance of these laws will not be correctable until we humble ourselves enough to learn from our mistakes, be they theological, philosophical, religious, economic, ecological, or social in nature.

The nature of self-organizing systems is that once the quiescent point (also known as the Q point, set point, the functional operation level, the balance or the homeostasis point) has been altered, the system naturally seeks a return back to its native state, or “normalcy”. For our human experience, this may be both a blessing and a curse, depending on the “state” to which we are being returned back to. Typically, if we stretch a rubber band, and then release it, it returns to its original state. But, if we have stretched the rubber band too hard and too often, the rubber band loses its elasticity, and will never again return to its original state. A human being who has been stretched beyond their capacity through excessive stress, anxiety, and/or addictive behavior cycles will NOT be returning to their “normal” state, once it is recognized that the “normal” state was, in fact, an unhealthy, abnormal state of being in the first place, which in turn led to the creation of their present chaotic mindset..

For our planet Earth, this may mean ridding itself of any or all offensive life forms that threaten its very existence, and that continues to drive it out of balance with itself. The time intervals for finding a new, or returning to an old, “set point” that indicates a healthy life is far different between an individual human life and the life of planet Earth. The Earth may take thousands, or millions, of years to return to or reach its optimal state, whereas the evanescent ones must act immediately and decisively, lest we not live long enough to witness any real healing progress.

A life out of balance means that not enough knowledge has been uncovered, or applied, to guarantee harmonious system operation. And it is of ultimate importance to realize that, in the end, the human race is not the determiner of what homeostasis is for the world, as that has been established through many billions of years of its evolution and, thus, its changing relationship with itself and the rest of the Universe. It is also of greatest importance to realize that no man, or woman, is an island in this vast universe, and that our perception of harmony and balance is inextricably intertwined with the rest of humanity. No matter how healed, balanced, or empowered we believe that we are becoming, we are eternally linked with the rest of humanity, and the universe, in our attempts to create order or balance out of our own unique versions of the collective chaos known as human knowledge. The temptation to follow the herd, or to swim with the lemming, is built right into the foundational nature of our socialized existence.

We don’t realize how often our decisions are based on other people’s behavior. Lemming effect depicts a negative side of the conscious following of the crowd, especially when following leads to falling off the cliff. In real life situations it could mean losses of money, self identity and slower spiritual development. As it might sound easy to grasp the concept, it is difficult to notice in our own actual behavior. Moreover, social togetherness is sometimes very pleasant and valuable, for instance at a rock concert where one man starts to dance, then few people join and once the critical 10-20 people threshold is passed, massive amounts of people may join the dance.. It is a pleasant example of a positive manifestation of the lemming effect. It is all part of the process of making our unconscious parts more conscious, which must also bring awareness that mass behavior does not always result in positive experience for the individual.

Let’s take the stock market dot-com bubble implosion in 1999-2001 and a recent real estate/collateralized debt obligation bond fiasco in 2007-2009, which also caused another stock market crash. Many investors were too emotional, irrational and instead of conducting the research themselves, followed the commonly accepted level of valuation. Believing that our world is always operating effectively and efficiently in short time periods results in the lazy approach of following what others do. A take away from this situation is that we each must remain vigilant in our awareness, and that we cannot walk individually, or join in the stampede as may be the case, on the same path as the others and be guaranteed that we will retain our integrity.

From a spiritual development perspective, following the masses could mean losing our individuality, feeling anxious, uncomfortable and discontented. For instance, if the most popular educational program in universities happened to be engineering and we choose engineering while ignoring our true desires, this could lead to some serious cognitive dissonance. The supporting rationale that we have the best grades and this career would please our father the most may lead in unhappy directions. Many of us fail to perform sufficient research of what studies would fit us the best. Our choices could result in the premature termination of our studies, or worse, finishing the studies and then having to be retrained to work in a different field. I have pointed out a very real phenomenon here, as my educational life was directed through this very same unconscious process.

The lemming effect is not that far from pleasant, life affirming social togetherness, but the effect has some potential negative effects that we need to be aware at all times. It is healthy and wise to participate in social movements, but we must not lose our heads in the emotions. We must be critical of the movements of the crowd that are going against our vision and values. Also, we must do the research, and even experiment with unpopular ideas, before deciding that any massive new movement is for us. It is important not to ignore the “leading edge” movements, because accidentally standing on the way of the movement could bring harm to us or others. On the other hand, we could have a very good experience with the lemming effect, if played well. This is one of the aspects where an aware individual can play the common knowledge game and “lemming effect” to maximum personal benefit, without changing the collective rules of engagement. Our politicians, marketers and advertisers, and religious leaders have harnessed the power of the “lemming effect”, and our entire world civilization continues to be manipulated, for good or for evil, by these practitioners.

I dare not leave this subject without the presentation of an amazing, though disquieting, theory of human population control. We have an immune system which is automatically activated to fight and neutralize any invader into our body. Our minds work on a similar level, as it attempts to fight and neutralize any offender who threatens our safety, security, or peace of mind. Our planet Earth, or Gaia, also is a vibrant, living being with almost infinite potential to bring forth new forms of life into the universe. And Gaia has its own innate power to bring balance back to itself, with unexpected consequences in store for our unwary, overpopulating human race. It is not a stretch of reason to assume that whatever consciousness Gaia may be infused with may interpret our reproductive over exuberance as indicative of the presence of an imbalance within its own energy field, and make attempts to correct it.

Our planet Earth is now engaged in balancing itself and its energies, just as it has for billions of years. Though it may not have consciousness of the same nature as humans (the mind of the immortal, and the mind of the mortal, do not have a lot in common), the self-organizing principle of this vast system includes the elimination and/or balancing of all forces that do not positively contribute to its life and further its evolution. The human race, due to overpopulation, has brought great imbalances to planet Earth. Some experts believe that we may have ten times the amount of humans on our planet than our planet can sustain in harmony. The stress being generated in the mind of man by this overabundance of human life forms may well be part of the self-protective mechanism of planet Earth itself.

Humanity has captured a piece of Universal consciousness, which includes planet Earth and its collective awareness (see Teilhard de Chardin and his Noosphere concept). Our collective desire to go to war, to kill each other, to commit suicide, and/or to not generally thrive as a collective, may well be the Earth, acting through human consciousness, to bring healing to itself through the removal of damaged parts of itself, at least enough to bring balance back to the Earth. The Earth is, basically, eternal, as far as we are concerned, and is PRIMARY here, while the human race presently has little conscious presence in eternity. Our own Armageddon may well be written right into the operating system of Earth consciousness as it brings stability back to itself through all of its agents, be it earth, air, sunlight, fire, or water, and its almost infinite expression of flora and fauna.

Without harmony and peace, no homeostasis around a healthy operating point is possible.

Anyone care to take a plunge into the water from a cliff, or go for a long swim? Like lemmings, we are all migrants, albeit spiritual migrants, until we find our unique spiritual home. Once we have found our truth, we may follow our heart and our intelligence, and if that means following the herd for the moment, so be it. But if it means leading the herd, or even leaving the herd for a time, we must be ready to answer the call, as it may lead to all manners of healing and spiritual prosperity.

If we really are ready to embark on the new paths of consciousness, we must be prepared to leave our old minds, and ideas, behind. The Common Knowledge Game must be seen for what it is, and its capacity to diminish our sense of self and other must be dealt with consciously. The CKG has become so inculcated into societal norms that we must break free from the herd effect, the mob mind, that would have us make self destructive choices while being carried by their rivers of ignorance and darkness.

Chapter 9: The Potential For Male Toxicity (lots of duplication )

He that makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man,—Samuel Johnson

‘Being male is a matter of birth. Being a man is a matter of age. But being a gentleman is a matter of choice

—–Vin Diesel

Most of my grade school and high school friends have already suffered, and have become emotionally calloused, disabled, or have died, from diseases of the spirit. I visited a cousin who was comatose and near death from delirium tremens in the ICU in 2017, and he eventually died in 2020. We buried another drug addicted cousin in 2017,. My wife and I continue to witness a son and daughter-in-law who are co-enabling heavy drinkers ply their self-destructive trade. We have a toxic male nephew who clings to his hatred, disguised as Trump style politics, and his guns, like his life depended upon them. Our own grandson presently sits in a county jail because of poor decisions arising from his use of pot and other substances since he was 11 years old. All of my male best friends from high school are deceased. I have already had three close male friends from my adulthood die of brain cancer, and several others from heart disease. I can’t ignore this disease of the Spirit which has taken over our country.

Randy Olson (left-1955-2013) Dan Dietz (1955-1997)

After the death of my father in 2017, I had the privilege and challenge of reading and sorting through a lifetime worth of writings and papers from my parents, and from myself. After reading some of my mother’s personal writings, I was struck by the pain and suffering that she experienced remaining married to my father. He was not a person with the soft touch, when it came to communicating with those that he loved, especially during challenging/difficult periods of life. He was what those in the field of recovery refer to as a “dry drunk”. He was a poor listener, and he could be opinionated, judgemental, angry, obnoxious, overly competitive, and hurtful. He was a member of a huge class of human beings now known as toxic males, and his behavior was to become a major influence for my own choices for how I was to present myself to the world.

I came to perceive the collective impact of toxic male consciousness upon my individual existence, with some insight into my own father’s involvement in my own mind’s formation. I saw that the two errant guides or tricksters roaming through the inner recesses of my heart and soul gave me limited guidance and kept me from being lonely as a young being, yet kept me from developing into my greater good as an independent, free human being.

My first 31 years of life reflected the internalized horror of a life suppressed by the conspiracy of silence created by my subservience to a damaged image of self, and of the other. My own true nature had been masked over, or silenced, through that process, while also preventing me from witnessing the inherent goodness in other human beings..

Men are living through a turbulent, troubling period of time. Their own masculinity has been called into question. There are Fox News hosts who claim that the awakening elements of our culture are emasculating innocent men. The truth is that men are struggling.

Some have lost their careers, and could not recover from that loss.
Some had no meaning in their lives, and could not recover from that.
Some were addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, and could not recover from that.
Some were sexually or physically abused in their youth, and could not recover from that.
Some were addicted to the idea that their only function was to provide for their wives or family, and, having achieved success or failure, they could not recover from that.
Some were traumatized war veterans who suffered immensely, and could not recover from that.
Some were just waiting for a better day, and when it never appeared, they could not recover from that.
Some were lonely and depressed, and they could not recover from that.
Some had profound mental illness, and they could not recover from that.
Some had a profound need to speak up around their own pain, and when they could not find a loving ear with the capacity to listen, they could not recover from that.

The effects of toxic masculinity, and its ugly spawn, toxic religion, toxic politics, and toxic capitalism, is the continued repression of human emotion, the feminine, and the sublime possibilities for existence. Over many centuries, men have built mutual oppression right into the very fabric of our cultural existence. Toxic masculinity values and principles underpin much of the Common Knowledge Game (CKG), which is the modern name for the phenomenon of socialized understanding of self and the other. The following are guiding energies that tend to shape men’s thoughts and actions created through the CKG of understanding in today’s America.

Unconscious, harsh and inaccurate self and other judgement, with resultant poor self-esteem inculcated into boys from birth by our wayward fathers, religions, and cultures.
Remaining ignorant or fearful of our own feelings, including anger and grief, or expressing them unskillfully, We have been trained to ignore or to hide from our own feelings
Letting stress go on unabated in our lives, without challenging its points of origin
Loss of emotional and physical safety in home, school or work environments
Not communicating honestly with others, while carrying the painful feeling of not being heard or appreciated,
Eschewing deep and meaningful relationships with others,
Excessive competitiveness with others while engaging with greed, trying to “keep up with the Jones’ “,
Attempting to prove self-worth in environments where self, and others’, worth is disrespected, thus trying to fit in where we really don’t belong,
People pleasing, at the expense of our personal integrity and truth.
Not speaking up for ourselves or for others that are oppressed for fear of being marginalized,or further victimized
Over immersion in entertainment, binge watching of television, obsessive video game playing, and excess reliance upon Snapchat, Facebook, or other social media platforms for social awareness and connection
Excessive eating and/or eating excessive sugar, salt, or processed foods
Not exercising, not hiking in Nature and thus staying away from its healing balm
Excessive drinking of alcohol, use of recreational drugs to the point of habituation (including marijuana),
Smoking and chewing tobacco, all the while knowing that behavior is killing us
Using sex as a way to emotionally hide or escape, or to control or manipulate others, We are selfish with our sexuality.
Workaholic behavior, and forgetting how to laugh and play well with others. Because of our lack of prosperity, employers abuse our work ethic to encourage us to become workaholics, which ends up keeping us out of the connecting, healing currents of friendships and family relationships.

In our efforts to meet the needs for economic security, continue our family line, and meet our sexual needs, we often make sacrifices that diminish our health, our sense of well-being, our community connections, and our personal integrity. And, as most wives know, men are usually quite unwilling to make any meaningful changes in their behavior, unless they are about to die.

TOXIC men’s attitudes are spawned through an unwillingness to embrace real change. Spiritual freedom exists independently of guns, money, or religion,

The primary contributor to the continuing cultural disease and dysfunction is men’s unwillingness to make fundamental changes in attitudes and behavior. White male privilege, patriarchy, and toxic masculinity are three useful terms denoting the entrenched, institutionalized nature of our dysfunction, which is a major disease of the human spirit. This disease has its deadly flames fanned by our cultural denial of a deadly truth, which is the foundation for the conspiracy of silence. Our unskilled male behavior collectively remains a national disgrace, as we continue to dishonor each other, our animal brothers and sisters, the environment, and our planet Earth.

Men who are not happy with themselves directly influence others to be unhappy, too

Men are still predominantly in control, and continue to skew the narrative away from the truth that MEN’S ATTITUDES ARE A PRIMARY CAUSATIVE AGENT. Our ideas for addressing the problems of gun violence, addiction, greed, racism, and sexism tend to avoid obvious, rational solutions, because we don’t want to face ourselves. And, failure to face ourselves will lead to the same self-destructive end that eventually happens to all humans and their attempts at maintaining civilization.

A prime example is the NRA and the corrupted politicians who do not act to reduce the proliferation of automatic weapons. These allied forces are sponsors of national terrorism. Just how many automatic weapons does it take to make America’s gun owners feel safe? It is just that many weapons that it takes to make America unhealthy, insane, fearful, and outside of the picture of potential national healing. Gun violence directly stems from a national mental illness, and guns are never the proper medication to alleviate the symptoms. One automatic weapon is too many, and 300,000,000 is never enough, so goes the divided, self-destructive collective mind of America.

There Is Something Fundamental Here

I had an amazing, cathartic experience around the origins of my own toxic masculinity. The following story recounts an experience that I had in 2017. If it weren’t for the incredible spiritual strength, and wisdom, of my life partner, Sharon White, I would not have been able to have, what some people call, the following “cathartic event”.

It was on a Thursday morning in February, and I was preparing to go to the Pilates class that Sharon and I attended each Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at our athletic club. Typically, I wanted to get there a little early, so that we could warm up on an exercise bicycle, with a little aerobic activity that I still enjoyed participating in, since I no longer ran, having retired late last year after a lifetime of enjoyment, and pain.

It was 9:15, and I was fully prepared to leave, while Sharon remained on the telephone, talking with a friend. As it turned 9:19, I spoke to her, in my most innocent of voice,

“can we go now?”

Sharon had a series of responses that I won’t repeat here, but three things that she said coincided with me entering a “spell”. I felt the presence of something so basic, so fundamental, so raw, so real, so hurt, that I raged for a couple of minutes, declaring several times:

“There is something fundamental here!”

Sharon and I went our separate ways for a few hours, while we both tried to understand what the heck had just transpired. Leading up to this experience, I had been intensely exploring the entirety of my life experience, having written 70 pages about my early childhood, maturation process, addictive and self-destructive cycles, and glimpses into higher possibilities for living. Without me realizing it, all of the personal story writing had placed me into the psychic world of all of my past pain and suffering.

After a meditation, I had a realization. My wounded essence had actually cried out for the first time and I actually listened to it, without my ego repressing it as it had for 61 years. And I also saw, for the first time, the wounding process that I shared with my father. I felt an incredible compassion, love, and acceptance for my father, who had also suffered immensely under the spiritually destructive parenting of his own diseased parents. I also understood the foundation behind my father’s, and my own, need to overachieve just to feel like we had any value.

I finally had experienced the most basic nameless suffering of an ignored child, or baby, and I have now given it verbal description:

MY VOICE IS WORTHLESS, I HAVE NO VALUE. I MUST BE ALONE IN THIS WORLD.

Sharon paid the price for a couple of hours, while I re-birthed the wounded baby within me. But, I had an insight that still informs me daily.

I saw how we, as humans, keep layering ourselves and our ideas upon what somebody else is saying, rather than meeting the being where they are, and responding according to the dictates of our “heart center”, which in most people, ESPECIALLY MEN, has been scabbed over by our own early spiritual wounding. Men typically inflict their own wounding on everybody else, in subtle, or not so subtle ways. Usually, this manifests in dominating, or being dominated, by others. Collaboration and cooperation become nasty words for all such practitioners. Philosophies of oppression, and of the monetization of reality, arise out of this wounding. All oppressed groups remain victimized and marginalized, and are only stick figures in the oppressors dreams of those seeking world domination.

When our personalities have been formed by the integration of our perceptions into an unconscious, unnamed, unrecognized dark energy, we create self-defeating tricksters within our minds, which become our internal advisors for life. We end up creating an energy exchange dynamic where we project our dysfunction onto others, and make them wrong for it, not recognizing that we were the source of our misplaced judgement. I have acknowledged their very presence within my own mind, and that their continued distorting presence can determine how I view reality. The spiritual thorn in my side will forever be that my voice will not be heard before I die, which is the adult version of my infantile suffering and separation from love.

When I am not fully conscious, the unfocused, chaotic energy within my mind makes me a poor listener. If I can quiet my mind long enough to listen with my heart to what is being said, I can respond accordingly with the intelligence of my heart. As a race and a culture, we tend to be too eager to respond with ego programmed responses, which, typically, are based on incomplete perceptions or someone else’s ‘knowledge’, so being mindful is a huge help.

In our attempt to be heard, we instead try to program people, unconsciously, to behave and react more in accordance with our expectations. When they don’t (they rarely do, unless they are our impressionable young children), we are very disappointed, and feel rejected, and, in the absolute, we feel betrayed by the sum total of exchanges between the parties. It is deadly to attempt to control the other’s experience through linking our own unhealed energy with their own.

I do not want a life that has been lived in vain. I also see a world where the majority of us still suffer from the same, basic issues that I have tried to describe here. Even among some people closest to me, denial reigns supreme, and I have only a small measure of hope that the personal truth that I am trying to convey here will actually be heard, and applied by others that I care about, which now includes the entirety of our planet Earth.

“There is something fundamental here.”

As a baby, my parents placed a blanket around my baby body, and deposited me in a car in their garage so that my father could get at least 5 hours of sleep a night. My father was “chasing the American Dream”, and worked two jobs at the time.

I don’t need to remind any of my loved ones of the profoundly damaging effects of denying love and interactive time to a developing human being. What I might need to remind myself at times is that others, no matter what their age, or how much that I think that I know them, continue to be developing human beings, and they deserve my undivided attention, while they attempt to reveal who they are in this moment.

If I do not want to grow anymore, I will stop listening to what others are really trying to say. If i don’t want to be of service to my fellow-man/woman, I can just stop listening to what they are trying to express, and just layer my own ignorance and judgement, over somebody else, and not let them reveal to me who they Really Are in this special moment.

Another clue about our own, or the others’ listening intention, is when we try to share a profound life event, and then are immediately “run over” by another with more knowledge on the subject. Sometimes we, or the other, either have “too much book knowledge”, we have the “certificate”, we already have read about it on the internet, we have memorized something from a class that we already took, or we have a friend who has already “been there, done that!” What about that “friend” or “family member” who checks their phone, and Googles information, perhaps to confirm their own biases or (mis)understandings, instead of accepting the validity of the energy that we are attempting to share in this new, unique moment?

Our former President, and many of our politicians, are masters at this. Please don’t inflict this same treatment on the ones you love. It is like putting a blanket around our heart and soul, and putting us into the car, so that those with a dehumanizing or monetizing philosophy can continue to oppress others, while keeping themselves spiritually asleep.

Whether any of us can accept it, or even want to try to believe that it is possible, there is a unique truth, which some call divine inspiration, which reveals Itself moment to moment. In my ignorance, disguised as “knowledge”, I throw a ‘blanket” around IT, and throw IT in a car, so that I can continue to sleep.

We all have a secret that needs to be told

We all have secrets from others that need to be told to us.

We all need to be more willing to listen for the deeper meanings of each other.

There is something fundamental here.

I choose Compassion today, with its loving, listening ear..

We are all developing human beings, no matter what our age. And, we are all God’s children, and God speaks through us, whether we can hear the “truth”, or not. Sometimes the “truth” is so difficult to hear, that we shut down emotionally, and we either ignore what is said, or substitute our own story for what the “other” is trying to communicate.

Please, listen to your self. Please, listen to the other.

Far too many men engage in our cultural conspiracy of silence daily, which is a most deadly component of the CKG. These include the following admonitions:

don’t talk
don’t tell
don’t touch
don’t feel
don’t engage
don’t listen
don’t change
don’t heal

Caricature of men working things out between themselves. The conspiracy of silence is inculcated into many males, and females, too.

The abhorrent behavior of Donald Trump, the poster boy and face for toxic male stupidity and darkness, as well as his supporting cast of damaged characters, has become the de-facto leader of the energy of toxic masculinity.. If we as a culture, and me as an individual, don’t speak out, and affirm to ourselves, and to others, what the truth really is to us, then eventually the hypnosis and propaganda of others may become our own collective reality, and continue to overtly influence our personal integrity, community relationships and overall spirituality.

The historical legacy of the American white man’s ignorance and evil, and his support network of unconscious, disempowered, fearful and/or cowardly family and community members, continues even up till today. Subservient women, often times religiously inculcated to be that way, continue to follow their husband’s lead, and as a group remain one of the leading populations of unconscious support for continued unhealthy male dominance. There always comes the day when the family of the woman under the husband’s domination needed for her to speak up the most, and the whole family is further damaged because of her own silence and continued powerlessness.

Women remain the number one oppressed group of humanity, though the blacks/African Americans, native American Indians, and other racial and ethnic groups have not escaped the grasp of white male privilege, masquerading as American Christianity inspired capitalism and politics.

Here are some principles of toxic masculinity that I found live in our collective consciousness, and which also lived in unconscious domains of my own mind and heart. I have exaggerated them, and linked them with common monetary, sexual, and personal power dynamics. And yes, these principles, or variations of these themes, are part of the Common Knowledge Game (CKG) fundamentals for erroneous understanding of self and other. If they appear to mimic some of the values and principle’s underlying Donald Trump’s abhorrent behavior, then you are already paying close attention to our collective consciousness, and its dangerous and sometimes catastrophic influence on the affairs of humanity throughout our history.

I am the center of the Universe. The rest of humanity is here either for my pleasure, for my profit, or for my disdain. I may attend a church occasionally, so that I can create the impression that I worship a higher power than myself. But, I already know that there is no higher power but me. HUMILITY IS NOT AN OPTION FOR ME, and is only for the poor and weak among us.
Truly loving another human being is a sign of weakness, and thus I must continue to suppress all such impulses so that I can achieve my selfish goals. I will carry on a campaign of hatred, judgement, and condemnation of all people unlike myself, all the while claiming to represent their interests at the highest level of my being (with subtlety, if one is of the passive/aggressive nature) . The ignorant people populating my world will hopefully associate my hateful behavior with their understanding of what love is, thus damaging the hearts and souls of all who may fear, respect, and/or follow me. My schizophrenia will be confusing to others, but may still be normalized, as others that I have influenced model and support my behavior.::
People, and Mother Nature itself, are most valuable if they can be monetized. If I can’t make money from my relationship with people or our natural surroundings, then I don’t necessarily need them. They will have to prove that they belong in my life in some other selfish, self-serving ways. I choose to neglect the long term effects of my short sighted thinking, because now is the only moment to profit from others, and from the Earth.
Never admit that I am wrong. Always blame somebody else for my problems. The admission of guilt is a sign of weakness, and only for those who do not have sufficient monetary and legal power. I don’t need your forgiveness for my mistakes, because, as far as you should be concerned, I do not ever make mistakes.
I have a right to choose how much drugs and alcohol that I consume. I do not need feedback from others telling me that I am abusing my medicine and/or alcohol. I have earned the right to drink as much as I feel like, because I have so much stress in my life, and I make so many sacrifices that I deserve an extra break and release through excessive alcohol and;/or drug consumption. I do not have a problem, and if you think that I have a problem with my chemicals, then it is your misunderstanding, and not my own.
Never spend any time in self-reflection or meditation. Developing insight is difficult and time-consuming, and I have more important things to do I am already perfect, I always have been perfect, and everybody else needs to change to accommodate my needs. If I am not “perfect” today, I always have someone, or something, else to blame.
I have a right to use my strong emotions to intimidate and threaten anybody that I need to in order to get my way. My anger is a weapon, to be wielded whenever necessary, and its expression is my first selection from my arsenal of control tools in manipulating and controlling my world.
If I can’t get my way with another human being, then I will cajole or bully them into submission, or attack their name and character, and/or impugn their dignity, until they either submit, or are discredited by my allies.
Everybody unlike me should be distrusted. Relationships built through mutual trust and collaboration can be threatening to my short-term goals, and should not be cultivated, as only alliances of hate and distrust are capable of bringing me to my goals.
The women in our lives are more suited to be our personal possessions than self-sufficient, independent people, and are not to be treated as equals, and are better suited for exploitation for family support, sexual purposes and/or economic gain.
If I can’t get my way through truth-telling, then the telling of lies becomes my most potent weapon. If I am caught in a lie, then it is only your misunderstanding of my point, and not what I said, that is wrong. If I tell the same lie often enough, then people will start to accept the lie as the truth.
If there is no conflict currently in progress, then I must start creating the conditions for the next one, and socially position myself so that I can maximize emotional profits and visibility for myself.
I never will obtain enough money, power, sex, or attention to keep me happy. I must continue to pursue these needs to extremes in order to keep me from becoming depressed and losing my sense of personal value in this world. If I achieve my goals, and I am still unhappy, I must set new goals to attempt to fill that big hole in my heart and soul.
The powers of my penis reigns supreme. When it is erect, it always points me in the right direction, regardless of the people who may be hurt by my wayward sexual desires. My self-esteem is dependent on how many women that I can convince to make love to me, and nobody is immune from my advances. One is too many, and a thousand is not enough, when it comes to sexual conquests.
I am the king of my home. I have created my kingdom to serve my selfish needs. If my rules are not honored, and my intentions for the family do not hold up, and family members start to stray, I will coerce, cajole, or threaten all wayward members with violence, if necessary. The family must stay together under my control, no matter what the cost to others might be.
Perfectionism and full control of others should not be mutually exclusive propositions. I will judge, criticize, and condemn others, and myself, as needed, to bring all of my world into alignment with how I think that it should be. I will compare and contrast my wealth and success with others to establish the best baseline for my expectations and behavior. My wife and my children are first and foremost my possessions. I will direct and control as necessary, and nobody else has any right to criticize my choices in how I provide and care for them. My whole sense of self-esteem is derived by how deeply they honor and obey me, without argument or back talk. I do not want or need alternate points of view, as my view is the only view that is relevant.
If those closest to me engage in betrayal, and destroy my sacred relationship with my family, I must avenge myself, and destroy all who have threatened my life and values. My wife is my property, and my property alone. If she should ever have an affair with another man, I reserve the right to punish her and my family, up to, and including, murdering them. If I must die in the process, it is a good death for me.
Self sabotage is my unconscious need, as I fail to achieve my goals. It is my right to destroy my creations even as I destroy myself, so murder-suicide is an acceptable option in the extreme, when my needs have been dishonored, and I feel that I have no more options to achieve my goals, and improve my life situation.
I have been a failure since I never measured up to my father’s, my church’s, or my society’s standards. I will continue to self-sabotage my success at ever bend in life’s road, and I will see life as a self-fulfilling prophesy of incompleteness and loss. I will not even question that my life has other possibilities for it, and I will resign myself to my depressing fate.
I reserve the right to murder anybody, when it suits my needs to protect myself. I will justify my possession and use of firearms through quoting the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution, as well as pointing to the fear and threats in our world, and our country as my own justification for stockpiling weapons. I will not listen to reason, as my mind is made up, and you can have my weapons after “prying them from my cold, dead hands” (thanks NRA, and the late mega-asshole Charlton Heston).

This list is the abbreviated list, as aspects of our collective selfishness covers the entire range of human darkness. Men burdened by toxicity tend towards sexism, racism, isolation, poor judgement against all others unlike themselves, and low self-esteem, while men moving towards spiritual healing tend to unite with others in peace and mutual acceptance, and a willingness to share an improving sense of their self with the world.

(probably remove the following through the poem) While living a toxic male life, I created some of my own writings on “pain”, which originated while I was hidden in the Care Unit for Alcoholic Rehabilitation, in 1984. These poems are from the hand, and heart, of a toxic man who was in the initial stages of awakening. The following are two different iterations for Pain that I penned in 1984

PAIN

Though the dark cloud looms on the horizon, it is also hidden within myself.

It appears to hover in the distance, just beyond my reach, and it patiently waits my most vulnerable moment.

I then feel the initial mist from its clouds, suspecting that I am its intentional target.

A piercing wind picks up, hugging me with its frozen arms, and I vainly look for protection

As the torrential downpour begins, I feel my tenuous sense of peace and safety eroding beneath my feet.

As it strips back, layer, upon layer, upon layer, upon layer, of my consciousness, exposing a bedrock bereft of sanity.

Exposing long forgotten mental relics, threatening old, unhealed memories, and dangerous old habits,

Stinging, piercing, hurting me at my core, obscuring visions of glorious, yet impossibly distant futures,

Washing away all tenuously held possessions of sanity, and hope.

Uprooting the feeble foundation of a life desperately, but futilely, attempting to, yet again, reconstruct itself,

Carrying a powerless, helpless, desperate soul back into toxic chemical valleys, amid a dark, swirling depression,

Ravaging, drowning, then decaying.

Part II

Yes, growing without roots, with a will that won’t bend,

Weathering life’s storms, which never seem to end.

No longer waiting for the sun that was once promised to arise,

How could truth’s light possibly shine in dimmed eyes?

Having reached with futility for all the high goals of life,

With no spiritual growth, while consumed by inner strife.

Devoid of healing affection, and a stranger to real love,

Unrealistic hope was what my failed dreams were all made of.

Despair meets each day, summer has now changed into fall,

Looking at life, I am totally disgusted by it all.

Dying of loneliness, and holding life by only a thread,

With me rotting inside, hopefully, I soon will be dead.

Pain,

Why?

There is no mystery to me as to why some people choose suicide, continued ignorance, or continued addictions over becoming more consciously aware, and fully embracing recovery from cultural and individual ignorance. In 1986, my choice was for continued addictions and, ultimately, suicide, until I awoke to the potential for healing in my life in 1987. The potential for recovery is only that, a potential, unless one develops a conscious intention to break free from the tight grip of grief, loss, and heartbreak. Pain, and suffering, without any hope for healing, brings anger, despair, depression, loneliness, and suicidal ideation.

As the wise ones advise: To change my world, I first change myself. There is terrorist, a Nazi, that lives deep down within all of us. Once we have addressed our darkness, and healed it through bringing our light to it (insight), it loses its power to unconsciously control us. Then, when we go out into the world to subdue the evil that sometimes erupts in dank, dark places, we can fight the actual enemies, and not waste energy fighting projections of our unhealed self.The fundamental oppressive force in the human universe is not our wayward political or social agendas, it is the human mind itself.

Be careful in there!

Punch A Nazi Sign at June 2018 Portland, Oregon Rally for Immigrants and their families

The following information, though not quite up to date, carries some painful truths about toxic masculinity, entrenched power, the #metoo movement, and gun violence.

Nov 4, 2017 – The rate of gun deaths in the United States rose in 2016 to about 12 per 100,000 people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report released on Friday. That was up from a rate of about 11 for every 100,000 people in 2015, and it reflected the second consecutive year that the mortality rate increased. The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2015 (16.3 per 100,000) was more than 2.5 times the rate in 1999 (6.1).

Sexual violence is a problem that is deeply rooted in our culture. Presently, the CDC does not have any statistics about sexual abuse against women in general, but i have read that one in four women have experienced sexual abuse at the hands of the diseased American male. The following statistics should be of interest (from RAINN):

17,700,000—The estimated number of women who have been the victims of rape since 1998.
99—The percentage of perpetrators of sexual violence that will walk free.
13—The percentage of female rape survivors who will attempt suicide.
64—-The percentage of trans people who will experience sexual assault in their lifetimes.
127,000,000,000—-The total amount of money rape costs victims every year in the U.S., excluding child sexual abuse.
16-19—-The age range that women are four times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. Female college students ages 18-24 are three times more likely than women in the general population to experience sexual violence.
1 in 6—-The fraction of American women who have survived an attempted or completed rape in their lifetimes.
1.8—-The amount of times trans people of color are more likely to experience sexual violence than the general population.
3—-The percentage of men who will be raped in their lifetime.
90—-The percentage of adult rape victims that are female.
321,500—-The average number of victims of rape and sexual assault per year in the U.S.
80,600—-The estimated number of inmates who experience sexual violence in prison or jail every year.
60—-The percentage of instances of sexual violence experienced by inmates that are perpetrated by jail or prison staff.
2—–The number of times a person with a disability is more likely to be a victim of sexual assault or rape than a person without a disability.

A rational human being would posit that ALL VIOLENCE is unacceptable, and that the American culture needs to treat ALL conditions seriously and equally. Why are we so self-destructive and irrational as a culture that we allow gun violence, sexual violence, and drug additive violence to continue against our fellow citizens? You already know the answer, and it continues to propagate in the genitals, and the damaged minds, of far too many men in power.

THE FOOLS

You know who we are, there is no need for our names

We may be outwardly different, but inside we are the same

We vacation on ego trips, and with the world play strange mind games

While striving for material success, and its dubious fame

We remain graceless souls trying to blend into life’s masses

Some affirming our uniqueness, though we remain stuck in the same class

With our delusions of grandeur, while appearing just like an ass

And steering clear of self-awareness, Oh our transparency of glass!

At times spewing words of wisdom, but with only another dogs’ bark

Seeking to make a good life, but on life’s script still leaving just a dirty mark

Believing we may have seen light, but, if so, why is our life always so dark?

Needing more purifying inner flames, while snuffing every divine spark

Though we think that we have blossomed, we do not possess Love’s flower,

We hope for a life carried by the river of sweetness, while we still wade through the sour

Never realizing that, over life, we hold very little power

We can only avoid the reality of our lives, while living in our ivory tower

We tend to bring up life’s rear, though we think that we should be first

And from life we want all of the best, somebody else deserves the worst!

We think that our life should be more blessed, why on earth do we feel cursed?

Our lives just become overblown bubbles, just waiting to be burst!

This is a pretty clear message, for those who have “ears to hear”.

—–Robert Browning

How did I attempt to bring healing to my broken interior? I first acknowledged that, of myself and my old ways, I was heading nowhere, and that I was doomed to repeat the same potentially fatal mistakes over and over again I did not have any childhood training in, nor did I spontaneously develop capacities for insight, positive change and growth. I first needed to develop the emotional and spiritual fortitude to look at the entirety of my life, and then incorporate the experience for my greater good, which also impacts the whole of life in a more positive manner. By developing the power of insight, I brought a new level of healing and awareness into this new, present moment of experience. Some call this process “mindfulness:, though I just call it ‘taking personal inventory’, and improving my “conscious contact with my higher power” as I learned through practicing the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I have come to believe that there is a “power greater than myself” that lives within my internal reach that restores me to sanity, no matter how often I might fall. My willingness to change IS my greatest asset, and opens the door to the highest power. Part of maintaining sanity is to allow for a continuous evolution of understanding and experience of what “God” or “Higher Power” is, apart from religious dogma, ignorance, politics, and superstition. We don’t need to believe in any concept of God at all, but we do need to access our willingness to change, for that openness will point to our own unique higher powered life experience.

Since I have been in recovery, I have been involved in the exploration of some of the more fundamental aspects of my consciousness, and, thus, of all human consciousness. Virtually all of the interesting characters in history have struggled with, and have overcome, at least to some degree, a dark internal force, and it is their journey that becomes the stuff of great stories and legends. I am trying to give a context to this distress that I share with the rest of humanity. For, the one is the many, and the many are the one. The author and scholar Joseph Campbell refers to the “Hero’s Journey” that we all must take to find our true self.

I have been quite resistant to many aspects of life, and to change itself, an extreme resistance that may have begun in my mothers’ womb, or, maybe, it extends all the way back to the beginning of human consciousness, but, the start date is unimportant. What is important is the intention to bring healing to a darkened situation.

It is extremely difficult in finding a way to reach an individual, or a society, that has unconsciously made a decision to slowly and painfully commit suicide through toxicity and addictive cycles, while all remain in rigorous denial of that fact. Each toxic human being, be they an unconscious power hungry man or woman, alcoholic, drug addict, or mentally ill person must find their own unique “bottom”, where the pain of the disease causes a change, or turning point, in their lives. Insanity, loss of job, loss of family, admission to a mental health or addiction recovery facility, jail, DUI, threat of death, or near death experiences, and deaths of close friends or family members also suffering have been known to bring the desire for healing to many of us. A confrontation from those we may have harmed can have rather dramatic effects on our desire to change, as well. It took all of the negative life cycle outcomes to convince me to change behavior. Living in hell for an extended period of time brought me to death’s doorstep, yet I did survive, and the process helped me to seek for a deeper light.

American society has created the perfect conditions for our population to practice insanity, mutual control dramas, and addictive behaviors, but it remains up to us as individuals to create our own conditions for recovery. Self-awareness, personal inventory, making amends to all that we have harmed, working a strong spiritual program, mindfulness, meditation, eating healthier and exercising wisely, and hanging around like-minded people took me to the outskirts of my own “promised land”. Life isn’t always pretty, but I remain personally responsible for my attitudes and behaviors, and I retain freedom of choice in most of my affairs. But, many have lost all such freedom of choice. I have much compassion for those who still struggle with mental illness and alcoholism/drug addiction.

It is this very matrix of misunderstanding that we all must eventually embrace within ourselves, see it for what it really is, and isn’t, and then move through the illusions of self to the very foundation of our timeless soul, where peace and healing eternally resides.

Statements of personal well-being, such as those listed below, were anything but “facts of life” for most men.

I am worthy,
I am safe,
I am whole,
I am loving and lovable,
I have something worthwhile to say

What do we really want and need, as human beings, and what might we need, that we have yet to be able to express clearly to others? I have listed a few possibilities below, please add your own to the list.

To be able to express our thoughts and feelings authentically, without bringing unnecessary harm to ourselves or to others
To belong, to feel safe while belonging, including the desire to help and protect others while helping oneself,
To speak up, and feel like we really were heard, and not have our spirit layered over with errors in reasoning and judgement from others.
To be able to listen to another at the deepest level possible, and be present in the spirit of understanding, cooperation, and collaboration.
To feel whole, and to be able to recognize that wholeness, not only within ourselves, but within all others, even those living in alternative realities.
To love all others, as well as to be accepted, and loved, by others, with as few conditions attached as possible.
To evolve, for if we do not, we become subject to the forces of friction and chaos inherent within a closed mind, and system, resulting in higher physical and mental disease and dysfunction.

True religion is a revolutionary force: it is an inveterate enemy of oppression, privilege, and injustice.

—Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

There is a Wisdom deep inside us all, waiting to inform all of our thoughts and actions in this world. And, this world requires Ultimate Intelligence to navigate through it successfully, without bringing harm to ourselves and others needlessly. Anger and fear are not to be repressed by any healthy human being, but instead are to be witnessed, and studied, and utilized intelligently for wise action in this troubled world.

The liars and thieves that currently portray themselves as politicians, religious and other national leaders need to be able to hear our voices. The feeble, baying voices of the multitudes of oppressed sheep of this world will continue to be persecuted, oppressed, and their human values will continue to be systematically trod upon. The AWAKENED AMERICAN has disavowed membership within that disempowered flock, and continues to point to the life far away from the ignorant shepherd.

Stand up, stand up, stand up for your rights!

My heart breaks for the innocent, yet somehow, miraculously, love still lives. And I want to give the reader some hope, after so much description of the down side of the American male consciousness. My philosophical background predisposes me to the discussion of the blocks to love’s awareness and experience, for by seeing completely the shades pulled over Truth, ultimately we will see through them, to where the mystery of the unknown, and Love itself, actually resides. The capacity for insight brings change, in the actual seeing IS AWAKENED THE CAPACITY FOR LASTING INTERNAL CHANGE. The Kingdom of Love is where fragmented, broken thinking can be healed, as it has its own unique intelligence and understanding.

Healing through a heightened awareness must be individually experienced, and then the fruits of the experience can be collectively shared with other interested parties, such as in AA meetings, friendship circles. Here we can create the strongest atmosphere for healing of self and others. We don’t need an edifice for this, yet our own home can become the foundation for community healing. If we belong to an enlightened group of people who attend church, there is also an immense potential for mutual support. Our own intention must start the process, though the healing intentions of others for us, and for themselves, can bring us together into a “healing formation”, where the miracle of the collective/shared mind of a love inspired mankind can really work its wonders. Here we may actually share in the real Master Mind that has attempted to guide the human race since the beginning, since well before our present day diseased world mind took over. The right group of people, sharing love and healing together, creates a palpable energy, and this can characterize some recovery groups, depending on the quality of recovery present, and being expressed, in those groups.

Going my way? Let’s fly united!

Individuals who are toxic men, addicts/alcoholics, and/or who are mentally ill, and the cultures that breed and support that behavior, and who are not yet ready to face their shame, guilt, fears, and insecurities consciously will not have an easy time of it in recovery and in the search for greater meaning in their lives. There are many healing and/or religious paths to take, methodologies for achieving and maintaining sobriety, and therapeutic modalities and medications available for mental illness, and the technique chosen should be wisely considered based on personal needs and philosophies-or lack of them. For those who just want to treat the body, and not the mind or Spirit, there are injections available to reduce alcohol and/or drug cravings, and medications to temporarily treat the illnesses of the mind, which may be all that the sufferer needs for now, especially if they have little inclination towards personal awareness, insight, and spiritual evolution.

Each of my toxic male, mentally ill or substance abusing family members knows of my own toxic background, and so far has had little use for my experience, strength, and hope in sobriety, showing that my “process for recovery” has debatable value for a diseased mind that has no desire to change. A common statement uttered by a practicing alcoholic/addict or toxic male in denial is “I don’t have a problem”, or, “he/she is the one with the problem, not me!” Denial of the facts of addiction and/or toxic attitudes, and justification for continuing unhealthy behaviors, results in the creation of the “fake news” that they don’t have a problem with drugs and alcohol and our underlying consciousness, and this sad fact remains a constant for most sufferers of addiction and Toxic Masculinity and Toxic Religion. Our culture is insane, and the insanity has crept into all of our families, and all of our individual lives, whether we want to face it, or not.

One of my problems with religion in general, their prophets, messengers, and associated religious texts, is the institutionalized ignorance that is passed for wisdom and spiritual knowledge. And, they tend to take the scatter-gun approach to delivering their message. Most of their “truths” are hard to digest, and they tend to speak AT the listener or student, rather than speaking TO the student or practitioner. There are those blessed few who are attuned to the inner value or meaning of the truth being delivered, and the message speaks TO the listener. It has been said that those are the ones who were either born with or somehow learned how to develop and practice spiritual discernment. In the hearing of Love, or Truth, hope for change is stimulated, and the internal motivation to make necessary changes in the course of one’s life begins.

There is one more step, however, with religious attainment, or attunement. Only a few in recorded history have developed the capacity to have their religion, their God, their Buddha Mind, their Christ Consciousness speak THROUGH them. In Christian mystical terms, this is the word made flesh, and dwelling among us. Ministers and politicians ever so rarely qualify for this exalted state, as experts and practitioners of the law have limited access to the spirit behind it. Watch out for television preachers and evangelicals, as they are ministers of propaganda, and are money accumulating propagators of illusion, delusion, deception, and fear, while preying on the ignorant, and the innocent. They support the unreality of the walls built between all beings and their Gods by their history and their religions, and then try to devise clever bridges to reconnect all that they have illigically separated.

If this book finds that its readers feel like this work only speaks AT them, then the work has little lasting value. If the reader feels that this work speaks TO them in some way, however, then a true connection has been made, and human energy has been exchanged, for the betterment of the reader and the writer. This is a fundamental form of energy exchange, or prayer. But if a reader somehow finds a truth within this work that resonates within their mind and heart, to the point of dislodging some repressed or oppressed divine energy, an enlightenment or liberation is attained that the whole human race has the potential to benefit from. If healing, wholeness, or divinity subsequently speaks THROUGH the reader, then this becomes a form of universal prayer that genuinely has the chance to help in the healing of the planet. To this point, nothing I have ever said or written has led anybody into the “promised land”, so I would be happy if this story somehow finds a way to speak TO a few readers. We can then share in a prayer with the potential to bring healing, wholeness, and divinity to us and the consciousness that we presently share. I will leave liberation and enlightenment to the spiritual savants, and to their students that insist on hanging onto their every word.

There is a unique path that each one of us must take, to find our greatest good. Those who continue to follow other people’s routes, at the exclusion of the route that their own internal GPS system is generating, risk losing all, including their freedom and their unique life expression. Trying to fit in with and adapt to insanity, and the continuing attempts to normalize it, is the foundation for mental illness, our national schizophrenia, and its spawn, our present day corrupted economic, political, and religious systems.

Even though we as individuals did not create this disease of the human mind, and we appear to have little control over its wayward actions in others, or our society in general, we still have access to a cure. The development of personal insight is a mechanism that points to the cure. As we heal as individuals, and join with others who have also chosen to heal, we can create a new culture of healing, and awakening, and reduce the destructive effects of social oppression and the repression of our inner, truest natures.

Continuous process improvement works for systems, and humans.

Built right into the very fabric of life, is death itself. There are up to fifty trillion cells within our human bodies which are constantly dying off, and being replaced by others so that we can continue to live, and even evolve (or regress as the situation may dictate). So also should all of our old thoughts die off, to be replaced by newer, more vibrant creations, if we are to continue to live, and grow, and even evolve. Those who do not do the work to shed the old ways, the old thoughts, the incomplete and inaccurate ways of seeing life, and being in life, will remain the “poor among us”, and more susceptible to the ravages of disease, aging and deterioration of the mind and body. Yet, even though the disease and despair wrought by toxic male energy is woven throughout the collective garment that now covers our humanity, there are many threads of hope interwoven within it, as well, and these threads are our hope for transcendence.

I continue to feel that A New Story Needs To Be Told by our teachers and leaders, and by ourselves. The fatal flaw with all philosophies touting the coming of a new age of peace and enlightenment is that they fail to embrace a fundamental flaw in the human mind, its character and reasoning. And, this flaw typically arises in the male dominated mind, with a few notable exceptions. Those who continue to promote the “light”, without first addressing the required walk through our personal and collective “darkness”, are offering up shallow containers for those who need to drink deeply from the waters of the Spirit. We are left thirsty, and confused, as to why we do not reach the “promised land” as offered by others who are supposedly “in the know”.

Men use their philosophies to justify greed and selfishness, and to give themselves permission not to feel for others less fortunate than themselves, nor to even fully feel their own human emotions. Male energy in general, and all patriarchal cultures are out of balance, having repressed so much of our basic, human (feminine) nature that we can no longer access our innermost divine/human nature, where all love and healing bubbles up from. Men who can’t access their feelings, can’t access their higher natures, period. The path to the Spirit goes directly through the flooding streams of human emotions. Those who bypass this step live mostly from their “heads” rather than through their “hearts”.

I Looked For My Soul (by William Blake)

I looked for my soul,

But my soul I could not see.

I looked for my God,

But my God eluded me.

I looked for a friend,

And then I found all three.

May we all become friends of the Spirit, because love and insight is bigger than anything in its way.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Anais Nin

We all must find a way to blossom and to release our “imprisoned splendor”. Emotionally dishonest, hiding, shame based behavior, hateful, misogynistic, racist, irrational, anti-earth and anti-animal, and immoral agendas promoted by the existing POTUS, and tragically practiced by millions of our fellow Americans, will not lead to recovery and healing, period. We are all negatively impacted by the continued resistance of others to the unfoldment of healing, and love.

While some believe that our collective emotional and spiritual IQ appears to be declining, there are those who continue to grow, evolve, transform, and become aware. which brings me a measure of optimism for the future. Women, who tend to think more holistically, are the hope for the future, as men’s fragmented thinking and selfish reasoning will only continue to lead us all down the path of chaos and brokenness. Men will never lead anybody into the “promised land”, because the “promised land” does not exist for persons living a life devoid of spiritual discernment, no matter how much they claim to read the bible, or attend church. Unhealed men are not capable of seeing everything as extending from an unbroken whole, of which everything emanates from and which we are eternally united with. Men do not automatically assign the highest value to life, instead opting for philosophical agendas that minimize other life’s value, so that they can achieve their selfish desires with less guilt.

There just are not enough recovering men in this country right now who have undertaken the practice of self-awareness and healing, and applied spirituality, devoid of the trappings of religious dogma and misplaced judgement. Men will not evolve, unless backed into a corner, and threatened with the loss of everything, and even then they will try to hold a discussion with you about why they don’t need to heal, just everybody else needs to. There are far too many men who pretend to be Christian, playing that music in the background while going about their typically anti-Christ unconscious, unhealed male behaviors, negatively impacting all those who make contact with that irrational, yet all too common, wounded American male soul. Most men will not change, unless faced with the certainty of death itself. And, the road that our country is now set upon, is defined by death’s very boundaries. There will be healing for the American male in our future, but by what impetus, and at what cost to the rest of our world?

Insight, enlightenment and healing do not come to the “fat and happy” people of our world. Transformation is NOT a gentle process, merely attained through reading books, practicing a few affirmations, talking with friendly therapists under our emotional control, and/or attending a few workshops and conferences. To find true enlightenment, a path through personal, and our collective, insanity is REQUIRED. Watch how the so-called ‘professionals’ of our culture continue to try to oppress this movement, and repress those impulses within themselves, and others under their ‘spell’ or control.

I can quote from the Bible, Koran, Talmud, Bhagavad Gita, or the sayings of the “enlightened masters” such as the Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, or more recently Krishnamurti, the Dalai Lama, OR ALL OTHERS, for the rest of eternity, but until I face myself directly and honestly, NO TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE WILL OCCUR. The same is true for our country, and for our world.

The greatest life lesson that life has given me revolves around my relationship with my father. My grandfather’s alcoholism seemed to have had an Impact on the way dad drank as a young man. He enjoyed drinking, and was quite the social person, as well. But, his memory of his father’s behavior probably served as a good deterrent to abusive drinking. But dad still wrestled with his own self-esteem . The legacy that my grandfather tried to leave with his kids tragically revolved around diminishing the value of his children’s lives in his, and in their own, developing minds. My dad was, at times, troubled by his upbringing, though he rarely spoke of it until very late in life. Unconsciously, dad had impressed his own lack of a healthy mental self concept upon his children.

To this day, depending on how conscious I can or can’t be, I can be dramatically impacted by the wounds, or I can soar high above it all through maintaining the principles of an open heart and a quiet(er) mind, which neutralizes the unhealthy illusions of self that can be so troubling. But my lack of a healthy self-esteem did take me into hell very early in life. I was not to find recovery from this until I was 31 years of age. And, for me, my only hope was to find the Truth that underlies the whole of life, and attempt to derive a new sense of self through re-connection with this lost essence. A new openness to life and all of the possibilities that shared love can create, and a resurgence in the respect that I now give my body through enhanced physical activity, diet, and placement in healthier outdoor settings and social situations, helped to guide me in ways my father could not have embraced, nor given me any mentoring with, as he was too unconscious.

Awe, wonder, love, connection, healing, wholeness, collaboration, good mental health, all lie within the realm of possibilities for all men, and for humanity. With the acceptance of personal responsibility one human being at a time, for all of our negative perceptions, we can transmute their dark energy into a lighter, healthier energy through insight, mindfulness, and meditation. We will then find the perfect peace and goodness that some claim that we have always been looking for, since Mankind first arrived on this planet.

Dead men tell no tales, but the near dead, and fully alive, MUST continue to tell their stories, with respect for themselves and others, until our civilization finally wakes up. To not express ourselves honestly and openly results in our own early demise, Spiritually as well as physically. My innate 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 life, and we can perceive the isolating framework that imprisons much of the American male psyche.

The compulsion to hide from ourselves can be lifted. We can know love and forgiveness of ourselves, and others, like we thought would never be possible. We can become a light unto ourselves and others, and that light can sustain us for the rest of our days. We can be at peace, and understand, perhaps for the first time in our life, how to live life on life’s terms. We can finally find what we were looking for our entire life, so please do not give up before the real miracle of our life reveals itself. Finding our real healthier, saner self is the greatest challenge of life.

Those who find what they are looking for, find the secret of spirituality, and the secret of a successfully lived life. Happiness, joy, and freedom become our life’s most enduring companions on our life’s journey. Difficulties, sorrows, heart breaks, deaths, depressions, anxieties, and even relapses may still arise, but we now have healthier tools for dealing with the adversity of life. We no longer hide from life, but instead remain engaged with it. We ride Life’s occasional Tsunami waves, rather than be drowned by them. We learn that it was not Life’s loads that broke us, but instead it was the unconscious and unskilled ways that we carried them. Now we have the developed spiritual skills to successfully manage Life’s unavoidable burdens, while creating the conditions for new opportunities in life and for prosperity in its many forms, including enhancing our relationships to each other!

We did not cause or create this disease, We cannot control this disease, and, by ourselves, we cannot cure this disease. I have had many, many years of sobriety, but I have also had three major relapses over the past 34 years, as well. I can continue to treat myself consciously and with love for this disease, and show the benefits of recovery from this disease to those who still suffer, and have interest in their own recovery process. Relapse is a painful, but necessary, part of recovery, as we learn from our mistakes, and grow from them. The point remains to lift ourselves up in recovery, even though we might have descended the ladder into the hell of toxicity yet again. If we fall seven times, we lift ourselves up eight times.

Those who are still toxic are not without choices. We all have the internal power to change, we only need to learn how to consciously access that power which is greater than our resistance to change and bad habits, and express its infinite healing potential. For me, the choice became between living a an inspired life, or leading a self-destructive life. For those that continue to embrace toxicity to their own detriment, and the detriment of others, there are healthier, more life affirming choices to be made..

I continue to have contact with toxic people, practicing alcoholics and/or drug addicts, as well as the family and friend “enablers” that consciously or unconsciously continue to support them in their dysfunction. Enablers are not bad people, we just do not know what to say, or how to say it, to those who continue to abuse their chemical of choice, or attack love’s sensibilities. We might be hesitant to give feedback, for fear of being rejected and/or seen as being overly judgmental, or we may have become fatalistic in our appraisal of the situation, and given up hope. For some of us, we have remained silent in the face of direct threats against the continuing health and safety of our beloved family members or friends, and our own emotional well-being while attempting to remain an active part of the diseased family structure.

To some of us who continue to enable bad/self-destructive behavior of others, just remember that even though we did not cause the disease for others, we cannot control the disease for others, and we cannot cure the disease for others, by our remaining silent on the sidelines, we remain part of the denial system of the diseased culture. At some point, it WILL BECOME NECESSARY to confront the toxic attitudes and behavior, and speak our truth. Then we will need to set our boundaries, and hold fast to them. This can include eschewing all conversations and/or physical connection with the offending family member until they start to make the necessary changes in course, and MAKING SURE THAT THE OFFENDING PARTY KNOWS EXACTLY WHY WE ARE KEEPING AWAY FROM THEM.

Our own mental health and personal safety become most important, for without that, we remain a powerless part and unconscious contributor to social and family toxicity. There are many who have found the way to use their disease to control their family, their friends, their employers, and all of the people in their lives like they were marionettes on a string. We must not remain a functioning part of their diseased control dramas, lest we lose control over our own destiny, and sanity.

I remain well acquainted with anonymity, which is one of the supporting spiritual principles. My headlights shine brightly for my own “vehicle of consciousness” on my own new path of consciousness, yet they often provide little illumination for others on their own unique path. This is as it should be, as “no teacher can effect the salvation of others, as we each must work it out for ourselves”. Yet, we must be willing to share our experience, strength, and hope, so that others might benefit from our journey.

We are all as sick as the secrets that we keep from each other, and from ourselves.

Choose wisely, oh mankind, the secrets that we must keep, for by our choices, we all may awaken, or stay sick, isolated, and asleep. I grieve with the rest of humanity for the early deaths of all damaged souls, and for the loss of human potential to the rest of humanity. Please, America, listen to, and retell their stories, so that we can all heal, grow, and love together in a new, transformative environment that can celebrate wholeness, and our individual contributions to it, from both the male and female perspectives.

May all sentient beings be released from suffering.

May all spiritually and emotionally damaged men be released from the cultural conspiracy of silence, which contributes to personal, and collective, suffering.

Please, my fellow men, save yourself. I did not write this book for fame, fortune, or cultural acceptance. This writing is based upon my entire life experience, which has been complemented by thousands of hours of meditation and mindfulness. This writing reflects my lifelong search for truth, wherever it may lead, and I found that it leads to all of us.. It even leads to YOU.

Are we ready to create and/or follow new paths of healing consciousness?

Are we ready to evolve in consciousness and wholeheartedly practice mutually life affirming, collaborative behaviors with our peers?

Are we ready to quiet our minds enough to hear the whispers of Mother Earth, all of her children, and the Universe that supports us all ?

If so, we are ready for an amazing transformation of the heart and soul.

Chapter 10: Difference Between Men And Women (something appears to have been omitted)

It is beneficial to provide some information about the physiological similarities and differences in the brain between men and women, and how we process information and express ourselves, as a result of those differences and similarities. What is of our biology, and what is of our environment and training play big roles in gender expression. I will also post some quotes from the Christian Bible, to show how men have attempted to suppress the nature of the feminine, both within the women in their lives and cultures, and within their own “masculine” minds. Both of these factors have ultimate importance in the Common Knowledge game, because these prejudicial forces form much of the basic foundation for perceptual creation within collective consciousness, and unconsciousness.

It’s no secret that boys and girls, and men and women, are different—very different. The differences between genders, however, extend beyond what the eye can see. Research reveals major distinctions between male and female brains.

Wow, there really is a difference! How did THAT get in there?!

Scientists generally study four primary areas of difference in male and female brains: processing, chemistry, structure, and activity. The differences between male and female brains in these areas show up all over the world, but scientists also have discovered exceptions to every so-called gender rule. You may know some boys who are very sensitive, immensely talkative about feelings, and just generally don’t seem to fit the “boy” way of doing things. As with all gender differences, no one way of doing things is better or worse. The differences listed below are simply generalized differences in typical brain functioning, and it is important to remember that all differences have advantages and disadvantages.

Processing

Male brains utilize nearly seven times more gray matter for activity while female brains utilize nearly ten times more white matter. What does this mean?

Gray matter areas of the brain are localized. They are information- and action-processing centers in specific splotches in a specific area of the brain. This can translate to a kind of tunnel vision when they are doing something. Once they are deeply engaged in a task or game, they may not demonstrate much sensitivity to other people or their surroundings.

White matter is the networking grid that connects the brain’s gray matter and other processing centers with one another. This profound brain-processing difference is probably one reason you may have noticed that girls tend to more quickly transition between tasks than boys do. The gray-white matter difference may explain why, in adulthood, females are great multi-taskers, while men excel in highly task-focused projects.

Chemistry

Male and female brains process the same neurochemicals but to different degrees and through gender-specific body-brain connections. Some dominant neurochemicals are serotonin, which, among other things, helps us sit still; testosterone, our sex and aggression chemical; estrogen, a female growth and reproductive chemical; and oxytocin, a bonding-relationship chemical.

In part, because of differences in processing these chemicals, males on average tend to be less inclined to sit still for as long as females and tend to be more physically impulsive and aggressive. Additionally, males process less of the bonding chemical oxytocin than females. Overall, a major takeaway of chemistry differences is to realize that our boys at times need different strategies for stress release than our girls.

Structural Differences

A number of structural elements in the human brain differ between males and females. “Structural” refers to actual parts of the brain and the way they are built, including their size and/or mass.

Females often have a larger hippocampus, our human memory center. Females also often have a higher density of neural connections into the hippocampus. As a result, girls and women tend to input or absorb more sensorial and emotive information than males do. By “sensorial” we mean information to and from all five senses. If you note your observations over the next months of boys and girls and women and men, you will find that females tend to sense a lot more of what is going on around them throughout the day, and they retain that sensorial information more than men.

Additionally, before boys or girls are born, their brains developed with different hemispheric divisions of labor. The right and left hemispheres of the male and female brains are not set up exactly the same way. For instance, females tend to have verbal centers on both sides of the brain, while males tend to have verbal centers on only the left hemisphere. This is a significant difference. Girls tend to use more words when discussing or describing incidence, story, person, object, feeling, or place. Males not only have fewer verbal centers in general but also, often, have less connectivity between their word centers and their memories or feelings. When it comes to discussing feelings and emotions and senses together, girls tend to have an advantage, and they tend to have more interest in talking about these things.

Blood Flow and Brain Activity

While we are on the subject of emotional processing, another difference worth looking closely at is the activity difference between male and female brains. The female brain, in part thanks to far more natural blood flow throughout the brain at any given moment (more white matter processing), and because of a higher degree of blood flow in a concentration part of the brain called the cingulate gyrus, will often ruminate on and revisit emotional memories more than the male brain.

Males, in general, are designed a bit differently. Males tend, after reflecting more briefly on an emotive memory, to analyze it somewhat, then move onto the next task. During this process, they may also choose to change course and do something active and unrelated to feelings rather than analyze their feelings at all. Thus, observers may mistakenly believe that boys avoid feelings in comparison to girls or move to problem-solving too quickly.

These four, natural design differences listed above are just a sample of how males and females think differently. Scientists have discovered approximately 100 gender differences in the brain, and the importance of these differences cannot be overstated. Understanding gender differences from a neurological perspective not only opens the door to greater appreciation of the different genders, it also calls into question how we parent, educate, and support our children from a young age. It also brings to the forefront the importance of other activities to rebalance the brain, bring it into a better harmony within itself, and reprogramming it in ways that are more beneficial to the individual, and to the human race.

There are both physiological and cultural reasons for why men and women see life differently from each other. Men and women tend to process information and emotions somewhat differently. Women tend to think globally and network more efficiently with others, and also within all centers of their own brains, than do males. Yet, all aspects and styles of processing are available to both men and women, depending on their own conditioning, internal natures, and intentions. Activities such as insight, meditation, exercise, enhanced community involvement, and journal writing have all shown tremendous results in realigning and reorienting the basic fabric of the brain itself, for both men and women, as well as enhance the capacity to modify the consciousness that dances within, and outside of, the brain’s domain of influence.

Habitual ways of male thinking literally have become collective ruts in fragmented male consciousness through the generations. If these ruts are traveled too frequently and for too many years by the emotionally and spiritually unaware, they become worn down into the depths sufficient to become spiritual grave sites. Men collectively have been drawn to those grave sites through many generations of cultural conditioning, training, and bio-chemical predispositions. The Second Law Of Thermodynamics states that there is a natural tendency of any isolated system to degenerate into a more disordered state. The male brain can tend to be such a closed system, and we have all witnessed the chaotic end result of such a process in our present world mind and experience.

Our collective consciousness in the USA has most of its historical religious foundation in Judeo-Christian values and ethics, a decidedly divisive understanding for living life which continues to directly impact our moral, religious, ethical, political, economic, and judicial processes. I will not be quoting from Buddhist, Hindi, Taoist, Confucian, or other foreign originated philosophies and religions in the following discussion, though works from many of these thought systems are relevant. The Christian bible will be quoted from, with the intention of showing how the Judeo-Christian ethic can predetermine collective understanding of the relationship between men and women.

Genesis 3:16

To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

1 Corinthians 11:8
For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.

1 Peter 3:1

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives,

1 Corinthians 14:34-35

The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

1 Timothy 2:12-14

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

White Jesus Approved

Brain plasticity is a common term used by neuroscientists, referring to the brain’s ability to change at any age – for better or worse. Through proper training, intention, and insight, men can actually process information and emotions in more intelligent, balanced, and loving manners. Men can become much more interested in, and sensitive to the needs of others, and to their own emotional needs, if this becomes a conscious intention for them. Studies have also shown that the internal nature of all brains can be changed, even after one reaches adulthood.

Men can learn to process information more globally, in the way their brain manages emotions and information, showing the powerful transformative force that conscious “nurture” has upon “nature”. And, there are the blessed few who have had spiritually transformative events, which dramatically changes the very structure of the brain, giving an immediate access to a new mind, as well. The world can still be saved, if men first save themselves from their personal delusions, and their own self-destructive “habits of thinking”. Then, we can all work towards saving this beautiful, and fragile, world..

You must be the change you want to see in the world
—Mahatma Gandhi

Chapter 11: The Divine Feminine, And All Of The Healing Things We Can Know

(This chapter will find a way into the book. Editors will wipe out most of my personal story, but the universal themes will be maintained and further developed)

I have lived two complete lives. I experienced anamnesis, though much of the first life is still available to me, through family history, and through my own very good memory. My second life, though characterized by significantly different energies than the first, is still powerfully influenced by our culture’s resistance to practices that enhance intelligence, and reduce the historical impacts of patriarchal dominance. A culture that continues to oppress the divine feminine, be it our daughters, our sisters, our wives, our grandmothers, our planet Earth, or, the silent, repressed part of our self, continues to live out of balance with itself, and remains dominated by male power and control issues.

Let’s fly united in our potential for healing!

Some aspects of our lives just seem to continue to elude our ability to communicate around them, and add to our cultural conspiracy of silence. Life was never an easy journey for me, and had it not been for some deep need to understand my dysfunctional process, and try to find the underlying truth amid my personal chaos, I would have passed away long ago. Some wounds are so deep, and primal, that just pasting new names onto aspects of the disease are not enough. Names are only a convenience for communication, and are never comprehensive and inclusive enough to completely reveal the true natures of what they were created for in our minds to represent in the first place. Naming is the way that our consciousness weighs and measures new forms of life, ideas and experiences, in the attempt to insert the unknown and the mysterious into a present context for understanding. Naming tends to attach a dynamic process to a fixed point in time and space, and thus lodges it in the past.

“Once I had asked God for one or two extra inches in height, but instead, he made me as tall as the sky, so high that I could not measure myself.”

—Malala Yousafzaia

But, the act of creating stories and context, and just being conversational about the details of life does not dislodge the detritus from our field of consciousness. The Devil is in the details, figuratively speaking, and if our need is for change, we need to find a way to see under the vast matrix of details that only float on the surface on the mind . We who still choose to name processes and create stories must also have personally explored and experienced the movements through consciousness, and found the way to the silence at the foundation of our being. Otherwise, the process of naming, and the resulting stories that arise from naming, are just more intellectual knowledge and entertainment for a superficial mind, and will not pry open the healing doors to insight and wisdom.

We must uncouple from the fragmentation of our wounded, time based minds, and instead anchor our sense of self to the healing silence, the sacred silence, at the center of our being..

The intellectual and the atheist, though possessing finely tuned minds, can never explore the mystery, and the depth, of the human soul, and comprehend that we all have a connection with Infinity. The willing explorer of the new paths of consciousness or the mystic both have access to the limitless territory of the Spirit, and will soar to new heights and see the sights rarely seen by the rest of mankind…

But first, a message from my sponsors. I will recount, to the best of my ability, two narratives around my father, and my mother.

I have always loved my mother, Corinne Beatrice Henry Paullin. I have always taken for granted my mother. She was like the air I breathed, I rarely saw her for who she was, yet I would not have survived without her. She was one of the finest, most loving and reliable persons in my life. I never doubted her love or caring for more than any other sister. She was treasured by her own grandparents, who were relatively prosperous, as well as by her parents, who were lower in income. Mom’s grandpa was the first really old guy that I had ever met. I remember visiting him and his “new” wife (a nurse who married him and took all of his money) in Salem, and Mom requesting that I go over and kiss the old man, who was seated upon some sort of chair with a potty built into it. It is a kiss that I will never forget, the kiss of foreboding death. His funeral was to be the first that I attended, as well.

Mom, as a teenager, is the “prisoner” in the center of photo

She worked at many jobs over the course of her working career. She started at the original Fred Meyer store in downtown Portland. She worked at National Insurance, General Tool, Grandma’s Cookies, The Oak Lodge Fire Department, and Murphy Logging, and a couple of other companies that I do not remember.

My mother at Oak Lodge Fire Department station

Mom working at the original Fred Meyer store in downtown Portland, around 1946

She usually defined for me what God’s love must look like, the unconditional love that a mother has for her newborn child, which was the love mom had for me. Mom offered nourishment of all varieties when I was young, feeding me, telling me stories, healing my childhood wounds by kissing them and applying bandages to them, holding me after horrible nightmares, and protecting me from over exuberant punishment when it was meted out. She always had her wisdom and knowledge of life, which she freely shared with me my entire life. I did not always follow her advice, at my own peril, because she was usually right about most things that were important enough for her to talk to me about. Mom was always mom to me, from birth until the day she died. I honor her for that and I respected and loved her presence in my life.

I took her for granted for all of my childhood, and into adulthood until the age of 31 for me. She always wanted the best for me, she tried to be a motivator, she tried to help me right my ship whenever it listed too severely and I will forever be grateful to her. We did not talk much over the years, even though we spent so much time together, especially from the year 1995 on, when Sharon and I moved into my parent’s neighborhood. Beginning with Mom and Dad’s fiftieth wedding anniversary in 2000, and extending through 2009, Sharon, Pam, Aunt Susie, and I shared in most of the vacations that were taken, due to the need to be more present for our aging parents..

Suffice it to say, my mother was severely overshadowed by my father’s exuberance and outrageous nature, though she did not seem to mind most of the time. My lack of elucidation on my mother’s story shows aspects of my own poor communication style, and aspects of Toxic Masculinity that directed me to not pay more conscious attention to her as a human being, and create better stories about her and her life.

I was never really very clear about mothers’ religious persuasions, as she did not speak too much on those matters. She wanted me to take her to New Hope Christian Church fairly late in her life, but I was so done with that perspective that I never volunteered to take her there. She did watch and listen with interest as i wandered through the years on my own search for life’s meaning and significance. I think that she was almost entertained and amused by some of my relationships with the various teachings, teachers, ministers, and spiritual advisors. It was apparent that she was most impressed by my relationship with the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous, however, as that is where she saw I gained the most understanding and stability in life..

Going through all of the photographs of my mother has caused me to think also about many aspects of my own life: what a great gift that life is, what a great debt of gratitude I owe my mother, and father, for what is the greatest opportunity in our known universe, which is to live on this planet. I am so fortunate to have been born into a family with a mother who always tried her hardest to do the best job she could do, whether it be raising children, working in any of her numerous jobs, enjoying friendships, or just living life to its fullest.

By hearing some of the talk of friends who have called since mom’s death, I have heard some wonderful, funny, and fascinating things about my mother that I never got to experience personally. She was, at times, an enigma to me, but I could always count on her to be there for me, no matter what was going on in my life. I tried to return the favor later in life, but I could never repay her for all the good she brought me.

I just enjoyed sitting with her, talking or quiet, and sharing time. My mother always seemed to need to be on the move, however, so those shared periods were short in time, though frequent in later years. Every time we sat down, and the conversation started to turn “serious”, especially about death, dying, or emotionally laden issues, she would just pop up from the chair, and state:

“Macy’s is having a great sale today. I gotta go now!”

And, with a smile, off she would go.

I still feel inadequate, and not up to the task, of fully representing the beauty and the humanity of the person I called mom, and that the rest of the world called Corinne. I do know that she loved life, and her friends and family, and always sought the best for all that she knew. She loved the outdoors, and that was reflected by many years of camping and travel trailering. She loved hiking, and logged thousands of miles hiking and Volkswalking through the years, through many states and countries. She loved to dance when younger, and enjoyed many years of square dancing, and many friendships that ensued from that activity. She also loved her golfing, and had many friendships that she enjoyed from that activity.

Mom’s Volkswalking badges from her walks around the United States and the world

She loved her children, though, and that is what I remember the most, and will for the rest of my life miss the most, about mom. I made the mistake of assuming that Mom was always going to be with me, and I delayed some important conversations with her, and missed opportunities to truly get to know her better. It is the curse of being a child that we never get to know our parents as well as we could. My parents”friends had a much greater opportunity for that privilege. Mom certainly had many great friendships over the years, and some of the longest would be perhaps, with Eloise Mills. She loved so many of her friendships that were developed through square dancing. The loss to death of a long-time friend Betty Rolf late in Mother’s life was particularly hard, and I know that the parade of death of so many of her friends was harsh for her, prior to her own passing.

My grandmother, Beatrice Henry, was the greatest woman I had ever known, next to my own mother, even after I reached adulthood.

I would now like to speak about my maternal grandparents, who were my second set of parents. My first memory is of being at my grandparents’ home, and probably dates around the summer of 1957. And, it was my Uncle Wayne talking to me that I remembered. I was still in a diaper at the time (my mother said that I wore diapers until I was at least 2 years old). Of course, I was not speaking then (yes, I was an extremely late developer), but I still remember having some vague thoughts, and I understood the verbal question given to me in this memory, though no words seemed to form in my mind, just “picture impressions” . I actually remember my uncle asking me if I had messed up in my diaper, while I walked/staggered up a path to the porch of my grandparents’ home..

I spent many a weekend at my grandparents’ home over the years (and when I turned 15 I lived there for 3 straight months painting their home, and hanging out with local teenage girls). My parents were very liberal in allowing me to spend as much time with my grandparents as they could tolerate. The biggest issue in the early years was that my sister and I fought quite a bit, so Grandma would try to keep the peace where possible, and sometimes limit our time at their house accordingly, or just allow one of us at a time to stay.

Grandma was a fine seamstress, and she would make us pajamas every Christmas. When my cousin Brian finally came of age 3 (he was 5 years younger than I), Grandma would make Brian and I pajamas of the same material. I loved my cousin Brian, and found myself being rather protective of him, especially when playing outside with my grandmothers’ neighbors’ kids. Brian seemed a little slow, and too gentle of spirit, and I somehow perceived that he might need my extra protection while engaging with the neighbor kids. Even in adulthood, where he experiences life threatening alcoholism, I feel as though he could use a little extra help, but he has had no interest in my style of sobriety. He nearly died of the complications of the delirium tremors while undergoing a colonoscopy in February of 2018, and quit drinking alcohol for a brief period, only to resume drinking at the same rate as before his near death experience.

Grandma had a record player in her living room. It was the old style console type player, and she would occasionally play some of her music while we were there. I think that her favorite musician was Johnny Ray, the world famous singer of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, who was Grandma’s beloved nephew and her sister Hazel’s number one son. Grandma had a picture of Johnny in her living room, and I don’t think that there was anybody in the world that Grandma admired more. And, Johnny is directly responsible for my life, as he saved my mother from drowning when mom was eleven years old.

My Grandparents’ world famous nephew, Johnny Ray. He saved my mother’s life from drowning when she was 11 years old.

Around 1980, just prior to Johnny’s death, we all went to a club in northwest Portland, called Darcelles, where Johnny performed (yes, Johnny was gay). I do not remember too much about Johnny, or his performance, but his show was well attended, and I had to try to look through a ceiling support column in order to see him. Grandma did not see Johnny much, because he had chosen to live in England after he became famous in the 1950’s. But, Johnny made a point of visiting with Grandma whenever he came to town, and we have some nice photographs of his family visits.

Grandpa and Grandma Henry-center

My grandmother belonged to the Order Of the Eastern Star, Daughters Of the American Revolution, and was an active church goer, as well. I remember when she was elected the Grand Matron, and of course Grandpa became the Grand Patron, and attending “installment” ceremonies and other events that she was required to attend. She was so respected and loved (and my Grandpa, as well) that I was quite impressed, having never seen such love exchanged between non family members before. She never proselytized, nor did my grandpa.

My grandparents, and my mother and uncle, lived in Salem until around 1940, when they then moved up to Portland. They were both descendants of the great pioneer movements of the 1800’s, with Grandma being a direct descendant of George Gay. Gay participated in the Champoeg Meetings that created a provisional government in what would become the U.S. state of Oregon. George was one of the first settlers in the Willamette Valley near Salem. He arrived in the Willamette Valley in1830, after a shipwreck on the northern California coast in 1829, and surviving a challenging journey north from the wreck. His name is on the obelisk monument at Champoeg Park. Much of our family’s ancestral possessions are on display in museums on the premises of Champoeg Park, as well.

Champoeg Obelisk With George Gay Inscription

Grandma showed to me that she had some serious identity issues. She was ashamed of her Native American heritage, and recoiled whenever somebody hinted that she might have some ancestry there (she did, of course, as she was the granddaughter of George Gay and an Indian bride). A side story to this is that in 1995, Sharon and I brought Grandma to our house to die, after she was discharged from the hospital for lymphoma. While in an altered state, she found herself surrounded by Indians doing a ceremony around her. She was quite upset about it, even though it showed to us a probable internal healing action by her true self.

May 24, 1987

Beginning on May 24th, and extending through July 21st, 1987, I had a series of three spiritual “events” which, to this day, guide and direct the consciousness presently unfolding within me. On May 24, 1987. I had a deeply personal, spiritual event.. To not share it would be an act of hiding on my part.. Sometimes, the Conspiracy of Silence manifests itself by keeping quiet about the activities of miracles and healing, and my unwillingness to share my voice and my experience with others.

I had resumed attendance at Hinson Baptist Church, upon my reentry into sobriety in March of 1987. In my earnestness to follow the right path through this religion, I accepted a baptism, scheduled for May 28, 1987. On the weekend prior to my baptism, I received my first ever conscious “visitation of the spirit”. It manifested in my experience, for lack of a better description, as having the feeling of being held in the loving arms of an infinite motherly presence, and I felt like I was being reborn as a person as a result. When I described my experience to the Minister, he requested that I attend a training to get my “beliefs” more in alignment with the structure that the American Baptist church accepts. Really? The minister misunderstood my experience, as it represented a direct connection with the God of my spiritual understanding, and not his.

During this period of time, I also needed to get tested for AIDS, since I had relations with women who had sex with bi-sexual men as well as intravenous drug activity, during my darker days. I was looking for some support during this time, as the threat of a death by AIDS was quite real to many of us in those days. I found that there was NO SUPPORT TO BE FOUND, at the Baptist Church, where all people with the potential for having AIDS were regarded as outcasts from GOD, and undeserving of support or respect from the good Christian folks. This helped to cement my understanding that our religious institutions exist to support something other than just our “spiritual natures”, and their ignorance of such things causes the injection of some really unhealthy outlooks on life and love into the collective mindsets of their parishioners.

The last straw for me was when the lead minister claimed that of all of God’s creatures, only man has a soul, and that all of earth’s creatures have no basic spiritual essence, I was aghast. A religion that makes such a claim for man by uplifting its own standing in God’s universe by reducing the spiritual standing of his animal brothers and sisters is Ptolemaic, self-centered and egotistical to the absolute extreme, and another supporting reason as to why our earth is under such attack right now. As an individual searching for the “Truth Of Being” I thought it was best to steer clear of organized religion, where truth is not so much a sacred value, but instead more a medium for ignorance and a marketable commodity that also is used to help keep people philosophically controlled, and united in one particular way of looking at life. Historically, religion in general remains the primary avenue for the proliferation of ignorance among the people who don’t have the insight or take the time to think for themselves..

I was educated by a new teacher, a recovering alcoholic by the name of Jack Boland, who had released to the world many series of tapes on recovery and spirituality. I was given one of his tape series of recovery by a co-worker at the Fred Meyer warehouse, John Johnson, of whom I will be eternally grateful to, on May18, 1987. I then listened to these tapes over and over, during the Memorial Day weekend, and something miraculous happened afterwards, probably as a result of my openness to the experience brought about by listening to these tapes, and practicing some simple steps.

On May 24, I drove towards Beaverton to visit with Randy Olson. Randy was a lifelong friend, fellow party monster, and rent sharing partner in 1986 when I contemplated, and then took the active steps towards committing suicide on January 28, 1986 and beyond. As I drove over the West Hills, a wonderful vision came to me, accompanied by a feeling that I had not had since I was twelve years old. It was the vision of a loving mother (actually, the Mona Lisa), holding a baby, and I felt the love of this wonderful UNIVERSE for the first time in my lifetime (later, I was taught to understand that this energy is the Divine Feminine, of which our patriarchal world continues to suppress daily, and has successfully done so, more or less, for at least the last 2000 years). The wonderful feelings that accompanied that vision became known to me as divine horripilations.

Mysterious Image of divine Mother’s love?

There is the love we have for each other, for our friends, our pets, our children, our families, but this love that I felt flow into me, and through me, transported me into a heightened awareness, and awe. The beauty was too great to talk about, the feeling so overwhelming, so healing, so resurrecting.

The image of the Mona Lisa holding a baby is a fascinating, enlightening image. It was reported some time back that Leonardo DaVinci had painted the Mona Lisa as a self-portrait of himself, in feminine form. His message is subject to interpretation, but in today’s terms, he was honoring his feminine side, or nature. He saw that the source of all creativity came from this mysterious, non-conscious center within himself where feelings of wonder, awe, mystery, and sensitivity to and compassion for others arises from. His mission was to symbolically represent the divine within himself, through the most effective medium of the day, which was painting. My own consciousness chose this as a healing image for myself, and I also saw how this feminine side carried all of the divine love and deep feelings of goodness that I had ever wanted for myself. I was literally re-birthing myself, and this image of the mother holding the baby pictorially represented that new birth to perfection.

Jesus, in his teachings of 2000 years ago, repeatedly referred to God as “the Father within”. That characterization does little for many of us, who instead see a more balanced understanding of the divine intention. It is no wonder that the Christian faith became so highly patriarchal, and even to this day there is an imbalance within the spiritual world as a direct result of these errors in understanding. To bring healing to me, “God” suplanted the “father within”, be it vestiges of my own father’s wayward teachings, or even Jesus’s, and healed the imbalance with a sense of unconditional motherly love. And, I was that love, go figure!

I found that I was to be attracted to women, as well as enlightened male teachers.

In August of 1987, I met Marie Schmidt, a practitioner of Joel Goldsmith’s

The Infinite Way,

which is a movement involved with mysticism and spiritual healing.. She was a woman about 87 years old, who taught every Sunday at the old YWCA on 10th Avenue in downtown Portland. I had seen a simple advertisement for her tape group, while attending the International New Thought Alliance conference in Portland in August of 1987. The tape group was a combination meditation group, and a forum for listening to the taped teachings of Joel Goldsmith, a spiritual healer and mystic who first began his healing practice shortly after the Great Depression began.

She had been holding weekly meditations and tape recorded playbacks of Joel’s actual messages since 1962. Marie would sit in the front of the room, and lead a 15 minute meditation, followed by the playing of a cassette tape of one hour length. She had a collection of at least 300 tapes, of which I eventually copied virtually all of them, and committed them to memory as best that I could. Marie had over 1000 hours of his recorded messages, which she ended up giving to me, and which I converted to digital format.. Some of the tapes were the old style reel-to-reel, and I was not able to convert those tapes to the more modern digital format..

I was captured by this group, which had mostly older people who attended. I believe that I was the youngest person there, for the period from 1987-1991, while I remain involved with her group. Initially, I kept my distance from most of the people, not really being sure what the whole business was about. I eventually drew Joan Madsen and Marcus Jones into the group, who I knew from the International New Thought Alliance convention of 1987, as well as Alcoholics Anonymous, and the Living Enrichment Center.

One day in February of 1989, after I had just broken off an engagement to be married to Laurie H, and I was devastated. The sweet old woman, Marie, offered me a “healing session”. Well, I had my doubts, and nothing to lose, and I was a little curious about this “healing business”. I went up to her apartment, still devastated, and meditated with her for 15 minutes. At the end, Marie spoke the “message” that she heard from Spirit, in regards to me.

“More perfect than you are, you could never be”,

with

“All that is human, is illusion”.

Well, OK, but how can I possibly apply that spiritual salve?..

As I thanked her for her time, I then noticed I was totally at peace, and I was “healed” of all of my emotional disturbances around the ending of my engagement to Laurie. It was as if the winds of Spirit had blown away everything from my mind, except peace and joy.

As I look at my life’s history, I have been healed by its Loving Mystery.

I later tried to have her heal my mentally sick ex-wife, Donelle, with no success. So there were limits to her ability, though she always stated that God heals, not herself . I can almost now hear Marie’s voice, telling me, in regards to all of us:

“More Perfect than you are, you could never be.”

How that manifests in all of our lives remains an unraveled mystery, to be experienced by us each day that we have the privilege to wake up. She would tell me that we are all blessed by each other’s continued walk through life. Love goes before us, to make all of “the crooked places straight”. We are Loved, and, in fact are Love Itself. The body goes where it must, but also, so does our Hearts. Go in Peace and Love, and always be willing to bring healing to any situation, for that is our mission, and who we are always to be.

In 1994, Marie was placed in the St. Andrews home near Mt. Tabor, when her nephew noted her deteriorating health, and he was concerned about her decline. Marie continued to practice healing with the other patients, even while under care of the attending professionals. My last visit to her, prior to her death, was characterized by her still restating to Sharon and me of our perfection in the eyes of God.

“More Perfect than you are, you could never be.”

At lunch with Marie, Sharon, and I, around 1990

Believe in yourself. Believe in your potential. Be in your UNIQUE PRESENCE.

BE NOW, AND BE STILL, AND KNOW THAT “I AM” IS THE DOOR TO THE ONLY GOD THAT WE CAN EXPERIENCE AS HUMAN BEINGS. I dedicate this chapter to my wife, Sharon White.

Sharon is younger at age 72 than when she was 40

The lessons of love learned while with my wife Sharon could encompass an entire book of its own.. On July 4, 1989 I met Sharon, and her daughter Hayley while attending a Course In Miracles discussion group in the basement of the Unity Church in southeast Portland. Right off the bat I was struck by what a genuine human being that she was, appearing real, honest, deep, and personal. Her daughter exhibited some unusual behavior, and I could tell that Sharon was dealing with troubling mental health issues with family members.

Sharon (at age 42) and Hayley, 1989

I eventually joined in relationship with Sharon, after being reintroduced to her at a Living Enrichment Center gathering around the Twelve Steps of Recovery, a several week presentation by Mary Boggs, the minister of LEC. We both scheduled our attendance at a Course In Miracles weekend retreat that LEC was sponsoring over the weekend of August 4, 1989. When the retreat was cancelled, I offered to Sharon that we create a retreat of our own. I chose Cultus Lake, a mountain lake in Central Oregon, which my family had camped at several times when I was a young person. We proceeded to hit it off so good together that weekend, that we knew we were right for each for now, and for a long, long time to come.

LEC Course In Miracles Weekend handout

Come September, though, I could see that I was becoming quite involved in Sharon’s life, and if I did not travel to Boston soon, and research a powerful dream that I had, I would have no opportunity to do so in the future. So I arranged a week trip to Boston, not knowing what in the heck I was going to find there. I knew that the Mother Church of the Church Of Christian Science was located there. Joel Goldsmith’s teachings had some of their origins from Mary Baker Eddy’s teachings, so maybe I was supposed to go there to see or hear something Ms. Eddy related. I did go by the church, and sat in on a few sessions. I was asked by one of the ministers what I was doing there, just visiting, or did I have a desire to learn more about Christian Science? I told her that I was a student of Joel Goldsmith, and that I had also read some of Mary’s works. She immediately escorted me to Mary’s private study, which nobody had access to, save a special few individuals. She told me that I probably would like to sit and pray and meditate there, and for me to take as much time as I like. So, that is what I did. I found my sense of the sacred and profound, and felt blessed by this exposure to the Church, and to Mary Baker Eddy’s private study. I will never know for sure if this is what the dream wanted for me to do, but that is what I did. I wanted to make sure to honor the energy, and its revelations, as best as I could.

I moved in permanently with Sharon later that year, and her daughter Hayley lived with us until July of 1990, when she struck out on her own, to find her own truth and healing. I was having some difficulty communicating with Hayley. Sharon and her daughter had some unique mutual control dynamics that were not healthy or satisfying to witness, or to participate with. Sharon ended up signing up for a class from Diana Martha Clark, who was teaching a twelve step recovery course on co-dependency, which Sharon ended up benefiting greatly from. Hayley had a lot of growing up to do, and I became disturbed by her need for chaos, need to hold her mother as an emotional hostage, and her lack of respect for my need for peace and honest, loving expression in communication.

Hayley could be particularly harsh, angry, and insensitive, and I felt like I was always walking on eggshells with her. One weekend in July of 1990, I went to my grandma Henry’s home to stay while she was out-of-town. I spent literally the whole weekend in prayer and meditation around my troubles with Hayley. Then a most unusual thing happened. I “heard” that my issues around Hayley had been resolved, and that she was not to be an issue any further. I went back to our apartment that Sunday evening, and upon my re-entry, I was informed that Hayley had decided to move out, and live with Martha Cannon, a former patient of Sharon’s. Remarkably, the only problems that arose with my early relationship with Sharon, other than daughter related, revolved around Sharon assuming that I knew what her needs were before she expressed them to me, but that misunderstanding quickly worked itself out.

As I look at my history, I see the workings of the Mystery.

Sharon and I shared a common passion of finding and expressing the joy and truth in life, and we meditated and prayed together for many hundreds of hours together, especially early on in our relationship. The fruitage of one of our shared meditations is the following “poem”. I had a particularly deep, profound connection during a meditation around 1990, where I had once again entered into Truth’s domain. There was no apparent message, that is, until I returned to my conscious mind. The silence then used the words in my memory to create the following message. The first stanza I wrote in 1985, prior to any real spiritual unfolding, and I could never finish it until this meditation in 1990 filled in the body of it:

THE VOICE OF AWAKENING

Though the slowly shifting sands of time,

Create ever taller hills for this lost soul to climb,

It must be in my selfish, hateful world of no reason or rhyme,

I must begin the search for Truth, to find the Love that is sublime.

“Oh seeker of Truth, God’s high mount you would climb,

Though you now stumble through the valley’s shifting sands of time.

Stop confusing your mind with worn out rhyme and reason,

For they are forever charged by Truth with treason!”

“Oh mental marathoner , only on Life’s treadmill you now stand,

Just re-using the same words and thoughts keeps you life’s ‘also ran’

You’ll forever chase in vain Love’s all-knowing voice,

So be still, for with your run’s end, is the Cause to rejoice!”

“Oh marionette’s dancing image of the screen of the world’s mind,

With all of those conditioned beliefs in control, what freedom could you find?

Release yourself from all of those memories’ materialistic strings

To prepare for the inner Wisdom that only my Intelligence brings!”

“Oh shadow boxer of evil, when will you ever tire?

Tis only champion of a dream world to which you aspire!

Cease giving energy to your illusions with those mental pugilist blows,

And reveal the peaceful mind of the One who now knows!”

“So please wake up to Love’s voice sweet somnambulator,

And realize the eternal truth that “I” within “you” is greater,

Than any mental image you could ever form or learn,

And then your World will reflect the One for whom you now yearn!”

And then the real “punch line” to the search for Truth:

“To be in realization of Truth, is to find God’s high mount another illusion to climb,

Created by fearful, desirous minds caught on the merry-go-round of time”

The dark, restless mind remains forever bereft of Love’s Rhyme and Truth’s Reason,

And only chases after mirages, until it sees all of its movements are guilty of treason!”

While continuing in a loving relationship with Sharon, I joined with many communities of like-minded people, or continued my present participation in them, such as Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous, Adult Children of Alcoholics, the Course In Miracles support groups, the Infinite Way, The Living Enrichment Center (LEC), with a very important men’s group experience that arose through my relationship with LEC, and The Empowerment Community with its many offshoot core groups. Sharon and I became part of a “couple’s group” with two other couples, which became a 20 year affair, lasting all the way until August of 2017 (ending with the death of our dear friend, Marty).

One of our backpacking trips was to become quite a memorable experience for both Sharon and me. I awoke one morning during the summer of 1992, and finished preparing to leave on a weekend hiking and camping trip with Sharon, up to the Mt. Adams Wilderness Area. My senses were somehow heightened, and I felt as though I could see and hear better than I was accustomed to. Food tasted better, the air carried many more scents, and my entire body felt alive with vitality, and sensation, well beyond what I was accustomed to experiencing in my day-to-day life. I had to work that day, so I ignored my “extra sensory perception” for most of the work day, and I remained excited about joining with my beloved partner on a hike to Lookinglass Lake, which would end up becoming around a 10 mile hike, in one direction.

Our drive took longer than expected, and we arrived in the Wilderness area too late to reach the developed campground, so we parked for the night in a snow park area, and set up our tent to shelter for the evening. We sat outside of the tent, and I began to experience, in its fullness, that “extrasensory perception” yet again, but much more profoundly this time. It was as if I had sensory receptors in the dirt, the sky, and the trees. It was as if I had grown roots, so to speak. I not only could see the ground all around us, and the beautiful trees, and the sky, I could FEEL the ground, and it was as if I extended all the way through everywhere that I could see. It was the experience, in a new form, of “all that I can see is myself”. It was like I was “hearing” and “seeing” and “feeling” for all of nature that surrounded us, and it was a mystical, transcendental event. My new body was the earth, the sky, the trees, the wind, the insects, and my human shell.

We finally lay down for the evening in our tent, and though I was still quite profoundly experiencing this event, I was able to fall asleep beside my beloved. Shortly afterward, I awoke to a great light enveloping our tent, and I arose to go outside to see what was happening. In the sky appeared a Great Light, and the entire surrounding area was bathed in a light that totally eliminated all shadows, even though it was near midnight! I awoke Sharon, who rose to witness the light. To this day, I have no clue if the light is associated with my “heightened mystic awareness”, or if it was just a coincidence that a UFO would awaken us to bathe us in its radiance. After we returned home, I told my mother about the light, and she reported that the week before, a mysterious light in the Mt Adams wilderness area was also reported, so who knows what was happening there?

Looking back at my life’s history, I remain immersed in the light of its Mystery.

In 1992, I was still in communication with my ex-wife, Donelle. At this point, she was in the mental hospital at Fort Steilacoom, Washington. She was committed yet again in 1990, and was languishing in there when I visited her. This was the 3rd time I had visited her there. She always had a shopping list for me to fill, invariably with some types of makeup. She still liked to make herself look as pretty as possible, but the effects of the medication over the years on her had taken a horrible toll. She was twice her normal weight, and she could not keep her food down consistently.

The most beautiful woman who I had known from my youth was no longer that, and I was quite saddened, once again, to have to connect with her while she was so diseased. The medication was quite the “double edged sword”, and had been for all of her adult life. I don’t know what drug cocktails they were giving her this time, but they had the same conflicted end results. (I now have little respect for the drug industry, or for a system that prescribes these drugs to people, rather than treating people in a more holistic manner).

This particular weekend, my wife Sharon was running in the annual Hood to Coast relay race. At this point in my life, I was not a runner, having hung up my running shoes in high school, and also having retired from recreational basketball in 1985 due to back problems. My only responsibility was to drive to Seaside to pick Sharon up at the end of her adventure, after my visit with Donelle. I was quite down after my visit, and the drive to Seaside from Ft. Steilacoom was very dark, and subdued.

When I started to enter the outskirts of Seaside, without even seeing one H2C (Hood To Coast) participant, I picked up on a new energy that just started “vibrating in the ethers”. The collective self was informing me that my individual self would further evolve with the acceptance of this energy. I came to name this energy “TEAMWORK” after the fact, not knowing what else to call it. It was the energy of collective support, love, companionship, and goal achieving, and I had never known that as a youth, as I had never experienced that on grade or high school sports teams, of which I never qualified for. It was like a beautiful “spell” had come over me, and I was totally captured by it!.

Running through my life’s history, I seem to have stumbled over a greater Mystery.

I had my first experience of crowd energy when I attended my first rock concert in 1971. There were well over 12,000 people attending, and the MIND BLOWING experience was a unitive event where my presence was distributed over the entirety of the crowd. If you have never experienced this, you cannot understand this. Over the many years from 1971, through the present moment, I have found that I am sensitive to crowd energy (a palpable form of collective consciousness), and I can “feel” the collective energy of several types of groups of people, and actually draw from it, and add to it if I am receptive to what is going on. And, unfocused groups put off such diffuse energy that there is nothing special to tune in to, and I find little to attract me to such energy.

Since there were over 12,000 runners and many more support people at the event, it is no wonder that a field was created in and around Seaside, the destination of the great world-famous event. I became so impressed with the energy of the experience that I committed to running with Sharon, and I began to run with her several months later, so that the next year I could join her Hood To Coast team, the Sole Mates.

(note: This experience led me to become one of the top local older runners in our area, culminating in way too many awards, and injuries, but also leading me into a deeper understanding of two of the darker forces predominant in male collective consciousness, which are excess competition and greed)

It was the summer of 1993, and I had scheduled a 5-day retreat with Eileen Bowden and 20 other followers of the Infinite Way, a mystical healing path originated by Joel Goldsmith (died in 1964). The retreat took place in Federal Way, Washington, at the Pacific Palisades retreat center overlooking the Puget Sound. I spent the four days in silent contemplation and meditation, with several group talks given by Eileen over the course of the time period.

Eileen Bowden Retreat

Eileen Bowden, who lived in British Columbia, Canada, was a student of Joel Goldsmith, the originator of the Infinite Way. Joel was a non-practicing Jew, and was led into Christian Science in the 20’s, while his father was on his death-bed. Joel watched a Christian Science practitioner heal his father, and Joel caught fire with the possibilities for bringing spiritual healing to all of life (life that is receptive to healing, that is) because of this. She was hand-picked by Joel to continue teaching the Infinite Way, as she “had the message”, meaning that she had achieved, or attained, the “Presence”. She would enter into the sacred energy, and then give her unprepared talks (she spoke extemporaneously for at least 1 hour for each talk given). Our role as “listeners” was to be in a sacred, meditative space, as well, so as to contribute to the total energy of the experience. The result for me from this experience was that I was totally “involved” in the sacred energy of the Spirit, with the total quietness/stillness of my mind complemented by perfect peace, and joy. I carried this energy for a full week after the experience. Some call this experience samadhi, bliss, enlightenment, heaven, or whatever points to that state beyond the normal human, verbally intoxicated state.

Awakening Part 4

(written in 1992-1993 time period)

Perfection lies, behind all eyes,

We, who would look within ourselves, will find,

The Sublime Surprise, of which all Life does comprise,

The Divine Self of all Mankind.

We, who have made our choice, with one free voice,

Call to our Eternal Source Supreme,

We will no longer roam, we are coming Home,

We are awakening from the “human” dream!

With courage draught, from fear made naught,

We move from temporal shadow to Eternal Light,

The Kingdom sought becomes the Vision caught,

Whosoever overcomes, now sees with unhindered sight!

The Love All-Knowing, the Truth now showing,

With Divinity, We walk hand in hand.

In us its growing, through us its flowing,

Embracing all between space and land.

With Hearts entwined, One Soul Divine,

To this world, We are a blessing immense.

Though we pass this way for but a day,

With Divine experience, who would dare dispense?

The experience was somewhat perplexing to Sharon, as she wondered why I was having this profound experience, and why it continued on for so long. She had many questions, but the perfect peace that I was experiencing was not ebbing, at least initially. I had to return to work, as I worked for a living as an electrician. At work, the energy continued to flow in its own unique way, but well into the work week I started to question the value of “enlightenment” when I still had to continue to work. My co-workers were so out of touch with these things that I considered important, special, or sacred, and I could not quite get a handle on how this spiritual experience would have any value in the workplace. I dared not speak about it, or show any type of behavior that would distinguish me from anybody else, and the dominating attitude for me was to “just blend in” as best I could.

I had already cut way back on meditation with the beginning of my running career in 1993, and when the spiritual “energy” finally ebbed, I despaired a bit, and I felt a little awkward pursuing any deeper connection. I needed a powerful ego to support my intentions to make a successful career, and I knew that I needed a healthy sense of self esteem, beyond just having my “secret connection”. I had started questioning that commitment to the connection, and to the value of a process that I was uncertain as to how to integrate into the rest of my life. I needed an empowered self, a self that could promote and defend itself from the often times threatening world of toxic male dominated construction trades. Ever so gradually, my commitment to my spiritual unfoldment began to ebb, and I wrapped my spirit baby in a blanket, and placed it into a garage so that I could sleep, just like my parents did to me as a youngster. But my love for my partner, Sharon, and for all of our shared friendships and family did not ebb, but continued to increase and enhance the quality of my life.

July 30, 1994, Sharon and I had a “commitment ceremony” in our backyard. We had over 75 people attend, including most of our immediate family, and many, many friends. I had solidified in my own mind and heart the absolute value of my relationship with Sharon. She came to represent to me integrity, honesty in communication, speaking from the heart, empowered divine feminine energy, compassion, service to others, and the celebration of our shared humanity at the highest level, of any person that I have ever met, even up to this very day. I have made many mistakes in my life, but I celebrate every moment of every day my relationship with Sharon. She is truly made in the image of the highest power in our universe.

Giving our vows, July 30, 1994 Eddy Brame (Crouch) officiating

The years 1995-2005 were dominated by employment for both Sharon and I. Sharon, who is a nurse, became a manager for Legacy, and eventually became a hospice nurse for Providence. I continued on my career as an electrician, occasionally accepting management roles. This also was the period that I focused on improving my running ability, as well as increasing my participation in our family environment. Gradually, our huge circle of friends diminished during this period of time, and death started creeping into our awareness as important family members and friends starting passing away. Losing my grandmother in 1995, and Victor Thomas in 1996 were two most troubling losses. In late 1987, I had a dream where I saw a ring with seven jewels on it, but it was missing its major stone, though the ring had a setting just waiting for the jewel to be inserted. The missing jewel was much, much bigger than the seven stones. What could this dream possibly mean? I was engaged to be married to “woman number seven”, Laurie Hartmann, at the time, so to have this dream was disconcerting. More was to be revealed at a much later time, when my future wife, Sharon, was to choose a ring for our second wedding in Las Vegas, in 2004. Without any knowledge of my dream, Sharon proceeded to pick a ring at the original Mother Goose store with SEVEN SMALL STONES and ONE LARGE CENTRAL STONE. She had picked out, without me being present or having ever told her about my dream, the EXACT ring from my dream. I had forgotten about the dream, until I located a journal in August of 2018 that I had in storage since 1988.

seven jeweled ring with big stone

As I look at my history, I am surrounded by the “rings” of its Mystery.. Sharon retired from her career as a hospice nurse in early 2009, and wrote her first book, Whose Death is It Anyway, A Hospice Nurse Remembers Sharon helped me with the care of my father, Beryl, over the period of time after the death of my mother in 2009, though Dad’s death in September of 2017. Sharon took over care of my aunt Susie, Dad’s sister, after the death of her daughter, Sharyn, in August 2017. Sharon continues to be an invaluable guide and aide for me as I walk down the challenging roads of being present for dying friends and family members, including pets.

Sharon, Penny, Evey at Sharon’s 70th birthday Parachuting Experience

Sharon remains an inspiration to me. She appears to get younger every year, and her outlook on life tends towards optimism, and she remains upbeat. She is a “connector” to this day, and she reaches out to everybody that she can, in her attempt to be the voice for healing, love, and friendship in her world. She continues to draw miracles into her life, and she has a special intuition, or inner knowledge, that allows for her to make connections with people who the “normal folk” of the world would never get to experience. Sharon continues to be the “gem of greatest value” in my life, and her spirit sparkles with a brilliance unmatched by anyone that I have ever met.

Sharon on a Greek ferry, 2018

Chapter 12: Empathy, and The Mystery of the Path Between You And Me

Life’s journey is forever like a dotted line pathway. It is the quality of our connections with each other that fills in the space between the dots. Empathy is the major vehicle for our consciousness to transcend our apparent differences, enabling each of us to connect the dots in a mutually affirming manner. It is only through each other that we can see who we really are. I am you, and you are me, and together we are everything, apart, we are still chained together by whatever separates us. We find our shared meaning, which links us together on our journey in Spirit—-Elisha Scott

As human beings in social environments, we have come to expect that our leaders will lead with integrity and morality, though inevitable weaknesses will occasionally make themselves evident.. If our leader is of high enough integrity, we may even want to pattern ourselves after them, should we also aspire to any leadership roles in our own future, including taking charge of our own lives. Patterning after others who are successful is considered to be a normal and natural response, while also being an evolutionary adaptation. To survive, and prosper as a species, we became willing to adopt attitudes and perform actions that others may have succeeded with in the past, as well as remaining open to any new unfoldment in our understanding that will complement our unique role..

Yet, there are many times when we pattern ourselves after an adored member of the status quo, or the institutionalized understanding of the past, and we may be led down deceptive paths of reasoning, with resultant poor social and personal health decisions and outcomes. We may become subtly, or profoundly, traumatized through these relationships. “What would Jesus do?” can be a benign question, and may even lead the Christian oriented questioner down a more spiritually centered path, as long it does not lead to more conformity to dogma or the practicing of other systems of traumatic oppression such as the religion’s historical institutionalized misanthropy, including misogyny and racism.

The commentary on the common knowledge game, and the lemming effect, should have given the reader a huge window to look through to humanity’s potential for both corruption and healing within our social connections. Another facet of the most fundamental truths of our existence is the extraordinary potential for the depth of our connections to each other, and how strongly that connection influences all of us, for good, and for bad. If we learn to collectively embrace this universal fact, we would have a clue as to how to reduce the incidences of disease and distress in our world without just tattooing more medical technology upon our body and souls..

There are several American pandemics raging right now, including COVID-19, cultural divisiveness, addictions, obesity, cancer, and all traumatic influences, including MAD, or mutually assured death, the acronym for the gun lobby, 2nd Amendment zealots, and the proliferation of firearms used in the murders and suicides of our innocents. These pandemics are creating more opportunities for eruptions of drama and anxiety, which interbreeds with any potentially unhealed pain and suffering already inherent within our lives. We must become more conscious of how the unconscious actions of others, and our own unfulfilled healing response, tend to introduce more traumatic influences into our own lives. Those on the healing path will attempt to be spiritually present for others, while recognizing and transforming both individually and collectively, all internalized trauma dramas…

Love, hate, and indifference are three terms that we use to help describe the quality of our relationships with each other. To some extent, in various proportions, all of us employ these three qualities of energy exchange in our lives, depending on the person and/or the situation involved. As human beings we experience love and hatred as powerful emotions, which guide all subsequent feelings and perceptions in predefined directions. Love is an open system of friction free energy exchange and hate is more of a closed, attenuated system of energy exchange, both of which bind us to each other, in easily identifiable, though divergent manners. As we know, love is the open channel that compassion may flow through, while hatred is the closed channel that traumatizes both the receiver, and the giver, of that energy.

Indifference is a quality of attention that attempts to keep everybody and everything separate from the observer, and the emotionally detached individual is choosing to live in a closed system, or spiritual vacuum. Those practicing total indifference live in an isolated world, with little real emotional connection with anybody or anything other than their own emotions, thoughts and feelings. Indifference is often times the result of traumatic influences, and results in the emotional and spiritual oppression of others, and a repression of the personal spirit, as well. For most normal people, indifference is only applied to special situations, and is not applied to a complete life experience. Yet, the quality of indifference gives the practitioner the illusory sense of having no personal accountability to that which is being witnessed. Personal responsibility for a collectively shared error in the heart is denied, and the potential for a shared healing experience is negated.

We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to
say ‘It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’
Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those
people my heroes.
— Fred Rogers

The word “empathy” has a secret message built into it, by doing creative interpretation. Let’s take the word apart into three components: em—path —y (ou). Empathy is now seen to be the healing path between the mirror image of me (em) and y(ou). When the concepts of ‘you’ and the “mirror image of me” are realized to be identically ONE, Me and you disappear, and our empathy becomes just the “path”.

Empathy, in both its positive and negative expressions, is a name for the mechanism for transporting emotional energy to create a form of resonance or attunement between sentient beings, and is always in play in both love and hate relationships. In positive empathy, energy flows freely in both directions, between the “giver” and the “receiver”. There is a shared sense of the “expansion” of the self. (In a radical variation of positive empathy, one may even experience shared mental images-telepathy-and spiritual healing, but those are subjects that I will not address here). In negative empathy, energy flow is uneven, and dominated by one party, potentially resulting in forms of oppression of the other, and repression of aspects of the self, by the “giver”, and, potentially, the repression of aspects of the self by the “receiver”. There is a strong sense of the “contraction” of the self by at least one party in this energy exchange.

Contemporary research into neuroscience tells us that our brains, like those of other primates, contain mirror neurons. These neurons are triggered in our own brains when someone else is sad, angry, or happy, and those mirror neurons, in coordination with other pre-cognitive and cognitive functions, helps us to feel what that other person is feeling. What they actually help us to feel is what we would experience if we were in that person’s place. If our experiences are similar enough, we can empathize in a way that promotes a connection which can be soothing to the other person. The effort to understand someone else, when made in good faith, can go a long way towards helping them feel better and even, sometimes, to change their behaviors. This can be considered to be a collaboration between the spirit of the individuals in communication. The changing of another’s behavior is not the conscious intention of empathy, though most find that through the empathetic connection each participant is taken beyond the former boundaries of their understanding of self and other..

Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, one should preserve it.

– Anaïs Nin

Human beings are usually quite empathetic beings. Studies are showing that all animals, especially those mammalian in nature, share in this often times sublime characteristic. It is very difficult to harm another person if we can sense the suffering that they are presently experiencing, or that we may actually be causing them. The exceptions being when one is in an extremely hateful state, or those whose indifference may arise from sociopathic or psychopathic natures. A conscious person would never abuse any person, or animal of any species (including eating it, unless there were no other choices for food), after recognizing the unity of sentience that exists in our natural world. Of course, much of mankind is unconscious, and we can’t even keep from harming each other, let alone the whole of the animal species. Mankind has “dehumanized-de-sentienced” humans and animals so as to justify cruel and destructive relationships, as well as with the natural world that supports all of us. The Judeo-Christian western religious tradition and its misunderstanding of the wholeness and unity of life, and it subsequent influence on thinkers throughout the ages has been at the forefront of this travesty for millennia.

Empathy has been found to have not just a positive or “good” aspect to it, but that empathy can also drag an unsuspecting empath into the ditch with someone who may be of low consciousness. It might be termed ‘negative empathy’, which is a state of being so sensitive to other people’s experiences that we become overwhelmed by their suffering, to the point where we begin to suffer ourselves. This has the opposite effect of the collaboration that occurs through positive empathy, instead becoming an alliance of shared mutual personal pain, which eventually results in new forms of emotional isolation. The extreme form of this empathy is the stigmata syndrome, where the empath takes on so much of the suffering energy and experience of a hated or a treasured person, that they manifest in their own bodies and minds the wounds and symptoms of the person that they have become obsessed with. Those who have read all of my works are well aware of my profound experience in 2017 with a dying friend with brain cancer, and the dangers, and spiritual growth potentials, of such an extraordinary relationship.

Empathy, positive or negative, is one of several powerful transmission vehicles for human collective consciousness to be carried to us as individuals, as well as acting as a return vehicle for our individual experiences to be delivered back to the collective field. Collective consciousness contains the history of the knowledge that human beings have accrued over eons of time. It contains a vast matrix of dedicated/fixed pathways of responses to all manors of environmental and social interactions. This is the entirety of our species’ training which has been transmitted to, or handed down to, countless generations of human beings, through parental interactions, education, religious training, and the lifelong social and emotional training gained by our continuous interface with other members of our species . Yet, as so much of this “common knowledge” is a result of incomplete or inaccurate information, and is the accumulation of all the theories embedded in our cultural past. If we act in a “knee jerk” reaction, or unconscious manner, to any societal or environmental stimulus, our response is all too likely to be dated, and inappropriate. The Judeo/Christian religious metaphor here is that our “first born” of thought may need to be “sacrificed” so as to make way for the truth of the moment.

In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

– Eric Hoffer

Perhaps our knee jerk reaction has been to hate and despise Donald Trump. There has been much written by conscious, caring people about the necessity of not hating Donald Trump, but to instead perceive him as an ill person, as a poor person, or even as a suffering person. This change of perception may open our own personal doors to compassion, sympathy, and love. It is OK to be angry with the President of the US, past and present, as long as that anger does not get institutionalized into our minds. By clinging to anger and resentments over a long period time, there is an enhanced susceptibility to them becoming transformed into hate filled memories, or personally institutionalized hatred. We witness daily the collectively institutionalized hatred within our world culture, manifesting as religious persecution, patriarchy, xenophobia, misogyny, racism, bullying, homophobia, nationalism, earth ecology destructive (including extinction of countless species) and other self-destructive energy exchanges. We really do not want to add to the suffering of others, or of ourselves, by creating new pathways of institutionalized hatred.

Constructive anger is spontaneous, arising from being an active witness of the present moment, and is always relevant, productive, wakes up the oppressed and repressed spirit, and is helpful in generating extra motivational energy for constructive engagement with a world needing change. Constructive anger gives all parties involved an opportunity to share in the perception of a wrong or an injustice, and share in a plan to right the wrongs. Hatred and its divisive energy, on the other hand, has much deliberation behind it. Hatred arises from the historical deposits of unresolved anger or repressed pain and suffering within our memories, and looks at punishment and/or the destruction of others as a primary objective. Hatred develops from the collective deposits of darkness that our culture has handed down to us over many generations, as well as also arising from our personal painful and negative memories incurred over the course of our lives. Hatred, both collectively and individually acquired, becomes entrenched as a mostly unconscious dark power broker within our minds, keeping each of us pilloried to the past, and emotionally chained to the object(s) of our hatred. We are no longer free to respond to each new moment as it unfolds, instead substituting old patterns of self-defeating and oppressive responses to others, while repressing the desire to connect with peace and love.

It is time to free ourselves from the past!

What can be most difficult to consider is the truth that people that habitually hate others also hate themselves. Some may try to hide from self- loathing and hatred through false narratives of their own greatness, while deriding and demeaning all unlike self. The multitude of lies and deceptive behavior, and the need to manipulate others perceptions show an absolute need to hide from the truth a diminished sense of self. This is manifested through continuously projecting out of this mind, by accusing the innocent, and the guilty, of one’s own personal shortcomings, deceptions, and criminality. This communication style is absolutely crazy making for any rational, intelligent human being, and the witness to his expression can feel like the fabric of sanity is being ripped apart right before their eyes. For those not under a hypnotic trance, this spiritual depravity is easily perceived, and felt. The unwary watcher, in an involuntary and forced relationship with this disfigured being, through negative empathy can inadvertently share in others hatred of self. This is another manifestation of the stigmata syndrome, where the entrained observer inadvertently takes on the negative energy of the person under observation, and through the mirror neuron phenomenon, or negative empathy, share in the disfigured spirit that this darkness continues to manifest.

This is an absolutely normal and natural response. Yet, as we become more conscious, it is revealed that we need no longer climb into someone’s, say a Donald Trump type, pigpen and unconsciously support them in their self- hatred and self- loathing.

We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.

—-Anais Nin

According to the latest research on the human brain and its capacity to form perceptions, the brain works by “predictive coding”. It integrates new information based on the beliefs provided by old information. A typical human being moving through the world is not just passively perceiving sensory inputs through the senses, but actually assembles a model in the mind based on what is expected to be seen. This mental setup allows the perceiver to move unbothered through the world, taking in each detail without too much analysis. The brain has been found to have the capacity to over predict, at times expecting something to be there that is not. That expectation can, literally, create a self-hypnotic suggestion, and a non-existent thing can be perceived as if it was really there.

A difficult truth must be embraced:

All that we will ever see, unto eternity, is the extension of our consciousness. How we see ourselves determines the quality of our life experience, and the integrity of our connection with our “higher power”. Insight into the corrupted matrix of human consciousness and its limited understanding leads to the new pathways of consciousness where intuition and spiritual power are more readily accessed—-Elisha Scott

It is time to turn our spiritual power up to MAXIMUM.

This fact has been verified by mystics, sages, and now, quantum theorists, so it should not be passed over like an unpopular dish at dinner time. Historically, the human race has become addicted to the religious junk food continuously being processed from the limitations of our distant past, rather than feasting at the table of the infinite Spirit of Now. The former Vice President Pence justified sharing in hatred of gays and drug users in the 1980’s and 1990’s by claiming AIDS was God’s punishment for all such people that God hated for not obeying “God’s laws”. We all suffered because of the collective narrative of hatred being shared by the victims, and their accusers.

The Real World

One can only wonder what the twisted, secret narratives that both Mike Pence, and Donald Trump entertained in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am not sure that Pence had evolved much from his hateful AIDS postures of the past. His own self-hatred, as represented by a corrupted view of the “will of God” may well be one of the primary reasons behind that administration’s incompetent, hands off approach to the disaster. Pence has entertained more than one “apocalyptic narrative” that justifies his position as a passive witness to God’s wrath punishing the wicked and the heathen, rather than him acting as an active healing participant in the salvation of the oppressed. Like Trump, he disregarded the seriousness of the pandemic, and wouldn’t consistently wear a mask to protect others from the potential of his own viral infection. They both continued to manifest their hatred of the world through their shared callous disregard for the safety of the people that they made contact with.

Trump and his administration, while in office, were guilty of many mistakes over the course of his leadership, but their response to the pandemic is enough to stir anger and distress in any saint, or sinner that I know. Trump’s actions appeared to be that of a broken, spiritless man.

refusal to heed early warnings from abroad,
refusal to listen to expert advice from within the US health care system,
punishing those seeking to implement a timely strategy,
lying to the American people about the pandemic,
failing to provide enough tests soon enough,
failing to produce adequate medical equipment soon enough,
refusing to get samples of the virus necessary for work on vaccines and therapeutics,
prioritizing contracts for companies connected to Trump or to the Kushner family,
failure to implement enforceable social distancing and face protection rules,
failure of federal leaders to practice safe social distancing and face protection,

And, most damning,

failing to formulate a coordinated national response.
failure to acknowledge a massive loss of life, and a massive amount of suffering, with no caring, conscious leader to lead the national mourning for our victims.

The New Trump Towers

As their response to the “outer world” is their response to their “inner world” (remember, all that we ever see, unto eternity, is ourselves), it is obvious that they do not respect or honor much of who they are, or their neglected, but sacred, relationship with all of humanity. As we “empathized” with Trump, or even Pence, with their self- hatreds, that hatred attaches itself to neglected or disassociated fragments within ourselves, and circulates within our consciousness underneath the surface, taking on a disturbed life of its own.Many of us allowed this administration to plant seeds of their own self-destruction into our minds. We were all susceptible to some extent, depending upon the depth of our own self-awareness and personal insight. Thus, a “trickster” of hatred can be introduced into our consciousness, taking us to sometimes undesirable and uncomfortable psychological places. Yet this awareness may lead to amazing, healing insights for ourselves, so we need not judge or be harsh with ourselves. In the “seeing”, these illusory processes, or “mirages of thought” are no longer unconscious, and our freedom of perceptual choice is returned to us. We are learning and healing!

Trump still is a pathetic, and, at times, a deplorable human being, as are some of his ardent supporters, yet we can all be spiritually reduced a notch or two by supporting this devil and his tribe by sharing in their hatred of themselves.. We will no longer “waste our hate” on Trump, or anybody else for that matter, realizing that they (the image of the other created in our own minds) has become a projection of a newly formed aspect of our own unconscious collectively shared negative self-image. “You” can never be real in any ultimate sense, since the “you” or the Donald Trump, exists as only a conceptual image in our minds. The mental pugilist blows that we direct at Donald and his friends ends up being directed predominantly against ourselves, because we are fighting the creations within our own minds, and the collective mind that we share with others, rather than actually exchanging energy with the objects of our objections, which is the only place where objective change may occur.

Donald Trump, like far too many national leaders, retained an advantage by being a one-way transmitter of negative energy to the world. They rarely place themselves in a vulnerable position where they can be a genuine receiver of the abhorrent behaviorial energy that they emit, and is continuously attempting to reflect back to them. We all have witnessed deplorable confrontations with reporters, who can only serve as surrogates for us, as a concerned public. So, we must still write our letters to our congressmen, stage our protests (when safe), and hold community meetings to speak our truth and maintain our own sanity.

The only way to permanently remove spiritual eyesores from our vision is to heal our inner sight, realizing that profound changes in our own consciousness eventually impacts our world, remembering that “all that we will ever see unto eternity, is ourselves”. Because we also remember that our minds are inextricably intertwined with the collective consciousness of the world, we will continue to have ample opportunities to bring healing to the world, and to our sense of self which is in relationship to the collective.

We remain wary of the theological theories and dogma surrounding Jesus and Christianity. In their misunderstanding, Jesus negatively empathized with THE WORLD, and took on the sins of the world, in the ultimate act of the stigmata syndrome. Love and Truth does not accept any scapegoating! This folderoll is an unfortunate leftover from from the Old Testament Jewish tradition. The dogma of his crucifixion was that his sacrifice to God was to save us from our sins. Apply grains of salt liberally here, ok? There is no God in heaven or on earth that would EVER use this dysfunctional philosophical vehicle to bring redemption and “salvation” to the human race. If Jesus truly believed that by sacrificing himself, the world would be saved, Jesus was much more unevolved than history would leave us to believe that he truly was. The only sacrifice acceptable on our own unique way to our personal resurrection and transcendence is letting go of our false sense of self. People, and civilization, hates negative feedback, and punishes liberally the innocent, to discourage further review. Sadly, he was victimized by the evil projections of others, as are all true prophets…

If you believe that bringing harm to others is a wonderful pastime, suffering continuously is acceptable, and death is the only hope for release, and for heaven, that you have, you might want to reexamine that mindset.

Religious reasoning is an oxymoron. This “understanding” would give any conscious person cognitive whiplash

Our “salvation” is only worked out within the individual minds and hearts of true seekers of Truth and Love, and can never be delivered through the efforts of someone else, no matter how historically exalted of a position that individual occupies in the religious pantheons. We must sacrifice our own misunderstandings of who we mistakenly thought that we were, and who and what we thought the rest of creation is, allowing for the new universal truth to resurrect our understanding of self and other. Failure to do so will make us more vulnerable to unconsciousness, where the process of negative empathy, and in the extreme, collective suffering and the stigmata syndrome, may expose us to spiritual chaos, and potentially death. We do not need to self-crucify, to remain connected with the rest of the human race, and to bring healing to the world.

The world will always be reminding us how far we are, collectively, from healing. We do our best to remain engaged with the world, while not allowing the world to overrun our morals, ethics, and spiritual intentions. And we need not spiritually die because of the “sins” of the world, whether it is toxic capitalism, toxic masculinity (and patriarchy), toxic politics, or toxic religion. We always retain freedom of choice, and must exercise and accept personal responsibility for those choices, in all of our lives. If our choices bring harm to ourselves or to each other, we are free to choose again. We make amends wherever possible after any error in our presentation, which keeps our empathy channels fully opened.

While what Donald Trump is, in truth, remains impossible to ascertain, his negative, self-defeating behavior will likely continue to be troubling to all thoughtful, moral, ethical, caring beings. Is he the Devil? Is he a rattlesnake, just waiting to bite all of us, and inject us with deadly venom? Or is he an angel, and we just don’t have the perceptual tools to see it? Well, I am sure that he is not wholly just one of these assessments. Trump probably carries a fair amount of all of these qualities, though unevenly weighted toward the darker sides. The point is for the rest of us to maintain a keen curiosity about our world, and all of the people in it, including Trump, and continue to be conscious, and aware, of our tendency to overreact to each assault on our spiritual and political sensibilities.

We all must cultivate a better spiritual presentation for ourselves than did this President. To hate Trump is to negatively empathize with him, and subject ourselves to his divisive energy. We must save our empathy and energy for those who truly can benefit from it. Donald Trump does NOT want to change, he wants everybody else to change to conform to his disfigured understanding as to how life should be. Yet, most mindful people have certain aspects of our own lives that we would like to change, to enhance our own self image and self worth. These are things that we can work on successfully. Those others who also want to change, while still suffering under the disfiguring conditions of our civilization, want and deserve our empathy and compassion.

Wasting energy on a man who is wasting himself is not a productive endeavor. I am not advocating indifference towards the President or to his supporters, but instead more like taking the posture of a detached witness to him, his continuing shenanigans and his minions, while responding in emotionally intelligent manners that do not bring harm to ourselves or to others. We can cultivate the thought and feeling of wanting better for the man than he wants for himself, remembering that Trump is indeed sick, and suffering under the conditions of his own spiritual disease.

Donald Trump created the conditions for his own disrepute and destruction. This is why Donald Trump is now dying, for he has lost love and self-respect for everyone but his own limited tribe of understanding. Roger Stone, the sleazy political operative and personal confidant of Trump, has publicly stated, as far as political advertising is concerned, that “hate is a more powerful motivating force than love”. We can see that Trump enlists and employs that energy to mobilize his base. We need not follow him and his supporters into the darkest of ditches. Trump steers his consciousness towards chaos and division, while we steer our own towards unity and understanding.

Donald Trump, like all self-haters, just wants to watch his world burn. We need not burn with him.

It is little wonder why any of us found ourselves becoming repulsed by this man, and some even hating this demon. Yes, negative empathy, in sharing Donald Trump’s hatred of himself, while not sharing the objects of his hatred, has brought to us many lessons about ourselves, and how we might see the whole of life more clearly. We have cleared the film off of our glasses, but Donald Trump remains blinded by his hubris and self-hatred. We have healed the parts of ourselves that would create hatred and havoc as a response to this damaged, corrupted human being. We can hope and pray for this disfigured man to see the light of love and reason, yet none of us are holding our breaths until it happens.

There is as much to learn from a spiritually disfigured human being as Donald Trump, as there is from exalted figures from our spiritual heritage and history. Trump is part of our present existence. Trump remains an emanation of our universal consciousness. Yet, the thought of Trump brings few to a state of bliss or contentment. By the seeing of Trump as he is, we can see the blocks to our access to that which exists BEYOND such a distorted image, which just might be universal love and truth. In the seeing, we may transcend that which is seen, and soar to new heights of understanding and experience. Some of us may even experience the same realms as those pointed to by Jesus, the Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, or other revered saints and sages.

A long term friend of mine, who is also a long term friend of the Dalai Lama has said that my understanding is contrary to the teachings of this Buddhist monk, but I will not let that deter me. Had the Dalai Lama been raised under the same conditions of life as I had, and vice versa, our spiritual theories and realities would have been significantly different from our present positions. There are millions of opinions as to how to best live life, and even my friend’s take on the Dalai Lama is only an opinion. Today I choose to not allow other people’s opinions to support my tendency to be repressive of my true nature, and I instead opt to be more fully present for my truest sense of self in this moment.

My two cents worth is less a charge than even Lucy for spiritual advice!

The conscious people, the people who have already embraced healing and transformation, are co-writing with me a new story for mankind. Together, with my spiritual brothers and sisters, we are co-creating the new religion, the new world order, the new blueprint for humanity and its eternal evolution through this universe. Together we are overcoming millennia of oppression and repression of the human, and the animal spirit. Together, we are defending and honoring our sacred Mother Earth, the true creator and sustainer of life on this planet.

We must remain spiritually vigilant as we continue to be a conscious presence engaging with a world still dominated by toxic masculinity, toxic politics, toxic capitalism, and toxic religion. We must be able to access our anger, not hatred, as we address the injustices wrought upon the human soul through the ignorance and toxicity of others. Love will be our guardian as we make the difficult confrontations with those who do not respect, or honor, the wholeness of life on our Mother Earth that we all share together in love and in truth.

If we lose love and self-respect for each other, this is how we finally die.

—Maya Angelou

In case it was not directly observed, what I have presented here is a meditation on love, hatred, indifference, anger, and the process of forgiveness. Mindfulness allows for us to see what is immediately before us, and choose between the knowns of the past, and the unknown present. Forgiveness is an openness to the mystery of the present. Forgiveness, however, does not forget or excuse the offender from his misdeeds, especially while the offender continues abhorrent behavior. Forgiveness releases the practitioner from the damages of incurring negative perceptions of others. We still must act consciously and decisively against all forces which continue to imperil our lives, our family’s lives, and the life of our planet. We must continue to be willing to speak truth to power, whether the power is in the White House, or in our own hearts.

Love unifies, while hate fragments and traumatizes. As human beings, we must be conscious enough to choose the best way to present ourselves to the world, and to ourselves, as we face the challenges of the insanity within our world. Our world is in greatest need of hearts that are expanding through mutual positive empathy, rather than contracting through negative empathy, or indifference. We did not create the world as it is now, we cannot control it, nor can we cure it. But we can evolve, and, collectively, we can address the disease of the spirit that is dominating our world civilization, and which continues to bring devastation to our world, and to all of the life upon it.

Each of us are beings with infinite potential. Yet, each of us must break free from the conditioning of our personal past, and our cultural past. There are four pillars supporting higher consciousness, which are (1) via negative- through negating what is not real, seeing what might be real, (2) via positiva-through constantly affirming the goodness inherent in life, reading the writings of mystical poets and saints, and being a grateful participant of life, we may experience Grace, (3) via transformativa- through re-creating or re-birthing ourselves through educational means and/or mystical connection, and bringing forth a new person, or our new understanding of our self, into the world, in the image and likeness of a more universal consciousness, and (4) via creativa- developing and/or expressing our innate ability to co-create with the Universe, by expressing ourselves through art, music, writing, or other means. We must access the deepest of desires to transcend the boundaries of self, and to reimagine our existence.

Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.

– Matthew 9:17 (NIV)

We must travel new paths of consciousness, letting go of all controls that keep us tethered to the past, with its incomplete perceptions and understandings. In the end, there is no teacher who will effect our salvation, for it is a personal journey, where we must accept responsibility for the totality of our lives, and make all necessary adjustments in course that will take us to our spiritual goals. We can actually rebirth ourselves, into a new understanding that the Universe has birthed itself in an infinitude of forms through the portal of Mother Earth, and each of us is “one verse” of the song of creation.

As we see the totality of the movement of thought as time, and its nature of keeping us tethered to a past, or to a future that is always an extension of this past, we can free ourselves from those illusory controls. We can live more of a life based on the ever unfolding now, or present moment, thus unleashing vast reservoirs of intuition and spiritual power. As we look upon all of life, we finally gain the insight that ALL is the extension of the “I am” that we are. All that we will ever see, unto eternity, is, thus, our SELF. for “I am” is distributed throughout all of creation. Everything that we see is our brothers and sisters in Spirit, and, in Truth, and all are extensions of the “I” that “I am”. Our collective error in understanding is believing that “You” has any reality in ultimate Truth, for “you cannot be real”. “You” is forever just an image of thought, created by the collective, or by the individual, mind of man, while believing that he is a separate, isolated being in a lonely universe.

The further along the path of Truth and Love that we travel, the more that we understand that, all we will ever see, unto eternity, is extensions of our Self. How we see our Self today determines the quality of Love and Truth that we manifest in our lives. How we see our Self today determines how much spiritual power can be brought to our damaged planet, which is now dependent upon us. How we see our Self today determines how much, as awakening beings, we are able to bring healing to our shared, damaged human consciousness. There is no power in Heaven or on Earth greater than “I am”. Yet our world suffers, because of the collective belief that we are not of this world, not of each other, or not of this Universe. The unconscious people of the world continue to bring harm to Mother Earth, and to all of her inhabitants, in the name of their own religions, their own disfigured political and economic principles, and their own ignorance. We all suffer accordingly.

I realize that I am an insignificant voice. I am yet another voice calling out from the wilderness of human misunderstanding, trying to locate lost fellow travelers, and aid whoever I may make contact with, in whatever humble way that I can, in our shared journey towards healing. We will heal together, or die alone. I am one of millions of spiritual “Johnny Appleseed’s”, spreading the seeds of our potential for transcendence on the rocky grounds of human consciousness on our planet Earth. I will not live to see the good that may arise from my work, and the greater works of others, and that is OK.

“The finger pointing at the moon, can never be the moon”.

—The Buddha

Were the reader to ever have a similar apocalyptic spiritual experience as I did, on July 21, 1987, the reader would see, as I now see, how pathetic and inadequate can be our words. Words are limited containers for infinite energy, and though they point to a shared reality, they will forever fall short in their intention for communicating what lies deep within the heart. While living in a verbal consciousness, the word remains the way the human world is measured. And the word, because of its inherent limitations, continues to create imbalances within the mind of man. Mankind, with its religions and its political science, continues with its pride and hubris, and clings to its knowledge like it was truth itself, forgetting that our words and thoughts will forever only be theories chasing after the truth that is continuously being updated by the present moment. The universe laughs with us, when we see that all of our words are but simple pointers, to that which exists within each of us, yet also exists far above and beyond the limited and limiting boundaries of human consciousness.

“Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate’er you may believe.
There is an inmost center in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception which is truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it, and makes all error: and to KNOW,
Rather consists of opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.”

—–Robert Browning

As I look at my life’s history, I bear witness to Love and its healing Mystery. The greatest insights that I have ever had continue to arise through the sacred silence within my being. Words are formed to become the bridge from that silence, to the conscious mind, in its attempt to bring balance back to which the verbal universe has brought imbalance to. Yet those words, though sacred to me, are only pointers to the potential for others.

Yet, to continue to point I must.

Hatred, indifference, positive or negative empathy, love, healing, or mutual destruction are parts of our infinite potentiality.. The choice is ours to make for our own unique life experience, when we have become more healed and conscious There is a Silence within each of us attempting to inform our consciousness as to how to best exercise our free will. What is our choice today?

The Silence continues to reach out to the turbulence within our world, and to bring balance back to our inbalanced soul.

My world will never be the same.

How about yours?

Writer’s note: Writing in my blog is like singing in the shower. Few people ever hear if I am off key, especially when I go for the high notes. I encourage all readers to continue their own writings, and do not let the off-key “high notes” discourage you. Our creations are precious, and sacred, when wrapped with loving intention. Like all writings, and speeches from others, please salt this one to personal taste.

Chapter 13: Anger, Self Awareness, and Mastery

But you can’t get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beatifically, avoiding your anger and damage and grief. Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth. We don’t have much truth to express unless we have gone into those rooms and closets and woods and abysses that we were told not go in to. When we have gone in and looked around for a long while, just breathing and finally taking it in – then we will be able to speak in our own voice and to stay in the present moment. And that moment is home.
—-Ann Lamott

Anger is not a shortcoming to be denied, but a creative force that tells us when something is wrong.
– Austin Channing Brown

We have been hypnotized out of our own basic wisdom. By our need for social conformity, we have been fooled into ignoring our own divine energy, intelligence and insight. If you see the Buddha or the Christ walking down the road, run away quickly, if you are to find and save your self . We either find our authentic self, express its energy, or we will remain oppressed and demoralized and fail to realize our full spiritual potential.

The Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama had an extended dialogue, which was used to write the beautiful, enlightening book called “Book Of Joy: Lasting Happiness In A Changing World”, which we recently read in our book club.

I have recreated a dialogue that I had in 2017 with Jules. a long term friend of the Dalai Lama. Jules, who I have known for over thirty years, and who co-ministered our 1994 wedding ceremony with his wife has stayed in contact with the monk for over twenty years. He visited with him in India several times, co-sponsored two of his visits to the US, and sponsored several other Tibetan monks in the US.

Jules’ views are roughly parallel to the Dalai Lama’s on many issues. Jules, and the Dalai, Lama’s, views are part of our international spiritual common knowledge, and have been completely documented within many books.

In the documentation of our dialogue together, I have edited Jule’s responses, as I wanted this written representation to be an expansive exploration and description of my own views, which have not become part of our common knowledge. I would like to point out that my perspective of life is unique, yet more closely aligned with Desmond Tutu’s, who has lived quite a complex and socially engaged life, than with the Dalai Lama’s, or my friend Jules.

I will begin with some introductory material, and then enter into the edited dialogue between Jules and myself.

Introduction

In these times when our leaders betray our trust, and when some of our fellow citizens and family members abandon all conscience and even stick out their middle finger at the truth, anger can arise. Anger can be a powerful, positive spiritual force, when expressed from a clear heart and healing consciousness. Those that fear anger, fear change, and growth. Understand anger, know thyself, and apply anger and love as liberally as is needed. Those who continue to witness the world as it currently exists, with no response other than indifference, or offering spiritually derived platitudes, have their heads buried in the hypnotizing sands of personal fantasy, and are missing an opportunity to unfold into the immensity of their power and being.

I have found that the use of anger for defensive and humanitarian purposes, and as an act of tough love is quite similar, philosophically and spiritually, as the need to use military force, and war for humanitarian purposes. However, weaponized, institutionalized, and dehumanized anger can result in unnecessary suffering and unethical wars; Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, like most religions, believe that war is undesirable and avoidable. I have never been a promoter or supporter of senseless and selfish wars, yet I don’t have much use for religions, especially Christianity as it is now understood and practiced, which I do not now see as developing sufficient insight into how each of its adherents may achieve the peaceful life, thus deterring interpersonal violence or war. The corruption of their moral and ethical fabric has become so prevalent in modern society that our present political and religious mores are almost indistinguishable from each other. Just tune into Pat Robertson of the 700 club (666 club), or listen to the children of Billy Graham to get a horrifying view of the modern disease of the American pseudo-Christian Spirit. We have all been victimized and traumatized by the well-meaning, and not so well meaning, adherents of that philosophy.

All of the religions of our world still tend to guide much of the discussion about the rules for engagement with self, and the other. Religious reasoning around human emotions, such as happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger tend to be attuned to the cultures and geographic locations in which the religions are practiced the most. And, these emotions, coupled with whatever rationality and reason might still be present in the humans experiencing them, become the foundation behind all action in our world, including the search for love, family and friend connections, personal and cultural evolution, healing, crime, and war. Understanding all of these internal relationships, ie. having deep insight into self and other, is essential to establish the foundation for proper action in the world.

A great story from classical spiritual literature around human values and war comes from the Hindu tradition, and is called the Bhagavad Gita & War. In the classic Hindu text, the Bhagavad Gita & War, is documented the story of Arjuna, the fabled bowman of the Mahabharata. Lord Krishna’s view of war is revealed in the Gita. .Krishna’s obsession throughout the entire Mahabharata was to establish a society where Dharma was the guiding principle. This is a society where there is protection and happiness for all, and where people live in a balanced, spiritually orientated way, with respect for other people, creatures and all of nature…

There were two warring factions in this story, Pandavas and Duryodhana. Pandavas, consciously strove to act for the betterment of the masses rather than for their own personal gain. They were rulers who could be instrumental in bringing about such a society as Krishna wanted to create. The rulers from the Pandavas philosophy were guided by the principles underlying true statesmanship. On the other hand, Duryodhana stood for hedonism and self-aggrandizement, and is the ancient version of America’s Trump phenomenon.

There is an incident in the Mahabharata where Duryodhana complains that Krishna always favored the Pandavas. Krishna’s reply was simple – “Adopt a Dharmic way of life, and I will give you, Duryodhana, the same support and guidance I give to the Pandavas.” As such, it would have been disastrous for society if Kaurava, the legendary king of the Duryodhana, had come to hold sway over the most influential and powerful kingdom of that era. A Kaurava victory would have meant a rule of darkness over Hastinapoor, Indrapastha and beyond.

And for Arjuna, the warrior in dialogue with Lord Krishna, as a member of the “Kshatriya” or the warrior caste, fighting the battle is eminently ‘righteous’. It is a just cause and to defend it is his duty or dharma. And, he receives conscious support from Lord Krishna, who even bends the code of war to support Arjuna to defeat his foe. In this brief overview, it can be seen that Krishna’s guidance to the Pandavas reflects a universal and valid approach to certain predicaments that will always face mankind. His efforts to help the Pandavas should be understood in the sole context of the establishment of a righteous society

The philosophies behind the decision to defend ourselves, and/or our communities, from attack from others are biologically, historically, spiritually, and rationally based. Our biological natures, beginning at the cellular level with the dispatch of antibodies against foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses, up to the threats against our lives by armed aggressors, demand that we work at self-preservation. Also, whenever there is an immanent threat against our community, our cultural and personal values and natures require that we protect ourselves from “outside threats” whenever those not from our area attempt to bring harm and/or steal resources from our community, especially after peaceful outreach and advances have been rebuffed. Just as a peace-loving community must generate a protective force against the bellicose attitudes and outside aggression of others who do not hold peace and loving communication as a cultural value, so must the individual within that community learn to entertain and balance those complex energies, in order to bring forth the most effective and life-affirming responses to threats.

So, just where does anger and love fit into this preliminary discussion? There are those who despair of the violence in society, and within themselves. They seek to go beyond this distress, yet they perceive few available options. Not knowing that the answer lies deep within themselves, they seek elsewhere, and find mentors, gurus, counselors, therapists, or methods of actually hiding from the self, such as excessive drink, drugs, sex, or the obsessive pursuit of outward accomplishments in the world. There are those who go to India to sit at the feet of the latest Master of renown, or follow the latest popular spiritual teachers, who appear to be popping up like weeds everywhere, including television and Facebook. Unless the “Teacher” or “Master” loves the great outdoors, communes with nature and its glorious creatures, hikes, camps, bicycles, and generally loves their own body, and its movement across this sacred planet Earth, they have nothing to offer to me but more spiritual “froth”. Our bodies are formed from the sacred soil of this sacred planet Earth, and those who do not honor or respect them as ONE can be no teacher for me. Finally, the teacher must appear within our own hearts and minds, and it demands of us to be listened to, or to be ignored at our own peril..

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.
—-Saint Augustine

Dialogue between Jules and myself

The time directly preceding our dialogue was an unprecedented period in my life. My experience in the first few months of 2017, was characterized by prolific writing, conscious dreaming, enhanced creativity, joy, happiness, and a desire to share some of the amazing insights that seemed to be just popping up like wildflowers. I called Jules after a remarkable shared experience around the onset of a brain tumor, and its subsequent removal, in a diseased, and now, deceased friend.

Marty’s Death With Dignity party, the day before his passing

This challenging time opened a mysterious, creative interior door within myself. The timing of our extended lunch meeting where we had our dialogue was three months after Trump was inaugurated, in April of 2017. For reasons based on his own understanding of proper attitude and action in this world, this US based spiritual guide took exception to Portland’s, and to my own, anger at Trump becoming the president.

I wanted to resume my friendship with him, and I was excited about the new energy that had lifted me into a new dimension of understanding. We scheduled a lunch meeting, and I shared my desire for continuing friendship and communication with him. In the past, I was much more reticent about sharing my insights, instead deferring to Jules and his persona of being a teacher and spiritual guide. I was much more aware of what was going on with Jules, than he was with me, so I tried to bring him up to speed a bit. We were friendly and quite engaged with each other initially. He then stated:.
.
”There is so much hatred arising within our Portland area since the election of Donald Trump. It does not matter who is the President, for our society to continue to be a loving place, the people need to reign in their emotions and follow a path towards peace and reconciliation.”

“Jules, it is unsettling to be a witness to what is being uncovered in our country right now. I had no idea of the predominance of ignorance and anti-social tendencies of many Americans. I hope that we are not witnessing the takeover of our country by a false prophet and liar.”.

“Um, Bruce, perhaps there is a different way for all of us to see what is unfolding right now. When I think of you, I think of Joel Goldsmith’s teachings. I see you as the perfect channel for the great teachings from that mystic and spiritual guide. Isn’t there a more spiritually appropriate way for you to be viewing this national process?”.

“Jules, Joel’s teachings were indeed a blessing for me in the past, but a new energy has come upon me. I have a new love offering to bring to the spiritual buffet, I think, that is much more appropriate to the times, and the situation”.

“Oh, I look forward to hearing about your experience. Have you dramatically diverged from your spiritual path, or is this just a new description for the way towards love and peace?”.

“No, I believe that a bridge to peace and healing has been provided for me to offer to those still struggling with the human condition. It is not a time for absolutist philosophies and reasoning. It is the time to acknowledge our sacred humanity, and to not judge parts of ourselves as less divine, or Godly, than other parts. This divide and conquer routine that mankind has offered to the seeker is a fragmented, unholy approach to spiritual well-being. It is reminiscent of the “mortification of the flesh” processes that even the Buddha finally renounced”. I witnessed you almost destroy your own body through those disfiguring fasts that you performed in the late 1990’s, thinking that by starving yourself, you would be closer to God. I am not sure how close to God you actually got, but you sure got close to death! The same principle applies when we try to starve ourselves of our own emotions. . . the fast fragments and eventually destroys the very fabric of our being and integrity.

“Bruce, I am not sure what you are trying to say. Can you give me some examples?”.

“Well, for instance, anger is one of our human emotions that is judged as unacceptable by those supposedly in the spiritual “know”. We are all beings sourced from the energy of infinity. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it certainly can be accessed, and modified to meet the need of the moment. Anger is a name given to an aspect of human energy. Anger naturally arises in human consciousness, just as does love, sexual desire, and a desire for community, peace and personal safety. I have seen how anger itself is not either bad or good, it is a manifestation of the divine impulse within all of mankind. It is a call to immediate action with complete self-awareness, and not a call to escape into other people’s ideas as to how to behave”.

“Bruce, that is an ignorant, shocking statement. The Dalai Lama himself says that anger is hatred, and that it damages the mind of all who use it as part of their life’s practice”..

“I have to respectfully, but STRONGLY, disagree, with your interpretation of what the Dalai Lama has said, or even with him, if he holds strong to that idea. This is America, Jules, not Tibet, or India. None of us were born, raised or treated like we were the next Jesus Christ, or reincarnated Enlightened One of the Buddhist tradition, like the Dalai Lama. Had he been born into my family, he would probably be speaking to you today with my point of view. Had I been born into his reality, perhaps I would be the one that you are quoting from right now. You simply cannot take a teaching like the Dalai Lamas, and apply it universally like some sort of magic salve. This is America, and we are a broken culture and civilization. Anger is appropriate and necessary in these times, as long as it is not institutionalized anger like racism, misogyny, xenophobia, white supremacy, genocide, or religious persecution. Anger born of the moment is infinitely different, and pure, whereas anger born of collective or personal memory is the source of hatred, revenge, lack of forgiveness, and what you now appear to fear.”.

“Oh Bruce, I can’t believe that you are saying this. You have changed, and I don’t recognize you anymore. Please read my book again, and, here, make sure to read some of the Dalai Lamas’ teachings. You have gone astray.”.

“Jules, no, I believe that I have found a middle path. If a stranger were to come over to our table right now, and urinate on our meals, or hit us, anger would spontaneously arise. What about the young man or woman about to be raped by a predator in a dark alley? It is that very energy of self-protection and defense, that anger, that we can channel for the good of the moment, to either inform the individual of their injustice against us, or to actually defend ourselves from the threat to our safety and well-being. To just sit there and turn the other cheek is NOT the proper response. If you believe that your thoughts and prayers could transmute the situation without action of any kind, that is fantasy thinking, and thus keeps us victimized and oppressed. We must stand up for our rights!

You have not fully connected with nor understood the inner matrix of collective consciousness that underpins the entirety of the human race, where darkness, isolation, fear, and hubris reign supreme, and operates as a strong potential energy under the surface of many men’s thoughts and actions. The Common Knowledge Game that plays out in collective human consciousness is what we have to consciously deal with. The aggressor is playing out a story that has been told and retold since man first created stories, and first lifted a hand against his innocent, or guilty, brother or sister, and either felt self-justified in doing so, or was oblivious to his own intentions. Our prisons are filled with millions of human beings who all of humanity’s best thoughts and prayers could not and did not help.

Right now, virtually all of the people who you associate with cultivate peaceful, loving attitudes, and that is just great. But there are many of us who still have to make contact with the rest of humanity, where such intentions are not even considered. I made trips through toxic male dominated workplaces, and even the underworld, where such “sacred” concepts would be regarded with suspicion, if not outright antagonism. There is a fight for survival, a fight to defend one’s tiny little plot of life, land, illusions of thought and sense of self. And there is mental illness, and an indifference to the feelings of all others who are unlike their own limited understanding of themselves. If we do not rise up and let the indifferent know not only that we exist, but we have feelings, and that we will defend our right to continue to have feelings, and existence, then those who ignorantly attempt to repress and dominate us will continue their abhorrent behavior..

Like a virus, those who oppress will be drawn to others who also have a desire to oppress, and the infection spreads through the collective mob mind. It is the feedback that we give back to them that eventually becomes part of the new knowledge for them, that others have feelings, and need to be respected, if they want to maintain some of their own freedoms. If we sit back and pray, as if the offenders already have the sensitivity to pick up on those finer vibrations, and that all they need to be reminded of is the underlying goodness of all is a self-defeating delusion, as our good intentions and prayers have little power for those people. The prayer that has the greatest power is the vocal one uttered through

THE SPOKEN WORD

We must be loud, if necessary, to remind the offender that another human being is present, has rights, and will protect itself and reflect back to the offender his own offensive energy, until the offender finds a way to present a more favorable side of himself to the rest of the world. We are part of the feedback loop for the rest of the world. We neglect our responsibilities as teachers and healers if we do not confront evil wherever evil arises. To not confront evil, or to mask it over with another name, and make it OK, as long as its influence does not directly impact us in this moment, is a dereliction of spiritual duty, and is one of the responsible parties for the continued proliferation of darkness and evil upon our planet…

Your vessel is shining on the outside, yet on the inside there appears to be an incompleteness of understanding, and of spirit. You attempt to suppress and repress part of your own humanity, and thus, the humanity of others. You are a well-meaning, but unconscious part of the conspiracy of silence, where men are made wrong for speaking or acting from their strongest emotions, through which our true spirit may reign supreme.”.

“Bruce, where you are wrong is simple. Through meditation, peace and reconciliation, we can create all of the relationships that either prevents the anger and hatred from arising that you believe that you may have to defend yourself against, or gives you a more creative, loving way to deal with the assaults.”.

“Jules, how is that working for you, and for our world, so far?”

“History shows the cyclical nature of human civilizations, with the rise of collective order, culture and spirituality, mutual trust, intelligence, creativity and the arts, and infrastructural stability, and then their decline into chaos and disorder, and then resurrection in new ways. Our own personal history parallels the same cyclical principle, except in a more compressed time frame. To be aware is to note that as far as we can see, we can only see ourselves, and our own projections of what we think that we see, or might be. Note that to not see what is happening in the real world is remain in a dream world, the world of illusion, no matter how much you want to make peace and love the picture of the world. The world is in decline, no matter how much we might want to try to spin this one. The world is overpopulated with people who would rather defend their lies against facts, and fight for fantasies and conspiracy theories over established truth and knowledge. You cannot reason with insanity, or pray it away. It must be faced directly, honestly, courageously, and with access to all of our spiritual resources, which includes anger, as well as compassion and forgiveness.

The Far Side Wait, Wait, We don’t have to be just sheep

ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL.

Do you think that just because you are giving love to the offender, that his behavior is going to spontaneously change? You noted at the start of our lunch the predominance of anger and hatred arising in Portland right now. I am not seeing all of our prayers and meditations working right now, nor have they for thousands of years. All of the Dalai Lamas prayers and meditations for Tibet were useless. He left his country, and did not defend himself. He left the country in fear for his own life, and his country was to be overrun by the Chinese, to be defended only by those who could not escape with him. Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama, was left behind, and spent many years philosophically fighting the Chinese incursion, and languished in jail as a result of his best efforts. He stood up, and made his voice heard, in the only place and way a man of true spiritual integrity could. The Dalai Lama’s peaceful attitudes did not change one Chinese invader’s mind. I don’t see any of our thoughts and prayers reaching this reality TV star parading as our President, either. Three hundred and fifty million jabs back at his pudgy belly will help, though.”.

“Violence begets more violence, period. I think that our lunch time has come to an end. Please reconsider your position, Bruce. You have so much to give to the world, yet giving anger to the world is no gift, it is a curse. I can help, perhaps come to more meetings at our church, where we can give you the support of our spirit of peace”..

“Thanks, Jules. I know that you say this with love. And I say this to you, this is also love, if only you had the ears to hear. Right anger leads to right action, as well. Protecting oneself against the violent assaults from others is an act of love, as well. Loving oneself through defending oneself, while giving an offensive human being necessary feedback from which to learn is an act of love, too. Would you watch your own child torture and torment a neighbor’s pet, and have no emotional reaction to it, and not confront him and teach him another way to behave? Love and righteous anger as a response to aggressive and offensive philosophies can live together in harmony, and they must, if America is to survive. Jules, I don’t have a church, a book for you to read, nor can I provide a forum for you to understand what I am talking about. Just know that my own “still small voice” is thundering from the silence in the center of my being, affirming the truth as I speak it, and live it. I am not a lamb before another person’s sincere, but wayward teachings, I am led from within, and I will go where the teachings lead me..

Blessings to you on your journey, Jules. I love you.”.

And I left the lunch, and we have not spoken since, except for through Facebook and emails. He recently unfriended me from Facebook for my outrage at him for posting a bullshit meme and video from the king of anti-semitism, hatred, racism and mediocre and outdated Rock and Roll, Ted Nugent. Ted was trying to “rehabilitate” his horrific image, without making any changes in his outlook, and I was not buying it.

Jules has an international audience, and did not appreciate me calling him out before his crowd.

Jules has grown quite weary of my point of view, as have quite a few others..

I have not, however!!

Fear, anger, grief, and other often times unpleasant feelings respond in healthy manners to our mindful attempts at understanding them. We must avoid become the oppressors of our self, we must avoid repressing feelings

My Monologue On Human Mastery (extended version)

People pleasing and ass-kissing behavior, and unquestioning loyalty to people with power and influence is like renting a room in a burning building. Once we get in touch with our feelings, heal ourselves of the oppression by our culture, and undo the bondage from the repression of our true nature, we can finally bring integrity back to the forefront of our consciousness, and find the long ignored leader within ourselves. Then we no longer rent a room in a burning building, but instead reside in the luxurious abode of “. . . the secret place of the Most High abiding under the shadow of the Almighty.”

In the timeless words of Bob Marley, come the words of a real spiritual warrior:

Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights:

And in the words of another great spiritual warrior:.

“I come not to bring peace, but a sword!”
—-Jesus of Nazareth.

as he, too, tried to break down the patterns of social, economic, and religious injustice of the day.

Punch A Nazi Sign at June 2018 Portland, Oregon Rally for Immigrants and their families

A lifetime of oppression, of not being heard, having cries of pain and suffering ignored because of some sort of prevailing philosophy, thus ignoring major energy centers of who I AM, creates energy field corruption and damage. How can a young woman, or man, not respond with anger and fear while being sexually abused by yet another Toxic Man, and his own distorted theories of how life should be? Extrapolate that to our entire country, where millions of our fellow Americans, or, more accurately, our fellow human beings, be they African-American, Hispanic, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or whatever label we want to foist on another child of God, continue to be persecuted and oppressed by the dark philosophies spawned by other Patriarchal ideologues..

For me, I layered myself with all manners of philosophies that suggested that I should ignore my personal human emotions, and all of the so-called dark energies that plague us, through the labeling, judging, and condemnation of all of these energies. Maya, or illusions, or cultural hypnosis, are terms coined by the “aware” that help us to understand that what appears to be in the “real world” may not actually be there, and to be aware of the potential of our minds to project out of our own unenlightened ignorance our misunderstanding of life, and our actual relationship to it. Ignorance and darkness, and their love child, evil itself, do exist, and is not an illusion. Rwanda, Syria, and any number of modern-day countries have witnessed the ravages of evil, and those residents who stayed seated in meditation and prayer are now dead, while those who are still alive escaped or had to defend themselves..

The key is to place these so-called dark energies in the service of understanding and love. Enlightened anger IS wisdom, and if we deny our anger about the oppression we have experienced, or that which is persecuting the innocents of the world, our access to vast sacred energy centers will continue to be blocked away from us, by those who inadvertently become part of the control mechanism that we are attempting to become liberated from..

Somebody has to act as a bridge between highbrow spiritual theories and/or realizations, and the damaged, hurt, misunderstood, persecuted, abused, sick and ill, and I AM THAT, along with countless millions of awakening abused people around the world. One size does NOT fit all, when it comes to how to spiritually respond to challenging situations. If we are sitting in an ivory tower or lofty spiritual “reality” then we will have one style of engagement with the world. If we are still in relationship with all of humanity, we have to be ready for anything, and we will have to be ready to engage ALL of our resources to meet the safe and sane requirements for each unique relationship . This is how my awakening world now spins, around the reunification of all rejected energies of our Holy Spirit (the spirit of wholeness that still resides within all of us, even in the “least of these” people, who may still reside in their own personal hell).

There are those purporting to be “spiritual teachers” and advisors, who are admonishing their followers to abhor using human emotions with their dealings with the public. Specifically, I am frequently hearing that a “requirement for maintaining spiritual integrity” is to NOT EXPRESS ANGER, in any form, and instead to substitute “loving thoughts” and “forgiving actions”.

Really?.

First things first!.

Anger is a natural, normal response, in any particular new moment, to any assault on our being, on those that we love, or on our inner sensibilities. Anger, among all other emotions, and in balance with those aspects of our self, help us to manage our response to the outer world, which is, at times, quite the aggressive, distressed, ugly, oppressive environment. Anger is not positive or negative energy, it is HUMAN ENERGY ITSELF, and like all aspects of our humanity, it needs to be understood in the context from which it arises, and when and how it expresses itself..

Anger can bring fear to the unaware among us, because of an incomplete or unhealed response to its expression in their past. We have all been persecuted, at one time or another (or many times), by the angry parent, boss, co-worker, or stranger driving next to us in a car. Or, how about the rapist, or child molester, who tries to attack us, or our children?. According to classic psychology, humans engage in “fight or flight” behavior, when they experience fear and/or perceive that they are being attacked. Whether we choose one or the other depends on any number of circumstances, and ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL. When we are backed into a corner, and there is no way out, where is our energy to come from, when the attacker makes his final lunge at us?.

We all feel a need to “be in control”, and to conform to social norms, especially those “norms” expressed in the common knowledge game that dominates the unaware human consciousness. Philosophies and theologies that stress the need to repress aspects of our human nature need to be examined in their fullness, and not accepted at face value. By their very nature, any umbrella philosophy and theology devalues the “intelligence of the moment”, and intentionally and/or unwittingly contribute to the suppression, and repression, of sacred human values and emotions. This unrepressed and unoppressed human energy, when balanced, keeps us as complete beings, capable of accessing and expressing the wholeness of our being, with emotionally intelligent actions appropriate to the activity of the moment..

There is a Wisdom deep inside us all, waiting to inform all of our thoughts and actions in this world. And, this world requires Ultimate intelligence to navigate through it successfully, without bringing harm to ourselves and others needlessly. Anger and fear are not to be repressed by any healthy human being, but instead are to be witnessed, and studied, and utilized intelligently for wise action in this troubled world.

Stand up, stand up, stand up for your rights!.

But, make sure that the anger is appropriate to the moment, and not some formulaic response that the “non-healed, unbalanced” nature within your own self offers up under many questionable circumstances. An “institutionalized expression of anger” becomes hatred in disguise, and that characterizes the oppressive nature of far too many male originated, and dominated, philosophies. When anger becomes an automatic response to all situations where threat is perceived, then the intelligence of the moment is denied, and we are susceptible to bringing needless harm to our bodies, and to our minds, as well as to the “other”..

When I was a eight-year old boy, while on a camping trip with family and friends, my sister and I complained to my parents about the father of the other family,, who had severely overreacted to us, and we accused him of being excessively angry and threatening to us. When my father confronted Bob about his rage, Bob got angry again, denied that he threatened us, and then commanded me to “get my story straight”, before complaining about his behavior in the future. Several years later, while in a fit of rage with his wife, he intentionally crashed his car head-on into another car at a high rate of speed, killing himself and crippling his wife for life.

The act of “getting our story straight”, and calling out ourselves or someone for being disrespectful or engaging in hurtful behavior will not necessarily guarantee any immediate positive outcomes, but it disrupts the conspiracy of silence, if only for a moment. In the seeing, or the development of insight into self, change is facilitated. Everybody needs to become more conscious of the self, and fine tune how we respond to our emotions, but the point is to accept personal responsibility for our emotions, see how they impact ourselves and others, and make necessary adjustments in course if we have behaved inappropriately. Repression and oppression helps nobody in the long run, though they maintain an order of false peace and control for the status quo.

To respond successfully in anger, we need to measure how mindfully we can engage these threats, and successfully group our own thoughts and actions, with others also engaged in the situation, to either fight the oppressors, or to speak our truth, and be heard. We do not engage in mass protests because we want to go for a walk with a bunch of strangers, we engage in protests because we want our voices heard. Channeled anger is an effective, time-tested method for standing up to those who would keep us silent in the face of their own misdeeds.

One only needs to review history to see how well the silent sheep held back the Nazi oppressors. If you want to conform to the “spiritual philosophies” of those who did grow up in our country, and did not share in our American Experience, good luck to you. I choose to wisely tend to my own “flock” of thoughts and feelings, and not to become just another follower in someone’s “herd”. I am now a shepherd of my own thoughts and feelings, and not just someone’s lamb..

Anecdotally, we hear of those rare few who have successfully mitigated dark, evil circumstances, through some fortunate “intervention” through prayer, or luck, where those who are attacking us somehow are diverted, and move their aggression elsewhere. Stories of Gandhi’s non-violent protest against British occupancy of India’s lands gets a lot of play in so-called “spiritually aware circles”. Remember, though, the many years of British occupation prior to that stand, and Britain’s diminishing will to keep their empire extended throughout the world. We only need watch the news, or read the paper, to see that these anecdotal stories do not embrace the reality underlying most of the final acts, and resulting actions, of the aggressive ones. Murder, rape, child molesting, intimidation, oppression, misogyny, road rage, terrorism, paternal violence in ALL OF ITS FORMS, keeps manifesting itself, and has throughout all of history. Those who are inspired to make peaceful approaches to these problems must continue, yet, so do those who aggressively confront the forces of oppression and darkness.

WE NEED BOTH ENERGIES FOR CHANGE

By the way, have you ever noticed how so many of the so-called spiritual savants, or gurus from foreign lands, do not have families? What is the real teaching here, do you think? It is so much easier to talk love and light for all beings, especially when one does not have to deal directly with the most challenging of human relationships. From the middle of 1987 to early 1988, I spent over 6 hours a day in meditation and prayer, and I had very few problems with my relationships with people. I lived in perfect peace and harmony within myself. Also, I had no children, or nobody to call me on my isolation and (potential) loneliness. All in all, it was beautiful for me, yet totally disengaged from the challenges of integration into society, and family and friendship development. I value my time in the “real world”, where the beauty, and the pain, of human existence is my greatest teacher. Mysticism has a place in our world, yet I struggle to find how to best stay in alignment with its ecstasy, and enlightenment, while maintaining a “normal human experience”. Perhaps I will drink again from its deep waters, when I have finally wearied of this world..

If our minds are fed anything other than facts, ESPECIALLY WITHIN ESTABLISHED COMMUNITIES OF HUMAN BEINGS, we are involved in a process known as maya, or illusion creating, and our world(s) tend to end up in chaos. The result is individual, and cultural, hypnosis and schizophrenia, where we can end up losing personal power, and we can be too easily bullied by the wayward opinions and false insights of others. Too often those who claim to have real knowledge are as lost as everybody else, even though they may be claiming righteousness, religious or otherwise. When we try to fit into a situation or setting where our heart tells us we don’t belong, honor those feelings, and investigate where they are coming from. If we feel that we are already “swimming in the divine ocean”, then we can watch, and wait, and see who is swimming with us, and join with them as indicated (or reach out and help lift another up, as they request help). While in the marketplace of human thought and reason,

LET THE BUYER BEWARE!

It has taken me many years to speak my truth to our cultural, political, and theological power and knowledge brokers. My enhanced attention to my inner needs and the greater good of all finally took precedence over my own feelings of inadequacy in confronting this collective American life experience about it’s alienating, crazy making communications and relationships, and its collective consciousness, and collective unconsciousness. Our cultural spiritual dementia needed to be challenged, lest we all lapse into deeper degrees of anxiousness, powerlessness, and unreality. Confronting a difficult reality takes more energy than most of us care to bring to the table, yet, not doing so diminishes our own standing in Truth, Life, and Love.

I had very poor training since birth in how to successfully navigate group energy, up to, and including, the whole of society that we all participate in. As a boy, when family discussions turned into arguments, many times I found myself either raising my voice against the angry voice of my father, or retreating into submission and fear at the threat of being attacked for being contrary to the flow. And, I internalized that I was probably wrong anyway, and would be punished if I stepped out and asserted myself too much. I learned that I could undertake less obvious means of rebelling against authority, sometimes through indirect, or obvious, self, or other, destructive behavior..

Passive/aggressive tendencies have haunted me most of my entire life, and becoming “self-aware” has gone a long way to keep me from employing those unskilled coping mechanisms unconsciously, though I am still occasionally haunted by their presence. Having undertaken the inner work of insight, and maintaining mindfulness, and identified those sources of suffering within myself, does not instantaneously remove all of the darkness within. But is also does not remove from me the responsibility to call out those who are the external agents of oppression and repression, no matter how much I might love them or want to protect them, or even to protect myself from the ramifications of asserting what is right, true, or proper in any situation.

What is not expressed is de-pressed. It seems the more we express, that is, bring out what is in, the more alive we are. The more we give voice to our pain in living, the less build-up we have between our soul and our way in the world. However, the more we depress, the more we push down and keep in, the smaller we become. The more we stuff between our heart and our daily experience, the more we have to work through to feel life directly.–Mark Nepo

Alcoholism, depression, mental illness, murder, suicide, participating in the continued destruction of our sacred Mother Earth, and other manifestations of dis-empowered male energy can be the results of loss of integrity, and stifling ones feelings and voice. And, this is NOT yet another spiritual theory, this is the ACTUALITY of American male life, and of my life. Sitting in meditation, and or quoting other “spiritually enlightened individuals” may have brought me a temporary measure of peace, but this whole process became yet another “opiate”, and it never brought the change required by my spirit for its own emergence into its own unique wholeness. Thoughts and prayers are great preparation for action, but, without action, thoughts and prayers are only mental masturbation.

Ignorance, and its most deadly spawn Evil continues to exist, in spite of Love’s presence, and I will not allow the “wise ones” and their dismissive theories on evil to discourage me from confronting that force, both within myself and within my American culture. It takes a force of will, or an energy FAR transcending those that the absolutist philosophies of unconditional love promote, to address this darkness. Jesus facing the devil in the desert has no value to me, if I do not also face my own “devil”, and our collective “devils”. If I lived in a spiritual “ivory tower”, where I never witness man’s inhumanity to man, then these philosophies might serve my needs. Why would any sane man create more Fake News, deny what they see, and gloss it over with Universal Love, whatever that means? I no longer need permission from “higher powers” to deal with all of our difficult emotions directly and honestly..

Chapter 14: An Electrician’s Guide To The Galaxy

Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.—–Harriet Tubman

The number 42 is a number of significance in the classic book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. This is the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe and Everything, calculated by an enormous supercomputer named Deep Thought over a 7.5 million year period.

Will we be saved by the number 42?

I am not a hitchhiker, however, as I once was an electrician, and my personal supercomputer found another answer to the ultimate question—-ZER0!

HOW CAN WE BE POSSIBLY BE SAVED BY ZERO?

The human race has become the measure of all things, through its use of the energy of words and language, and the tools of thought and technology. Words, and all subsequent concepts derived from stringing words together into some sort of rational evolving order,, are our measuring devices, or containers for this energy.

Naming is the way that our consciousness weighs and measures new forms of life, ideas and experiences, in the attempt to insert the unknown and the mysterious into a present context for understanding. Naming tends to attach a dynamic process to a fixed point in time and space, and thus lodges it in the past. We must keep this in mind, and keep our minds open to new understandings, lest we institutionalize our inaccurate assessments into our own dogmas, or permanent memories that are resistant to change. If we have measured the world, and ourself, with a faulty tape measure, everything will remain out of balance, and distorted, and we will all come up short in each other’s understanding.. Our human history is the documentation of those inaccuracies.

Names are essential for communication, yet are never comprehensive and inclusive enough to completely reveal the true natures of what they were created for in our minds to represent in the first place. When names get gathered together to represent concepts, know that the real miracle of consciousness is about to be experienced, as we become invited into the worlds of abstraction and conscious evolution.

Names, and our interpretations of them, change over the years, as

We all attempt to establish internal modeling for an external reality that we witness, from our own unique perspective, while remaining “bonded” to a common knowledge reference point. And we often live a second-hand life, using the verbal foundations, or bonding jumpers, provided to us by others throughout history to act as some sort of bridge to those possibilities that we have not yet creatively accessed on our own. It is imperative that we ask some difficult questions:

How do we weigh and measure our existence, and against which standard?
How do we compare and contrast, to discover for our self what a concept, or an object of reality’s, true value might be?
What, within ourselves, do we have that enables us to establish a valid reference point for our measurements, so that there is consistency, not only within ourselves, but across the human population, as well?

Many of us love to be educated and enlightened by the words and inspired messages from spirituality gurus, shamans or love inspired priests, quantum physicists, or well meaning physicians or therapists. Umm, VERY, VERY FEW p;eople look to electricians for the Truth, though they sure love us to remodel, repair and upgrade the old, or install new electrical systems..

If any of us are truly Truth connected, then our messages, or “bonding jumpers” will be our temporary verbal bridge back to the internal source for peace and healing. Some people travel far and wide to sit in the presence of those who claim they are “ONE” with, or grounded with the Truth. Truth comes from only One Source, however, and it requires an intense desire to find it, unless, like the great herd of humanity, we wish to just continue that second hand life experience.

Insight, intelligence and discernment to sort through the vast ocean of knowledge, and ignorance, created by historians, scientists, teachers, philosophers, the media, theologians, propagandists, pseudo-intellectuals and religious fundamentalists are required tools to find the precious oysters bearing the real Pearls of wisdom.. The hubris and clay feet of many of our spiritual experts shows either their lack of success in making a consistent connection with our ground of being, or Truth, and/or our lack of understanding of what that connection and subsequent behavior might actually look like.

(Mother) Earth is ground the world around—Universal teaching for electricians worldwide.

Mother Earth, amongst its almost infinite potential for creating and supporting life, has an electromagnetic nature, with its magnetic north and south poles. Humans are electro-biological beings, also being made of Earth stuff, thus we are not only electromagnetically inspired, but also influenced by all of Mother Earth’s other characteristics. Through a process of shared consciousness not yet fully understood by scientists and biologists, the life force field that constitutes our being exchanges information continuously with the environment, which shows that there may be unexpected outcomes for the human race with the loss of biodiversity through our heartless, reckless expansion through the .natural world.

Our bodies have over 50 trillion biologically and electrically interconnected cells that are totally derived from our ground of being, Mother Earth. We are not only created from materials endemic to this planet, we are a minute version of Her. We are also influenced by all of the forms of life which have derived their existence from this almost infinite ground of being. Humanity has an extraordinary possibility for resonance with all of our natural world, if it would only rejoin it. When we return to our source and connect with nature, our energetic frequency begins to change, and may actually appear to oscillate with the same frequency of life force as the Earth and the rest of its life forms

Imagine, if you will, that there are 7.5 billion mountain peaks on our planet, each one representing one human life. And, imagine that each peak looks at the other peaks, and does not see that each peak is connected to the same Earth, and each peak would not exist without its support. Now imagine that each peak wants to try to establish a connection with the other peaks. The biggest bridge building project in history must be undertaken, to connect all of the peaks together. Now imagine that these bridges are actually the energy of words, sentences, perceptions, and concepts. These bridges are our “bonding jumpers” to each other, so hopefully we bond through mutual love and compassion, and not hatred and fear, though both are possible. These bridges are equivalent to our collective consciousness, the matrix that verbally connects the entirety of humanity together. Yet what about the connection to the Earth? If the peak feels separate from its ground of support, what might bring connection back to the peak? Can each peak find its own unique ground of support? Can one postulate that the ground of our being calls out to the peaks to remember their true ground? And will the Earth send messages to the peaks, to remind them of their origin? Would one call those words that bring awareness back to our true connection with the Earth “the word of God”? These “inspired words” could be called our “grounding connections”.

Our modern world has encouraged us to become increasingly disconnected from nature. Civilization with its need for farming and cities has overrun vast tracks of the natural world, eliminating much of our spiritual and physical support. We eat, sleep and live indoors, drive automobiles that are supported by insulating rubber tires, wear shoes that create a barrier to the Earth, work in offices with no plants or outdoor views, are subject to constant distraction and philosophical oppression and corruption from religious and political authorities, hyper-stimulated through smart phones and media obsession.. This 21st century lifestyle contributes to a lack of connection with nature, which is the manifestation of our True Ground.

Without being connected to the Earth, we become ungrounded. In at least a figurative sense, if not literally, we are constantly taking on frequencies that aren’t very supportive of our human minds and bodies; frequencies that conflict with our natural resonance.. Without grounding, it becomes difficult for us to discharge the frequencies that we’ve taken on board. We can even become controlled and oppressed by those chaotic energies.

Without a common reference point, our words and concepts will be out of phase with other reference points, minimizing harmonization with others. Communication failures resulting from conflicting frames of reference creates stress and anxiety. Over time, it takes its toll on our mental and physical health too. Without a connection with the Earth, we don’t share in a healing common knowledge, negating or preventing any sense of supportive calm and well-being that happens naturally when we are earthed.

My whole life has been devoted to the understanding of reality, as promoted and supported by our political, social, and religious institutions, and finding sane pathways away from their collective insanity and malfeasance..[/caption]

Ultimately, healing, transformation, and enlightenment might be accessible, if we dare to consciously consider and directly address all cultural forces and their often times oppressive toxicities. We need to also ask new questions, and seek new answers to old ones.

Can we continue in our old ways of thinking and behaving, and expect any new, or more intellectually, socially, and spiritually evolved outcomes?
Can we troubleshoot and repair a complex system, be it mechanical, electro-mechanical, or human in nature?
Would you visit a thrift store to look for materials for your solar array?
Would you buy a new stereo amplifier made of old vacuum tubes?
Would you try to fly a biplane to the stars?
Would you continue to bring more human babies into the world, while humanity is so divided, and has such a high adult mental and physcial health failure rate?
Is that old 1962 transistor radio where you first heard a Beatles song still working?
Is there any relationship between technology advances, and the improvement, or lack of it, of the human condition?
Would you pour new wine into old wine skins?

Technology is always improving, yet the forces of resistance and impedance, reluctance, and friction generated heat are always present in any system, be it electrical, mechanical, or human, in nature. Everything has a life cycle associated with it, starting with its birth and/or introduction into the world, and its exit through deterioration and death. As we remember from our high school physics class and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, every closed system of energy will experience entropy, unpredictability, chaos, and eventual destruction through the effects of friction and heating.

There is a human equivalent to this 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and we see it arise in people, and in societies, that fiercely cling to the past, with all of its outdated structures of understanding. The more that cognitive dissonance arises between our intuition, understanding, and personal knowledge and the socially accepted norms and dogmas of the day, the more conflict, friction, and inflammatory responses will be experienced by everyone. Human energy systems, like parachutes, work the best when they open up. If a philosophy of continuous process improvement (evolution) has been adopted, then functioning may be stabilized, or actually improved, all the way through to the end of the engineered system’s, or human being’s, life cycle.

I am an expert in electrical connections, having been an electrical/electronic/computer engineering student for six years in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and an electrician from 1980 until my retirement in 2016. I have found much in my field of expertise in electrical theory that models many aspects of spirituality and its potential for human empowerment.in a process control theory class that I took with fifteen other electricians in 1992, I observed and was impressed by how these feedback and feedforward dependent control systems resembled the functions and internal workings of our human minds, especially with activities like goal setting and achieving.. I spoke up to the teacher about my observation. He was impressed with my insight, and stated that we all work with practical electrical theory, with some gaining a nodding familiarity with its esoteric principles and teachings, and NO SECRET HANDSHAKE IS REQUIRED FOR ADMISSION, but, in Oregon, make sure that you are licensed! .

A primary law of consciousness itself is that all that we see are extensions of our own minds, which is just another form of energy. Remember, everything that we see or experience is ENERGY, either in its potential (resting) or kinetic (action) form. And we are ENERGY, with an infinite capacity to do work, or to be at rest. The words, concepts, and languages that we utilize help us to build energy, store it, and then utilize it in ways that are resonant with our concept of our greater good.. Yet, will these ideas be appropriate for the enhancement of the greater good of humanity, and Mother Earth?

Photograph circa 2002 from the roof of an Intel production fab in Aloha, Oregon.

Electricity, like language, spirituality and truth, requires no belief, only an understanding of its potential for either empowering us or bringing harm to us if we remain ignorant of all of their supporting laws..Electricity is electrons in movement, concepts are words in movement, and spirituality is love in movement. By definition, any energy that moves over time is doing work, and all of their energies can be harnessed to do the work necessary for the betterment of mankind..

Electricity does not exist without a difference in potential energy, or voltage, between components, and a completed or closed loop circuit to carry its energy, with a common reference potential. . Spirituality and truth, to the as yet unawakened individual, are also manifestations of the difference in potential energy between a person’s collective self concept and any ground of being or ultimate truth that exists. Words are continuously being formed in our minds to bridge that gap, in our own sometimes vain attempt to measure and understand our elusive ground energy of consciousness, which may be immeasurable, yet it must become our common reference point, lest we continue to build into our human systems increasing divisive thinking, volatility and incoherence..

By internationally accepted electrical standards, ground potential is set to ZERO volts, and all derived or existing voltages are referenced to that ground, or zeroed voltage. Literally, the safety and operational integrity of any system is preserved, protected, and SAVED BY ZERO, or a common ground potential. .

Electricians are required to learn the philosophy of grounding, so as to prevent safety issues from arising, or accidents from happening. Grounding and bonding techniques are utilized for the design and proper functioning of any electrical system. “Ground” in the power-distribution grid is literally the ground that’s all around you when you are walking outside. It is the dirt, rocks, groundwater and so on …Mother Earth is the direct source for all successful grounding, though bonding between discrete components and building structures supplies the necessary conductor paths to make sure that those circuits have a consistent reference potential grid tied to Mother Earth.

As a young lad, I had a next door neighbor friend who I helped to build an underground fort with. We would tell our parents that we were “camping out” in the yard, then after they went to bed, we would “hot wire” a cord to a light, which we would use to illuminate the inside of our expanding cave. One time, I became the ground path, when I brushed up against the exposed hot lead to the lamp. I screamed, shook, and struggled to free myself from the ground circuit I had become part of, and, by good fortune, i shook free and my life was saved. Another time, as an apprentice electrician, I had opened up a junction box, and saw some sparking under a big blue wire nut (used to hold multiple conductors together under one connection point). Without thinking, I reached out for the wire nut, to tighten it. The insulation had broken down from the arcing, and I became the ground for a 277 volt lighting circuit. I was able to jerk my hand free, but other electricians, and home owners, have been much less fortunate.

You have never known a more helpless feeling than being an unintentional ground, and the two near electrocution stories have stayed with me my entire life..Yet, what about those other broken connections, the ones human in nature, that have brought great harm to us and others? What about that boss who has built up a huge anger charge, just waiting to discharge it through some unwitting recipient? Or how about that religious fundamentalist who bullies or cajoles everyone who does not believe in the same biblical narrative that he was inculcated with? Who hasn’t ever wanted to ground out that obnoxious narrative? We never know who is just waiting to use our life to discharge their own negative energy through, do we?

Grounding is a process of connecting electrical systems, appliances, and metal enclosure to a common reference point, which is, typically, the potential of the ground that Mother Earth provides. Grounding provides a low resistance path for electricity to flow, and is part of the return path for any complete circuit.

Reference potentials in real life human experience of consciousness itself helps to stabilize connections and provide stability and extra predictability to relationships. If all people share a common knowledge and understanding, there will be no catastrophic failures within the communications aspects of the social network.

The best spiritual reference point is also Mother Earth. If the materials of Mother Earth are remembered to be the source for all life, then whatever true potential that we have is sourced through that sacred connection. A great way to stay spiritually grounded and bonded is to remember our true source, and to remember that we are of Mother Earth, and may consciously carry that spiritual energy into all of our relationships. As the Mother loves us, so we must bring that motherly love to ALL of our relationships, This dynamic energy exchange is a form of entrainment, or resonance.

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

So what might a personal experience of “Ground” look and feel like? Keep in mind that mystics and saints, and electricians, each have their own unique experience and representation of their personal experience of our ground of being. My experience in 1992 at Lookinglass Lake, in the Mt Adams wilderness area is one possibility for the direct experience of “Ground”.

Lookinglass Lake, Mt. Adams, Aug 1992

I awoke one morning during the summer of 1992, and finished preparing to leave on a weekend hiking and camping trip with Sharon, up to the Mt. Adams Wilderness Area. We were planning to backpack into Lookinglass Lake, about a ten mile hike one way.

My senses were somehow heightened, and I felt as though I could see and hear better than I was accustomed to. Food tasted better, the air carried many more scents, and my entire body felt alive with vitality, and sensation, well beyond what I was accustomed to experiencing in my day to day life. I had to work that day, so I ignored my “extra sensory perception” for most of the work day, though I remained excited about joining with my beloved partner Sharon on the hike.

Our drive took longer than expected, and we arrived in the Mt Adams Wilderness area too late to reach the developed campground we wanted to use as a basecamp, so we parked for the night in a snow park area, and set up our tent to shelter for the evening. We sat outside of the tent, and I began to experience, in its fullness, that “extrasensory perception” yet again, but much more profoundly this time. It was as if I had sensory receptors in the dirt, the sky, and the trees. It was as if I had grown roots, so to speak. I not only could see the ground all around us, and the beautiful trees, and the sky, I could FEEL the ground, and it was as if I extended all the way through everywhere that I could see. It was the experience, in a new form, of “all that I can see is myself”. It was like I was “hearing” and “seeing” and “feeling” for all of nature that surrounded us, and it was a profound mystical, transcendental event.

After we returned home, I told my mother about the light, and she reported that the week before, a mysterious light in the Mt Adams wilderness area was also reported in the Oregonian newspaper,, so who knows what was happening there?

There is only One Creator. There is no reason that we cannot be attuned with ALL OF ITS CREATIONS, including all willing members of the human, animal, plant, geological, and, uh, “alien” races..

When we touch our Self with deep awareness, we touch everything

Mother Earth is fully conscious, in a way we do not yet fully understand, yet, we can all eventually resonate with Her. . . .

I have touched our Mother Earth with the deepest of awareness.

I love and treasure our Mother Earth.

How about you?

Looking back at my life’s history, I remain immersed in the light of its Mystery.

Consciousness can be modeled through many theories, and represented by many metaphors. I continue to use electrical theory as one modeling technique, because that is my background, while also providing good referential understanding. As has been seen elsewhere, I also like mythology and archetype based imagery to assist in explanatory, and exploratory, models.

One of the more valuable categories of circuitry is the RLC circuit, which has its human equivalent in consciousness, in which resonance may appear. Resonance has fascinating capacities for both an electrical and human circuit. Resonance extends its influence beyond its own physical boundaries, to influence surrounding circuits, or other humans. For electrical circuits, the capacity and quality of the resonance is dependent upon three factors. For human circuits, the capacity and quality of the resonance can figuratively be based upon those three primary factors, to the extent that we can model our consciousness through the RLC metaphor..

In electrical theory and practice, there are three qualities that characterize each resonating circuit. They are named

Capacitance
Inductance
Resistance/Impedance

Capacitance, as far as human consciousness is concerned, denotes our ability to store energy, and then release it, as the situation may dictate. We really need to build up a charge, before we are inspired to communicate, or to take action in the world, don’t we? Hopefully, we are not constantly charging our hate, lust, or greed capacitors, and instead charge more healthy collaborative ideals. Trauma gets electrically attached to our body, becoming unconscious charge centers that influence every other charge center in our consciousness. I have come to name these centers black holes.

Capacitance is the ratio of the amount of electric charge stored on a conductor to a difference in electric potential. There are two closely related notions of capacitance: self capacitance and mutual capacitance.^[ Any object that can be electrically charged exhibits self capacitance. In this case the electric potential difference is measured between the object and ground. A material with a large self capacitance holds more frequencies. charge at a given potential difference than one with low capacitance. We can easily see the human parallel. If I am storing a big charge on one side of an emotional issue, and you are storing a charge which appears as an opposite polarity, there definitely will be major mutual capacitance.

Does our planet Earth have a capacitance?

The electrical capacitance of earth C= 710 μF. Its spiritual capacitance may be infinite.

Do humans have a capacitance?

Every person has an electrical capacitance of around 100pF. Our spiritual capacitance may be infinite, as well.

Inductance, as far as human consciousness is concerned, also has its parallel. We all have a resistance to change, yet we all carry a vast field of energy within us, just waiting to move in harmony within us and the world under the right conditions. The greatest potential differences happen with the highest rate of change of charge flow, or current. If you want to develop your highest potential, make sure to find your proper reference ground, and allow all of your static stored charges to become dynamic and discharge them rapidly, rather than continuing to store them in a static field.

Inductance is the tendency of an electrical conductor to oppose a change in the electric current flowing through it. The flow of electric current creates a magnetic field around the conductor. The field strength depends on the magnitude of the current, and follows any changes in current. From Faraday’s law of induction, any change in magnetic field through a circuit induces an electromotive force (EMF) (voltage) in the conductors, a process known as electromagnetic induction. This induced voltage created by the changing current has the effect of opposing the change in current, though it never opposes it enough to stop the process, it only dampens it.

Resistance, as far as human consciousness is concerned, may point to any number of attitudes we may adopt, and actions we may take. If we were perfect conductors for Life, there would be no resistance, yet there would be no capacity for human energy storage or exchange. In a RLC circuit, resistance keeps a circuit from oscillating until eternity, instead dampening its action, until it eventually dies out. Yet, if another person engages with us who still is charged with the possibilities of any particular concept or ideology, our ideas can be re-energized through the previously discussed resonance principle.

There are no perfect conductors in our world, save those cooled to, wait for this, Absolute Zero temperature.. Some might theorize that enlightened people have zero resistance to Life, thus they have no need to store energy. This might explain why they appear to need to do so little actual work in the world, while actually being a clearer channel for the intentions of our reference potential, or ground..

The electrical resistance of an object is a measure of its opposition to the flow of electric current.. Electrical resistance shares some conceptual parallels with mechanical friction, as well as its important role within human consciousness itself. Have you ever felt a little “resistance” to new people, ideas, or experiences?

The resistance of an object depends in large part on the material it is made of. Objects made of electrical insulators like rubber tend to have very high resistance and low conductivity, while objects made of electrical conductors like metals tend to have very low resistance and high conductivity. This relationship is quantified by resistivity or conductivity. The nature of a material is not the only factor in resistance and conductance, however; it also depends on the size and shape of an object because these properties are extensive rather than intensive. For example, a wire’s resistance is higher if it is long and thin, and lower if it is short and thick. All objects resist electrical current, except for superconductors, which have a resistance of zero.

The human equivalents are obvious here. Some people are more resistant to other people’s ideas, or to change itself, than others. Biologically, we have an immune system that we count on to being resistant to any change that brings biological harm to ourselves, thus antibodies are created. At the level of human consciousness, our resistance to false narratives, racist or misogynist ideologies, or ignorant attacks against innocent life inspires our own macro version of “anti-bodies”, where we directly address and confront offending parties and their abhorrent philosophies, and keep them from spreading like the virus that they are.

Resonant or RLC circuitry

A form of human resonance occurs when large numbers of humans physically congregate together to protest against injustices, share in an idea, a musical group and their music, a pep-talk to affirm personal value for students at the local high school, join in a destructive mob mind of a group of insurectionists and recists.or any of at least a million other reasons to humanly bond. Humans truly have the capacity to resonate with each other, for better, or for worse. Without a common ground, or reference point, resonance will not lead to further stability of the whole human network, as it introduces yet more instability into the system.

What are the essential components within an electrical, or human, system, that creates this form of energy exchange?

An RLC circuit is an electrical circuit consisting of a resistor, an inductor, and a capacitor, connected in series or in parallel. The RLC part of the name is due to those letters being the usual electrical symbols for resistance, inductance and capacitance respectively. The circuit forms a harmonic oscillator for current and resonates similarly to an LC circuit. The main difference stemming from the presence of the resistor is that any oscillation induced in the circuit decays over time if it is not kept going by a source. This effect of the resistor is called damping. Some resistance is unavoidable in real circuits, even if a resistor is not specifically included as a separate component.

There are many applications for this circuit. It is used in many different types of oscillator circuits. An important application is for tuning, such as in radio receivers or television sets, where they are used to select a narrow range of frequencies from the ambient radio waves. In this role the circuit is often referred to as a tuned circuit.

What about the human capacity to create their own “tuned circuit”.? Our knowledge, concepts, and language are the very carriers of energy in our human consciousness circuitry, and they all need an extreme tune-up, if we are to survive as a species.

If we can find the silence at the end of our own self-centered narrative, we will be able to hear the pleas for help from our Mother Earth and all of her sacred inhabitants. We then find that our real human potential is actualized only through a conscious relationship with the very ground of being from which we all have arisen—Elisha Scott

There is nothing better in life, than both connecting with the sacred silence within one’s self, and deeply and honestly communicating with other human beings. And if we accept our roles as stewards over the animal and plant kingdoms, and Mother Earth Herself, we may also be afforded a personalized view into the True Miracle Of Life, which is our unity with all of creation.. This requires no belief or dogma, only a direct experience of its love, power and potential…Through this collective connection of consciousnesses to an Earth ground, or reference point, we will travel new paths of consciousness that will lead to better communication, and improved stewardship over Mother Earth’s creations.

We will remember that Life is a Miracle, if we can start from

ZERO

If we devote ourselves to Life’s highest values of truth. Love for all life, intelligence, compassion, empathy, beauty, bliss, and wisdom, our grounded reference starting point, at Zero, will assist us in creating new paths of consciousness, and we can be

SAVED BY ZERO.

We don’t need to hitchhike on alien spaceships to far away worlds to find our fundamental Truth, for if we do not find it on Mother Earth, we will not find it elsewhere.

And, we don’t need an alien supercomputer to figure this one out.

Every single human being on this planet has a different potential energy, created and sustained through the countless concepts that have been integrated throughout life to establish and maintain the sense of self. Our differences need not destabilize our world, if we use our words to bond with each other, and all seek to share a same/similar ultimate reference point. Then, our shared Life Affirming concepts will bring RESONANCE between all who are grounded well enough to share in them. These energy exchange dynamics will be extensively explored in the next chapter where the miracle of empathy is explored.

I remain intensely interested in connections, focusing on those that are primarily human in nature. I remain fascinated with our true ground of being, Mother Earth and her timeless teachings.. I celebrate the ability of our hearts and minds to join together within our own lives the larger community that constitutes human civilization, and the animal and plant world.. I lament the primary issues preventing such spirituality, and enhanced loving, healing, compassionate, and empathetic interconnection, though I am hopeful for the human race.. We all must realize that we are negatively impacted by trauma, toxic capitalism, toxic religion, and toxic masculinity, with its many toxic styles of gun ownership. These forces have a cumulative impact upon our sense of self and connection with the Earth, and these are causative forces preventing healing connections..

the ungrounded members of humanity cause the problems that are dominating our world

By definition, Mother Earth is set to zero volts, and all other voltages are derived in relation to that value, and, thus, proper circuit operation is guaranteed..

We all can get grounded to our Mother Earth, and be saved by ZERO!

As I continue my intense inner journey, and exploration of human consciousness, I see how our lack of connection to Nature, Mother Earth, and each other is destroying us, and the planet.

Life is connection, connection is life.

Continued addiction to

poor self esteem,
consumerism,
indifference to others,
emotional hiding and mutual deception,
media distraction, and
the callous disregard of the health and safety of our planet

leads to further disconnection, disempowerment, illusion, and spiritual and emotional sickness, disease, and death.

Distraction, or connection, it is our choice.

Will we be saved by ZERO?

Get those bonding jumpers prepared!

.Chapter 15: Knowledge, Facts, Insight, And The Whim

Are you wise as an owl?

What is knowledge?
What is a fact?
What is an illusion?
What is truth?
What is a lie?
What is a whim?
What is insight?
What is intuition?

I have been pointing to potential answers to these questions throughout the book, with this chapter serving only as a supplement to our understanding. Forming questions and finding their best answers has challenged mankind for thousands of years, and there are tens of thousands of philosophical, scientific, and religious books already written on all of these topics. I am considered a lay person, with no extended training in philosophy, religion, psychology, history, or academia in general, yet I have the same curiosity and spirit of inquiry as the most devoted experts within these fields. I will attempt to provide the smallest framework possible for this exploration, so that the reader and myself can share in an abbreviated, but sincere, walk on new pathways together.

This book is an attempt to get at the root of our shared existence. Are we merely verbal creations, or do we exist in other realms or dimensions, and where might they be found and experienced? Those that keep asking the important questions of life may eventually find satisfying answers, though there are no guarantees for success. Those who do not ask those important questions are guaranteed zero success, however.

What is knowledge, and how do we know what we know?

Philosophers, scientists, religious thinkers, and beer drinkers throughout the ages have contemplated this most important question, for it has ramifications for our sense of self, its reality and formation, and our actual place in the Universe.

Rene Descartes was well known, not only for his volumes of scientific and mathematical writings and teachings, but also for his famous one liner:

I think, therefore I am.

Starting with Descartes, the self was considered to be a thinking thing that is not extended, and the object of the self’s observation is an extended thing which does not think. Duality is affirmed here, as the thinker, who is a dynamic being, traps the observed in a thought, which is a static enclosure, or perception. Those five words-I think therefore I am, certainly can get confusing, especially when the object is another thinking human being, whether they really are thoughtless, or not! Things can get really, really interesting, and complicated, when the object of observation is the actual self doing the observation!!!

Many modern thinkers consider Rene’s dualism through his cause and effect statement as not fully embracing the nature of consciousness and our being, the wholeness of our being, and of our reality, and our relationship to its formation and experience. Descartes may have have put

“de-cart before de-horse”.

In a previous chapter we considered the probability that the knowledge of self first begins with the insight that the word represents an object of sensorial awareness. As many modern day philosophers note:

Within a conscious mind, the subject and the object arise simultaneously. The thinker and the thought arise as one. Duality is merely an illusion of thought.

Helen Keller first recognized herself as an independent being upon realizing that W A T E R represented the substance that she both drank and washed with. So too it is that we can properly assume that our sense of self, and each subsequent iteration of it, or evolutionary progression of it, arises from each statement of “new knowing” that arises within our own consciousness. Thus, it remains imperative that we understand this process of the creation of “knowledge” and the accumulation of “knowledge” through our training, education, and life experience, for this is the process by which we create our self, and build upon it.

Remember, we began this journey several chapters back with the mythological story of the Garden of Eden, as well as Theseus, the Minotaur, and the labyrinth. If our intention is to return to the Garden of Eden, what is the state of consciousness that we aspire to return to? If we wish to return to a pre-verbal state, we are sure to be disappointed, for many pre-verbal states are characterized by unresolved trauma, which means that the labyrinth, and the Minotaur, have yet to be dealt with. Much of our knowledge serves to obfuscate and distract us from this most important issue, so we must continue our exploration of the mind, its knowledge, and the labyrinth of illusion that it creates which hides us from the blocks to our return to our original nature.

We must have a sense of our being before knowledge, and the further pursuit of it, makes any sense at all. The first word that we learn, be it mama, dada, poopoo, oh FUCK, or whatever it is, becomes the internal ignition switch that gets turned on, and then the accumulation of knowledge of the “outer world” begins! What we, as a human race, presently accept as knowledge can be defined in many ways. It can be our capacity for embracing logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning from both personal experience and through the transfer of shared knowledge, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, insight, critical thinking, and problem solving all point to the manifestation of intelligence. Thus, when all aspects of our intelligence are successfully accessed, we can become wiser people.

We have many tools to access in our quest for knowledge and its successful application and the most reasonable ways to apply that knowledge for wise, constructive action in the world. Our knowledge is based upon familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, such as facts, information, descriptions, or skills, which is acquired through experience or education by perceiving, discovering, or learning knowledge. Knowledge can also refer to a theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.

Intuition is a category of perception that I include under the heading “uncommon knowledge”. It is is a perceptual attribute that gives us the ability to know something directly without analytic reasoning, bridging the gap between the conscious and unconscious parts of our mind, and also between instinct and reason.

A whim is within the category of perception that I have included under the heading “unconscious knowledge. It is an act of will drowning in capriciousness and/or eccentricity. It appears as a sudden idea or turn of the mind, and its action is mutually exclusive of the actions of wisdom, knowledge, and intuition..

I first came into a conscious collision with the “whim versus wisdom” dynamic while I was in the sixth grade. The principal of our grade school wanted a representative from each class, from both the fifth and the sixth grades, to attend a parent-teacher conference in the auditorium on a week night. It was to be considered an honor to be selected, according to our teachers, and the students were advised to select from among themselves who would be the best representative.

As a community of grade schoolers, we had a difficult time establishing the process for how to select the representative, let alone who it should be. The teacher helped by instituting two male “overseers”, one from the fifth and one from the sixth grade, who were to facilitate the determination process by asking for volunteers, or asking for specific students of their own choosing, and discussing their qualifications between the two selected leaders. The boys expressed frustration with the process, and even though our teachers offered up two good candidates from each class, ON A WHIM as promoted by one of the sixth grade boys, a quiet, shy girl was selected for the sixth grade class. She had been the recipient, in the past, of some teasing and bullying by me and others, and I could immediately see that this process had the potential to victimize her.

I offered my own protest with a form of passive/aggressive humor, but the decision had been made. The more others protested, the more the two loudest supporters of the girl became. The two boys dreamed up several good reasons after the fact for their “decision” to overrule the majority. I was to later learn that the primary reason that Jeff encouraged the selection of Janice was so that he could continue to harass her. What was to be an opportunity to honor and acknowledge our classes through selecting our most qualified representatives turned into another opportunity for infantile misogynistic persecution and teasing.

This selection process dramatically impacted me, and has influenced my understanding of group dynamics ever since.

Do we, as a collective, select candidates for political office on a whim, or do we use knowledge, intuition and wisdom?

You already know your own personal answer to this question.

Many of us, relying upon the opinions of others, have made many decisions to not be wise, but to instead follow the opinions of others, who may be engaging in whimsical or non-critical thinking of their own.

We must learn to trust ourselves and our ability to apply our experience and knowledge, and with a little bit of our developed insight. Our intuition must be developed as a complement to our own wisdom. Typically, our learned wisdom that does not conform to what our latest “intuitive hit” suggests must be scrutinized further, and an intelligent balance struck between those two poles. Intuition and wisdom are not mutually exclusive, and, in fact, complement each other.

We may be wrong about many issues, but at least we are accessing our intelligence, and learning from our errors. Following blind people into the ditch does not do our basic nature justice, so beware of the temptation to try to adapt to other’s expectations, at the expense of developing our own unique intelligence. Wisdom that is universal in nature is like the scent of a flower that we just cannot pull ourselves away from, nor should we.

Wisdom is spawned from experience, and is best embraced and expressed through our story telling, and our intelligent actions in the world. Sound bites just do not carry enough of wisdom’s energy. We must be careful not to integrate meme’s and sound bites into a quilt of understanding, because the stitching will come unraveled, and we will be left appearing and acting like less than the wise people that we can be.

Whimsical thinking is respected because of its lack of adherence to established patterns, which can be attractive to creative people, non-conformists, and insane individuals, so there is a spectrum of benefit to be gained by accessing it. But whimsical thinking must be set aside for those times when intelligent action is required. Be wise, watch out for whimsical thinking, and make those difficult, challenging decisions that are beneficial for our life, and for our world’s life, too..

Knowledge

“One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.”
― Krishnamurti

Our present day national consciousness continues to be heavily influenced by old history and skewed knowledge, racism, white male supremacy, Christian fundamentalist inspired judgements, hatreds and ideologies, patriarchy, misogyny, and xenophobia. I was born and raised under these cultural conditions, and I have been strongly impacted by the human energy that is spawned from these lower levels of understanding. I also come from the class of white male Americans who are now considered to be the most susceptible to anxiety, despair, loneliness, suicide, alcoholism and/or drug dependency, and depression, though the race and sex that I belong to, and the country that I consider to be my home, do not have the monopoly on all such spiritual disease.

My main coping mechanisms for dealing with America’s and my own dark side are practicing spiritual healing principles, and writing about and verbally communicating with others who also share my interest in spirituality and recovery from the human condition. My path, and the paths of all others, have taken all of us to unique and valuable viewpoints, so it is of prime importance that we find our voice and share our knowledge with each other. Through multitudes of these energy exchanges, we all may benefit from each others’ experiences, and contribute to the formation of a more peaceful, healing collective consciousness in America. There is a huge spiritually awakening element that has already risen out of their own ignorance, and continues to capture the imagination and attention of many oppressed and repressed Americans.

It is important to understand the internal headlights that our minds use to search for knowledge, and truth. The “headlights” tend to encourage self-fulfilling predictions/prophecies, so for us to look at that which “looks” will bring amazing insights and enhance the potential for healing experiences. What information really is, or isn’t important? Which attitudes, insight, and knowledge leads to greater measures of wisdom, and, potentially, freedom from our inhibiting and restrictive knowns, especially in the situations where our knowledge appears to be in conflict with the truth? As a long-term practitioner of mindfulness, mysticism, and personal inventory, as well as an unintentional expert in recovery, toxic masculinity, toxic religion, and toxic capitalism, I have a lot of insight into why the world spins the awkward way it now does. All of my present writings tend to revolve around my knowledge about those subjects. Yet, my personal knowledge has little value or relevance to others, especially if I die before I share it.

Most of the male peer groups from my childhood and early adulthood were populated by individuals who were both coarse in interpretation and superficial in presentation of their lives, and they could have cared less about what I am now writing about or saying. Many of my peers, and friends from those days have already died relatively young, or continue to practice unhealthy attitudes and dependencies into their later years, as a direct result of their unwillingness or inability to delve deeper into the painful issues, concerns, and mysteries of their lives. Their own personal knowledge of the world can not actualize their healing potentials and bring a deeper sense of purpose and meaning to their lives, yet there is the fear of the unknown, which inhibits the revelation of truth in one’s life. By staying in familiar painful ruts, the view at least does not change too much. And far too many people stuck in those ruts are not even aware that they are engaged in self-defeating attitudes and behaviors, or, if they are aware, have already given up hope that there is another life available for them. Yet, staying in the familiar hell remains the unconscious choice that most suffering people make, all the way up to their deaths, imprisonment, or insanity..

The conscious being has infinite capacity to witness life and then create knowledge, where necessary, around those interactions. It only takes one time getting bitten by a snake and suffering mightily under the influence of its poison to create and share the knowledge that it is vitally important to avoid physical contact with serpents while doing outdoor chores or walking in the desert. The unconscious being also has the same infinite witnessing capacity, yet their choices for how they see themselves and their lives can be so self-limiting as to make them prisoners in their own homes. In the snakebite situation, a more unconscious person would use the knowledge of the potential damage from a snakebite to create fear-based stories that would keep the person behind closed doors, avoiding the outdoors altogether, or even obtaining and carrying a loaded firearm, just in case they need to protect themselves. On the other hand, the curious and conscious ones might just walk around the snake, and study it, and learn the lessons, without fear, that the snake has to offer..

Yet each category of awareness, be it conscious or unconscious, must arise from the same pool of potentiality, where the mystery of collective consciousness and the entrainment of all individual minds to that group mind, creates and maintains the appearance of whatever order and reality that each individual both anticipates and actually experiences. However, even the relatively more conscious ones of the world will still be challenged to find what the real truth is behind each new situation that presents itself to awareness.

It has been said in certain contest guidelines:

“You must be present to win”.

This is also true as far as knowledge goes. Being a witness to an actual event gives whatever story one creates and shares credibility, at least up to the point that the story teller can be trusted, and has been accurate and honest in the past. If a personal memory is not available to convey a teaching or a message, listening to the stories of other first-hand witnesses can be beneficial. A great example is that of the knowledge that fathers pass on to their sons around issues of family philosophy/religion, self-esteem, growing up into manhood and accepting personal responsibility, sexuality, learning to ride a bike or drive a car, and future community involvement. The less experiential the teaching, the less the staying power of the message, so it is important to keep the listener engaged with all of their senses, if possible.

The printing press opened civilization up to much more advanced opportunities for education and information transfer and sharing. The internet has opened humanity up to potential for the real time witnessing and sharing of other people’s adventures and learning experiences, almost without limits. Watching a multi-media presentation will carry more potential meaning and information to the higher intelligence centers of the brain than just a meme or soundbite, which arouses the more basic areas of the brain where fear is most prone to rule. There is never a shortage of information, but there is always a question about the accuracy of the information, and how it is to be presented.

Several decades ago, Saudi Oil Minister Sheikh Yamani gained recognition for his insight into global development:

“The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.”

Today, we live in what many call the Information Age, and we are in absolutely no danger of running out of information, particularly in data form. There is a general perception that we are overwhelmed with data, making the ability to store, process, analyze, interpret, consume, and act upon that data a primary concern. There are, potentially, infinite streams of information available, yet most information may have little or no use to our discerning, conscious minds.. There is so much more to reality than what just greets the eye, and appears on the screens of our cellphones and/or computer monitors, however. Scientists, mathematicians, theologians, artists, philosophers, enlightened politicians, and Google algorithm writers, continue to struggle towards some unknown destination that our collective search for truth continues to guide us towards as a human race. The exponential increase in available information does little to settle what the “truth” might be, let alone which direction that its search may best be started from.

Information can help us to know why we are ill and which illnesses we have, exactly. But wisdom is to know how to heal them.

—Dr. Alberto Villoldo

We need only watch the evening news, or read any newspaper or magazine, to recognize that we are no closer now to a consensus reality than we were before, even with the advent of the internet. Religious and philosophical divisiveness, ego aggrandizement, wealth accumulation, and personal and corporate power are still being celebrated and supported as ideals to pursue by our cultural power brokers, and these principles lead to further propagation of lies, misstatements, half-truths, and illusions, as well as accelerating the destruction of our sacred planet. All people who follow these ignoble paths have no true knowledge of their fundamental selves, nor would they possess this knowledge about the other people in their worlds, thus they have limited access to the truth, and their styles of communication reveal that ignorance.

Can truth and love be reduced to a series of binary decisions? Where does our reliance on technology connect with a “search for truth”? Search engines now serve you up what they think you are looking for. They know who you are, and more importantly, what your online consumer preferences are. They know how you are looking for things, as well as how you search for news, companies, products, etc. Plus, they know the zip code and the local geography where each user is located. Search engines are getting better and smarter at knowing YOU, as well as what’s new, and old, in your micro-locale every day. A quick type into Google, and you are being fed more information, and the foundation for yet another illusion, with just another photograph of or written interpretation of a past that never was true. Do you think for one moment that truth, or love, can be reduced to a string of “1’s” and “0’s” (machine code for programming of computer hardware) or ascii characters.

The result of “I Love You” in hexadecimal notation based on ASCII code is

49204C6F766520596F75.

In binary notation, it is a string of 80 0’s and 1’s, or

0100100100100100110101101111011101100110010100100000010110010110111101110101

These characters give you a real warm, fuzzy feeling, don’t they?

Many types of knowledge actually breed division and separation between human beings. It is easy to tell the difference between the ministers, politicians, teachers, teachings, and knowledge just by feeling within our own inner chambers of consciousness how their message impacts our hearts. Eventually the presenters of knowledge and the highest learned “truths” of the day will be ignored, if they are not able to break through the psychic/spiritual barrier between the mind and the heart, while still presenting, or preaching, to others their message. Did they just bring more information, which we tend to daily saturate our awareness with anyway (Google it!), or did they bring the intellect coupled with the heart awareness, where we can experience the promised fruits of deeper connections with all of creation, and, perhaps, experience an increased measure of peace of mind and more love brought into our world?

The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.

—Tom Clancy

Understanding what we now consider to be sources for knowledge is all important, as well. With the idea of FAKE NEWS being so casually tossed about these days, it is important to keep in mind that FAKE NEWS has always been with us. It can be traced all of the way back to the days when we first starting naming objects, and attaching emotional linkages to our observations. Everybody sees things somewhat differently, though similarities outweigh differences by super-substantial amounts. But the human mind tends to focus on the differences, and, thus, temporarily accentuate those divisions while examining the objects of its reality, reassembling the new information into its own unique information matrix known as our p ersonalities.

To the more technically inclined, it takes more than cleaning cookies or turning off personalized searches in Google’s browser, Chrome, to get to the “truth.” Keep in mind that most of the search algorithms are Capitalist Oriented Male Biased (COMB) computer coding exercises that sort and order the “objects of reality” based on that slanted mind-set. The locations that a person visits and lives in reveal a great deal about them, especially if it is linked to a GPS position calculated by using one’s own phone position. By shaping the menus and the choices that we pick from, and by observing the collective internet purchases and behaviors of our geographic peers, technology then attempts to hijack the way we perceive our choices and replaces them with new ones that the ad purchasing merchants may be promoting. But the closer we pay attention to the options we’re given, the more we’ll notice when they don’t actually align with our true needs. Their surreptitious collection and use in ad targeting can pave way to ads that are harmful, target people when they are vulnerable, or enable harassment and discrimination. The issue of privacy can become particularly acute when there’s the presumption or wish for confidentiality – say, during a therapist visit or at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

I see COMB-overs as having run their course, with the need to be balanced with a more feminine, humane perspective. If we all want that biased mindset, then we will continue to trust and rely upon Google, and most other search engines, for the ordering of our reality. It should be more than a little concerning to know that many of the same values that our former President Trump touts as his own are built right into these algorithmic formulas.

Within myself, it is quite enlightening to note that when I attempt to interpret situations solely in terms of a potentially divisive philosophy/understanding, I usually now rebel out of my newer/refreshed understanding of life, and continue on and listen more deeply for the real truth of the moment, (AND NOT THE POTENTIALLY WORN OUT TRUTH OF YESTERDAY). All of those divisive philosophies that pit “me versus you” or “us versus them” will bring fewer positive results than the uniting philosophies that bring people together in the spirit of cooperation and caring. Yet it almost seems like the divisive ideas are for many, and for me, by instinct, first in line for consideration, so it is important to not act out of impulse. Yes, it is being mindful to wait out that first racing train of sometimes fearful, angry or hurtful thought, and just watch it as it passes through the screen of awareness, and wait for another peaceful train of loving thought that may lie underneath all of the other noise.

The goal might be to make love the leading, or first, thought considered, but in my reality, it does not always automatically arise, nor should it, just because I think that it is a good idea. It is important to note here that ideas that initially appear to be counter to our prevailing philosophy may have legitimate origins, and discovery and exploration of the mind and our individual experience of it should continue without fear and self-judgement, as we attempt to discern the truths being communicated. If our prevailing philosophies are not subject to change, then we risk excess friction in all of our relationships, especially as we slip further and further away from the new, upgraded truth trying to be revealed.

Mindfulness, insight, and meditation help to create a more stable foundation for thought, feeling, and action. Remaining socially connected through real life interaction, vs predominantly through media devices, keeps the heart and mind refreshed and engaged holistically. Giving and receiving “presence” to each other has much more value than the mere information that might be exchanged. For us to continue to trust in technology solely for our heart connection is like only eating popcorn for our diet; Satisfying in the short-term, and deadly in the long run. We need to feed each other new ideas and words from the deep storehouses within each of our hearts, where intuition, empathy, compassion, and healing all arise from. To continue to be fed only from the internet, is to continue our connection with cultural hypnotism, which leads in its own self-defeating directions.

There is so much more to reality than what just greets the eye, and scientists, mathematicians, theologians, artists, philosophers, enlightened politicians, and Google algorithm writers, continue to struggle towards some unknown destination that our collective search for truth continues to guide us towards as a human race. We need only watch the evening news, or read any newspaper or magazine, to recognize that we are no closer now to a consensus reality than we were before, even with the advent of the internet, with religious and philosophical divisiveness, ego aggrandizement, wealth accumulation, and personal and corporate power still being celebrated and supported as ideals to pursue by the cultural power brokers.

Love’s Reunion (excerpt)

I stumbled over the frozen wilderness for oh, so long!

With a hole in my heart that life could just not fill

Until I stopped to rest, and heard a gentle voice singing a long forgotten song

That promised of my release from this winter world of painful chill

Her lyrics spoke of the return of Life to freedom

And the release of shivering minds from darkness’ frozen, fearful hands

She drew me closer without any further verbal tethers

And prepared me for the walk back to Love’s now awakening lands

Her warming presence melted the icy hardness that I used to know

Inspiring within me the courage, to myself and my world, to say

That, to all of my past memories’ barren trees of lifeless knowledge, I now refuse to go

I will now accept only the lessons learned along Love’s Infinite Way

Our answers to some of life’s greatest questions are never to be considered sacred, or unchangeable, in and of themselves. What is sacred is the “don’t know” space that we all can enter into, if we can suspend our need to be always right. We don’t need a lot of new answers, we need a lot more good questions, which can direct our inquiries in new directions, and, thus, create new paths of consciousness and awareness.

Virtually all relationships and all interactions with others have a teaching built right into them. We confirm our present reality with the interactions, or we entertain new information that needs synthesizing within our present day psychological sets to create a modified reality. Teachers come in an almost infinite variety of forms, but I will now mention spiritual healers and teachers, for they tend to attract the most vulnerable and receptive of all learners. I have met quite a few healers, ministers, teachers, and the leaders for those on “the spiritual path”. Most have the best of intentions, and their heart is in the right place, and permeated with the desire to be of greater service to humanity, and to their own spiritual evolution.

Some are quite the planners, are amazingly studious, and read everything available to support their knowledge, or need for knowledge, in areas revolving around the main concerns in life, or in their teaching arenas. Some develop quite the rigid understanding of the facts, and, in fact, the “facts” became almost idols, of which became trusted, almost at the exclusion of any other teaching, or learning, that those around might try to impart, either unintentionally, or through a need to help to see more clearly. Some show little or no sense of humor, and are devoid of all capacity to embrace the “unknown” or the present moment, as it tries to present itself every moment of our existence.

I have met one or two information “control freaks”, and their quest for knowledge had the unconscious intention to keep them in control, and to establish themselves as a teacher, so as to keep their own fears of insufficiency and inadequacy at bay in group settings. They might tend to dominate group discussions with them taking the lead role, where they would unconsciously parade themselves, and all of their self-knowledge, in front of their adoring masses, or, at least they had hoped that they were adoring. Some want so much to be like their mentors, who they may have patterned themselves after.

Their self-righteousness is continuously displayed, as they travel from one topic to another, always showing to the world how perfect their relationship was to any issue revolving around love, healing, medical issues, social responsibility, or ecological awareness. Perfectionism and unintentional self-worship were characteristics that define them, and are traits that are immediately recognizable by me and others, who were not also participating in the parade of self.

They can be the type of person, had the Christ been before them and teaching from the Truth, they would have grabbed their phone, and Googled information to prove that their own head knowledge trumped what was being presented in the moment by Truth itself. Some of our leaders have, in a term that I coined, “spiritual dementia”. They tend to think that every moment needed to be covered by their (mis)understanding of the facts. They may not request or appreciate feedback, and many listeners, rather than confronting the teachers about their quirks, and their need to always be right, go along.with the show, and acquiesce to the needs of the teachers.

I sat through literally, hundreds of groups, with many types of teachers and leaders over the years. If the speaker, teacher, or leader does not capture the energy of the moment, the listeners will become fatigued, and lose interest. There is also a temptation to just sit back, and offer up an occasional barbed remark (typical passive/aggressive communication style for me), without adding much to the flow of the group energy. I did not come into this world just to “bow down before excellence”, in whatever form it might appear in, though that is the implied need expressed through many teachers’ outward behavior. Without an interactive approach, the teacher or teaching will have a more difficult time keeping the listener engaged.

Why would I withhold myself, and my truth, from situations that should have demanded my participation in it? Why would I withhold my own assessments of what is real, and true, and right, in the face of this assault upon my own sensibilities? Why would I devalue myself, and my own truth, so much that I would carry the perception that “I have nothing to say”, or that “nobody would ever listen to me because I do not have a college degree, or I am not a therapist or respected spiritual advisor”? Why do I sometimes unconsciously believe that nobody would ever listen to what I have to say, anyway?

It has taken me nearly sixty years to become willing to speak my truth to the living human representatives of our collective consciousness. I was never insightful enough to fully recognize that the world that I was adopting, and adapting to, as a child was an inaccurate representation of a more fundamental truth. But like many other children, I rebelled at the fake news and pseudo-science that churned out of the religious mills and minds of Americans. I took a very passive/aggressive approach to the spiritual lie that we as Americans are living. The pain of the lies that I cultivated prior to any spiritual recovery necessitated that I medicate myself out of the pain of separation and loneliness. I no longer punish myself by negating my own self worth, yet our culture continues to unconsciously spawn millions of suffering people who also question their own value, which is the origin of insanity. Our cultural spiritual dementia needed to be challenged, lest I lapse into deeper degrees of anxiousness, powerlessness, and unreality. Confronting a difficult reality takes more energy than most of us care to bring to the table, yet, not doing so diminishes our own standing in Truth, Life, and Love, and that has been my experience

i had very poor training since birth in how to successfully navigate group energy, up to, and including, the whole of society that we all participate in. As a boy, when family discussions turned into arguments, many times I found myself either raising my voice against the angry voice of my father, or retreating into submission and fear at the threat of being attacked for being contrary to the flow. And, I internalized that I was probably wrong anyway, and would be punished if I stepped out and asserted myself too much. I learned that I could undertake less obvious means of rebelling against authority, sometimes through indirect, or obvious, self, or other, destructive behavior.

Knowledge is power only if man knows what facts not to bother with.

—Robert Staughton Lynd

We need better brains to manage the deluge of information we consume on the internet, on social media, on our smartphones today — as well as the new technologies we’ll surely encounter tomorrow. We need to elevate the maturity of our collective consciousness in order to thrive in this new environment.

This calls for something big: coordinated effort by major actors, from the White House and the National Institutes of Health to the United Nations and the power brokers at Davos. Indeed, addressing the cognition crisis should be positioned as a grand challenge, on par with other pressing global priorities, such as eradicating infectious diseases and disseminating clean water.

We have all been victimized by the cultural and familial conditioning of the information processing centers of the brain that cause certain streams of awareness to be represented by erroneous concepts, or attenuated or terminated prematurely by fear before any reasonable assessments can even be made. Our cultural “headlights” for looking into ourselves have had much of their light blocked by years of unacknowledged road debris accumulating on the lens. Yet, we first have to “see” that there is a blockage, as it will not clear on its own. Our own internal “seeing” can ultimately liberate us from the erroneous views foisted upon our innocent hearts and souls by the well meaning but often times ignorant teachers of our pasts, and those who may not have yet cleared up their own internal lenses of perception. But we each must look, acknowledge what appears to be there, share our perceptions with others, learn from each other, and thus create more accurate, updated knowledge. Sometimes, just accepting the fact that we only truly know a little bit, compared to the whole of knowledge available, will keep us humble enough to remain open to the vastness of the unknown.

The unknown is the opening in our mind and heart that God (or change to higher power, or whatever represents love, beauty, and healing to you) speaks through, so that we can find the truth and spirit of this new moment. Do not fear the unknown, as it can be so much more than we could ever anticipate or imagine. Even after our most sincere and deepest prayers, there still must be an opening created within our minds where we can listen and watch, without fear or judgement, for the “answer”, which is always provided, and rarely understood. The unknown can be a long neglected best friend even for the curious and the conscious. An overactive mind runs over the quiet truth that is revealed in each moment, so take off those mental workout clothes, and take a breather!

We will never change “God’s mind”, or collective consciousness but we just might change our own, and, in that change, the real miracle of life can be revealed, and our lives healed and renewed. The “One Mind Of God” and our collective human consciousness have little relationship to each other, though the conscious, healing traveler of new paths of consciousness can become a connecting link between the two. Truth can only be experienced in each new moment, in the ever-unfolding unknown and unknowable moment that is now. This unique new moment can only reveal itself to a mind no longer burdened by the past, and its version of knowledge..

Of course, once “new ideas” become integrated, they can be just as resistant to change as old, damaged, worn out thoughts, and the new synthesis will require continuous further revision until some sort of all-encompassing uniting philosophy arises (or God-consciousness, for those who like to tie spirituality and religion together).

Truth?

Where does our reliance on technology connect with a search for truth? Like I previously mentioned, search engines now serve you up what they think you are looking for. A quick type into Google, and you are being fed an illusion, and/or probably just another Capitalist and/or Christian theory.. If the truth that we find on Google brings pleasure to us, remember, it is somebody else’s truth, and not necessarily our own.

Is truth to be relegated to our history, or to some distant past? Is truth somehow trapped in ancient scriptures, or in the ghosts of long deceased prophets? When Jesus supposedly stated “I am the way, the truth, and the life”, was his message misconstrued? In truth, is what we share with Jesus, or any other sentient being, the “I am”, that I am, and not all of the volumes of historical nonsense? When Moses stated “I am that I am”, was he making the same statement that each of us could be or should be making?

What if I were to tell you that everything that you think you know about yourself is only a theory, and potentially an unproven one, at that? What if I were to tell you that everything that you think you know about your significant other, your children, your parents, and even your best friends are only theories, and potentially unproven ones at that? What if I were to tell you that everything that you think you know about your planet, including the plants, animals, insects, oceans, rivers, and the rocks and dirt, are only theories, and potentially unproven ones, at that? What if I were to tell you that everything that you think you know, or believe, about God, the Bible, Christianity, or other religions are only theories, and potentially unproven ones at that?

Truth is the antidote for all inaccurate, second-hand, toxic and limiting theories. Truth is not just for the saints and sages. Yet, very few people have any interest in it, because of the belief that they are already covered by their “religion”, or that only their “savior” has the truth, or is the truth. There are others who believe that they already understand it, or, for others, that there is no such thing as “truth. Sadly there is also a category of human beings who are so absorbed with their material world existence that the search for “truth” never even begins, because it does not sound very interesting or entertaining.

One cannot possibly find the sacred, using only the searchlights provided for by the profane.—Elisha Scott

So, just what is “Truth”, anyway?

A fact might be that there is only one mind, to be experienced in the unknown, yet to the uninitiated, that statement would sound vague and esoteric. Another fact might be that it is up to us to determine what is real, and what is not, yet that might sound threatening to those who cling the strongest to their culturally and religiously inculcated theories and dogmas.

Truth is extremely difficult to conceptualize, because truth is elusive, and exists above and beyond all of the words used to chase it with descriptions. Truth is often times best described through poetry and music, where more of the brain becomes engaged to the energy attempting to be shared. But our words still serve a valuable function, yet forever remaining only pointers, or place-holders, for the energy that must be personally experienced, or it will never become psychologically real to the witness.

So, again, what is Truth?

There is only a “God” when there is no longer a “me” questioning “what is” while still trying to justify one’s own opinions or ignorance. In that silence, Infinity finds its expression, and the observer is the observed. And there is no longer a need, or a desire, to find God, for God has found us. Yet, there is no longer the “us”, only the witnessing of infinity, by one no longer limited by a verbally intoxicated mind. It is in this silence that love flourishes, and moral and ethical action becomes spontaneous and natural. All that we will ever see, unto whatever eternity that we can perceive, is our Self.

How will we see our Self today?

“Know thyself, and thou will know God, and the Universe” ——Attributed to Pythagoras, and the Oracle at Delphi

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”——–Aristotle

The final two quotes sets the stage behind the eternal tension between what is truth and what is falsehood, and the spiritual requirement not to create and worship idols, physical or verbal. They also point to the supporting conditions behind one’s potential for spiritual evolution and final ascendancy out of false knowledge and the suffering that results from entertaining such thoughts..

Life is always a self-fulfilling prophecy, yet whose self are we fulfilling?

What if your life is fulfilling the prophecies of your religion and culture, rather than that of your true self?

While unenlightened forces dominate human consciousness, oppression and repression are born, and nurtured.

This creates more damaged human beings, who continue to remain unconscious, and thus overpopulate this planet with more unconsciousness.

The fate of these damaged people is to continue to damage themselves, each other, and the very planet that supports and sustains them, until they find their self and its truth.

Find the self, and the life that has a great future, and discard the one that will die with our rotting civilization.

Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Whose prophesy are you now willing to fulfill?

Chapter 16: The Labyrinth, An Exit Strategy, A New Path Of Awakening

In the honest seeing of our problems through insight and awareness, our freedom is ultimately attained– Variation on quotes by many spiritual teachers, prophets, saints and savants.

We all have the capacity to be spiritually erumpent, yet our lives will never blossom into the beautiful independent fragrant flower they might have become, had we not neglected our true Self, life’s meaning, and our inner spiritual GPS. Tragically, our hearts will never break out into a dithyramb, instead remaining in a stunned silence, while we continue to mourn the loss of our infinite potential.. And, we will remain entombed behind the massive burial stone created by early family and cultural wounding, other forms of trauma, and our unconscious response to those wounds, unless we begin the journey of self discovery and spiritual awakening, which returns us to a more innocent, healed state of being.

Fantasy, denial, and avoidance of our personal and collective responsibility towards the ills of this world, with its continuing oppression of major blocks of humanity, and the decimation of the plant and animal kingdoms, reigns supreme in major sections of our culture. We tend to avoid taking responsibility for this world, remaining predominantly a distracted culture, and this is fueled by addictions to media devices, while diverting our life force into mindless entertainment and the worship of TV actors, sports stars, and movie personalities.. Alcohol, drug, and personal power abuses continue unabated. False teachers and leaders we have ignorantly chosen to follow, which continues the disturbing trend started by our parents, grandparents, and on and on until the beginnings of human consciousness. Some still play make believe, and cling to the spiritual accomplishments of others, such as the historical Jesus or Buddha. As a result, those who do not perform the required personal spiritual reclamation projects will continue to needlessly suffer..

To facilitate awakening, and healing, we must reject the precedent that has been established, with its false leaders, and we must become our own saviors, with awakened powers of understanding and compassion. New thoughts not based upon wounded memories are essential. Otherwise, we continue layering over, or covering our non-examined embedded belief structures with another coat of paint, while our decaying house of consciousness shakes with its ever eroding foundation..

There are no quick fix solutions. Our country has been fed on spiritual and religious fast food for much too long. What is next in the queue for us?

drive through healing?
five minute meditations for transformation and prosperity?
new diets that guarantees weight loss and immortality?
books that promise that all of your prayers will be answered if you would just pray the one special way offered by the starving author?.
a magic pill that erases all difficult memories, and creates pleasure where there once was only pain.
or, declare “it is what it is”, throw up one’s hands in surrender, and just accept defeat, or that all is “God’s will”.

If we do not understand the system that we are trying to repair, we are only introducing more chaos into an already unstable process, and we risk further damage to, or the complete destruction of, an already compromised life. We need to proceed carefully and consciously as we look for the causes for our individual and cultural distresses. Before we repair any complex system such as our life, and our society, we must intelligently and logically troubleshoot it with the best tools techniques, knowledge, insight, and intuition presently available.

I have lived two complete lives in my 66+ years on this planet. Much of the first life is still available to me, both through my family history, my writings, and my own very good memory. In the first life, I was plagued with toxic, self debasing beliefs. Had it not been for a deep need to understand my dysfunctional process, and try to find an underlying healing truth amid my personal chaos, I would not have awakened, and instead I would have passed away long ago..Some aspects of my former life eluded my ability to communicate around and about them, and thus added to my personal and our cultural conspiracy of silence. Some wounds were so deep, and primal, that I had no language for them, with just a vague, ongoing anxiety and disconnect from others that plagued me through the first iteration of my self.

If we began our search for truth and healing, we will eventually find the common threads that were woven together into straight jackets, and then burial shrouds, rather than as potential mantles signifying discipleship to higher spiritual possibilities..Often, our clues are not immediately evident and obvious, and available. It pays great dividends to pay attention to our dreams, ppoetry, physiological issues, conversations with family members, therapists, and, sometimes, just following up on hunches and our intuition to finally expose what our clues may be, or where to research further for them, A good assumption to start with is that we have been traumatized in one or more ways during the course of our childhood, especially if we are presently not experiencing joy, love, and a sense of purpose.. How might a successful search for truth begin?

By tiring of the way things are, and becoming willing to make changes in course.
By studying the narratives of our culture, our family system, and ourselves, and
By becoming aware of collective archetypes that unconsciously, influence us, and
By listening to our intuition, insight and dreams,

I began seeking healing and balance in earnest in 1987. Prior to that point, the act of creating personal stories with their isolated lonely context characterized my personal narratives. I found that just being conversational about the details of my life, without accompanying insight, did not dislodge the detritus from my field of conscious awareness. The Devil is in the details, figuratively speaking, and, as my desire for change was great, I found that I needed to pursue a way to see under the vast matrix of my oft times conflicted mind, a mind disordered by fixation to chaos generated from the past..

The journey to healing is to find the timeless silence at the foundation of our being, but this requires great insight and dedication. Otherwise, the process of naming, and the resulting stories that arise from naming, are just more time based narratives, characterized by intellectual knowledge and self satisfying entertainment. To develop the capacity for insight requires a tremendous depth of desire to know one’s self in a different, more profound, holistic, way, while overcoming a lifetime of suffering, ignorance, indifference towards and oppression by others, and repression of one’s emotional and spiritual nature.

One of the greatest insights that I have made is a direct result of a science class that I attended in fourth grade. Mr Hill, our Principal and co-teacher of the fourth grade class, was going to perform an experiment, and he wanted each member of the class to record everything they they observed onto a note pad, so as to completely describe what they had witnessed. He had heated a portable electric stove. He then grabbed with some insulated tongs a thin sheet of metal and set it onto the burner. The metal slowly began to buckle and distort in size, and became quite disfigured, and no longer looked like it did before.

I watched, yet I had no words to describe what it was that I had just witnessed. I had never seen anything like that before, and I was struck dumb by it. I saw two kids writing feverishly on either side of me, and in my need to “fit in” and “not look stupid” I looked at each of the students writings, and saw how they described the event. I used their expressions to help create my own.

At an early age I saw how dependent that I was on other people to give a description about events that I did not have the words for. As a result, I have seen how the mystery of life can sometimes get overrun by society’s need to establish a continuity of reality and a shared understanding of events between all of its members. Someone else had the description of what I could not yet describe, so I used second-hand words to fill in the gap. Extrapolate this need to fit in and to belong to all collective gatherings of human life, including religion, politics, and society, and it is easily seen the foundation for illusion within all such bodies of experience.

The description is never the actual event, yet those who did not have the experience, copy and worship the description, and overlook the event that may be still happening right under their noses. They have never developed the capacity and/or the willingness, to give their own unique description of an event, they are in fear of offering a different or contrary version of the event, or they have never witnessed the event itself.

In my junior year in high school, I was required to keep a daily journal, and record my insights into myself for a writing class. The problem was that I had no “insight”, at least as far as being able to put into words what the interior nature of my mind and life looked like. I did not spend a lot of time giving descriptions to events happening around me, and, instead, listened to others as they described their own experiences, which I either accepted and supported or rejected and judged against. But for me to give a description of the interior dimensions of my own being seemed an impossible task.

I had to submit something, and in my desperation to get a decent grade i went to a bookstore, to find a book to help me to ‘look at myself’. Hugh Prather had written a book called ‘Notes To Myself’, and I stumbled upon it, and bought it. I was so empty of complete statements about myself and my life that I copied statements from Hugh’s book, and tried to ‘personalize’ them so that it would not be obvious that I had copied his work. I got my passing grade, felt very relieved, and continued on my awkward, highly dysfunctional path through high school. I was near the top of my class near graduation time, yet I was completely out of touch with the majority of my classmates, as well as with myself.

I had hoped that to finally graduate from high school might change, if not end, much of my social anxiety and sense of disconnect. Of course this could not be further from the truth. When I entered my freshman year at the University of Portland in 1973, I was lost again, and I had no internal maps to guide me through the complexities of college life.The use of pot, alcohol, and relationships with emotionally diseased people continued in earnest, obscuring any clear vision of my goals, and I constructed many self-destructive road blocks that impeded all progress.

Looking back, this verbal and emotional disconnect would have been great stuff to write about in the high school class, but i was living a lie, without having the words to even describe it, and the telling of the truth to others, let alone to myself, might force me into changes that I could not embrace or consider as possibilities. The absence of personal honesty and insight, and to be verbal around it, and communicate my distress with others doomed me to a deteriorating life experience, and limited my choices so much that many days, and years, I felt trapped in a prison, with interior windows sometimes only opening to Hell. I did not even have an adequate description to communicate my hell to others.

Names are a convenience for communication, and are never comprehensive and inclusive enough to completely reveal the true natures of what they were created for in our minds to represent in the first place. As many spiritual advisors have stated, in their own unique way:

“The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon”–Zen saying

Naming is the way that our consciousness weighs and measures new forms of life, ideas and experiences, in the attempt to insert the present unknown and the mysterious into a context for verbal understanding, which always has a past frame of reference. Naming attempts to attach a dynamic process to a fixed point in time and space, and thus lodges it in the past. Naming, in its negative essence is part of the very propagation of illusion, though, in its positive essence facilitates the transferring human energy, facts, and understanding.

The intellectual and the atheist, though possessing finely tuned minds, are tempted to believe that the highly developed intellect is the ultimate in human attainment. Thus, they can never explore the mystery, and the depth, of the human soul, and comprehend that, beyond our limited and limiting words and thoughts, we all have a connection with Infinity. The willing explorer of the new paths of consciousness and the mystic both have access to the limitless territory of the Spirit, and will soar to new heights and see the sights rarely seen by the rest of mankind. Mystics and spiritual journeyers have found their own true path, and need fewer outside forces to help them maintain balance and order in their lives. Their words are more inspired by their connection with their wholeness, and thus serve as bridges towards healing and communion, rather than the typically divisive self serving propaganda that most egos feed upon, repackage, and redistribute to the world..

“Once I had asked God for one or two extra inches in height, but instead, he made me as tall as the sky, so high that I could not measure myself.”

—Malala Yousafzaia

Eventually, we must lay down our innate capacity for naming and defining our experience, with its continuous recording into our memory banks, and make peace with the unknown and mystery of the moment.. If we are not yet experiencing our own unique version of enlightenment, it only means that we are still clinging to controls from our past, controls that were designed to keep us feeling fairly safe and secure from ongoing threats, be they real or imaginary. The controls have kept us within the boundaries of order, yet this order, observed with soul awareness, is only the ego’s order, which is limited, limiting, and apt to keep us pilloried to the past, rather than open to the ever creative and energizing mystery of the present moment. When the capacity to witness life without an endless stream of words and thoughts erupts within consciousness, the mystery of the Self is revealed, and replaces the historically disfigured prisoner called our ego with its awareness..

No time like the present moment for freedom!

If establishing or maintaining order in society, in a manufacturing process, and/or in our self is our concern, we can effectively channel all relevant knowledge into intelligent systems of understanding, and, potentially, control. These controls will maintain maximum stability wherever necessary, but only under those conditions where we understand most or all of the variables of the system(s) we are attempting to repair or bring balance to..If we develop understanding of the variables of a complex electro-mechanical control and/or chemical process by understanding the relationships between all the components, what its purpose is, and using the proper test equipment and feedback sensors, we can troubleshoot and repair any system should a dysfunction occur. The same can be said to be true for complex human psychology, with its often unpredictable behavior. Yet, humans, through the ego, often create special control programs that disregard basic facts while entertaining illusions and delusions,that promote division and chaos. What are the nature of these algorithms that we so blindly and ignorantly access?

We must come to understand our archetypes, mythology, cultural and religious narratives, ancestral and current internal family system dynamics, genetic, instinctive, neurological and perceptual predispositions and the intentions behind the way that we form words, and all of our historical responses to these primary control factors behind our conditioning.. The development of all of our industry, science, religion, society, family and personal sense of self are manifestations of humanity’s need to express itself, while seeking higher orders of happiness, comfort, stability, security, and understanding. And, these factors together, in the ultimate,

DEFINE AND EXPRESS THE VERY EXTENSIONS OF OUR SELF INTO THE UNIVERSE.

All that we see, or will ever see, unto eternity, is manifestations of our mind, and our self. Whether we are observing results of subatomic particle collisions within the CERN Hadron Particle Collider, observing internalized family and cultural systems, or using the Hubble telescope while peering nearly back to the beginning of time through our endless universe, all that we see are extensions of our own sensorial derived observations and our previous mental coding.

Literally, as we understand the outer world, we also are given vast insights to the inner workings of our minds, for the outer universe, though infinite in nature, becomes merely a collection of symbols, observations, and theories, and a de facto extension of the inner universe of our infinite, though often memory encumbered and numbed mind. We need to have enlightening clues, proper maps, or schematics, if we hope to understand the process for building or maintaining and repairing control systems, finding our way home if we are lost in the wilderness, or finding the exit to an imprisoning labyrinth. We also must understand all of the symbology used for proper interpretation of those helpful models. If we are lost in the wilderness, if we understand how to use a compass and an accurate map, we will also be able to find our way home again. Though “not all who wander are lost” might be truth in Middle Earth, or higher consciousness in this world, if we are not quite “there” yet, proper clues, guides, accurate maps, and/or up to date schematics, and our understanding of them, will bring great rewards to us.

The basic process control theory underlying all modern industrial and manufacturing systems has an equivalent in the human mind, where we use feedback and feedforward information loops for refining and maintaining order, through mindfulness, personal inventory, and meditation. For humans, though our primary system of control is through our values, morality, ethics, and the laws of our society and of our religions, as we have not yet developed the understanding of all of the boundary conditions for our human experience, randomness of important life events and instability. within one’s own spiritual ecosphere are all too common of human experiences.

(duplication) In our world, there are countless examples of “self organizing systems”, and all creatures, and the minds of those creatures, are examples of that miracle in action. Our bodies appear to be primarily organized through the pattern created by the history of the human species, and it’s interactions with its earthly environment. Our DNA appears to carry that pattern within our very cells. Rupert Sheldrake has coined the term “morphogenetic field” to help describe our life force, its field of possibilities, and our continuous connection with it. Our minds also have a self-organizing principle, as it organizes itself into our unique personal sense of being.

The activity of self-organization in consciousness is the greatest mystery of life. The mystery and, potential majesty, of the word has impressed, and confounded, thinkers throughout the ages. How the ego binds itself to a word, or series of words, makes the philosophers wonder what came first, the word, or the sense of one’s identity? And, are we merely a verbal construct, or is there something much more fundamental, and profound, to our existence, only to be accessed by our suspension of our need to abide in the world of knowledge, and all of our words and thoughts?

Parents are always quite pleased when their children speak their first words, and they then know that they have a viable, healthy child. Usually, the first word is “Mom”, but it can be others. The initial words become the initial organizing energy around which the developing being initiates the launch sequence into consciousness itself. In biblical terms, the word becomes flesh, and dwells among us. It is a mystery of why and how this process actually works, and neuroscientists continue to study the brain, and the human mind, as they attempt the impossible, to locate the physical source of our sense of self. It is much like using a flashlight to find the bulb encased within itself.

I did not develop verbal abilities until relatively late in my childhood My sister reports that she spoke for me until I developed the capacity, or inclination, to speak. Once I started talking (close to age 4) I proved that I had the capacity for speech, and A LOT OF IT. My father wondered, at times, if I would ever shut up. I proved to be quite precocious, once I engaged my verbal skills. I remember that I would start talking about things that were around me, giving new information that my parents had no knowledge about. My parents thought that there was no way for me to know anything about what I was spouting off about, so I was mostly ignored. But I can remember how good it felt to be talking, and sharing the excitement of the magic of words exploding in my mind! I intuited quite early that built-in to the very fabric of words is an access to imagination and knowledge beyond the word, or sequence of words, spoken. Looking back now, I can see also the incredible capacity of the human mind to represent the real world with words and internal imagery, as well as to create false realities while remaining utterly convinced of their “truth”, even in the face of non-supporting facts. This book touches extensively upon the many false realities, that I, as an individual person, and as a collective, acculturated human being was subjected to and unconsciously adapted to throughout the course of my life.

Sociologists and psychologists have found that healthy integration of the human self revolves around how well the infant and young child feels accepted by, and connected to his social and physicial environment.. Thus, happier senses of self arise, and are supported, by myriads of “successful” interactions with its environment and, giving positive, life affirming names to those experiences. Goodness, personal value, security, love, and joy, if they become the “flesh” around the internalized word “me” or “I” at an early age, a more spiritually responsive, happier life is virtually guaranteed.

First and foremost is the beings’ acceptance and integration into the primary family cell, or group. If we do not get the requisite positive feedback early on, we face tremendous odds against forming a happy, well-adjusted self organizing principle, or ego. It is quite typical for members of this group to be quite fragmented as human beings, and to face extraordinary challenges in connecting, or reconnecting, with a stable, peaceful, balanced, integrated sense of self

The nature of self-organizing and self-regulating systems is that once the quiescent point (also known as the Q point, set point, the functional operation level, the balance or the homeostasis point) has been altered, the system naturally seeks a return back to its native state, or “normalcy”. For our human experience, this may be both a blessing and a curse, depending on the “state” to which we are being returned back to. Typically, if we stretch a rubber band, and then release it, it returns to its original state. But, if we have stretched the rubber band too hard and too often, the rubber band loses its elasticity, and will never again return to its original state. A similar experience is to be witnessed in process control systems, where the system that strays too far from its programmed responses and established boundary conditions will descend into an irreversible chaos, until the system is reset, and balance restored. .

A human being who has been stretched beyond their capacity through excessive stress, anxiety, and/or addictive behavior cycles will NOT be returning to their “normal” state, once it is recognized that the “normal” state was, in fact, an unhealthy, abnormal state of being in the first place, which in turn led to the creation of their present chaotic mindset.

Humanity’s egregious blunder has been in attempting to bring stability to itself while disregarding the laws of our spiritual heritage and of Mother Nature, which mankind continues to ignore, at its own peril. The instability introduced into our collective Earth life system by humanity’s ignorance of these laws will not be correctable until we humble ourselves enough to learn from our mistakes, be they theological, philosophical, religious, economic, ecological, or social in nature.

. A system or a life out of balance means that not enough knowledge has been uncovered, or applied, to guarantee harmonious system operation. It is also of greatest importance to realize that no man, or woman, is an island in this vast universe, and that our perception of harmony and balance is inextricably intertwined with the Earth, and the rest of humanity. No matter how healed, balanced, or empowered we believe that we are becoming, we are eternally linked with the rest of humanity, and the universe, in our attempts to create order or balance out of our own unique versions of the collective chaos known as human experience and its knowledge.

If you seek help from the speaker, you are lost. There is no help from anybody, of any type-that is a dreadful thing to realize for oneself. You have realize the appalling, frightening fact that you, as a human being, have to stand completely on your own feet, there are no Upanishads, no Gita, No Bible, no leaders, no avatars, nothing than can save you, you have to save yourself–Krishnamurti and The New Mind

An awakened life is a self regulating life, and always seeks to return to balance and equanimity. The awakened, self-examined life demands that we take inventory on our self, and make every effort to understand the motivations behind all of our thoughts and actions in this world. The deeper we dig, the more that we learn that we are connected at a much deeper, more profound level with the rest of humanity than we ever dreamed possible. It is then that the healing we undertake as an individual can have a “ripple effect” upon the rest of humanity, because we all influence the collective, as well as our individual, consciousness that we experience as human beings. In the end, we realize that the fragmentation in our lives, and in our minds, is caused through duality, the quality of a sleepy mind that sees a world separate from its own thoughts and perceptions. We are truly awakened when we see the world as the very extension of our True Self, and fine tune our perceptions accordingly.

Awakening is an interactive process, encouraged and motivated by the desire to end the pain and suffering that we experienced, while also remaining engaged with the “real world”. Unfortunately for all of us, too many Americans live in alternate universes, where we do not have to deal directly with our pain and suffering. All of the sleeping beauties, and the ugly ones with warts, will continue to sleep, until their nightmares become so frightening that they either have to wake up, or die.

We who choose to awaken must strive to keep an equilibrium, between our need to confront the forces of oppression, repression, darkness, and mutual imprisonment, and our spiritual requirements to love, and to listen carefully to the needs of those promoting values antithetical to the very spiritual values that we are affirming and practicing in our own lives. A continuing part of our education and evolution is not to reject the human being still covered in a darkened shroud, but instead to reject the ideas that the ignorant person is still clinging to. Therein lies the great challenge in communication with spiritual integrity, by separating the person from their offending agenda or philosophy. Yet, stupid people will continue to present often insurmountable barriers against resonance and collaboration.

In the absolute, All that we ever see, unto eternity, is our own self. As I look upon the world, and all of my relationships with the people, the land, the animals, and inner and outer space, I see an evolving landscape that demands collaboration and involvement by ALL PEOPLE, and representation for those beings who do not have a voice in such matters. This is a landscape that demands that I make my own unique impression upon it. I must first confront the demons within my own mind and heart, and give them personalized names representing the truth of my personal experience before I strike out against the “outer world”, lest I project unhealed non-verbalized images and intentions upon the unsuspecting population.

“The unexamined life is not worth living”-Socrates

“The unexamined life will be painfully lived” —-Jack Boland, several years before his death from cancer.

“Know thyself, and thou shall know God and the Universe”– originally came from Luxor, Egypt, and, later, attributed to Socrates, and the Greek Oracle at Delphi

Insight and mindfulness, meditation, walking away from self-destructive dependencies, maintaining dialogue with others, speaking my truth, fighting against oppression of others, and repression within my own heart and soul, following new paths of consciousness, working out my own salvation, while helping others on their own paths as well, are ways to develop collective awareness, and healing, and bringing peace of mind to my own interior universe. I cannot love others, or my own life, completely, until I make peace within my own heart and soul.

My True and Healed Words must become flesh, and dwell within me, and be extended unto whatever version of eternity that I live into..

If I keep moving within my Spirit, I won’t be buried. Keep moving, world, I am not yet ready to be buried with you! I know that the world, and my Self, have not yet died to each other, if my world still responds to me without throwing more dirt over the grave they tried to bury me in the past.

I continue to look for my reflection in the mirror of life. Sometimes my life is vast and immeasurable, sometimes it is in good order and manageable, and sometimes it is out of control, and just plain fucking dreadful. Hope and Love remain guiding forces, whether I abide in light, in the material world, or in my own unique marriage of the two..

In the ultimate, if we can build our new awareness and experience around the silence at the center of our being, we will have infinite access to the wonder, healing, and magic of spiritual enlightenment. To continue on the same path as humanity presently travels guarantees a dark end to humanity’s long journey.

How do you see your life today?

Chapter 17: Reimagining Our Journey Through Consciousness

It is what it is, but it is not what it seems

—Paul Hewson

We all love a great story. Those who have developed real insight into the story, and who can both translate the essence of an experience and convey the emotion of all of the participating characters through words, become the raconteurs of our culture. These honored story tellers may become famous and beloved novelists, musicians and rock stars, ministers, writers of religious stories and texts, comedians, and playwrights. The story may be about a personal or historical event, and it may be real, or fiction, but as long as it entertains, it will keep our attention. As all of the best story tellers know, it can be important not to let the truth get in the way of telling the best story, especially if they are trying to keep our attention.

We all create stories around our individual lives, and around all of our relationships with each other, and with the world. We also listen intently to the stories told to us by our parents, our teachers, our religions, our history, and our society about who we are, who others once were or now are, and who we might aspire to become. Many of our stories, both individually and those created by society for us, are steeped in illusion, ignorance, half-truths and outright falsehoods. Far too many stories are just illusory dramas about our attempts to control others, and, sadly, our failed attempts at control over our own lives and our emotional experiences around all of these intersections, and collisions, with each other But these stories have an amazing hypnotic appeal, especially to those who have not undertaken the process of insight and healing. At some point in our lives, each of us must begin a “search for truth”, lest the entirety of our life experience be lived and experienced without true integrity, the potential for healing and completeness, and the best alignment with reality.

Some aspects of life just seem to elude our ability to effectively communicate around them, and never get incorporated into our personal stories, and thus add to the collective conspiracy of silence. Also, other people’s stories and garbage gets back-filled into the holes and empty spaces within our own stories, becoming embedded within us, and adding to our internal confusion and chaos.

Life was never an easy journey for me, and had it not been for some deep need to understand my dysfunctional process, and try to find the underlying truth amid my personal chaos, I would have passed away, silenced by the disease. Some wounds are so deep, and primal, that just pasting new names onto aspects of the disease and creating new stories are not enough. But it is each of our responsibilities as conscious, or semi-conscious, human beings to bring our personal truth, and our stories, no matter how incomplete they may be, to the collective experience, including our family, our friends, our co-workers, our neighbors, and our religious and political leaders..

Names and stories are only a convenience for communication, and are never comprehensive and inclusive enough to completely reveal the true natures of what they were created for in our minds to represent in the first place. The process of naming is the way that our consciousness weighs and measures new forms of life, ideas and experiences, in the attempt to insert the unknown and the mysterious into a present context for understanding, which becomes the latest iteration of our “story”. Naming tends to attach a dynamic process to a fixed point in time and space, always with a past frame of reference, and thus permanently lodges it in the dead past.

The act of creating stories and context, and just being conversational about the details of life does not dislodge the detritus from our field of consciousness. The Devil is in the details, figuratively speaking, and if our need is for change, we must find a way to see under the vast matrix of details that only float on the surface of the mind . We must also personally explore and experience the movements through consciousness, and find the way to the silence at the foundation of our being. Otherwise, the process of naming, and the resulting stories that arise from naming, are just more intellectual knowledge and entertainment for the mind, and will not pry open the healing doors to insight and wisdom.

“Once I had asked God for one or two extra inches in height, but instead, he made me as tall as the sky, so high that I could not measure myself.” —Malala Yousafzaia

I intuited quite early that built-in to the very fabric of words is an access to imagination and knowledge beyond the word, or sequence of words, spoken. Looking back now, I can see also the incredible capacity of the human mind to represent the real world with words and internal imagery, as well as to create false realities while remaining utterly convinced of their “truth”, even in the face of non-supporting facts. I can remember as a young boy around four years of age having a doll named Percy, who spoke with me at times, and even spoke to me once over the telephone. Percy was to me what “God” was to other innocent children, a reassuring voice that would speak to me, and remind me that I had value. I almost had my sister convinced of it, as well, and she was almost six years old at the time.

Illusions can become contagious, if not recognized, and reigned in early. What is truth? Sometimes, we must remain open to a mystery that far transcends our simple explanations, as well. This book touches extensively upon the many self-destructive and false stories and realities, as well as the mundane, and sometimes amazing, life-affirming truths, that I, as an individual person, and as a collective, acculturated human being was subjected to and consciously and unconsciously adapted to throughout the course of my life.

In some of the early times of my life, prior to my addictive cycles, I carried with me a sense of isolation, depression, and a strong feeling of generalized anxiety.. From 1971 through 1987, as a practicing alcoholic and drug addict, and mentally ill human being, I lost most of my remaining freedom of choice. I belonged to the “death wish core group” of Americans, who lived lives of desperation, addiction, suicidal ideation, and mental illness. We all sought an early death, either by our own hands, through our addictions, or by the poor health and relationship decisions that we continued to make. Many of us could see the insanity of those still claiming for themselves good mental health, while the choices of those supposedly “healthy people of the world” continued to bring the promise of the destruction to our planet Earth. While we contemplated our own end, we witnessed a world in the midst of its own collective march towards suicide. The story of Armageddon, as both an individual and as a collective event, becomes very real to those trapped by their own illusions of powerlessness, helplessness, and despair.

We are the loosely knit tribe most susceptible to the oppression by others, and the repression of our selves. We are the prime candidates for political and religious propaganda. We may seek a new tribe that gives us a sense of safety and purpose, even if our own anticipated benefits come at the expense of other innocent people or groups. We have become limited caricatures of ourselves, as we continue to play to stereotypes that those in power have thrust upon us. We do not have the emotional and spiritual intelligence to discern what is true, and what is false, about our selves. The stories that continue to be told to us keep us connected with an extremely limited view of “our people”, all the while keeping us disconnected from our own true natures, and more realistic stories of ourselves.

A spiritual awakening process beginning in 1987 was the start of my own exit from the chaotic mindset that characterized my life up to that point. Since 1987, I have chosen to live life more fully, with enhanced personal awareness, good health, honest expression of all feelings, joy and happiness the majority of the time, and almost continuous sobriety. My own living, dynamic story has become forefront in my mind, and having examined my life to its deepest core, I have seen what the source of my own spiritual disease and despair was. And, I finally found a way to describe the foundational dynamics of both personal and collective consciousness that contributed to my disease, and to all of our suffering. I need no longer be an unwilling participant and just another silent partner in the conspiracy of silence.

John 1.1-From New Testament Of Christian Bible

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Yet, another layer of the Conspiracy of Silence exists around the Divine, Higher Power, God, or Truth. Organized religions, intellectual savants and those parading as atheists, and political powers all too often obfuscate the truth that underlies all of our existence. When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus

“What is truth?”,

Jesus, as the story goes, could only be silent in the face of the greatest power of the day.

His silence proved that he was a mature spiritual being, and saw the futility of proclaiming his own righteousness and understanding in the face of the political and physical power of Pilate. The question “What is truth?” was intended as mockery, and that principle continues to this day. Speaking truth to power is not an easy or automatic proposition, no matter how “enlightened” one might appear to be.

Truth is more like a continuous rainfall upon rocky mountains. It does not immediately displace all of the sharp, dangerous edges of eons of ignorance, but, over time, it finally erodes the roughest of terrains, and exposes the deeper layers of existence where a new level of experience is to be found. Those who are not patient will be mortally wounded by thrusting themselves too aggressively against our human monuments to stupidity and ignorance that often act as the controlling religious, political, and economic powers within civilization.

Those who touch the Infinite relate back to the world the ineffability of the experience, though they have been deeply impacted by that contact. The universe of Spirit defies rationality, though it will eventually speak intelligently through the healed human mind. First, the mind has to be properly prepared, and then it must be willing to communicate, no matter how mighty the struggle may be to interpret or express its energy. But if the mind is overburdened by education, knowledge, religious and cultural inculcation, the Infinite will be speaking through distorted measures of reality, creating illusion, deception, and delusion.

LDS–White Jesus Approved

A look at Joseph Smith and his revelations, and the LDS movement that subsequently arose from this process, is a great example of the corrupted marriage of spirituality and truth with hallucination and delusion, producing its inevitable spawn, toxic religion and cults. This type of spiritual corruption only further confuses and alienates those seekers of a deeper truth that are still in possession of keen wits. Would anyone like a serving of golden plates, from which the “Book Of Mormon” is based upon, or Jesus appearing in the wild west of America, say, two thousand years ago? The sirens of my “bull shit detector” continue to go off loud and clear, whenever I hear these stories. And don’t forget to tithe your ten percent, or your next of kin will hear about your “lack of faith” at your own funeral (yes, I witnessed this in an abominable eulogy at a funeral for a co-worker, who had committed suicide). Like our mothers sometimes said:

“Oh, and always wear clean underwear in case you are in an accident! “.

It is time for the Church of the LDS to change their dirty “underwear”, because their delusional stories have created quite the mess in human consciousness, and this philosophical buffoonery is an accident waiting to happen to all of its adherents. The Church, and its community of well-meaning human beings, may have done a lot of good over the years, but that has to be balanced with the corruption in consciousness itself that this tribalistic cult creates and maintains.

On June 1 of 2018, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – or the Mormons – will celebrate the 40th anniversary of what they believe to be a revelation from God. This revelation to the then-President of the Church Spencer W. Kimball – which is known as “Official Declaration 2” – reversed longstanding restrictions placed on people of black African descent in the church. I believe this history illustrates the struggle the Mormon church has had with racial diversity – something that the church leadership still grapples with today. Racism, patriarchy, sexism, misogyny, fantasy, and errant nonsense are built right into the very fabric of this corrupted belief system.

All religions promote the hope that humanity has a capacity for love and healing. The simple truth behind Christianity is that we all have divine heritage, though we may be still struggling with our human experience. Ignorant Christian philosophers,scholars, and ministers continue to interpret and promote the Word as having its expression only through Jesus Christ. In their minds humanity remains relegated to outcasts from the “Garden Of Eden” and we will all remain on the outside of the universality of our divine heritage and potential for eternity until Jesus is accepted as our personal savior. There are many other errors in spiritual discernment in addition to this one that continue to be propagated, especially all of the nonsense that is promoted around the concept of Armageddon. This is important, because these beliefs contribute mightily to the Common Knowledge Game of human perception, which is a socially and culturally inculcated system for assessing and judging against all others unlike the observers. Most of the world does not hold the belief in Jesus as the Savior, though many of us have been victimized by those with such a vision! With our American judicial and political processes still impacted by, and in some cases dominated by, so-called “Christian ideals”, it is easy to see the potential for collective persecution of and discrimination against those not conforming to these ideals and dogmas.

And, much of our American religious landscape remains dominated by blind adherence to patriarchy, which manifests through toxic masculinity, toxic capitalism, and toxic religion, with their qualities of misogyny, white supremacy and its outright hatred or indifference to others unlike themselves, greed and rampant selfishness, and self-destructiveness, and all of the planetary destructive evil that emanates from it. When the writer quoted from in the Bible proclaimed that we “be fruitful and multiply”, that writer did not intend for our race to become a planet ravaging virus, through overpopulation, pollution, extinction of 1000’s of species, genocide, religious persecution, greed, and competition, yet our race has been fruitful, and multiplied our collective ignorance and evil exponentially.

Religious reasoning and oxymorons

Prosperity theology is a religious belief among some Christians, who hold that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God for them, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to religious causes will increase one’s material wealth. Prosperity theology views the Bible as a contract between God and humans: if humans have faith in God, he will deliver security and prosperity. The doctrine emphasizes the importance of personal empowerment, proposing that it is God’s will for his people to be happy. It is based on interpretations of the Bible that are mainstream in Judaism (with respect to the Hebrew Bible),though less so in Christianity. The atonement (reconciliation with God) is interpreted to include the alleviation of sickness and poverty, which are viewed as curses to be broken by faith. This is believed to be achieved through donations of money, visualization, and positive confession.

Our blind adherence to our soulless Capitalist economic system is a force that must be reckoned with. With capitalism now married to religion, we end up with Corporate Religion, whereby sects of American Christianity celebrate wealth and fame, and goad their members towards rampant materialism, all in the name of God’s prosperity.. These mega-churches with ministers, such as Joel Osteen, set the tone and the pace for self-glorification, materialism, overpopulation, and the continued destruction of our planet through their adherence to the Prosperity Gospels. Prosperity is oppression, when we see the long-term effects of focusing wealth and planetary resources into the pocketbooks of fewer and fewer people, in manners that tend to increase profits and visibility for the unconscious adherents of the new Corporate Religion.

This competition for resources continues to cause our Earth to suffer, while the few prosper. There is abject spiritual and intellectual poverty imbued within a philosophy that celebrates prosperity as a manifestation of “God’s reward for the good”, and is indicative of a larger poverty that has overwhelmed our nation, and our world. We all need umbrellas to shield ourselves from the “golden showers” of “trickle down theories” that follow such megalomaniacal visions of privilege and power.

The fundamental oppressive force in the human universe is not our wayward religious, political, economic, or social agendas or systems, however, as the fundamental problem is within the human mind itself. Jesus Christ would be crucified again (and, in fact, the Truth continues to be sacrificed daily), and Muhammad and the Buddha, were they alive today, would be ignored or attacked, in today’s diseased, divisive, dark money controlled political, social, and religious climate. Some say that it may be time to PUNCH A NAZI, in whatever form it takes, but it is best to first master the Nazi within our own minds.

A new story needs to be told by each and every one of us, as our old stories are killing us, both individually, and collectively. We need a new world religion, one that honors ALL life upon the planet, and the very planet Earth itself, as our Lord and Savior. We must have a story that allows for each being to have the opportunity to live in peace and harmony, and to share in the benefits of an evolutionary consciousness. We either grow together as a race, and as a planet, or we will not survive as a species, and, potentially, we may destroy the rest of our supporting animal species, the environment itself, and the planet.

Punch A Nazi Sign at June 2018 Portland, Oregon Rally for Immigrants and their families[

“if you tell a big enough lie, and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed”. ― Adolf Hitler

If you tell a lie often enough, you are prone to start to actually believe it yourself. All of the internal defense mechanisms are engaged to support the story and to maintain the lies existence, and the corruption that living a lie creates can become part of our nature. Be careful out there, the world, and our minds, can be a dangerous place. Unlike TV entertainment series, where the programs have the potential to resolve the contrived issues before the ending of the weekly show, life carries our issues for prolonged periods of time, sometimes whole lifetimes, if we do not find a way to dislodge our lies, and our stories of disease and dysfunction from the cells of our bodies, and from our consciousness.

There is no freedom to be found, if we do not first see that we are trapped. Pay attention to all of our stories, many of which have created quite the mess to sort through. Constantly question reality,, search for available facts, and learn not to unconsciously accept statements from authority figures. “Reality” many times, is only someone else’s opinion about “what is”, so a cautious, probing mind, not rushing to simplistic conclusions, or susceptible to popular suggestion or hypnotism, is required to maintain, or re-establish, personal integrity, healing, sanity and reason.

It has been a great challenge and adventure living this life. It has also been a great fulfillment for me to have lived long enough and to have become articulate enough to be able to put into words my unique experience of life. There are many chapters to follow, where I attempt to bring into the verbal universe my extended journey into the mystery of human consciousness, and its corruption by those with unconscious and ignorant, or selfish and self-destructive agendas. Finding my unique story, and finding the supportive silence underneath that story, is the journey of my salvation, the hero’s journey towards healing and integrity.

Buckle up, fellow travelers, the ride is going to be a rather turbulent one at times! What is “reality” and who am I? Watch out, for more stories are always forming around those questions! I am what I am, but I am not what I seem We all need a bigger story, with more heart and healing, higher accuracy, and maximum inclusivity!

Chapter 18: The Uncommon Knowledge Theory LOTS AND LOTS OF DUPLICATION HERE

We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist and forever will recreate each other.
—-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Let go of the controls of fear and powerlessness! Find your true being, and stop becoming someone else’s idea of who you should be. Eliminate time dependent thought, to find the real eternal life. Insight and change are essential. In the seeing of the old, is freedom from the prison of the past finally found. Make new paths of consciousness, and then follow them only while they lead to wisdom, and discard them when they no longer serve the Hearts best intention!

Laugh and cry at our creations, then change them, and laugh and cry again! Repeat cycle until only laughter. love, and joy remains, then we will know that the Truth has been found. Remember, all that we will ever see, unto eternity, is our Self. How will we see our Self today?

—–Elisha Scott

What if I were to tell you that “you” can’t be real, yet the only fact about “you” that can be apperceived is that “I” am here? Is everything that we witness with our senses, and reflect upon with our minds, really there, or are they ever evolving theories created by the mind of man? What if I were to tell you that there is a deeper truth, another reality, or state of being, that is accessible, once we discard our concepts of time? What if I were to tell you that the seemingly infinite world of your verbal creation pales in comparison to a non-verbal potentiality that lies undiscovered and unappreciated within your heart and soul?

What facts do we truly have access to, and which tools do we presently have to help us find the truth about ourselves, and about our life, the truth that supports us, yet lies in a sacred silence well under of our internal matrix of memories and personal and collective accumulations of information and knowledge?

“Know thyself, and thou will know God, and the Universe”
——Attributed to Pythagoras, and the Oracle at Delphi

Mankind has used religion, spirituality, philosophy, and the science of observation for thousands of years to help understand the world, and for insight into the self. Are science, religion and spirituality based upon facts, laws, theories, or mythological stories, or are they a combination of the four? And what about our personal philosophies, are they based upon the same factors? Finally, does our science, personal philosophies, religion, and spirituality help us or hinder us to “know thyself, to know God and the Universe”? The following book is an inquiry into what we can know, what we will never know, and how to understand at a higher level who the “knower” really is.

To develop the capacity for insight requires a tremendous depth of desire to know one’s self in a different, more profound and holistic way. Overcoming a lifetime of cultural and family conditioning and training, suffering, ignorance, indifference towards and/or oppression by others, and repression of one’s emotional and spiritual nature can be a most difficult proposition. We must develop the strength of will to wrestle with our own and our culture’s demons, and angels, to successfully travel the path of transformation. Insight, or “knowing thyself” has been the path to the Gods since the mind of man first postulated the existence of a unique self, and of a God, and then began the establishing of the rules of engagement between all such mental creations.

One of the earliest insights that I remember having is a direct result of a science class that I attended in fourth grade. Mr. Hill, our Principal and co-teacher of our class, was going to perform an experiment, and he wanted to teach the students about the power of observation. Each member of the class was to record everything that they observed onto a note pad, so as to completely describe what they witnessed.

Mr. Hill heated a portable electric stove, then grabbed with some insulated tongs a thin sheet of metal and set it onto the burner. The metal immediately began to distort in size, and became quite disfigured, and the metal no longer looked like it did before. I watched, yet I had no words to describe what it was that I had just witnessed. I had never seen anything like that before, and I was struck dumb by it. I saw two kids writing feverishly on either side of me, and in my need to be accepted, “fit in” and not look stupid, I looked at each of the two student’s writings, and saw how they described the event. I used their expressions to help me to create my own descriptions.

As a child, I saw how dependent that I was on other people to give a description about events that I did not have the words for. Someone else had the description of what I could not yet describe, so I used borrowed words to fill in the gap. Extrapolate this need to fit in and to belong to all collective gatherings of human life, including religion, politics, and society, and it is easily seen the potential foundation for shared learning, and its alter-ego, illusion and superstition, within all such bodies of experience. As an adult, I have seen how the mystery of life can sometimes get overrun by society’s need for order by establishing and maintaining a continuity of reality and a shared understanding of events between all of its members.
The description is never the actual event, yet those who did not have the experience, copy and worship the description, and overlook the event that may be still happening right under their noses. They have never developed the capacity and/or the willingness, to give their own unique description of an event, for they are either in fear of offering a different or contrary version of the event, fear that they might look stupid if they don’t agree with the herd, or they have never witnessed the event itself and are dependent upon others for their descriptions.

Scientific and cultural education and religious indoctrination brings a measure of order to all of us. Yet it can also teach the student about other people’s perspectives on matters of individuality, self-expression, and the potential for a connection with a “power greater than our self”, while confusing and delaying the individual’s direct connection and link to his own higher truth and nature. While “unawakened” we are especially susceptible to those in positions of power and influence, and we easily can become hypnotized by other people’s thoughts and attitudes. It becomes easy to mistakenly associate all other’s points of view as being our own, until we finally decide to break free from our own second-hand, culturally inculcated reality for the understanding of self, and other, and begin our awakening process.

In a similarity between science and religion, each claims to be the “real” truth. And, many people view them as mutually exclusive. Scientific materialism, or scientism, for example, is based on the idea that scientific analysis is the only means of understanding what things really are. Science might say, if it had a voice, that there is no need for any other kind of explanation than that provided by pure science, since there is no other kind of reality than the purely physical, for that is what is being observed. Many religious institutions also teach their followers a similar ideology. Religious leaning people such as Christians maintain that the Bible teaches the ‘true’ science and that secular science should be rejected if it does not correspond with the letters of the scripture. Yet, objectively, both science and religion have independently revealed enough truths to give them each a degree of credence, while we must also continue to treat them both to a healthy dose of skepticism when their observations do not conform to what we might expect to see.

In science and mathematics, a theory is a statement proposing an explanation for the processes that we witness. A law is an observation which becomes an assumed fact; a theory is the explanation of that observation. The Law of Gravity and the Theory of Relativity are good examples. Just because a law is an observable fact, or a theory is intuitively obvious, we cannot prove them to be true. The apple always falls downward from the tree, doesn’t it? Yet the observation of matter converting into energy, with E=Mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light is not observable, at least through our normal senses. A theory requires experimentation under various conditions. Why an apple always falls downward to the earth becomes the motivator for many more discoveries, and theories. A law has no such requirements for experimentation. A theory may become obsolete with time. This is not the case with a law. A theory can be replaced by another better theory; however, this never happens with a law. When people say “Relativity is just a theory, not a fact” or “Evolution is just a theory, not a fact”, they show that they do not understand how science works. Theory is as good as it gets. There is always room for further evolution of our scientific theories, thus no limit is placed upon learning and refining all theories to best represent what we now observe through continuous process improvement which supports higher qualities of awareness, and enhanced realms of intelligence and understanding.

Even incorrect theories have their value. Discredited alchemy was the birthplace of modern chemistry, and medicine made great strides long before we understood the roles of bacteria and viruses. Improving our theories often leads to exciting new discoveries that were unimaginable under the old way of thinking. We should not assume that all of our current scientific theories will stand the test of time. A single unexpected result is enough to challenge the status quo. However, vulnerability to some potentially better explanation doesn’t weaken a current scientific theory. Instead, it shields science from becoming unchallenged dogma. This is not the case with religion, which clings to all understandings from the far distant past as if their entire faith was dependent upon adherence to such dogma.

In an interesting study of human behavior, it seems that stubborn-minded dogma and ideology is another thing that religion and science both share. The same way that blind adherence to religious faith often leads to religious dogma, the faith-based aspect of science also forms the basis of scientific dogma. And, while “religion” still dictates the terms of spiritual life for so many, science, in its own way, has become the self-proclaimed “religion of reason,” dictating the terms of reality for the world, and also steering the course of humanity. Yet both categories of understanding vie for the steering wheel of our civilization, at times sharing the wheel as helpmates, and other times as antagonists.

While science attempts to obtain concrete evidence of theories through the formulation and testing of hypotheses, and the calculation of highly probable or deductive theories, religious institutions do nothing to provide any solid evidence of their claims of the existence of a Universal Creator, or its claims of an “Everlasting/Afterlife.” Many religious believers, of course, cite the testimonies contained within their ancient holy books, and those testimonies from others that they witness while in their place of worship, as their “proofs.” Faith, rather than observation, becomes the primary lens for understanding life.

God said it, I believe it, and that is all there is to it!
——-statement attributed to many religious believers.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
——-Hebrews 11:1 New Testament, Christian Bible

So what do we accept as our laws, what do we accept as our theories, and what do we accept on “faith” about the nature of our self, our world, our “God” and our universe? Are we relying upon the statements of others, do we practice “blind faith”, or are we active observers of the phenomenon of our lives? If we base our understanding upon our own observations of ourselves, others, and the world, can we then extrapolate upon our known facts or laws to build our bridge to a personal, and potentially to a universal truth?

The Uncommon Knowledge Theory points to the potential for spiritual awakening. It has a direct relationship to insight, intuition, mysticism, and a desire for enlightenment, with the expression of universal love and transcendence. It remains latent and unexpressed within the human heart and soul within major sectors of our population. It remains only a theory, or a potentiality, until it is brought into awareness, and practiced as if it was real, or the truth. And, it might be found that the more that the theory is practiced, the more it might appear that the Uncommon Knowledge Theory is really an undiscovered or ignored law in the first place.

In the Uncommon Knowledge Theory teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, it is stated:

“My father’s house/mansion has many rooms. . . “
“My kingdom is not of this world”, and
“be in the world, don’t be of the world.”

These sayings are pointers to the fact that there are two possibilities for living, in Common Knowledge Game and Common Unconscious Knowledge Game experiences as a sleeping being in a dark, disfigured world, or as an awakening being in a multi-dimensional human relationship with infinity, as experience through our Uncommon Knowledge Theory. The sleeping beings, or those dreamers practicing unconscious knowledge, are those who live in the world of personal illusion, or Maya, without being aware of the fantasies of thought that dominate their minds and lives. Their present moment remains dominated by perceptions arising from wounding from their personal and their culture’s past, without sufficient application of healing awareness to that fact. The awakening ones are able to see through the chaos of the dreaming, unaware mind, and no longer are unconscious servants their own brokenness, or to values of patriarchy and toxic masculinity, which are primary support pillars for the CKG and the CUKG, especially through religions with a long history.

The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge.
——Meister Eckart

The danger here, with the truth that Meister Eckart points to, is the ascribing of ultimate truth to the fantasies of a sleeping, somnambulating, undereducated, fantasy driven mind.

What does the process of awakening look like, and how might I begin the journey? I now have my own life experience to refer to, having eschewed most other points of view that have been in conflict with the unfolding of my greater good. The process of awakening begins early for some, and later for other, and not at all for the most unconscious among us. For me, it has been a lifelong process, which began in my most unconscious of years as a young person.

Up until nine years of age, I did not like falling asleep, as sleep might open the door to yet more terrifying nightmares, which I was all too accustomed to. By this time, my dreams had finally began to evolve beyond the continuous nightmare phase that I was accustomed to, but uncertainty about their possibility of arising still prevailed within my mind. This was during a period of time when I slept very little, as I usually got to sleep no earlier than midnight, even though I my enforced bedtime was 8:00 PM.
In preparation for sleep, while lying in bed for all those hours, I would review the day every night, and see where I could have done things better, or said something a little differently. Somehow I had intuited that by improving my daytime behavior, my nighttime dream world might become more peaceful. And I had begun to have many unusual dreams, most of them which I quickly forgot. Yet at the age of nine, I had another amazing insight through the avenue of my dreams. To this day, its message still rings loud and clear in my mind, no matter how poorly, or successfully, that I may be applying its principles.

Here is THE DREAM:

The priest, having received his directive from “on high”, then returned to his village along the lake in the high mountain region. He gathered all of the villagers together, and informed them that they were to take every golden figurine, every sacred symbol that they owned, and they were to throw them all into the lake, and never to think about them again. Then, he told each villager that they must each go into their own home, and face the “evil one” without any protection or care from any of their gods or their symbols of the sacred.

The priest then returned to his own home, having tossed all of his own idols and treasures into the deep blue lake. He stripped himself bare of all clothing, and then began to summon the forces of the dark. He became surrounded by a fog, and as he lifted his hands, sparks started flying out of his fingertips at the unknown force of darkness that lay just beyond his visual field, still hidden beyond the boundaries of the fog. The priest refocused his energy into his arms, and hands, and the sparks grew into a steady energy field, extending from his body, his heart, and his spirit, towards his unknown adversary. He was determined to overcome this force, this dark energy, and he redoubled his efforts. The priest’s heart began to race out of control, he began to sweat profusely, and a growing sense of fear and dread began to take hold of his entire being, as he finally understood that his energy could not last forever. Yes, for him to continue this battle, he must sacrifice all of his life force. Yet, he felt that he had no choice but to keep engaging the enemy, to finally see the face of the force that had terrorized his village since time began. He desperately strained and stretched to see the object of his fear and disdain, even as the ebbing energy field flowing from his fingertips continued to cut through the fog. Suddenly, a face began materializing before his faltering gaze. As he collapsed to the floor, almost drained of all life, he could no longer fight an undeniable truth– the face of the evil one might be his own!

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
– –Anaïs Nin

This insightful dream says it all, and even the unimaginative among us cannot miss out on the unmistakable message that is contained within it. Projection is a name given by psychologists to this experience, where we finally realized that the conscious world that we feared, the conscious world in which we created idols and gods, and self-protective psychological mechanisms, to protect us from the perceived or potential evil, was actually a world that we created through our own ignorance, both collectively, and individually. This manifests in all of the horrors that we witness on the world stage daily, and in all of the family and cultural dysfunction under which we were raised. We are all wounded by this process, and rather than find a way to heal from it, we ignorantly arm ourselves against further assaults from others, even though we are part of the attack against our own self in the first place.

Oh shadow boxer of evil, will your fists and arms ever tire?

Becoming co-champions of a nightmare world creates conditions which are perpetually dire!

Stop breathing life into your fears and illusions will all those mental pugilist blows,

And in silence await the peaceful messages from the only One who All Knows!

A most hurtful way that human beings acting out of their own wounded natures project their negativity is by continuing the attacks against those that they have already hurt. It is just heartbreaking to be a witness to, or to be on the receiving end of, attacks against our souls and being by those who have already hurt us, and who cannot or will not acknowledge their own culpability. The victim is made wrong for having feelings, and for expressing their anger, fear, distress, or heartbreak at having been attacked, either in the past, the present, or both. Because the perpetrator does not want to face his own bad attitudes and behavior, he lashes out, and makes wrong, those who attempt to speak up for their own life, and rights. If all cannot accept responsibility for wayward thoughts and actions, healing and forgiveness, whatever those words may point to, remains an impossibility.

Those who remain silent about their own responsibility for and participation in their own projections of hatred, ignorance, pain, suffering, intolerance onto others, remain a fixture of our culture’s conspiracy of silence. It happens on the cultural level, and on the personal level. We are all victims of racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, bullying, and all other malicious, malevolent attitudes and behaviors, trickling down from our politicians, corporate boards, employers, family members, co-workers, acquaintances, fellow drivers on the road, or the person in the cashier’s line with us at the grocery store. Our country and its citizens owe an apology and reparations to all of the minorities it has persecuted and punished, such as the Indians, the Blacks, the Hispanics, the Immigrants, the Infirm, the Old, and the Poor. Our Christian religion owes an apology to the Muslims, homosexuals, to the infidels, to the secular, to the “Jewish faith who crucified Jesus”, and to all who have been persecuted because they were non-believers or non-conformers.

The greatest threat to peace in this world is the cultivation of resistance to change and religious fundamentalism. Life is change, change is Life, and those who do not allow themselves to grow, heal, and evolve are consigned to live their lives in progressively smaller mental boxes, or prison cells, the further along in life that they travel. It must be remembered that truth is not a fixed point in time and space, it is an ever unfolding reality, and the truth of this moment may appear to be non-conforming to the truth of 100 years ago. We can continue to ask the same questions, yet we must be prepared to accept new, updated answers as they become available. If we remain trapped to the conditioning of our past, the dogmas of our religions, our sciences, and our economic and social theories, we will not find the new freedom and intelligence that is beckoning to us each moment of our lives.

Collective consciousness is comprised of the entirety of our history as a species, as well as all of the answers that our culture, our families, and all of our individual selves have dreamed up in the past to some of the great questions of life. The answers have become part of our philosophy, our history, our religion, the substance of our hopes and dreams, and the foundation for all of our nightmares. I have addressed the seed consciousness behind the development of my sense of self, where my own answers to the important questions of life gave rise to my fragmented interpretation of life, and of the universe. My incomplete and inaccurate answers became the unstable foundation for my journey through collective consciousness, but I was not alone in my ignorance and misunderstanding.
It is this very matrix of misunderstanding that we all must eventually embrace within ourselves, see it for what it really is, and isn’t, and then move through the illusions of self to the very foundation of our timeless soul, where peace and healing eternally resides.

Cleansing the doors to perception means bringing truth into sharper focus, and the process of asking the right questions, and not necessarily immediately supplying any answers, provides the potential for powerful energy to this endeavor. Snap answers typically arise from the conditioned mind, so patience is a requirement as the intelligence of the moment, and of eternity, is accessed, and then builds its own unique verbal bridge back to our awareness.

Get rid of our old answers to old questions, and start asking new questions! Do we know what new questions to ask of ourselves, questions that will place us on a new, healthier path of consciousness?

My life story from the period 1987 to the present have become my improving attempts at addressing these questions, and adjusting to whatever answers, if any, that came into my awareness at any particular point in time.. There is nothing really “new” being written here, though this is the most important writing that I have ever attempted. Please forgive me in advance if my insights and realizations appear obvious and simple. When they come to an innocent mind for the first time, they bring with them the sense of profundity and wonder..

Experiences of 1987?

I have had many teachers on the “outer plane” who continue to point the way to a higher, more spiritually integrated life, while I measure their messages against what was bubbling up within my own mind and heart as my own internal answers to life’s great questions. Words started forming within my mind that were to become the verbal bridges connecting my internal “non-verbal” state of being to reach the surface of my mind and the outside world with its infinite interwoven matrices of verbal intelligence. Just sitting around smiling at people was not getting the job of connection and communication accomplished, but I was always flooded with joy, and carried a constant smile on my face, which did open many doors to friendship with others. I was no longer a sheep looking for a shepherd, as I became a more conscious wanderer on life’s path, looking for fellow travelers and collaborators to exchange companionship with while we collectively reached for our greater good.

If you are going my way, we must all fly united!

I had no desire to fly solo, but instead to fly with a new flock, populated by those who were flying the same direction that I was guided to fly. Finding our spiritual family or core group, or “my people” is a common healthy desire for all of us. As human beings we have the potential to be “free birds” in our own unique way and manners, though we remain part of the greater “flock of life”. It is important to find, and continue to fly in, the flock of our own choice. We are social creatures, and to deny that absolute fact is to deny reality, and to deny our own greater good, and the greater good of humanity. It is a challenge to all of us to find that right group of people who our spirit can soar with. We all have tried to fly with turkeys, and that is not to be our lot in life, unless we continue to choose that for ourselves.
We are all free to choose again, so choose wisely, and fly united!

GETTING CLOSER TO “HERE AND NOW”

Awakening is an interactive process, encouraged and facilitated by the pain and suffering that we experience as human beings, while engaging with the so-called “real world”. Far too many Americans live in alternate universes, where pain and suffering are not directly dealt with, or are to be avoided at all costs, wherever possible. Immersion in fantasy and denial of our personal and collective responsibility towards the ills of this world also reigns supreme in major sections of our culture. This is fueled by addictions to media devices, diversions of our life force into entertainment and worship of TV and movie personalities, hypnosis by false religious and spiritual leaders, alcohol and drug addictions, and personal and sexual power abuses. To facilitate healing, we must reject the false leaders, hypnosis, hero-worshiping and idolatry, and we must become our own leaders, with awakened powers of understanding and compassion. All of the sleeping beauties, and the ugly ones with warts, will continue to sleep, until their nightmares become so frightening that they either have to wake up to the “kiss of the healing prince, or princess”, or die.

The prison guard with one of the primary keys to release me from my own spiritual imprisonment remained my own unhealed relationship with my father. Overcoming a lifetime of oppression and control by others is no easy task. It also must be done clean and sober, for the true depth and healing of the experience to permanently take hold. I began a new relationship with my father, starting with my new-found sobriety. The real fruits of healing from the relationship was not to become apparent until many, many years later. The process of caring for my increasingly demented father from 2011 until his death in September of 2017 proved to be the most difficult, and the most transformative, period of my life. But that is another story!

I developed some insight into how my own father’s ignorance and selfish needs early in my childhood negatively impacted my own mind’s formation. There was a revelation within me that as a result of my father’s sometimes toxic influence, and my own mother’s unskilled participation in my life, I had unwittingly and unconsciously created two fundamental cores to my personal dysfunction. I came to refer to these forces as “tricksters”, and a thorough examination of all of my inner demons showed that they were traumatically created through incomplete, unskilled interactions with life. Their presences initially kept me from being helpless as I attempted to navigate the world as a young being, offering their own extremely limited versions of interior guidance. But, these miscreations kept me from developing into my greater good as an independent, free adult human being. It was these two fundamental cores that swirled around another unknown force of darkness within me, as if drawn and disfigured by an infinitely powerful locus of negative influence. These two tricksters resembled actual personality subsets within my consciousness, and I posit that these disassociated personality subsets are the precursors to all manners and types of mental illness, including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and multiple personality disorder.

My father represented, in a perfect way, how my life experience had become overshadowed by the needs and concerns of our culture, and its own unconscious needs to dominate, control, and oppress, especially those who did not conform to its often conflicted, twisted values. My father had difficulty, in times of great stress, in recognizing the intrinsic value of all life, including my “baby self”, and my essence as a young boy. My father showed to me, in a perfect way, what a potential end point looks like from a lifetime lacking in true collaboration and emotional integrity while sharing life force with others. My father achieved many of his goals in life, yet at what cost did they come to him, and to the people who he may have influenced and over which he exerted control? And, what is the cost to a society that blindly plows forward while supporting ideals that do not conform to the development of all of its citizen’s highest nature, and truth?

With the death of my father, it ended the era of subservience to my perceptions of his needs. It also ended the era of incomplete grieving for my own mother’s death, as I never completely worked through my own process around her sudden demise. I was now an “orphan”, and all of the entanglements that kept me wound around their lives were now physically removed. My fathers’ spirit no longer could overshadow my own life, and now I was allowed to live fully into whatever, or whoever that I am. I found that I no longer had the unconscious need to protect my mother from my father’s wayward emotions and behavior, which I always girded myself for, and I had prepared myself to do throughout my life. In truth, however, I never really succeeded in protecting anybody from my perception of my father, including myself. I was to find that these tricksters were my internalized representations for each of my parents, and the historical accumulations of fragmented interactions between them and me.

For me this is an extraordinary release, because my ego may have formed somewhat differently than much of the rest of humanity due to unusual parental bonding issues just after birth, and through my first 4-5 years. Being placed on formula right after birth, and being placed in a chilly car in the garage at night so that my father could sleep better because I was just another “damn crying baby”, left me as a young being with so-called “attachment issues”, such as feeling abandoned, and lonely, from the beginning. Though I loved my parents, I certainly did not want to grow up and be like them. Yet, I was not able to offer to my developing self a viable alternative to being like my father, being extremely limited creatively, and my resultant dull, though at times insightful, personality reflected that darkness throughout my childhood, and adulthood through my first thirty-one years of life.

In our world, there are countless examples of self organizing systems, and all creatures, and the minds of those creatures, are examples of that miracle in action. The bodies appear to be primarily organized through the pattern created by the history of that species, and it’s interactions with its earthly environment. DNA appears to carry that pattern within our very cells. Some biologists and scientists, such as Rupert Sheldrake, postulate the existence of a “morphogenetic” field of energy, in which in the whole biological and environmental history of all species are stored, and which each member of the species shares energy with. This name identifies a scientifically recognized process whereby the whole of the species influences the individual, and the individual can also exert influence on the whole, especially when the number of individuals is great.

The development and the evolution of human language itself has had the effect of bringing the hope for new or enhanced order to the chaos inherent within the unconscious human experience, at least through the structure of words used to represent the world that one is experiencing. Note the illusory sense of power that words sometimes create for us. We sometimes think that to finally identify a phenomenon, and giving it a name, that we are now somehow in control of that which still exists outside of our control. One example is when we finally get a diagnosis for a troubling medical condition that had evaded identification and description. The name brings momentary satisfaction and may point to the direction that a favorable outcome may be located, yet having a name or a diagnosis does not guarantee that a favorable prognosis will result. Also, my personal experience of finally being able to bring a verbal description to the vast interior spaces of unconsciousness and ignorance within my individual and collective self has done NOTHING to bring a new order to the present day divisiveness and chaos within our national mindset, including the conscious and unconscious elements..

For most other situations where stress or conflict may have arisen, we only need witness the “committee”, or the “monkey mind” operating overtime within our minds while it unsuccessfully tries to make sense, or bring order, out of the background chaos forever present in our lives. Those who are neophytes in meditation, and even some of us when troubled by current events, experience this hyperactivity and perceive it as a block to peace of mind. In truth, this internal mental chaos, when reinterpreted, becomes a gateway or portal to be passed through so as to access deeper, more peaceful and benign regions of our spiritual identify.

The mystery of the origination of the sense of self revolves around many additional factors, including prenatal health of the mother, what the father might have ingested prior to conception, the physical health of the new baby, and how well the organism feels accepted by, and connected to the environment that its body travels through. Thus, healthier senses of self arise from, and are supported by, myriads of “successful” interactions with its social and physical environment, and the internal “name giving and associations” and stories that eventually get created by the self. First and foremost is acceptance and integration into the primary family cell, or group. If the young being does not get the requisite positive feedback early on, it faces tremendous odds against forming a happy, well-adjusted self organizing principle, or ego. My first 31 years of life reflected that experience, and I internalized and normalized the horror of a life suppressed by this aspect of the “conspiracy of silence”. I was damned by my own creations, which spawned from a subservience to a damaged image of self, and other. My own true nature, or possibility for experiencing another way of being, had been masked over, or silenced, through that process.

Black Holes

A black hole is a region of space/time exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing—including particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from inside it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can deform space/time to form a black hole. The boundary of the region from which no escape is possible is called the event. Within the human psyche, I posit the existence of consciousness “black holes”, or singularity points. We, as a human race, seem to have a predisposition to creating “black hole events” where no light, such as love, compassion, empathy, healing thoughts, can emanate from our consciousness. These events occur especially during times of collective distress including mass hypnosis and the resultant mob mind activity that leads to wars, genocide, racism, xenophobia, hysteria and fear.

We, as individuals, also have a real talent for creating “black hole events” within our personal worlds, as well. Our concepts of time and space certainly get distorted, as present day events occurring in our lives get distorted within our minds by traumatic events of our past, or “black holes” of past influence through which the light of our ever unfolding “present moment of life” gets sucked into the darkness of a singularity point of a traumatic event from our past.

Our minds are “generators of consciousness”, which simply stated, means aspects of ourselves generate internal feedback, develop and support our own internal self-concept, create internal imagery and understanding of the “outer world” and support our verbal relationships with and actions towards all others. We attempt to match the “outer reality” by forming internal verbal and emotional linkages within ourselves, and this helps us to stay “relevant” and abiding within some measure of resonance and continuity with the perceived “external universe” or community that we presently share with others.

This “light” that we internally emit, and eventually share with our worlds either through action or verbal expression, is influenced dramatically by our own secret, internal agendas, whether we are conscious of those agendas, or not. While these agendas remain “unconscious”, they become the equivalent to our own internal black holes. All streams of consciousness that our minds and hearts attempt to “emit” become trapped in the swirling vortices of these powerful forces, and these internal black holes continue to influence virtually every aspect of our lives. And, if not dealt with consciously and carefully, these black holes will eventually draw all of our internal light into them, and we become unwitting agents of our own internal darkness.

To repress or deny these internal forces is to continue to feed them. As we get in touch with our fears, angers, hatreds, or whatever name for manifesting “darkness” that we might give to them, it is important to realize that these are great forces, and once they are harnessed, NOT REPRESSED OR DENIED, these black holes will continue to keep us connected to the real world, and, as we transmute their energy, the light within us uses these once “dark energies” for the good of ourselves, and for all mankind.
I have identified a black hole within my own internal universe, which had created powerful forces of control, keeping me separate from my greatest good. I have attempted to deal with my trauma directly and honestly, lest my entire life becomes a continuation of further black hole events. I have identified that the fear that my voice will never be heard, resulting in my death, is my unique black hole. Insight finally reveals that this is a direct result of my failure to be fully integrated as a complete, healthy human being, and manifesting a more holistic or divine intent.

This vortex drew all of my internal light towards itself, and by the time that this internal “singularity point” worked its dark magic to its fullness, I actually flirted with the end of my own life. Such is the way these “black hole events” can influence and control our lives, making peace of mind and positive, loving connections with others virtually impossible.
These black holes may remain, even after making profound spiritual and emotional changes. Their dark influence, however, continues to recede, once there is a committed intention to stay connected with insight and spiritual healing, where all true light comes from. As I strive to stay balanced internally, so shall my walk through the rest of my life remain balanced, as well. Insight keeps these forces herded within the “spirit of wholeness” which utilizes our energy in more “sane” and mutually beneficial ways.

And, for more than one of us, these black holes are eventually transformed into “white holes”, where no darkness can escape, and all of our experience becomes “enlightened”. We can’t short-circuit this process, by just substituting the pleasant-sounding “spiritual froth ” produced by other great spiritual thinkers, and trying to layer those messages over our unexamined inner universe. Well meaning advocates of this process become unwitting contributors to the repression, and oppression, of the Human Spirit. It is only after we do the real inner work, that these teachers can assume their rightful position in our consciousness, as fellow travelers on the path to Truth, which has no final destination. Our most profound words and thoughts only present the illusion of a “final resting place”, when, in fact, truth is eternally unfolding into each moment as a brand new, unique manifestation.

I have my moments with the “white holes”, and I continue to strive for experiencing this phenomenon with both increased frequency and intensity. A path of insight and meditation is quite helpful, and association with others who share in this new reality has been shown to produce almost miraculous results. If this experience is to become our real new reality, then there is work to do! Please, let us not rest on another person’s “spiritual laurels”, for by this culturally and religiously ingrained process we will be delayed in finding our True Passion.

I am what I am, but I am not what I seem

You are mad, bonkers completely off your head. But, I will tell you a secret. All the best people are.
——Lewis Carroll

What might a man performing a thorough self-examination through internal probing discover about his self, and the subconscious guidance and direction by those black holes within his own unique nature?. To uncover the treasure, we first have to dig through the dirt, and believe me, it can be a toxic waste site. It is no wonder to me that there are “few there be that enter into” this unexplored realm within. There is a vast kingdom within that searches for its rightful king, but will we ever rise up and assume our proper place? It feels infinitely complicated when we begin to contemplate the name “I” that all of us have given to ourselves, especially since there are 100’s of thousands of “not I” or “you” verbal and relationship associations built into our personal construct.

This process requires patience, time, experience, and humility, but eventually insight is developed whereby we can see the forces of corruption within our own heart and soul, and through the seeing, we also begin to facilitate the healing, as well. In the absolute, we are the space that we witness, either through our eyes, the telescope, or our mathematics, we are the time, or the timelessness, that we experience, and we are all of the people, and the cultures, that we are presently having relationships with. All that we will ever see, unto eternity, is our self. Insight is life, and life is insight. In truth, none of us are on the “outside looking in”, rather, we are all on the inside, looking everywhere, potentially without limit.

Most people love a good story, and this medium for communication has been proven to be an extremely effective method for the transmission of our wisdom and human values to others.. Even the belief in God, whether or not “God” actually exists, has its own origins in the need for mankind to create a story around its own origins, and to give its existence some sort of context and meaning. I have read about and heard from a few parents that their young children were so close to “God”, that when they first learned to talk, they would tell their parents about talking directly with God, or hearing God talk to them (or Jesus, or whatever their cultural background would predispose them to refer to). I did not have that experience as a youth, and, in fact, I could not fathom the possibility of such a “miracle”. Prior to recovery, my bullshit detector would sound off long and loud whenever I heard such a story.

There was nothing special or spiritual about my birth or early childhood, and, in fact, I was on the opposite end of the peace spectrum from those luckier, supposedly “divinely blessed” children. When I was a baby. I was quite the disruption, because I cried almost non-stop, and my crying kept my father from sleeping. I was wrapped in a warm blanket, and kept in the car in the garage until my father left for work. This destructive isolation of a developing baby was more common in the baby boomer generation than the reader might be aware of.

When the cries for love and survival go unheeded, fear becomes the primary creative companion to the developing brain of a baby. While I was still a boy, up to nearly nine years of age, it was I who nightly had horrible nightmares so terrifying that I could not get out of bed to go to the bathroom for fear of what was going to get me from inside of the closet, or under my bed. When a baby’s mode of existence becomes informed by feedback that its cries won’t be heard, coupled with a sense of abandonment, a troubled life experience of self-doubt inevitably follows.

As a result of my early training and nature, I had a loving relationship with my mother, though I had an often times troubled relationship with my father.. I was to feel incompletely accepted by the world outside of our family, as well . There were quite a few friendly adults who were my parent’s friends, or who were loving relatives such as my aunt and uncle, or my grandparents. But my father and my world appeared to be dramatically impacted by men abusing their personal power, men who were impacted by what I now know as toxic masculinity.

I was ill equipped to successfully deal with many of the interpersonal challenges within peer relationships. Poor self-esteem, self doubt, poor insight, and general anxiety around my relationship with the world made me an easy target for escapism, isolationism, and those hucksters hawking quick fix solutions for longer term problems. As a young person, the thought of becoming an astronaut, and traveling through space far away from this planet, motivated me to excel in school, in both mathematics and science. I saw scholastic excellence as my ticket to get free from my social dis-ease, feelings of inadequacy, and my sense of disengagement from the resident aliens who also shared planet Earth with me. I longed for a way “to get off of this fucking rock”, and that became my driving intention for life.

My life prior to drug addiction was quite lonely at times, especially for several years prior to age 9 years while living in our West Linn home along the Willamette River. Yet, I made the best of it. When I was not in the outdoors climbing trees, building forts, riding bicycles, playing “doctor” with the neighbor girl while she played “nurse” with me, or exploring fields, forests, or islands in our neighborhood, I would spend copious amounts of time reading. The steady reading of fictional books, especially science fiction, enabled me to take vacations from a world that never seemed to me to be very welcoming..

One of my favorite SF books was Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein, which I read as a twelve-year-old boy. In this book, the main character, Michael Valentine Smith, is adopted by Martians after the death of all Earthlings except for baby Michael on a Mars mission that had crashed upon landing. Michael learns from the Martians, who end up raising Michael until near adulthood, that all, ultimately, is God. Michael was eventually rescued, and returned to Earth. When Michael proclaimed to all of Earth’s inhabitants after his introduction back upon Earth that “Thou Art God” I had my first ever feeling of hope that there might be a God available to be present in life, maybe even in MY LIFE. I read that book over and over again, as it gave me so much hope, but the hope, with its concurrent “God chills” or horripilations, were ephemeral, and did not last long after each reading of the appropriate passages in the book. It was with this book that the seed was planted for the idea that the search for God may well be my ticket out of my loneliness and misery, that the search must somehow begin and end within myself..

In the era of my life from 1971 to 1987, I led a highly dysfunctional life. After succumbing to peer pressure to use recreational drugs as a sophomore in high school, I quickly became addicted to alcohol and drugs. I was an addict from the start, and I knew that I would either die as an alcoholic/addict, or I would kill myself by age 30, if I had not yet recovered from my disease. Yet I did undertake an adventure of discovery and insight through the use of psychedelics, mainly in the period 1972-1974, that is worth mentioning here.

Psychedelics, Healing Potential, and Religious/Spiritual Experience

I never saw the use of LSD or psychedelics as dangerous or self-destructive, but instead as a delightful and eye-opening vacation from all of the dark certainties and crystallized structures of thought that characterized my troubled life.

In the last two years, there has been several articles posted in Psychology Today, and in other scientific, spiritual and healing newsletters, about the possibility of some forms of psychedelics being useful in the treatment of depression and other mood disorders, as well as being an incredible aid to dying patients who may be facing the fear of death. I won’t necessarily be directly addressing those articles here, but modern research may be confirming what has already been witnessed by many users of these mind altering substances over the last fifty years.

Psychedelics, and their use, could take a whole volume, if I were to describe and define all of my experiences with them over the period 1972-1980. I used LSD and mescaline during my high school years over twenty times, from early 1972 through the summer of 1973. In college, I did not use them hardly at all, nor did I use them much after that, perhaps using them once or twice a year until 1980, when I ceased using them altogether.Psychedelia comes under a different class of psychotropic experience than alcohol, pot, amphetamines, narcotics, or downers. They were referred to as “mind expanding drugs” during the period of time when they were most popular, which began in the 1960’s and extending through the 1970’s period of time. I found psychedelics to be extremely challenging to use, yet they brought into my awareness some amazing and logic-defying experiences. I would even say that I even had exotic, supra-normal type of personal events, on several occasions.

My first time that I used LSD, I was a sophomore in high school. I had no desire to ever use the drug, as I was afraid of the potential effects on me. But, Pam’s friend, Terry Potter, gave me a small pill that had been saturated with LSD liquid to give to Pam. Pam, at this point of her life had no desire for the drug, so she gave it back to me and told me to return it to Terry. Well, I kept it, and then decided to try an ever so small amount of it, in case I had a dangerous reaction to it. I grabbed a razor blade, and scraped about one-fourth off of the pill, and ingested it, and then took a bus to downtown Portland, to hang out at the city library. Well, an amazing feeling overtook me about one hour later. I became euphoric, and I had never felt so good in my life! I felt peace, and love for everybody and everything, and being only fifteen years old and having never experienced such an energy before, I thought that I had found the “promised land”. There were no visual or auditory hallucinations, because the dose was so low, and that was just fine with me. It took longer than usual to sleep that night, as my mind remained on “high alert” well into the early morning hours. There was no hangover, nor did I regret taking the risk using the drug.

Another time, while still a sophomore in high school, I attended a concert at Washington Park, where a man sold me something called DMT, which he called the businessman’s LSD, because its effects only lasted 2-3 hours, versus the 10-13 hours LSD’s effects may cause. This drug is similar to the drug Ecstasy as it is now being sold in the US. I became euphoric on this drug, and I had a fascinating experience. Every person that I would encounter for the next two hours, I felt an incredible kinship with. I also felt as if I could understand them at some level way beyond my normal capacity. It was as if I was able to feel all of their good thoughts, so to speak. So, it was an experience of the elimination of fear for me when dealing with strangers, and giving me the sense of being connected with everybody at a level impossible to achieve while in normal states. A more sedate and sane variation of this experience was to come to me more “naturally” fifteen years later, after recovery from drug addiction and alcoholism.

While a senior in high school I had another LSD experience worth commenting upon. Marc Anderson, Mike Kelsey and myself had taken LSD together. Mike had already dropped out of high school, and had his own “rat castle” so we enjoyed LSD’s effects at Mike’s place, out of public view. One amazing effect was that somehow Marc and I became entrained, so that we would “see” the same hallucinations at the same time. Yes, I was taking the drug in high enough doses that hallucinations were now quite prominent. One of the biggest prolonged laughs that we all had together was when Mike turned into the Devil himself, with red horns, a tail, and a red face. Of course, Mike could not see it, but Marc and I saw him transform Exactly at the same time, and we could not stop laughing for ten minutes!!

One final experience that seems to have significance is one time I had secured a variation of LSD called Orange Sunshine, while attending a summer concert at Delta Park in north Portland. The pill itself was a small phosphorescent orange color, and boy did it pack a wallop! Any kind of visual image or scene had the likelihood of changing into almost anything else, seemingly spontaneously. When I say that the “walls were melting” at times, if I was in a room, the walls did melt with the most wonderful blending of color and sounds together. My psychological set was eliminated as well (meaning all of my personality was no longer accessible, so I was witnessing and experiencing the moment without my normal ways of experiencing reality through my conditioning). It was incredible, disorienting, wild, and transformative while under LSD’s influence. I was to have a drug induced “awakening” where I realized that I was the one controlling my very reality, and through the focus of my will and my heart I could change what I was witnessing in the world. This took on rather bizarre manifestations, with colors swirling through new images, sometimes appearing as if some sort of internal kaleidoscope were projecting images out into my visual field, ALL UNDER MY CONTROL.
When I saw how I could also experience people in a thousand different ways, depending on the position of my internal “kaleidoscope”, I came to realize that I had a lot more say in how I experienced my fellow-man than I ever realized. I can understand why Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), Timothy Leary and so many other pioneers in the modern-day exploration of human consciousness have used LSD. LSD, under the right conditions, can reveal the awesome powers, and potential, of the unconditioned human mind. It can be temporarily transformational, and potentially quite beautiful, and dangerous, as well.

Late in 1977, when my first wife Donelle was in the middle of another relapse into schizophrenic disease, Sean, Donelle, and I undertook a road trip through much of Oregon in my 1962 Buick Skylark. We traveled through much of the Oregon Coast, into Crater Lake, where we illegally camped along the lake rim, and Eastern Oregon around the Bend area. Sean and I had our normal complement of pot and alcohol, as well as a couple of doses of powerful psychedelics, and Donelle had her mental illness, and all of the sometimes bizarre manifestations of it. Sean had known my wife almost since the beginning of my relationship with her, and he was always a kind, supportive presence for her. But, Donelle’s symptoms were hard to understand, and we were both quite helpless and felt out of control in the face of her disease of the mind. Our own disease of addictions was somehow more easily mutually understood and accepted, and we could both maintain some measure of relative emotional order, even in the face of our own insanity.

One evening, we all sat around the campfire, and Donelle continued her sometimes bizarre behavior. She was hearing some sort of collection of voices, and she would talk to herself, and sometimes confuse what we were talking about with what was going on in the secrecy of her own mind. Sean and I would cast uncomfortable facial expressions to each other, and try to engage in conversation with each other solely, especially in the moments when Donelle became overly detached and unresponsive. In a moment of insight, I spoke of my helplessness in the face of managing Donelle’s disease and treatment, and the futility of all of my attempts at understanding her mental illness.

I remembered that I had a form of LSD with me, which was not only a powerful mind expanding drug, but it was also known for occasionally creating a variety of temporary negative psychological reactions including acute paranoia, which is a form of mental illness. It was then that I wanted to take the drug, and see if it would provide any insights into Donelle’s mindset, as well as how I might manage my relationship with her mental illness. Sean thought that I should give up on that thought, and stick to the pot and alcohol. But I insisted, and I took the psychedelic. I did not receive the desired illumination, but it showed that my deepest desire was to be of help to Donelle, as well as to try to understand the nature of mental illness, and how to bring a measure of healing to a most difficult life situation.
I found that the older that I got, the less of a positive experience that I had with psychedelics so I stopped all use. In 1980, I used LSD for the last time, sharing the experience with Dan Dietz. I had trouble “coming down” from the experience, and it took two days to return to my normal “psychological set”. That second day, I feared that I would never return to normal, and that I would be stuck for the rest of my life in this in-between state of anxiety and mental illness. I was never tempted to use LSD again.

While there is a huge potential upside to the use of psychedelics, there can also be downside to their use, and the person contemplating mind altering drugs should research this subject, as if for an upper graduate degree. There are Ayahuasca excursions into the Amazon jungle, where the local shamans administer a concoction to the participants seeking a deeper understanding of their own life, and their spirit connection with the absolute.. There are terminal ill patients therapeutically using psychedelics, which has been shown to reduce or eliminate “death terrors” for such patients, while also providing profound guidance for those terminally ill persons. Those seeking such experiences can find appropriate therapists who have access to these drugs and are willing to administer them to the appropriate patient, but they obviously don’t advertise these capabilities on their web sites.

I do not regret ever having used a psychedelic drug. If there was a logical reason for using them again, I would consider that as a viable option. Ram Dass has many great stories around his use of psychedelics, and it is not my intention to become a cheerleader for those who continue to use them, or to become a proponent for the human experimentation of these mind altering substances, and their potential application for improving mental health and spiritual awareness.

Psychedelics worked for me, but only for a short period of time. For now, I am quite satisfied with my connection to the “higher power” that I have developed through the practice of meditation and mindfulness, exercise, healthy food, and social connections. The positive aspects of mind expansion without drugs occurred for me much later in adulthood, and I had similar sorts of mind altering experiences, in much more natural, permanent, and less disruptive ways.

What kind of life exists where one might have a more natural experience of the truth of being without the use of mind altering substances, what kind of life there would be to live, and what kind of person might one become?. I had made no preparations for how to live life without substance abuse, nor would I, at least initially, have adequate language to describe my hopes for the sober life, other than in the simplest, vaguest of terms.

With the exit from Portland’s underworld community, in March of 1987 and my own exit from the drug-induced and culturally inculcated insanity, a new world waited to welcome me, but it did not just reach out and grab me by the hand, and lead me down the path to recovery and reintegration back into the community. With all that I have previously written about the time beginning with recovery from addiction and alcoholism , it would be a mistake to assume that I was totally conscious about what was going on, and the direction that I was headed from 1987 forward. All that I knew was that after I had made “conscious contact with the God of my understanding”, my old life seemed to disappear. I had an ability to describe the world that I had left behind, but I had no language to describe the new world that I was entering into, or the new experiences that were unfolding in the new life of sobriety. I had never felt like I was an accepted and honored part of the outside world in the first place, so finding my new people, and my language, were important endeavors to me, once I was firmly on the path to sobriety and enhanced spirituality.

(Perhaps it would be good to document the BIG THREE spiritual experiences of 1987 here, or even in the earlier section)

This desire for a loving integration into the wholeness of life first arose several years before, when I yearned for peace. While addicted, I could not fulfill the conditions for its experience. The transformation was many, many years in the making, but when it appeared within me, I was no longer tormented by my social insecurities, or my feeling of disconnection from God, my fellow-man, or from the plants and animals that grace this beautiful planet that we share. Somehow, I had “let go of the controls” of my old ego state of mind, and a new order started revealing itself, from moment to moment. At times I felt like a “guided missile”, never knowing the destination for my life, but trusting whatever it was that had launched my new life into existence would get me to the right place at the right time..

I still had memories of my former life, yet they no longer informed my day-to-day thoughts, my decisions, or my overall outlook on life and love. I did not know who the “new me” was, though the “new me” always had a smile, and felt continuous joy. I had a series of spiritual upheavals which defied my rational mind, and I did not have the words to describe or contain the experience for many years to follow. It was as if a new person had landed in my consciousness, the “old me” had died, and now I was informed, moment to moment, by a powerful force of peace or silence, or Love itself.

Before 1987, there were “many people with their disfiguring concepts” roaming around in my mind, but now that “committee of the many” had permanently adjourned, and there was now only one peaceful presence, a new ordering principle for my consciousness. And not only did I not have the language developed for the new story, the small story that I did begin to tell did not necessarily meet with a friendly reception from others. When I told my story, I would usually be met with silent stares, a quick change of subject, or general disinterest., though a friend from a men’s group claimed that I was a “walk-in”, a term used to describe when the old ego departs a body, to be replaced by a new being.

My family still saw me in terms of the past, for the most part, as my history created great scars on the psyche of fellow family members, as well as the friends and acquaintances of my years prior to recovery. But, they could appreciate that the “new me” no longer required their extra concern or care, as I was now an independent, upright, fairly conscious human being. I made healthy choices in my relationships, and I chose a new, fulfilling career to replace all of the career wreckage from my past. I was but a boy again, though, while still learning the ropes, meeting new friends, discovering new possibilities for myself and others, and, occasionally, still sipping from the inner healing springs of the Miracle that can quench the spiritual thirst of all who seek it out.

This new being, this upgraded Bruce 2.0, which appeared in the summer of 1987, was like those miracle babies and children that I had always envied, and doubted. During most of the time after June of 1987, until I met my present wife Sharon in August of 1989, I spent over six hours a day in prayer and meditation, and probably as a result experienced blessed states on an almost continuous basis. I now “heard and felt” God, and I was taught on the inner spiritual plane about aspects of life, and consciousness, that I had no way to learn or know about otherwise. This was not a “Christian” God, or a “Jewish” God, or the Buddha Mind, or “Christ Consciousness”, but those names certainly pointed to the new reality that I had somehow accessed, and been dramatically changed by.

As hard as it is for me to write about this now, or, understandably, for the reader to believe this story, I was taught by the “Master Teacher”, whoever, or whatever, that might be. We all have access to inner wisdom not borne of our personal experience, yet it lies, mostly ignored, in the inner recesses of our hearts and souls, for much of our lives. I was given a new blank slate to write my new self upon, a new possibility for living, and being, in this world, aided by this new connection with my own wisdom. The world that I once wanted to depart from so badly, was now paradise on Earth, and I knew that Heaven was not a concept for the future, but a living reality only for the present moment. But, I could not carry the “old me” into that world, I had to leave ALL of my verbal and non-verbal memory possessions behind, so to speak, to stay in tune with the new Spiritual music.

I have noted from my understanding and experience of others who have had dramatic spiritual experiences, is that, initially, they experienced a state of being poor communicators around the event. This lack of articulateness is quite a common, for several years that follow such an upheaval. Those that have a strong religious background try to use the language of that system of thought to interpret and communicate their own unique opening. For those who do not have a well established religious background, or who might need other language or images to convey their experience, the search through historical literature to see what others have written about their own cosmic events have been found to be helpful. There is an attempt to try to use a language that others might understand, but, unless they too have had spiritual lightning strike them, the search for an equally enlightened/awakened peer group is liable to be fairly unsuccessful, at least initially. Then there are also those who just throw up their hands, and give up on the idea of ever communicating with others about the transcendent state. And, finally, there are those whose minds are irreparably damaged by the experience, and though they may remain “connected to the Spirit”, their behavior and style is indicative of a person who is insane, and operating well outside of socially and culturally accepted standards.

I did not have the capacity to communicate with others what I was experiencing, for many years after 1987. I would refer to my “rebirth”, and talk of the “old me” with those who were interested, especially in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. The people who met me after my rebirth could not believe that I was ever addicted or dysfunctional in self-destructive or other-destructive ways, and I learned to not wave that recovery flag at every new person I met, so that they could have an honest chance of knowing me for who I now was, rather than who I might have been long ago. It was my movement through all of these new relationships which helped to define for me the “new me”, who I was now, how I now related to and appreciated others, and how I now loved unconditionally most everyone that I met. All of humanity became my brother or sister in this new reality, and my lifelong sense of dreadful separation from others had been lifted. I then set out to find “my people” and find out where I might fit into the new world order that was revealing itself within my mind and heart. In my naiveté, I assumed that most others naturally came by this understanding, and that I was finally catching up, spiritually, with the “normal folks”, the folks that never were so unhappy as to consider alcoholism, drug addiction, and/or suicide for themselves.

I eventually became active in the great outdoors again through hiking and backpacking, I resumed bicycle riding with an association with Cycle Oregon over several years, I learned tennis, and I also ended up excelling in road and trail racing as a runner, albeit an older runner (in the master’s division), competing individually and also appearing on several championship or near-championship level Master’s teams in both the Hood To Coast and Rainier To Pacific races. I was able have a “redo” of my life, and experience success and failure based on my own decisions, and actually glean wisdom from my interactions with life, rather than hate myself and/or others for its sometimes difficult teachings. And, yes, the new life was quite fertile ground for learning.

This new life also provided me with some of the language that I needed to communicate better with others what I had experienced on the inner plane. It also started to provide me with the language needed to describe the foundational consciousness which predisposed me, and our world to dysfunctional and self-destructive behavior, but I was not to get the full message until much later in life. Having allowed myself to return back into the world after this second birth, I subsequently gained insight into the matrix of collective human misunderstanding that was the foundation for our collective consciousness as a human race. I had no inclination to attempt to describe the “light” as the mystics and poets experienced it, for I saw the futility of that path of “via positiva” for me. My path was primarily informed by two major categories for spiritual liberation. These two are “via transformativa” and “via negativa”. which are the techniques using personal responsibility, insight, meditation, as well as other agents for spiritual evolution. If the debris field of human consciousness has been healed and cleared, via negativa.and via transformativa have been successfully accessed, integrated together, and applied to one’s spiritual journey.

What is left, after the garbage is cleared? If might be considered similar to the process of metamorphosis, which brings forth the butterfly from the caterpillar. If the butterfly could talk, I would assume that it would much rather talk about its new freedom, and the ability to fly, rather than its previous form of life sliding over the dirt Yet, the only life that the butterfly arose from was with ground dwellers, and that is where all of its past stories were created. Could you imagine that butterfly going back and telling his caterpillar friends about the potential for a new life, and what the “ground dwellers” might say in response?

How about
“get lost, you were never one of us, anyway?”
or
“well, it must be nice for you to fly, but it is just not for me right now?”
or
“have you heard about the great tasty leaves that parsley plant has?”

are three potential responses from those who think that change is threatening, unnecessary, irrelevant, or impossible, for themselves.
There is new life available to all, yet I won’t devote too many words on that one. I am not a poet, and I don’t need to draw a big audience for those who are the seeker moths of our world who blindly follow the latest human “light”. The “light” is best experienced personally and non-verbally, for then there are no conflicts created between “the word” versus “the truth of the moment”. It is best to see this process for oneself. The word will forever remain a shadow, cast by the light built into the divine heart of mankind, as it tries to define the “undefinable”. Yet, if the heart is in the right place, the words formed and delivered will become attuned to and resonant with the energies pointing to healing of self and of the other.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Awakening, Part 4

Perfection lies, behind all eyes,
We, who would look within ourselves, will find,
The Sublime Surprise, of which all Life does comprise,
The Divine Self of all Mankind.
We, who have made our choice, with one free voice,
Call to our Eternal Source Supreme,
We will no longer roam, we are coming Home,
We are awakening from the “human” dream!
With courage draught, from fear made naught,
We move from temporal shadow to Eternal Light,
The Kingdom sought becomes the Vision caught,
Whosoever overcomes, now sees with unhindered sight!
The Love All-Knowing, the Truth now showing,
With Divinity, We walk hand in hand.
In us its growing, through us its flowing,
Embracing all between space and land.
With Hearts entwined, One Soul Divine,
To this world, We are a blessing immense.
Though we pass this way for but a day,
With Divine experience, who would dare dispense?

Mayan ruins at Cerros

I AM (Bruce Paullin, written in Belize in January, 2019)

I am the brightest of mornings, I am the cloudiest of days,
I am the silent night altar upon which mankind prays and preys.
I am the Olmec and Mayan of times old, recent, and new,
I am all civilization’s ruins, and I am the ever-evolving life that regrew.
I am the bird’s call, I am the wind beneath its wings,
I am the music and its spirit that joyously lifts our hearts up to sing.
I am the water, I am the lagoon and the bay,
I am the infinite ocean where my children are birthed, live, love and play.
I am the blue sky, I am the gathering of clouds,
I am the lightning storms that are now appearing so dangerous and loud.
I am the wind, I am the warm soothing breeze,
I am even our cold’s most raucous cleansing sneeze.
I am the dolphin and manatee, I am the mangrove lined shores,
I am waves crashing against rocks, that photographers adore.
I am the mind, and I am the end to its lonely thoughts,
I am the heart’s loving web in which we are miraculously caught.
I am the boisterous protests, and I am the crowd made quiet,
I can be even be found witnessing the white supremacists’ riot.
I am the wealthy, and I am the hurt, oppressed and poor,
I am your heritage until we all are no more.
I am the Sanders and Pelosis, I am the Putins and Trumps,
I am love’s warriors, and I am also hate’s chumps.
I am the Christian, and the Hindu, I am the Muslim and the Jew
I am the Atheist and Buddhist who you never thought that you knew.
I am the cancer, and I am the movement towards health,
I am the healing balm that works mysteriously in stealth.
I am the grief, and I am the pain and the sorrow,
I am the deepest well of hope from which we eternally borrow.
I am the life, I am the body and its breath,
I am the blessed last moment before each of our deaths.
I am the death of self that leads to the only true heaven,
Our denial of this truth brings the hellish news on channel two at eleven.
I am the sacred, and I am even the profane,
I am the source of all that we treasure, resisting me only adds to life’s pain.
I am not the movement of our thoughts, while we cling to concepts of time,
I am the emergence from all shadows, we all must reach for the sublime
What is my name, and where is my place?
Being ONE is seeing Me on every smiling and suffering sentient beings’ face.

“Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” – Psalm 46:10

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream!

—-(the song may have originated with Eliphalet Oram Lyte in the mid 19th century)

For such a well known, common song for children, this little tune also serves up a profound apothegm for adults. This song out of American minstrelsy may well point to an ultimate truth. Yet, what is the nature of the “dream” that the song refers to? Is it a “conscious dream” where the dreamer can be interactive with the dream, and thus can control the conditions of their personal experience, or is it an “unconscious dream” where the dreamer is only a passive observer or witness to the dream, with little input to give to the ever unfolding story? Is it always wise to “go with the flow”, especially if the flow may be taking us over a waterfall or into an eddy?

As we move our vehicle of consciousness through life, or “down the stream”, if we are going with the flow, we are probably going to have a merrier time of it all! Yet, what about flow, or “the stream”? For most of us, we are carried down a stream of consciousness that we call fate, and are unaware of, or have become oblivious to, other possibilities because we are so familiar with the scenery that we have normalized it, and accepted it as the fact of our existence, and forgot, or never learned, that our destiny is much more under our control than we presently know. We all know that Life also has its “upstream challenges”, and we are forced to “row our boat up the stream” to achieve some objectives that may not normally be available for those who only go with the flow. Some of the greatest discoveries, and joys, come to those who have become conscious, and know when to row upstream, or to drift downstream, for maximum happiness.

The basic definition is that dreams are subconscious imaginings that contain sounds, images, and other sensations while you sleep. Sigmund Freud was one of the first psychologists to really study dreams. His psychodynamic approach to dreaming led to his theory of unconscious wish fulfillment. … It is believed that a person’s thoughts, feelings, and memories are represented by concrete objects and symbols in a person’s dreams. Yet, the same process that creates dreams while we sleep is also operative while we are awake. While we sleep, we are only accountable to ourselves, yet while we are awake, we must integrate and correlate our dreams with others, to create a consensus understanding of what we are witnessing together, or the subject who cannot match his internal story with the external world will be regarded as insane, or out of touch with reality. If enough members of community fail to correlate with each other, chaos will result.

We have tried to investigate our conscious common knowledge, and our unconscious common knowledge, to see what influences these factors have in our evaluation of what reality may be, and how we may respond to it, efficiently, effectively, or otherwise.

Yet uncommon knowledge does exist as another realm of potentially profound influence that we all have access to, whether we do so, or not.

What is the source of our consciousness, the place where all of our dreams reside? Is it “ultimate truth”, the sublime, God, Allah, the Universe, etc? What is its nature? Can we access this “infinity”? Are we already this “infinity”?

An interesting thought experiment is to speculate that if God is infinite, and if God has the ability to be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, which are three qualities that many spiritual theorists attribute to God, then everywhere that God is, I am. So there must be a certain innate quality or potential that I have to see as God sees, or God would not be infinite, or omnipresent, and thus would not exist, at least according to our basic assumptions. As I look around, if I can suspend the movement of my thought for long enough, and stop naming everything that I am seeing, I might actually start to experience the “outer world” as myself in an undifferentiated form, instead of a stream of words and images that may, or may not, bring a unified vision. If I hold to the thought that in God’s universe, there is only God, therefore there is no “you” to be seen, only the extension of God’s infinite self. If I would like to tackle an apparently infinitely difficult task, I would begin to make the effort to not see things so much in terms of words, thoughts, and images, but also in terms of being the very extension of myself. If I can maintain that energy of intention, I just might align myself with God long enough to “see as God sees”. Then, all that I will ever see, unto eternity, is myself.

Then I finally see a world that is the extension of myself. The world, with all of its beauty, wonder, color, sounds, animals, plants, water, weather, stars in the sky, and people in my life. It is much easier to see the world as an extension of myself as long as there is beauty, wonder, and harmony, but what about when I witness the horrors of man’s inhumanity and his wanton destruction of the earth, and, at times, his abuses against his family, his neighbors, his fellow man in general? If I am still holding fast to the idea that “all that I will ever see, unto eternity, is myself” this becomes a most difficult proposition, especially if I want to maintain my equanimity.

A potential trap opens up, the trap that says “all that is human is illusion” and what my eyes are witnessing is not really there, because only God and its peaceful, perfected, unified world exists in truth. Yet, in truth, my eyes see otherwise, so I either deny the truth that I am witnessing, and ignore what I am seeing, or I must begin to approach a different understanding of what I am actually witnessing, and how I am supposed to be relating to it. If I stop judging against , the dysfunction, the horror, the inhumanity, the ignorance, the deceit, the disease, and instead attempt to be present with a spirit of non-judgement, another possibility opens up to me. Since I am no longer placing a barrier between myself and the “other” through all of my words and judgements, I am now fully present in whatever fundamental nature that I have, and that I am. And I might actually feel empathy for the other. Compassion may come upon me, as I see that “the other” has made choices, or had choices made for them, that brings suffering to self, often times needless suffering. I no longer deny what I am witnessing, as I am witnessing the very essence and substance of the human experience on the Earth plane of reality. I am no longer separate from it, I AM IT. This is a most difficult realization, but even Jesus finally had to acknowledge “I am that I am”. Anywhere that there is consciousness, I AM THAT. Human, animal, plant, earth, all have a native “I am”, and therefore I AM THAT.

The Pearl

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
—-Jesus of Nazareth

One of the quickest ways to turn off many an atheist or agnostic is to start a message with a quote from Jesus! Our egos certainly take a liking or a disliking to certain messengers, depending upon our vision and values, and how well the messenger conforms to our hopes and expectations. Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mohamed, Kant, Aristotle, Nietzsche are all potential guides for those who consider themselves lost, which, typically, are all those still enmeshed with their ego, So this brings up a question:

Of what value to us is our ego?

Our ego can be likened to the shell of an oyster. The oyster shell is rarely recognized for its own beauty. Like the oyster shell, our personality may be appealing to some, ugly to others, or just plain uninteresting. Yet we all have access to different, unknown, and, potentially, sublimely transformative layers of our self, even though the personality often fails to consciously engage with them.

In an oyster, natural pearls form when an irritant, usually a parasite, or, perhaps, the proverbial grain of sand, works its way into an oyster, mussel, or clam. As a defense mechanism, a fluid is used to coat the irritant. Layer upon layer of this coating, called ‘nacre’, is deposited until a lustrous pearl is formed.

The pearl developed inside gives the oyster its unique value to human beings, who prize the pearl’s positive response to a major irritant in its life. But, the shell has to be opened, for all to witness the beautiful visual delight developed and hidden within.

Ego is formed and continuously affirmed in an environment where spiritual discernment has not yet sufficiently evolved. Our ego is our static assessment of a dynamic, changing world, and it is constantly engaged in a state of “catching up” with the truth, however that may be expressing. It can be likened to taking a picture of a movie in midstream, and assuming that the picture represents the entirety of the movie. Wisdom is gained through our experiences in the journey through space and time, and the reinterpretations of and the release from all of the illusory static images stuck in our memory. Wisdom IS the perception that our memory may be clogged with a lifetime of the accumulation of static images, all out of context with our present day intentions to evolve and heal. Life in the Now is eternally dynamic and changing, while the fragile ego clings to its static fantasies and hopes spawned from its past.

If we resist conscious, rational change, our ego will hold onto worn out understandings of life, and become out of touch with the ever unfolding new reality. Yesterdays truth is today’s superstition, and yesterday’s inaccurate assessment of others is today’s isolation and pain, so it is imperative to keep an open mind to change. Otherwise, the ego will be left behind, and suffer according to the cognitive dissonance it allows itself to experience.

At all the intersections of the points of conflict between our inner world and our “outer world”, there are choices to be made. When a conflict arises, do we resist any new message or lesson being offered by another, especially when their understanding does not conform to our own? What about that daughter-in-law who hangs up on you, or the husband who talks more than he should, and is unwilling to change? What about that friend or writer who promotes a way of viewing life that does not conform to our own? These are irritants, and if we use the irritant to justify an inaccurate judgement against, or physical separation from, the offending party, we may have pushed away a layer of nacre for our own internal pearl of wisdom. Our judgements are only verbal measurements of an ever changing environment. Any judgement should be a temporary rest stop, to be left behind when we move in resonance with the new reality continuously unfolding before our eyes. Thus is the way of forgiveness.

Change is not something to just pursue when one has a little spare time. The right change can bring true freedom, which is NOT about guns, money, or religion as damaged males presently interpret these symbols.
Change is irritating, and often threatening, to the ego. Our egos exist to help bring context and balance between what we are witnessing now with what we have experienced in the past, to assess what actions in life we must undertake to meet our social and societal obligations. It is our minds conscious attempt at bringing a balance between the world of form that we share with all of life, and the almost secret world inside of the personal mind. We might believe that we are keeping secrets from each other, but the truth is that we all share in the vast majority of thoughts and inclinations with our fellow man (woman), and we are only in denial of that fact when we don’t believe it and fail to act with compassion towards our self and to others.

If the oyster was a closed system, and did not allow for an internal response to irritants, whatever parasites or grains of sand that entered into the oyster might cause its very destruction. Because the irritant has been addressed, and stabilized through the deposit of the layers of nacre, the oyster continues to thrive, though it is now growing an internal “body” consisting of the layers of the nacre, which are forming into a most lustrous pearl.
So too do we, as humans, have the capacity to make pearls. But we must approach all irritants with love and compassion, or we will produce no spiritual nacre, only more pain and suffering. Those with spiritual discernment are finally able to see the Pearl for what it is, in Truth. Love, or God, takes many forms, and those with the eyes to see, and the ears to hear, witness its action through the loving co-creation of a new reality with others who are also honoring their own pearls. All of the “forgiveness” that we offer to ourselves, and to all offending parties in our world, also create the most lustrous layers of nacre

Do not judge another by their “shell”, but instead, wait, until they can open their self up, and reveal the Pearl of greatest price.
We all experience the effects of thoughtless, capricious human activity. Bring on those “irritants”, as they are the gate keepers to new layers of God consciousness! Remember, most people ask for forgiveness, rather than permission before they engage in their controversial behavior. Self will runs riot in an unconscious world, and we all suffer under a similar burden created through the action of that darkness in our world. Our wisdom, created through spiritually discerning the irritants in life, is our shiny Pearl.

To those who have not fearlessly faced themselves and their own personal darkness, I wish you more pain, as pain is a major gateway to personal change and transformation. The point is to learn meaningful lessons from the pain, and not assume that it arose out of nowhere. Unaddressed pain tends to take over small centers within the mind, and over a period of time the traumatized mind loses its ability to be an avenue of present moment awareness, and it becomes fixated upon a past that cannot be healed.
The institutionalized pain embedded within our memory becomes virtual scabs over our unexamined wounds. Are we just forming scabs that only partially cover our wounds, or are we facing our brokenness, in spirit and in relationship, which contribute to the formation of a healing spiritual nacre within our own mind and hearts.

But truly, what is the pearl of the greatest price?It is your pearl, strung on the same string with the rest of humanity. Our stories imbued with collective wisdom creates the necklace of ultimate value. We must each build our own unique consciousness of truth and love. Then, each of our stories can become the nacre for

THE PEARL OF GREATEST PRICE

which is the story of the ever unfolding wisdom of mankind. Some call this the Christ consciousness, the Buddha mind, or God consciousness.

Wear that necklace with love and compassion!

Wear that necklace with discernment and the applied wisdom of all

“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces”
—–Jesus of Nazareth

But, we still need to be careful with who and how we share our best lessons and messages with. There are those who are so offended when their religious fantasies are challenged, that they might seek for your crucifixion, and speed your passage through those “pearly gates of heaven”. If they are part of the psychiatric community, they may also try to medicate you into submission and oblivion.

We are just growing pearls everywhere, aren’t we?.

Enlightenment does not come to the “fat and happy” people of our
world. People who do not feel the pain of their own lives, and of their
own poor choices, are not ripe for the experience of change. And,
enlightenment is NOT a gentle process, merely attained through reading books, practicing affirmations, talking with our friendly therapists, and attending a few workshops and conferences. To find true enlightenment, a path through personal, and collective, insanity is
REQUIRED. Watch out for the so-called ‘professionals’ of our culture, or
those latest pseudo-spiritual gurus, who continue to try to oppress
this movement, and repress those impulses within themselves, and others under their ‘spell’ or control.

Sensing Our Connection With The Earth

You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment. In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer.
—Thich Nhat Hanh

The Awakening Voice (by Bruce Paullin)

Though the slowly shifting desert sands of time,

Keep creating ever taller dunes for America’s lost, thirsty souls to climb.

It is through transcending our hateful world of so little reason and rhyme,

That we will reaffirm the way of Truth, with its quenching waters of the Sublime.

As seekers for Peace, on Truth’s high mount’ we must continue to climb,

Or we will stumble through the swirling sands of chaotic, corrupted minds.

That tempts and confuses minds with the lies of false rhyme and reason,

So all our inner Lawyers must object to deceit, and charge those thoughts with treason!

Are we but marionette’s dancing images trapped upon the ATM screen of a monetized mind?

With Corporate America’s dollar driven beliefs in full control, what freedom can we find?

We must release ourselves from the spiritual imprisonment of these choking, binding strings,

And unleash our hearts’ truest wisdom that our liberated Intelligence can then bring.

As shadow boxers of Trumped Up Evil, to what ends do we hope to aspire?

Becoming co-champions with false leaders in their nightmares creates situations that are perpetually dire!

When we first heal our own illusions that promote self-destructive mental pugilist blows,

Our hearts can support the real fight against the Dark Ones who are now on public show.

As a pro-Trump marathoner, only on Life’s treadmills will we perpetually stand,

To follow in a liar’s missteps dooms us all to fail and become life’s also-rans,

Who forever just chase in vain Sanity’s unifying, healing voice.

So step off of his divisive, circular belt, and share first place in the Life all may rejoice!

To finally realize the Truth, is to see ignorance’s agendas are only illusions that limit and bind,

Spun together with the same golden threads of the Emperor’s New Clothes, his evil tailors did wind,

To corrupt the minds and hearts of all innocents, and all of the vulnerable that they can find.

So we must continue to seek our own truth, and then our struggle becomes Sublime!

The non-illuminated, restless mind is devoid of all of Love’s rhyme and Truth’s reason,

And only chases after desert mirages, until it sees the internal corruption that is guilty of treason.

Shame on you, Donald Trump, your minions, and the pseudo-Christians who continue to support you.

Blessings to all of America’s holy warriors, who seek for, and hold onto, all that is just, equitable, and true

Sharon and I have embarked on many wilderness backpacking and hiking trips over the many years of our relationship. One of our backpacking trips was to become quite a memorable experience for both Sharon and me. I awoke one morning during the summer of 1992, and finished preparing to leave on a weekend hiking and camping trip with Sharon, up to the Mt. Adams Wilderness Area. My senses were somehow heightened, and I felt as though I could see and hear better than I was accustomed to. Food tasted better, the air carried many more scents, and my entire body felt alive with vitality, and sensation, well beyond what I was accustomed to experiencing in my day-to-day life. I had to work that day, so I ignored my “extra sensory perception” for most of the work day, and I remained excited about joining with my beloved partner on a hike to Lookinglass Lake, which would end up becoming around a 10 mile hike, in one direction.

LOVE’S REUNION (poem by Bruce Paullin)

I stumbled over the frozen wilderness for oh, so long!
With a hole in my heart that life could just not fill
Until I stopped to rest, and heard a gentle voice singing a long forgotten song
That promised of my release from this winter world of painful chill
Her lyrics spoke of the return of Life to freedom
And the release of shivering minds from darkness’ frozen, fearful hands
She drew me closer without any further verbal tethers
And prepared me for the walk back to Love’s now awakening lands
Her warming presence melted the icy hardness that I used to know
Inspiring within me the courage, to myself and my world, to say
That, to all of my past memories’ barren trees of lifeless knowledge, I now refuse to go
I will now accept only the lessons learned along Love’s Infinite Way
Yes, she met me while I was with the dark companion
But it was to her pleasure to take me home to share her loving lights
And give me the shelter of Love’s never setting summer sun
She changed my cold mourning into happier, heavenly nights!
By freely offering of herself and all of her sacred charms
She moves me through life’s clamorous valleys unto its silent peaks
I can now retire from a life of fruitless wanderings
To live in the Source of Peace of which mankind forever seeks
Her life is resplendent with Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty
For these are the robes with which she clothes her being
The gift of Love now unwraps before my inviting eyes
To reveal her ecstatic vision, which is now all-seeing
My search for Truth and Love Sublime has finally ended
For, I now fill my empty cup from her joyous running streams
I have reunited with my eternally fulfilling lover
And, her healing waters dissolve all of my painful dreams
I only seek to remain within her all-embracing arms
While through all life she extends her ever unfolding surprise
My first waking breath each morning brings the certainty
That, from my bed, joined as one, we again shall arise
My broken heart and shattered life is finally mending
And, wedded to her life, I now call her my faithful bride
Life no longer has a fearful road ahead to travel
For, One with God, on Love’s lighted path, I now gratefully stride

There is an eternal tension between what is truth and what is falsehood, and the spiritual requirement not to create and worship idols, physical or verbal. They also point to the supporting conditions behind one’s potential for spiritual evolution and final ascendancy out of false knowledge and the suffering that results from entertaining such thoughts..

Life is always a self-fulfilling prophecy, yet whose self are we fulfilling?

What if your life is fulfilling the prophecies of your religion and culture, rather than that of your true self?

While unenlightened forces dominate human consciousness, oppression and repression are born, and nurtured.

This creates more damaged human beings, who continue to remain unconscious, and thus overpopulate this planet.

The fate of these damaged people is to continue to damage themselves, each other, and the very planet that supports and sustains them, until they find their self and its truth.

Find the self, and the life that has a great future, and discard the one that will die with our rotting civilization.

Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. All that we presently see, or anticipate that we might see, unto eternity, is our self, and the extension of our hopes and dreams.

I see a great future for our planet, if enough of us break free from the effects of the collective oppression by others and, ultimately, the repression of our Spirit. If enough of us find the only self that can be free, collective liberation becomes more of a possibility.

What on Earth is humanity waiting for?

The goal might be to make “love” the leading, or first, thought considered, but in my reality, it does not always automatically arise, nor should it, just because I think that it is a good idea. It is important to note here that ideas that initially appear to be counter to our prevailing philosophy may have legitimate origins, and discovery and exploration of the mind and our individual experience of it should continue without fear and self-judgement, as we attempt to discern the “truths” being communicated. If our “prevailing philosophies” are not subject to change, then we risk excess friction in all of our relationships, especially as we slip further and further away from the new, upgraded truth trying to be revealed.

Of course, once “new ideas” become integrated, they can be just as resistant to change as old, damaged, worn out thoughts, and the new synthesis will require continuous further revision until some sort of all-encompassing philosophical unity arises (or God-consciousness, for those who like to tie spirituality and religion together).

The “unknown” is the opening in our mind and heart that God (change to higher power, or whatever represents love, beauty, and healing to you) speaks through, so that we can find the truth and spirit of this new moment. Do not fear the unknown, as it can be so much more than we could ever anticipate or imagine.

Even after our most sincere and deepest “prayers”, there still must be an opening created within our minds where we can listen and watch, without fear or judgement, for the “answer”, which is always provided, and rarely understood. An overactive mind runs over the quiet truth that is revealed in each moment, so take off those mental workout clothes, and take a breather!

We will never change “God’s mind”, but we just might change our own, and, in that change, the real miracle of life can be revealed, and our lives healed and renewed. The “One Mind Of God” can only be experienced in each new moment, in the ever-unfolding unknown and unknowable moment that is now. This unique new moment can only reveal itself to a mind no longer burdened only with its own knowledge, or the knowledge of others’ endeavors.

Freedom from our cultural hypnotism may not be for everybody now, but it certainly is for me, now, and for all of eternity. I am grateful for my wife Sharon White, who shares in the new/old insight. May all sentient beings be freed from their suffering. But first, all sentient beings must become conscious enough to be aware of the options available to free themselves from their suffering. Pay attention to the man behind the curtain! Get to know him at the deepest level. And then, don’t give up finding truth, beauty, and love until the real Miracle appears in your own life, OK?

Like my father asked, when I was nearly four years old, and finally learned how to talk,

“Will that boy ever run out of things to talk about?”
and

“Bruce, would you please shut up! I am the only one who should be talking and it is your time to just listen”

Once I started talking I proved that I had the capacity for speech, and A LOT OF IT. Both of my parents wondered, at times, if I would ever shut up. Once a person touches Consciousness, Infinity is the limit to our potential. Yet, my own voice disappeared, after many years of oppression, and repression,
The long-term oppressive effects of the conspiracy of silence that plagues most men will continue to limit our potential to experience happiness and longevity, and love for our life. That certainly was the case for my own life, and nearly eventuated in my early death at thirty years of age,
What if a real miracle was trying to happen in our lives, and too few people cared or were not even aware enough to attempt to look for it? This indifference or ignorance is the foundation for chaos in our world, and within our own minds.

Those who refuse to look at the toxic masculinity inspired darkness within our culture become its unconscious and, unwittingly, its most ardent supporters. Indifference and hatred continues to threaten to destroy everyone and everything. Tragically, in this age, collective outpourings of love and support for victims follow domestic terrorist acts, rather than healing and preparing the culture enough to actually prevent the heinous behavior in the first place. But through Insight and mindfulness, minds and hearts are transformed, making all of us much less likely to become the source of suffering for others, and we become the living examples of loving non-violence in action. Insight plants the seed of the miracle into our minds, and mindfulness is the great gardener of that miracle, resulting in a more abundant, healthy crop of happier, peaceful, loving, and ordered thoughts.

I am humbled and amazed by both 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 in all of lives, and lift all of us together into a unity of love, thought, action, and a new shared story of world healing and wholeness. May the Word spontaneously arise from our SACRED SILENCE, and not from the chaos of our troubled past,
As I contemplate the entirety of my life, I see a simple truth arising from the complexities of the details. Silence born of ignorance and oppression brings suffering and disease. Silence born of healing brings joy and love into the world. This same Silence brings forth the capacity to listen with the heart for the deepest meaning embedded within All of Life, in All of Its infinitude of forms, and return the dignity back to each sacred manifestation of life.
Is anybody really listening to each other?

Have we given up on trying to communicate with those who trouble us?
Those blessed few who have learned how to really listen, finally hear the “voice for God”. And, we finally get to live in the creation that Love provides for us all, when we accept Love’s vision as our own,

And, no, Father, in whatever form Father energy may now take,
I will never “shut up”!

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

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 of our families of origin,
Sing your song, like your life depended on it, BECAUSE, IT DOES! All of our lives depend on each others stories. Those who will not listen to our story, and in turn, will not share their own story with us, are still stuck in their own story of repression and oppression. They are still unconscious participants in the 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 UPS driver making a delivery to his 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 beloved poetry and healing balms for all,

My deceased friend Marty, just prior to his death, stated to me that the most important act that he had ever done was to encourage me to join his men’s cancer survivor’s writing group, and to encourage me to finally start to share my “magic” with the world. I was with him when he wrote his last creative story, which became an amazing story of acceptance and his release from the world of the conditioned mind.

As I look at my life’s history, I bear witness to Love and its healing Mystery. And, to those courageous few that have made it this far, you have finally heard my own unique voice. Yet I also realize that even though I have finally found my voice, others still will never find their ears to hear it, or, tragically, their own unique voices to help bring further healing to the world.

I have penetrated the Conspiracy of Silence around issues of cultural, religious, and family dysfunction, and, thus, I have lived well beyond my expiration date. The conspiracy of silence, as it manifests through patriachy and toxic masculintiy, continues in earnest in the United States, and its principles still rule much of our population. I no longer participate in the Common Knowledge, and Unconscious Common Knowledge game theories where we all victimize each other with our ignorance.

It is time to free ourselves!

My “miracle experiment” continues in earnest, and I am no longer pilloried by male dominated ignorance, pseudo-religious reasoning, and idolatry. We all have the innate, though frequently undeveloped, capacity to rise above the insanity of our world, and I encourage all willing people to continue to assert their Truth, and to hold fast to what is true, righteous, ethical, and moral.

I have “proven” my Uncommon Knowledge Theory in my own life, and I no longer cling to limited, hateful, mistaken, outdated perceptions of my self, or of others. I remain a mystery, even unto myself. Yet, I AM. And, even more amazing than that, I AM THAT I AM.

My world can never be the same,

How about yours?

Chapter 19: Dreams As Guides In Slaying The Minotaur

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily , merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.—-Nursery rhyme from traditional source.

The closer that we get to the Truth, the more we realize that we have always lbeen dreaming. .Dream until your vision becomes reality. The imaginal world, and reality, are two sides of the same coin. Dream with wisdom and discernment, and a loving, compassionate reality will result—-Elisha Scott

I have simultaneously traveled several paths on my way to the exit from the Labyrinth, and towards freedom from internalized trauma. One of the obvious ways was to study my life, and see where any inflection points were incurred where my life went unexpected, self-destructive, and even tragic directions.

Through investigation of my past, studying family and personal narratives, and becoming aware of the concurrent cultural narratives, I could see the process of my life, and how consciousness was influenced, or even built, by those forces. As mentioned earlier, all that I see, or can ever see, from an individual perspective is myself, so by the study of relationships, I could actually see how, while in relationship with the world, I created the various versions of myself. This investigative activity was predominantly a conscious experience, with my intention, and intuition, leading the search for truth…

One other path that I took was to study and develop a narrative around was that which unfolded within my dream time. Dreams are often seen as almost chaotic eruptions from the body, or the subconscious mind. I have found, though, that dreams are anything but unconscious, and, in fact, often times offer a compelling view of the fundamental forces at work within the biological and spiritual ecosphere. Remarkably, many of these dream time messages are not necessarily emanating from immediately recognizable parts of the conscious, individual that I call myself, and, in fact, are emanations from the collective mind of mankind, and even from psychic, cosmic, magical and mystical realms. But, be careful, and enter into these realms with humility, lest a powerful resistance to our conscious presence, and a virtual kickback will be experienced.

I am not a religious person, though I have joined with the community of many theologians who believe that dreams are one of God’s (or, Higher Power, Universe, Healing, Spirit, Grandfather Great Spirit, The One, etc.) primary ways of getting our attention and ordering reality for us. In the absolute, there is little difference between what we experience through our dreams and through our so-called waking reality. Awake or asleep, internally we respond in real time to what we witness as if both experiences have equal footing in reality. So could God/Truth be trying to tell us something while we are sleeping?

Here are seven spiritually significant dream categories that point to more than meets the mind’s eye….

Visitation Dreams
It’s common to have a visitation dream after a loved one passes. The deceased often appear in bodily form, healthy and luminous, in order to communicate an important message: “I’m okay.”, or “There is nothing to fear about death”. I have had several of these dreams over the years, with my most recent experience revolving around the recent death of a good friend.
Prophetic Dreams
Many people have had a “dream that came true.” Our dreams may use our past experiences to produce a probable series of future events—showing us patterns that help us make better choices when we’re awake. I have had several dreams that have predicted EXACTLY events that were to happen, yet they remain unreliable predictors of the future, because the future is always changing, depending upon changes made in the present.
Warning Dreams
God—and our body—can sometimes speak in dreams to warn us about imminent danger, especially regarding health. We may dream of a specific body part or even receive a verbal warning. In a 2015 study of women diagnosed with breast cancer, 83 percent had dreams that were more vivid than normal. And 44 percent reported hearing specific words like “breast cancer” or “tumor.” I had a dream where I saw that my friend, who had metastatic brain cancer, needed to trust his own healing process, rather than resisting and trying to control it.
Healing Dreams
These are the internal creations that bring us from an “out of balance” place into “harmony and balance.” They often involve a mystical encounter. I have experienced many healing dreams, I had one amazing dream with my deceased grandpa Henry which, to this day, inspires and confounds me.
Heavenly Dreams
According to a 1989 study, more than half of healthy young adults who dreamed of death spent a significant amount of time in that dream in heaven. These dreamers sometimes go down a tunnel or pathway and arrive at heavenly destinations. They also frequently encounter deceased loved ones. I have had dreams where I have heard the songs and sounds of the “angels of heaven”, carrying a message of beauty beyond my ability to describe or define.
Mutual Dreams
A mutual dream is when two people—typically in separate locations—dream of the same thing at the same time. According to a 2017 study, shared dreams are 80 percent identical on average. They often occur between close friends or relatives. Interestingly, 4 percent of these dreams are shared by strangers. A most profound realization and insight may come to the dreamer, that the collective mind of man dreams through individuals, and individuals dream through the collective mind of mankind. We are one, after all, you and I.
Remote Viewing Dreams

Remote viewing dreams can be some of the most confusing of dreams. Literally, the dreamer walks into the awareness of another personality, and witnesses the same activity as that person being witnessed. One of the more amazing dreams that I have had in recent years was a dream involving June Thomas’s brother Dale, where, while sleeping, I saw what June saw, when she attended to her fallen brother. In the dream, I fell between the toilet and the wall. That same evening, June witnessed her brother falling between the toilet and the wall.

Revisitation Of Past Lives

Revisitation of past lives dreams can be one of the rarest forms of dreams available, and are rarely accessible to most people. They share a lot in common with remote viewing dreams, where the dreamer is able to experience, or, perhaps, re-experience, phases or aspects of a life that they never experienced in the present lifetime. Literally, the dreamer sees through the eyes of someone not living in this era. Information may be given of specific historical events, geographical locations, or even of the eyes of the “deceased” person that the dreamer has assumed the identity of during the dream.

I used to have a dream journal by my bedside, where I would record any dream that I had, upon awakening. Sometimes, I would write while still asleep, so as to not lose the essence of the dream. The picture below is of one entry from 2007, and is a truly remarkable dream statement. It seems to prove, at least in the dream, that we may have choices as to what we see, and who we see it through. I have no conscious recollection of ever writing this entry into my journal, and, in fact, this entry was discovered twelve years later, hidden in a notebook which was discovered while on a trip to Japan in 2019.

Wisdom and insight are available through our “dream channels”. Atheists and agnostics have the same capacity as the saints, as far as the ability to access dream wisdom goes.

We are much closer than we presently believe, and our beliefs keep us more separate as a human beings, than together as spiritual beings. June is much more like me, and attuned with me, than I am comfortable with, some times.

The same is true of ALL OF HUMANITY.

Here are a few of my many important dreams. I can see now the progression of these dreams, as I sought for, and gradually gained, the necessary insight to find the new paths to my own healing, and transcendence.

Dream of 1964

In 1964, at 9 years of age I had a most amazing, realistic dream. This was during a period of time when I slept very little, as I usually got to sleep no earlier than midnight, no matter how early I went to bed. I laid in bed and reviewed the day every night before sleep, and see where I could have done things better, or said something a little differently. My dreams had finally evolved beyond the continuous nightmare phase that I was accustomed to, prior to age 8.

THE DREAM:

Lake Titicaca Peru-Bolivia-South-America

Being so immature, and not too worldly in my knowledge, I did not have the necessary background to know what to think about the dream. I discussed the dream with my older sister, who seemed to have some partial answers to its mysteries (based on her understanding of reincarnation), but so many mysteries remained to be explained. I waited and watched for further answers, and went on with the all of the important business of being a carefree boy, though at times, I fleetingly experienced “self-awareness”.

Three years later, while taking World Geography as a class in the 7th grade, I was introduced to the Incan civilization, and Lake Titicaca, which is on the border between Peru and Bolivia. This was, and still is, a very sacred lake, and, according to the lore of the Incan people, it was where the origins of the human race began. I had an eerie sense of familiarity with the lake, and with the people of the area.

Robert “Bobby” Kelly Clements (died 1942 in WWII)

Are dreams potentially portals to other people’s lives? Perhaps even to past lives?

The following post will appear in a future book, written by some unknown writer.

In April of 1987, after I had been sober for about one month after 16 years of hell, I had a series of three dreams, on three consecutive nights.

In the first dream, I was an early teenager, hanging out with 4 or 5 other boys, who were my buddies. My name, in the dream, was Bobby Clements.

In the second dream, we are all enlisting, as a group, to enter WWII. We told the recruiter that we all wanted to fly on the same plane, or we would not accept service. We were promised that the Air Force would do everything in their power to make sure that we all were on duty in the same location, and, perhaps, share space on the same military aircraft

In the third dream, I am piloting an aircraft, with all of my buddies assuming support roles. We are flying into turbulence, and I can no longer keep the aircraft under control. My buddies stay in their positions, but apparently whatever hit us from below, is a fatal blow. I know that we are all going to die. The dream ends.

I researched Bobby Clemens (that is how I assumed the name was spelled) substantially for two months (prior to advent of the internet) later in 1987. I drove to Philomath, Oregon, researching the Clemens family there, but came up short.

Several decades later, my sister took up the search for me. My sister is a STRONG BELIEVER in reincarnation, and she has memories from her own past life experiences.

In her research, she came up with Robert “Bobby” Kelly Clements, of Nova Scotia, Canada.. Robert flew a Lancaster bomber for the RAF out of England, and he was allowed to hand pick his crew, according to the records. He picked his five Nova Scotia friends!

His story was identical to what I saw in the three dream sequence, according to the family reports that she had read about “Bobby”, too.

Umm, Bobby was an electrician prior to his enlistment. As an eight year old, I wanted to become an electrician more than anything, save becoming an Air Force pilot. I had a full ride scholarship to the Air Force, was in the ROTC at the U of Portland, then dropped out due to my first wife’s severe health issues.

I eventually retired, as an electrician, in 2016,.

I tried to commit suicide in 1986, when I finally realized that my childhood dreams of being, first an Air Force pilot, and then an astronaut, were never, ever to be realized in this incarnation.

Eerie!

Here is my letter to my sister, acknowledging the experience:

Pam,

Fascinating to see the photographs, and to hear his story.

Sounds like a match! It is so sad, but it explains so much about

my childhood attraction to bomber planes (I built every version of WWII bombers available in plastic model kits)

12 O clock high, the program about B17 bombers over Germany, was one of my childhood favorites.

The three dreams, on three consecutive nights, were unsettling.

I have ultimate respect, and empathy, for these warriors.

I am also quite saddened.

Thanks!

Love,

your little brother.

Di Di Dream 1988

I wrote my first love poem in 1984, when I became lovers with a woman by the name of Diane (Di Di) McCloud. I had first met Di Di while she was running with Gary, a cocaine dealer and friend to both me and Randy Olson. Gary and I became friends, and Gary eventually stored his money and cocaine in a safe house, which happened to be the home that I lived in. How unlucky was that for me! I got the privilege of running with the same important people that Gary did, including prominent local rock and roll DJ’s, as well as the best local rock and roll bands. And, during this time, I started to fantasize about someday hooking up with his sweetie, but I never had any intention of having an affair with her. Somehow, she stayed with Gary for over two years. Di Di was quite the free spirit, as well as a drug addict, so Gary’s appeal may have been enhanced by his constant supply of drugs.

Randy and I were living near downtown Portland at the time We lived on the 22nd floor of the Panorama Tower, and it was at this home that Randy first brought Di Di, who had recently broken up with Gary, into our shared lives. She hung out with Randy for a few days, then lost interest in him. Somehow, we hooked up after that, early in the summer of 1984, and this most beautiful woman professed her love and willingness to stay connected with me shortly after that. I was blown away, as she was the most attractive, sexy woman I had ever seen. I was so inspired by my relationship with Di Di, that I wrote my first love poem in 1984. She treasured the poem, and actually sought another copy of it shortly before her own death early in 1987. She was to become the first person that I felt I had ever truly loved, but we had to let each other go after a short period of time.

Bruce with a 1984 look

I was to see her two more times in April of 1986. I saw her at a bar in Beaverton, and we traveled to the beach together to Seaside to spend the following evening. She was somewhat distracted, and in the intervening eighteen months since I seen her last she had deteriorated in her appearance, looking a little worn. We drank at the local Seaside bars, until I no longer had any desire to drink anymore. I told her that I was going back to the hotel room, and left her the extra key. She stated that she wanted to keep the party going, and continued drinking and carrying on with some of the local folks. She returned to the hotel room at two in the morning, all excited about some new “friends” that she had made, and the great cocaine that they had shared together. She wanted to bring the two guys back into the hotel room to continue the party.

“No thanks, this is where I take my leave!”

I announced in a rather angry tone of voice. I grabbed my overnight bag, and headed towards home, even though I was drunk, almost to the point of being in a blackout. Somewhere along Highway 26, beyond the Elderberry Inn, I crashed my car into a guardrail, nearly going over a cliff in the process. I could not get out of the drivers side door, it was so crashed in. I quickly got the car back onto the road, in my attempt to get home before any more trouble befell me. When I finally reached North Plains, I fell asleep at the wheel again, stepped on the accelerator, and rammed into the back of another car at freeway speeds. We both pulled over, and I was able to bribe the owner of the car not to call the police, since I was DRUNK, by writing him a check for $471, which was every last penny that I had in my checking account. My car was totaled, but somehow I was able to make it home, miraculously escaping death or a DUI citation.

Di DI called me a month later, wanting to talk, and wanting a copy of the love poem that I had given her two years before. When we met, she told me that the poem was the most beautiful gift that anybody had ever given her, and that she was sorry that she did not find the spot in her life for me. We both cried, and parted company on rather sad terms. She eventually died one year later, when she was killed in a drunken driving related automobile wreck in Lake Oswego.

Di Di became a part of myself and my consciousness, and I had one profound dream with her in it, shortly after her death. In the dream, I am confronted by a man exhibiting aggressive, unkind, abusive behavior. In the dream, I am appalled, disgusted, and threatened by his manner. I call out to a policeman, imploring him to arrest that man, and protect all of us from his violence. Di Di then walks up to me in the dream, taking the policeman’s place, and states quite plainly that for love to reappear in my life, in all of its fullness, I must first “arrest” all of these negative qualities within myself, and rehabilitate my own passions, then love will reappear. The dream ends, but the journey continues.

Poem Written for Di Di, in 1984.

Though hibernating for oh so long

And hiding from the deep pain of winters’ chill

Love reawakens to sing its special song

So for how much longer can we be still?

With eyes that melt winters’ deepest snow

A tender touch that always seem to say

That all we will ever need to know

Will be learned along Love’s way

Two minds that were brought together

Two hearts that seek to share,

Two bodies that need no tether

Two become one, though still a pair

Heavenly nights and rapturous mornings,

Love promises through all of our years,

The sweet, stirring music of love sings

For two souls who now have the ears to hear.

True love can be the source of dreams

For two hearts continuing to awaken.

I pray that we are all each other seems

And share in Love’s next journey taken.

Dream of 1992

In the spring of 1992, while Sharon and I were living in Rock Creek, I had a most amazing dream, and it is the miracle of love, and trust and innocence that enables me to share it (only Sharon has ever heard it , and she had no choice-she woke me up from it). In this dream, I was in my grandfather’s home, sleeping in the bedroom that i always slept in as a child. A “fierce, fiery cluster, or orb, of pure light and love” hovered over me, and though it did not have human form, I knew it to be my grandfather. I was being drawn into his love light, and I knew that, for me to continue, this energy would destroy my body because my body was too weak to support this “fire of love” that came to me. I did not care, for I had finally found what I was looking for, and I began to rise up, and attempt to join with it, knowing my “body” would be destroyed in the process.

Now, in real time, in the physical world, my body was shaking and almost convulsing, and, to Sharon, my “crying and distress” showed that I was having a nightmare. In her concern, she woke me up, and I had never felt so disappointed to have to wake up, as it ripped me away from this most remarkable inner experience. It is also remarkable how absolutely parallel this inner experience in the dream was to my own grandfather’s experience on the operating table, when he was “ripped back into this world” against his will.

But the dream carried many fruits with it into the world that our bodies inhabit (Also, the prayer of gratitude-Grandfather, Great Spirit, Thank You, appeared in my mind and heart back then, as well). I knew that if I wanted to entertain, or to even host, the higher vibrations of love, my body (both physical body and the body of thought constituting myself), must become much stronger, and more open to the powerful energies of Love’s universe. I came to realize that I must improve my physical conditioning and my dietary choices, and continue to be engaged with like minded individuals and groups of people, where energy can be exchanged.

April 1 2017 Dream

After Friday evening’s seminar about mysticism with the Master Spiritual Teacher, Matthew Fox, we returned to our hotel room, to rest up for the next morning’s follow-up workshop on the Cosmic Christ. I had quite the deep, peaceful sleep, which lasted six hours for me. Prior to awakening, I had a most interesting, powerful dream.

What was/is fascinating about this dream is how absolutely awake I was, while having the dream. It is a complete spiritual teaching, and for that, Great Spirit, I thank you, and my gratitude will be expressed through the life lived through me, for now and all time to come.

Curiosity only thrives in an unconditioned mind. Drink freely from its chalice of the Spirit!

In the dream, I opened a door, and walked into a room that was well-lit. The room seemed unfamiliar to me. Inside of the room there was a man standing to the right of the entrance. He greeted me, holding a cup out to me in his hand. He gently offered it to me, and for a moment I considered what it’s contents might be. I then knew that if I drank from it, I would become “intoxicated”, but of a different nature that was still consistent with the path of “sobriety” I currently walked upon. I then noticed a table, where an opened map laid open upon it. The man walked with me to the table, still holding the cup.

I looked at the map, and it was a topographic style map, similar to what I might use for traveling and/or hiking with. There were two distinct areas to it. The path or road, on the right side of the map, had only one dark, solid line drawn from the bottom to the top of the map. But, the section on the left side of the map had several dotted lines that only remotely “paralleled” the route on the right side of the map. I had no judgement about each of the path styles, yet I remained curious about the several dotted line paths, which intersected each other, while also “snaking” their unique individual routes up the map. I noted also that the “dotted line” paths also did not ever cross the path of the solid, dark line, though all of the paths had no distinct starting, or end point.

At the Cosmic Christ workshop, Matthew asked if anyone had a dream that they wanted to share in the big group. Not being a “realized person”, I felt uncomfortable sharing the dream. But when it came time for a break, I took a book to Matthew for signing, and shared my dream with him. He refused to tell me what it might mean, but he had a smile on his face, and told me to let it tell me it’s meaning.

On our drive home, Sharon White took controls of the car, and I started telling her the dream again. It was then that the horripilations (Godchills) began in earnest, and the full meaning came through me. A complete mystical understanding, and teaching, was built into that dream, and it was then I realized that I had indeed drunk from the cup of the Spirit. Yes, I became quite “intoxicated” with Spirit, and I knew then that we had truly been blessed by the Master Teacher.There are two aspects of human consciousness represented here.

The straight dark lined right side of the map represents:

Goal setting and achievement within cultural accepted norms and standards.
automatic, culturally ingrained responses to the world, and to the self
Memory and habitual responses predominate, little creative expression
Worship of authorities, leaders, historical spiritual heroes, and
full blown unconscious participation in the common knowledge game and lemming effect
time based awareness, where personal, religious, and cultural history are unquestioned and treasured as sacred knowledge. Nostalgia and procrastination reign supreme.
Looks to others for salvation
fear of future, guilt, shame, and trauma influenced/controlled history
Personal story married to cultural narrative fully defines individual identity on its road to conformity and collective herd mentality.
Follows the crowd on a superhighway to hell
The Sun is so Hot on this endless, crowded superhighway!

The dotted lined, left side of the map represents:

A life defined by moment to moment experience, where individual choices and decisions fill in the gaps between the dots
A life informed by inquisitiveness and curiosity
High degree of creativity, insight, and intelligence.
Courage to create new paths of conscious awareness
Full blown conscious participation in the uncommon knowledge game
Timeless awareness, where historical understanding is supplanted with the unencumbered intelligence of the spirit. The innate sacredness of each moment is honored.
works out own salvation
life in the present moment
Insight and wisdom lights the uncertain path.
Pick a unique path, on our own stairway to heaven, creating each next step as we continue our ascension

I don’t expect anybody who remains stuck in the right side of the map to understand this dream, except for Sharon and I, and those who wander on the left side.

Mysticism, the heart of all vibrant, evolving religions, also can be a personal reality. It is not, however, for those clinging to structured understandings of life.

Not all who wander are lost—-JRR Tolkien

July Dream of 2021:

I was driving alone on a back country road, into a deep wilderness. The road ends suddenly, with the front of the car hanging over a precipice, I get out car just in time before car falls off of the cliff. I walked up a path into the woods, where I was confronted by community of disfigured men, each one with their own unique, disfiguring handicap. One at a time, each demon engages and threatens me. I wrestle with each one of them, in a steady progression, while I also began developing greater and greater strength. I see a little bit of myself in each demon that I face. After being confronted by each demon, they are changed into a unique human being with normal appearance. They all eventually are engaged, transformed, and fall back and lose interest in me..A ferocious leader appears, and he barely appears to be humanoid in appearance. I see nothing of myself in this monster. The leader tells me that he will subdue me for his pleasure and for his consumption, I ask for help from those I have already faced, and transformed. We don’t defeat the leader, yet the leader releases me and the others from his grasp, when he loses interest. He is not me, or the others. I appear inside of a building. I walk over to a window and look out. I see a man victimizing my first wife, Donelle, I confront the man, and he releases Donelle. She hangs around for a moment then I fly away from her, imbued with a new energy. I then engage in an incredible, dangerous mission, climbing/traversing the upper reaches of a great wall. I stand atop it,. The wall is immovable, but I am free.

I stand at its pinnacle looking out beyond the boundaries of the wall. A new palace on the hillside is just starting to come into view.

The dream ends, and only Life’s infinite vision remains.

The Minotaur has been confronted. The Minotaur has no more influence upon me. And, I have a very good clue now, as to how to retrace my steps, and leave the labyrinth,

FOR GOOD.

NOVEMBER 2021 DREAM

In a recent dream, I was taken on an amazing, enlightening journey through my subconscious and conscious mind. During several vignettes, I am surrounded by a protective cage, a cage which keeps me safe while I visit a legion of different people in differing circumstances. In one case I see Death itself who has taken human form in the personage of a man that I have known for 35 years, and who is nearing his own death times. Death invites me into his creative studio, and though I am friends with him, I say NO THANK YOU, NOT FOR ME AT THIS TIME! There is no color in the world of death, only gradations of black..

I notice that my protective cage is not impenetrable, and that my point of entry into it on its back side is the most vulnerable, and that I must keep a close eye on it, lest unwelcome visitors will attempt to enter, and abide with me.

There is an important point being made here. Our spiritual connection and understanding gives us wings to fly, and the potential for greater health, yet our openness to the world needs to be tempered with its harsh reality. We all still suffer under the weight of its own self-destructive illusions. We are susceptible to their influence even if we are firmly established upon our own unique spiritual path.

In the next vignette, I am floating above a vast swamp, a swamp covered by a living opaque membrane. I can’t see through the membrane per se, but zi know that forms of life exist underneath it. Some forms I recognize to be very small humanoid appearing creatures, yet not quite fully alive. I also see larger forms, also humanoid, more to the center of the vast membrane. I recognize that this swamp is owned or managed by a community of fear intoxicated brings. In the dream I know not to confront the people about what is going on under the membrane, but I intuit that this is where they not only create images of humans, but also grow and sustain them. These victimsm were created as sacrifices to some dark energy, and they could also be destroyed if they felt it was appropriate. This was not the place of peace with sublime creations for sure. This was the creative swamp where humanity creates judgements against each other, and against the self. These judgements are created to minimize others’ value, and, ultimately, to kill them if threatened, and, ultimately, our self, at least in a spiritual sense.

I encountered several other disfigured beings, all wishing to enter into my protective cage, and tempt me with self degrading options, which I eventually recognized as being personification of all manners of human disease. I saw that my health demands that I do not invite any of these friendly tempting diseases into my protective vehicle.. I also then saw that the swamp was where the human mind creates false images of its self and others, and these become the very source of conflict, disease, and disfigurement.

In real life, I was beginning to become ill, and for several days I had concerning symptoms. There was a battle going on inside of me between life affirming energy, or my antibodies, and life destroying energy, or disease in one of its infinite disguises.. My feet were inexplicably dragging while walking with my wife Sharon. I was getting headaches, and I developed quite a cough and congestion. knew who, or what was going to win.

The miracle of uncoupling from the past is a real, and a dream, possibility.

Looking at my history, I have witnessed many dreams inspired by the Healing Mystery

Chapter 20: The Master Teacher Speaks

When the Master Speaks, WE LISTEN!

The truth is like rain water pouring over jagged rocks embedded within the mountains of human ignorance through many generations, or iterations of individual self. Eventually, it wears down the rough edges, and creates gentler pathways for future rains to travel back to its source. The impatient traveler thrusts his life, and his body upon the jagged edges, and causes greatest harm, even death, before truth’s essence can heal and transform him. The humbled wanderer, however, bears witness to its ever evolving process of revelation, letting the water gently erode his own rough edges, letting it return to its source within his own being,—–Elisha Scott

As I moved forward spiritually in that great summer of 1987, I was still quite new to the path of healing and transformation. I had left my old life behind, and I was open to the experience of spiritual connection, and, potentially, mastery. I had developed quite a meditation practice, eschewing committed relationships with others in order to develop a deeper spiritual reality..

I remained excited about the possibilities for my life, as I had finally made conscious contact with the God of my understanding. I had recently experienced a dramatic, miraculous, healing of my body and my mind, and a new energy permeated my being. I felt like I was finally swimming in a vast new sea of discovery and the unknown, though I still had not connected the dots, or started consciously rebuilding my new self.

I could have never anticipated the experience I was about to have, on this particular day, July 21, 1987.

The Master Teacher

“Master Teacher of the Light, Master Teacher of the Light”

I repeated within myself several times during an evening meditation, which is a mantra that I had developed to aid my focus for my meditation practice. I was meditating several hours a day, and though my life was bearing fruit from previous connections with the Spirit, I remained driven to find deeper and deeper layers of meaning, and experience of my true nature and being.

This meditation was to become Truth’s bell ringer for me.

Without warning, I was lifted from my body awareness, and I then had a sense that I now had a decision to make. It was like I was driving an automobile, and I realized that I could continue steering, and heading in my usual direction for life, or I could let go of the controls and experience something totally different and unique.

Somehow, through a mechanism still a mystery to me, I was released from the steering wheel of my mind, and my conditioning. There was an exhilarating inner rush whereby I was totally released from myself and what was left of my old psychological set, and my burdens, and my body! My essence traveled into a great unknown, which was neither light or dark, and it was like I passed through an apparently infinite matrix or structure. I had entered into a dimension of experience where interconnected structures of alive and intelligent energy were manifest. At that time, I did not recognize what I was witnessing, nor did I have the words to adequately represent this web.

If you have been paying attention to this work, this process was eerily similar to the remote viewing of others in my dreams. The “others” may well have been “GOD”, a “Master”, or who knows what?

Later, I was to learn that this matrix was the very collective consciousness of mankind, with all of its intelligence, and its stupidity. I quickly flashed by what was, at this point in my life, that mysterious and unnameable energy, and began almost a half spiral downward, where I came to a place of complete darkness, or, more accurately, emptiness. I felt totally at home here. I felt as if I was in the womb of some great loving presence. There was nothing at all to witness here, at least initially..

Almost immediately, a laughing, happy voice seemed to be speaking to me, or, more precisely, through me.

Messages floated through, like

“No teacher shall effect your salvation, you must work it out for your self”, and,
“think no thoughts”, with
“Follow new paths of consciousness”,

And then, a mathematical formula for re-entry back into the great unknown was given to me. Because of my mathematical background, It was a differential equation that I could understand, and which stated (in layman’s terms) that with the total elimination of the movement of time based thought, the direct perception of reality was possible.

The limit, as delta T goes to zero (T is thought as a function of time), divided by delta t (t is time itself), delta is the “change in”, or as LIM dT/dt, as dt approaches zero, with T=f(t).

The solution of this equation is the great unknown, INFINITY, or that which I sought.

The difference between spiritual being and human becoming took on mathematical and spiritual significance for me on the deepest level.

The final messages, however, were two of the most difficult to reconcile within my life, and the ones which remained troubling for me throughout the subsequent years. Finding the answers to the troubling questions created from this experience was to guide me, almost all of the way up to the present moment.

First, there is this component:

“YOU CAN’T BE REAL”.

When it was stated, it was stated through me, with a joyful, laughing voice, yet when I re-entered my normal way of being, it became a challenging, if not threatening statement.

To see again, as God, or Truth, sees, I must be mastered by this truth.

This statement is so important, I am compelled to supply a brief explanation. The ego is the sum total of all of my judgments, the sum total of my human experience, my acculturation, my conditioning, my separation from God, Love, my fellow-man, and Truth. The ego looks out from itself, and sees everything, and everyone, as if they are separate from its self, while totally failing to see that all that it ever sees, unto eternity, is itself..

We only see what we have created. I only see I, and I is the creation of being conscious. Through this ancient and venerated process I also have created the concept of “you”, as both experiences arise simultaneously.

There really does not exist the “you” that I have formed, my perception of “you” is an incomplete mental creation that only exists in my mind, and which may or may not be shared by others, and most certainly is NOT shared by you.

The human race tends to confuse the verbal description (or mental image) of the person with the actual experience of the person, who, regardless of appearances, is infinitely more complex, and worthy of love and acceptance, than the human mind can readily accept. My ego is the sum total of all of my time based thoughts about time based behaviors of myself, and others. If I want to see clearly, I must accept that my main mode of viewing the world was through the ego’s eyes of time-based judgements and the unreality that this creates. To die to this mode of living is to truly be reborn of the spirit.

To “follow new paths of consciousness”, while knowing that “you can’t be real” sets up quite a transformational dynamic within consciousness. If “you” can’t be real, then everything that I associate with “I” is preeminent. Every time I identify with a person, a process, or a place, I have created either a “new path of consciousness”, or I have reaffirmed some older, more familiar, potentially worn out path that I have already been traveling upon. “I am an electrician”, or “I am an alcoholic”, or “I am a son of Beryl and Corinne Paullin”, or “I am full of shit”, or “I am a lonely, isolated person”, or “I am angry with X,Y, Z”, or WHATEVER I associate my self, my “I am” with, either continues my path in old directions, or creates the imperative to create new words, thoughts, and experiences around a new direction. I could just as easily say “I am no longer traveling old paths of consciousness”, and then STOP thinking time-based thoughts, and rehashing and rehearsing old memories, to create a new life experience for myself. I would then have to trust in a “Higher Power”, “the Unknown”, and the “Mystery” to create my new “timeless self” in each unique moment.

Lastly, a most confusing revelation came, as well. I could see the field of energy that constituted my body/mind awareness. I saw embedded within it two almost complete thought forms, or identity forms, which I recognized as two distinct entities. Yes, I had two ‘extras’ attached to my field. I could see, in that insightful moment, that they were not there for my greater good, for sure. In that moment of recognition I regarded these two unwelcome components to my life force as tricksters, though I noted that their presence seemed to allay the feelings of loneliness of my ego, perhaps only because they seemed vaguely familiar to me. They appeared to be caricatures of two unique people.

I sensed that I was supposed to let go of these illusions of self, but I did not know what to do. I was to learn later, much later, after my father’s death, that these two tricksters were creations that I had made in my youth in response to the names “mom” and “dad”, my associations with them of my trauma, suffering, and abandonment as a baby, and of their intentions for me, including my unhealthy attachments and historical reactions to their points of view.

The two extra identity vortices in the ‘human energy field matrix’ that constituted my conscious sense of self did not really ever disappear, they just became unconscious again, for me. I later was to associate them with two trauma inspired black holes in consciousness which my lack of self worth and the fear of death swirled around .. Little did I know that they were to become the most critical components to understand in my desire to form a better ongoing human/spiritual experience.

I now understood the basis for the potential for the development of multiple personalities disorder. I saw how the whole human race suffered from this disorder, to varying degrees. Schizophrenia, oppression of others, repression of self and feelings, passive/aggressive behavior, people pleasing, prejudice, racism, misogyny and the like all shared a common foundation.

All of these teachings were too much to digest in that moment, in that year of 1987, and for many years to follow. But, this is a true path of humility, to finally see in its totality the shortcomings of the human mind, and to become willing to go beyond it.

It was all so fresh and new to me and I was not the best communicator around the experience. I had no one to discuss this earth shattering spiritual event with.. I knew that everybody else would think that I had gone insane again, so I kept this inner teaching a secret to everybody else for many years to follow.

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

– Howard Thurman

I have always known that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way that we, as humans, live our lives while attempting to communicate with each other. I have not always known what the source of my own disease was, however. My disease of misunderstanding drove me to the brink of death, into insanity, drug addiction, despair, loneliness, and suicidal ideation. My life could only be characterized, by the time I had turned thirty years old in 1985, as a committed search for the grave.

In 1987, I experienced a series of real spiritual transformational events, resulting in the miraculous healing of my body and mind. There was such a huge disconnect between the consciousness of the old ways, the diseased, the dying aspects of myself, and a new order of being that was trying to discard the old me. My old misunderstanding of life, and of myself, was to be replaced by another version of my infinite potentiality. It was a remarkable time, and people who knew me then could feel the energy that was bubbling up within me. I had found a newborn enthusiasm for life, living, and a healthy re-integration back into the flow of humanity, Humanity, alas, did not collectively share in my inner experience, nor could it.

I traveled all around the City of Portland, much like I did when I sank into its underworld, on my original search for truth. I no longer visited the drug dealers, manufacturers, itinerant thieves, motorcycle gang hit men, or any of the other characters that helped to enlighten me while I traveled the road of darkness. I now met with, literally, thousands of people who were new to me, in a multitude of different group experiences, to engage with and get to know “my people”. When I literally, and spiritually, came off of the mountaintop on June 22, 1987, an intention planted into my heart was to locate MY PEOPLE. My life had changed, and so did the nature of the people that I was to become interested in , and who became attracted to me, as well. The first of my journeys into my new world was to the nearly week long INTA convention, though I made many other forays into the unknown.

On one of my journeys, I visited a crystal store, which was a new-age rock shop on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. The owner of the store stocked books which promoted some of the speculative spirituality of that time. Every day, many people congregated at that store. They appeared to be part of a well-meaning group of spiritual aspirants, yet I could not quite grasp the ideas that “spiritual masters”, or even ultra-evolved aliens, were communicating to the human race through these crystals, many of which were originally located in Brazil. Books had been written about them (such as the Starseed Trilogy), and there was a popular, though misguided, attraction to the possibility that these crystals had special powers. Even some of these supposedly evolved people had evaded the truth that their enlightened minds were the source or cause of special powers, and not any objects in the world of effect.

I had several conversations with Jack, the owner of the shop, as I visited the shop at least three times to look at books, and be conversant with this “new-age” community of people. I challenged him about selling some of these crystals to naive purchasers for several thousand dollars each. Jack, quite the economic and spiritual realist, claimed that he was only meeting a need, and not promoting an idea or agenda. After all, he is a capitalist now, and he needed to pay his bills.

One of our conversations had to do with what our responsibility as evolving, healing beings is to the rest of humanity, which continued to struggle with its own broken truth, as it had since time immemorial. Jack listened with great interest in what I had to say, as he always did. Jack had the capacity to listen to what was being said, acknowledge the person where they were, and point to a direction where they might want to look. In some sense of the word, Jack was a GURU. I was not attracted to GURU’s, however, as my nature tended to rebel against so-called authority figures.

My own “Master Teacher”, which revealed itself within me on July 21, 1987, in a most spectacular fashion, rejects the notion that any teacher can deliver to another their salvation. The inner message, received as if delivered by thunder in the silence of my being, was that “no teacher can bring salvation to others, it must be worked out within the self”. There were a few other messages delivered, as well as a few visions, but I did not have the context at the time to fully interpret and understand the totality of its life-changing, life-affirming message.

That is where personal experience must rise up and become incorporated within a new narrative, a narrative informed by the new energy, an energy that is more inclusive, and universal in its application. Without our personal story becoming married, as it were, to the new truth, life changing wisdom could not become part of our nature, nor could we become verbal around a new world order that was trying to reveal itself to all receptive beings.

I pondered with Jack the possibility of bringing healing to others, as I felt so blessed by my own healing, and I felt that I had something unique and precious to share with the world. Jack listened intently, as he always did, thought for a moment, then with a BIG SMILE stated simply:

“FUCK THE WORLD!”

I was confused, and asked for clarification.

“Bruce, the world could care less about your healing, and what new truth or messages that you might be able to bring to assist others in their journey. The world, as it now exists, exists for a reason. The whole fundamental consciousness has been established to make the common man feel OK about being less than who they are, in truth, and to limit and control those who might develop the insight to rebel against the established disorder. The whole of religion, and philosophy, was designed to help keep people in their darkness, while telling them that they are on the path to their own salvation through the belief in powers greater than themselves. It has always been about disempowering, and controlling, the population. Could you imagine how the powers of the age would respond if everybody sought for, and found, the Truth?, There would be chaos, and the world would collapse into a form of Armageddon. The world of religion, and this bastardized Christianity that Americans practice, is the ultimate form of oppression. And the oppressed BELIEVE that they are the chosen ones, while they subject themselves to the fantasies and hypnotism of their faiths”.

One of his final statements set me back in my chair, and I almost fainted.

“The “world” has created its own dysfunction, and revels in swimming in its own cesspool of misunderstanding, and there is NOTHING a sane man can do about it, other than just laugh at it.”

I felt a part of myself feel rejected by his statement. One of my childhood fantasies and misunderstandings of myself was that nobody would/could love me unless I saved them from death, or came to their rescue, so Jack poured some ice water over those smoldering ashes from the isolating fires of the poor self esteem from my past. But, I now felt a resonance with his statement of truth.. I had lived a life of little or no value up to my transformation, and I felt that I finally had something to contribute to the world, yet here was a prominent figure lecturing me to turn my back on the world, and to just go out and enjoy my life, and LAUGH AT THE WORLD.

Here is the eerie part:

In the spiritual experience of July 21, 1987, when I first reached the “Master Teacher” within my own being, I had traveled, without my body (of thought, past consciousness, etc.) to a place of silence so deep and powerful, and which was subsequently perceived to be the very “womb of creation” of consciousness itself. It was there that I heard my own Master’s voice.

“You can’t be real”

was the message, laughingly expressed through the deepest silence, peace, and love that I had ever experienced. For a moment, I was allowed to “look through the eyes of God” and see that the entirety of the matrix of consciousness of the human experience was unreality itself. All that the “Truth” can do, is to laugh at it, and dismiss it.

And now Jack, two weeks later, was parroting the very idea that my “God” had revealed to me.

All that I knew was that I was a “guided missile” of the truth, and I was to have many more remarkable connections with evolving people over the next several years. These connections helped me to “flesh out” what had been revealed within myself by my own “Master Teacher”, or source of wisdom common to all of mankind when it chooses to access it.

I chose to be silent about my experience, for many years to follow. I carried a grin on my face that the despair of the world could not erase for several of the following years. I stopped “laughing at the world” when my responsibilities to my life increased.dramatically in the mid 1990’s, while, concurrently, my new, more spiritually inspired, persona developed. I was not to live the life of an acetic monk, or live the artificial, though idyllic, life of a member of an ashram. Traveling through the diseased world of form, with one’s need for eating and gainful employment, while witnessing the world’s corruption, its sin, suffering, and dying, tends to distract one from the truth that “all that is human, is illusion”. Having watched for four years the drama that unfolded from within the White House from the Anti-Christ himself was quite disturbing, and shows how twisted human consciousness may become. I am still attempting to relearn how to “laugh at the world”, though my “God consciousness” appears to have dramatically ebbed, at least for now, and all that I can do, many times, is to be anxious, and cry.

We are all containers for Infinite Spirit, albeit broken ones, and that can be more than enough to bring a blessing to self, and to others.

All that I can now say is this:

Welcome to the ILLUSION.

Please, enjoy yourself while you are here.

Discard all of our knowns and conclusions into the universal dumpster, and live from the state of “unknowing”, where insight and new knowledge may be spawned. There is only one Mind, and it can only be experienced in the “unknown”. Intelligence and its active agent, curiosity, only thrive when one is not permanently committed to a point of view.

Changing our consciousness is a natural and normal experience, when we are not suffering under the infinite weight of the oppressive nature of collective consciousness. Drinking alcohol, using drugs, spinning madly on a merry-go-round, jumping out of airplanes, or even traveling to outer space is the expression of our natural need for change. The key is not to become addicted to the avenues chosen for release, for then they become new forms of oppression for our hearts. Permanent release, liberation, or enlightenment, occurs, when one loses attachment to the world of form and effect, its accumulated verbal constructs, and all forms of release, with its accompanying pleasure and pain.

If you are not enjoying the show, remember, you are the co-creator of it. Try changing the channel, and see what happens.

There must be the DEEPEST of desires to find the truth, and the DEEPEST of intentions to not neglect it in the face of attacks from others.

The human “Conspiracy Of Silence” points to the FACT that mankind covers itself with illusory verbal constructs, worships the illusion as if it is fact, and will defend to the death, if necessary, its creations. The Truth remains forever buried, thus, the foundation for the “conspiracy” is created, and maintained, throughout eternity.

The truth that I live is the only truth that I can give.

I have saved the world from myself, and there really is nothing more for me to do, save witness the suffering of others, and point my finger to a potential new direction for those who choose to awaken.

Those that do not choose to awaken, will remain stick figures in other people’s dream of world domination.

Hildegard of Bingen, the great German mystic and writer from the 12th century, became ill whenever she did not write. The same experience has become the truth for myself, and, potentially, may be the truth for all of mankind.

Collectively, we are terminally ill.

Please, save yourself.

And write a great story, or book!

Oh seeker of truth, on God’s High Mount you would climb,

Though you stumble through the valley’s shifting sands of time.

Stop confusing your mind with worn out rhyme and reason,

For they are eternally charged by this moment of truth with treason.

Oh mental marathoner, on life’s treadmill you just stand,

Second hand words and thoughts keeps you life’s also-ran.

Forever chasing in vain love’s all-knowing voice.

So be still, for with your run’s end, is true cause to rejoice!

Oh shadow boxer of evil will you ever tire?

It is champion of a dream world to which you only aspire.

Stop resuscitating those dead illusions with mental pugilist blows,

And reveal a peaceful mind reserved only for the One who now knows.

Please wake up to love’s voice, sweet somnambulator,

And realize the truth, that I within any image of you is greater,

Than any image you may ever form or learn.

Your world will then reflect back to you the One for which you now yearn.

Jiddhu Krishnamurti-The Master Teacher Speaks

The following material is for those readers with intense philosophical and spiritual curiosity. In “truth” it may not be for anybody. This post is inspired by my relationship with the teacher, and the teachings of Jiddhu Krishnamurti, and a universal truth forever available to any sincere seeker.

The thoughts, beliefs, and experiences that tell us that all that we, and each other, are is our past and our memories, is the tomb that we as individuals, and as a part of cultural collective consciousness, imprison ourselves within.—Elisha Scott

How might one liberate their self, and experience the Mystery, the Unknown, and the Unknowable?

While both attending college in the early 1980’s, and in my early stages of “awakening” in 1987, I had read several books by important authors on atheism, philosophy and a few of the important religions of the world, including Christianity, Buddhism (emphasis on Tibetan variations), Taoism, Islam, and Hinduism. My intention was not to become better educated in the way others saw God, or themselves, however. I had a purely selfish need in the years following the 1987 revolution within my own heart and soul. I wanted confirmation that I was either insane, or that I had actually “found and experienced truth”, in whatever form that I had received and accepted it at that time and in the years that were to follow.

Jiddu Krishnamurti lived from 1894 through 1986, and was considered a world teacher by many. He saw the need for, and pointed the way to a new collective and individual intelligence as well as anybody who has ever lived. My first exposure to his work was a reading of a paperback book by Krishnamurti, called The Only Revolution, early in 1988.. I had known little of Krishnamurti prior to this time, but after reading this book, I saw, for the first time, a teacher and a teaching that almost identically represented what I had experienced “on the inner plane” of awareness during the apocalyptic meditations and revelations of the summer of 1987. Keep in mind that the word apocalypse literally means the ending of time, which I experienced in meditation. Psychological time ends with the ending of human thought, which never happens for the vast majority of humanity.

Krishnamurti spoke almost poetically, and at length about the potential for experiencing truth, the truth that comes with the ending of knowledge, memory, and psychological time, or, the actual ending of the ego, or self. He described how the mind fragments into various perspectives, creates a main integrator to keep that fragmented consciousness fairly structured, yet fails to perceive that everything that he sees is his own broken self, Two of his favorite expressions were:

“the observer IS the observed”, and
“the knower IS the known”

He states unequivocally that “you” as both an individual self, and as an image created by “you” of somebody else, is unreal, without truth or substance, and does not exist other than some illusory conceptual creation of thought.

He talked about the need for liberation, liberation from the culture, the religion, and the teachers that have been created to continue the individual’s imprisonment within society, and which unconscious and semi-conscious individuals within society keep promoting to their own self, and to others. No teacher can effect salvation, it must be worked out within ones own mind, and heart.

To quote Krishnamurti:

“Our whole social and intellectual structure is based on the idea of gain, of achievement; and when mind and heart are held by the idea of gain, there cannot be true living, there cannot be the free flow of life. Isn’t that so? If you are constantly looking to the future, to an achievement, to a gain, to a hope, how can you live completely in the present? How can you act intelligently as a human being? How can you think or feel in the fullness of the present when you are always keeping your eye on the distant future? Through our religion, through our education, we are made as nothing, and being conscious of that nothingness, we want to gain, to succeed. So we constantly pursue teachers, gurus, systems. “

Krishnamurti’s books literally grabbed me, and would not let go, until I read them and re-read them several times. After reading the book “The Ending Of Time”, I knew that the same teaching that informed Krishnamurti, or that was Krishnamurti, was the same teaching that informed me. God, as Krishnamurti experienced God, seemed to be the same God that I was having collisions with. The main difference being that Krishnamurti was able to maintain that state of being constantly, and had for his entire adult life and I, only on special occasions, it seemed.

Krishnamurti died in 1986, yet, somehow, his teachings had mysteriously reached me in 1987, prior to me having ever read about him or what he represented. Saul of Tarsus talked of hearing Jesus Christ’s voice, two years after Jesus’s death on the cross, on the road to Damascus, and this experience caused his conversion to Christianity, and he changed his name to Paul, as a result of this experience. I can’t help but postulate the possibility that either

important spiritual teachers, and their primary teachings, remain active in the infinite field of human consciousness, or humanity’s morpho-genetic field after their own deaths, or
this information about spiritual transcendence is eternally available within consciousness itself, independent of teachers and teachings, just awaiting someone’s dedication and commitment to its truth so as to bring it forth in their own unique life experience.

What the actual mechanism for delivery of truth’s real message remains unclear, though I have heard the words “prayer” or “telepathy” used by some. Krishnamurti had psychic experiences facilitated by members of the Theosophical Society, such as Charles Ledbetter, where he helped to bring the “Ascended Master Kuthumi” into “communion” with Krishnamurti when he was a teenager. Either way, I had found confirmation that I was not insane, at least not by these new standards, and that one of the greatest teachers of the twentieth century had presented a teaching to the world that not only paralleled my own, but may well have been the source for it, as well.

About Krishnamurti’s teachings, three other points can be made:
First, the current direction of human development makes inevitable serious conflict on various levels.

One is increasing conflict among religious communities, as those societies compete for material and political advantage, and within those communities, particularly the suppression of religious views differing from those dominant in a particular society.
Two is the increasing dissonance between religious traditions and the discoveries by science, a dissonance that is totally absent in what K proposes as a new sort of religion.
Third, although it is possible that most of humanity will continue to choose the illusory comfort that comes with the bondage of traditional religions, one can also point out the attractiveness of K’s vision of absolute freedom.

On one hand, the continuation of organized religions would perpetuate all their psychological and social negative effects. On the other, the arising of a religious mind, in K’s sense, on a global scale, with its widespread shift to living in and by intelligence, would seem to be the only valid basis for the solution of the serious problems, such as warfare, environmental degradation, oppression, etc., that emerge from the usual way of trying to satisfy the basic need for food, shelter, clothing, and physical security. That is, K’s proposal is a profound remedy for the ego-centered perspective that currently infects almost all individuals and all social structures. It also points to the liberation of the mind to its full potential for creative living.

Receptive, inquisitive readers may feel motivated to jump on in, as our true, loving nature is revealed through immersion in this new understanding.

“One is never afraid of the unknown, rather, one is afraid of the known coming to an end.”—–J. Krishnamurti

One cannot possibly find the sacred, using only the searchlights provided for by the profane.—Elisha Scott

So, just what is “Truth”, anyway?

A fact might be that there is only one mind, to be experienced in the unknown, yet to the uninitiated, that statement would sound vague and esoteric.

Another fact might be that it is up to us to determine what is real, and what is not, yet that might sound threatening to those who cling the strongest to their culturally and religiously inculcated theories and dogmas.

Truth is extremely difficult to conceptualize, because truth is elusive, and exists above and beyond all of the words used to chase it with descriptions.

Truth is often times best described through our inspired art, poetry and music, where more of the brain becomes engaged to the energy attempting to be shared.

But our words still serve a valuable function, yet forever remaining only pointers, or place-holders, for the energy that must be personally experienced, or it will never become psychologically real to the witness.

So, again, what is Truth?

There is only a “God” when there is no longer a “me” questioning “what is” while still trying to justify one’s own opinions or ignorance. In that silence, Infinity finds its expression, and the observer is the observed. And there is no longer a need, or a desire, to find “God”, for “God” has found “us”. Yet, there is no longer the “us”, per se, only a witness who has been uncoupled from limitation, and no longer tethered to a verbally intoxicated mind.

It is in this silence that love flourishes, and moral and ethical action becomes spontaneous and natural.

If we remain attached to our minds, with our limiting words and thoughts, we are perpetually stuck outside of the “Garden of Eden”. The Tree Of Knowledge of “good and evil” will continue to tempt us with its fruit, as we judge our way out of heaven from moment to moment. The flaming swords of our limiting judgements keep us forever on the outside of heaven, trying to look back in. Our shame that has been created by our broken relationship with our society, our family, and our reality will encourage us to cover ourselves with the tattered rags of the lies and misunderstandings of others. Our hubris keeps us promoting our own broken vision and knowledge, forever blocking us from witnessing the unknown and the mysterious, thus keeping the sacred foundation of our existence unknowable to all of us.

Put that one in your philosophical pipe, and smoke it.

“Why struggle to open the door between us, when the whole wall is an illusion”—-Rumi

Jesus, The Buddha, Mohamed, and all of the other “heroes” or idols of religion and spirituality become potential hindrances to the truth, if we only follow and/or worship them and their words, and don’t see beyond them to the truth that is fundamental to all of us.

Don’t follow the path. Go where there is no path and begin the trail. When you start a new trail equipped with courage, strength, and conviction, the only thing that can stop you is you!—– Ruby Bridges

And the real observer, the sacred, can only laugh at the vast matrix of verbal consciousness created out of the disfigured mind of man. None of our understandings of God, Truth, or Love is real in any lasting, eternal sense, no matter how “sacred” the mind of man have imbued those words with, and historically worshiped them as such.

In the deeper realms of truth, in the deep silence of the sacred within, some difficult, but transformative truths are revealed. There is no such thing as a “you” or a “them” in any ultimate sense of truth, though as we travel through this strange, wonderful world, we must continue to entertain those illusions because of our race’s consensus agreements that such entities must exist, and that their stories must be honored.

Yes, we all must treat and respond to each other as if we are each real in an ultimate sense while we are alive. The truth is that the “self-concept” and the “other concept” are illusions, yet the underlying essence is that which is real, and eternal, and, in truth, the only part capable of loving, and being loved. Yet, those of us who have been wounded deeply, tend to cling the most tightly to our mistaken understanding of ourselves, and the other. When will the vain Emperor within us finally stop hiring the deceptive weavers of invisible golden threads to clothe our purity and nakedness in yet another illusion of self?

Self deception takes on added importance, and danger, in the mirror of relationships

With the cessation of all movement of thought that has a time base, the revelation of another way of seeing is experienced. Seeing without the limitation of the word is the domain of infinity. The word is the measure of our time based reality, and serves a relative purpose only. Yet, as far as we will ever see, unto eternity, is our self. Will we see the continuation of a limited sense of self, the self fragmented by the word with its concepts of time and space, or will we finally apperceive the all-inclusive self, unlimited by the word and all of its historical relationships with concepts developed within human consciousness?

See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.— Isaiah 65:17 (NIV)

Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.—- James Baldwin

Chapter 21: Experimenting With Consciousness

(Add Mona Lisa Baby teaching here, perhaps)

We must first lose our mind, with its historical accumulation of knowledge and questionable theories and memories, to find the Truth underlying all of Life–Elisha Scott

This is a bifurcation point, where the curious, and the attuned, diverge from the well worn path of the disinterested reader, No shame to the disengaged reader, you are doing the best that you can, according to the level of consciousness that you presently occupy..

I would like to present to my readers a unique meditation, or thought experiment.

Keep in mind that the whole of life, as far as humanity is concerned, is only a thought experiment. The problems arise when people assume unproven theory is fact.

This can be both a teaching, and an interior journey, and it can be useful for accessing the one Real Teacher, which lies deep within all of us. Thousands of years of conditioning and education have kept our innate capacity to tune into our interior dimensions for personal change and evolution as more of a threatening proposition, rather than as the natural avenue towards freedom and self discovery. In the end, it is the mind that has found the present moment, imbued with the healing potential of its infinitely supportive sacred silence, that becomes our Teacher.

This thought experiment is a representation of my unique meditation experience from July of 1987. Well meaning teachers and healers attempt to give guidance to those spiritually inclined wanderers who may have lost or ignored their personal ‘direct connection’.with intuition and insight. Thus, my experiences may serve as a template for other fellow travelers, though all must create their own unique path back to a spiritual home.

This meditation is only a sketch,, to be filled in by one’s unique journey towards Truth. It only points in a direction, and this ‘meditation’ is not for everybody.

THE MEDITATION

After quieting the body by sitting down comfortably, let us breathe consciously, and deeply, for a few breaths. Usually, the following of our breathing will quiet the mind a bit, which is important if this “experiment” is to bring any results. Poly-vagel breathing exercises that naturally reduce stress can be quite helpful. Breathe in for a four second count, hold breath for two seconds, and exhale for six seconds is the rhythm here. Repeat cycle for up to 5 minutes, if necessary. If your flight or fight response has been overactive, this will quiet down the adrenal glands, and reduce cortisol induced inflammation.

Let’s now ask of our self if we are ready to listen for the truth of the moment. Are we willing to travel to a new place in consciousness, and conscious awareness, that we have never traveled to before?

Ask our self if we can “let go of all thought controls” that keep us pilloried to the past, controls that keep us in judgement of self, and/or other, while also keeping us from experiencing a deeper appreciation for what this moment might be able to bring to us?

Now visualize for a moment that we are driving a car, heading to a direction that we feel quite familiar with. Before arriving at the usual destination, ask our self what would happen if we just “LET GO OF THE CONTROLS”, even if it is for just one moment? Remember that all of our known neural pathways become overused over time, and create deep ruts leading to graves, if we stay imprisoned by our past with all of its knowns.

Is it possible?

Keep trying, until we can see our self actually letting go of the steering wheel of our conscious mind. As we let go of the steering wheel, imagine, now, that the car disappears that was carrying us, and find that we are now being carried into some new, unexplored realm of experience.

If it is still familiar territory in our interior visual field, we will need to restart the thought experiment, and find a different method, or path to the interior dimensions than I am providing here.

If we have “LET GO OF THE CONTROLS”, we are now finding that we are being guided by a teacher , spirit guide, or a messenger, who has not revealed who or what it is, what kind of form it might take, or why it might or might not exist for us in this new moment.

Yet we know that there is no need for fear, even though we are now being drawn into a complete mystery, and to a previously unknown experience.

There is a sense of exhilaration, because we are no longer secured to our body of knowledge anymore, which may also feel like we are having an out of body event.

We are free, yet we do not yet know what we are being liberated from. Stay in this “unknowing state”, while still being “guided by our inner teacher”.

We may then pass through an amazing, infinite array of interconnected, interlocking “membranes”, which are neither “light” nor “dark” in appearance. Do not fear what is being witnessed, this is a critical part of the conscious uncoupling process with our conditioned mind. Everything that we now see is part of the infinite consciousness that our sense of self arises from.

We seem to bypass this web of both individual and collective consciousness, – then we reach a place of absolute still, and calm.

If we are really “there”, we find a silence, which is so quiet, and peaceful, that it may “startle” us initially, yet we quickly settle into it, and appreciate its essence and nature.

A “voice” may appear within our now quiet minds, and may begin to speak “through us” rather than “to us”. We will become the mouthpiece for a teaching, or a message, that we have never heard before, yet we are willing messengers for this new moment.

We begin to recognize an incredibly happy, joyful, laughing voice, and we know we are right where we are supposed to be, in a state that is so natural, and normal.

We might wonder why it was so “unknown” in our past, but we save all questions for later, so as not to miss the rest of the experience.

“Follow the new paths of consciousness” we hear, and speak within our hearts and minds simultaneously, directly and powerfully to ‘our self’.

“No teacher can give to us our salvation, we must work it out for our self”.

“Think no thoughts, especially time based thoughts (memories) about the “you”, as any “YOU”, cannot ever be real here”.

“To return to the “UNKNOWN”, we must eliminate all time based thoughts about our self, and “THE OTHER”.

We now know that this moment, outside of time, has all of the information that we will ever need, and does not need our input to reveal itself and its real, eternal nature.

As the “teaching” ends, we are shown those forces which have attached themselves to our energy fields, which provide “companionship” yet they provide no lasting spiritual value, and will inhibit our future growth and development.

FURTHER FRUITS FROM THE TREE OF LIFE

Be easy on our self, as it will not be immediately obvious what the nature and purpose of these inner/interpersonal forces are. Some energies are trapped within our life force energy field, and extremely resistant to our intention to let them move on.. They may be interalized traumas of any nature, and/or may be fragments of a past wounded version of our self

They served a purpose, yet they will have to leave for us to evolve. But, first, we have to meet them directly, to get to know them better, while further dealing directly with our “conscious” world, and the life we live in it.

Welcome to our Real individual, and collective, self. There is no room here for “you and me”, “us and them”, there is only room for the ONE.

This will trouble us greatly when we return to our ‘normal’ consciousness from this experiment. This is normal, and we will learn from the tension created by this dynamic.

Eventually we learn that we dream through the “collective” mind of mankind, and the “collective” also dreams through us. Yet there is also One Other Option, which has eluded most of Mankind.

As we travel back to this place, over and over, over many years, if necessary, we find what we have always been looking for.

We also find what has been holding back the rest of mankind for all of time. Many of the very structures of thought that have been ‘worshipped’ or unconsciously accepted are seen to be the source of the Shadow within mankind’s heart and soul.

This journey is not for those who want to continue to just worship the past, and all of its dead thoughts, and disgraced and/or discredited heroes.

This thought experiment is a technique for shaking the mind free, even if just for a moment, from its lifetimes of its ‘knowns’ or certainties.

Truth does not come into a mind that has already been crystallized into a structure that does not permit curiosity, and insight.

If we are sincerely seeking Truth, prepare for a real shock. If our minds have not been shocked, we have not yet met our goal.

“YOU WILL FIND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR”, just don’t give up looking before the Real miracle appears, OK?

Otherwise, we will only find a continuation of our past, as it extends into an all too familiar future.

We must believe in a spiritual potential for all of us, and then live into it.!

Memory resurrects the dead from moment to moment. The typical human being sees far more dead, than living, people because of an excess or unholy attachment to a wounded past, and a lack of awareness of the bounty and beauty of the present moment.

Today is a good reminder to resurrect ourselves from the tomb of our wounded memories.

This moment is enough.

When a spiritually inspired being no longer plays by the rules of societal and religious indoctrination, a new life may be revealed through the full embrace of one’s human suffering, and ultimate liberation from it.

Push that stone of resistance away!

Remember, Jesus’s resurrection has value only to the extent that we fully embrace our own potential for transformation, and can share in this transcendent experience..

In truth, there are no spiritual super heroes who are going to suffer for us, though some find it worthwhile to adore and to worship cultural myths about such beings. We all need a real hero—the true hero that arises from the liberation of our real self.

There is only a life that needs to awaken and blossom into its own unique fullness..

Display those wounds without shame and fear, hiding from our humanity is not our path.

We all have, or have had, an enormous “stone” or trauma that we need to recognize keeps us entombed. With insight and healing,we all can push that stone away, and rise unto the true glory of our highest nature. A life stuck in a dark, unhealed past is a life continued to be lived in the grave.

Chapter 22: Enlightenment

Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the living God? Don’t you know that you are the light of the world?—Jesus of Nazareth

To be in realization of Truth, is to find God’s High Mount just an illusion to climb,

Created by fear and desire filled minds stuck on the merry-go-round of time.

The restless, unilluminated mind remains bereft of Love’s Rhyme and Truth’s Reason,

Chasing after endless mirages, until it sees the movements that are guilty of treason-–Elisha Scott

Who does not want to be the light of the world?

Do we even know what that question truly implies?

The world of art has attempted to capture what an individual living in the light might look like. Over many centuries, we have seen artist’s renditions of saints and sages, with paintings often showing the blessed person as having a golden light about them, usually concentrating around the head.

Is this “divine light” a real phenomenon, or only an artistic interpretation of that which may not be completely captured by art, science, religion, and philosophy?

The physiological truth about humanity is that humans do have the capacity to emit light, through bioluminescence, yet that light is not readily witnessed by normal human eyesight. Humans do not innately embody luciferin, which would give us the capacity to glow like fireflies. Yet what about that inner glow, the glow that erupts within one’s heart and soul when finally touched by transcendent spiritual power?

This book has been my presentation of my evidence for and experience of a power and a life greater than any limited, personal sense of self. I no longer look to the darkness for the light. I found my own light, a light that dispels the darkness of others, their religions and economic philosophies, and the darkness of my own historical self.

To find the light of truth, there must be a release from the controls of the crowd, whether it is the crowd of old thoughts, or the crowd that blindly follows others. Strange, mystical, exotic, transcendent, and mysterious are a few of the terms used to describe phenomenon associated with the discovery of such light and freedom, a spiritual liberation that words struggle to define.

Theoretical physicists are now understanding that there are possibilities for alternate universes, as well as enhanced connections with the one we all currently reside within. I am saddened that mankind is becoming increasingly dependent on its technology for communication, while not concurrently developing the sensitivity to connect with the “energy” that we all share in, and with which we communicate with each other continuously. Our technology, especially the hand-held media devices that we use to entertain and hypnotize ourselves with, only serves to continue the energy of the past, without offering alternatives to the present collection of corrupted choices that humanity has seemed eternally resigned to make.

Science, though able to define relationships and the laws that dictate behavior between all observable, and quantum, phenomenon, are only now beginning to understand the ramifications of the real law of our existence, which is “all that we will ever see, unto eternity, is ourselves”. Science provides laws for what we see, yet, unlike enlightened spirituality, provides no laws predicting or supporting what is possible for humanity. Quantum mechanics will not be understood fully until the self-centered perspective towards infinity is replaced with the understanding that the collective, as well as the individual, is present in each of us, in each moment of existence.

The impacts that we all have upon each other are not yet fully understood, yet prayer, meditation, and mindfulness prepare the mind for the unknown, where all true creation springs from. It is a much more collaborative effort being a human, and any other form of life on this planet, than our minimally conscious minds understand at this time. Ultimately, science and religion, medicine and technology, will all be united as manifestations of mankind’s expression of true being.

When the dream of separation is healed, only the beauty and the mystery of life remains. If God is not witnessing life through your eyes, there can be no God in your experience.—Elisha Scott

Why do so many people suffer from poor self esteem?
Why is there so much despair and disillusionment in this world?
Why is there so much hate and division?
Why is there so much disease, mental illness, alcoholism, addiction, suicide, and murder?
Do you believe that you have the capacity to change, and to bring hope to the world?.
Do you have an intense desire to help yourself, and your world?
Do you know who you are, and what you came to this planet to do?

It is amazing how much of the ego is devoted to it being recognized, when there was a shortage of that recognition very early in life. The ego is created from our desperate call for love, from a world that has not yet learned how to love. The most significant question remains: why care, or why bother? The sacredness and the sanctity of our universe is dependent upon our recognition of who we really are, and how we express our understanding of that connection. Therein lies the absolute necessity that members of the human race seek true enlightenment

If we can’t drill down to the foundation of our world’s and of our individual problems, and find and replace the foundation, there is little long term hope for any of us.

If the desire for liberation from the damaging and fatal illusions of our deteriorating society is great, we are ready for our own personal transformation. By letting go of the societal controls that keep us imprisoned in an outdated image of our self and the unrealistic and unhealthy expectations of others, we become ready to travel onto the new paths of consciousness, and to a new era of transcendence in our lives.

Why create and nurture a belief in some unknown God or savior, which is only just another idea in an unawakened mind, when we can live a life immersed in the beauty, awe, and love available to a mind liberated from its bondage to selfish fantasies and unhealed sufferings?

Are we ready to let go of the controls?

What is the difference between the belief that we can fly, and actually spreading our wings and flying?

BELIEF

God is our eternal path, and needs no belief in any concept of it. Yet, we must learn how to connect with our own unique, innate connection to the mystery behind the name “God”, until our life blossoms into the divine flower that it truly is.

Live life fully and wholeheartedly, keeping ones eyes and ears open to the mystery of the moment, and listening deep within our hearts for our true mission.

Religion is institutionalized ignorance of our true nature, only pointing to historical interpretations from others. As the experience of the Trump era shows, the collective racism, immorality and unethical behavior of America’s Christian understanding shows an institutionalized disease within its body of thought and its shared narratives..

Our self image is quite similar, being our memory’s institutionalized historical ignorance of our own potential for freedom. Like our Christian understanding, our ethics and morals remain based upon past wounding, rather than upon the higher ideals than are attainable through enhanced self-awareness and healing.

Therein lies the challenge, and the opportunity, for enlightenment.

What would Jesus do?

He worked out his own salvation.

He would want you to do the same.

The things that I do, you shall do, and even greater things—-Jesus of Nazareth (John 14:12)

No teacher may bring to us our freedom, it is our own personal work that gets us there.

What will we do?

Our civilization has been created, maintained, and sustained by men for thousands of years. And, toxic masculinity with its most oppressive spawn, PATRIARCHY, has established most of the rules of engagement for all of us in the world during this epoch. Patriarchy establishes the rules for our religions, and for our economic systems.

Trauma, immense trauma, has characterized man’s domination over nature, and over each other. Even our most innocent of beings are persecuted, both human and animal. Our families are now one of the greatest sources for the spread of trauma. The children now even try to traumatize their parents, once they become adults. It is all very sad. There is so much work to be done here.

Concurrently, It is amazing to note the preponderance of teachings that continue to emanate from the male component of the human race. Toxic masculinity creates the oppressive reality, and then those who have a measure of healing from it attempt to offer to the rest of us solutions for our release.

LIFE IN HELL. Spiritual freedom has never been about guns, money, or religion,

We need more empowered women to stand up and be counted. Our world will never come back into balance, until the divine aspects of our feminine nature are embraced as being an integral part of our self..

The human race is like a bird with two wings, male and female. If one is broken the bird can’t fly

Will we just remain hypnotized by more “mans-plaining” from ministers, avatars, gurus, therapists, and religious texts?

Should we remain a sheep in another shepherd’s flock?

Should we become a shepherd of our own flock?

Or should we become a liberated human being?

It is our choice.

For liberation, there must be the deepest of desires

The Far Side Wait, Wait, We don’t have to be just sheep[/caption]

We must be ever vigilant in protecting our self from the oppressive forces of our economic philosophies. Capitalist economics has monetized the resources of our planet, as well as our human soul. And, in a most oppressive, distressing turn of events, Capitalism and American Politics has become married to Christianity, so that all of evil inherent within the unawakened elements of this triumvirate have created a world threatening menace. We all have witnessed its catastrophic effects upon the health of our planet, and each other.

Lao Tzu has a brief commentary on these seemingly changeless forces, as indicated by the following story. Lao Tzu was walking with his disciples and they came to a forest where hundreds of carpenters were cutting trees, because a great palace was being built. So the whole forest had been almost cut, but only one tree was standing there, a big tree with thousands of branches.. Lao Tzu asked his disciples to go and inquire why this tree had not been cut yet when the whole forest had been cut and was deserted.

The disciples went and they asked the carpenters,

“Why have you not cut this tree?”

The carpenters said,

“You cannot make anything out of it because every branch has so many knots in it. Nothing is straight. You cannot make pillars out of it. You cannot make furniture out of it. You cannot use it as fuel because the smoke is so dangerous to the eyes – you almost go blind. This tree is absolutely useless. That’s why.”

They came back to tell Lao Tzu, who then laughed and said:

“Be like this tree. If you want to survive in this world be like this tree – absolutely useless. Then nobody will harm you. If you are straight you will be cut, you will become furniture in somebody’s house. If you are beautiful you will be sold in the market, you will become a commodity. Be like this tree, absolutely useless. Then nobody can harm you. And you will grow big and vast, and thousands of people can find shade under you.”

Lao Tzu has a logic altogether different from the conditioned mind. :

Be the last. Move in the world as if you are not. Remain unknown. Don’t try to be the first, otherwise you will be competed against. Don’t try to prove your worth. There is no need. Remain useless and enjoy.

To understand him is to find that he is the most practical on a deeper layer of understanding than most people can recognize. Life is to enjoy and celebrate, and not to become solely a servant to the needs of others. Life is more like a song or poetry than like a commodity in the market; it should be like a flower by the side of the road, flowering for nobody in particular, sending its fragrance to the winds, just enjoying itself, just being itself.

If we succeed in being very clever and useful, we will be used. If we try to be very practical, somewhere or other we will be harnessed, because the world needs our functionality, needing us to become just another “somebody”.

What is more problematic and traumatizing than a nobody being forced to become a somebody, a somebody that we really don’t want to be?

Drop all these ideas. If we want to be a poem, a song, a flower, or any other manifestation of our creative spirit, then forget about how others see us, and what value we may have to them. Do not despair about embracing the energy of a nobody. Some of the most powerful people in our world are “nobodies” who have been assigned the role of a “somebody” by our culture. Those who remember to be a “nobody” are the greatest collaborators, and healers.

While civilization encourages all of us to travel on its competitive superhighway to its image of a “somebody’, our neglected spiritual nature silently attempts to create a path back to where we can become a “nobody” again.

Who, or what, will we listen to?

The ultimate trauma to the human spirit is to be somebody that we aren’t.

We die of a fatigue created through the endless parading around of our new, self deceptive image, an image easily discounted by the innocent child within us, should we become quiet enough to listen to our essence..

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anyone but our self.—Virginia Woolf

Self deception takes on added importance, and danger, in the mirror of relationships. Only crazy making communication can result from exchanges between our illusions of self

As Jesus stated:

My kingdom is not of this world.

Remain true to our self.

Be our self.

We will find what we are looking for, if we are sincerely seeking for the truth of who we really are..

When we find our real self, the trauma and suffering of our human condition is seen for what it is.

And, we can finally consciously make a decision as to what, or who, we shall serve:

Somebody, or

NOBODY.

Serving somebody else’s agenda keeps us on the same historical path.

Serving NOBODY places us squarely on the path back to the Garden of Eden, and we begin our Hero’s Journey back to our true nature.

Accepting that the world can do fine without us allows us to put down the burden of being corrective heroes and simply concentrate on absorbing the journey of being alive.—Mark Nepo.

What is the essence of enlightenment? If might be considered similar to the process of metamorphosis, which brings forth the butterfly from the caterpillar. If the butterfly could talk, I would assume that it would much rather talk about its new freedom,and the ability to fly, rather than its previous form of life sliding over the dirt Yet, the only life that the butterfly arose from was with ground dwellers, and that is where all of its past stories were created. Could you imagine that butterfly going back and telling his caterpillar friends about the potential for a new life, and what the “ground dwellers” might say in response? How about

“get lost, you were never one of us, anyway?”

“well, it must be nice for you to fly, but it is just not for me right now?”

“have you heard about the great tasty leaves that parsley plant has?”

are three potential responses from those who think that change is threatening, unnecessary, irrelevant, or impossible, for themselves. Enlightenment is not for everybody, it is for nobody.

There is new life available to all, yet I won’t devote too many words on that one. The word will forever remain a shadow, cast by the light built into the divine heart of mankind, as it tries to define the “undefinable”. Yet, if the heart is in the right place, the words formed and delivered will become more attuned to and resonant with the energies pointing to the healing of self and of the other.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”

― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

All that we now see, or will ever see, unto eternity, is our version of our Self.

How will we see our Self today?

That vision, our own vision, limited or limitless, determines the quality of our life experience.

And if we are on life’s healing path, that vision directly impacts the world, in wondrous and sometimes miraculous ways.

There is no greater joy in the universe, than finding our real self.

We will find what we are looking for.

What have you found, so far?

Are you your real self? Are we ourselves?

Liberation is not an idea, it is a living reality for those who have found what their heart was truly looking for.

It is time to make our waves really MATTER! (Quantum physicists will love this pun!)

More than once, certain members of our human race have had mountain top experiences, where true insight has been gained into understanding life, love, and both the ephemeral, and eternal, natures or aspects of reality, or That One. That One becomes the source for all future understanding and engagement with the world.

That One saw the unity of all creation, and how all systems of thought tend to separate us from each other, rather than unite.
That One saw how the limits of love shared was typically tribal in nature, and rarely extended beyond the imaginary boundaries of their perceived communities.
That One saw how organized religion had become a tool for the political powers of the day, and no longer existed to serve the needs of the spirit, but instead to follow the dictates of those male power figures who inaccurately, and sometimes falsely, interpret the scriptures to control people, and arrange selfish outcomes.
That One saw how the rich and powerful within the religion used its truth to dominate and control others.
That One saw these religious power figures actually monetize their brethren, to see how their “flock” could bring them wealth through their superstitious tithing, or offerings to their “God”.
That One saw that the poorest in spirit occupied the most fertile ground for healing, yet were the most separated from any benefits of their religion.
That One saw that the religious power of the day was corrupt beyond repair.
That One saw that all sense of religion needed to be “born again”.

That One came down from the mountain top to bring the good news to the people, that they did not need their religion anymore to keep them philosophically imprisoned.

That One then advised the world:

If their “religion” does not allow for them to love another as themself, then discard those dark aspects of their religion, honor the underlying spirit of love, and affirm the dignity and value of the human being through the healed human heart (which is the source of all true religion).

That just might mean removing the log from our own eyes (even if the log is our very own religion), before attempting to remove the splinter from another.

It means stop monetizing humanity for business purposes.
It also means separating the Church from the State.
It means taking personal inventory, and when wrong, promptly admit it!
It means lying, cheating, stealing, destroying, murder, greed, selfishness, destroying the animal and plant kingdom and the like are antithetical to the spirit of love which has created this universe, therefore they are unacceptable patterns of behavior only reserved for those who have chosen to stay asleep..

You know who That One is, because That One lives today, and it has never been just the Buddha, or Jesus.

That One has existed since the beginnings of the illusion of self, and other, and the illusions created by competing philosophies.
That One has the voice for God, for Truth, for Love, and Life, bubbling up inside of their hearts, just waiting to be listened to, and obeyed.
That One understands the difficulties in bringing Truth and Love to the masses, because in the masses is where corruption of thought gets institutionalized and normalized, instead opting to bring it to humanity one person at a time.

Please listen within yourself.

Tune out all others, no matter how well intentioned they may appear to be.

Be yourself!

Mayan ruins at Cerros

(inspired by our trip to Belize in January, 2019)

I AM

I am the brightest of mornings, I am the cloudiest of days,

I am the silent night altar upon which mankind prays and preys.

I am the Olmec and Mayan of times old, recent, and new,

I am all civilization’s ruins, and I am the ever-evolving life that regrew.

I am the bird’s call, I am the wind beneath its wings,

I am the music and its spirit that joyously lifts our hearts up to sing.

I am the water, I am the lagoon and the bay,

I am the infinite ocean where my children are birthed, live, love and play.

I am the blue sky, I am the gathering of clouds,

I am the lightning storms that are now appearing so dangerous and loud.

I am the wind, I am the warm soothing breeze,

I am even our cold’s most raucous cleansing sneeze.

I am the dolphin and manatee, I am the mangrove lined shores,

I am waves crashing against rocks, that photographers adore.

I am the mind, and I am the end to its lonely thoughts,

I am the heart’s loving web in which we are miraculously caught.

I am the boisterous protests, and I am the crowd made quiet,

I can be even be found witnessing the white supremacists’ riot.

I am the wealthy, and I am the hurt, oppressed and poor,

I am your heritage until we all are no more.

I am the Sanders and Pelosis, I am the Putins and Trumps,

I am love’s warriors, and I am also hate’s chumps.

I am the Christian, and the Hindu, I am the Muslim and the Jew

I am the Atheist and Buddhist who you never thought that you knew.

I am the cancer, and I am the movement towards health,

I am the healing balm that works mysteriously in stealth.

I am the grief, and I am the pain and the sorrow,

I am the deepest well of hope from which we eternally borrow.

I am the life, I am the body and its breath,

I am the blessed last moment before each of our deaths.

I am the death of self that leads to the only true heaven,

Our denial of this truth brings the hellish news on channel two at eleven.

I am the sacred, and I am even the profane,

I am the source of all that we treasure, resisting me only adds to life’s pain.

I am not the movement of our thoughts, while we cling to concepts of time,

I am the emergence from all shadows, we all must reach for the sublime

What is my name, and where is my place?

Being ONE is seeing Me on every smiling and suffering sentient beings’ face.

In honor of all of the innocent oppressed, bullied, victimized, traumatized, gassed, misogynized, persecuted, marginalized, neglected, abused, murdered, alienated, and institutionalized human beings overrun by the principles of toxic masculinity in it’s almost infinite varieties of forms..Toxic masculinity, toxic fatherhood, and toxic religion are cultural and historical impediments to achieving and maintaining happiness and good health.

When we touch our Self with deep awareness, we touch everything

Set out, pilgrim. Set out into the freedom and the wandering. Find your people. God is much bigger, wilder, more generous, and more wonderful than you imagined. – Sarah Bessey

I have attempted to “capture lightning in a bottle” by articulating this message. May each of us never despair of our faltering attempts to reach towards this infinite energy and to express its love and wisdom. To have a better life, we have to access new parts of our infinite self, and travel on new paths of understanding. A primary law of consciousness is that “we find what we are looking for”, so make sure to look for what we really want, and not fall victim to the suggestions of others that don’t always have our best interests at heart.

Do you have your best interests at heart?

Does your “creator” have your best interests at heart?

Do you understand that you, and your creator, are ONE?

o you understand how absolutely immense of a being that you truly are

Once we understand the Truth that the closer we get to life’s meaning, the disturbing revelation that we have just been dreaming becomes our healed understanding.

Dream on, or strive for awakening, it is our choice..

The Buddha was asked:

What is your religion?

He then stated:

I AM AWAKE.

The salvation of the world, and of our self, depends upon our decision to be either the dreaming, walking dead, or the awake.

I am no longer running in packs of “wannabees” or “somebodies”.

I am no longer walking, and dreaming, in my sleep

I am not Jesus, I am not the Buddha, I am not Mohammed

Like millions of other human beings,

I AM AWAKENING

Please wake up to Love’s voice, sweet somnambulator,

And realize the eternal Truth that I within any You is greater,

Than any time-based image You could ever form or learn,

Your world reflects back to You, the One for which You yearn.

Chapter 25: Thoughts On That Which Is Beyond All Thought

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

by J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

Even if you remain lost in the shadows, having vainly pursued the mythical Garden of Eden, the dangerous Minotaur in the labyrinth, or the dark kingdom of Mordor, there still is hope. To be insane in an insane world, to be a stranger in a strange land, is the true new normal for many people presently wandering upon the face of this troubled planet. How we deal with the insanity determines whether we remain imprisoned, or eventually find our freedom. Blaming others for our present station in life is self-defeating. Yet, that is the first response of an immature mind, a mind not ready and willing to make the necessary adjustments in course to create a new life experience.

Mass hypnosis, oppression, mental illness, drug addiction and alcoholism, and their most destructive spawn, murder and suicide, have been a scourge upon the fabric of human consciousness for time immemorial. Our mental journey far away from Eden begins with the loss of self esteem and mutual respect, loss of personal meaning, and the loss of clarity in making good choices for our life. This confusion morphs into depression, alienation, isolation, anxiety, despair and loneliness. Suicide, the ultimate act of repression against self, and murder, the ultimate act of oppression of the other, appears as a reasonable choice for the final act of protest against life from those suffering from the terminal effects of oppression and repression. Suicide and murder are cruel acts against those with loving intentions , and are tragic forms of violence against self, family, friends, and the supporting community.

Suicide and murder are perceived to be the only solution for desperate souls who have reached the end of their options. Our society continues to supply potential perpetrators, and victims, at a catastrophic rate, and that rate will only increase, as the diseases of planned political divisiveness, oppression of those not in the cultural “in” group, addiction and mental illness within our culture continues to increase. I have known, and buried, far too many friends and family members who were waiting for a better day, and life, while abusing drugs and alcohol, or collapsing into mental illness.

My own “wait for a better day” has born great fruits for me, but the fruit was not acquired passively or through waiting for the outer conditions of my life to improve. I first had to confront my own suffering, and the sources within my mind, memory, and heart that would push me towards self-annihilation. Suffering need not lead to death, for those who choose to awaken.

Life can be an extremely humbling experience. Those blessed few who stop resisting life and develop the capacity to accept “defeat” are the ones most receptive to healing. It is when we are defeated that we become the most open to life affirming change and growth. After accepting the grace innate within the willingness to change, we can accept personal responsibility for the rest of our lives,. We finally learn that the willingness and capacity for changes in our attitudes and behaviors can become our “higher power”.

When our goal has finally been spotted, or, has spotted us, we each can make our own unique path towards it. The trail that each one of us blazes is as important as any path made by any prophet, saint, or savior who has ever lived, or will live. It is only our ego, or the egos of the hero worshipers of other faiths who have not yet realized their own highest truth that would say otherwise.

To make dramatic changes in my life, the desire had to come from a place deep within myself. I did not change because my wife and family, my friends, my minister at church, my employer, my political leaders, or my “people pleasing” attitudes cajoled or advised me to change. I had to begin to value myself differently, and to become conscious that my behavior was causing irreparable harm to myself, to other human beings, to our animal brothers and sisters, and/or to the sustainability for life on this planet. I understood that my behavior was insane, and that I had a death wish for myself, and/or for others. I sought for a higher power or energy to overcome my insanity.

Bringing healing to a situation is about recognizing what we are not doing well and accepting where we can improve, right now, in this moment, to help unfold more holistic intentions. Positive change follows the Hearts’ intentions, if the Heart is pure. If it is a desire from the Heart, never stop seeking that which seems unattainable, for it is the Heart itself seeking for its own highest expression. Please do not stop until Life’s Miracle reveals Itself to you.

Built right into the very fabric of life, is death itself. There are up to one hundred trillion cells within our human bodies that are constantly dying off, and being replaced by others so that we can continue to live, and even evolve (or regress as the situation may dictate). So also should all of our old thoughts die off, to be replaced by newer, more vibrant creations, if we are to continue to live, and grow, and even evolve. Those who do not do the work to shed the old ways, the old thoughts, the incomplete and inaccurate ways of seeing life, and being in life, will remain the “poor among us”, and more susceptible to the ravages of disease, aging and deterioration of the mind and body.

Even though the disease and despair wrought by toxic male energy is woven throughout the collective garment that now covers our humanity, there are many threads of hope interwoven within it, as well, and these threads are our hope for transcendence. Most forms of insanity can be healed without a lifetime of therapy or taking medications, if it is recognized that at its source, insanity arises from the habituated thoughts, feelings, and actions created through our lifelong unconscious accommodations to trauma.

Insight changes attitudes, insight changes behaviors, and insight changes lives. To change my world, I first changed myself, through insight, meditation, making amends to all people who I may have harmed through my insanity, and through carrying the message of recovery and healing to all who are interested in not only hearing my story, but bringing healing to their own lives, as well.

I continue to die daily, to all that is not like my true nature. I do not need pills or philosophical ideas to separate me from life’s goodness. I now see the good that is really good, and all of the illusions of self that others, and the past versions of me, offer up to the world as our daily “prayer offerings’ for its conditional acceptance, or its rejection. Though I lost out on my childhood dreams and goals of becoming a space traveler, to “get off this fucking rock”, I was able to live into a new dream. This “fucking rock” transitioned from a living hell, to becoming more of a peaceful paradise, where I became a more conscious traveler through the infinite regions of inner space, or Consciousness itself. My spiritual launching pad only awaited for me to “let go of the controls” to be catapulted into the unknown, mysterious, transformative and healing potential of the infinite.

My “spirit rocket” now lifts off daily, without the extra encumbrance of religious and cultural conditioning, misunderstanding, judgement, and all of the superstition which impedes spiritual progress. Love and acceptance of myself and all others, INCLUDING ALL ANIMAL LIFE, now unfolds within me as my primary, life affirming propellant. To remain healthy, we must be willing to “punch a Nazi”, figuratively speaking, but not just those projections out of our own wounded past. We instead will be dealing directly with issues that need to be addressed through insight into self, communication with others and/or outright confrontation with the offensive and antagonistic elements within our society still operating under the influence of the chaos and swamp of the collective consciousness that we all arose from.

Always question prevailing attitudes and philosophies of the people in power, be they politicians, employers, pop psychology or spirituality gurus, or religious figures. Healthy skepticism is warranted whenever a person or organization tries to exert pressure on individuals to conform to certain beliefs or traditions. If our internal bullshit detector is sounding off loud and strong, our external voice should be speaking our truth to whatever power is promoting lies or half-truths, thus affirming to all what we know to be true,. Never sit idly by while witnessing injustice or unfair and hurtful judgement and action meted out by the people in power against innocent people. By your silence, you are supporting the ignorant and the evil doers. They will use your silence to claim that you were in full support of their abhorrent behavior. Do not join in their conspiracy of silence.

Taking dominion over the world, and then destroying its wildlife, forests, rivers, oceans, and lands was never part of God’s will. It was always part of a worn out patriarchal attitude that still pollutes human awareness to this day. The greed and self-serving interests of our Christian ancestors has been glorified, and exalted, over and above the preservation of our planet, and the cultivation of harmony between the diverse interests of people on this planet. Our politicians and corporate leaders use our Capitalistic economic system to rape and pillage the Earth, and its people, and all of its life.. The “mark of the beast” is seen daily in the attitudes of those who promote the destruction of our environment, and who incite hatred and enmity between people.

The closer I get to my “God’, or the creator of my creations, the more anonymous that I become, and the more my story becomes about the truth of life, and, a little less about myself..My story may have little or no value to you, yet, there is a story, long neglected within your own heart and soul, patiently awaiting its delivery to our world. Your world awaits the King or Queen within you ..You only needs to pick up your own unique crown of the truth of being, and wear it with integrity and love. Take that MAGA hat off, and throw it in the dumpster, the corruption of thought and heart that this hat represents exists at a level far below your real nature.

Never let someone speak for us, we are responsible for bringing our voice into the world, and having it heard. Never take for granted our right to freedom of speech and its expression, both at home and in the marketplace. Find the way to express yourself without sacrificing your integrity, and stand up tall and strong in the face of any ignorant, unfair or unwarranted criticism. You will “cast your pearls before swine”. Our hard-earned deepest truths have little value to those who are considered hypnotized, which are many of the “civilized” and “normalized” citizens within this diseased culture of ours. If they cannot see how your wisdom will increase the size of their bank accounts, increase their prestige and popularity, get them more or better sex, or just generally appeal to their ego, it will have little value, except “laughing value”. “A prophet is never respected in their own hometown”.

Healthy anger at people, situations, politicians, religious figures, and abusive family members is not only acceptable behavior, it is required for honoring the truth of the moment, and to retain spiritual integrity. Do not follow those well-meaning souls who claim that all anger is hatred, for that is simply not true. Anger becomes dangerous when it does not naturally arise from the moment, but instead from animal/tribal instinct, unhealed memory and the institutionalized hatred promoted by religious and cultural conditioning.

Oppression and repression are birthed through incomplete and prematurely aborted responses to environmental threats. Institutionalized anger, or hatred, arises from memory, inadequate education, and emotional immaturity, and can be stoked by politicians and religious leaders with ignorant and evil agendas, and it is dangerous, being the source or racism, war, hatred, alienation, and cultural insanity. The insight gained through mindful, non-judgemental self examination, is our clew/clue for how to escape the confusing labyrinth of the mind. The clues gained will advise us to avoid the road blocks to enhancing our awareness of Love, and the integrity of our self. The expression of love INCLUDES the conscious expression of anger, whenever it is appropriate. Those who can consciously and skillfully express anger are the game changers for our age. Nearly 80, 000, 000 Americans appropriately expressed their anger at a corrupt president through their vote for an alternative. 3000 Americans expressed their anger on January 6, 2021 in a self-destructive manner.

I remain concerned about the “unaware ignorance” that is so prevalent within many sections of our society, including elements within the American Christian church. Using a church to get to the truth and beauty of Life can be like using an old Volkswagen Beetle to drive around the world, with a worn out, outdated map. Though Christianity brings a form of comfort with its historical and cultural familiarity to all, for many of us it is a clumsy vehicle for consciousness, with much too philosophically restrictive, time dependent dogma that even postpones “heaven” into a fantasy future after death, with no guarantee that anybody will ever spiritually ascend, no matter how much we try to match “what Jesus would do”, or what the other “prophets” would advise us to do.

Mysticism is at the core of all true religions. Each of us is a mystic, should we shed the oppressive and repressive energies of familial, cultural and religious conditioning. Each one of us should become the leader of our own internal movement towards truth, beauty, love, intelligence, awe, wonder, grace, and miracles. What is the difference between the “mind of God” and the “mind of man”? Ah, the answer is there, for you to discover for yourself. You should never just accept my answers, without your own deepest inquiries into your own personal truth.

It is revealing to note how the experience of “enlightenment” allows for the love for all people, and respect for all love based philosophies, yet promotes no dogma, religion or philosophy, as such, for its own support. The prerequisites are a desire for change, self-honesty, insight, mindfulness, meditation, and the developed ability to see beyond the controlling mirages of cultural and religious conditioning. Yet, religions, and their followers, tend to strongly move in tight circles around their own adherents and practices, and often exclude others from their spiritual “inner circles”. And those who point to the benefits of non-religious, spiritual enlightenment are regarded suspiciously, and, in some cases, as manifestations of Satan, or are seen as Infidels, by those who claim to be “religious”.

This story has presented a small portion of my own journey towards healing. As each individual is unique, please do not use my experience to minimize, or maximize, your own. We must eventually find our own direction for life, and not only learn how to think for ourselves, but also to learn how to think and feel with others. We can truly be one with others in a non-controlling, NON-JUDGMENTAL manner, and be with each other with compassion and in communion. It is healthy to acknowledge that we all need each other.

I can’t do this life alone, nor would I ever want that for myself. We are here to help and support each other, and to love each other. Each moment can either be a new beginning, or just the continuation of a painful past where all of human suffering arises from. It is our choice as to how we will experience this moment. I must be willing to travel new paths of consciousness, and never to become too attached to any particular memory, or teacher and their teachings, as it is up to me to work out my own “salvation”. When I let go of the controls, including my own internalized forms of institutionalized thoughts, when I let go of time based thoughts and expectations, when I respect the truth that many times the presence and wisdom of the Great Unknown, rather than just more information and knowledge, is what I am best fed with, that is when I am truly trusting the life force which has always supported me, whether I have recognized its presence or not.

While incarnated into human form, with our poorly illuminated human minds, we can only witness the projections of our minds. All that we will ever see, unto whatever eternity that we can possibly conceive of, is our self, so the most important question for each day is “how will I see myself today?” The answer to that question determines whether I can see through the eyes of the truth of this moment, or just the limited eyes of the past. Each person that I meet either is one of the infinite manifestations of God, deserving ultimate respect and love, or they become just another dead illusion of my aging, conditioned mind.

Never confuse the messenger with the message. Never worship the messenger, for that is idolatry. Hero worship and sacrificial offerings to that which supposedly is greater than us only separates us further from who we truly are. Why would anyone just settle for the “finger pointing at the moon” or the verbal description, when one could walk upon its very surface, and be one with it? Sucking more meaning out of someone else’s “finger” will never replace the direct personal experience of our deepest desire, the underlying truth of our own nature. 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 attempt to take precedence, and will distort one’s view of the world. The image plays to a small part of fragmented being where the search for pleasure and the avoidance of pain rule our decisions, whereas the truth plays through the wholeness of all beings, uniting us in a collaborative, uniting experience..

Lust, greed, selfishness, hatred, and judgement of all others unlike oneself all play to the structure of internalized individualized images. Seeing each other through wholeness and love and thus disempowering the fragmenting images, which is another way of saying “giving forgiveness” allows for right action and healing in the otherwise chaotic and broken world created within the mind of individual self. The ultimate truth is that “you can’t be real”. For in God’s eyes, there is only one self, one love, one existence, with an infinitude of manifestations. There is no room for “you and me” in ultimate truth, though we must continue to make room for that “illusion” in the relative truth of this world, through practicing forgiveness and letting go, until the final ascension into “enlightenment” or complete spiritual understanding.

Finding the true connecting link is the journey into wholeness that our human race must undertake, if it is to survive. When we see our brother and sister as our own self, then we are home. This connecting link is not to be found through our digital devices, or through our “best thinking” or philosophies. It will unfold when we learn how to no longer think time based thoughts, but, instead, eternity based thoughts. That is the only place where Unity will ever be experienced. To see eternity, is to first witness the self without fear and judgement, and then see through the illusions of self to the Heart of Truth.

MOUNTAINS IN THE DESERT

While in realization of Truth,

God’s High Mount is found to be just another illusion to climb

The idea infects like a virus to control the innocent, and all fearful, desirous minds.

The non-illuminated, restless mind remains forever devoid of Love’s Rhyme and Truth’s Reason

With its fruitless chasing of desert mirages,

Until it looks within, and sees the movements that are guilty of treason.

The quickest way to prepare for the new world order (which was once the old world order, by the way) is to get outside of the house, the computer, the movie theater, the Facebook pages, etc. and start getting acquainted with the great outdoors. Once we are free from the encumbrances of our daily lives, we may be more receptive to the call of our spirit. We are not connected to God through our technology. In fact, most of our media related technology has separated us from the quiet state of being that allows God’s will to be readily accepted into consciousness.

Our mother Earth, Gaia is a living being, and is the true “son-daughter of God”. And yes, we are children of that sacred child. God’s face is seen clearly, once the detritus of human misunderstanding is moved aside long enough so that Reality may emerge, once again.

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, realise you are the Earth and your consciousness is also the consciousness of the Earth.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Technology is only a tool, though it has become another new world religion, a way of life for far too many people. Our country, and our world, shows the collective effects of falling far short of meeting or even acknowledging the existence of our spiritual needs, or attempting to meet our spiritual needs through illusory processes. Most of our media devices have continued the promotion and distribution of cultural hypnosis, and most people continue to be separated from a greater good through that process. The world exists in a state of hypnosis, and it is easy to see that truth when the mind finally takes itself off of the grid of shared cultural and religious misunderstanding. We can pull our eyes off of the phone display for a moment, and engage the person next to us in conversation. We will all benefit from the exchange. We do not benefit in any spiritual or social way by remaining glued to our phones.

Someday the rest of the world will wake up, and realize that all of our technology is only a symbol for the true power that we all have access to, if we only were to fully explore the full range of our consciousness. My closed mind and heart was eternally grounded, and would have NEVER freed itself from darkness’ grasp, until I accepted personal responsibility for the brokenness, and self-destructive and other-destructive life that I had co-created for myself and with others, see the damage that those illusions caused, and became willing to have a different, more spiritually oriented type of life experience. Freedom may not be for everybody now, but it certainly is for me, now, and for all of eternity. I am grateful for my wife Sharon White, who shares in the new/old insight. May all sentient beings be freed from their suffering. But first, all sentient beings must become conscious enough to be aware of the options available to free themselves from their suffering. Pay attention to the man behind the curtain! Get to know him at the deepest level. And then, don’t give up finding truth, beauty, and love until the real Miracle appears in your own life, OK?

Like my father asked, when I was nearly four years old, 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 that I had the capacity for speech, and A LOT OF IT. Both of my parents wondered, at times, if I would ever shut up. Once a person touches Consciousness, Infinity is the limit to our potential. Yet, my own voice disappeared, after many years of oppression, and repression. The long-term oppressive effects of the conspiracy of silence that plagues most men will continue to limit our potential to experience happiness and longevity, and love for our life. That certainly was the case for my own life, and nearly eventuated in my early death at thirty years of age.

I am humbled and amazed by both 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 in all of lives, and lift all of us together into a unity of love, thought, action, and a new shared story of world healing and wholeness. May the Word spontaneously arise from our SACRED SILENCE, and not from the chaos of our troubled past. As I contemplate the entirety of my life, I see a simple truth arising from the complexities of the details. Silence born of ignorance and oppression brings suffering and disease. Silence born of healing brings joy and love into the world. This same Silence brings forth the capacity to listen with the heart for the deepest meaning embedded within All of Life, in All of Its infinitude of forms, and return the dignity back to each sacred manifestation of life. Is anybody really listening to each other?

Those who have learned how to really listen, hear the “voice for God”. And, we finally get to live in the creation that Love provides for us all, when we accept Love’s vision as our own.

And, no, Father, in whatever form Father may take, I will never “shut up”

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

We all have had problems listening to each other. We all have had problems listening to ourselves. Yet, our stories must be told, and we must listen to the “other’s” story, with respect and compassion for ourselves, and for the other. Every good story has an ending. And, so do our bad stories. What value is a story, if it is never told? What value is love, if it is never shared? What is the value of speaking, if nobody is even listening? What is the value of writing, if there is nobody left to read? 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 of our families of origin.

Sing your song, like your life depended on it, BECAUSE, IT DOES! All of our lives depend on each others stories. Those who will not listen to our story, and in turn, will not share their own story with us, are still stuck in their own story of repression and oppression. They are still unconscious participants in the 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 beloved 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 I have lived well beyond my expiration date. My “miracle experiment” continues in earnest. My world can never be the same

How about yours?

Blessed Longing, by Goethe (Translated by John O’Donohue)

Tell no one else, only the wise

For the crowd will sneer at one I wish to praise what is fully alive,

What longs to flame toward death.

When the calm enfolds the love-nights

That created you, where you have created

A feeling from the Unknown steals over you

While the tranquil candle burns.

You remain no longer caught In the penumbral gloom

You are stirred and new, you desire To soar to higher creativity.

No distance makes you ambivalent.

You come on wings, enchanted In such hunger for light, you

Become the butterfly burnt to nothing.

So long as you have not lived this:

To die is to become new,

You remain a gloomy guest On the dark earth.

Book 8: Our Trauma, The Conspiracy Of Silence, And Our Healing Potential

Published by Bruce on August 5, 2022August 5, 2022

Chapter 1: Troubleshooting And Repairing A Broken System

Chapter 2: To Be Born In A Forgotten Past, To Be Reborn In The Now (check other version before submittal)

Chapter 3: Disrupting The Conspiracy Of Silence

Chapter 5: Minimizing the Effects of Ignorance, Trauma, And Suffering

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Bruce

Healing Into A More Balanced Life-Living Life On The Widest Frequencies

Chapters 36-38: To Be Born In A Forgotten Past, To Be Reborn In The Now—–Living Life On A Wider Frequency Of Being

I Am Now A Writer, After All!

Book 8: Our Trauma, The Conspiracy Of Silence, And Our Healing Potential

Published by Bruce on August 5, 2022August 5, 2022

Chapter 1: Troubleshooting And Repairing A Broken System

Chapter 2: To Be Born In A Forgotten Past, To Be Reborn In The Now (check other version before submittal)

Chapter 3: Disrupting The Conspiracy Of Silence

Chapter 5: Minimizing the Effects of Ignorance, Trauma, And Suffering

Share this:

Like this:

Related

Bruce

Related Posts

Healing Into A More Balanced Life-Living Life On The Widest Frequencies

Chapters 36-38: To Be Born In A Forgotten Past, To Be Reborn In The Now—–Living Life On A Wider Frequency Of Being

I Am Now A Writer, After All!