It is what it is, but it is not what it seems—Paul Hewson (amongst many other philosophers and commentators)
Spiritual freedom has never been about guns, money, or religion,
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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.
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Speak not of evil, see no evil, hear no evil, HEAL NO EVIL
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.
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Some wounds are so deep, and primal, that just pasting new names onto aspects of the disease and creating new stories are not enough. . 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.
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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. “ . “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 . 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. “
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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!
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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. So, 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.
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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 anxiety around the unknown. 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 Poster Adults For Toxic Manhood
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.
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I began my own “search for Truth” in 1986, after a failed suicide attempt. A spiritual awakening process beginning in 1987 was the start of my exit from the chaotic mindset that characterized 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 the source of my own spiritual disease and despair.
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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. . The conspiracy of silence has to be disrupted, again and again if necessary, to stop the silencing of our true identities. We must choose to no longer adhere to old, worn out patterns of behavior inculcated into us by our culture, our religions, our so-called teachers and teachings, and our misunderstandings of our parents, and our creator. Our outdated sense of self will have to end, and we will have to find a new path of consciousness for this present moment healing event to have any hope of transforming the heart, body, and soul. We need to follow new paths of consciousness, while dispelling the illusions created by our society and our individual fantasy thinking.
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As none can know in advance what our final destination is to be, or will look like, this becomes an experiment in consciousness for us. If we are not experiencing miracles of any nature in our day to day life, it only indicates that we are too firmly entrenched in the ruts created by our past. . To follow new paths of consciousness while knowing the difficult truth that any concept of “you” or “me” can’t be real in any absolute sense, sets up quite a transformational dynamic within consciousness. If any concept of “you” has no ultimate value in truth, then everything that I associate with “I” rises to preeminence. 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 a victim of traumatic abuse”, or “I am a lonely, isolated person”, or “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 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.
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After I have identified my own internalized issues, and have become willing to heal from them, I could just as easily say “I am no longer traveling old paths of consciousness”, and then through mindfulness and meditation, STOP, or at least dramatically reduce, thinking time-based thoughts, and rehashing and rehearsing painful old memories, to create a new life experience for myself. I would then have to trust in my innate capacity to heal and change, or in spiritual terms, a “Higher Power”, “the Unknown”, the “Present Moment”, and/or “the Mystery” to create my new “timeless self” in each moment. Some may call this process “letting go” and “forgiveness”. I call this process “my miracle experiment”
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To be in realization of Truth, is to see that God’s High Mount is another illusion to climb, Being created by fearful, desirous minds caught upon the merry-go-round of time. The unillumined, restless mind remains forever bereft of Love’s Rhyme, and Truth’s Reason, Only chasing mirages, until it sees all of the movements of thought that are guilty of treason.
