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”.
.
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 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..
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?
.
The greatest story that I have read around the power and insight of the first understood word is that which was recounted about the life of Helen Keller. As a young person, she had lost her sight and hearing, and she could not develop the capacity to communicate. As a mute, she appeared to be living a basic life characteristic of many intelligent animals. but not having the ability to communicate with her world. When her teacher was finally able to show her that the letters W A T E R, represented both the substance that she drank, and that which she was bathed in, she had an insight, or a revelation. And, according to Helen, the perception of the word water, as associated with the physical experience of water, initiated her own self awareness. Literally, Helen was birthed as an ego as a direct result of understanding this one word WATER in her mind. Of course Helen went on to become a beloved author, political activist, and lecturer.
.
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..
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 present travels guarantees a dark end to humanity’s long journey.
.
How do you see your life today?
