Chapter Eleven: Reimagining Our Journey Through Consciousnesss (Melinda Copp, my former editor, left her mark on this one)
“It is what it is, but it is not what it seems.” —Paul Hewson, et al
We all love a great story. Storytellers are revered throughout society. As humans, we all create stories around our individual lives and all of our relationships with each other and with the world. We also listen intently to the stories told to us by our parents, teachers, religions, history, and society about who we are, who others once were or now are, and whom 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 to control 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 is lived and experienced without true integrity, the potential for healing and completeness, or alignment with reality.
Some aspects of life just seem to elude our ability to effectively communicate around them. They never get incorporated into our personal stories and thus add to the collective conspiracy of silence. Also, other people’s stories and garbage get backfilled into the holes and empty spaces within our own stories, becoming embedded within us, and adding to our internal confusion and chaos.
But it is each of our responsibilities as conscious, or semi-conscious, human beings to bring our 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 convenient form of communication, and they are never comprehensive and inclusive enough to completely reveal the true nature 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.
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. If our need is for change, we must find a way to see under the vast matrix of theories and fantasies 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.
I intuited quite early that words have access to imagination and knowledge built in, and can extend far beyond the word, or sequence of words, spoken. As an adult I learned that each individual word is a hologram to the whole of our human language, just like each human being is a hologram to the whole of humanity. Looking back now, I have seen the incredible capacity of the human mind to not only represent the real world with words and internal imagery but to also 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. It 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 six years old at the time.
Illusions can take the whole mind hostage if not recognized and reined in early. In some of the early times of my life, before 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 destruction to our planet Earth. While we contemplated our end, we witnessed a world in its collective march toward suicide. The story of Armageddon, as both an individual and as a collective event, becomes very real to those trapped by their illusions of powerlessness, helplessness, and despair.
We are the loosely knit tribe most susceptible to the oppression by others, and the repression of ourselves. 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 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 ourselves. 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 true natures and more realistic stories of ourselves.
If you tell a lie often enough, you are prone to start to believe it yourself. All of the internal defense mechanisms engage to support the story and maintain the lie’s existence and the corruption that living a lie creates. This is how lies can become part of our nature. Be careful out there, the world and our minds can be a dangerous place. Unlike television sitcoms, where the programs have the potential to resolve the contrived issues before the ending of the episode, life carries our issues for prolonged periods, 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 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 a mess to sort through. Constantly question reality, search for available facts, and learn not to unconsciously accept statements from authority figures. Many times reality is only someone else’s opinion about what is, so a cautious, probing mind is required to maintain or re-establish personal integrity, healing, sanity, and reason.
It has been a great challenge and adventure to live this life. It has also been a great fulfillment for me to have lived long enough and to have become articulate enough to put my unique experience of life into words. Finding my unique story, and finding the supportive silence underneath that story, is the journey of my salvation, the hero’s journey toward healing and integrity.
Connecting Through Stories
My wife and I were friends with another couple, Marty and Eddy, for many years. Marty and I were quite friendly with each other, yet we rarely spoke at great length or depth or developed a deeper friendship beyond our wives. He was the kind of guy who let his wife organize and dominate his life. She often spoke for him or even verbally ran him over in group settings. We were in the same book club, and it was common knowledge that when his wife was present, Marty would not consistently reveal himself or his own story. He would instead defer to Eddy through his silence. Eddy was not a bad person or intentionally oppressive, yet her relationship with Marty exhibited how repressed people remain that way until they assert and affirm their presence in public.
Marty (right), Sharon, and Me on a hike during healthier times.
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. Marty had malignant melanoma that was in remission at the time. 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 that he was stuck and hoping to have a spiritual breakthrough, yet he felt helpless as to how to make it happen, short of a miracle occurring. I still was stuck, too, but I had hope that I might be able to marshal the necessary spiritual resources to take me to the next level. But as our friendship deepened, and I continued to piece together my own story, our spiritual selves became inextricably intertwined.
On January 11, 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. I saw 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 second time that I had an awareness of my body’s life energy field after my only other experience of it in July of 1987, when I first saw two embedded traumatic wounds, appearing as “tricksters”.
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, 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. After all, I had been under a ton of stress with the care and support that I was required to give to my father, who was mentally deteriorating while nearing ninety years old. 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.
Then, on March 5, 2017, Marty also suffered a seizure and was hospitalized. Although his cancer treatments had seemed successful up to that point, the doctor found a new golf ball-sized tumor in his left brain hemisphere. 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 0what I thought was my 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 peculiar version of the terror as well.
That next day, 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 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. She offered her 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 and mind. I then began losing my ability to talk. It took all of the power that I could muster to force words out. I 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. Sharon saw it as me having a panic attack.
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 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 myself and of Marty. I continued to listen to Jack Boland’s spiritual wisdom tapes, hoping to hear something that might bring me comfort. While I was listening, Boland said 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. That was when I understood.
I had begged and pleaded with my wife Sharon to give my message to the world, for which I felt that I was unqualified to give. Sharon, a published author, refused, stating my message is my own to deliver or die with. Marty had also been encouraging me to tell my story, and the pain and suffering I was experiencing complementary to his was my spiritual purpose going unfulfilled. Telling our stories is that important.
What value is a story, if it is never told? What value is love, if it is never shared?
Once upon a time, an old woman ran through the streets shouting: “Power, greed, corruption! Power, greed, corruption!” For a while, people stopped to hear, to think, and to discuss the problem. As time went by and nothing happened, they simply went back to their business. Finally, one day, a child stepped in front of the prophet to say, ”Old woman, no one is listening to you.”
The woman stopped yelling and said, ”Oh, I know that.”
The boy was puzzled. “If you know that you have failed, then why do you go on shouting?”
“Oh, child,” the old woman answered, “you do not understand. I do not shout to change them. I shout so that they cannot change me”
Dead men tell no tales, but the nearly dead and fully alive must continue to tell their stories, with respect for themselves and others, until our civilization finally wakes up. Not expressing ourselves honestly and openly results in our 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.
We are all as sick as the secrets that we keep from each other and ourselves.
Choose wisely, oh mankind, the secrets that we must keep,
because by our choices we all may awaken or stay sick, isolated, and asleep.
Some aspects of our lives just seem to continue to elude our ability to communicate around them, and they add to our cultural conspiracy of silence. Life was never an easy journey for me. Had it not been for some deep need to understand my dysfunctional process and find the underlying truth amid my chaos, I would have passed away long ago. Some wounds are so deep and primal, that pasting new names onto aspects of the disease is not enough.
But, the act of creating stories and context and being conversational about the details of life does not dislodge the detritus from our field of consciousness. 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 Pearl
Of what value to us is our ego? Our ego can be likened to the shell of an oyster, which is rarely recognized for its 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 ourselves, 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 the shell. 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 oyster’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.
The 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. 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. Yesterday’s 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 person 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 judgment against or physical separation from the offending party, we may have pushed away a layer of nacre for our internal pearl of wisdom. Our judgments are only verbal measurements of an ever-changing environment. Any judgment should be a temporary rest stop that is left behind when we move in resonance with the new reality continuously unfolding before our eyes. This is the way of forgiveness.
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. It helps us assess what actions in life we must undertake to meet our social and societal obligations. It is our mind’s 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 the vast majority of thoughts and inclinations with our fellow humans. And we are only in denial of that fact when we don’t believe it and fail to act with compassion toward ourselves and others.
If the oyster was a closed system and did not allow for an internal response to irritants, whatever parasites or grains of sand 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. 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. All of the forgiveness that we offer to ourselves and all offending parties in our world also creates lustrous layers of nacre. Do not judge another by their shell, but instead, wait until they can open themselves up and reveal the pearl of the greatest price.
We all experience the effects of thoughtless, capricious human activity. Bring on those irritants, as they are the gatekeepers to new layers of consciousness! Remember, most people ask for forgiveness, rather than permission before they engage in their controversial behavior. Our wisdom, created through spiritually discerning the irritants in life, is our shiny pearl.
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. Over some 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 relationships, that contributes to the formation of a healing spiritual nacre within our minds and hearts?
But truly, what is the pearl of the greatest price? It is your pearl, strung on the same string as the rest of humanity. Our stories imbued with collective wisdom create the necklace of ultimate value. We must each build our unique consciousness of truth and love, and then our stories become part of the ever-unfolding wisdom of mankind.
Enlightenment
“The basic laws of the universe are simple, but because our senses are limited, we can’t grasp theml. There is a pattern in creation. If we look outside at this tree, it has roots that search beneath the pavement for water or a flower that sends its sweet smell to the pollinating bees, or even our selves and the inner forces that drive us to act, we can see that we all dance to a mysterious tune, and the piper who plays this melody from an inscrutable distance—whatever name we give it—Creative Force, or God—escapes all book knowledge…”—
Albert Einstein
With our eyes, we only see one percent of the entire spectrum of light. Yet, there are other forms of light that we may witness if we can develop a sensitivity to its presence. There are even those, known as “seers” who see way beyond the standard views afforded to us by our eyes and our training. Those that see deeply, and well beyond and behind the veils of illusion that most of humanity lives behind, are considered to be either insane, or spiritual lights, or perhaps a blend of the two. Those who can see into the heart of Truth are a rare breed indeed, and our culture rarely honors and acknowledges such lights until well after their deaths.
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 artists’ 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?
I believe that we can experience the power and a life greater than any limited, personal sense of self because I experienced it for myself. I no longer look to the darkness for the light. I found my light, a light that dispels the darkness of others, their religions and economic philosophies, and the darkness of my historical self.
Leonard Cohen said that his teacher once told him that the older that we get, the lonelier that we will become. This is because, as we go through life, we tend to over-identify with being the hero of our stories. We take on the role of “hero” in our journey toward healing, yet we still remember all too well being kicked around, humiliated, and disgraced. Being the hero of our story is a temporary vehicle for us to borrow until we no longer need those stories from our dysfunctional pasts to give meaning in the present. When we let go of our “rental vehicle” we can find our rightful place in the universe, and experience a love more satisfying than anything we have ever known before.
It is important to remember, that many of us have to take the posture of being the hero, at least for a healing period, to give us the extra motivation to follow new paths of consciousness on our way out of the distress of our younger years. The real deepest meaning of the word hero is “to serve”, so the humility that is gained through being roughed up a bit on the way to enlightenment helps us to better serve the community of which we claim to be members of. If we have found wisdom, we have allowed ourselves to be shattered, and return to our homes, humbled, but with a newfound sense that we no longer need to identify with the parts of us that need to win, need to be recognized, and need to know. This is where our transcendence truly takes root and grows into a unity with the tree of life, where we can live by the sunlight of truth.
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. 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 making.
Scientists, though able to define relationships and the laws that dictate behavior between all observable and quantum phenomena, 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 toward 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, and impacts both the seer and the seen.
The impacts that we all have on each other are not yet fully understood. Yet prayer, meditation, and mindfulness prepare the mind for the unknown source of all true creation. It is a much more collaborative effort being a human—or any other form of life on this planet—than our minimally conscious minds understand at this time. There are mysterious threads of energy that connect all of life together into one unified whole, yet we continue to create understandings that often fragment our world view and the objects of our perceptions within it. Ultimately, science, religion, medicine, and technology will all be united as manifestations of mankind’s expression of true being.
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 depend on our recognition of who we 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 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 transformation. By letting go of the societal controls that keep us imprisoned in an outdated image of ourselves and the unrealistic and unhealthy expectations of others, we become ready to travel onto new paths of consciousness and to a new era of transcendence in our lives.
I grieve with the rest of humanity for the early deaths of all damaged souls and 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 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.
With all of the antipathy being expressed towards those in our culture who are waking up, or “woke”, it is important to understand what the conservative tribes are judging against. The mischieve makers of our political and religious conservative fear meaningful change, and rush to create an “us vs them” diatribe, to distract from the need for our culture, and ourselves, to make necessary corrections in course, and even to evolve in love and in truth. We are not monsters, nor should we be feared, but there are always political points to be made in this divisive culture. We typically don’t stock up on AR-15s, or form militias to protect our rights and our needs. We do not allow unconscious fear to dominate our lives, and instead look directly into the face of any fearful situation, to see where our experience, intelligence, intuition, compassion, and love can assist in making decisions that benefit the whole, rather than just special interests.
Typically, a person moving on the path toward enlightenment exhibits the following traits:
- We read books and have no desire to burn any of them, no matter how controversial they may be
- We embrace science, and scientific methods for understanding the world, and reality itself.
- We are willing to change our minds when confronted with new information that disproves previous understandings
- We understand that most issues are not black and white but exist on a spectrum
- We believe in the equality of all people, all races,all ethnicities, all gender identifications
- We like to share prosperity with those considered less advantageous
- We cooperate and collaborate with each other with a minimum of tribalistic, or us versus them attitudes
- We respect the rights of everybody, including ourselves
- We believe that our culture, religion, and arts are manifestations of our creative nature, and we have the right to re-create each according to the dictates of our evolutionary progress in understanding
- Care for Mother Earth and all of its life as if our lives depended upon it, because it does.
Conclusion: Thoughts On That Which Is Beyond All Thought
“Bruce, I don’t have the time to listen to your problems, I have too many of my own.”——Tony to me in Fred Meyer pharmacy line
I never had the perfect family and even those who claim to have still had to grow up in a damaged culture and make accommodations to that damage. Putting food on the table and basic survival is hard enough, but we all have to do it within the existing toxicity. And so we judge each other. We naturally seek to understand ourselves and our relationship with the whole, yet we become self-conscious, judgmental, and/or uncomfortable with those assessments. The loss of our connection with nature and our imbalanced and inaccurate perceptions of self and each other contribute to our sense of isolation, loneliness, and vulnerability. But we can take responsibility and make changes in the way we think and view the world. If we do not make ourselves aware of the reasons behind the choices that we make in life, we remain unconscious human beings with little true freedom.
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 is still hope for you. 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 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 the course to create a new life experience.
Mass hypnosis, oppression, mental illness, drug addiction and alcoholism, indifference, self-hatred, and its most destructive spawns 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 lives. 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, appear as a reasonable choice for the final act of protest against life for those suffering from the terminal effects of oppression and repression. Suicide and murder are cruel acts against those with loving intentions, and they are tragic forms of violence against self, family, friends, and the supporting community.
Self-destructive attitudes, indifference, suicide, and murder are perceived to be the only solution for desperate souls who can’t afford to care or 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, and addiction and mental illness within our culture continue 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.
People who do not seek recovery will always be among us. They cannot or will not give themselves to the life-saving practices of insight, mindfulness, meditation, making amends, and compassionate care for Mother Earth and its life. Some suffer from grave emotional disorders, many of which are trauma-inspired, yet they are unaware or don’t care to address such difficult issues. My story has disclosed in a general way what an unhealed life was like for me, what happened to me on my way to healing, and what I am like now. If you are interested in healing, you have to really want it, and there must be the deepest of desires to finish successfully. This energy will keep your ship afloat while confronting the difficult logjams and icebergs of life that would sink you otherwise. Remember, we are dealing with the human mind and a diseased culture. The combination of the two creates a powerful, cunning adversary until we find a way out of their labyrinth. It may be too much for us, but there is help, and it is our willingness to change and to be part of a worldwide collaborative healing initiative.
My 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 suffering and the sources within my mind, memory, and heart that would push me toward 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. When we are defeated, 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 it has spotted us, we each can make our own unique path toward 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. Only our ego or the egos of the hero worshippers of other faiths who have not yet realized their own highest truth 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 value myself differently and become conscious that my behavior was causing irreparable harm to myself, to other human beings, to our animal brothers and sisters, and to the sustainability of life on this planet. I understood that my behavior was insane and that I had a death wish for myself and/or others. I sought 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 at this moment, to help unfold more holistic intentions. Positive change follows the heart’s 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 its own highest expression. Please do not stop until Life’s Miracle reveals itself to you.
Many of us don’t believe that we have the seed for greatness within us. Many of us believe that somebody else is our greatness. We look outside ourselves, thinking that our greater good will come to us from Jesus Christ or that perfect woman or that perfect man or that perfect job. We think that somebody else will do the work for us. We’re always looking outside of ourselves. But this is an inside job too. Yes, the good can come from the outside; but if we’re not doing the work to bring it out from our inside, then it throws life out of balance and creates dependencies. Your story of healing brings more balance to yourself and all of your relationships.
We are as sick as our secrets is an aphorism used extensively in recovery groups. And the truth is that our world does not heal until we do. It is our responsibility to find our freedom and stop blaming others. Otherwise, we will remain trapped in our labyrinth of self-deception and spiritual corruption until the end. Without the healing of our wounds, loving acceptance of ourselves and each other remains impossible, we remain separated from our true nature, and our pasts continue to dominate us. When we don’t tell our stories, the conspiracy of silence still reigns supreme, and our religions, economic policies, politics, and collective consciousness continue to give more support to our fantasies rather than to facts and reality.
If you can see beyond the limited vision of the self and get to the deeper reality hidden within the soul, the potential for an inspired and higher-powered human experience lies buried there under the detritus of a traumatized history. By going on a search for truth, the entirety of our life experience can be lived and experienced with true integrity, the potential for healing and completeness, and the best alignment with reality. It’s the difference between continuing the struggle and newer, more diverse, and healthier possibilities for life.
Since 1987, I have chosen to live life more fully, with enhanced personal awareness, good health, and honest expression of all feelings. I experience joy and happiness the majority of the time, and I have maintained almost continuous sobriety. No one knows what our final destination in life will be, but living your story becomes an experiment in consciousness. 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. Insight is the greatest benefit of finding your story—insight into self and insight into the people around you. Now I have peace of mind continuously. It isn’t fleeting, but a constant presence in my life that never existed before.
Make peace with your story, develop your own timeline, develop your personal story, and be the hero of your journey. Do whatever it takes. Find and cherish your own story no matter how difficult it is initially. Because as you heal and grow, that story starts to take on significance until it becomes part of the grand story. It should no longer be “his story,” or “her story,” but instead, the united “our story.” Like Tony at the pharmacy, 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 other people’s stories with respect and compassion for ourselves and others. 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 families of origin. Sing your song like your life depends on it. Because it does! All of our lives depend on each others’ stories. 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 and 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.
Ultimately, if our culture, and we as individuals, want to embrace and express a healing and transformative energy to ourselves, and to each other, we must adopt the attitude of the Mother of a newborn child. All that Mother sees is her love for her newborn, the very expression of her being. The hardest insight to gain is the necessity to see the world through the eyes of the divine Mother, for the world, the world that we see within our own mind, is also the very expression of our creativity, and our being, as well. No more turning away from the necessity to give love to our newborn baby, which is our world, please. We can all learn to follow that loving thread of goodness, which always leads us out of mental labyrinths while continuing the great adventure of our lives..
Yet, never forget that Mother can tell when a diaper needs to be changed, and the baby needs to be cleaned up. Mother cannot just turn away, and pretend the movement of stool and urine did not occur, Mother directly addresses the issue, and makes all necessary changes, without complaint. It is the dharma of being a mother, after all. So shall we become responsible for not turning away from the soiled clothing of the world that we witness? We had better be prepared to actively engage our world as it soils itself, and provide necessary cleaning of the offensive parties as required. The most resistant ones to cleansing, and healing, may have to be avoided for a while, until they become sick from their odor, and desire a change, however!
Insight changes attitudes, insight changes behaviors, and insight changes lives. Always question prevailing attitudes and philosophies of the people in power, be they politicians, employers, pop psychology or spiritual 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. Never sit idly by while witnessing injustice or unfair and hurtful judgment and action meted out by the people in power against innocent people. By your silence, you are supporting the ignorant and the evildoers. 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.
The closer I get to my God, or the creator of my creations, the more anonymous 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 need to pick up your unique crown of the truth of being and wear it with integrity and love.
Someday the world will wake up and realize that the power of our awareness will open all doors to the long-forgotten or neglected rooms of our consciousness where infinite power resides. Our culture will remain eternally antagonistic toward a collective healing truth until a majority of its citizens embrace the potential of healing for themselves. Closed minds and hearts, and the turning away from others’ problems, only continue an oppressive, heartless society. We, as individuals, must accept personal responsibility for our lives and bring healing intention to our brokenness. Our collective healing intention will eventually become the shepherd that motivates others to do the same. Then our broken culture will find its healing.
I am humbled and amazed by both the miracle embedded within the sacred silence of a mind that has found a healing peace, and the bridge from that space and place to human consciousness through the Word. May the Word arise from that peace and not from the chaos of our troubled pasts. As I contemplate the entirety of my life, I see a simple truth arising from the complexities of its details. Silence born of ignorance, oppression, and repression brings suffering, disease, and early death. Silence born of healing brings joy and love into our world. This same Silence brings forth the capacity to listen with the heart for the deepest meaning embedded within All of Life in its infinitude of forms, and it returns dignity to each sacred manifestation of life.
Is anybody now interested in listening?
Those who learn to listen, hear the “voice of God,” the “music of the Spheres,” unconditioned intelligence inspired by the Buddha mind, and the eternal thoughts that can redefine our new path through Consciousness itself.
Had my father survived, he would have been 94 years old in April of 2023. And, it would not have been a very happy birthday, because dementia was really taking a toll on the poor man.
The last conversation that I had with my father was 6 hours before his death. This is what we exchanged with each other:
Dad, you are still in bed, and its 2:30 in the afternoon, what’s up, it’s such a beautiful day outside.
You know son, I am always tired now, but I am about to get up.
Well, Dad, this might be the last sunny day in a long time, so why don’t you get up, and go out on the porch and have a cigar? I’ll put a chocolate bar on your table, and a drink for you.
I’ll get right up son. By the way, who is caring for me this evening?
Well, Dad, Madison is caring for you this evening.
Oh, poor Madison!
Dad, Madison benefits by being with you, as you do with her.
I will be with you beginning this Sunday morning, and I will be with you for the next three weeks as usual. You know we are planning one final trip to Hawaii with you, right?
Oh son, I am happy just staying at home. I have everything that I need here.
Well, OK dad. I am going to leave now, as I need to prepare for Marty’s funeral tomorrow.
When will I see you again, son?
Dad, it will be Sunday morning, OK?
OK, son, you know that I am dependent on you. Please take care of yourself.
Oh, dad, you know that I am dependent on you, too. You be careful too!
I love you, son.
I love you too, Dad.
I leave his room, not knowing this is to be our last exchange.
The next day, at 10:58 am, as I stand in the back of the hearse, as a pallbearer in Marty Crouch’s funeral, I prepare to receive Marty’s body to place into the hearse. I received a call from Madison, which I could not take, so I handed the phone to Sharon.
Sharon is informed that my father is deceased. Sharon has to leave the service for the preparation of my father’s body. I return to my father’s house, after meeting my obligation to Marty. The whole family is then traumatized again, subjected to spiritual assault by the police, and the medical examiner. In trauma understanding, this is called the “second injury”, which is an unconscious hurtful action by others in the face of a wounding. I then let them “HAVE IT”, like only my father, and now myself could do. That ME came around to where he should have been, at the beginning. The police left without further incident.
Wow, in life and in death, my father really knew how to place his unique stamp on my life! Sometimes, it takes nearly an entire lifetime, to learn to unconditionally love and accept a father.
That is my story. And, I have written eight books, in my own unique effort to bring healing to my personal and collective world.
Is my father in a “better place”?
Everybody has a theory.
I am in a better place, that I know for sure!
My father, when I first learned how to speak, wondered aloud if I would ever shut up.
No, father, in whatever form “father” may now take, including the oppressive voices of our culture and religions, I will never shut up.
Can you hear me now?
Had Tony listened to me at the pharmacy, rather than exhibit indifference, my life may have headed in another direction. I was a victim of the Conspiracy Of Silence with a terminal disease. With my emergence from the underworld, the world still could not listen or care less. But I found my message and the willingness to share it with others.
Will the world ever listen to itself and find true compassion and healing?
I have broken 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?
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, and me
(Alternate conclusion)
In a world filled with noise and chaos, it’s easy to lose sight of our true selves. We find ourselves conforming to societal expectations, adhering to cultural norms, and succumbing to the pressures of family conditioning. But deep within each of us lies a unique story waiting to be discovered and expressed. This blog post is an invitation to embark on a journey of self-discovery, to break free from the chains of conformity, and to embrace authenticity and compassion.
From a young age, we are shaped by the beliefs, values, and expectations of our culture and family. While these influences can provide a sense of belonging and security, they can also stifle our individuality. Breaking free from societal expectations and challenging deeply ingrained family beliefs is an essential step toward finding our voice.
Self-discovery is a lifelong journey of introspection, self-reflection, and exploration. It involves delving deep into our passions, desires, strengths, and weaknesses. By seeking our true selves, we uncover our unique story, and in doing so, we find the freedom to express our authentic selves.
Authenticity is the courage to be true to ourselves, even when it means going against the grain. It means embracing our quirks, embracing our flaws, and celebrating our individuality. When we live authentically, we inspire others to do the same, creating a ripple effect of genuine connections and a more accepting
Societal pressure can be overwhelming, pushing us to conform to certain norms and expectations. But by overcoming the fear of judgment and rejection, we can build resilience and stay true to our values and beliefs. This resilience allows us to navigate society with grace and authenticity.
In a world filled with chaos, compassion and love are the guiding forces that can bring us together. By extending kindness and empathy to ourselves and others, we create a ripple effect of positive change. Cultivating loving relationships and connections fosters an environment where authenticity thrives.
Embarking on the journey of self-discovery and living an authentic life is not always easy, but it is deeply rewarding. It calls us to challenge societal norms, break free from cultural conditioning, and express our unique stories. As we embrace our authenticity and cultivate compassion and love, we contribute to a more harmonious and accepting world.
So, dear reader, I invite you to embark on this transformative journey. Discover your personal story, overcome the constraints of societal pressure, and live a life filled with authenticity, compassion, and love. The world is waiting to hear your unique voice.
