Recovery, Discovery, and Another Me (book #3)

“Our lives begin to end, the moment that we become silent about things that matter”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Be mindful, oh Mankind, of all of the painful secrets that we must keep,

For, by our suffering silence, we will not awaken, but just die alone, powerless, and asleep.

—–Bruce Paullin

Recovery is not just for habituated abusers of sex, food, drugs and alcohol, it is for ALL people who want to make positive, life affirming and healing changes in their lives.

It is a long, happy life, for those who find their personal Truth.

12 Steps Revised To Reflect My Spiritual Experience

1. Through our own extended suffering, we finally found the desire to want it to end. We admitted that when we become self-destructively habituated to any substance, situation, or relationship, we lose our freedom of choice, bring unnecessary trauma into our lives, and into the lives of others, and, thus, fail to achieve any lasting sense of inner peace and joy. We finally realize that our lives have been lived unconsciously, and have become unmanageable as a result of that neglect.

2. With our new found hope and openness for change, came the desire to begin to awaken to higher possibilities for our lives. We realized that, in our essence, we have an interior, though neglected, power that will heal us and restore us to balance, if we pursue it in earnest. We now realize that we have not been living up to our full potential as human beings.

3. We made a decision to turn our will, and our lives, over to the care of a higher, though mostly neglected interior power. We become open to the possibility of embracing a new Truth for our lives. We want to access the power to continuously evolve, and we want to cultivate our heart to be more loving to ourselves and to others. We decide to let go of ANYTHING that impedes our progress towards happiness, healing and wholeness. We realize that without the deepest of desires, and intentions, to change our behavior, we will not be transformed.

4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. We have lived a life without a high sense of self-esteem, and we have made unfortunate choices because of the scarcity consciousness that has resulted from it. We realize that when we find the blocks to our evolution, and become willing to remove them, our new found insight will guide our paths with precision to the Truth of our existence. This is our entrance onto the path of mindfulness and higher consciousness.

5. We admitted that we were not being truthful with ourselves and with others, and by talking with another who we may trust, yet not be beholden to, about our errors in judgement and in actions towards our self and others, we can better deal with the shame and self-judgement that so often arises from the deadly secrets that we once felt that we must keep. Just by honestly talking with someone else, our burdens can be lifted. Our secrets need no longer keep us imprisoned, and mentally ill. When two or more people come together in the spirit of truth and honesty, mutual compassion and empathy also become part of the gathering.

6. We became entirely willing to let go of our attachments to unhealthy attitudes, behavior, and people. We wish to see clearly, without the limitations of our past, of our family history, and of our cultural conditioning, with all of their embedded trauma.

7. We open our hearts through humility and the willingness to change to embrace a new possibility for our life. Our new found sense of connection with our higher interior power inspires us to become more grateful for the gifts that we now have, and we are now spiritually preparing to finally give back to the world in a meaningful, positive way. We want to finally let go of all of the emotional charged memories which keep us trapped in a dead past. Rejoice, for the old demons are being transformed into the new angels!

8. While we were unconscious to our higher potential as human beings, we brought emotional, spiritual and perhaps even physical harm to other innocent beings, and we want to try bring healing and peace to those who have suffered from the effects of our ignorance. We realize that through the mirror of all of our relationships, dysfunctional or otherwise, we are granted a view into how we truly see ourselves. We want to see through the eyes of Truth, and not through the pain and suffering that unfulfilled relationships may have brought to us.

9. We made direct amends wherever possible to all people we may have brought harm to, except when to do so would bring further injury to them or to others. Our guilt will not be assuaged at the expense of others. We make full application of our new found wisdom, and our renewed desire to bring no harm to any sentient being. We want our world, and our own personal sense of self, to feel safe from further attacks from us, and our honest disclosure of our mistakes to those impacted by our errors in judgement will continue to support that intention.

10. We continued to take personal inventory, and, when wrong, promptly admit it. We have become honest with ourselves. We practice mindfulness, and continue to develop our capacity for insight into ourselves. We now know ourselves, and we now know many of the potential impediments to experiencing and expressing the Truth of our being. We no longer solely abide in old modes of thought, and now we are more focused on the witnessing of the beauty of the light of the present moment, which we strive to no longer darken by our formerly unhealed states of mind..

11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with the Truth of our being, praying only for knowledge of Truth, and the willingness to live within its infinite domain. We now understand that this whole process of recovery is a meditation on life, and that the evolving, healing life that we are now experiencing is our living prayer. Each time we drink from the deep interior waters revealed to us by meditation, more of our painful dreams are dissolved. We finally realize that the capacity to change, to evolve, to grow in our infinite spirit is the whole point of our human existence. We are now traveling upon new paths of consciousness.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we attempted to carry our message of recovery to our world, while continuing to practice these principles in all our affairs. We have finally become whole, and are now conscious, caring human beings. We have accepted full personal responsibility for our lives, including healing our past, and keeping our present balanced and harmonious, and we no longer blame others for who we are now. We are now experiencing prosperity on many levels, and have witnessed the healing of ourselves. We have saved the world—from ourselves. Our life is now our truest teacher. We realize that we have no power to bring salvation to others, yet, it is our responsibility to point to the way of healing for others who may still be suffering, and who may finally become interested in overcoming their own limitation

All human beings should consider joining a recovery program, as we are all challenged and threatened by our human condition. And because most of us are not now actively seeking healing and personal transformation, we are susceptible to the sometimes capricious currents that carry an unhealed life. NO ONE IS IMMUNE from the damaging effects of living in an unconscious world, and we all pay a spiritual, emotional, and physical price for our collective, and my individual, avoidance of engagement with evolutionary options.

Once we begin our program of recovery, we also need to create a new life affirming story for our self. Our initial stories in recovery will start with the repetition and rehearsal of the painful stories of suffering from our pasts. There is short-term value in sharing stories of this nature, and after a healing period, we should feel no guilt or shame in revealing those parts of ourselves to others.

I first experienced long term sobriety in 1987, though I did not have a lot to talk about, except while with other recovering individuals. With my dramatic change of mind and heart, it took a substantial period of time to develop the language to surround this energy with, and to talk about the new present moment experience.. Stories get developed after the fact about our life experience, unless we are patterning ourselves from the disfiguring stories thrust upon us by our families, our religions, our cultures, and our diseases. In these cases, those outdated stories become the rickety structure that we attempt to weave our new life experience around, and thus we don’t fully claim, or find our own unique identity, or story.

Most people love a good story, and this medium for communication has been proven to be an extremely effective method for the transmission of our wisdom and human values to others.. Even the belief in God, whether or not “God” actually exists, has its own origins in the need for mankind to create a story around its own origins, and to give its existence some sort of context and meaning. I have read about and heard from a few parents that their young children were so close to “God”, that when they first learned to talk, they would tell their parents about talking directly with God, or hearing God talk to them (or Jesus, or whatever their cultural background would predispose them to refer to). I did not have that experience as a youth, and, in fact, I could not fathom the possibility of such a “miracle”. Prior to recovery, my bullshit detector would sound off long and loud whenever I heard such a story.

There was nothing special or spiritual about my birth or early childhood, and, in fact, I was on the opposite end of the peace spectrum from those luckier, supposedly divinely blessed children. When I was a baby. I was quite the disruption to my family, because I cried almost non-stop, and my crying kept my father from sleeping. I was wrapped in a warm blanket, and kept in the car in the garage until my father left for work. This potentially destructive isolation of a developing baby was far more common in the baby boomer generation than the reader might be aware of.

When the cries for love and survival go unheeded, fear and a sense of abandonment becomes the primary creative companions to the developing brain of a baby. While I was still a boy, up to nearly nine years of age, it was every night that I had horrible nightmares so terrifying that I could not get out of bed to go to the bathroom, for fear of what was going to get me from inside of the closet or under my bed. The disabling dream stories that I created were a direct result of the troubling marriage of fear and a sense of abandonment. One only has to look at the life that I experienced to get to the truth that those dreams were representative of my daytime reality, too.

As a result of my early training and nature, though, I had a good, loving relationship with my mother. I had an often times troubled relationship with my father, whose acceptance and approval of me meant a lot, but he infrequently expressed his heart and feelings skillfully.. I came to feel that the world outside of our family had a lot of dysfunctional similarities, as well . There were quite a few friendly adults who were my parent’s friends, or who were loving relatives such as my aunt and uncle, or my grandparents..But my father and my world appeared to be dramatically impacted by men abusing their personal power, men who were impacted by what I now know as toxic masculinity.

I was ill equipped to successfully deal with many of the interpersonal challenges within peer relationships. Poor self-esteem, self doubt, poor insight, and general anxiety around my relationship with the world made me an easy target for escapism, isolationism, and those hucksters hawking quick fix solutions for longer term problems. As a young person, the thought of becoming an astronaut, and traveling through space far away from this planet, motivated me to excel in school, in both mathematics and science. I saw scholastic excellence as my ticket to get free from my social dis-ease, feelings of inadequacy, and my sense of disengagement from the resident aliens who also shared planet Earth with me. I longed for a way “to get off of this fucking rock”, and that became my driving intention for life.

My life prior to drug addiction was quite lonely at times, especially for several years prior to age 9 years while living in our West Linn home along the Willamette River. Yet, I made the best of it. When I was not in the outdoors climbing trees, building forts, riding bicycles, studying tadpoles in local ponds, skipping rocks in the river, playing “doctor” with the neighbor girl while she played “nurse” with me, or exploring fields, forests, or islands in our neighborhood, I would spend copious amounts of time reading. The steady reading of fictional books, especially science fiction, enabled me to take vacations from a world that never seemed to me to be very welcoming..

One of my favorite SF books was Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein, which I read as a twelve-year-old boy. In this book, the main character, Michael Valentine Smith, is adopted by Martians after the death of all Earthlings except for baby Michael on a Mars mission that had crashed upon landing. Michael learns from the Martians, who end up raising Michael until near adulthood, that all, ultimately, is God. Michael was eventually rescued, and returned to Earth. When Michael proclaimed to all of Earth’s inhabitants after his introduction back upon Earth that “Thou Art God” I had my first ever feeling of hope that there might be a God available to be present in life, maybe even in MY LIFE. I read that book over and over again, as it gave me so much hope, but the hope, with its concurrent “God chills” or horripilations, were ephemeral, and did not last long after each reading of the appropriate passages in the book. It was with this book that the seed was planted for the idea that the search for God may well be my ticket out of my loneliness and misery, that the search must somehow begin and end within myself..

In the era of my life from 1971 to 1987, I led a highly dysfunctional life. After succumbing to peer pressure to use recreational drugs as a sophomore in high school, I quickly became addicted to alcohol and drugs. I was an addict from the start, and I knew that I would either die as an alcoholic/addict, or I would kill myself by age 30, if I had not yet recovered from my disease. What I did not know was what would happen if I survived my affliction, what kind of life there would be for me to live, and what kind of person that I could become. I had made no preparations for how to live life without substance abuse, nor would I, at least initially, have adequate language to describe my hopes for the sober life, other than in the simplest, vaguest of terms.

With my timely exit from Portland’s underworld community, in March of 1987 and my own exit from the drug-induced and culturally supported insanity, I hoped that a new world waited to welcome me. But, but the world did not just reach out and grab me by the hand, and lead me down the path to recovery and reintegration back into the community. It would be a mistake to assume that I was totally conscious about what was going on, and the direction that I was headed from 1987 forward. All that I knew was that after I had made “conscious contact with the God of my understanding”, my old life seemed to disappear. I had an ability to describe the world that I had left behind, but I had no language to describe the new world that I was entering into, or the new experiences that were unfolding in the new life of sobriety. I had never felt like I was an accepted and honored part of the outside world in the first place, so finding my new people, and my language, were important endeavors to me, once I was firmly on the path to sobriety and enhanced spirituality.

This desire for a loving integration into the wholeness of life arose several years before, when I yearned for peace during a tumultuous period preceding my stay at the Care Unit in 1984.. While addicted, I could not fulfill the conditions for the experience of peace. The transformation was many, many years in the making, but when it appeared within me in 1987, I was no longer tormented by my social insecurities, or my feeling of disconnection from God, my fellow-man, or from the plants and animals that grace this beautiful planet that we share. Somehow, I had “let go of the controls” of my old ego state of mind, and a new order started revealing itself, from moment to moment. At times I felt like a “guided missile”, never knowing the destination for my life, but trusting whatever it was that had launched my new life into existence would get me to the right place at the right time..

I still had memories of my former life, yet they no longer informed my day-to-day thoughts, my decisions, or my overall outlook on life and love. I did not know who the “new me” was, though the “new me” always had a smile, and felt continuous joy. I had a series of spiritual upheavals which defied my rational mind, and I did not have the words to describe or contain the experience for many years to follow. It was as if a new person had landed in my consciousness, the “old me” had died, and now I was informed, moment to moment, by a powerful force of peace or silence, or Love itself.

Before 1987, there were “many people with their disfiguring concepts” roaming around in my mind, but now that “committee of the many” had permanently adjourned, and there was now only one peaceful presence, a new ordering principle for my consciousness. And not only did I not have the language developed for the new story, the small story that I did begin to tell did not necessarily meet with a friendly reception from others. When I told my story, I would usually be met with silent stares, a quick change of subject, or general disinterest., though a friend from a men’s group claimed that I was a “walk-in”, a term used to describe when the old ego departs a body, to be replaced by a new being. The act of writing a book about this experience has vigorously renewed my perception that there just is not a whole lot of interest in the material that, even now, I am trying to present to my world.

My family still saw me in terms of the past, for the most part, as my history created great scars on the psyche of fellow family members, as well as the friends and acquaintances of my years prior to recovery. But, they could appreciate that the “new me” no longer required their extra concern or care, as I was now an independent, upright, fairly conscious human being. I made healthy choices in my relationships, and I chose a new, fulfilling career to replace all of the career wreckage from my past. I was but a boy again, though, while still learning the ropes, meeting new friends, discovering new possibilities for myself and others, and, occasionally, still sipping from the inner healing springs of the Miracle that can quench the spiritual thirst of all who seek it out.

This new being, this upgraded Bruce 2.0, which appeared in the summer of 1987, was like those miracle babies and children that I had always envied, and doubted. During most of the time after June of 1987, until I met my present wife Sharon in August of 1989, I spent over six hours a day in prayer and meditation, and probably as a result experienced blessed states on an almost continuous basis. I now “heard and felt” God, and I was taught on the inner spiritual plane about aspects of life, and consciousness, that I had no way to learn or know about otherwise. This was not a “Christian” God, or a “Jewish” God, or the Buddha Mind, or “Christ Consciousness”, but those names certainly pointed to the new reality that I had somehow accessed, and been dramatically changed by.

As hard as it is for me to write about this now, or, understandably, for the reader to believe this story, I was taught by the “Master Teacher”, whoever, or whatever, that might be. We all have access to inner wisdom not borne of our personal experience, yet it lies, mostly ignored, in the inner recesses of our hearts and souls, for much of our lives. I was given a new blank slate to write my new self upon, a new possibility for living, and being, in this world, aided by this new connection with my own wisdom. The world that I once wanted to depart from so badly, was now paradise on Earth, and I knew that Heaven was not a concept for the future, but a living reality only for the present moment. But, I could not carry the “old me” into that world, I had to leave ALL of my verbal and non-verbal memory possessions behind, so to speak, to stay in tune with the new Spiritual music.

I have noted from my understanding and experience of others who have had dramatic spiritual experiences, is that, initially, they experienced a state of being poor communicators around the event. This lack of articulateness is quite a common, for several years that follow such an upheaval. Those that have a strong religious background try to use the language of that system of thought to interpret and communicate their own unique opening. For those who do not have a well established religious background, or who might need other language or images to convey their experience, the search through historical literature to see what others have written about their own cosmic events have been found to be helpful. There is an attempt to try to use a language that others might understand, but, unless they too have had spiritual lightning strike them, the search for an equally enlightened/awakened peer group is liable to be fairly unsuccessful, at least initially. Then there are also those who just throw up their hands, and give up on the idea of ever communicating with others about the transcendent state. And, finally, there are those whose minds are irreparably damaged by the experience, and though they may remain “connected to the Spirit”, their behavior and style is indicative of a person who is insane, and operating well outside of socially and culturally accepted standards.

I did not have the capacity to communicate with others what I was experiencing, for many years after 1987. I would refer to my “rebirth”, and talk of the “old me” with those who were interested, especially in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. The people who met me after my rebirth could not believe that I was ever addicted or dysfunctional in self-destructive or other-destructive ways, and I learned to not wave that recovery flag at every new person I met, so that they could have an honest chance of knowing me for who I now was, rather than who I might have been long ago. It was my movement through all of these new relationships which helped to define for me the “new me”, who I was now, how I now related to and appreciated others, and how I now loved unconditionally most everyone that I met. All of humanity became my brother or sister in this new reality, and my lifelong sense of dreadful separation from others had been lifted. I then set out to find “my people” and find out where I might fit into the new world order that was revealing itself within my mind and heart. In my naiveté, I assumed that most others naturally came by this understanding, and that I was finally catching up, spiritually, with the “normal folks”, the folks that never were so unhappy as to consider alcoholism, drug addiction, and/or suicide for themselves.

I eventually became active in the great outdoors again through hiking and backpacking, I resumed bicycle riding with an association with Cycle Oregon over several years, I learned tennis, and I also ended up excelling in road and trail racing as a runner, albeit an older runner (in the master’s division), competing individually and also appearing on several championship or near-championship level Master’s teams in both the Hood To Coast and Rainier To Pacific races. I was able have a “redo” of my life, and experience success and failure based on my own decisions, and actually glean wisdom from my interactions with life, rather than hate myself and/or others for its sometimes difficult teachings. And, yes, the new life was quite fertile ground for learning.

This new life also provided me with some of the language that I needed to communicate better with others what I had experienced on the inner plane. It also started to provide me with the language needed to describe the foundational consciousness which predisposed me, and our world to dysfunctional and self-destructive behavior, but I was not to get the full message until much later in life. Having allowed myself to return back into the world after this second birth, I subsequently gained insight into the matrix of collective human misunderstanding that was the foundation for our collective consciousness as a human race. I had no inclination to attempt to describe the “light” as the mystics and poets experienced it, for I saw the futility of that path of “via positiva” for me. My path was primarily informed by two major categories for spiritual liberation. These two are “via transformativa” and “via negativa”. which are the techniques using personal responsibility, insight, meditation, as well as other agents for spiritual evolution. If the debris field of human consciousness has been healed and cleared, via negativa.and via transformativa have been successfully accessed, integrated together, and applied to one’s spiritual journey.

What is left, after the piles of historical garbage is cleared? If might be considered similar to the process of metamorphosis, which brings forth the butterfly from the caterpillar. If the butterfly could talk, I would assume that it would much rather talk about its new freedom,and the ability to fly, rather than its previous form of life sliding over the dirt Yet, the only life that the butterfly arose from was with ground dwellers, and that is where all of its past stories were created. Could you imagine that butterfly going back and telling his caterpillar friends about the potential for a new life, and what the “ground dwellers” might say in response? How about

“get lost, you were never one of us, anyway?”

or

“well, it must be nice for you to fly, but it is just not for me right now?”

or

“have you heard about the great tasty leaves that parsley plant has?”

are three potential responses from those who think that change is threatening, unnecessary, irrelevant, or impossible, for themselves.

There is new life available to all, yet I won’t devote too many words on that one. I am not a poet, and I don’t need to draw a big audience for those who are the seeker moths of our world who blindly follow the latest human “light”. The “light” is best experienced personally and, initially, non-verbally, for then there are no conflicts created between “the word” versus “the truth of the moment”. It is best to see this process for oneself. The word will forever remain a shadow, cast by the light built into the divine heart of mankind, as it tries to define the “undefinable”. Yet, if the heart is in the right place, the words formed and delivered will become more attuned to and resonant with the energies pointing to the healing of self and of the other.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”

― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

I am attempting to document my journey into truth through this message. I will first address the seed consciousness, the human collective consciousness, which gave rise to my own personal story, which is my interpretation of my life and of my universe. My consciousness is comprised of all of the answers that our culture, my family and I have dreamed up to some of the great questions of life. My life up to this point in time and space has been an attempt to answer the following questions, and adjust to the basic underlying principles that were supporting those questions.:

• Just what is “God”, and what relationship does “God” have to reality, and to me?
• What is a “well lived life”?
• Who are my “people”, and where are they located?
• Will I ever fit in? Will anyone ever notice me?
• Why don’t I feel peace of mind?
• Why do I always seem to “self-destruct” right at the moment when I am about to achieve great success?
• Will I ever understand myself, and others?
• Why is expressing real emotions such a double-edged sword?
• Where is the love that I feel is missing from my life?
• Why do I have no desire to contribute to society in a more generous, meaningful way?
• Why do I feel that I have to always be competitive, or “better than the others” just to fit in?
• Why do I not feel satisfaction when I achieve the greatest goals that I have set up for myself?
• Why does guilt control so much of my life’s experience?
• What is oppression, and what is my relationship to it?
• What is repression, and why do I participate in it?
• Is it possible to speak or live a lie long enough that we no longer can accept or believe the truth?
• Is a person’s silence because of an absence of opinion, or from a fear of speaking the truth?
• What is good “mental health”?
• Why do people continue to experience poor self-esteem?
• Why are some people always so angry, or depressed?
• Why can’t some people be more emotionally and spiritually present for others?
• Why do people feel that they need to engage in mutual “control dramas”?
• Why do some men become spiritually and emotionally disfigured by their desire for sex?
• Why do some men exercise excessive emotional control over their partners?
• Why do people cling to certain groups of people, and reject all others?
• Why don’t people get along better with each other?
• Why do people endlessly pursue entertainment and/or use drugs and alcohol to excess, and ignore their own personal transformation and healing?
• Why is just more knowledge so much more important than intuition, wisdom and insight to most men and left brained dominated women?
• Why is collaboration such a dirty word for a national political process?
• Why is competition and greed, as presently coupled with Capitalism, the predominant economic system in our world?
• Why does our society, and our world, and much of the world’s population, continue to avoid experiencing peace of mind, with beauty, wonder, and the innate internal integrity of our (potentially) divine nature?

My life story became my improving attempts at addressing these questions, and adjusting to whatever answers, if any, that came into my awareness at any particular point in time.. There is nothing really “new” being written here, though this is the most important writing that I have ever attempted. Please forgive me in advance if my insights and realizations appear obvious and simple. When they come to an innocent mind for the first time, they bring with them the sense of profundity and wonder..

I had many teachers on the “outer plane” who continued to point the way to a higher, more spiritually integrated life, while I measured their messages against what was bubbling up within my own mind and heart as my own internal answers to life’s great questions. Words started forming within my mind that were to become the verbal bridges connecting my internal “non-verbal” state of being to reach the surface of my mind and the outside world with its infinite interwoven matrices of verbal intelligence. Just sitting around smiling at people was not getting the job of connection and communication accomplished, but I was always flooded with joy, and carried a constant smile on my face, which did open many doors to friendship with others. I was no longer a sheep looking for a shepherd, as I became a more conscious wanderer on life’s path, looking for fellow travelers and collaborators to exchange companionship with while we collectively reached for our greater good.

I had no desire to fly solo, but instead to fly with a new flock, populated by those who were flying the same direction that I was guided to fly. Finding our spiritual family or core group, or “my people” is a common healthy desire for all of us. As human beings we have the potential to be “free birds” in our own unique way and manners, though we remain part of the greater “flock of life”. It is important to find, and continue to fly in, the flock of our own choice. We are social creatures, and to deny that absolute fact is to deny reality, and to deny our own greater good, and the greater good of humanity. It is a challenge to all of us to find that right group of people who our spirit can soar with. We all have tried to fly with turkeys, and that is not to be our lot in life, unless we continue to choose that for ourselves.

We are all free to choose again, so choose wisely, and fly united!

Reimagining Our Journey Through Consciousness

It is what it is, but it is not what it seems

—Paul Hewson

We all love a great story  Those who have developed real insight into the story, and who can both translate the essence of an experience and convey the emotion of all of the participating characters through words, become the raconteurs of our culture.  These honored story tellers may become famous and beloved novelists, musicians and rock stars, ministers, writers of religious stories and texts, comedians, and playwrights.  The story may be about a personal or historical event, and it may be real, or fiction, but as long as it entertains, it will keep our attention.  As all of the best story tellers know, it can be important not to let the truth get in the way of telling the best story, especially if they are trying to keep our attention.

We all create stories around our individual lives, and around all of our relationships with each other, and with the world.  We also listen intently to the stories told to us  by our parents, our teachers, our religions, our history, and our society about who we are, who others once were or now are, and who we might aspire to become.  Many of our stories, both individually and those created by society for us, are steeped in illusion, ignorance, half-truths and outright falsehoods.  Far too many stories are just illusory dramas about our attempts to control others, and, sadly, our failed attempts at control over our own lives and our emotional experiences around all of these intersections, and collisions, with each other  But these stories have an amazing hypnotic appeal, especially to those who have not undertaken the process of insight and healing.  At some point in our lives, each of us must begin a “search for truth”, lest the entirety of our life experience be lived and experienced without true integrity, the potential for healing and completeness, and the best alignment with reality.

Some aspects of life just seem to elude our ability to effectively communicate around them, and never get incorporated into our personal stories, and thus add to the collective conspiracy of silence.  Also, other people’s stories and garbage gets back-filled into the holes and empty spaces within our own stories,  becoming embedded within us, and adding to our internal confusion and chaos.

Life was never an easy journey for me, and had it not been for some deep need to understand my dysfunctional process, and try to find the underlying truth amid my personal chaos, I would have long ago passed away, silenced by the disease.  Some wounds are so deep, and primal, that just pasting new names onto aspects of the disease and creating new stories are not enough.  But it is each of our responsibilities as conscious, or semi-conscious, human beings to bring our personal truth, and our stories, no matter how incomplete they may be, to the collective experience, including our family, our friends, our co-workers, our neighbors, and our religious and political leaders..

Names and stories are only a convenience for communication, and are never comprehensive and inclusive enough to completely reveal the true natures of what they were created for in our minds to represent in the first place.  The process of naming is the way that our consciousness weighs and measures new forms of life, ideas and experiences, in the attempt to insert the unknown and the mysterious into a present context for understanding, which becomes the latest iteration of our “story”.  Naming tends to attach a dynamic process to a fixed point in time and space, always with a past frame of reference, and thus permanently lodges it in the past, where only the whispers of the ghosts of our history still exist..

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. “

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.  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.

So, what is truth? 

Sometimes, we must remain open to a mystery that far transcends the simple explanations offered by our past and our culture.  I have extensively explored many of our culture’s, and my own, misleading, false, and self-destructive stories and realities. I have also made conscious contact with many amazing, life-affirming truths. I am both an individual person and a collective, acculturated human being, and these two aspects of myself are now constantly adapting to all stories which carry meaning and the potential for healing

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 millions 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 all of those supposedly healthy people of the world continued to bring the promise of the destruction to our planet Earth.  While we contemplated our own end, we witnessed a world in the midst of its own collective march towards suicide. 

The story of Armageddon, as both an individual and as a collective event, becomes very real to those trapped by their own illusions of powerlessness, helplessness, and despair.  We are the loosely knit tribe most susceptible to the oppression by others, and the repression of our selves.  We are the prime candidates for political and religious propaganda.  We may seek a new tribe that gives us a sense of safety and purpose, even if our own anticipated benefits come at the expense of other innocent people or groups.  We have become limited caricatures of ourselves, as we continue to play to stereotypes that those in power have thrust upon us.   We do not have the emotional and spiritual intelligence to discern what is true, and what is false, about our selves.  The stories that continue to be told to us keep us connected with an extremely limited view of “our people”, all the while keeping us disconnected from our own true natures, and more realistic stories of ourselves.

A spiritual awakening process beginning in 1987 was the start of my own exit from the chaotic mindset that characterized my life up to that point.  Since 1987,  I have chosen to live life more fully, with enhanced personal awareness, good health, honest expression of all feelings, joy and happiness the majority of the time, and almost continuous sobriety.  My own living, dynamic story has become forefront in my mind, and having examined my life to its deepest core, I have seen what the source of my own spiritual disease and despair was.  And, I finally found a way to describe the foundational dynamics of both personal and collective consciousness that contributed to my disease, and to all of our suffering.  I need no longer be an unwilling participant and just another silent partner in the conspiracy of silence.

John 1.1-From New Testament Of Christian Bible

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Yet, another layer of the Conspiracy of Silence exists around the Divine, Higher Power, God, or Truth.  Organized religions, intellectual savants and those parading as atheists, and political powers all too often obfuscate the truth that underlies all of our existence. When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus

“What is truth?”,

Jesus, as the story goes, could only be silent in the face of the greatest power of the day.  The question “What is truth?” was intended as mockery, and that principle continues to this day. Speaking truth to power is not an easy or automatic proposition, no matter how enlightened one might appear to be.  Truth is more like a continuous rainfall upon rocky mountains.  It does not immediately displace all of the sharp, dangerous edges of eons of ignorance, but, over time, it finally erodes the roughest of terrains, and exposes the deeper layers of existence where a new level of experience is to be found.  Those who are not patient will be mortally wounded by thrusting themselves too aggressively against our human monuments to stupidity and ignorance that often act as the controlling religious, political, and economic powers within civilization.

Those who touch the Infinite relate back to the world the ineffability of the experience, though they have been deeply impacted by that contact.  The universe of Spirit defies rationality, though it will eventually speak intelligently through the healed human mind.   First, the mind has to be properly prepared, and then it must be willing to communicate, no matter how mighty the struggle may be  to interpret or express its energy.  But if the mind is overburdened by education, knowledge, religious and cultural inculcation, the Infinite will be speaking through distorted measures of reality, creating illusion, deception, and delusion. 

LDS–White Jesus Approved

A look at Joseph Smith and his revelations, and the LDS movement that subsequently arose from this process,  is a great example of the corrupted marriage of spirituality and truth with hallucination and delusion, producing its inevitable spawn, toxic religion and cults.  This type of spiritual corruption only further confuses and alienates those seekers of a deeper truth that are still in possession of keen wits. Would anyone like a serving of golden plates, from which the “Book Of Mormon” is based upon, or Jesus appearing in the wild west of America, say, two thousand years ago?  The sirens of my “bull shit detector” continue to go off loud and clear, whenever I hear these stories.  And don’t forget to tithe your ten percent, or your next of kin will hear about your “lack of faith” at your own funeral (yes, I witnessed this in an abominable eulogy at a funeral for a co-worker, who had committed suicide).  Like our mothers sometimes said:

“Oh, and always wear clean underwear in case you are in an accident.”

It is time for the Church of the LDS to change their dirty “underwear”, because their delusional stories have created quite the mess in human consciousness, and this philosophical buffoonery is an accident waiting to happen to all of its adherents.  The Church, and its community of well-meaning human beings,  may have done a lot of good over the years, but that has to be balanced with the corruption in consciousness itself that this tribalistic cult creates and maintains.

On June 1 of 2018, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – or the Mormons – will celebrate the 40th anniversary of what they believe to be a revelation from God.  This revelation to the then-President of the Church Spencer W. Kimball – which is known as “Official Declaration 2” – reversed longstanding restrictions placed on people of black African descent in the church.  I believe this history illustrates the struggle the Mormon church has had with racial diversity – something that the church leadership still grapples with today.  Racism, patriarchy, sexism, misogyny, fantasy, and errant nonsense are built right into the very fabric of this corrupted belief system.

All religions promote the hope that humanity has a capacity for love and healing.  The simple truth behind Christianity and all true religion is that humanity has a divine heritage, while still struggling with a human experience.  Ignorant Christian philosophers,scholars, and ministers continue to interpret and promote the Word as having its expression only through Jesus Christ.  In their minds, humanity remains relegated to outcasts from the “Garden Of Eden” and we will all remain on the outside of the universality of our divine heritage and potential for eternity until Jesus is accepted as our personal savior.  There are many other errors in spiritual discernment in addition to this one that continue to be propagated, especially all of the nonsense that is promoted around the concept of Armageddon.  This is important, because these beliefs contribute mightily to the Common Knowledge Game of human perception, which is the socially and culturally inculcated system for assessing and judging against all others unlike the observers.  

Most of the world does not hold the belief in Jesus as the Savior, though many of us have been victimized by those with such a vision!  With our American judicial and political processes still impacted by, and in some cases dominated by, so-called “Christian ideals”, it is easy to see the potential for collective persecution of and discrimination against those not conforming to these ideals and dogmas.

Much of our American religious landscape remains dominated by blind adherence to  patriarchy, which manifests through toxic masculinity, toxic capitalism, and toxic religion. Their misogyny, white supremacy their outright hatred or indifference to others unlike themselves, greed and rampant selfishness, and self-destructiveness, and all of the planetary destructive evil are manifestations of divisive, ignorant intentions.  When the writer quoted from in the Bible proclaimed that we “be fruitful and multiply”, that writer did not intend for our race to become a planet ravaging virus, through overpopulation, pollution, extinction of 1000’s of species, genocide, religious persecution, greed, and competition, yet our race has been fruitful, and multiplied our collective darkness and evil exponentially.

Religious reasoning can be oxymoronic

Prosperity theology is a religious belief among some Christians, who hold that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God for them, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to religious causes will increase one’s material wealth. Prosperity theology views the Bible as a contract between God and humans: if humans have faith in God, God will deliver security and prosperity.  The doctrine emphasizes the importance of personal empowerment, proposing that it is God’s will for his people to be happy. It is based on interpretations of the Bible that are mainstream in Judaism (with respect to the Hebrew Bible),though less so in Christianity. The atonement (reconciliation with God) is interpreted to include the alleviation of sickness and poverty, which are viewed as curses to be broken by faith. This is believed to be achieved through donations of money, visualization, and positive confession.

Our blind adherence to our soulless Capitalist economic system is a force that must be reckoned with.  With capitalism now married to corrupted forms of Christian religion, we end up with Corporate Religion, whereby sects of American Christianity celebrate wealth and fame, and goad their members towards rampant materialism, all in the name of God’s prosperity..  These mega-churches with ministers, such as Joel Osteen, set the tone and the pace for self-glorification, materialism, overpopulation, and the continued destruction of our planet through their adherence to the Prosperity Gospels.  Prosperity is oppression, when we see the long-term effects of focusing wealth and planetary resources into the pocketbooks of fewer and fewer people, in manners that tend to increase profits and visibility for the unconscious adherents of the new Corporate Religion.  This competition for resources continues to cause our Earth to suffer, while the few prosper.  There is abject spiritual and intellectual poverty imbued within a philosophy that celebrates prosperity as a manifestation of “God’s reward for the good”, and is indicative of a arger poverty that has overwhelmed our nation, and our world.  We all need umbrellas to shield ourselves from the “golden showers” of “trickle down theories” that follow such megalomaniacal visions of privilege and power.

The fundamental oppressive force in the human universe is not our wayward religious, political, economic, or social agendas or systems, however, as the fundamental problem is within the human mind itself. Jesus Christ would be crucified again (and, in fact, the Truth continues to be sacrificed daily), and Muhammad and the Buddha, were they alive today, would be ignored or attacked, in today’s diseased, divisive, dark money controlled political, social, and religious climate. Some say that it may be time to PUNCH A NAZI, in whatever form it takes, but it is best to first master the Nazi within our own minds.

A new story needs to be told by each and every one of us, as our old stories are killing us,  both individually, and collectively.  We need a new world religion, one that honors ALL life upon the planet, and the very planet Earth itself, as our Lord and Savior. We must have a story that allows for each being to have the opportunity to live in peace and harmony, and to share in the benefits of an evolutionary consciousness.  We either grow together as a race, and as a planet, or we will not survive as a species, and, potentially, we may destroy the rest of our supporting animal species, the environment itself, and the planet.

“if you tell a big enough lie, and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed”.
― Adolf Hitler

If we tell a lie often enough, we are prone to start to actually believe it.  All of the internal defense mechanisms are engaged to support the story and to maintain the lies existence, and the corruption that living a lie creates can become part of our nature.  Be careful out there, the world, and our minds, can be a dangerous place. Unlike TV entertainment series, where the programs have the potential to resolve the contrived issues  before the ending of the weekly show, life carries our issues for prolonged periods of time, sometimes whole lifetimes, if we do not find a way to dislodge our lies, and our stories of disease and dysfunction from the cells of our bodies, and from our consciousness.  There is no freedom to be found, if we do not first see that we are trapped.

We all need a bigger story, with more heart and healing, higher accuracy, and maximum inclusivity! Pay attention  to all of our stories, many of which  have created quite the mess to sort through.  Constantly question reality,, search for available facts, and learn not to unconsciously accept statements from authority figures.  “Reality” many times, is only someone else’s opinion about “what is”, so a cautious, probing mind, not rushing to simplistic conclusions, or susceptible to popular suggestion or hypnotism, is required to maintain, or re-establish, personal integrity, healing, sanity and reason. 

What is “reality” and who am I?

Watch out, for more stories are always forming around those questions!

I am what I am, but I am not what I seem

It has been a great challenge and adventure living this life. It has also been a great fulfillment for me to have lived long enough and to have become articulate enough to be able to put into words my unique experience of life. I attempt to bring into the verbal universe my extended journey into the mystery of human consciousness, and its corruption by those with selfish and self-destructive agendas.  Finding my unique story, and finding the supportive silence underneath that story, is the journey of my salvation, the hero’s journey towards healing and integrity.  Buckle up, fellow travelers, the ride is going to be rather turbulent at times!

I call this process penetrating the conspiracy of silence with my miracle experiment.

Please, save your self.

SATAN’S GREATEST TEACHING (told by Jiddu Krishnamurti, original source unknown)

Satan and his main disciple were drifting above the planet Earth, and observing all of the activities that were of interest, while his student learned some more of the great lessons of the truth of the Dark Master.  One of their journeys  brought them to a single man standing in an open field, who looked up to the heavens, with a look of great relief and joy upon his face.  As Satan and his disciple looked closer, they found that the man was holding something in his hands, hidden under his shirt, close to his heart.  The man hurriedly walked back to his home, protecting his find from the scrutiny of the outside world.

The disciple asked Satan:

“What do you think that this man has found?”

“Oh, he has found Truth!”,

replied Satan, with a satisfied look on his face.

“But Satan, how can you be so happy?  Should we not be terrified by this man’s revelation?  This could spell the end of your rule over our earthly kingdom!”

“Hush, my student, and listen closely.  We are about to help him organize it”

Watch out for those bibles and religious texts, they are all not what they seem.

Please, save yourself.

A Wider Frequency Of Being

If it’s painful for you to hear my story, it’s OK. That’s part of the process because my story includes pain, so don’t stop listening because you are uncomfortable. If you would just move past your discomfort you might learn something about empathy and compassion and mercy and justice.

—-Pastor Gricel Medinas

As a human race, all that we will ever see, unto eternity, is our Self. Can we see our Self with love and compassion today?

—–Bruce Paullin

The Conspiracy Of Silence is alive and well in many millions of American minds, including far too many religious and spiritual leaders that we may look up to, and we all suffer accordingly. When we are threatened with rejection because we do not believe exactly as others do, any issues around our own poor self-esteem and our community connections will be exaggerated, and we will experience the potential for extraordinary anxiety.

Yet, no rejection or betrayal can ever hurt quite as much, and can have as long lasting impacts, as those which occurred while in childhood. Repeated rejections can contribute to an isolated, powerless sense of self for all susceptible people. Personal consciousness with its resulting unfulfilling life experiences can be created around the subservience to those unhealed, oppressive forces of our past as we travel the roads paved by our culture, and which has become internalized within our own minds and hearts. Entire life experiences can become accommodations and adjustments to the “knowledge” that we are inadequate, woeful human beings who do not have the power to stand up for ourselves and be heard, both at home and in the marketplace. Entire life experiences can be created that keep us fearful and distrustful of others, well into our adulthood, and even unto death.

We all look up to authorities from time to time. We all have been inspired, and sometimes oppressed, by them, as well.

Truth is forever a pathless land. We all need to pursue our own spiritual healing, and our journey in that new direction IS our unique path, not to be duplicated by any other being.

We all have access to infinity, and to each other, on levels that the conscious mind does not fully understand. The truth about each individual human life, and the collection that is called humanity, is that the sum total of all life influences each other directly and dramatically. Each moment of each day, our collective consciousness rains down upon us (or erupts within us) a wealth of information, and reaches our minds and “hearts”. We receive this information through the training, education, parental upbringing, media and news, the overall witnessing of life, our “dreams” and personal insights, as well as through some less obvious and poorly known and misunderstood means.

Each of us is both a receiver, and transmitter, of information. We tend to believe that the information that we are passing is exchanged solely through our words, and our body language, yet there is another level as well, a level that remains poorly understood, ignored, or even denied..We all have access to Spirit, with its “extra sensory perception”, yet we risk ridicule from many sources, including those scientifically inclined, or religiously indoctrinated, should we ever experience its mystery and claim it for ourselves. Each of us has a life energy field, which has not yet been detected by science, but certainly has been detected by the sensitive beings within the shamanic tradition, as well as within the mystics of the human race over the aeons of the existence of life. This life energy field, or in Rupert Sheldrake’s terms, the morphic field, is the field that we not only radiate, but that we are immersed in from the collective, interacting fields of nearly eight billion other human beings now living, as well as all humans and precedent life that has ever lived.

Let me bring this discussion home for just a moment. On Sunday, March 17, 2019, I went to play cards with my friend Jim H. While playing, I noted that I felt a blister forming on my forefinger on my right hand. I thought to myself that there was no way I could be developing a blister, because I had not done any work with my hands. Well, at that very moment, Sharon White was at home working outside around our home, and she had developed a blister, and noted it at the same time that day (6:00PM) that I felt the blister forming on my own finger. Coincidence?

Two years ago,in January of 2017, I started having seizures, and felt the presence of a golf ball sized black tumor in the left hemisphere of my brain. How on earth could I detect such a thing within myself without a MRI machine? I feared that I might be “losing it”, or even about to lose my own life, and was afraid to tell the doctor about it, though I mentioned to her that my dying father may well outlive me. Yet, on March 5, Marty C. had a major seizure, was hospitalized, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor the exact size, and in the same location in the brain as I detected within myself. And, when he described his seizure to me, I was struck by how similar his experience of the seizure was to my own. I told Marty that I felt that the black mass represented death itself, and that I hoped that it was not predictive of his immediate fate, or my own. When Marty had surgery to successfully remove the tumor two days later on Friday, the black mass from my own “life energy field” also disappeared. Marty was to die several months later, after a dramatic decline. Coincidence?

Two years ago, our dear friend June T. was visiting her brother Dale in Medford, Oregon. Dale was very sick at the time. In a Friday evening dream, I was in an unfamiliar bathroom, and I had fallen between the toilet and the wall. I was quite distressed in the dream. That next morning, Sharon and June talked on the phone, and June told her that Dale had fallen between the toilet and wall, while she watched helplessly. Coincidence?

The common bond to these experiences is my empathy and love for all three people, even while they went through their own unique version of suffering. Coincidences happen, and our eyes start to open to our long neglected truth. The more that we are receptive to that part of us that is truly unknown, the more we awaken to another possibility of our being. Whatever it is, and whoever it is that we are in consciousness, we also exist less consciously in realms where we have always been connected with our higher power, yet we did not yet know how to express its unique energies..

Empathy, compassion and love are the portals through which to receive the mysterious, higher level energies from our spiritual heritage. We are all connected at a much deeper level than we realize, yet we still can make this experience a more conscious one. Up to this point, I have not yet been able to apply this gift in any meaningful manner to help the human race, other than my willingness to write about the much greater undeveloped capacity of our human mind, heart, and soul. Learning to separate out from that energy what is mine, and what should be mine, from the vast sea of other member’s of the human race’s real life experiences, as well as their expectations and beliefs can initially bring fear and a sense of being overwhelmed. And, many of the people troubled by psychosis, including variations of paranoid schizophrenia, suffer from the inability to bring order out of the apparent chaos of many overlapping realities. Yet, that understanding of the information that we consciously, or unconsciously, share with each other may well be the key to ultimate transcendence for the human race.

I don’t see our medicine and technology catching up with our innate, though neglected, abilities in that area. It is finally starting to become “common knowledge” of the importance of searching for wholeness while undertaking any important medical treatments or processes, as these endeavors complement and work synergistically with western medical approaches to healing and cures.

I am not a religious person, though I have joined with the community of many theologians who believe that dreams are one of God’s (or, Higher Power, Universe, Healing, Spirit, Grandfather Great Spirit, The One, etc.)primary ways of getting our attention. In the absolute, there is little difference between what we experience through our dreams and through our so-called waking reality. Awake or asleep, internally we respond in real time to what we witness as if both experiences have equal footing in reality. So could God/Truth be trying to tell us something while we are sleeping? Here are six spiritually significant dreams that may be more than meets the mind’s eye….

1. Visitation Dreams
It’s common to have a visitation dream after a loved one passes. The deceased often appear in bodily form, healthy and luminous, in order to communicate an important message: “I’m okay.”, or “There is nothing to fear about death”. I have had several of these dreams over the years, with my most recent experience revolving around the recent death of a good friend.

2. Prophetic Dreams
Many people have had a “dream that came true.” Our dreams may use our past experiences to produce a probable series of future events—showing us patterns that help us make better choices when we’re awake. I have had several dreams that have predicted EXACTLY events that were to happen, yet they remain unreliable predictors of the future, because the future is always changing, depending upon changes made in the present.

3. Warning Dreams
God—and our body—can sometimes speak in dreams to warn us about imminent danger, especially regarding health. We may dream of a specific body part or even receive a verbal warning. In a 2015 study of women diagnosed with breast cancer, 83 percent had dreams that were more vivid than normal. And 44 percent reported hearing specific words like “breast cancer” or “tumor.”

4. Healing Dreams
These are the internal creations that bring us from an “out of balance” place into “harmony and balance.” They often involve a mystical encounter. I have experienced many healing dreams, I had one amazing dream with my deceased grandpa Henry which, to this day, inspires and confounds me.

5. Heavenly Dreams
According to a 1989 study, more than half of healthy young adults who dreamed of death spent a significant amount of time in that dream in heaven. These dreamers sometimes go down a tunnel or pathway and arrive at heavenly destinations. They also frequently encounter deceased loved ones. I have had dreams where I have heard the songs and sounds of the “angels of heaven”, carrying a message of beauty beyond my ability to describe or define.

6. Mutual Dreams
A mutual dream is when two people—typically in separate locations—dream of the same thing at the same time. According to a 2017 study, shared dreams are 80 percent identical on average. They often occur between close friends or relatives. Interestingly, 4 percent of these dreams are shared by strangers. A most profound realization and insight may come to the dreamer, that the collective mind of man dreams through individuals, and individuals dream through the collective mind of mankind. We are one, after all, you and I.

Wisdom and insight are available through our “dream channels”. Atheists and agnostics have the same capacity as the saints, as far as the ability to access dream wisdom goes. One of the more amazing dreams that I have had in recent years was the previously mentioned dream involving June Thomas’s brother Dale. We are much closer than we presently believe, and our beliefs keep us more separate as a human beings, than together as spiritual beings. June is much more like me, and attuned with me, than I am comfortable with, some times.

The same is true of ALL OF HUMANITY.

Theoretical physicists are now understanding that there are possibilities for alternate universes, as well as enhanced connections with the one we all currently reside within. I am saddened that mankind is becoming increasingly dependent on its technology for communication, while not concurrently developing the sensitivity to connect with the “energy” that we all share in, and with which we communicate with each other continuously. Our technology, especially the hand-held media devices that we use to entertain and hypnotize ourselves with, only serves to continue the energy of the past, without offering alternatives to the present collection of corrupted choices that humanity has seemed eternally resigned to make.

Science, though able to define relationships and the laws that dictate behavior between all observable, and quantum, phenomenon, are only now beginning to understand the ramifications of the real law of our existence, which is “all that we will ever see, unto eternity, is ourselves”. Science provides laws for what we see, yet, unlike enlightened spirituality, provides no laws predicting or supporting what is possible for humanity. Quantum mechanics will not be understood fully until the self-centered perspective towards infinity is replaced with the understanding that the collective, as well as the individual, is present in each of us, in each moment of existence. The impacts that we all have upon each other are not yet fully understood, yet prayer, meditation, and mindfulness prepare the mind for the unknown, where all true creation springs from. It is a much more collaborative effort being a human, and any other form of life on this planet, than our minimally conscious minds understand at this time. Ultimately, science and religion, medicine and technology, will all be united as manifestations of mankind’s expression of true being.

All of our “thoughts and prayers” have the potential to be of life-affirming value, yet their authority pales in comparison to the power of the underlying, unconscious intentions and manifestations of our collective consciousness and collective unconsciousness, and the infinite variations of potentially dangerous, unenlightened energies within it. One only needs to witness the mind-numbing statements from ignorant, irrational gun promoters at all of the deaths that happen daily because of gun violence. I don’t want the ‘thoughts and prayers” that emanate from their cowardly, hateful minds if I am ever executed by their agents of ignorance and evil.

I have seen that there are multitudes of suggestions and temptations floating around in our collective consciousness, and far too many of them revolve around diseases of the body, diseases of the mind, and rejection of our spirit of love. Yet,within that misunderstood and mysterious energy field, lies an infinite potential for healing and transformation, as well. The path towards conscious awareness, and “miraculous healing” includes sorting out what are our true thoughts and intentions from the collective stray noise of the human energy field, and how we can protect ourselves from all of the dangerous frequencies that we all tune into, intentionally or inadvertently.

Can we experience a spiritual apocalypse where we accept a new way way being, of seeing life, and finally remove ourselves from the limitations that our time based thinking has created for us? Can we come from a place not from our conditioned backgrounds, our upbringing, our wounding as children, our PTSD as adults, or even our most educated, intelligent parts of our training? Will we allow for ourselves the immense uncertainty, and the ultimate privilege, of accessing new paths of consciousness where love, empathy and compassion are our eternal companions? Will we allow our energy fields to resonate with the highest potentials for human experience, to even approach that of our purported divine nature? If we could move past our collective, and individual, discomfort we might learn something about empathy and compassion and mercy and justice, and even connect with a majesty and a miracle that far transcends our limited vision for life. We might finally know “God”, “Buddha”, Allah”, “Vishnu”, “Shiva”, “Krishna”, “Jesus Christ”, “Mohamed” and “Our Self” not as separate concepts, but instead as all part of a great holism.

To not do so is to continue our collective misanthropic experience of war, hatred, enmity between nations and peoples, destruction of our sacred planet Earth, economic inequality, racism, misogyny, diseases of all manners and types, and mental illness. We are free to choose what energy to manifest, and to access. If we do not want the damaged, diseased status quo to continue unto our collective Armageddon, then we will all make necessary changes to the paths we are now following, and/or we will follow completely new conscious paths of experience..

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.

—– Isaiah 65:17

Always remember that WE are the “I” in Isaiah 65:17, when we finally make conscious contact with the ultimate truth of being and existence.

I have attempted to “capture lightning in a bottle” by articulating this message. May each of us never despair of our faltering attempts to reach towards this infinite energy and to express its love and wisdom. To have a better life, we have to access new parts of our infinite self, and travel on new paths of understanding. A primary law of consciousness is that “we find what we are looking for”, so make sure to look for what we really want, and not fall victim to the suggestions of others that don’t always have our best interests at heart.

Very truly I tell you, whoever makes conscious contact with the truth of their real self will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because we are all birthed from infinite power. And the miracles that we perform are to bring the highest glory to our lives, to the lives of all others, and to the transcendent energy from which we have arisen.

——-Jesus Of Nazareth, from John 14 12:14, (spiritually reinterpreted).

Life after enlightenment is all about personal responsibility for one’s thoughts and actions. When we decide to no longer be the victim, we can finally be the victor. Life can be lived on wider and wider frequencies of energy, where meaning, personal value, and loving service to others will bring to each of us all of the resources that we will ever need to live a successful life.

Can anyone conceive of the life where our hearts are opened so wide, that we literally feel like they will explode from all of the love that we now are able to share? Can anyone conceive of the life where our possibilities for understanding and experiencing more of the mysteries of the infinite nature of the interior universe finally becomes common knowledge?

We must not give up before the Miracle appears in our life, and in all of our lives which are impacted by our own.

Can we envision a more challenging, yet beautiful experience for ourselves, and for the planet?

What better reason for living can there possibly be?

Which frequencies of life are we attuned to today?

If we don’t appreciate where we now are, we are free to make another choice for our self.

Please, save yourself.

The Pearl

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.

—-Jesus of Nazareth

One of the quickest ways to turn off many an atheist or agnostic is to start a message with a quote from Jesus!   Our egos certainly take a liking or a disliking to certain messengers, depending upon our vision and values, and how well the messenger conforms to our hopes and expectations.  Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mohamed, Kant, Aristotle, Nietzsche are all potential guides for those who consider themselves lost, which, typically, are all those still enmeshed with their ego, So this brings up a question:

Of what value to us is our ego? 

Our ego can be likened to the shell of an oyster.  The oyster shell is rarely recognized for its own beauty.  Like the oyster shell, our personality may be appealing to some, ugly to others, or just plain uninteresting.  Yet we all have access to different, unknown, and, potentially, sublimely transformative layers of our self, even though the personality often fails to consciously engage with them.

In an oyster, natural pearls form when an irritant, usually a parasite, or, perhaps, the proverbial grain of sand, works its way into an oyster, mussel, or clam. As a defense mechanism, a fluid is used to coat the irritant. Layer upon layer of this coating, called ‘nacre’, is deposited until a lustrous pearl is formed.  The pearl developed inside gives the oyster its unique value to human beings, who prize the pearl’s positive response to a major irritant in its life.  But, the shell has to be opened, for all to witness the beautiful visual delight developed and hidden within.

Ego is formed and continuously affirmed in an environment where spiritual discernment has not yet sufficiently evolved.  Our ego is our static assessment of a dynamic, changing world, and it is constantly engaged in a state of “catching up” with the truth, however that may be expressing.  It can be likened to taking a picture of a movie in midstream, and assuming that the picture represents the entirety of the movie.   Wisdom is gained through our experiences in the journey through space and time, and the reinterpretations of and the release from all of the illusory static images stuck in our memory.  Wisdom IS the perception that our memory may be clogged with a  lifetime of the accumulation of static images, all out of context with our present day intentions to evolve and heal.    Life in the Now is eternally dynamic and changing, while the fragile ego clings to its static fantasies and hopes spawned from its past.

If we resist conscious, rational change, our ego will hold onto worn out understandings of life, and become out of touch with the ever unfolding new reality.  Yesterdays truth is today’s superstition, and yesterday’s inaccurate assessment of others is today’s isolation and pain, so it is imperative to keep an open mind to change.  Otherwise, the ego will be left behind, and suffer according to the cognitive dissonance it allows itself to experience.

At all the intersections of the points of conflict between our inner world and our “outer world”, there are choices to be made.  When a conflict arises, do we resist any new message or lesson being offered by another, especially when their understanding does not conform to our own?  What about that daughter-in-law who hangs up on you, or the husband who talks more than he should, and is unwilling to change?  What about that friend or writer who promotes a way of viewing life that does not conform to our own?  These are irritants, and if we use the irritant to justify an inaccurate judgement against, or physical separation from, the offending party, we may have pushed away a layer of nacre for our own internal pearl of wisdom.  Our judgements are only verbal measurements of an ever changing environment.  Any judgement should be a temporary rest stop, to be left behind when we move in resonance with the new reality continuously unfolding before our eyes.  Thus is the way of forgiveness.

Change is irritating, and often threatening, to the ego.  Our egos exist to help bring context and balance between what we are witnessing now with what we have experienced in the past, to assess what actions in life we must undertake to meet our social and societal obligations.   It is our minds conscious attempt at bringing a balance between the world of form that we share with all of life, and the almost secret world inside of the personal mind.  We might believe that we are keeping secrets from each other, but the truth is that we all share in the vast majority of thoughts and inclinations with our fellow man  (woman), and we are only in denial of that fact when we don’t believe it and fail to act with compassion towards our self and to others.

If the oyster was a closed system, and did not allow for an internal response to irritants, whatever parasites or grains of sand that entered into the oyster might cause its very destruction.  Because the irritant has been addressed, and stabilized through the deposit of the layers of nacre, the oyster continues to thrive, though it is now growing an internal “body” consisting of the layers of the nacre, which are forming into a most lustrous pearl.

So too do we, as humans, have the capacity to make pearls. But we must approach all irritants with love and compassion, or we will produce no spiritual nacre, only more  pain and suffering.  Those with spiritual discernment are finally able to see the Pearl for what it is, in Truth.  Love, or God, takes many forms, and those with the eyes to see, and the ears to hear, witness its action through the loving co-creation of a new reality with others who are also honoring their own pearls.  All of the “forgiveness” that we offer to ourselves, and to all offending parties in our world, also create the most lustrous layers of nacre

Do not judge another by their “shell”, but instead, wait, until they can open their self up, and reveal the Pearl of greatest price.

We all experience the effects of thoughtless, capricious human activity.  Bring on those “irritants”, as they are the gate keepers to new layers of God consciousness!   Remember, most people ask for forgiveness, rather than permission before they engage in their controversial behavior.   Self will runs riot in an unconscious world, and we all suffer under a similar burden created through the action of that darkness in our world. Our wisdom, created through spiritually discerning the irritants in life, is our shiny Pearl.

To those who have not fearlessly faced themselves and their own personal darkness, I wish you more pain, as pain is a major gateway to personal change and transformation.  The point is to learn meaningful lessons from the pain, and not assume that it arose out of nowhere.  Unaddressed pain tends to take over small centers within the mind, and over a period of time the traumatized mind loses its ability to be an avenue of present moment awareness, and it becomes fixated upon a past that cannot be healed. 

The institutionalized pain embedded within our memory becomes virtual scabs over our unexamined wounds.  Are we just forming scabs that only partially cover our wounds, or are we facing our brokenness, in spirit and in relationship, which contribute to the formation of a healing spiritual nacre within our own mind and hearts.

But truly, what is the pearl of the greatest price?

It is your pearl, strung on the same string with the rest of humanity.  Our stories imbued with collective wisdom creates the necklace of ultimate value.  We must each build our own unique consciousness of truth and love.  Then, each of our stories can become the nacre for

THE PEARL OF GREATEST PRICE,

which is the story of the ever unfolding wisdom of mankind.  Some call this the Christ consciousness, the Buddha mind, or God consciousness.

Wear that necklace with love and compassion!

Wear that necklace with discernment and the applied wisdom of all ages!

“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces”

—–Jesus of Nazareth

But, we still need to be careful with who and how we share our best lessons and messages with.

There are those who are so offended when their religious fantasies are challenged, that they might seek for your crucifixion, and speed your passage through those “pearly gates of heaven”.

We are just growing pearls everywhere, aren’t we?.

Please, save yourself

His Master’s Voice

It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable. 

— Maya Angelou

Beginning on May 24th, and extending through July 21st, 1987, I had a series of three spiritual “events” which, to this day, guide and direct the consciousness presently unfolding within me. On May 24, 1987. I had a deeply personal, spiritual event.. To not share it, in this time of greatest need for our world, would be an act of selfishness, and hiding, on my part, dishonoring the life that I now share with our Universe by keeping it too personal and secret.  Sometimes, the Conspiracy of Silence manifests itself by keeping quiet about the activities of Grace, and my unwillingness to share my gifts with others.

I had resumed attendance at Hinson Baptist Church, upon my reentry into sobriety in March of 1987.  In my earnestness to follow the right path through this religion, I accepted a baptism, scheduled for May 28, 1987.  On the weekend prior to my baptism, I received my first ever conscious “visitation of the spirit”.  It manifested in my experience, for lack of a better description, as having the feeling of being held in the loving arms of an “infinite motherly presence”, and I felt like I was being “reborn” as a person as a result. When I described my experience to the Minister, he requested that I attend a training to get my “beliefs” more in alignment with the structure that the American Baptist church accepts. Really? The minister misunderstood my experience, as it represented a direct connection with the God of my spiritual understanding, and not his.

During this period of time, I also needed to get tested for AIDS, since I had relations with women who had sex with bi-sexual men as well as intravenous drug activity, during my darker days. I was looking for some support during this time, as the threat of a death by AIDS was quite real to many of us in those days. I found that there was NO SUPPORT TO BE FOUND, at the Baptist Church, where all people with the potential for having AIDS were regarded as outcasts from GOD, and undeserving of support or respect from the “good Christian folks”. This helped to cement my understanding that our religious institutions exist to support something other than just our “spiritual natures”, and their ignorance of such things causes the injection of some really unhealthy outlooks on life and love into the collective mindsets of their parishioners.

The last straw for me was when the lead minister claimed that of all of God’s creatures, only man has a soul, and that all of earth’s creatures have no basic spiritual essence, I was aghast.  A religion that makes such a claim for man by uplifting its own standing in God’s universe by reducing the spiritual standing of his animal brothers and sisters is Ptolemaic, self-centered and egotistical to the absolute extreme, and another supporting reason as to why our earth is under such attack right now.  As an individual searching for the “Truth Of Being” I thought it was best to steer clear of organized religion, where truth is not so much a sacred value, but instead more a medium for ignorance and a marketable commodity that also is used to help keep people philosophically controlled, and united in one particular way of looking at life.  Historically, religion in general remains the primary avenue for the proliferation of ignorance among the people who don’t have the insight or take the time to think for themselves.

I was educated by a new teacher, a recovering alcoholic by the name of Jack Boland, who had released to the world many series of tapes on recovery and spirituality. I was given one of his tape series of recovery by a co-worker at the Fred Meyer warehouse, John Johnson, of whom I will be eternally grateful to, on May18, 1987. I then listened to these tapes over and over, during the Memorial Day weekend, and something miraculous happened afterwards, probably as a result of my openness to the experience brought about by listening to these tapes, and practicing some simple steps.

On May 24, I drove towards Beaverton to visit with Randy Olson. Randy was a lifelong friend, fellow party monster, and rent sharing partner in 1986 when I contemplated, and then took the active steps towards committing suicide on January 28, 1986 and beyond. As I drove over the West Hills, a wonderful vision came to me, accompanied by a feeling that I had not had since I was twelve years old. It was the vision of a loving mother (actually, the Mona Lisa), holding a baby, and I felt the love of this wonderful UNIVERSE for the first time in my lifetime (later, I was taught to understand that this energy is the Divine Feminine, of which our patriarchal world continues to suppress daily, and has successfully done so, more or less, for at least the last 2000 years).  The wonderful feelings that accompanied that vision became known to me as divine horripilations.

There is the love we have for each other, for our friends, our pets, our children, our families, but this love that I felt flow into me, and through me, transported me into a heightened awareness, and awe. The beauty was too great to talk about, the feeling so overwhelming, so healing, so resurrecting.

The image of the Mona Lisa holding a baby is a fascinating, enlightening image.  It was reported some time back that Leonardo DaVinci had painted the Mona Lisa as a self-portrait of himself, in feminine form.  His message is subject to interpretation, but in today’s terms, he was honoring his feminine side, or nature.  He saw that the source of all creativity came from this mysterious, non-conscious center within himself where feelings of wonder, awe, mystery, and sensitivity to and compassion for others arises from.  His mission was to symbolically represent the divine within himself, through the most effective medium of the day, which was painting.  My own consciousness chose this as a healing image for myself, and I also saw how this feminine side carried all of the divine love and deep feelings of goodness that I had ever wanted for myself.  I was literally re-birthing myself, and this image of the mother holding the baby pictorially represented that new birth to perfection.

I still was not healed and whole, as my body was still wracked with pain, I was constantly shaking, and I still had that annoying chatter in my mind, something like a play by play announcer documenting my every move.  Yet, I still occasionally felt those “divine horripilations” that seemed to remind me that I had touched something extraordinary in nature.  I stayed obsessively involved with AA and NA, and I continued my prayers and meditations, and I started reading several great spiritual works by M.Scott Peck, such as The Road Less Traveled, and People of the Lie: Hope For Healing Human Evil.  Mr. Peck spoke to most of my issues, and problems that I had with Toxic Religion, and I felt like I had found a friend and another teacher of truth.  I still had some free time to explore around, and I would take overnight trips into the wilderness, to “get close to Nature, and to God”.  The feeling of love that I carried with me from the May 24th experience had started to fade by the middle of June, but I still felt blessed, and I was hopeful that continued recovery from my devastating mental illness and neurological trauma might continue.

“HE IS HAVING AN EXPERIENCE WITH GOD”

It was June 22, 1987, and I was hiking up to Larch Mountain, a beautiful peak that overlooks the Columbia River valley, and from its vantage point all of the major mountain peaks of the area can be readily observed. In the ancient times (I was to learn several years later) this area was considered sacred ground by the indigenous peoples, who came to this area from miles around to honor their Great Spirit, and to hold their sacred ceremonies and prayer rituals. I arrived at the top, and allowed myself to become as quiet as my mind would allow for.  I slowly did a 360 degree rotation, observing for the many miles around me, in all directions, the incredible beauty of the area, the mountain peaks of Rainier, Adams, St. Helens, Hood, Jefferson, and the great winding river called the Columbia River.  It felt as if I were on the top of a great observatory, and, today, I was the only person with this special view, and I was quite grateful just to be alive, and have this privilege.  I bypassed a guard rail, and I then climbed around the rocky peak so as to be hidden from the view from anyone.  With the additional privacy that I had created for myself, I then felt comfortable enough to begin to pray and meditate for just a little while.  I was pretty poor at this activity, as my mind refused to quiet itself.  But, at least I made myself available to Spirit, in the way that felt appropriate to me.

My nervous system was still quite compromised from all of the poisoning caused by the chemistry experiments masquerading as methamphetamine/crank that I had ingested over the past 18 months.  I had been clean and sober for 3 months, but total recovery seemed out of the question at this point.  I had been a drug addict and alcoholic, more or less, since I was 15 years old, but the last 18 months had really taken a toll.  My health was improving a little, but I still was having physical tremors, almost identical to Parkinson’s disease, and I was also experiencing the psychological discomfort of “hearing voices”, a delusional activity within my mind which consisted, at this point, of mentally generated feedback about whatever I was observing, or doing at the time.  The voices were nothing more than my own thoughts, yet, in my mind, they appeared to be coming from a center not of my self-aware self, but of something, or someone, not quite me. It literally was like having a play by play announcer operating in my mind, who verbalized everything that was happening, as it happened, with no color commentary added to it (it was a “third person” perspective, with a running monologue documenting anything that my consciousness was focusing on at any particular moment).  I had an uncomfortable relationship to these mental processes, and I did not report this to medical professionals, fearing that I would be hospitalized, or placed on the same destructive medications that I had seen administered to my mentally ill ex-wife.  I had resigned myself to a life of marginal mental health, at best.

A light, warm breeze carried the fragrance of the nearby pine trees to me, drawing me away from the problems of my body, and of my mind.   I continued to be absorbed by the beauty of the area, and the majesty of the unobstructed views.  The mountain peaks began to feel closer to me, for some as yet unknown reason.  I felt as though I could reach out and touch each of them.  The river far below me felt close, very close, and the whole panorama seemed to be drawing nearer to me, and I began experiencing everything in a different way than I ever had before.  And, for the 2nd time in a month, I started feeling a little “different”.  A month ago I had experienced a “vision”, and, with its presence, all of my loneliness and depression had lifted. I attributed that temporary healing to the presence of the vision, and there had been a love that had flowed into me during its presence.  The “vision” had disappeared, but it had left its memory of a beautiful, unconditional love, and with it, traces of hope, and the expectations that something was to follow, of some as yet unknown nature.  Well, something was following now, and it was “closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet”.

A voice inside of my head then stated, with its typical matter of fact nature,

“HE IS HAVING AN EXPERIENCE WITH GOD”.

I was no longer separate from that which I was viewing.  Everything revealed itself as an extension of myself, of my own true nature.  For the first time in my existence, I could see that, as far as I can see, all that I will ever see, unto eternity, is my self.  Then, with a sense of all of my thoughts now being my own, I asked myself “how will I see myself today?”  I saw that all of humanity was my true family.  I saw that everybody was either my brother, or my sister, in this new, true nature that was revealed within me.  I looked within myself, and for the first time in my life, I only saw peace, as well.  The third person monologue had stopped!!  I held my hands out before me, and my hands, which usually shook so bad that I could not even write my signature clearly, or use a spoon to eat from a bowl without making a mess, were steady!  Peace had finally found me on a mountain peak, and I had finally found my true self.  And, I had finally found that life, that TRUTH, I had been seeking since I know not when.

And, I had finally found what real recovery is.  It is not just stopping drinking alcohol and using drugs.  It is the decrease, and, ultimately, the elimination of all patterns of thought that keep me from caring for this world, and for all of the life upon it.  I can’t be alive, and live life fully and holistically, without loving my fellow man, and all of the rest of the life upon our planet.  Think of the love that we have for our newborn baby, or our favorite pet, feel that love completely, with no reservations at all.  We spare none of our hearts or souls, do we?  Now think of that family member or acquaintance who is causing us so much distress, so much anger, even hatred.  Can we give the same love that we would for our baby to that person who we are distressed with?  If we can’t let go of those negative emotions, then that is an example of our separation from God, or Truth.  I don’t have to travel to the underworld again to find that truth, or to look for somebody who might listen to me. 

“WHERE ARE MY PEOPLE?”

became the question of the day, after I hiked the short distance back down to my car.

I then drove towards Portland,  from Larch Mountain, and was guided to go to NE 73rd and Glisan, where the US Postal Service’s EAP program was based.  I walked into the door, and I was greeted by both Larry and Mike. The last time that I had seen Mike was when he visited me in the Care Unit 3 years before. Larry had been the director of the EAP-employee assistance program-since I could remember.  I called out to them by name, yet neither man immediately recognized me.   When I mentioned my name, they were both blown away.  I was happy, or, more precisely, ebullient, and Mike said that I was simply “radiant”.   They wanted to know what was going on with me, and I stated, with a matter of fact attitude, that I was having a “spiritual experience”, and they both gave me a huge hug and acknowledgement. 

Inspired by this reception, I returned to the Main Post Office, and checked in with the Personnel Department, where Eleanor Workman was the head of the department.  She immediately recognized me, and then offered me an application to reapply for my “lost” position.

“No thank you, Eleanor, I just wanted to express my apologies for working for this company in such an unhappy manner for so many years”.

She stated that I could get the job back with little problem, since the Post Office knew that they fired me even though I was still a practicing alcoholic.  I then stated that what would make me the happiest is if she could schedule a meeting between me and the head of Plant Maintenance, John Zimpleman.  Well, he was “in”, so I went right up, and I had a direct opportunity to make amends to him for my poor performance from 1980-1985.  He greeted me warmly, listened to my story, was quite impressed, and then stated that he wished his son could discover what I just found, because John Jr.  was rapidly descending to my former level.  Wow, this day of amends went so well, I remained ecstatic about all future interpersonal possibilities.

One day that next week, while visiting our world famous Powell’s Book Store on Burnside in Portland, I saw my old psychiatrist, Dr. Dan Beavers.  He was standing in the metaphysical section of the book store.  I walked up to him, and he did not immediately recognize me.  I stuck my hand out to him, and re-introduced myself to him.

“Bruce, this can’t be you, can it?  Last time I saw you, I was wondering how much longer you could survive if the medication did not turn your life around.”

“Dan, the medication worked just fine.  I never used it, at least not in the way that you would have intended for me to use it.  I finally found a new way to live life without medication, drugs, or alcohol.  I now accept full personal responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and activities”.

“Bruce, that is the desired outcome for all of my patients.  Congratulations on your success!”

I gave Dr. Dan a hug, and apologized for using him like a tool in my effort to manipulate my former employer, the US Postal Service.  He said that I did not need to make amends to him, and that he was there for me to serve all of my needs, whether I considered them dysfunctional or otherwise.  But it still felt good to see Dr. Dan and show him my healthier sense of self.  I was to never see Dr. Dan again.  When I recently saw his obituary for his premature death in 2015,  I felt great sorrow, and cried.

In the continued interest of “finding my people”, I attend the INTA Conference in Portland In August of 1987 (International New Thought Alliance).  The person that I was most interested in seeing was Jack Boland, the recovering alcoholic who had started a SUPER CHURCH in Minnesota, with well over 5000 members.  He also had  a following of many hundreds of thousands of recovering people worldwide, as his approach to spirituality, sobriety,  and healing was pretty universal.  The integration into this new community was a fascinating immersion into a group energy that I had never experienced before. 

I WAS SO HIGH THERE!!!

I got to see firsthand a group of well over 1000 people warmly embrace the musical group Alliance, which starred Jerry Florence.  They had some hits in the 1980’s, and they were a group of gay men who all had HIV’/AIDS.  Having recently left that “evil” Hinson Baptist Church where gays were bashed regularly, this was like a breath of life to a drowning man, even though I had no homosexual tendencies.  The tenderness that I felt towards Jerry Florence and the group of men that constituted Alliance still lives in me today, and I still have tears today for the suffering of all people who have been judged as unworthy or just plain ignored.

Marsha (Masha) Feldman is a beautiful Jewish woman, of Russian descent, who sat directly across the aisle from me at the Jack Boland talk.  For some reason she came over to ME after Jack’s talk, and began a friendship with me that was to last for over one year.  She had lived quite the life, hanging out with many of the most beautiful people that Portland, Oregon had to offer.  She had hung around rich men with their fancy cars, homes, and clothing. She had told me that she spent much time with weight lifting men, many of whom worshiped their own bodies.  Some were bi-sexual, and she was a little concerned that she might have made contact with the AIDS virus.  She was suffering from an unspecified auto-immune deficiency, and she would not tell me what it was.  She was a princess of sorts, and expected to be treated that way.  Why she latched onto me is anybody’s guess, but I am sure that there was an underlying spiritual reason for this connection.

Masha was troubled and had recently visited her rabbi for some support.  Her rabbi had informed her, in the interests of her own personal happiness and sense of well-being, that she should give up on understanding “GOD”, and to instead pursue more ‘grounded’ approaches to her physical and emotional health and welfare.  She certainly had the physical aspect mastered, as she worked out daily, and kept her physical energy and beautiful appearance at as high of a level as possible.

The International New Thought Alliance conference of 1987 was part of her higher involvement in the social activities of her community, both inside and outside the Jewish culture.  We traveled all over Portland together, visiting various recovery and spiritual groups for the first time together.   We delighted in discussing with each other all manners of healing and methodologies for achieving higher spiritual experience.  Hey, it felt wonderful to have a new friend on my spiritual journey.  As a direct result of this connection, we visited the YWCA of Portland, on 10th avenue.  Every Sunday there was a tape group meeting hosted by Marie Schmidt, a student of Joel Goldsmith, the creator of the healing movement “The Infinite Way”.  Since Masha was Jewish too, like Joel, she had an immediate connection, though it did not last long for her.  I continued with the Infinite Way for several years afterward (and I still practice some of their principles today).

As I moved forward spiritually in that great summer of 1987,  I was still quite new to the path of healing and transformation. I had left my old life behind, and I was open to the experience of spiritual connection, and mastery. I had developed quite a meditation practice, eschewing committed relationships with others in order to develop a deeper spiritual practice. I remained excited about the possibilities for my life, as I had finally made “conscious contact with the God of my understanding”. I had recently experienced dramatic, if not miraculous, healing of my body and my mind, and a new energy permeated my being. I felt like I was finally “swimming in the sea of meaning”, though I still had not “connected the dots”, or started consciously rebuilding the new self. But, I could have never anticipated the experience I was about to have, on this particular day, July 21, 1987.

The Master Teacher

“Master Teacher of the Light, Master Teacher of the Light” I repeated within myself several times during an evening meditation, which is a mantra that I had developed to aid my focus for my meditation practice. I was meditating several hours a day, and though my life was bearing fruit from previous connections with the Spirit, I remained driven to find deeper and deeper layers of meaning, and experience of my true nature and being. Well, this meditation was to become Truth’s “bell ringer” for me. Without warning, I was lifted from my body awareness, and I then had a sense that I now had a decision to make. It was like I was driving an automobile, and I realized that I could continue steering, and heading in my usual direction for life, or I could “let go of the controls” and experience something totally different and unique.

I released the “steering wheel” of my mind, and my conditioning, and there was an exhilarating inner “rush” whereby I was totally released from myself and what was left of my old psychological set, and my burdens, and my body! My essence traveled into a great unknown, neither “light or dark”, and it was like I passed through some sort of great matrix of information/being.  I had entered into a dimension of experience where infinite interconnected structures of alive and intelligent energy were manifest.  I did not recognize what I was witnessing, nor do I have the words to adequately represent this “web”.  Later, I was to learn that this matrix was the very collective consciousness of mankind, with all of its intelligence, and its stupidity.  I quickly flashed by what was, at this point in my life,  that unrecognizable and unnameable energy, and began almost a half spiral downward, where I came to a place of complete “darkness”, or emptiness. I felt totally at home here. I felt as if I was in the womb of all creation.  It felt like it held everything in the universe, yet there was nothing at all to witness here, at least initially..

Almost immediately, a “laughing, happy voice” seemed to be speaking to me, or, more precisely, through me, in this “secret place of the most high”. Messages floated through, like

“No teacher shall effect salvation, I must work it out for myself”, and,

“think no thoughts”, with

“Follow new paths of consciousness”,

And then, a mathematical formula for re-entry back into the great unknown was given to me. It was a differential equation that I could understand, and which stated (in layman’s terms) that with the total elimination of the movement of time based thought, the direct perception of reality was possible. The limit, as delta T goes to zero (T is thought as a function of time), divided by delta t (t is time itself), delta is the “change in”, or as LIM dT/dt, as dt approaches zero, with T=f(t). The solution of this equation is the great unknown, INFINITY, or that which I sought.  The difference between spiritual “being” and human “becoming” took on mathematical and spiritual significance for me on the deepest level.

The final messages, however, were the one most difficult to reconcile within my life, and the ones which remained troubling for me through the subsequent years. First, there is this component:

“YOU CAN’T BE REAL”.

When it was stated, it was stated through me, with a joyful, laughing voice, yet when I re-entered my normal way of being, it became an almost threatening statement, and one that continued to challenge myself, and my ego daily for quite some time. And yet, to see again, as God, or Truth, sees, I must be mastered by this truth. The ego is the sum total of all of my judgments, the sum total of my human experience, my acculturation, my conditioning, my “separation from God, Love, my fellow-man, and Truth”. The ego looks out from itself, and sees everything, and everyone, as if they are separate from its self, while totally failing to see that “all that it ever sees, unto eternity, is itself”. There really does not exist the “you” that I have formed, my perception of “you” is an incomplete mental creation that only exists in my mind, and which may or may not be shared by others, and most certainly is NOT shared by you.

The human race tends to confuse the verbal description (or mental image) of the person with the actual experience of the person, who, regardless of appearances, is infinitely more complex, and worthy of love and acceptance, than the human mind can readily accept. My ego is the sum total of all of my time based thoughts about time based behaviors of myself, and others. If I want to see clearly, I must accept that my main mode of viewing the world was through the ego’s eyes of time-based judgements and the unreality that this creates. To die to this mode of living is to truly be reborn of the spirit.

To “follow new paths of consciousness”, while knowing that “you can’t be real” sets up quite a transformational dynamic within consciousness. If “you” can’t be real, then everything that I associate with “I” is preeminent. Every time I identify with a person, a process, or a place, I have created either a “new path of consciousness”, or I have reaffirmed some older, more familiar, potentially worn out path that I have already been traveling upon. “I am an electrician”, or “I am an alcoholic”, or “I am a son of Beryl and Corinne Paullin”, or “I am full of shit”, or “I am a lonely, isolated person”, or “I am angry with X,Y, Z”, or WHATEVER I associate my self, my “I am” with, either continues my path in old directions, or creates the imperative to create new words, thoughts, and experiences around a new direction. I could just as easily say “I am no longer traveling old paths of consciousness”, and then STOP thinking time-based thoughts, and rehashing and rehearsing old memories, to create a new life experience for myself.  I would then have to trust in a “Higher Power”, “the Unknown”, and the “Mystery” to create my new “timeless self” in each unique moment.

Lastly, a most confusing revelation came, as well. I could see the field of energy that constituted my “body/mind awareness”. I saw embedded in it two almost complete thought forms, or identity forms, which I recognized as two distinct “entities”. Yes, I had two ‘extras’ attached to my field, and they were not there for my greater good, for sure. I came to regard these two unwelcome components to my life force as “tricksters”, though I noted that their presence seemed to allay the feelings of loneliness of my ego, perhaps only because they seemed vaguely familiar to me. They appeared to be almost “caricatures’ of two unique people.  I sensed that I was supposed to let go of these “illusions of self”, but I did not know what to do. I was to learn later, much later, after my father’s death, that these two tricksters were creations that I had made in my youth of my parents intentions for me, including my unhealthy attachments and historical reactions to their points of view.

The two extra identity vortices in the ‘human energy field matrix’ that constituted my conscious sense of self did not really ever disappear, they just became unconscious again, for me. I later was to associate them with two “black holes” in consciousness which swirled around my lack of self worth and the fear of death..  Little did I know that they were to become the most critical components to understand in my desire to form a better ongoing human/spiritual experience.  I now understood the basis for the potential for the development of “multiple personalities disorder”.  I saw how the whole human race suffered from this disorder, to varying degrees. Schizophrenia, oppression of others, repression of self and feelings, passive/aggressive behavior, people pleasing, prejudice, racism, misogyny and the like all shared a common foundation. 

All of these teachings were too much to digest in that moment, in that year of 1987, and for many years to follow.  But, this is a true path of humility, to finally see in its totality the shortcomings of the human mind, and to become willing to go beyond it. It was all so fresh and new to me and I was not the best communicator around the experience. I had no one to discuss this earth shattering spiritual event with, save one person, Masha. I knew that everybody else would think that I had gone insane, so I kept this inner teaching a secret to everybody else for many years to follow.

Masha, my new friend, was an amazing listener, and such a good friend, that we struggled through the teachings together.  We talked endlessly about our ‘spiritual experiences’,  discussed the enlightened ‘masters’ of the day, traveled and explored through the Columbia Gorge together, attended recovery meetings, slept under the stars together, slept in her apartment together, yet we never made love, as I was not to be her “prince charming”, as she related to me fairly early on.  I continued to see Masha as an extension of my ‘search for truth’ process where I remained celibate, so I was not too disturbed for that to continue (for most of my life, sex had not been all that satisfying for me).   Yes, this was yet another rejection of me on a pretty basic level, but I was relatively unaffected by it.  This rejection did not darken my life because of all of the other light that was being let in.

We continued to hang out together, and spent lots of quality time with each other in platonic, yet blissfully loving, situations in various settings around our area.  Two of our favorite areas to visit were in Mosier, near the Tom McCall overlook at the Columbia River, and Washington Park, near her apartment in southwest Portland.  I continued to struggle to make sense of the three spiritual upheavals, or revelations, that happened over the period of May 24 through July 21, 1987, and attempted to understand other available teachings.

In October, In one of our recovery and spirituality group explorations together, we met Laurie H. at support group for ACOA, which is Adult Children Of Alcoholics.  Masha pointed out that the young woman had similar physical characteristics to her own, and that maybe I should reach out to her, and test her for her friendliness.  I called Laurie several times after the meeting, to no avail.  I was about to give up on her, when on Halloween, she changed her mind, and we set out on a date together.  Well, it went better than it should have, and within six months I was engaged to be married to her.  Laurie was one step above what I could handle, and I created another great learning experience around love, and, rejection.  Masha receded into the background of my life for good, as a result of that relationship.  I missed her terribly, and, to this day, I still think of her.

Laurie and Marie — Meditation and Spiritual Healing

Looking back, everything worked out just fine, I think.  Pursuing a woman overly concerned with appearances could not have brought long-term happiness to me, and there was little reason to hope that a love relationship with Masha would have worked.  Masha was 10 years older than I was, which did help open me up to the possibility of dating older women (hello Sharon, my beautiful wife and love of my life, and, yes, an older woman!).  Prior to this, it seemed only younger woman had even the remotest of interest in me.  I always considered myself too immature for older women, anyway.

Laurie and my grandmother, Christmas 1988

I made a sincere effort to establish the “perfect” relationship with Laurie.  Alas, my efforts were not to come to a long term fruition.  We did enjoy each others’ company for several months, but I had to experience some real trauma and drama both early on in our relationship, and at the end of it.  In the interests of practicing safe sex, Laurie insisted that I get an AIDS test, due to my past choices for drug use and sexual activity.  At that time, an AIDS diagnosis was a death sentence, so it was pretty normal to have reservations about both the disease, and getting tested for it.

I went to the public health clinic, and submitted my blood sample for the test.  It was handled in an anonymous fashion. so as to protect the individual who is tested, and keep their results secret.  My health department contact was a friendly gay man, who tried his best to help me find peace around the whole process.  Yet, in the three weeks it took to get my results back, I developed death terrors, and experienced anxiety unlike anything I had experienced before.  It was so much easier for me when I held the gun to my own head, figuratively speaking, than when the potential for a fatal illness took over that role, and potentially removed my freedom of choice in how I should have to die.

My test came back OK, of course, so I was able to continue on my new path of life with Laurie, and share in the joy of a more liberated sexual expression.  Yet, there was something amiss within Laurie.  She was in the midst of a spiritual crisis, where she no longer believed in the power of her “God” to deliver her to her own promised land of fully expressed human potential.  She was depressed, and she needed anti-depressants to sustain her.  She made poor choices around maintaining her independence,  and the direction that she was heading was to become a dependent bride, and, ultimately, a mother to several children.

The story bends back to my relationship with Masha for a moment.  Masha called me about a year after I had last seen her, in November of 1988, to wish me a happy birthday.  I was already sensing the potential end to my relationship with Laurie, and I told Masha about that (yes, Laurie was my “replacement for Masha”).  She reported to me that she was now engaged to some Christian leaning dude who was quite a bit homelier than I was.  (Oh, was that supposed to feel good to me?)  She regretted not having released her prejudices earlier, so that we could have had a deeper relationship. She thanked me for teaching her the value of the spirit, versus those who over-valued money and appearance.  It was a bittersweet revelation to me, and I never heard from her again.

My own heart could not support a person of deteriorating mental health, with the intention of becoming a home-bound mother.  My spirit kept yelling at me that I needed either a strong, spiritually healing woman, or nobody at all.  Coupled with this was the fact that I perceived that she still had sexual curiosity towards new men, as evidenced by her continued perusal of Willamette Week’s singles section.  What ended the relationship was one evening her mother called me late, asking when she might expect Laurie to return home, since she saw Laurie leaving with me earlier in a new car.  I had to tell Mrs. H. that I was not with Laurie that evening.  Both Mrs. Hartmann and I starting crying together when we realized that Laurie was secretly out with another man, “exploring her options”.  The next day I met with her to end the relationship.

In 1987, I met Marie Schmidt, a practitioner of the Infinite Way, which is a movement involved with “spiritual healing” created by Joel Goldsmith (died 1964).  She was a woman about 87 years old, who taught every Sunday at the old YWCA on 10th Avenue in downtown Portland.  I had seen a simple advertisement for her tape group, while attending the International New Thought Alliance conference in Portland.  The tape group was a combination mediation group, and a forum for listening to the taped teachings of Joel Goldsmith, a spiritual healer and mystic who first began his healing practice shortly after the Great Depression began.

She had been holding weekly meditations and tape recorded playbacks of Joel’s actual messages since 1962 (she had 1000 hours of his recorded messages, which she ended up giving to me). Marie would sit in the front of the room, and lead a 15 minute meditation, followed by the playing of a cassette tape of one hour length,  which she had.  She had a collection of at least 300 tapes (of which I eventually copied virtually all of them, and committed them to memory as best that I could).

I was captured by this group, which had mostly older people who attended.  I believe that I was the youngest person there, for the period from 1987-1991, while I remain involved with her group.  Initially, I kept my distance from most of the people, not really being sure what the whole business was about.  I eventually drew Joan M and Marcus J. into the group, who I knew from the International New Thought Alliance convention of 1987, as well as Alcoholics Anonymous, and the Living Enrichment Center.

One day in February of 1989, after I had just broken off an engagement to be married to Laurie H, and I was devastated.  The sweet old woman, Marie, offered me a “healing session”.  Well, I had my doubts, and nothing to lose, and I was a little curious about this “healing business”.  I went up to her apartment, still devastated, and meditated with her for 15 minutes. At the end, Marie spoke the “message” that she heard from Spirit, in regards to me.

“More perfect than you are, you could never be”,

with

“All that is human, is illusion”.

Well, OK, but how can I possibly apply that spiritual salve?

As I thanked her for her time, I then noticed I was totally at peace, and I was “healed” of all of my emotional disturbances around the ending of my engagement to Laurie.  It was as if the winds of Spirit had blown away everything from my mind, except peace and joy.

As I look at my life’s history, I have been healed by its Mystery.

I later tried to have her heal my mentally sick ex-wife, Donelle,  with no success.  So there were limits to her ability, though she always stated that God  heals, not herself . I can almost now hear Marie’s voice, telling me, in regards to all of us:

“More Perfect than you are, you could never be.”

How that manifests in all of our lives remains an unraveled mystery, to be experienced by us each day that we have the privilege to wake up.  She would tell me that we are all blessed by each other’s continued walk through life.    Love goes before us, to make all of  “the crooked places straight”. We are Loved, and, in fact are Love Itself.    The body goes where it must, but also, so does our Hearts.  Go in Peace and Love, and always be willing to bring healing to any situation, for that is our mission, and who we are always to be.

In 1994, Marie was placed in the St. Andrews home near Mt. Tabor, when her nephew noted her deteriorating health, and he was concerned about her decline.  Marie continued to practice healing with the other patients, even while under care of the attending professionals.  My last visit to her, prior to her death, was characterized by her still restating to Sharon and me of our perfection in the eyes of God.

“More Perfect than you are, you could never be.”

—–Marie Schmidt

Smiling and Laughing With The Truth — The Master Teacher Speaks

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.  

– Howard Thurman

I have always known that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way that we, as humans, live our lives while attempting to peacefully communicate with each other. I have not always known what the source of my own disease was, however. My disease of misunderstanding drove me to the brink of death, into insanity, drug addiction, despair, loneliness, and suicidal ideation. My life could only be characterized, by the time I had turned thirty years old in 1985, as a committed search for the grave.

In 1987, I experienced a series of real spiritual transformational events, resulting in the miraculous healing of my body and mind. There was such a huge disconnect between the consciousness of the “old ways”, the “diseased”, the “dying” aspects of myself, and a new order of being that was trying to discard the “old me”. My old misunderstanding of life, and of myself, was to be replaced by another version of my infinite potentiality. It was a remarkable time, and people who knew me then could feel the energy that was bubbling up within me. I had found a newborn enthusiasm for life, living, and a healthy re-integration back into the flow of humanity, Humanity, alas, did not collectively share in my inner experience, nor could it.

I traveled all around the City of Portland, much like I did when I sank into its underworld, on my original search for truth. I no longer visited the drug dealers, manufacturers, itinerant thieves, motorcycle gang hit men, or any of the other characters that helped to enlighten me while I traveled the road of darkness. I now met with, literally, thousands of people who were new to me, in a multitude of different group experiences, to engage with and get to know “my people”. When I literally, and spiritually, came off of the mountaintop on June 22, 1987, an intention planted into my heart was to locate “MY PEOPLE”. My life had changed, and so did the nature of the people that I was to become interested in , and who became attracted to me, as well. The first of my journeys into my new world was to the nearly week long INTA convention, though I made many other forays into the unknown.

On one of my journeys, I visited a crystal store, which was a new-age rock shop on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. The owner of the store stocked books which promoted some of the speculative spirituality of that time. Every day, many people congregated at that store. They appeared to be part of a well-meaning group of spiritual aspirants, yet I could not quite grasp the ideas that “spiritual masters”, or even ultra-evolved aliens, were communicating to the human race through these crystals, many of which were originally located in Brazil. Books had been written about them (such as the Starseed Trilogy), and there was a popular, though misguided, attraction to the possibility that these crystals had special powers. Even some of these supposedly evolved people had evaded the truth that their enlightened minds were the source or cause of special powers, and not any objects in the world of effect.

I had several conversations with Jack, the owner of the shop, as I visited the shop at least three times to look at books, and be conversant with this “new-age” community of people. I challenged him about selling some of these crystals to naive purchasers for several thousand dollars each. Jack, quite the economic and spiritual realist, claimed that he was only meeting a need, and not promoting an idea or agenda. After all, he is a capitalist now, and he needed to pay his bills.

One of our conversations had to do with what our responsibility as evolving, healing beings is to the rest of humanity, which continued to struggle with its own broken truth, as it had since time immemorial. Jack listened with great interest in what I had to say, as he always did. Jack had the capacity to listen to what was being said, acknowledge the person where they were, and point to a direction where they might want to look. In some sense of the word, Jack was a GURU. I was not attracted to GURU’s, however, as my nature tended to rebel against so-called authority figures.

My own “Master Teacher”, which revealed itself within me on July 21, 1987, in a most spectacular fashion, rejects the notion that any teacher can deliver to another their salvation. The inner message, received as if delivered by thunder in the silence of my being, was that “no teacher can bring salvation to others, it must be worked out within the self”. There were a few other messages delivered, as well as a few visions, but I did not have the context at the time to fully interpret and understand the totality of its life-changing, life-affirming message.

That is where personal experience must rise up and become incorporated within a new narrative, a narrative informed by the new energy, an energy that is more inclusive, and universal in its application. Without our personal story becoming married, as it were, to the new truth, life changing wisdom could not become part of our nature, nor could we become verbal around a new world order that was trying to reveal itself to all receptive beings.

I pondered with Jack the possibility of bringing healing to others, as I felt so blessed by my own healing, and I felt that I had something unique and precious to share with the world. Jack listened intently, as he always did, thought for a moment, then with a BIG SMILE stated simply:

“FUCK THE WORLD!”

I was confused, and asked for clarification.

“Bruce, the world could care less about your healing, and what new truth or messages that you might be able to bring to assist others in their journey. The world, as it now exists, exists for a reason. The whole fundamental consciousness has been established to make the common man feel OK about being less than who they are, in truth, and to limit and control those who might develop the insight to rebel against the established disorder. The whole of religion, and philosophy, was designed to help keep people in their darkness, while telling them that they are on the path to their own salvation through the belief in powers greater than themselves. It has always been about disempowering, and controlling, the population. Could you imagine how the powers of the age would respond if everybody sought for, and found, the Truth?, There would be chaos, and the world would collapse into a form of Armageddon. The world of religion, and this bastardized Christianity that Americans practice, is the ultimate form of oppression. And the oppressed BELIEVE that they are the chosen ones, while they subject themselves to the fantasies and hypnotism of their faiths”.

One of his final statements set me back in my chair, and I almost fainted.

“The “world” has created its own dysfunction, and revels in swimming in its own cesspool of misunderstanding, and there is NOTHING a sane man can do about it, other than just laugh at it.”

I felt a part of myself feel rejected by his statement. One of my childhood fantasies and misunderstandings of myself was that nobody would/could love me unless I saved them from death, or came to their rescue, so Jack poured some ice water over those smoldering ashes from the isolating fires of the poor self esteem from my past. But, I now felt a resonance with his statement of truth.. I had lived a life of little or no value up to my transformation, and I felt that I finally had something to contribute to the world, yet here was a prominent figure lecturing me to turn my back on the world, and to just go out and enjoy my life, and LAUGH AT THE WORLD.

Here is the eerie part:

In the spiritual experience of July 21, 1987, when I first reached the “Master Teacher” within my own being, I had traveled, without my body (of thought, past consciousness, etc.) to a place of silence so deep and powerful, and which was subsequently perceived to be the very “womb of creation” of consciousness itself. It was there that I heard my own Master’s voice.

“You can’t be real”

was the message, laughingly expressed through the deepest silence, peace, and love that I had ever experienced. For a moment, I was allowed to “look through the eyes of God” and see that the entirety of the matrix of consciousness of the human experience was unreality itself. All that the “Truth” can do, is to laugh at it, and dismiss it.

And now Jack, two weeks later, was parroting the very idea that my “God” had revealed to me.

All that I knew was that I was a “guided missile” of the truth, and I was to have many more remarkable connections with evolving people over the next several years. These connections helped me to “flesh out” what had been revealed within myself by my own “Master Teacher”, or source of wisdom common to all of mankind when it chooses to access it.

I chose to be silent about my experience, for many years to follow. I carried a grin on my face that the despair of the world could not erase for several of the following years. I stopped “laughing at the world” when my responsibilities to my life increased.dramatically in the mid 1990’s, while, concurrently, my new, more spiritually inspired, persona developed. I was not to live the life of an acetic monk, or live the artificial, though idyllic, life of a member of an ashram. Traveling through the diseased world of form, with one’s need for eating and gainful employment, while witnessing the world’s corruption, its sin, suffering, and dying, tends to distract one from the truth that “all that is human, is illusion”. And now, watching the drama continuously unfolding from within the White House from the Anti-Christ himself tends to be quite disturbing, and shows how twisted human consciousness may become. I am still attempting to “laugh at the world”, though my “God consciousness” appears to have dramatically ebbed, at least for now, and all that I can do, many times, is be anxious, and cry.

I have recently attempted to write a book about the transformation of consciousness. To the best of my ability, I have translated the message from the ‘Master Teacher”, but I am not an adequate messenger, for sure. Yet, potentially, we are all containers for Infinite Spirit, albeit broken ones, and that can be more than enough to bring a blessing to self, and to others.

All that I can now say is this:

Welcome to the ILLUSION.

Please, enjoy yourself while you are here.

Discard all of our knowns and conclusions into the universal dumpster, and live from the state of “unknowing”, where insight and new knowledge may be spawned. There is only one Mind, and it can only be experienced in the “unknown”. Intelligence and its active agent, curiosity, only thrive when one is not permanently committed to a point of view.

Changing our consciousness is a natural and normal experience, when we are not suffering under the infinite weight of the oppressive nature of collective consciousness. Drinking alcohol, using drugs, spinning madly on a merry-go-round, jumping out of airplanes, or even traveling to outer space is the expression of our natural need for change. The key is not to become addicted to the avenues chosen for release, for then they become new forms of oppression for our hearts. Permanent release, liberation, or enlightenment, occurs, when one loses attachment to the world of form and effect, its accumulated verbal constructs, and all forms of release, with its accompanying pleasure and pain.

If you are not enjoying the show, remember, you are the co-creator of it. Try changing the channel, and see what happens.

Pain is inevitable, though many forms of suffering are optional

There must be the DEEPEST of desires to find the truth, and the DEEPEST of intentions to not neglect it in the face of attacks from others.

The human “Conspiracy Of Silence” points to the FACT that mankind covers itself with illusory verbal constructs, and worships the illusion as if it is fact. The Truth remains forever buried, thus, the foundation for the “conspiracy” is created, and maintained, throughout eternity.

The truth that I live is the only truth that I can give.

I have saved the world from myself, and there really is nothing more for me to do, save witness the suffering of others, and point my finger to a potential new direction for those who choose to awaken.

Those that do not choose to awaken, will remain stick figures in other people’s dream of world domination.

Hildegard of Bingen, the great German mystic and writer from the 12th century, became ill whenever she did not write. The same experience has become the truth for myself, and, potentially, may be the truth for all of mankind. Collectively, we are terminally ill.

Please, save yourself.

And write a great story, or book!

Sharon White and My New Life

I dedicate this chapter to my wife, Sharon White. 

Sharon is younger at age 72 than when she was at age 42.

The lessons of love learned while with my wife Sharon could encompass an entire book of its own.. On July 4, 1989  I met Sharon, and her daughter Hayley while attending a Course In Miracles discussion group in the basement of the Unity Church in southeast Portland.  Right off the bat I was struck by what a genuine human being that she was,  appearing real, honest, deep, and personal. Her daughter exhibited some unusual behavior, and I could tell that Sharon was dealing with troubling mental health issues with family members.

Sharon (at age 42) and Hayley, 1989

I eventually joined in relationship with Sharon, after being reintroduced to her at a Living Enrichment Center gathering around the Twelve Steps of Recovery, a several week presentation by Mary Boggs, the minister of LEC.  We both scheduled our attendance at a Course In Miracles weekend retreat that LEC was sponsoring over the weekend of August 4, 1989.  When the retreat was cancelled, I offered to Sharon that we create a retreat of our own.  I chose Cultus Lake, a mountain lake in Central Oregon, which my family had camped at several times when I was a young person.  We proceeded to hit it off so good together that weekend, that we knew we were right for each for now, and for a long, long time to come.

Come September, though, I could see that I was becoming quite involved in Sharon’s life, and if I did not travel to Boston soon, and research a powerful dream that I had, I would have no opportunity to do so in the future.  So I arranged a week trip to Boston, not knowing what in the heck I was going to find there.  I knew that the Mother Church of the Church Of Christian Science was located there.  Joel Goldsmith’s teachings had some of their origins from Mary Baker Eddy’s teachings, so maybe I  was supposed to go there to see or hear something Ms. Eddy related.  I did go by the church, and sat in on a few sessions.  I was asked by one of the ministers what I was doing there, just visiting, or did I have a desire to learn more about Christian  Science?  I told her that I was a student of Joel Goldsmith, and that I had also read some of Mary’s works.  She immediately escorted me to Mary’s private study, which nobody had access to, save a special few individuals.  She told me that I probably would like to sit and pray and meditate there, and for me to take as much time as I like.  So, that is what I did.  I found my sense of the sacred and profound, and felt blessed by this exposure to the Church, and to Mary Baker Eddy’s private study.  I will never know for sure if this is what the dream wanted for me to do, but that is what I did.  I wanted to make sure to honor the energy, and its revelations, as best as I could.

I moved in permanently with Sharon later that year, and her daughter Hayley lived with us until July of 1990, when she struck out on her own, to find her own truth and healing.  I was having some difficulty communicating with Hayley.  Sharon and her daughter had some unique mutual control dynamics that were not healthy or satisfying to witness, or to participate with.  Sharon ended up signing up for a class from Diana Martha Clark, who was teaching a twelve step recovery course on co-dependency, which Sharon ended up benefiting greatly from.  Hayley had a lot of growing up to do, and I became disturbed by her need for chaos, need to hold her mother as an emotional hostage, and her lack of respect for my need for peace and honest, loving expression in communication.  She could be particularly harsh, angry, and insensitive, and I felt like I was always walking on eggshells with her.

One weekend in July of 1990, I went to my grandma Henry’s home to stay while she was out-of-town.  I spent literally the whole weekend in prayer and meditation around my troubles with Hayley.  Then a most unusual thing happened.  I “heard” that my issues around Hayley had been resolved, and that she was not to be an issue any further.  I went back to our apartment that Sunday evening, and upon my re-entry, I was informed that Hayley had decided to move out, and live with Martha Cannon, a former patient of Sharon’s. Remarkably, the only problems that arose with my early relationship with Sharon, other than daughter related, revolved around Sharon assuming that I knew what her needs were before she expressed them to me, but that misunderstanding quickly worked itself out.

As I look at my history, I see the workings of the Mystery.

Sharon and I shared a common passion of finding and expressing the joy and truth in life, and we meditated and prayed together for many hundreds of hours together, especially early on in our relationship.  The fruitage of one of our shared meditations is the following “poem”.  I had a particularly deep, profound connection during a meditation around 1990, where I had once again entered into Truth’s domain.  There was no apparent message, that is, until I returned to my conscious mind.  The silence then used the words in my memory to create the following message.  The first stanza I wrote in 1985, prior to any real spiritual unfolding, and I could never finish it until this meditation in 1990 filled in the body of it:

THE VOICE OF AWAKENING

Though the slowly shifting sands of time,

Create ever taller hills for this lost soul to climb,

It must be in my selfish, hateful world of no reason or rhyme,

I must begin the search for Truth, to find the Love that is sublime.

“Oh seeker of Truth, God’s high mount you would climb,

Though you now stumble through the valley’s shifting sands of time.

Stop confusing your mind with worn out rhyme and reason,

For they are forever charged by Truth with treason!”

“Oh mental marathoner , only on Life’s treadmill you now stand,

Just re-using the same words and thoughts keeps you life’s ‘also ran’

You’ll forever chase in vain Love’s all-knowing voice,

So be still, for with your run’s end, is the Cause to rejoice!”

“Oh marionette’s dancing image of the screen of the world’s mind,

With all of those conditioned beliefs in control, what freedom could you find?

Release yourself from all of those memories’ materialistic strings

To prepare for the inner Wisdom that only my Intelligence brings!”

“Oh shadow boxer of evil, when will you ever tire?

Tis only champion of a dream world to which you aspire!

Cease giving energy to your illusions with those mental pugilist blows,

And reveal the peaceful mind of the One who now knows!”

“So please wake up to Love’s voice sweet somnambulator,

And realize the eternal truth that “I” within “you” is greater,

Than any mental image you could ever form or learn,

And then your World will reflect the One for whom you now yearn!”

And then the real “punch line” to the search for Truth:

“To be in realization of Truth, is to find God’s high mount another illusion to climb,

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

The dark, restless mind remains forever bereft of Love’s Rhyme and Truth’s Reason,

And only chases after mirages, until it sees all of its movements are guilty of treason!”

Sharon and I continued to attend various workshops and meetings revolving around self and planetary healing.  She introduced me to Gary Spanovich, a fascinating man with what appeared to be a quite sincere and profound connection with “the still small voice”. We did several sweat lodge ceremonies with Gary at his Canby home.  I remember one sweat lodge ceremony where there were ten participants, eight of which were women.  We were required to all be naked for the ceremony.  I had no issue with that, until Gary said that the “still small voice” told him that everyone needed to hug each other, even though we were all still quite nude.  I did a little “tent hugging” if you know what I mean, just to keep things “safe”, and the lower “still, small voice” quite stilled, and small.  Gary was quite involved in the traditions of the shaman, and also became quite interested in the teachings of Joel Goldsmith, after I gave him one of Joel’s best books “A Parenthesis In Eternity”.

Gary wrote the book “The Book Of Gentleness” which may have been “channeled” from his “still small voice” for God.  We became friends, and Sharon and I stayed in touch with Gary and his first wife Christy, for several years.  Times with Gary always revolved around meditation, journeying, and discussing “the voice of God” within each of us.  We went to Breitenbush together, while Christy was pregnant with Christopher, in 1995.  Sharon was present for the time immediately following the birth of Christopher (and helped with the cleanup), whose birth happened in their Canby home.  Alas, Gary and Christy were not to stay married.  Gary still had not quite worked through all of his own toxic masculinity, showing once again the need to directly address these issues, rather layer them over with the paint of peace and light.  Our hearts broke as he and his wife got divorced, shortly after Chris’ first birthday.

We kept Gary in our lives, and made sure that he came to our holiday family gatherings with his son.  He got us involved in his run for the governor of the state of Oregon in 1998, which was a lot of fun.  He was to go on later in the decade, to form the Institute for World Peace.  He would travel with all of the spiritual greats of our age, including the Dalai Lama, and spent time in India hanging out with gurus, and helping with an orphanage. He brought a series of Nobel Peace Prize winners to Portland to speak to large audiences, so he walked his talk.   I loved him like a brother, yet we grew apart because of the different focuses for each of our lives.

My wife Sharon has known June Thomas since the 1970’s when they were neighbors in southwest Portland. I have always loved June.  I have known June since 1990, when she was married to Victor (Victor died in 1996). We have spent many, many hours vacationing together, with several great hiking trips together, and one great rafting adventure through the Grand Canyon in 2014..  I sometimes had the feeling that June was some sort of spiritual sister of mine, perhaps a feminine variation of my soul, because we had so much in common.   I actually lived with June in her Tacoma home for four months in 2003, when I was relocated to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyards for an electrical installation job where I helped to install a server farm for the US Navy.

June with Michael, on our Grand Canyon rafting trip in 2014.

I would like to share an interesting dream that I had in May of 2016.   June,  who now lives in Tucson, Arizona was visiting her sick brother Dale in Medford, Oregon, for a week in May of 2016.  On a Friday evening in May, I awoke from a strange, disturbing dream.  In the dream, I had fallen in an unfamiliar bathroom, and had become trapped between the toilet and the wall.  When Sharon awoke, I told her about the unusual dream.  It was so real to me that I was a little shaken up.  Later that morning, June called Sharon, as she frequently does in the morning.  June related to Sharon that she was still at Dale’s house, and that his health was not good.  In the middle of the night, Dale had gone to the bathroom, fallen, and became trapped between the toilet and the wall!!!

As I look at my life’s history, I am amazed by the dreams from its Mystery

While continuing in a loving relationship with Sharon, I joined with many communities of like-minded people, or continued my present participation in them, such as Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous, Adult Children of Alcoholics, the Course In Miracles support groups, the Infinite Way, The Living Enrichment Center (LEC), with a very important men’s group experience that arose through my relationship with LEC, and The Empowerment Community with its many offshoot core groups.  Sharon and I became part of a “couple’s group” with two other couples, which became a 20 year affair, lasting all the way until August of 2017 (ending with the death of our dear friend, Marty).

One of our backpacking trips was to become quite a memorable experience for both Sharon and me.  I awoke one morning during the summer of 1992, and finished preparing to leave on a weekend hiking and camping trip with Sharon, up to the Mt. Adams Wilderness Area.  My senses were somehow heightened, and I felt as though I could see and hear better than I was accustomed to.  Food tasted better, the air carried many more scents, and my entire body felt alive with vitality, and sensation, well beyond what I was accustomed to experiencing in my day-to-day life.  I had to work that day, so I ignored my “extra sensory perception” for most of the work day, and I remained excited about joining with my beloved partner on a hike to Lookinglass Lake, which would end up becoming around a 10 mile hike, in one direction.

Our drive took longer than expected, and we arrived in the Wilderness area too late to reach the developed campground, so we parked for the night in a snow park area, and set up our tent to shelter for the evening.  We sat outside of the tent, and I began to experience, in its fullness, that “extrasensory perception” yet again, but much more profoundly this time. It was as if I had sensory receptors in the dirt, the sky, and the trees.  It was as if I had grown roots, so to speak. I not only could see the ground all around us, and the beautiful trees, and the sky, I could FEEL the ground, and it was as if I extended all the way through everywhere that I could see.  It was the experience, in a new form, of “all that I can see is myself”.  It was like I was “hearing” and “seeing” and “feeling” for all of nature that surrounded us, and it was a mystical, transcendental event.  My new body was the earth, the sky, the trees, the wind, the insects, and my human shell.

We finally lay down for the evening in our tent, and though I was still quite profoundly experiencing this event, I was able to fall asleep beside my beloved.  Shortly afterward, I awoke to a great light enveloping our tent, and I arose to go outside to see what was happening.  In the sky appeared a Great Light, and the entire surrounding area was bathed in a light that totally eliminated all shadows, even though it was near midnight!  I awoke Sharon, who rose to witness the light.  To this day, I have no clue if the light is associated with my “heightened mystic awareness”, or if it was just a coincidence that a UFO would awaken us to bathe us in its radiance.  After we returned home, I told my mother about the light, and she reported that the week before, a mysterious light in the Mt Adams wilderness area was also reported, so who knows what was happening there?

Looking back at my life’s history, I remain immersed in the light of its Mystery.

In 1992, I was still in communication with my ex-wife, Donelle.  At this point, she was in the mental hospital at Fort Steilacoom, Washington.  She was committed yet again in 1990, and was languishing in there when I visited her.  This was the 3rd time I had visited her there.  She always had a shopping list for me to fill, invariably with some types of makeup.  She still liked to make herself look as pretty as possible, but the effects of the medication over the years on her had taken a horrible toll.  She was twice her normal weight, and she could not keep her food down consistently.

The most beautiful woman who I had known from my youth was no longer that, and I was quite saddened, once again, to have to connect with her while she was so diseased.  The medication was quite the “double edged sword”, and had been for all of her adult life.    I don’t know what drug cocktails they were giving her this time, but they had the same conflicted end results.  (I now have little respect for the drug industry, or for a system that prescribes these drugs to people, rather than treating people in a more holistic manner).

This particular weekend, my wife Sharon was running in the annual Hood to Coast relay race.  At this point in my life, I was not a runner, having hung up my running shoes in high school, and also having retired from recreational basketball in 1985 due to back problems. My only responsibility was to drive to Seaside to pick Sharon up at the end of her adventure, after my visit with Donelle.  I was quite down after my visit, and the drive to Seaside from Ft. Steilacoom was very dark, and subdued.

When I started to enter the outskirts of Seaside, without even seeing one H2C (Hood To Coast) participant, I picked up on a new energy that just started “vibrating in the ethers”.   I came to name this energy “TEAMWORK” after the fact, not knowing what else to call it.  It was the energy of collective support, love, companionship, and goal achieving, and I had never known that as a youth, as I had never experienced that on grade or high school sports teams, of which I never qualified for.   It was like a beautiful “spell” had come over me, and I was totally captured by it!

Running through my life’s history, I seem to have stumbled over a greater Mystery.

I had my first experience of crowd energy when I attended my first rock concert in 1971.  There were well over 12,000 people attending, and the MIND BLOWING experience was a unitive event where my presence was distributed over the entirety of the crowd.  If you have never experienced this, you cannot understand this.  Over the many years from 1971, through the present moment,  I have found that I am sensitive to crowd energy (a palpable form of collective consciousness), and I can “feel” the collective energy of several types of groups of people, and actually draw from it, and add to it if I am receptive to what is going on.  And, unfocused groups put off such diffuse energy that there is nothing special to tune in to, and I find little to attract me to such energy.

Since there were over 12,000 runners and many more support people at the event, it is no wonder that a field was created in and around Seaside, the destination of the great world-famous event.  I became so impressed with the energy of the experience that I committed to running with Sharon, and I began to run with her several months later, so that the next year I could join her Hood To Coast team, the Sole Mates.

(note:  This experience led me to become one of the top local older runners in our area, culminating in way too many awards, and injuries, but also leading me into a deeper understanding of two of the darker forces predominant in male collective consciousness, which are excess competition and greed)

It was the summer of 1993, and I had scheduled a 5-day retreat with Eileen Bowden and 20 other followers of the Infinite Way, a mystical healing path originated by Joel Goldsmith (died in 1964).  The retreat took place in Federal Way, Washington, at the Pacific Palisades retreat center overlooking the Puget Sound.  I spent the four days in silent contemplation and meditation, with several group talks given by Eileen over the course of the time period.

Eileen Bowden, who lived in British Columbia, Canada, was a student of Joel Goldsmith, the originator of the Infinite Way.  Joel was a non-practicing Jew, and was led into Christian Science in the 20’s, while his father was on his death-bed.  Joel watched a Christian Science practitioner heal his father, and Joel caught fire with the possibilities for bringing spiritual healing to all of life (life that is receptive to healing, that is) because of this.  She was hand-picked by Joel to continue teaching the Infinite Way, as she “had the message”, meaning that she had achieved, or attained, the “Presence”.   She would enter into the sacred energy, and then give her unprepared talks (she spoke extemporaneously for at least 1 hour for each talk given).  Our role as “listeners” was to be in a sacred, meditative space, as well, so as to contribute to the total energy of the experience.   The result for me from this experience was that I was totally “involved” in the sacred energy of the Spirit, with the total quietness/stillness of my mind complemented by perfect peace, and joy.  I carried this energy for a full week after the experience.

Awakening Part 4

(written in 1992-1993 time period)

Perfection lies, behind all eyes,

We, who would look within ourselves, will find,

The Sublime Surprise, of which all Life does comprise,

The Divine Self of all Mankind.

We, who have made our choice, with one free voice,

Call to our Eternal Source Supreme,

We will no longer roam, we are coming Home,

We are awakening from the “human” dream!

With courage draught, from fear made naught,

We move from temporal shadow to Eternal Light,

The Kingdom sought becomes the Vision caught,

Whosoever overcomes, now sees with unhindered sight!

The Love All-Knowing, the Truth now showing,

With Divinity, We walk hand in hand.

In us its growing, through us its flowing,

Embracing all between space and land.

With Hearts entwined, One Soul Divine,

To this world, We are a blessing immense.

Though we pass this way for but a day,

With Divine experience, who would dare dispense?

The experience was somewhat perplexing to Sharon, as she wondered why I was having this profound experience, and why it continued on for so long.  She had many questions, but the perfect peace that I was experiencing was not ebbing, at least initially.  I had to return to work, as I worked for a living as an electrician.  At work, the energy continued to flow in its own unique way, but well into the work week I started to question the value of “enlightenment” when I still had to continue to work.  My co-workers were so out of touch with these things that I considered important, special, or sacred, and I could not quite get a handle on how this spiritual experience would have any value in the workplace.  I dared not speak about it, or show any type of behavior that would distinguish me from anybody else, and the dominating attitude for me was to “just blend in” as best I could.

I had already cut way back on meditation with the beginning of my running career in 1993, and when the spiritual “energy” finally ebbed, I despaired a bit, and I felt a little awkward pursuing any deeper connection.  I had started questioning the value of a process that I was failing to integrate into the rest of my life.  There was nobody to blame but myself, but ever so gradually, my “over commitment” to my spiritual unfoldment began to ebb, as well.  But my love for my partner, Sharon, and for all of our shared friendships and family did not ebb, but continued to increase and enhance the quality of my life.

July 30, 1994, Sharon and I had a “commitment ceremony” in our backyard.  We had over 75 people attend, including most of our immediate family, and many, many friends.  I had solidified in my own mind and heart the absolute value of my relationship with Sharon.  She came to represent to me integrity, honesty in communication, speaking from the heart, empowered divine feminine energy, compassion, service to others, and the celebration of our shared humanity at the highest level, of any person that I have ever met, even up to this very day.  I have made many mistakes in my life, but I celebrate every moment of every day my relationship with Sharon.  She is truly made in the image of the highest power in our universe.

Life Is Better With You

The years 1995-2005 were dominated by employment for both Sharon and I.  Sharon, who is a nurse, became a manager for Legacy, and eventually became a hospice nurse for Providence.  I continued on my career as an electrician, occasionally accepting management roles.  This  also was the period that I focused on improving my running ability, as well as increasing my participation in our family environment.  Gradually, our huge circle of friends diminished during this period of time, and death started creeping into our awareness as important family members and friends starting passing away.  Losing my grandmother in 1995, and Victor Thomas in 1996 were two most troubling losses.

In late 1987, I had a dream where I saw a ring with seven jewels on it, but it was missing its major stone, though the ring had a setting just waiting for the jewel to be inserted.  The missing jewel was much, much bigger than the seven stones.  What could this dream possibly mean?  I was engaged to be married to “woman number seven”, Laurie Hartmann, at the time, so to have this dream was disconcerting.  More was to be revealed at a much later time, when my future wife, Sharon, was to choose a ring for our second wedding in Las Vegas, in 2004.  Without any knowledge of my dream, Sharon proceeded to pick a ring at the original Mother Goose store with SEVEN SMALL STONES and ONE LARGE CENTRAL STONE.  She had picked out, without me being present or having ever told her about my dream, the EXACT ring from my dream.  I had forgotten about the dream, until I located a journal in August of 2018 that I had in storage since 1988.

seven jeweled ring with big stone

As I look at my history, I am surrounded by the “rings” of its Mystery..

Sharon retired from her career as a hospice nurse in early 2009, and wrote her first book,

Whose Death is It Anyway, A Hospice Nurse Remembers

Sharon helped me with the care of my father, Beryl, over the period of time after the death of my mother in 2009, though Dad’s death in September of 2017.  Sharon took over care of my aunt Susie, Dad’s sister, after the death of  her daughter, Sharyn, in August 2017.  Sharon continues to be an invaluable guide and aide for me as I walk down the challenging roads of being present for dying friends and family members, including pets.

Sharon remains an inspiration to me.  She appears to get younger every year, and her outlook on life tends towards optimism, and she remains upbeat.  She is a “connector” to this day, and she reaches out to everybody that she can, in her attempt to be the voice for healing, love, and friendship in her world.  She continues to draw miracles into her life, and she has a special intuition, or inner knowledge, that allows for her to make connections with people who the “normal folk” of the world would never get to experience.  Sharon continues to be the “gem of greatest value” in my life, and her spirit sparkles with a brilliance unmatched by anyone that I have ever met.

Sharon on a Greek ferry, 2018

LOVE’S REUNION (poem by Bruce Paullin)

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

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

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

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

Her lyrics spoke of the return of Life to freedom

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

She drew me closer without any further verbal tethers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She changed my cold mourning into happier, heavenly nights!

By freely offering of herself and all of her sacred charms

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

I can now retire from a life of fruitless wanderings

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

Her life is resplendent with Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty

For these are the robes with which she clothes her being

The gift of Love now unwraps before my inviting eyes

To reveal her ecstatic vision, which is now all-seeing

My search for Truth and Love Sublime has finally ended

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

I have reunited with my eternally fulfilling lover

And, her healing waters dissolve all of my painful dreams

I only seek to remain within her all-embracing arms

While through all life she extends her ever unfolding surprise

My first waking breath each morning brings the certainty

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

My broken heart and shattered life is finally mending

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

Life no longer has a fearful road ahead to travel

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

Sharon used her best calligraphic efforts to present my poem about our love.

Sharon, it is the miracle of love that we share.  The “Michaelangelo Phenomenon” has had transformative effects upon both of us!

I love you, Sharon.  You have always been the ONE.

We are one, after all, you and I,

Together we suffer, together exist,

Together, forever

We recreate each other

—-Teilhard de Chardin

Fleas, Please!

The funny thing about truth is the fact that while I think that I am living it, the real truth may be trying to inform me otherwise.

It is always a revelation to hear the truth (about whatever?), and the automatic response is usually

“Oh yes, I already know that”, or

“I am already practicing it”,

and then a loved one, perhaps no so kindly, informs us otherwise.

Oh those FLEAS ! (fucking learning experience are surprising)

Please, save your self

And try not to injure yourself while scratching!

Wisdom, Knowledge, and the Whim

Our human knowledge based intelligence has been defined in many ways. Our capacity for embracing logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning from both personal experience and through the transfer of shared knowledge, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, insight, critical thinking, and problem solving all point to the manifestation of intelligence. When all aspects of our intelligence are successfully accessed, we become wiser people.

We have many tools to access in our quest for knowledge and its successful application and the most reasonable ways to apply that knowledge for wise, constructive action in the world. Our knowledge is based upon familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, such as facts, information, descriptions, or skills, which is acquired through experience or education by perceiving, discovering, or learning knowledge. Knowledge can also refer to a theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.

Intuition is a process that gives us the ability to know something directly without analytic reasoning, bridging the gap between the conscious and unconscious parts of our mind, and also between instinct and reason.

A whim is a capricious or eccentric and often sudden idea or turn of the mind, and its action is mutually exclusive of the actions of wisdom, knowledge, and intuition..

I first came into a conscious collision with the “whim versus wisdom” dynamic while I was in the sixth grade. The principal of our grade school wanted a representative from each class, from both the fifth and the sixth grades, to attend a parent-teacher conference in the auditorium on a week night. It was to be considered an honor to be selected, according to our teachers, and the students were advised to select from among themselves who would be the best representative.

As a community of grade schoolers, we had a difficult time establishing the process for how to select the representative, let alone who it should be. The teacher helped by instituting two male “overseers”, one from the fifth and one from the sixth grade, who were to facilitate the determination process by asking for volunteers, or asking for specific students of their own choosing, and discussing their qualifications between the two selected leaders. The boys expressed frustration with the process, and even though our teachers offered up two good candidates from each class, ON A WHIM as promoted by one of the sixth grade boys, a quiet, shy girl was selected for the sixth grade class. She had been the recipient, in the past, of some teasing and bullying by me and others, and I could immediately see that this process had the potential to victimize her.

I offered my own protest with a form of passive/aggressive humor, but the decision had been made. The more others protested, the more the two loudest supporters of the girl became. The two boys dreamed up several good reasons after the fact for their “decision” to overrule the majority. I was to later learn that the primary reason that Jeff encouraged the selection of Janice was so that he could continue to harass her. What was to be an opportunity to honor and acknowledge our classes through selecting our most qualified representatives turned into another opportunity for infantile misogynistic persecution and teasing.

This selection process dramatically impacted me, and has influenced my understanding of group dynamics ever since.

Do we, as a collective, select candidates for political office on a whim, or do we use knowledge, intuition and wisdom?

You already know your own personal answer to this question.

Many of us, relying upon the opinions of others, have made many decisions to not be wise, but to instead follow the opinions of others, who may be engaging in whimsical or non-critical thinking of their own.

We must learn to trust ourselves and our ability to apply our experience and knowledge, and with a little bit of our developed insight. Our intuition must be developed as a complement to our own wisdom. Typically, our learned wisdom that does not conform to what our latest “intuitive hit” suggests must be scrutinized further, and an intelligent balance struck between those two poles. Intuition and wisdom are not mutually exclusive, and, in fact, complement each other.

We may be wrong about many issues, but at least we are accessing our intelligence, and learning from our errors. Following blind people into the ditch does not do our basic nature justice, so beware of the temptation to try to adapt to other’s expectations, at the expense of developing our own unique intelligence. Wisdom that is universal in nature is like the scent of a flower that we just cannot pull ourselves away from, nor should we.

Wisdom is spawned from experience, and is best embraced and expressed through our story telling, and our intelligent actions in the world. Sound bites just do not carry enough of wisdom’s energy. We must be careful not to integrate meme’s and sound bites into a quilt of understanding, because the stitching will come unraveled, and we will be left appearing and acting like less than the wise people that we can be.

Whimsical thinking is respected because of its lack of adherence to established patterns, which can be attractive to creative people, non-conformists, and insane individuals, so there is a spectrum of benefit to be gained by accessing it. But whimsical thinking must be set aside for those times when intelligent action is required. Be wise, watch out for whimsical thinking, and make those difficult, challenging decisions that are beneficial for our life, and for our world’s life, too..

Knowledge

“One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.”
― Krishnamurti 

Our present day national consciousness continues to be heavily influenced by old history and skewed knowledge, racism, white male supremacy, Christian fundamentalist inspired judgements, hatreds and ideologies, patriarchy, misogyny, and xenophobia. I was born and raised under these cultural conditions, and I have been strongly impacted by the human energy that is spawned from these lower levels of understanding.  I also come from the class of white male Americans who are now considered to be the most susceptible to anxiety, despair, loneliness, suicide, alcoholism and/or drug dependency, and depression, though the race and sex that I belong to, and the country that I consider to be my home, do not have the monopoly on all such spiritual disease. 

My main coping mechanisms for dealing with America’s and my own dark side are practicing spiritual healing principles, and writing about and verbally communicating with others who also share my interest in spirituality and recovery from the human condition.   My path,  and the paths of all others, have taken all of us to unique and valuable viewpoints, so it is of prime importance that we find our voice and share our knowledge with each other.  Through multitudes of these energy exchanges, we all may benefit from each others’ experiences, and contribute to the formation of a more peaceful, healing collective consciousness in America. There is a huge spiritually awakening element that has already risen out of their own ignorance, and continues to capture the imagination and attention of many oppressed and repressed Americans.

It is important to understand the internal headlights that our minds use to search for knowledge, and truth. The “headlights” tend to encourage self-fulfilling predictions/prophecies, so for us to look at that which “looks” will bring amazing insights and enhance the potential for healing experiences.  What information really is, or isn’t important?  Which attitudes, insight, and knowledge leads to greater measures of wisdom, and, potentially, freedom from our inhibiting and restrictive “knowns”, especially in the situations where our knowledge appears to be in conflict with the truth?   As a long-term practitioner of mindfulness, mysticism, and personal inventory, as well as an unintentional expert in recovery, toxic masculinity, toxic religion, and toxic capitalism, I have a lot of insight into why the world spins the awkward way it now does.  All of my present writings tend to revolve around my “knowledge” about those subjects. Yet, my “personal knowledge” has little value or relevance to others, especially if I die before I share it.

Most of the male peer groups from my childhood and early adulthood were populated by individuals who were both coarse in interpretation and superficial in presentation of their lives, and they could have cared less about what I am now writing about or saying.   Many of my peers, and friends from those days have already died relatively young, or continue to practice unhealthy attitudes and dependencies into their later years, as a direct result of their unwillingness or inability to delve deeper into the painful issues, concerns, and mysteries of their lives.  Their own personal knowledge of the world can not actualize their healing potentials and bring a deeper sense of purpose and meaning to their lives, yet there is the fear of the unknown, which inhibits the revelation of truth in one’s life.  By staying in familiar painful ruts, the view at least does not change too much.  And far too many people stuck in those ruts are not even aware that they are engaged in self-defeating attitudes and behaviors, or, if they are aware, have already given up hope that there is another life available for them.  Yet, staying in the familiar hell remains the unconscious choice that most suffering people make, all the way up to their deaths, imprisonment, or insanity.. 

The conscious being has infinite capacity to witness life and then create knowledge, where necessary, around those interactions.  It only takes one time getting bit by a snake and suffering mightily under the influence of its poison to create and share the knowledge that it is vitally important to avoid physical contact with serpents while doing outdoor chores or walking in the desert.  The unconscious being also has the same infinite witnessing capacity, yet their choices for how they see themselves and their lives can be so self-limiting as to make them prisoners in their own homes.  In the snakebite situation, a more unconscious person would use the knowledge of the potential damage from a snakebite to create fear-based stories that would keep the person behind closed doors, avoiding the outdoors altogether, or even obtaining and carrying a loaded firearm, just in case they need to “protect themselves”. 

Yet each category of awareness, be it conscious or unconscious, must arise from the same pool of potentiality, where the mystery of collective consciousness and the entrainment of all individual minds to that group mind, creates and maintains the appearance of whatever order and reality that each individual both anticipates and actually experiences.  However, even the relatively more conscious ones of the world will still be challenged to find what the real truth is behind each new situation that presents itself to awareness. 

It has been said in certain contest guidelines:

“You must be present to win”.

This is also true as far as knowledge goes.  Being a witness to an actual event gives whatever story one creates and shares credibility, at least up to the point that the story teller can be trusted, and has been accurate and honest in the past.  If a personal memory is not available to convey a teaching or a message, listening to the stories of other first-hand witnesses can be beneficial.  A great example is that of the knowledge that fathers pass on to their sons around issues of family philosophy/religion, self-esteem, growing up into manhood and accepting personal responsibility, sexuality, learning to ride a bike or drive a car, and future community involvement. The less experiential the teaching, the less the staying power of the message, so it is important to keep the listener engaged with all of their senses, if possible. 

The printing press opened civilization up to much more advanced opportunities for education and information transfer and sharing.  The internet has opened humanity up to potential for the real time witnessing and sharing of other people’s adventures and learning experiences, almost without limits.  Watching a multi-media presentation will carry more potential meaning and  information to the higher intelligence centers of the brain than just a meme or soundbite, which arouses the more basic areas of the brain where fear is most prone to rule.   There is never a shortage of information, but there is always a question about the accuracy of the information, and how it is to be presented. 

Several decades ago, Saudi Oil Minister Sheikh Yamani gained recognition for his insight into global development:

“The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.”

Today, we live in what many call the Information Age, and we are in absolutely no danger of running out of information, particularly in data form. There is a general perception that we are overwhelmed with data, making the ability to store, process, analyze, interpret, consume, and act upon that data a primary concern.  There are, potentially, infinite streams of information available, yet most information may have little or no use to our discerning, conscious minds..  There is so much more to reality than what just greets the eye, and appears on the screens of our cellphones and/or computer monitors, however.  Scientists, mathematicians, theologians, artists, philosophers, enlightened politicians, and Google algorithm writers, continue to struggle towards some unknown destination that our collective search for truth continues to guide us towards as a human race.  The exponential increase in available information does little to settle what the “truth” might be, let alone which direction that its search may best be started from.

Information can help us to know why we are ill and which illnesses we have, exactly. But wisdom is to know how to heal them.

—Dr. Alberto Villoldo 

We need only watch the evening news, or read any newspaper or magazine, to recognize that we are no closer now to a consensus reality than we were before, even with the advent of the internet.  Religious and philosophical divisiveness, ego aggrandizement, wealth accumulation, and personal and corporate power are still being celebrated and supported as ideals to pursue by our cultural power brokers, and these principles lead to further propagation of lies, misstatements, half-truths, and illusions.  All people who follow these ignoble paths have no true knowledge of their fundamental selves, nor would they possess this knowledge about the other people in their worlds, thus they have limited access to the truth, and their styles of communication reveal that ignorance.

Can truth and love be reduced to a series of binary decisions?  Where does our reliance on technology connect with a “search for truth”?  Search engines now serve you up what they think you are looking for. They know who you are, and more importantly, what your online consumer preferences are. They know how you are looking for things, as well as how you search for news, companies, products, etc. Plus, they know the zip code and the local geography where each user is located. Search engines are getting better and smarter at knowing YOU, as well as what’s new, and old, in your micro-locale every day. A quick type into Google, and you are being fed more information, and the foundation for  yet another illusion, with just another photograph of or written interpretation of a past that never was true.  Do you think for one moment that truth, or love, can be reduced to a string of “1’s” and “0”s” (machine code for programming of computer hardware) or ascii characters (The result of “I Love You” on hexadecimal notation based on ascii code is : 49204C6F766520596F75).  These characters give you a real warm, fuzzy feeling, don’t they?

Many types of “knowledge” actually breed division and separation between human beings. It is easy to tell the difference between the ministers, politicians, teachers, teachings, and knowledge just by feeling within our own inner chambers of consciousness how their message impacts our hearts. Eventually the presenters of knowledge and the highest learned “truths” of the day will be ignored, if they are not able to break through the psychic/spiritual barrier between the mind and the heart, while still presenting, or preaching, to others their message. Did they just bring more information, which we tend to daily saturate our awareness with anyway (Google it!), or did they bring the intellect coupled with the heart awareness, where we can experience the promised fruits of deeper connections with all of creation, and, perhaps, experience an increased measure of peace of mind and more love brought into our world?

The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.

—Tom Clancy

Understanding what we now consider to be sources for knowledge is all important, as well. With the idea of “FAKE NEWS” being so casually tossed about these days, it is important to keep in mind that “FAKE NEWS” has always been with us. It can be traced all of the way back to the days when we first starting naming objects, and attaching emotional linkages to our observations. Everybody sees things somewhat differently, though similarities outweigh differences by super-substantial amounts. But the human mind tends to focus on the differences, and, thus, temporarily accentuate those divisions while examining the objects of its reality, reassembling the new information into its own unique information matrix known as our personalities.

To the more technically inclined, it takes more than cleaning cookies or turning off personalized searches in Google’s browser, Chrome, to get to the “truth.” Keep in mind that most of the search algorithms are Capitalist Oriented Male Biased (COMB) computer coding exercises that sort and order the “objects of reality” based on that slanted mind-set.  The locations that a person visits and lives in reveal a great deal about them, especially if it is linked to a GPS position calculated by using one’s own phone position.  By shaping the menus and the choices that we pick from, and by observing the collective internet purchases and behaviors of our geographic peers, technology then attempts to hijack the way we perceive our choices and replaces them with new ones that the ad purchasing merchants may be promoting. But the closer we pay attention to the options we’re given, the more we’ll notice when they don’t actually align with our true needs. Their surreptitious collection and use in ad targeting can pave way to ads that are harmful, target people when they are vulnerable, or enable harassment and discrimination.  The issue of privacy can become particularly acute when there’s the presumption or wish for confidentiality – say, during a therapist visit or at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

I see COMB-overs as having run their course, with the  need to be balanced with a more feminine, humane perspective.  If we all want that biased mindset, then we will continue to trust and rely upon Google, and most other search engines, for the ordering of our reality. It should be more than a little concerning to know that many of the same values that our President touts as his own are built right into these algorithmic formulas.

Within myself, it is quite enlightening to note that when I attempt to interpret situations solely in terms of a potentially divisive philosophy/understanding, I usually now rebel out of my newer/refreshed understanding of life, and continue on and listen more deeply for the real truth of the moment, (AND NOT THE POTENTIALLY WORN OUT TRUTH OF YESTERDAY). All of those divisive philosophies that pit “me versus you” or “us versus them” will bring fewer positive results than the uniting philosophies that bring people together in the spirit of cooperation and caring. Yet it almost seems like the divisive ideas are for many, and for me, by instinct, first in line for consideration, so it is important to not act out of impulse. Yes, it is being mindful to wait out that first racing train of sometimes fearful, angry or hurtful thought, and just watch it as it passes through the screen of awareness, and wait for another peaceful train of loving thought that may lie underneath all of the other noise.

The goal might be to make “love” the leading, or first, thought considered, but in my reality, it does not always automatically arise, nor should it, just because I think that it is a good idea. It is important to note here that ideas that initially appear to be counter to our prevailing philosophy may have legitimate origins, and discovery and exploration of the mind and our individual experience of it should continue without fear and self-judgement, as we attempt to discern the “truths” being communicated. If our “prevailing philosophies” are not subject to change, then we risk excess friction in all of our relationships, especially as we slip further and further away from the new, upgraded truth trying to be revealed.

Mindfulness, insight, and meditation help to create a more stable foundation for thought, feeling, and action. Remaining socially connected through real life interaction, vs predominantly through media devices, keeps the heart and mind refreshed and engaged holistically. Giving and receiving “presence” to each other has much more value than the mere information that might be exchanged. For us to continue to trust in technology solely for our heart connection is like only eating popcorn for our diet; Satisfying in the short-term, and deadly in the long run.  We need to feed each other new ideas and words from the deep storehouses within  each of our hearts, where intuition, empathy, compassion, and healing all arise from.  To continue to be fed only from the internet, is to continue our connection with cultural hypnotism, which leads in its own self-defeating directions.

Of course, once “new ideas” become integrated, they can be just as resistant to change as old, damaged, worn out thoughts, and the new synthesis will require continuous further revision until some sort of all-encompassing philosophical unity arises (or God-consciousness, for those who like to tie spirituality and religion together).

The “unknown” is the opening in our mind and heart that God (change to higher power, or whatever represents love, beauty, and healing to you) speaks through, so that we can find the truth and spirit of this new moment. Do not fear the unknown, as it can be so much more than we could ever anticipate or imagine.

Even after our most sincere and deepest “prayers”, there still must be an opening created within our minds where we can listen and watch, without fear or judgement, for the “answer”, which is always provided, and rarely understood. An overactive mind runs over the quiet truth that is revealed in each moment, so take off those mental workout clothes, and take a breather!

We will never change “God’s mind”, but we just might change our own, and, in that change, the real miracle of life can be revealed, and our lives healed and renewed.  The “One Mind Of God” can only be experienced in each new moment, in the ever-unfolding unknown and unknowable moment that is now.   This unique new moment can only reveal itself to a mind no longer burdened only with its own knowledge, or the knowledge of others’ endeavors.

Love’s Reunion (excerpt)

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

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

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

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

Her lyrics spoke of the return of Life to freedom

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

She drew me closer without any further verbal tethers

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

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

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

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

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

Our answers to some of life’s greatest questions are never to be considered sacred, or unchangeable, in and of themselves.  What is sacred is the “don’t know” space that we all can enter into, if we can suspend our need to be always right.  We don’t need a lot of new answers, we need a lot more good questions, which can direct our inquiries in new directions, and, thus, create new paths of consciousness and awareness.

Virtually all relationships and all interactions with others have a teaching built right into them.  We confirm our present reality with the interactions, or we entertain new information that needs synthesizing within our present day psychological sets to create a modified reality.  Teachers come in an almost infinite variety of forms, but I will now  mention spiritual healers and teachers, for they tend to attract the most vulnerable and receptive of all learners.  I have met quite a few healers, ministers, teachers, and the leaders for those on “the spiritual path”.  Most have the best of intentions, and their heart is in the right place, and permeated with the desire to be of greater service to humanity, and to their own spiritual evolution.

Some are quite the planners, are amazingly studious, and read everything  available to support their knowledge, or need for knowledge, in areas revolving around the main concerns in life, or in their teaching arenas. Some develop quite the rigid understanding of the facts, and, in fact, the “facts” became almost idols, of which became trusted, almost at the exclusion of any other teaching, or learning, that those around might try to impart, either unintentionally, or through a need to help to see more clearly. Some show  little or no sense of humor, and are devoid of all capacity to embrace the “unknown” or the present moment, as it tries to present itself every moment of our existence.

I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.—–Socrates (in Plato’s Apology)

I have met one or two information “control freaks”, and their quest for knowledge had the unconscious intention to keep them in control, and to establish themselves as a teacher, so as to keep their own fears of insufficiency and inadequacy at bay in group settings. They might tend to dominate group discussions with them taking the lead role, where they would unconsciously parade themselves, and all of their self-knowledge, in front of their adoring masses, or, at least they had hoped that they were adoring.  Some want so much to be like their mentors, who they may have patterned themselves after.

Their self-righteousness is continuously displayed, as they travel from one topic to another, always showing to the world how perfect their relationship was to any issue revolving around love, healing, medical issues, social responsibility, or ecological awareness. Perfectionism and unintentional self-worship were characteristics that define them, and are traits that are immediately recognizable by me and others, who were not also participating in the parade of self.

They can be the type of person, had the Christ been before them and teaching from the Truth, they would have grabbed their phone, and Googled information to prove that their own head knowledge trumped what was being presented in the moment by Truth itself. Some of our leaders have, in a term that I coined, “spiritual dementia”. They tend to think that every moment needed to be covered by their (mis)understanding of the facts.  They may not request or appreciate feedback, and many listeners, rather than confronting the teachers about their quirks, and  their need to always be right, go along.with the show, and acquiesce to the needs of the teachers.

I sat through literally, hundreds of groups, with many types of teachers and leaders over the years.  If the speaker, teacher, or leader does not capture the energy of the moment, the listeners will become fatigued, and lose interest.  There is also a temptation to just sit back, and offer up an occasional barbed remark (typical passive/aggressive communication style for me), without adding much to the flow of the group energy.   I did not come into this world just to “bow down before excellence”, in whatever form it might appear in, though that is the implied need expressed through many teachers’ outward behavior.  Without an interactive approach, the teacher or teaching will have a more difficult time keeping the listener engaged.

Why would I withhold myself, and my truth, from situations that should have demanded my participation in it? Why would I withhold my own assessments of what is real, and true, and right, in the face of this assault upon my own sensibilities? Why would I devalue myself, and my own truth, so much that I would carry the perception that “I have nothing to say”, or that “nobody would ever listen to me because I do not have a college degree, or I am not a therapist or respected spiritual advisor”? Why do I sometimes unconsciously believe that nobody would ever listen to what I have to say, anyway?

It has taken me nearly sixty years to become willing to speak my truth to the living human representatives of our collective consciousness.  I was never insightful enough to fully recognize that the world that I was adopting, and adapting to, as a child was an inaccurate representation of a more fundamental truth.  But like many other children, I rebelled at the fake news and pseudo-science that churned out of the religious mills and minds of Americans.  I took a very passive/aggressive approach to the spiritual lie that we as Americans are living.  The pain of the lies that I cultivated prior to any spiritual recovery necessitated that I medicate myself out of the pain of separation and loneliness.  I no longer punish myself by negating my own self worth, yet our culture continues to unconsciously spawn millions of suffering people who also question their own value, which is the origin of insanity.  Our cultural spiritual dementia needed to be challenged, lest I lapse into deeper degrees of anxiousness, powerlessness, and unreality. Confronting a difficult reality takes more energy than most of us care to bring to the table, yet, not doing so diminishes our own standing in Truth, Life, and Love, and that has been my experience

What do emotionally and spiritually disfigured teachers and leaders represent to me on the inner plane of my consciousness, where the human collective archetypes reside? They might be the Dark King or Queen, and Trickster, and/or a number of other “lesser gods”. They might represent the unyielding rational brain, devoid of Spirit’s soft, embracing touch. They may have no room for anything unlike themselves in their kingdom, and the stick figures in their dream of world domination could never be filled out with their true essence, because they may have no time or inclination for that. Their Trickster mind misrepresented trust and openness to the Unknown as something to fear, and cover up its Nakedness with second-hand, worn out rags of other people’s intellects and misunderstandings. They might be like the King in the parable of the “Emperors’ New Clothes”, parading their misunderstandings of life around for all to see and worship, all the while fearing that an innocent boy would call  them out.

i had very poor training since birth in how to successfully navigate group energy, up to, and including, the whole of society that we all participate in. As a boy, when family discussions turned into arguments, many times I found myself either raising my voice against the angry voice of my father, or retreating into submission and fear at the threat of being attacked for being contrary to the flow. And, I internalized that I was probably wrong anyway, and would be punished if I stepped out and asserted myself too much. I learned that I could undertake less obvious means of rebelling against authority, sometimes through indirect, or obvious, self, or other, destructive behavior.

Passive/aggressive tendencies have haunted me most of my entire life, and becoming “self-aware” has gone a long way to keep me from employing those unskilled coping mechanisms unconsciously, though I am still occasionally haunted by their presence. Having undertaken the inner work of insight, and maintaining mindfulness, and identified those sources of suffering within myself, does not instantaneously remove all of the darkness within. But is also does not remove from me the responsibility to call out those who are the external agents of oppression and repression, no matter how much I might love them or want to protect them, or even to protect myself from the ramifications of asserting what is right, true, or proper in any situation.

Knowledge is power only if man knows what facts not to bother with.

—Robert Staughton Lynd

Why Facebook, and what knowledge can be derived from that online forum?  With the outrage over Fake News, and Russian interference in our elections, plus fake people, fake news, trolls and viruses being planted on Facebook, one can see that searching for real information on Facebook can be a daunting challenge, until one learns how and where to look for the truth.

It all started rather subtly when people began to substitute email connections and the photographic attachments to them for much of their real life social involvement. It was such a natural progression from email communications to Facebook and all other present day online media forums.

How many people on our own email list do we really care to hear from, or would actually give a phone call to, or visit with when we happen to pass by their part of the world? Do we come to Facebook just to be entertained, and perhaps educated? Do we come here to “check up” on our friends and family? Does Facebook continue to exist to serve as only a temporary bandage over the open wounds of a rampant social disconnect that our cultural, religious, and political processes exaggerate?

Why would anybody rely solely on emails, Facebook, or other online connections for life affirming connections, of which, inherently, THEY HAVE NO POWER TO GIVE? Is it the fear of missing out? Are we so busy that there is no longer enough time for committing to important relationships? Is there now an indifference to the value of old friends, acquaintances, and certain members of our families? Is the phone really the heaviest object in the universe, especially if we are “male”? Is that car drive to the other side of town to see a friend or acquaintance the same as a drive across the country?

Who knows for sure, as everybody has a unique answer, but remaining true to our own basic social and spiritual values while utilizing Facebook is an imperative. I was “duped” into using the Facebook forum, of which I had no interest in, as it was offered by our daughter-in-law as the only way to see photographs of our grandsons while they were growing up, beginning in 2011. She had cut us off from their lives, due to her own emotionally dysfunctional behavior, and we had to settle for the “scraps of information” offered by her through Facebook postings. It sure was a “bait and switch” proposition, as she, and Brad, quickly reduced their postings. I did not have a lot of interest in Facebook for the first several years, and did not learn the ropes until about 2014, after watching others’ posts over the intervening years.

With many of my friends having passed away, or left my inner sphere of connection due to the neglect brought about by enhanced care and time spent with my aging (and now deceased) parents, I no longer have of lot of my previous social interconnections anymore. But, I do not rely on Facebook for any “social” connections, nor do I rely upon emails exclusively. Those pseudo-connections are primarily reserved for those who have little time for or have expressed little interest in me or my life anymore, or vice versa. The dopamine rush from a Facebook like or love does not suffice for true sharing and mutual compassion and understanding.

These vehicles exist for many reasons, but a very important one is so that we can continue to express or write to ourselves, and somehow find a measure of satisfaction with our sometimes incomplete socializing efforts, no matter how isolated we may or may not truly be, and/or regardless of the people we may have presently surrounded our lives with. The thoughts around these issues can be rather troubling, and disheartening, regarding this technology, and the illusion of connection that it provides.

I choose to continue to use Facebook as a tool. It is NOT a crutch, or a substitute for real human companionship, connection, and communication. It remains a forum for exchange, regardless of who, or what, profits from our use of it. What do I give to the exchange? What do I receive from the exchange? If the balance tips in my favor in the long run, then it will continue to remain a tool to utilize, as I reach for my own unique goals for personal expression and creativity, or for connecting or reconnecting with long neglected or ignored family members and acquaintances. Like all things in life, if I approach Facebook consciously and with wisdom, my returns will be commensurate with my investment.

If I used Facebook for the sole intent to just get likes, or to have others ask to “friend” me, I would have been quite the unhappy fellow, for sure. Few people in my “Facebook world” have a lot of time or interest in my musings. I am not hurt or offended by that at all. I realize my own insignificance, and, at times, social irrelevance, and it keeps me humble and willing to explore deeper within my own mind and heart. I am not writing to please anybody. My own uniqueness demands expression, even though there may appear to be nobody “out there” who cares to listen, or “likes” what I have to say or do. I have had many more “unfriended” and “no longer follow” experiences with Facebook “friends” than I have had new connections the last three years, so this forum is dying in many ways for me.

Some of my best work in life has been what life (especially on Facebook) has overlooked or ignored the most, which is the way of my world. If I just wanted to be noticed and “liked”, I would just post pictures of my cat, my grandchildren, or of my vacations. As a long-term practitioner of mindfulness and personal inventory, and an expert in Recovery, Toxic Masculinity, Toxic Religion, and Toxic Capitalism, I have a lot of insight into why the world spins the awkward way it now does. And I will write about it, much to the disinterest and annoyance from some Facebook readers. The “silent treatment” that I receive from Facebook now is quite deafening, so I know that the target audience for my writing remains very close to home. But, for the one or two stray readers who wander by, I usually try to remember to get those kitty pictures and vacation photographs posted to balance the whole Facebook equation for me, and to keep my personal page from becoming perpetually serious..

The greatest challenges in life come through following, or creating, new paths of consciousness, rather than retracing the same steps that the so-called important members of society have already created for us. The ruts of society, if traveled upon too frequently by others, become deep enough to form graves for the unwary. Following others carries the risk of losing one’s own uniqueness, so we must strike out on our own, and create the conditions for own creative and spiritual “salvation”.

Please, don’t just “like” this post (or be “angry” with it). Try something “new” today, like having a dialogue directly with family and friends, and talking with a stranger or two whenever appropriate. Take out that diary or personal journal, and make new entries into it each day for one month, if even only to note the change in the weather forecast. We all long for real connection with our Spirit, both within ourselves and within our friends and neighbors, regardless of any outward appearances to the contrary.

Be a “friend” to yourself. “Like” yourself, and Love will lead the way into your own unique “promised land”. Even though, at times, I may be alone, I am never lonely, for I have found the “fellowship of the Spirit”.

That is where I now try to hang out.

This can be good food for thought, if only for me alone. I keep myself very well fed, thank you very much, in between my moments of most sacred silence. Which will lead into yet another future Facebook monologue, to be read by one or two of my most treasured of friends, or by nobody at all.

We need better brains to manage the deluge of information we consume on the internet, on social media, on our smartphones today — as well as the new technologies we’ll surely encounter tomorrow. We need to elevate the maturity of our collective consciousness in order to thrive in this new environment.

This calls for something big: coordinated effort by major actors, from the White House and the National Institutes of Health to the United Nations and the power brokers at Davos. Indeed, addressing the cognition crisis should be positioned as a grand challenge, on par with other pressing global priorities, such as eradicating infectious diseases and disseminating clean water.

We have all been victimized by the cultural and familial conditioning of the information processing centers of the brain that cause certain streams of awareness to be represented by erroneous concepts, or attenuated or terminated prematurely by fear before any reasonable assessments can even be made. Our cultural “headlights” for looking into ourselves have had much of their light blocked by years of unacknowledged road debris accumulating on the lens. Yet, we first have to “see” that there is a blockage, as it will not clear on its own. Our own internal “seeing” can ultimately liberate us from the erroneous views foisted upon our innocent hearts and souls by the well meaning but often times ignorant teachers of our pasts, and those who may not have yet cleared up their own internal lenses of perception. But we each must look, acknowledge what appears to be there, share our perceptions with others, learn from each other, and thus create more accurate, updated knowledge.

“Know thyself, and thou will know God, and the Universe” ——Attributed to Pythagoras, and the Oracle at Delphi

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”——–Aristotle

The final two quotes sets the stage behind the eternal tension between what is truth and what is falsehood, and the spiritual requirement not to create and worship idols, physical or verbal. They also point to the supporting conditions behind one’s potential for spiritual evolution and final ascendancy out of false knowledge and the suffering that results from entertaining such thoughts..

Life is always a self-fulfilling prophecy, yet whose self are we fulfilling?

What if your life is fulfilling the prophecies of your religion and culture, rather than that of your true self?

While unenlightened forces dominate human consciousness, oppression and repression are born, and nurtured.

This creates more damaged human beings, who continue to remain unconscious, and thus overpopulate this planet.

The fate of these damaged people is to continue to damage themselves, each other, and the very planet that supports and sustains them, until they find their self and its truth.

Find the self, and the life that has a great future, and discard the one that will die with our rotting civilization.

Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I see a great future for our planet, if enough of us break free from the effects of the collective oppression by others and, ultimately, the repression of our Spirit. If enough of us find the only self that can be free, collective liberation becomes more of a possibility.

What on Earth is humanity waiting for?

This moment, I am free.

Please, save yourself.

Common Knowledge and Cultural Controls

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

— Laverne Cox

The Common Knowledge Game (CKG) is a newer name for a form of consensus social understanding that has been used since humans first became verbal.  With this improvement, mankind now had more than just body language to communicate with their peers. The Common Unconscious Knowledge Game (CUKG) has been with us from the beginning, as well, and points to the subconscious domains of human psychology, and is similar to Freud’s concept of the id. The CUKG points to the underlying undeveloped and/or unexplored areas within human consciousness, and the human soul. The Lemming Effect has also been with us from the beginning, and its most powerful energy takes the form of peer pressure. The present toxic state of mankind has been created by the effects of toxic masculinity through the CKG, the CUKG, and the Lemming Effect. Toxic masculinity is not a force for ultimate good, and is a defining boundary condition for the resistance against living a healthy, whole, balanced, sane, woman and Earth friendly life experience

The common knowledge game is a phenomena well-studied in the last generation by Nobel Prize winners, mathematicians, and New York Times best-selling authors and philosophers. What has not been adequately developed is its unconscious component, which is the Common Unconscious Knowledge Game, an area where hidden pain and suffering, instincts, intuitions, and archetypes rule, and which also informs and drives all unenlightened human thought and behavior, in co-creation with the CKG. The combination of the CKG and the CUKG, in addition to the related Lemming Effect, has been called many other names by seers and seekers over the millennia. The word “Maya” has been given as the name from Hinduism and Buddhism for the tendency to both individually and collectively create a fragmented perceptual universe, where in truth there is only the unity of the Universe. Unity, or spiritual oneness, is another subject, being the most important aspect of the Uncommon Knowledge Game, which points to our spiritual evolution and all relevant teachings associated with our transcendence.

In the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, he mentions that

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

“My kingdom is not of this world”, and

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

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

This adaptation and acculturation processes of the CKG, CUKG, and the Lemming Effect has become so ingrained in consciousness, so accepted, so standardized, so normalized that the individual who even casually practices their dark side continues to contribute to the collective imprisonment of all of mankind through this process.  The principles of toxic masculinity dominates the CKG, the CUKG, and the Lemming Effect, which will help the reader understand at a deeper level why our society has become so corrupted by our wayward masculine energy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—– James Baldwin

The Lemming Effect

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

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

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

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

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

The development and the evolution of human language itself has had the effect of bringing the hope for new or enhanced order to the chaos inherent within the unconscious human experience, at least through the structure of words used to represent the world that one is experiencing. Note the illusory sense of power that words sometimes create for us.  We sometimes think that to finally identify a phenomenon, and giving it a name, that we are now somehow in control of that which still exists outside of our control. One example is when we finally get a diagnosis for a troubling medical condition that had evaded identification and description.  The name brings momentary satisfaction and may point to the direction that a favorable outcome may be located, yet having a name or a diagnosis does not guarantee that a favorable prognosis will result.  Also, my personal experience of finally being able to bring a verbal description to the vast interior spaces of unconsciousness and ignorance within my individual and collective self has done NOTHING to bring a new order to the present day divisiveness and chaos within our national mindset, including the conscious and unconscious elements..

For most other situations where stress or conflict may have arisen, we only need witness the “committee”, or the “monkey mind” operating overtime within our minds while it unsuccessfully tries to make sense, or bring order, out of the background chaos forever present in our lives. Those who are neophytes in meditation, and even some of us when troubled by current events, experience this hyperactivity and perceive it as a block to peace of mind. In truth, this internal mental chaos, when reinterpreted, becomes a gateway or portal to be passed through so as to access deeper, more peaceful and benign regions of our spiritual identify.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our planet Earth is now engaged in balancing itself and its energies, just as it has for billions of years. Though it may not have consciousness of the same nature as humans (the mind of the immortal, and the mind of the mortal, do not have a lot in common), the self-organizing principle of this vast system includes the elimination and/or balancing of all forces that do not positively contribute to its life and further its evolution. The human race, due to overpopulation, has brought great imbalances to planet Earth. Some experts believe that we may have ten times the amount of humans on our planet than our planet can sustain in harmony. The stress being generated in the mind of man by this overabundance of humanity may well be part of the self-protective mechanism of planet Earth itself. Humanity has captured a piece of Universal consciousness, which includes planet Earth and its collective awareness (see Teilhard de Chardin and his Noosphere concept). Our collective desire to go to war, to kill each other, to commit suicide, and/or to not generally thrive as a collective, may well be the Earth, acting through human consciousness, to bring healing to itself through the removal of damaged parts of itself, at least enough to bring balance back to the Earth. The Earth is, basically, eternal, as far as we are concerned, and is PRIMARY here, while the human race presently has little conscious presence in eternity. Our own Armageddon may well be written right into the operating system of Earth consciousness as it brings stability back to itself through all of its agents, be it earth, air, sunlight, fire, or water, and its almost infinite expression of flora and fauna.

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

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

I would like to take the liberty of bringing a little cynical humor to the office of the POTUS, and the mythical throne of God, which was once collectively seen as an acceptable image for the “higher power”.

The Ultimate Position, God, has been vacated by that White Bearded White Man wearing flowing robes, who used to sit on, and rule from the Golden Throne. Yes, that old, worn out historical fantasy of an image for God no longer serves the awakening consciousness of our world, though it still serves the ignorant, and the artist, quite well.

I have an idea. . . Donald Trump could resign from the presidency, be given that position, rule from his White Porcelain Altar, and not miss a beat, or a wipe. It is said that his greatest thoughts are engraved daily upon the sacred white Twitter scrolls of his toilet paper. His followers will have the same success worshiping this false Idol as they did his “predecessor”.

It is a win-win proposition. Our country can then survive and prosper, and Trump can stay in his ignorant, hateful, delusional world, ruling without conflict, while the rest of his hypnotized minions continue to ponder why they feel abandoned by their “God”.

In God’s Universe, and Mind, all that is ever seen, unto eternity, is Itself. In Trump’s universe, in which he sees “shit-hole countries”, rest assured that this is the most revealing insight into how he sees himself, and his relationship to the ALL. All of the Universe is but a ‘shit hole’ to Trump, if it has no use to him with his self-serving agendas. Pardon me if I excuse myself from his twisted, deluded “divine mission’.

The rest of humanity can continue to witness the real God working It’s Love and Miracles with the Awakened People Of Our Country, and The World, guiding the Aware, opened Hearts and Minds, as It always has. The dark and ignorant will continue to unconsciously benefit, without ever knowing why. And Trump can continue to be worshiped as the Dark King that he is.

Just a thought, with my verbal tongue planted firmly in my cheek.

Soon, it will be COMMON KNOWLEDGE, that the President of the United States has no integrity, is a corrupt criminal, and has been unfit to serve as our national leader, let alone as a leader of a family or a business.

Yes, the “devil made me do it!”

Sometimes, the “devil” or the “trickster” can actually point to the unexplored doors within the self behind which resides the infinite reservoir of our spiritually based “uncommon knowledge”,

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

It is within our “uncommon knowledge” that our salvation lies.

However, it might mean that we have to leave the herd, and find our own way.

Please, save yourself

Childhood’s End

A human being may have had a perfect upbringing, yet that fact does not have ultimate significance in the evolution towards good mental health and well-being as an adult. Avoiding a childhood characterized by physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse is certainly a desirable and necessary foundation for strong, healthy children, and parents have an immense responsibility for all relevant support.. . Yet normal, strong, healthy children will not necessarily avoid the adversity of broken adult-hoods, and all will eventually bear witness to the devastating effects of suffering on self and/or on others. The cultivation of a few friendships within Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or in homeless shelters, warehoused disabled senior citizens in long term care facilities, communication with military veterans suffering from injuries from battle and/or post-traumatic stress disorder, volunteering at sites of climate change inspired catastrophes like hurricanes, flooding, and tornadoes, working at a domestic violence shelter or as a medical professional, or manning a suicide hotline, will bring home some painful truths for those who have not yet personally experienced misery and hardship. See the Buddha, and the story of Siddhartha, for a good narrative and an allegorical confirmation of man’s predisposition towards all such natures of suffering.

Many of America’s nominally “good religious people” raised in “good religious homes” do not have access to the healing truth that the application of a more universally distributed love would have on their lives. The absence of that love has brought great harm to our world. Any philosophy that continues to devalue or obscure the pain that their own skewed understanding of God and Love has inflicted on innocent people, such as Jews, Muslims, LGBTQ’s, pagans, “witches”, “atheists”, or even themselves, over countless generations needs an immediate upgrade . Many religious and non-religious strong, healthy children and adults look upon the destruction of our natural world, continued global warming, and the extinction of thousands of sacred species of animals as a necessary part of economic development, thus showing a true disconnect with the painfully dark reality of their own intentions. Some even cling to their denial of the reality of climate change/global warming, believing that their disregarding of scientific facts is somehow supported by living in a fantasy world in an “alternate reality” with “alternate facts” that support liars and cheaters like the President of the United States. These supposedly “healthy people” display a profound disease of the Spirit, which directly impacts ALL OF US.

The Earth-destructive and self-destructive decisions of Capitalist economics has been married to aspects of a Judeo/Christian ethic, culture and faith for several generations. This “two part harmony” has sung the following refrains for hundreds of years: “Be fruitful, and multiply,-Prosperity is a sign of God’s love for his people. We are the chosen people of God, Take dominion over the earth, etc.”. The selfishness and tribalism of these beliefs threatens the very safety and security of all of Mankind, with the religions encouraging over-population and the continued destruction of our planet. No one is immune to this disease, and the collective, worldwide brokenness that spawns such ignorance.

Those who profess to follow God through admiring Donald Trump are now the true infidels. I never thought that I would live to see the day when our country would be ruled by such a spiritually primitive, overtly lying, cheating, scandalous force. For Donald Trump, the end justifies the means. For Evangelical Christians, the end, and their new beginning is the suicidal world-wide Armageddon, in whatever forms that takes, that our wayward, selfish, white supremacist leader may ignorantly lead us into.

They treat the wound of my people as if it were nothing: “All is well, all is well,” they insist, when in fact nothing is well.

– Jeremiah 6:14 (CEB)

The people who hold most strongly to the “all is well” philosophy, or its “God’s will” without full internal examination of self, need enlightenment, they just aren’t aware of that fact yet. Most adults live a life of denial of the collective disease of American consciousness, while more than just a few have prospered economically from American Capitalism, and the diseases of the Spirit that are spawned from the socially, environmentally, and spiritually irresponsible versions of it. When economic standards of living take precedence over environmental and social standards of living, all manners of darkness erupts. Selfishness and self-aggrandizement, corporate, religious, and individual greed, socially and environmentally irresponsible allocation of resources, seizing of assets of those less powerful in other countries, and economic minimization and subjugation of those without an empowered voice becomes the norm within the society, Those who believe that economic transcendence is the end point in the journey of happiness and enlightenment are living a life begging for the rudest, and most painful of awakenings, however.

Economic progress at the expense of spiritual principles, and at the expense of our sacred planet, is suicide, and insanity manifested. A liar, cheater, criminal,thief, promoter an indirect participant in treason and collusion, puppet of Russian and Saudi Arabian money and oil interests, and, ultimately, a traitor to American values, has no place on any world stage, let alone the presidency. Those who continue to support the Trump abomination are part of a collective disease of the human spirit. We who do not walk in this darkness will continue to speak out against the broken ones who continue to consciously support ignorance, greed, tribalism, and corruption.

Yet, broken adults can become the very foundation upon which insight into the nature of destructive aspects of human nature and consciousness can arise from. Those who have survived the journey through the depths of hell can develop the capacity to show others how to avoid or escape misery’s grasp. And, perhaps, they can save a future child from the need to write a six hundred page book about escaping our culture’s conspiracy of silence that few people have the time, understanding, willingness or the capacity to be interested in. If I were requested to read somebody else’s account of the collective disease within human consciousness, while I was still in denial of its damaging impacts, I would have little interest, as well, save if it was required reading for a book club.

People who have been happy from birth may not have as much need, or motivation, towards achieving depth of understanding, compassion, and empathy as those who had a troubled upbringing, and are seeking answers to the great questions of life. The “happy ones” may not be driven to seek, and to find, the truth, at least as much as those whose spiritual siblings were suffering, disease, and impoverishment. It is a revelation to finally see that much of the dogma and nonsense that many variations of religious thinking morph into exist solely to insulate the believers from the access to their own legitimate, authentic human suffering and pain. The “painful Truth” is that Truth IS painful, until all of our wayward holdings, attitudes, and behaviors are fully examined, and released, so as to make way for a new understanding and experience of life, where Truth can be experienced more as Love and Peace, and a collective will to support and care for all of our sacred planet Earth.

When our childhood ends, and our eyes are finally opened, the conditions of our childhood becomes almost irrelevant, whether or not we had a positive experience. When our childhood ends, we are no longer insulated from the damaging effects of our own, our religion, or our culture’s wayward thoughts and intentions, and we begin the search for a new way of being. When our childhood ends, enlightenment becomes our teacher, our student, our lesson plan, and our life’s journey. When our childhood ends, we finally let “God” off of the hook, and directly address all of the greatest, most challenging issues of life itself. When our childhood ends, we stand in the power, love, and wisdom that “God” gave to us in the beginning, before we personally, and collectively, ignorantly, or with malice, added to the suffering of all of “God’s” creations. When our childhood ends, we are all healed, regardless of the conditions of our upbringing. When our childhood ends, the world becomes new to us, while we help those still stuck in the past of their own childhoods. When our childhood ends, we are able to help right the wrongs of our fellow man, and of ourselves. When our childhood ends, we stop thinking like we are separate, independent human beings, and start thinking collectively, for the good of the earth, and for the good of all mankind. When our childhood ends, the one true, real God begins to work with us, and through us. When our childhood ends, we lay aside our prayer fantasies and our worship of spiritual deities, and begin the real work of co-creating with the Universe.

It may be easier to build strong children, than to repair broken adults, yet both are important endeavors and services that mankind will be requiring for ages to come. Hopefully, our childhood, whether it is now happy, or unhappy, ends before our civilization self-destructs, and our sacred world, burns in the hell created by Mankind’s continued ignorance and darkness of Spirit. We remain terminally ill as a culture, as a nation, and, potentially, as a planet. We need a miracle experiment, a movement towards a change in individual and collective consciousness to be undertaken by all who want our planet to survive.

The beginning of Wisdom is knowing that Life is infinitely more sacred and important than the religious and philosophical beliefs by which we falteringly attempt to define our relationship to It..

We must commit to fearlessly challenge all assumptions that lead to depression, drug addiction, suicide, and other self-defeating beliefs and behavior. We must commit to exposing the bedrock of lies that much of our collective consciousness and religious misunderstanding is based upon, the lies that tell us that we are not worthy of love and acceptance by others, and/or that we have no value other than remaining the unconscious minions of those in positions of power who have been spiritually disfigured by their monetization of humanity. We must commit to transcending all forces that lead to an untimely death through “white middle-class male despair syndrome”.

Freedom and intrinsic human value are not goals to forever pursue, as they are part of the very fabric of Love, awaiting those with the insight to weave them into happier, healthier, more meaningful lives.. Our civilization has not yet embraced and fully applied the principles of Love, the Love that transcends time and history, nationality and place. We must birth together the Love that has the capacity to save the world from the damaging, insane behavior of a collective consciousness hypnotized by its own imaginary self-importance, a self-importance that drives human overpopulation and the resulting destruction of the very planet Earth that was created to provide for all of Life, and not just our limited, selfish visions, religiously inspired or otherwise.

We must honor our body, and the planet Earth, as the temple of the “living God”. We must not knowingly introduce physical and/or spiritual toxins into our body/mind, nor will we encourage or support others to bring harm to their own bodies and minds, to the bodies and minds of others, or to our planet Earth. We all must become “prophets” for the truth that supports and sustains the very life-force of our sacred planet Earth, and all of its inhabitants. We must commit to continue to support and work towards rational solutions to global warming/climate change. We must continue to get outdoors and enjoy nature, and honor the natural world at an enhanced level, and encourage all others to do the same. To not do this work is to continue the suicidal,insanity into a self–destructive conclusion, the Armageddon that many of the religiously disfigured Christians now cling to, and see our corrupt POTUS as now leading us into.

“It is No Measure of Health to Be Well Adjusted to a Profoundly Sick Society”
—Jiddu Krishnamurti

It is time to grow up, end our collective childhood, and find our true relationship to Spirit. It is time to grow up, and save ourselves.

So, the Master Teacher is always speaking within our hearts and souls. 

Will the Master Student be listening?

More than once, certain members of our human race have had “mountain top” experiences, where true insight has been gained into understanding life, love, and both the ephemeral, and eternal, natures or aspects of reality, or That One. That One becomes the source for all future understanding and engagement with the world.

That One could see the unity of all creation, and how all systems of thought tend to separate us from each other, rather than unite.

That One saw how the limits of love shared was typically tribal in nature, and rarely extended beyond the imaginary boundaries of their perceived communities.

That One saw how organized religion had become a tool for the political powers of the day, and no longer existed to serve the needs of the spirit, but instead to follow the dictates of those male power figures who inaccurately, and sometimes falsely, interpret the scriptures to control people, and arrange selfish outcomes.

That One saw how the rich and powerful within the religion used its truth to dominate and control others.

That One saw these religious power figures actually monetize their brethren, to see how their “flock” could bring them wealth through their superstitious tithing, or offerings to their “God”.

That One saw that the poorest in spirit occupied the most fertile ground for healing, yet were the most separated from any benefits of their religion.

That One saw that the religious power of the day was corrupt beyond repair.

That One saw that all sense of religion needed to be “born again”.

That One came down from the mountain top to bring the good news to the people, that they did not need their religion anymore to keep them philosophically imprisoned.

That One then advised the world:

If their “religion” does not allow for them to love another as themself, then discard those dark aspects of their religion, honor the underlying spirit of love, and affirm the dignity and value of the human being through the healed human heart (which is the source of all true religion).

That just might mean removing the log from our own eyes (even if the log is our very own religion), before attempting to remove the splinter from another (yes, this is the inventory step).

It means stop monetizing humanity for business purposes.

It also means separating the Church from the State.

It means taking personal inventory, and when wrong, promptly admit it!

It means lying, cheating, stealing, destroying, murder, greed, selfishness, destroying the animal and plant kingdom and the like are antithetical to the spirit of love which has created this universe, therefore they are unacceptable patterns of behavior only reserved for those who have chosen to stay asleep..

You know who That One is, because That One lives today, and it is not just Jesus. That One has existed since the beginnings of the illusion of self, and other, and the illusions created by competing philosophies. That One has the voice for God, for Truth, for Love, and Life, bubbling up inside of their hearts, just waiting to be listened to, and obeyed. And That One understands all to well the difficulties in bringing Truth and Love to the masses, because in the masses is where corruption of thought gets institutionalized and normalized, instead opting to bring it to humanity one person at a time.

Please listen within yourself.

Please, save yourself.

A New World Religion

A new world religion has emerged upon our consciousness, one that does not exist solely to support the needs of the Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or Christian communities. Its sacred texts are written in the stars, upon the lands that we inhabit, and upon the fabric of universal awareness. The real “word of God” can be examined on a daily basis, for those who have retired (temporarily?) their hand-held zombie making devices long enough to start getting acquainted with the real ground of all being. Can God, or Truth, be found through an internet search? Can old worn out “sacred texts” written by people wrestling with their own ignorance give us enough light to clear out the destructive aspects of human nature? Can even a newer collection of words, thoughts, and written literature fill our spiritual needs?

The quickest way to prepare for the new world order (which was once the old world order, by the way) is to get outside of the house, the computer, the movie theater, the Facebook pages, etc. and start getting acquainted with the great outdoors. We are not connected to God through our technology. In fact, most of our media related technology has separated us from the quiet state of being that allows God’s will to be readily accepted into consciousness. Gaia is a living being, and is the true “son-daughter of God”. And yes, we are children of that sacred child. God’s face is seen clearly, once the detritus of human misunderstanding is moved aside long enough so that Reality may emerge, once again. Technology is only a tool, though it has become another new world religion, a way of life for far too many people. Our country, and our world, shows the collective effects of falling far short of meeting or even acknowledging the existence of our spiritual needs, or attempting to meet our spiritual needs through illusory processes. Most of our media devices have continued the promotion and distribution of cultural hypnosis, and most people continue to be separated from a greater good through that process. The world exists in a state of hypnosis, and it is easy to see that truth when the mind finally takes itself off of the grid of shared cultural and religious misunderstanding.

Taking dominion over the world, and then destroying its wildlife, forests, rivers, oceans, and lands was never part of God’s will. It was always part of a worn out patriarchal attitude that still pollutes human awareness to this day. The greed and self-serving interests of our ancestors has been glorified, and exalted, over and above the preservation of our planet, and the cultivation of harmony between the diverse interests of people on this planet. The “mark of the beast” is seen daily in the attitudes of those who promote the destruction of our environment, and who incite hatred and enmity..

Freedom may not be for everybody now, but it certainly is for me, now, and for all of eternity. I am grateful for my wife Sharon White, who shares in the new/old insight.

The Awakening Voice (by Bruce Paullin)

Though the slowly shifting desert sands of time,

Keep creating ever taller dunes for America’s lost, thirsty souls to climb.

It is through transcending our hateful world of so little reason and rhyme,

That we will reaffirm the way of Truth, with its quenching waters of the Sublime.

As seekers for Peace, on Truth’s high mount’ we must continue to climb,

Or we will stumble through the swirling sands of chaotic, corrupted minds.

That tempts and confuses minds with the lies of false rhyme and reason,

So all our inner Lawyers must object to deceit, and charge those thoughts with treason!

Are we but marionette’s dancing images trapped upon the ATM screen of a monetized mind?

With Corporate America’s dollar driven beliefs in full control, what freedom can we find?

We must release ourselves from the spiritual imprisonment of these choking, binding strings,

And unleash our hearts’ truest wisdom that our liberated Intelligence can then bring.

As shadow boxers of Trumped Up Evil, to what ends do we hope to aspire?

Becoming co-champions with false leaders in their nightmares creates situations that are perpetually dire!

When we first heal our own illusions that promote self-destructive mental pugilist blows,

Our hearts can support the real fight against the Dark Ones who are now on public show.

As a pro-Trump marathoner, only on Life’s treadmills will we perpetually stand,

To follow in a liar’s missteps dooms us all to fail and become life’s also-rans,

Who forever just chase in vain Sanity’s unifying, healing voice.

So step off of his divisive, circular belt, and share first place in the Life all may rejoice!

To finally realize the Truth, is to see ignorance’s agendas are only illusions that limit and bind,

Spun together with the same golden threads of the Emperor’s New Clothes, his evil tailors did wind,

To corrupt the minds and hearts of all innocents, and all of the vulnerable that they can find.

So we must continue to seek our own truth, and then our struggle becomes Sublime!

The non-illuminated, restless mind is devoid of all of Love’s rhyme and Truth’s reason,

And only chases after desert mirages, until it sees the internal corruption that is guilty of treason.

Shame on you, Donald Trump, your minions, and the pseudo-Christians who continue to support you.

Blessings to all of America’s holy warriors, who seek for, and hold onto, all that is just, equitable, and true.

An Experiment In Consciousness

I would like to present a rather unique “thought experiment”. This is
a both a teaching, and an interior journey, and it can be useful for
accessing the One Real Teacher, which lies deep within all of us.

This is my own unique verbal bridge, from the deepest part of myself
(which is non-verbal in nature) to my conscious mind, and will not work
for most others, who must make their own personal ‘direct connection’.

This is only a template, to be filled in by one’s unique journey
towards Truth. It only points in a direction, and this ‘meditation’ is
definitely not for everybody.

THE MEDITATION

After quieting the body by sitting down comfortably, let us breathe
consciously, and deeply, for a few breaths. Usually, the following of
our breathing will quiet the mind a bit, which is important if this
“experiment” is to bring any results.

Let’s now ask of our self if we are ready to listen for the truth of
the moment. Are we willing to travel to a new place in consciousness,
and conscious awareness, that perhaps we have never traveled to before?

Ask our self if we can “let go of all thought controls” that keep us
in the past, that keep us in judgement of self, or other, that keep us
from experiencing a deeper appreciation for what this moment might be
able to bring to us?

Now visualize for a moment that we are driving a car, heading to a
direction that we feel quite familiar with. Before arriving at the usual
destination, ask our self what would happen if we just “LET GO OF THE
CONTROLS”, even if it is for just one moment?

Is it possible?

Keep trying, until we can see our self actually letting go of the
steering wheel. As we let go of the steering wheel, imagine, now, that
the car “disappears” that was around us, and find that we are now being
carried into some new, as yet, unexplored realm of experience.

If it is still familiar territory in our interior visual field, we
will need to restart the thought experiment, or just give up altogether
on this particular thought experiment, and find a different path to the
interior dimensions.

If we have “LET GO OF THE CONTROLS”, we are now finding that we are
being “guided” by a “teacher” or a “messenger”, who has not revealed who
or what it is, what kind of form it might take, or why it might, or
might not, exist for us in this new moment.

Yet we know that there is no need for fear, even though we are now
being “guided” into a complete mystery, and “unknowable” experience.

There is a sense of exhilaration, because
we are no longer secured to our “body of knowledge” anymore, which may
also feel like we are having an “out of body” event.

We are free, yet we do not yet know what we are being liberated from.
Stay in this “unknowing state”, while still being “guided by our inner
teacher”.

We now pass by an amazing, infinite array of interconnected, interlocking “membranes”, which are neither “light” nor “dark”.

We seem to “float through, and then underneath” this web of “who
knows what?” – then  we reach a place of absolute still, and calm. {Much
more will be revealed later, when we have developed the interior
fortitude to face our individual and collective demons}

If we are really “there”, we find a silence, which is so quiet, and
peaceful, that it may “startle” us initially, yet we quickly settle into
it, and appreciate its essence and nature.

A “voice” may appear within our now quiet minds, and may begin to
speak “through us” rather than “to us”. We will become the mouthpiece
for a teaching, or a message, that we have never heard before, yet we
are willing messengers for this new moment.

We begin to recognize an incredibly happy, joyful, laughing voice,
and we know we are right where we are supposed to be, in a state that is
so natural, and normal.

We might wonder why it was so “unknown” in our past, but we save all
questions for later, so as not to miss the rest of the experience.

“Follow the new paths of consciousness” we hear, and speak within our
hearts and minds simultaneously, directly and powerfully to ‘our self’.

“No teacher can give to us our salvation, we must work it out for our self”.

“Think no thoughts, especially time based thoughts (memories) about the “you”, as any “YOU”, cannot ever be real here”.

“To return to the “UNKNOWN”, we must eliminate all time based thoughts about our self, and “THE OTHER”.

We now know that this moment, outside of time, has all of the
information that we will ever need, and does not need our input to
reveal itself and its real, eternal nature.

As the “teaching” ends, we are shown those forces which have attached
themselves to our energy fields, which provide “companionship” yet they
provide no lasting spiritual value, and will inhibit our future growth
and development.

FURTHER FRUITS FROM THE TREE OF LIFE

Be easy on our self, as it will not be immediately obvious what the nature and purpose of these inner/interpersonal forces are.

They served a purpose, yet they will have to leave. But,
first, we have to meet them directly, to get to know them better, while
further dealing directly with our “conscious” world, and the life we
live in it.

Welcome to our Real individual, and collective, self. There is no
room here for “you and me”, “us and them”, there is only room for the
ONE.

This will trouble us greatly when we return to our ‘normal’
consciousness from this experiment. This is normal, and we will learn
from the tension created by this dynamic.

Eventually we learn that we dream through the “collective” mind of
mankind, and the “collective” also dreams through us. Yet there is also
One Other Option, which has eluded most of Mankind.

As we travel back to this place, over and over, over many years, if necessary, we find what we have always been looking for.

We also find what has been holding back the rest of mankind for all
of time. Many of the very structures of thought that have been
worshiped or unconsciously accepted are seen to be the source of the
Shadow within mankind’s heart and soul.

This journey is not for those who want to continue to just worship the past, and all of its dead thoughts, and heroes.

This thought experiment is a technique for shaking the mind free,
even if just for a moment, from its lifetimes of its ‘knowns’ or
certainties.

Truth does not come into a mind that has already been crystallized into a structure that does not permit curiosity, and insight.

If we are sincerely seeking Truth, prepare for a real shock.  If our minds have not been shocked, we have not yet met our goal.

“YOU WILL FIND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR”, just don’t give up looking before the Real miracle appears, OK?

Otherwise, we will only find a continuation of our past, as it extends into an all too familiar future.

Please, save yourself.