Chapter : The Uncommon Knowledge Theory
We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist and forever will recreate each other.
—-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
What if I were to tell you that everything that you think you know about yourself is only a theory, and potentially an unproven one, at that? Everything that you think you know about your significant other, your children, your parents, and even your best friends are only theories. Everything that you think you know about your planet, including the plants, animals, insects, oceans, rivers, and the rocks and dirt, are only theories. And everything that you think you know, or believe, about God, the Bible, Christianity, or other religions are only theories. And what if I were to tell you that you can’t be real, yet the only fact about you that can be apperceived is that I am here?
Everything that we witness with our senses, and reflect upon with our minds: is it really there, or are they ever evolving theories created by the mind of man? What facts do we truly have access to? And which tools do we presently have to help us find the truth about ourselves, and about our life?
Mankind has used religion, spirituality, philosophy, and the science of observation for thousands of years to help understand the world, and for insight into the self. Science, religion and spirituality are based upon a combination of facts, laws, theories, or mythological stories. The truth that supports us lies in a sacred silence well under of our internal matrix of memories and personal and collective accumulations of information and knowledge. There is a deeper truth, another reality, or state of being, that is accessible, once we discard our concepts of time. The seemingly infinite world of your verbal creation pales in comparison to a non-verbal potential that lies undiscovered and unappreciated within your heart and soul. This chapter is an inquiry into what we can know, what we will never know, and how to understand at a higher level who the “knower” really is.
Scientific and cultural education and religious indoctrination brings a measure of order to all of us. Yet it can also teach the student about other people’s perspectives on matters of individuality, self-expression, and the potential for a connection with a power greater than our self while confusing and delaying the individual’s direct connection and link to his own higher truth and nature.
Theories and Laws and Spiritual Awakening
In science and mathematics, a theory is a statement proposing an explanation for the processes that we witness. A law is an observation which becomes an assumed fact; a theory is the explanation of that observation. The Law of Gravity and the Theory of Relativity are good examples. Just because a law is an observable fact, or a theory is intuitively obvious, we cannot prove them to be true. The apple always falls downward from the tree, doesn’t it? Yet the observation of matter converting into energy, with E=Mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light is not observable, at least through our normal senses. A theory requires experimentation under various conditions.
A law has no such requirements for experimentation. A theory may become obsolete with time. This is not the case with a law. A theory can be replaced by another better theory; however, this never happens with a law. When people say, “Relativity is just a theory, not a fact,” or, “Evolution is just a theory, not a fact,” they show that they do not understand how science works. Theory is as good as it gets. There is always room for further evolution of our scientific theories, thus no limit is placed upon learning and refining all theories to best represent what we now observe through continuous process improvement, which supports higher qualities of awareness, and enhanced realms of intelligence and understanding.
Even incorrect theories have their value. Discredited alchemy was the birthplace of modern chemistry, and medicine made great strides long before we understood the roles of bacteria and viruses. Improving our theories often leads to exciting new discoveries that were unimaginable under the old way of thinking. We should not assume that all of our current scientific theories will stand the test of time. A single unexpected result is enough to challenge the status quo. However, vulnerability to some potentially better explanation doesn’t weaken a current scientific theory. Instead, it shields science from becoming unchallenged dogma. This is not the case with religion, which clings to all understandings from the far distant past as if their entire faith was dependent upon adherence to such dogma.
So what do we accept as our laws, what do we accept as our theories, and what do we accept on “faith” about the nature of our self, our world, our “God” and our universe? Are we relying upon the statements of others, do we practice blind faith? Or are we active observers of the phenomenon of our lives? If we base our understanding upon our own observations of ourselves, others, and the world, we can then extrapolate upon our known facts or laws to build our bridge to a personal and potentially to a universal truth.
The Uncommon Knowledge Theory points to the potential for spiritual awakening. It has a direct relationship to insight, intuition, mysticism, and a desire for enlightenment, with the expression of universal love and transcendence. It remains latent and unexpressed within the human heart and soul within major sectors of our population. It remains only a theory, or a potentiality, until it is brought into awareness and practiced as if it was real, or the truth. And, it might be found that the more that the theory is practiced, the more it might appear that the Uncommon Knowledge Theory is really an undiscovered or ignored law in the first place.
There are two possibilities for living. In the Common Knowledge Game, we experience life as a sleeping being in a dark, disfigured world. Or through our Uncommon Knowledge Theory, we can life as an awakening being in a multi-dimensional human relationship with infinity. The sleeping beings, or those dreamers practicing unconscious knowledge, are those who live in the world of personal illusion, or Maya, without being aware of the fantasies of thought that dominate their minds and lives. Their present moment remains dominated by perceptions arising from wounding from their personal and their culture’s past, without sufficient application of healing awareness to that fact. The awakening ones are able to see through the chaos of the dreaming, unaware mind, and no longer are unconscious servants their own brokenness, or to values of patriarchy and toxic masculinity, which are primary support pillars for the Common Knowledge Game, especially through religions with a long history.
Awakening is an interactive process, encouraged and facilitated by the pain and suffering that we experience as human beings, while engaging with the so-called real world. Far too many Americans live in alternate universes, where pain and suffering are not directly dealt with, or are to be avoided at all costs, wherever possible. Immersion in fantasy and denial of our personal and collective responsibility towards the ills of this world also reigns supreme in major sections of our culture. This is fueled by addictions to media devices, diversions of our life force into entertainment and worship of TV and movie personalities, hypnosis by false religious and spiritual leaders, alcohol and drug addictions, and personal and sexual power abuses. To facilitate healing, we must reject the false leaders, hypnosis, hero-worshiping and idolatry, and we must become our own leaders, with awakened powers of understanding and compassion.
The Power to Change Your Life
In the absolute, we are the space that we witness, either through our eyes, the telescope, or our mathematics, we are the time, or the timelessness, that we experience, and we are all of the people, and the cultures, that we are presently having relationships with. All that we will ever see, unto eternity, is our self. Insight is life, and life is insight. In truth, none of us are on the outside looking in, rather, we are all on the inside, looking everywhere, potentially without limit.
With the exit from Portland’s underworld community, in March of 1987 and my own exit from the drug-induced and culturally inculcated insanity, a new world waited to welcome me, but it did not just reach out and grab me by the hand, and lead me down the path to recovery and reintegration back into the community. With all that I have previously written about the time beginning with recovery from addiction and alcoholism, it would be a mistake to assume that I was totally conscious about what was going on, and the direction that I was headed from 1987 forward. All that I knew was that after I had made conscious contact with the God of my understanding, my old life seemed to disappear. I had an ability to describe the world that I had left behind, but I had no language to describe the new world that I was entering into, or the new experiences that were unfolding in the new life of sobriety. I had never felt like I was an accepted and honored part of the outside world in the first place, so finding my new people, and my language, were important endeavors to me, once I was firmly on the path to sobriety and enhanced spirituality.
This desire for a loving integration into the wholeness of life first arose several years before, when I yearned for peace. While addicted, I could not fulfill the conditions for its experience. The transformation was many years in the making, but when it appeared within me, I was no longer tormented by my social insecurities, or my feeling of disconnection from God, my fellow-man, or from the plants and animals that grace this beautiful planet that we share. Somehow, I had let go of the controls of my old ego state of mind, and a new order started revealing itself, from moment to moment. At times I felt like a guided missile, never knowing the destination for my life, but trusting whatever it was that had launched my new life into existence would get me to the right place at the right time.
I still had memories of my former life, yet they no longer informed my day-to-day thoughts, my decisions, or my overall outlook on life and love. I did not know who the new me was, though the new me always had a smile, and felt continuous joy. I had a series of spiritual upheavals which defied my rational mind, and I did not have the words to describe or contain the experience for many years to follow. It was as if a new person had landed in my consciousness, the old me had died, and now I was informed, moment to moment, by a powerful force of peace or silence, or Love itself.
Before 1987, there were many people with their disfiguring concepts roaming around in my mind, but now that “committee of the many” had permanently adjourned, and there was now only one peaceful presence, a new ordering principle for my consciousness. A friend from a men’s group claimed that I was a walk-in, a term used to describe when the old ego departs a body, to be replaced by a new being.
My family still saw me in terms of the past, for the most part, as my history created great scars on the psyche of fellow family members, as well as the friends and acquaintances of my years prior to recovery. But, they could appreciate that the new me no longer required their extra concern or care, as I was now an independent, upright, fairly conscious human being. I made healthy choices in my relationships, and I chose a new, fulfilling career to replace all of the career wreckage from my past. I was but a boy again, though, while still learning the ropes, meeting new friends, discovering new possibilities for myself and others, and, occasionally, still sipping from the inner healing springs of the Miracle that can quench the spiritual thirst of all who seek it out.
This new being, this upgraded Bruce 2.0, which appeared in the summer of 1987, was like those miracle babies and children that I had always envied, and doubted. During most of the time after June of 1987, until I met my present wife Sharon in August of 1989, I spent over six hours a day in prayer and meditation, and probably as a result experienced blessed states on an almost continuous basis. I now heard and felt God, and I was taught on the inner spiritual plane about aspects of life, and consciousness, that I had no way to learn or know about otherwise. This was not a Christian God, or a Jewish God, or the Buddha Mind, but those names certainly pointed to the new reality that I had somehow accessed, and been dramatically changed by.
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 and 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, 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. What is left, after the garbage is cleared? If might be considered similar to the process of metamorphosis, which brings forth the butterfly from the caterpillar. If the butterfly could talk, I would assume that it would much rather talk about its new freedom, and the ability to fly, rather than its previous form of life sliding over the dirt. Yet, the only life that the butterfly arose from was with ground dwellers, and that is where all of its past stories were created.
Chapter : The Master Teacher Speaks
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.—- James Baldwin
Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the living God? Don’t you know that you are the light of the world?—Jesus of Nazareth
As I moved forward spiritually in that great summer of 1987, I was still quite new to the path of healing and transformation. I had left my old life behind, and I was open to the experience of spiritual connection, and, potentially, mastery. I had developed quite a meditation practice, eschewing committed relationships with others in order to develop a deeper spiritual reality. I 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. I remained excited about the possibilities for my life, as I had finally made conscious contact with the God of my understanding. I had recently experienced a dramatic, miraculous, healing of my body and my mind, and a new energy permeated my being. I felt like I was finally swimming in a vast new sea of discovery and the unknown, though I still had not connected the dots, or started consciously rebuilding my new self.
But I could have never anticipated the experience I was about to have, on this particular day, July 21, 1987. Without warning, during a meditation session, 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, heading in my usual direction for life, or I could let go of the controls and experience something totally different and unique.
Somehow, through a mechanism still a mystery to me, I was released from the steering wheel of my mind, and my conditioning. There was an exhilarating inner rush whereby I was totally released from myself and what was left of my old psychological set, my burdens, and my body. My essence traveled into a great unknown, which was neither light or dark, and it was like I passed through an apparently infinite matrix or structure. I had entered into a dimension of experience where interconnected structures of alive and intelligent energy were manifest. At that time, I did not recognize what I was witnessing, nor did I have the words to adequately represent this web.
For me, this matrix represented the very collective consciousness of mankind, with all of its intelligence and its stupidity. I quickly flashed by what was, at this point in my life, that mysterious and unnameable energy, and began almost a half spiral downward, where I came to a place of complete darkness, or, more accurately, emptiness. I felt totally at home here. I felt as if I was in the womb of some great loving presence. There was nothing at all to witness here, at least initially.
Almost immediately, a laughing, happy voice seemed to be speaking to me, or, more precisely, through me. Messages floated through, like, “No teacher shall effect your salvation, you must work it out for your self,” and, “Think no thoughts,” and, “Follow new paths of consciousness.” And then, a mathematical formula for re-entry back into the great unknown was given to me. Because of my mathematical background, it was a differential equation that I could understand, and which stated (in layman’s terms) that with the total elimination of the movement of time based thought, the direct perception of reality was possible. All of these experiences made sense for me.
The final messages, however, were two of the most difficult to reconcile within my life, and the ones which remained troubling for me throughout the subsequent years. Finding the answers to the troubling questions created from this experience was to guide me, almost all of the way up to the present moment.
First, there is this component: you can’t be real. When it was stated, it was stated through me, with a joyful, laughing voice, yet when I re-entered my normal way of being, it became a challenging, if not threatening statement, because it’s about ego.
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 itself, while totally failing to see that all that it ever sees, unto eternity, is itself. We only see what we have created. I only see “I,” and I is the creation of being conscious. Through this ancient and venerated process I also have created the concept of “you” as both experiences arise simultaneously. The you that I have formed does not exist; 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 whatever I associate my self, my “I am” with, either continues my path in old directions, or creates the imperative to create new words, thoughts, and experiences around a new direction. I could just as easily say, “I am no longer traveling old paths of consciousness,” and then stop thinking time-based thoughts, and rehashing and rehearsing old memories, to create a new life experience for myself. I would then have to trust in a Higher Power, the Unknown, and the Mystery to create my new timeless self in each unique moment.
Lastly, a most confusing revelation came, as well. I could see the field of energy that constituted my body/mind awareness. I saw embedded within it two almost complete thought forms, or identity forms, which I recognized as two distinct entities. I had two extras attached to my field. I could see, in that insightful moment, that they were not there for my greater good, for sure. In that moment of recognition I regarded these two unwelcome components to my life force as tricksters, though I noted that their presence seemed to allay the feelings of loneliness of my ego, perhaps only because they seemed vaguely familiar to me. They appeared to be caricatures of two unique people. I sensed that I was supposed to let go of these illusions of self, but I did not know what to do. I was to learn later, much later, after my father’s death, that these two tricksters were creations that I had made in my youth in response to the names mom and dad, my associations with them of my trauma, suffering, and abandonment as a baby, and of their intentions for me, including my unhealthy attachments and historical reactions to their points of view.
The two extra identity vortices in the human energy field matrix that constituted my conscious sense of self did not really ever disappear, they just became unconscious again, for me. I later was to associate them with two trauma inspired black holes in consciousness which my lack of self worth and the fear of death swirled around.
The Pearl
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. Yesterday’s truth is today’s superstition, and yesterday’s inaccurate assessment of others is today’s isolation and pain, so it is imperative to keep an open mind to change. Otherwise, the ego will be left behind, and suffer according to the cognitive dissonance it allows itself to experience.
At all the intersections of the points of conflict between our inner world and our outer world, there are choices to be made. When a conflict arises, do we resist any new message or lesson being offered by another, especially when their understanding does not conform to our own? What about that daughter-in-law who hangs up on you, or the husband who talks more than he should, and is unwilling to change? What about that 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 mind’s conscious attempt at bringing a balance between the world of form that we share with all of life, and the almost secret world inside of the personal mind. We might believe that we are keeping secrets from each other, but the truth is that we all share in the vast majority of thoughts and inclinations with our fellow humans, and we are only in denial of that fact when we don’t believe it and fail to act with compassion 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.
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. Our wisdom, created through spiritually discerning the irritants in life, is our shiny Pearl.
The point is to learn meaningful lessons from the pain, and not assume that it arose out of nowhere. Unaddressed pain tends to take over small centers within the mind, 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, and then our stories become part of the ever unfolding wisdom of mankind.
Through insight and mindfulness, minds and hearts are transformed, making all of us much less likely to become the source of suffering for others, and we become the living examples of loving non-violence in action. Insight plants the seed of the miracle into our minds, and mindfulness is the great gardener of that miracle, resulting in a more abundant, healthy crop of happier, peaceful, loving, and ordered thoughts.
Enlightenment
Who does not want to be the light of the world? Do we even know what that question truly implies? The world of art has attempted to capture what an individual living in the light might look like. Over many centuries, we have seen artist’s renditions of saints and sages, with paintings often showing the blessed person as having a golden light about them, usually concentrating around the head.
Is this divine light a real phenomenon, or only an artistic interpretation of that which may not be completely captured by art, science, religion, and philosophy?
The physiological truth about humanity is that humans do have the capacity to emit light, through bioluminescence, yet that light is not readily witnessed by normal human eyesight. Humans do not innately embody luciferin, which would give us the capacity to glow like fireflies. Yet what about that inner glow, the glow that erupts within one’s heart and soul when finally touched by transcendent spiritual power?
I believe that in life we can experience a power and a life greater than any limited, personal sense of self because I experienced it for myself. I no longer look to the darkness for the light. I found my own light, a light that dispels the darkness of others, their religions and economic philosophies, and the darkness of my own historical self.
To find the light of truth, there must be a release from the controls of the crowd, whether it is the crowd of old thoughts, or the crowd that blindly follows others. 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.
The ego is created from our desperate call for love, from a world that has not yet learned how to love. The most significant question remains: why care, or why bother? The sacredness and the sanctity of our universe is dependent upon our recognition of who we really are, and how we express our understanding of that connection. Therein lies the absolute necessity that members of the human race seek true enlightenment
If we can’t drill down to the foundation of our world’s and of our individual problems, and find and replace the foundation, there is little long term hope for any of us.
If the desire for liberation from the damaging and fatal illusions of our deteriorating society is great, we are ready for our own personal transformation. By letting go of the societal controls that keep us imprisoned in an outdated image of our self and the unrealistic and unhealthy expectations of others, we become ready to travel onto the new paths of consciousness, and to a new era of transcendence in our lives.
Conclusion: Thoughts On That Which Is Beyond All Thought
We all have had problems listening to each other. We all have had problems listening to ourselves. Yet, our stories must be told, and we must listen to other people’s story, with respect and compassion for ourselves, and for the other. Every good story has an ending. And, so do our bad stories. What value is a story, if it is never told? What value is love, if it is never shared? What is the value of speaking, if nobody is even listening? What is the value of writing, if there is nobody left to read?
Even if you remain lost in the shadows, having vainly pursued the mythical Garden of Eden, the dangerous Minotaur in the labyrinth, or the dark kingdom of Mordor, there still is hope. To be insane in an insane world, to be a stranger in a strange land, is the true new normal for many people presently wandering upon the face of this troubled planet. How we deal with the insanity determines whether we remain imprisoned, or eventually find our freedom. Blaming others for our present station in life is self-defeating. Yet, that is the first response of an immature mind, a mind not ready and willing to make the necessary adjustments in course to create a new life experience.
Mass hypnosis, oppression, mental illness, drug addiction and alcoholism, and their most destructive spawn, murder and suicide, have been a scourge upon the fabric of human consciousness for time immemorial. Our mental journey far away from Eden begins with the loss of self esteem and mutual respect, loss of personal meaning, and the loss of clarity in making good choices for our life. This confusion morphs into depression, alienation, isolation, anxiety, despair and loneliness. Suicide, the ultimate act of repression against self, and murder, the ultimate act of oppression of the other, appears as a reasonable choice for the final act of protest against life from those suffering from the terminal effects of oppression and repression. Suicide and murder are cruel acts against those with loving intentions , and are tragic forms of violence against self, family, friends, and the supporting community.
Suicide and murder are perceived to be the only solution for desperate souls who have reached the end of their options. Our society continues to supply potential perpetrators, and victims, at a catastrophic rate, and that rate will only increase, as the diseases of planned political divisiveness, oppression of those not in the cultural “in” group, addiction and mental illness within our culture continues to increase. I have known, and buried, far too many friends and family members who were waiting for a better day, and life, while abusing drugs and alcohol, or collapsing into mental illness.
My own wait for a better day has born great fruits for me, but the fruit was not acquired passively or through waiting for the outer conditions of my life to improve. I first had to confront my own suffering, and the sources within my mind, memory, and heart that would push me towards self-annihilation. Suffering need not lead to death, for those who choose to awaken.
Life can be an extremely humbling experience. Those blessed few who stop resisting life and develop the capacity to accept defeat are the ones most receptive to healing. It is when we are defeated that we become the most open to life affirming change and growth. After accepting the grace innate within the willingness to change, we can accept personal responsibility for the rest of our lives. We finally learn that the willingness and capacity for changes in our attitudes and behaviors can become our higher power.
When our goal has finally been spotted, or, has spotted us, we each can make our own unique path towards it. The trail that each one of us blazes is as important as any path made by any prophet, saint, or savior who has ever lived, or will live. It is only our ego, or the egos of the hero worshipers of other faiths who have not yet realized their own highest truth that would say otherwise.
To make dramatic changes in my life, the desire had to come from a place deep within myself. I did not change because my wife and family, my friends, my minister at church, my employer, my political leaders, or my people pleasing attitudes cajoled or advised me to change. I had to begin to value myself differently, and to become conscious that my behavior was causing irreparable harm to myself, to other human beings, to our animal brothers and sisters, and/or to the sustainability for life on this planet. I understood that my behavior was insane, and that I had a death wish for myself, and/or for others. I sought for a higher power or energy to overcome my insanity.
Bringing healing to a situation is about recognizing what we are not doing well and accepting where we can improve, right now, in this moment, to help unfold more holistic intentions. Positive change follows the heart’s intentions, if the heart is pure. If it is a desire from the Heart, never stop seeking that which seems unattainable, for it is the heart itself seeking for its own highest expression. Please do not stop until Life’s Miracle reveals Itself to you.
Built right into the very fabric of life, is death itself. There are up to one hundred trillion cells within our human bodies that are constantly dying off, and being replaced by others so that we can continue to live, and even evolve (or regress as the situation may dictate). So also should all of our old thoughts die off, to be replaced by newer, more vibrant creations, if we are to continue to live, and grow, and even evolve. Those who do not do the work to shed the old ways, the old thoughts, the incomplete and inaccurate ways of seeing life, and being in life, will remain the poor among us, and more susceptible to the ravages of disease, aging and deterioration of the mind and body.
Even though the disease and despair wrought by toxic male energy is woven throughout the collective garment that now covers our humanity, there are many threads of hope interwoven within it, as well, and these threads are our hope for transcendence. Most forms of insanity can be healed without a lifetime of therapy or taking medications, if it is recognized that at its source, insanity arises from the habituated thoughts, feelings, and actions created through our lifelong unconscious accommodations to trauma.
Insight changes attitudes, insight changes behaviors, and insight changes lives. Always question prevailing attitudes and philosophies of the people in power, be they politicians, employers, pop psychology or spirituality gurus, or religious figures. Healthy skepticism is warranted whenever a person or organization tries to exert pressure on individuals to conform to certain beliefs or traditions. Never sit idly by while witnessing injustice or unfair and hurtful judgement and action meted out by the people in power against innocent people. By your silence, you are supporting the ignorant and the evil doers. They will use your silence to claim that you were in full support of their abhorrent behavior. Do not join in their conspiracy of silence.
The closer I get to my God, or the creator of my creations, the more anonymous that I become, and the more my story becomes about the truth of life, and, a little less about myself. My story may have little or no value to you, yet, there is a story, long neglected within your own heart and soul, patiently awaiting its delivery to our world. Your world awaits the King or Queen within you. You only needs to pick up your own unique crown of the truth of being, and wear it with integrity and love.
I’m not sure this section belongs here, but will figure it out when I go through the material again.
Not sure where this belongs yet. Maybe in the conclusion.
