Chapter : Empathy, and The Mystery of the Path Between You And Me
Life’s journey is forever like a dotted line pathway. It is the quality of our connections with each other that fills in the space between the dots. Empathy is the major vehicle for our consciousness to transcend our apparent differences, enabling each of us to connect the dots in a mutually affirming manner. It is only through each other that we can see who we really are. I am you, and you are me, and together we are everything, apart, we are still chained together by whatever separates us. We find our shared meaning, which links us together on our journey in Spirit—-Elisha Scott
Humans are social creatures; we survive through our connections to others. But because of the lemming effect and common knowledge game, the potential for both corruption and healing exist within our social connections. Another facet of the most fundamental truths of our existence is the extraordinary potential for the depth of our connections to each other, and how strongly that connection influences all of us, for good and for bad. If we learn to collectively embrace this universal fact, we would have a clue as to how to reduce the incidences of disease and distress in our world without just tattooing more medical technology upon our body and souls.
Modern America faces several problems, including COVID-19, cultural divisiveness, addictions, obesity, cancer, and gun violence. These pandemics are creating more opportunities for eruptions of drama and anxiety, which interbreeds with any potentially unhealed pain and suffering already inherent within our lives. We must become more conscious of how the unconscious actions of others, and our own unfulfilled healing response, tend to introduce more traumatic influences into our own lives. Following a healing path means being spiritually present for others, while recognizing and transforming both individually and collectively, all internalized trauma dramas.
Love, hate, and indifference are three terms that we use to help describe the quality of our relationships with each other. To some extent, in various proportions, all of us employ these three qualities of energy exchange in our lives, depending on the person and/or the situation involved. As human beings we experience love and hatred as powerful emotions, which guide all subsequent feelings and perceptions in predefined directions. Love is an open system of friction free energy exchange and hate is more of a closed, attenuated system of energy exchange, both of which bind us to each other, in easily identifiable, though divergent manners. As we know, love is the open channel that compassion may flow through, while hatred is the closed channel that traumatizes both the receiver, and the giver, of that energy.
Indifference is a quality of attention that attempts to keep everybody and everything separate from the observer, and the emotionally detached individual is choosing to live in a closed system, or spiritual vacuum. Those practicing total indifference live in an isolated world, with little real emotional connection with anybody or anything other than their own emotions, thoughts and feelings. Indifference is often times the result of traumatic influences, and results in the emotional and spiritual oppression of others, and a repression of the personal spirit, as well. For most normal people, indifference is only applied to special situations, and is not applied to a complete life experience. Yet, the quality of indifference gives the practitioner the illusory sense of having no personal accountability to that which is being witnessed. Personal responsibility for a collectively shared error in the heart is denied, and the potential for a shared healing experience is negated.
What is Empathy?
Empathy, in both its positive and negative expressions, is a name for the mechanism for transporting emotional energy to create a form of resonance or connection between sentient beings, and is always in play in both love and hate relationships. In positive empathy, energy flows freely in both directions, between the “giver” and the “receiver.” There is a shared sense of the expansion of the self. In negative empathy, energy flow is uneven, and dominated by one party, potentially resulting in forms of oppression of the other, and repression of aspects of the self, by the giver, and, potentially, the repression of aspects of the self by the receiver. There is a strong sense of the contraction of the self by at least one party in this energy exchange.
Contemporary research into neuroscience tells us that our brains, like those of other primates, contain mirror neurons. These neurons are triggered in our own brains when someone else is sad, angry, or happy, and those mirror neurons, in coordination with other pre-cognitive and cognitive functions, helps us to feel what we would experience if we were in that person’s place. If our experiences are similar enough, we can empathize in a way that promotes a connection, which can be soothing to the other person. The effort to understand someone else, when made in good faith, can go a long way towards helping them feel better and even, sometimes, to change their behaviors. This can be considered to be a collaboration between the spirit of the individuals in communication. The changing of another’s behavior is not the conscious intention of empathy, though most find that through the empathetic connection each participant is taken beyond the former boundaries of their understanding of self and other.
Human beings are usually quite empathetic beings. Studies are showing that all animals, especially those mammalian in nature, share in this often times sublime characteristic. It is very difficult to harm another person if we can sense the suffering that they are presently experiencing, or that we may actually be causing them.
Empathy has been found to have not just a positive aspect to it, but that empathy can also drag an unsuspecting empath into the ditch with someone who may be of low consciousness. It might be termed negative empathy, which is a state of being so sensitive to other people’s experiences that we become overwhelmed by their suffering, to the point where we begin to suffer ourselves. This has the opposite effect of the collaboration that occurs through positive empathy, instead becoming an alliance of shared mutual personal pain, which eventually results in new forms of emotional isolation. The extreme form of this empathy is the stigmata syndrome, where the empath takes on so much of the suffering energy and experience of a hated or a treasured person, that they manifest in their own bodies and minds the wounds and symptoms of the person that they have become obsessed with.
Empathy, positive or negative, is one of several powerful transmission vehicles for human collective consciousness to be carried to us as individuals, as well as acting as a return vehicle for our individual experiences to be delivered back to the collective field. Collective consciousness contains the history of the knowledge that human beings have accrued over eons of time. It contains a vast matrix of dedicated/fixed pathways of responses to all manors of environmental and social interactions. This is the entirety of our species’ training which has been transmitted to, or handed down to, countless generations of human beings, through parental interactions, education, religious training, and the lifelong social and emotional training gained by our continuous interface with other members of our species . Yet, as so much of this common knowledge is a result of incomplete or inaccurate information, and is the accumulation of all the theories embedded in our cultural past. If we act in a knee jerk reaction, or unconscious manner, to any societal or environmental stimulus, our response is all too likely to be dated, and inappropriate. The Judeo/Christian religious metaphor here is that our “first born” thought may need to be “sacrificed” so as to make way for the truth of the moment.
Hate and Love
Constructive anger is spontaneous, arising from being an active witness of the present moment, and is always relevant, productive, wakes up the oppressed and repressed spirit, and is helpful in generating extra motivational energy for constructive engagement with a world needing change. Constructive anger gives all parties involved an opportunity to share in the perception of a wrong or an injustice, and share in a plan to right the wrongs. Hatred and its divisive energy, on the other hand, has much deliberation behind it.
Hatred arises from the historical deposits of unresolved anger or repressed pain and suffering within our memories, and looks at punishment and/or the destruction of others as a primary objective. Hatred develops from the collective deposits of darkness that our culture has handed down to us over many generations, as well as also arising from our personal painful and negative memories incurred over the course of our lives. Hatred, both collectively and individually acquired, becomes entrenched as a mostly unconscious dark power broker within our minds, keeping each of us pilloried to the past, and emotionally chained to the object(s) of our hatred. We are no longer free to respond to each new moment as it unfolds, instead substituting old patterns of self-defeating and oppressive responses to others, while repressing the desire to connect with peace and love.
According to the latest research on the human brain and its capacity to form perceptions, the brain works by “predictive coding.” It integrates new information based on the beliefs provided by old information. A typical human being moving through the world is not just passively perceiving sensory inputs through the senses, but actually assembles a model in the mind based on what is expected to be seen. This mental setup allows the perceiver to move unbothered through the world, taking in each detail without too much analysis. The brain has been found to have the capacity to over predict, at times expecting something to be there that is not. That expectation can, literally, create a self-hypnotic suggestion, and a non-existent thing can be perceived as if it was really there. This fact has been verified by mystics, sages, and now, quantum theorists, so it should not be passed over like an unpopular dish at dinner time. Historically, the human race has fallen prey to toxic leadership.
As human beings in social environments, we have come to expect that our leaders will lead with integrity and morality, though inevitable weaknesses will occasionally make themselves evident. If our leader is of high enough integrity, we may even want to pattern ourselves after them, should we also aspire to any leadership roles in our own future, including taking charge of our own lives. Patterning after others who are successful is considered to be a normal and natural response, while also being an evolutionary adaptation. To survive, and prosper as a species, we became willing to adopt attitudes and perform actions that others may have succeeded with in the past, as well as remaining open to any new unfoldment in our understanding that will complement our unique role.
Yet, there are many times when we pattern ourselves after an adored member of the status quo, or the institutionalized understanding of the past, and we may be led down deceptive paths of reasoning, with resultant poor social and personal health decisions and outcomes. We may become subtly, or profoundly, traumatized through these relationships. “What would Jesus do?” can be a benign question, and may even lead the Christian oriented questioner down a more spiritually centered path, as long it does not lead to more conformity to dogma or the practicing of other systems of traumatic oppression such as the religion’s historical institutionalized misanthropy, including misogyny and racism.
We all suffered because of the collective narrative of hatred being shared by the victims and their accusers. The only way to permanently remove spiritual eyesores from our vision is to heal our inner sight, realizing that profound changes in our own consciousness eventually impacts our world, remembering that, “All that we will ever see unto eternity is ourselves.” Because our minds are inextricably intertwined with the collective consciousness of the world, we will continue to have ample opportunities to bring healing to the world, and to our sense of self.
What can be most difficult to consider is the truth that people that habitually hate others also hate themselves. Some may try to hide from self-loathing and hatred through false narratives of their own greatness, while deriding and demeaning all unlike self. The multitude of lies and deceptive behavior, and the need to manipulate others perceptions show an absolute need to hide from the truth a diminished sense of self. This is manifested through continuously projecting out of this mind, by accusing the innocent, and the guilty, of one’s own personal shortcomings, deceptions, and criminality.
This communication style is absolutely crazy making for any rational, intelligent human being, and the witness to his expression can feel like the fabric of sanity is being ripped apart right before their eyes. For those not under a hypnotic trance, this spiritual depravity is easily perceived, and felt. The unwary watcher, in an involuntary and forced relationship with this disfigured being, through negative empathy can inadvertently share in others hatred of self. This is another manifestation of the stigmata syndrome, where the entrained observer inadvertently takes on the negative energy of the person under observation, and through the mirror neuron phenomenon, or negative empathy, share in the disfigured spirit that this darkness continues to manifest.
Mindfulness allows for us to see what is immediately before us, and choose between the knowns of the past, and the unknown present. Forgiveness is an openness to the mystery of the present. Forgiveness, however, does not forget or excuse the offender from his misdeeds, especially while the offender continues abhorrent behavior. Forgiveness releases the practitioner from the damages of incurring negative perceptions of others. We still must act consciously and decisively against all forces which continue to imperil our lives, our family’s lives, and the life of our planet. We must continue to be willing to speak truth to power, whether the power is in the White House, or in our own hearts.
Love unifies, while hate fragments and traumatizes. As human beings, we must be conscious enough to choose the best way to present ourselves to the world, and to ourselves, as we face the challenges of the insanity within our world. Our world is in greatest need of hearts that are expanding through mutual positive empathy, rather than contracting through negative empathy, or indifference. We did not create the world as it is now, we cannot control it, nor can we cure it. But we can evolve, and, collectively, we can address the disease of the spirit that is dominating our world civilization, and which continues to bring devastation to our world, and to all of the life upon it.
We must sacrifice our own misunderstandings of who we mistakenly thought that we were, and who and what we thought the rest of creation is, allowing for the new universal truth to resurrect our understanding of self and other. Failure to do so will make us more vulnerable to unconsciousness, where the process of negative empathy, and in the extreme, collective suffering and the stigmata syndrome, may expose us to spiritual chaos, and potentially death. The world will always be reminding us how far we are, collectively, from healing. We do our best to remain engaged with the world, while not allowing the world to overrun our morals, ethics, and spiritual intentions. And we need not spiritually die because of the “sins” of the world, whether it is toxic capitalism, toxic masculinity (and patriarchy), toxic politics, or toxic religion. We always retain freedom of choice, and must exercise and accept personal responsibility for those choices, in all of our lives. If our choices bring harm to ourselves or to each other, we are free to choose again. We make amends wherever possible after any error in our presentation, which keeps our empathy channels fully opened.
We must remain spiritually vigilant as we continue to be a conscious presence engaging with a world still dominated by toxic masculinity, toxic politics, toxic capitalism, and toxic religion. We must be able to access our anger, not hatred, as we address the injustices wrought upon the human soul through the ignorance and toxicity of others. Love will be our guardian as we make the difficult confrontations with those who do not respect, or honor, the wholeness of life on our Mother Earth that we all share together in love and in truth.
Achieving Higher Consciousness
As we see the totality of the movement of thought as time, and its nature of keeping us tethered to a past, or to a future that is always an extension of this past, we can free ourselves from those illusory controls. We can live more of a life based on the ever unfolding now, or present moment, thus unleashing vast reservoirs of intuition and spiritual power.
Each of us are beings with infinite potential. Yet, each of us must break free from the conditioning of our personal past, and our cultural past. There are four pillars supporting higher consciousness, which are:
- Negative: through negating what is not real, seeing what might be real,
- Positive: through constantly affirming the goodness inherent in life, reading the writings of mystical poets and saints, and being a grateful participant of life, we may experience Grace.
- Transformative: through re-creating or re-birthing ourselves through educational means and/or mystical connection, and bringing forth a new person, or our new understanding of our self, into the world, in the image and likeness of a more universal consciousness.
- Creative: developing and/or expressing our innate ability to co-create with the Universe, by expressing ourselves through art, music, writing, or other means. We must access the deepest of desires to transcend the boundaries of self, and to reimagine our existence.
We must travel new paths of consciousness, letting go of all controls that keep us tethered to the past, with its incomplete perceptions and understandings. In the end, there is no teacher who will effect our salvation, for it is a personal journey, where we must accept responsibility for the totality of our lives, and make all necessary adjustments in course that will take us to our spiritual goals. We can actually rebirth ourselves, into a new understanding that the Universe has birthed itself in an infinitude of forms through the portal of Mother Earth, and each of us is “one verse” of the song of creation.
The further along the path of Truth and Love that we travel, the more that we understand that, all we will ever see, unto eternity, is extensions of our Self. How we see our Self today determines the quality of Love and Truth that we manifest in our lives. How we see our Self today determines how much spiritual power can be brought to our damaged planet, which is now dependent upon us. How we see our Self today determines how much, as awakening beings, we are able to bring healing to our shared, damaged human consciousness. There is no power in Heaven or on Earth greater than “I am.”
Hatred, indifference, positive or negative empathy, love, healing, or mutual destruction are parts of our infinite potentiality. The choice is ours to make for our own unique life experience, when we have become more healed and conscious There is a Silence within each of us attempting to inform our consciousness as to how to best exercise our free will. What is our choice today? The Silence continues to reach out to the turbulence within our world, and to bring balance back to our unbalanced soul.
Chapter : Anger, Self Awareness, and Mastery
But you can’t get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beatifically, avoiding your anger and damage and grief. Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth. We don’t have much truth to express unless we have gone into those rooms and closets and woods and abysses that we were told not go in to. When we have gone in and looked around for a long while, just breathing and finally taking it in – then we will be able to speak in our own voice and to stay in the present moment. And that moment is home.
—-Ann Lamott
Anger is not a shortcoming to be denied, but a creative force that tells us when something is wrong.
– Austin Channing Brown
There are those purporting to be spiritual teachers and advisors, who are admonishing their followers to abhor using human emotions with their dealings with the public. Specifically, I frequently hear that a requirement for maintaining spiritual integrity is to not express anger in any form, and instead to substitute “loving thoughts” and “forgiving actions.” Really?
By the way, have you ever noticed how so many of the so-called spiritual savants, or gurus from foreign lands, do not have families? What is the real teaching here, do you think? It is so much easier to talk love and light for all beings, especially when one does not have to deal directly with the most challenging of human relationships. From the middle of 1987 to early 1988, I spent over 6 hours a day in meditation and prayer, and I had very few problems with my relationships with people. I lived in perfect peace and harmony within myself. Also, I had no children, or nobody to call me on my isolation and (potential) loneliness. All in all, it was beautiful for me, yet totally disengaged from the challenges of integration into society, and family and friendship development. I value my time in the “real world,” where the beauty, and the pain, of human existence is my greatest teacher. Mysticism has a place in our world, yet I struggle to find how to best stay in alignment with its ecstasy, and enlightenment, while maintaining a normal human experience. Perhaps I will drink again from its deep waters, when I have finally wearied of this world.
If our minds are fed anything other than facts, especially within established communities of human beings, we are involved in a process known as maya, or illusion creating, and our worlds tend to end up in chaos. The result is individual and cultural hypnosis and schizophrenia, where we can end up losing personal power, and we can be too easily bullied by the wayward opinions and false insights of others. Too often those who claim to have real knowledge are as lost as everybody else, even though they may be claiming righteousness, religious or otherwise. When we try to fit into a situation or setting where our heart tells us we don’t belong, honor those feelings, and investigate where they are coming from. If we feel that we are already swimming in the divine ocean, then we can watch, and wait, and see who is swimming with us, and join with them as indicated (or reach out and help lift another up, as they request help). Our cultural spiritual dementia needed to be challenged, lest we all 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.
On the other hand, an institutionalized expression of anger becomes hatred in disguise, and that characterizes the oppressive nature of far too many male originated, and dominated, philosophies. When anger becomes an automatic response to all situations where threat is perceived, then the intelligence of the moment is denied, and we are susceptible to bringing needless harm to our bodies, and to our minds, as well as to the other.
When I was eight, my family went on a camping trip with another family, and during the stay, the dad of the other family, Bob, severely overreacted to my sister and me. When we told my parents that he’d become excessively angry and threatening to us, my father confronted him about his rage. Bob got angry again, denied that he threatened us, and then commanded me to get my story straight before complaining about his behavior in the future. Several years later, while in a fit of rage with his wife, he intentionally crashed his car head-on into another car at a high rate of speed, killing himself and crippling his wife for life. The act of getting our story straight, and calling out ourselves or someone for being disrespectful or engaging in hurtful behavior will not necessarily guarantee any immediate positive outcomes, but it disrupts the conspiracy of silence, if only for a moment.
Repression and oppression helps nobody in the long run, though they maintain an order of false peace and control for the status quo. In the seeing, or the development of insight into self, change is facilitated. Everybody needs to become more conscious of the self, and fine tune how we respond to our emotions, but the point is to accept personal responsibility for our emotions, see how they impact ourselves and others, and make necessary adjustments in course if we have behaved inappropriately.
Constructive Anger
Anger is a natural, normal response, in any particular new moment, to any assault on our being, on those that we love, or on our inner sensibilities. Anger, among all other emotions, and in balance with those aspects of our self, help us to manage our response to the outer world, which is, at times, quite the aggressive, distressed, ugly, oppressive environment. Anger is not positive or negative energy, it is human energy, and like all aspects of our humanity, it needs to be understood in the context from which it arises and when and how it expresses itself.
Anger can bring fear to the unaware among us, because of an incomplete or unhealed response to its expression in their past. We have all been persecuted, at one time or another (or many times), by the angry parent, boss, co-worker, or stranger driving next to us in a car. Or, how about the rapist, or child molester, who tries to attack us, or our children? According to classic psychology, humans engage in fight or flight behavior when they experience fear and/or perceive that they are being attacked. Whether we choose one or the other depends on any number of circumstances, and one size does not fit all.
We all feel a need to be in control and to conform to social norms, especially those “norms” expressed in the common knowledge game that dominates the unaware human consciousness. Philosophies and theologies that stress the need to repress aspects of our human nature need to be examined in their fullness, and not accepted at face value. By their very nature, any umbrella philosophy and theology devalues the intelligence of the moment, and intentionally and/or unwittingly contribute to the suppression and repression of sacred human values and emotions.
Anger, when balanced, keeps us as complete beings, capable of accessing and expressing the wholeness of our being with emotionally intelligent actions appropriate to the activity of the moment. In other words, we can get mad. We can express our anger in appropriate ways. Doing so is beneficial.
There is a Wisdom deep inside us all, waiting to inform all of our thoughts and actions in this world. And, this world requires Ultimate intelligence to navigate through it successfully, without bringing harm to ourselves and others needlessly. Anger and fear are not to be repressed by any healthy human being, but instead are to be witnessed, studied, and utilized intelligently for wise action in this troubled world. In the words of Bob Marley, “Stand up, stand up, stand up for your rights!” But, make sure that the anger is appropriate to the moment, and not some formulaic response that the non-healed, unbalanced nature within your own self offers up under many questionable circumstances.
How to Respond to Anger
To respond successfully in anger, we need to measure how mindfully we can engage these threats, and successfully group our own thoughts and actions, with others also engaged in the situation, to either fight the oppressors, or to speak our truth, and be heard. We do not engage in mass protests because we want to go for a walk with a bunch of strangers, we engage in protests because we want our voices heard. Channeled anger is an effective, time-tested method for standing up to those who would keep us silent in the face of their own misdeeds.
Anecdotally, we hear of those rare few who have successfully mitigated dark, evil circumstances, through some fortunate “intervention” through prayer, or luck, where those who are attacking us somehow are diverted, and move their aggression elsewhere. Stories of Gandhi’s non-violent protest against British occupancy of India’s lands gets a lot of play in so-called “spiritually aware circles.” Remember, though, the many years of British occupation prior to that stand, and Britain’s diminishing will to keep their empire extended throughout the world. We only need watch the news, or read the paper, to see that these anecdotal stories do not embrace the reality underlying most of the final acts, and resulting actions, of the aggressive ones. Murder, rape, child molesting, intimidation, oppression, misogyny, road rage, terrorism, paternal violence in ALL OF ITS FORMS, keeps manifesting itself, and has throughout all of history. Those who are inspired to make peaceful approaches to these problems must continue, yet, so do those who aggressively confront the forces of oppression and darkness.
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.
Alcoholism, depression, mental illness, murder, suicide, participating in the continued destruction of our sacred Mother Earth, and other manifestations of dis-empowered male energy can be the results of loss of integrity, and stifling ones feelings and voice. And, this is not yet another spiritual theory, this is the actuality of American male life, and of my life. Sitting in meditation, and or quoting other spiritually enlightened individuals may have brought me a temporary measure of peace, but this whole process became yet another opiate, and it never brought the change required by my spirit for its own emergence into its own unique wholeness. Thoughts and prayers are great preparation for action, but, without action, thoughts and prayers are only mental masturbation .
Chapter : An Electrician’s Guide To The Galaxy
We need a real awakening, enlightenment, to change our way of thinking and seeing things. To breathe in and be aware of your body and look deeply into it, realize you are the Earth and your consciousness is also the consciousness of the Earth.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Forty-two is a significant number in the classic book The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams. In the book, this number is the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, calculated by an enormous supercomputer named Deep Thought over a 7.5 million year period. Will we be saved by the number 42? Probably not. And I am not a space hitchhiker. But as an electrician, I like to think humanity can be saved by zero.
I am an expert in electrical connections, having been an electrical/electronic/computer engineering student for six years in the 1970s and 1980s, and an electrician from 1980 until my retirement in 2016. I have found much in my field of expertise in electrical theory that models many aspects of spirituality and its potential for human empowerment. In a process control theory class that I took with fifteen other electricians in 1992, I observed and was impressed by how these feedback and feedforward dependent control systems resembled the functions and internal workings of our human minds, especially with activities like goal setting and achieving.
Technology is always improving, yet the forces of resistance and impedance, reluctance, and friction generated heat are always present in any system, be it electrical, mechanical, or human in nature. Everything has a life cycle associated with it, starting with its birth and/or introduction into the world, and its exit through deterioration and death. As we remember from our high school physics class and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, every closed system of energy will experience entropy, unpredictability, chaos, and eventual destruction through the effects of friction and heating.
There is a human equivalent to this 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and we see it arise in people, and in societies, that fiercely cling to the past, with all of its outdated structures of understanding. The more that cognitive dissonance arises between our intuition, understanding, and personal knowledge and the socially accepted norms and dogmas of the day, the more conflict, friction, and inflammatory responses will be experienced by everyone. Human energy systems, like parachutes, work the best when they open up. If a philosophy of continuous process improvement (evolution) has been adopted, then functioning may be stabilized, or actually improved, all the way through to the end of the engineered system’s, or human being’s, life cycle.
A primary law of consciousness itself is that all that we see are extensions of our own minds, which is just another form of energy. Remember, everything that we see or experience is energy, either in its potential (resting) or kinetic (action) form. And we are energy, with an infinite capacity to do work, or to be at rest. The words, concepts, and languages that we utilize help us to build energy, store it, and then utilize it in ways that are resonant with our concept of our greater good.
Electricity, like language, spirituality, and truth, requires no belief, only an understanding of its potential for either empowering us or bringing harm to us if we remain ignorant of all of their supporting laws. Electricity is electrons in movement, concepts are words in movement, and spirituality is love in movement. By definition, any energy that moves over time is doing work, and all of their energies can be harnessed to do the work necessary for the betterment of mankind.
Mother Earth, amongst its almost infinite potential for creating and supporting life, has an electromagnetic nature, with its magnetic north and south poles. Humans are electro-biological beings, also being made of Earth stuff, thus we are not only electromagnetically inspired, but also influenced by all of Mother Earth’s other characteristics. Through a process of shared consciousness not yet fully understood by scientists and biologists, the life force field that constitutes our being exchanges information continuously with the environment, which shows that there may be unexpected outcomes for the human race with the loss of biodiversity through our heartless, reckless expansion through the natural world.
Our bodies have over 50 trillion biologically and electrically interconnected cells that are totally derived from our ground of being, Mother Earth. We are not only created from materials endemic to this planet, we are a minute version of Her. We are also influenced by all of the forms of life that have derived their existence from this almost infinite ground of being. Humanity has an extraordinary possibility for resonance with all of our natural world, if it would only rejoin it. When we return to our source and connect with nature, our energetic frequency begins to change, and may actually appear to oscillate with the same frequency of life force as the Earth and the rest of its life forms.
Our modern world has encouraged us to become increasingly disconnected from nature. Civilization with its need for farming and cities has overrun vast tracks of the natural world, eliminating much of our spiritual and physical support. We eat, sleep, and live indoors, drive automobiles that are supported by insulating rubber tires, wear shoes that create a barrier to the Earth, work in offices with no plants or outdoor views, are subject to constant distraction and philosophical oppression and corruption from religious and political authorities, hyper-stimulated through smart phones and media obsession. This 21st century lifestyle contributes to a lack of connection with nature, which is the manifestation of our True Ground.
Without being connected to the Earth, we become ungrounded. In at least a figurative sense, if not literally, we are constantly taking on frequencies that aren’t very supportive of our human minds and bodies; frequencies that conflict with our natural resonance. Without grounding, it becomes difficult for us to discharge the frequencies that we’ve taken on board. We can even become controlled and oppressed by those chaotic energies.
Grounding Ourselves
Imagine, if you will, that there are 7.5 billion mountain peaks on our planet, each one representing one human life. And, imagine that each peak looks at the other peaks, and does not see that each peak is connected to the same Earth, and each peak would not exist without its support. Now imagine that each peak wants to try to establish a connection with the other peaks. The biggest bridge building project in history must be undertaken, to connect all of the peaks together.
Now imagine that these bridges are actually the energy of words, sentences, perceptions, and concepts. These bridges are our “bonding jumpers” to each other, so hopefully we bond through mutual love and compassion, and not hatred and fear, though both are possible. These bridges are equivalent to our collective consciousness, the matrix that verbally connects the entirety of humanity together. Yet what about the connection to the Earth? If the peak feels separate from its ground of support, what might bring connection back to the peak? Can each peak find its own unique ground of support? Can one postulate that the ground of our being calls out to the peaks to remember their true ground? And will the Earth send messages to the peaks, to remind them of their origin? Would one call those words that bring awareness back to our true connection with the Earth the word of God? These inspired words could be called our grounding connections.
Without a common reference point, our words and concepts will be out of phase with other reference points, minimizing harmonization with others. Communication failures resulting from conflicting frames of reference creates stress and anxiety. Over time, it takes its toll on our mental and physical health too. Without a connection with the Earth, we don’t share in a healing common knowledge, negating or preventing any sense of supportive calm and well-being that happens naturally when we are earthed.
Electricity does not exist without a difference in potential energy, or voltage, between components, and a completed or closed loop circuit to carry its energy, with a common reference potential. Spirituality and truth, to the as yet unawakened individual, are also manifestations of the difference in potential energy between a person’s collective self concept and any ground of being or ultimate truth that exists. Words are continuously being formed in our minds to bridge that gap, in our own sometimes vain attempt to measure and understand our elusive ground energy of consciousness, which may be immeasurable, yet it must become our common reference point, lest we continue to build into our human systems increasing divisive thinking, volatility and incoherence.
By internationally accepted electrical standards, ground potential is set to zero volts, and all derived or existing voltages are referenced to that ground, or zeroed voltage. Literally, the safety and operational integrity of any system is preserved, protected, and saved by zero, or a common ground potential.
Electricians are required to learn the philosophy of grounding, so as to prevent safety issues from arising, or accidents from happening. Grounding and bonding techniques are utilized for the design and proper functioning of any electrical system. “Ground” in the power-distribution grid is literally the ground that’s all around you when you are walking outside. It is the dirt, rocks, groundwater and so on. Mother Earth is the direct source for all successful grounding, though bonding between discrete components and building structures supplies the necessary conductor paths to make sure that those circuits have a consistent reference potential grid tied to Mother Earth.
As a young lad, I had a next door neighbor friend who I helped to build an underground fort with. We would tell our parents that we were “camping out” in the yard, then after they went to bed, we would “hot wire” a cord to a light, which we would use to illuminate the inside of our expanding cave. One time, I became the ground path, when I brushed up against the exposed hot lead to the lamp. I screamed, shook, and struggled to free myself from the ground circuit I had become part of, and, by good fortune, i shook free and my life was saved. Another time, as an apprentice electrician, I had opened up a junction box, and saw some sparking under a big blue wire nut (used to hold multiple conductors together under one connection point). Without thinking, I reached out for the wire nut, to tighten it. The insulation had broken down from the arcing, and I became the ground for a 277 volt lighting circuit. I was able to jerk my hand free, but other electricians, and home owners, have been much less fortunate.
You have never known a more helpless feeling than being an unintentional ground, and the two near electrocution stories have stayed with me my entire life. Yet, what about those other broken connections, the ones human in nature, that have brought great harm to us and others? What about that boss who has built up a huge anger charge, just waiting to discharge it through some unwitting recipient? Or how about that religious fundamentalist who bullies or cajoles everyone who does not believe in the same biblical narrative that he was inculcated with? Who hasn’t ever wanted to ground out that obnoxious narrative? We never know who is just waiting to use our life to discharge their own negative energy through, do we?
Grounding is a process of connecting electrical systems, appliances, and metal enclosure to a common reference point, which is, typically, the potential of the ground that Mother Earth provides. Grounding provides a low resistance path for electricity to flow, and is part of the return path for any complete circuit.
Reference potentials in real life human experience of consciousness itself helps to stabilize connections and provide stability and extra predictability to relationships. If all people share a common knowledge and understanding, there will be no catastrophic failures within the communications aspects of the social network.
The best spiritual reference point is also Mother Earth. If the materials of Mother Earth are remembered to be the source for all life, then whatever true potential that we have is sourced through that sacred connection. A great way to stay spiritually grounded and bonded is to remember our true source, and to remember that we are of Mother Earth, and may consciously carry that spiritual energy into all of our relationships. As the Mother loves us, so we must bring that motherly love to ALL of our relationships, This dynamic energy exchange is a form of entrainment, or resonance.
So what might a personal experience of Ground look and feel like? 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. We were planning to backpack into Lookinglass Lake, about a ten mile hike one way.
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, though I remained excited about joining with my beloved partner Sharon on the hike.
Our drive took longer than expected, and we arrived in the Mt. Adams Wilderness area too late to reach the developed campground we wanted to use as a basecamp, 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 profound mystical, transcendental event.
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 in the Oregonian newspaper, so who knows what was happening there? There is only One Creator. There is no reason that we cannot be attuned with all of its creations, including all willing members of the human, animal, plant, geological, and even alien races. When we touch our Self with deep awareness, we touch everything.
By definition, Mother Earth is set to zero volts, and all other voltages are derived in relation to that value, and, thus, proper circuit operation is guaranteed. By grounding ourselves to Mother Earth, we can be saved by zero.
A Model for Human Consciousness
Consciousness can be modeled through many theories, and represented by many metaphors. One of the more valuable categories of circuitry is the RLC circuit, which has its human equivalent in consciousness, in which resonance may appear. Resonance has fascinating capacities for both an electrical and human circuit. Resonance extends its influence beyond its own physical boundaries, to influence surrounding circuits, or other humans. For electrical circuits, the capacity and quality of the resonance depends upon three factors. For human circuits, the capacity and quality of the resonance can figuratively be based upon those three primary factors, to the extent that we can model our consciousness through the RLC metaphor.
In electrical theory and practice, there are three qualities that characterize each resonating circuit. They are named: Capacitance, Inductance, and Resistance/Impedance.
- Capitance
Capacitance, as far as human consciousness is concerned, denotes our ability to store energy, and then release it, as the situation may dictate. We really need to build up a charge, before we are inspired to communicate, or to take action in the world, don’t we? Hopefully, we are not constantly charging our hate, lust, or greed capacitors, and instead charge more healthy collaborative ideals. Trauma gets electrically attached to our body, becoming unconscious charge centers that influence every other charge center in our consciousness. I have come to name these centers black holes.
Capacitance is the ratio of the amount of electric charge stored on a conductor to a difference in electric potential. There are two closely related notions of capacitance: self capacitance and mutual capacitance. Any object that can be electrically charged exhibits self capacitance. In this case the electric potential difference is measured between the object and ground. A material with a large self capacitance holds more frequencies. charge at a given potential difference than one with low capacitance. We can easily see the human parallel. If I am storing a big charge on one side of an emotional issue, and you are storing a charge which appears as an opposite polarity, there definitely will be major mutual capacitance.
Does our planet Earth have a capacitance? The electrical capacitance of earth C= 710 μF. Its spiritual capacitance may be infinite. Do humans have a capacitance?Every person has an electrical capacitance of around 100pF. Our spiritual capacitance may be infinite, as well.
- Inductance
Inductance, as far as human consciousness is concerned, also has its parallel. We all have a resistance to change, yet we all carry a vast field of energy within us, just waiting to move in harmony within us and the world under the right conditions. The greatest potential differences happen with the highest rate of change of charge flow, or current. If you want to develop your highest potential, make sure to find your proper reference ground, and allow all of your static stored charges to become dynamic and discharge them rapidly, rather than continuing to store them in a static field.
Inductance is the tendency of an electrical conductor to oppose a change in the electric current flowing through it. The flow of electric current creates a magnetic field around the conductor. The field strength depends on the magnitude of the current, and follows any changes in current. From Faraday’s law of induction, any change in magnetic field through a circuit induces an electromotive force (EMF) (voltage) in the conductors, a process known as electromagnetic induction. This induced voltage created by the changing current has the effect of opposing the change in current, though it never opposes it enough to stop the process, it only dampens it.
- Resistance
Resistance, as far as human consciousness is concerned, may point to any number of attitudes we may adopt, and actions we may take. If we were perfect conductors for Life, there would be no resistance, yet there would be no capacity for human energy storage or exchange. In a RLC circuit, resistance keeps a circuit from oscillating until eternity, instead dampening its action, until it eventually dies out. Yet, if another person engages with us who still is charged with the possibilities of any particular concept or ideology, our ideas can be re-energized through the previously discussed resonance principle.
There are no perfect conductors in our world, save those cooled to, wait for this, Absolute Zero temperature. Some might theorize that enlightened people have zero resistance to Life, thus they have no need to store energy. This might explain why they appear to need to do so little actual work in the world, while actually being a clearer channel for the intentions of our reference potential, or ground.
The electrical resistance of an object is a measure of its opposition to the flow of electric current. Electrical resistance shares some conceptual parallels with mechanical friction, as well as its important role within human consciousness itself. Have you ever felt a little resistance to new people, ideas, or experiences?
The resistance of an object depends in large part on the material it is made of. Objects made of electrical insulators like rubber tend to have very high resistance and low conductivity, while objects made of electrical conductors like metals tend to have very low resistance and high conductivity. This relationship is quantified by resistivity or conductivity. The nature of a material is not the only factor in resistance and conductance, however; it also depends on the size and shape of an object because these properties are extensive rather than intensive. For example, a wire’s resistance is higher if it is long and thin, and lower if it is short and thick. All objects resist electrical current, except for superconductors, which have a resistance of zero.
The human equivalents are obvious here. Some people are more resistant to other people’s ideas, or to change itself, than others. Biologically, we have an immune system that we count on to being resistant to any change that brings biological harm to ourselves, thus antibodies are created. At the level of human consciousness, our resistance to false narratives, racist or misogynist ideologies, or ignorant attacks against innocent life inspires our own macro version of “anti-bodies,” where we directly address and confront offending parties and their abhorrent philosophies, and keep them from spreading like the virus that they are.
Resonant or RLC circuitry
A form of human resonance occurs when large numbers of humans physically congregate together to protest against injustices, share in an idea, a musical group and their music, a pep-talk to affirm personal value for students at the local high school, join in a destructive mob,.or any of at least a million other reasons to humanly bond. Humans truly have the capacity to resonate with each other, for better or for worse. Without a common ground, or reference point, resonance will not lead to further stability of the whole human network, as it introduces yet more instability into the system.
What are the essential components within an electrical, or human, system, that creates this form of energy exchange? An RLC circuit is an electrical circuit consisting of a resistor, an inductor, and a capacitor, connected in series or in parallel. The RLC part of the name is due to those letters being the usual electrical symbols for resistance, inductance and capacitance respectively. The circuit forms a harmonic oscillator for current and resonates similarly to an LC circuit. The main difference stemming from the presence of the resistor is that any oscillation induced in the circuit decays over time if it is not kept going by a source. This effect of the resistor is called damping. Some resistance is unavoidable in real circuits, even if a resistor is not specifically included as a separate component.
There are many applications for this circuit. It is used in many different types of oscillator circuits. An important application is for tuning, such as in radio receivers or television sets, where they are used to select a narrow range of frequencies from the ambient radio waves. In this role the circuit is often referred to as a tuned circuit.
What about the human capacity to create their own tuned circuit? Our knowledge, concepts, and language are the very carriers of energy in our human consciousness circuitry, and they all need an extreme tune-up, if we are to survive as a species. There is nothing better in life than both connecting with the sacred silence within one’s self and deeply and honestly communicating with other human beings. And if we accept our roles as stewards over the animal and plant kingdoms, and Mother Earth Herself, we may also be afforded a personalized view into the True Miracle Of Life, which is our unity with all of creation. This requires no belief or dogma, only a direct experience of its love, power and potential. Through this collective connection of consciousnesses to an Earth ground, or reference point, we will travel new paths of consciousness that will lead to better communication, and improved stewardship over Mother Earth’s creations.
Connecting to the Higher Consciousness
Every single human being on this planet has a different potential energy, created and sustained through the countless concepts that have been integrated throughout life to establish and maintain the sense of self. Our differences need not destabilize our world, if we use our words to bond with each other, and all seek to share a same/similar ultimate reference point. Then, our shared Life Affirming concepts will bring resonance between all who are grounded well enough to share in them.
Our lack of connection to Nature, Mother Earth, and each other is destroying us, and the planet. Life is connection, connection is life. Continued addiction to poor self esteem, consumerism, indifference to others, emotional hiding and mutual deception, media distraction, and the callous disregard of the health and safety of our planet leads to further disconnection, disempowerment, illusion, and spiritual and emotional sickness, disease, and death. Distraction, or connection, it is our choice. If we devote ourselves to Life’s highest values of truth. Love for all life, intelligence, compassion, empathy, beauty, bliss, and wisdom, our grounded reference starting point, at Zero, will assist us in creating new paths of consciousness, and we can be saved by zero.
Chapter : Knowledge, Facts, Insight, And The Whim
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
What is knowledge, and how do we know what we know? Philosophers, scientists, religious thinkers, and beer drinkers throughout the ages have contemplated this most important question, for it has ramifications for our sense of self, its reality and formation, and our actual place in the Universe.
Rene Descartes was well known, not only for his volumes of scientific and mathematical writings and teachings, but also for his famous one liner: I think, therefore I am. Starting with Descartes, the self was considered to be a thinking thing that is not extended, and the object of the self’s observation is an extended thing which does not think. Duality is affirmed here, as the thinker, who is a dynamic being, traps the observed in a thought, which is a static enclosure, or perception. But those five words—I think therefore I am—certainly can get confusing, especially when other thinking human beings are involved. Many modern thinkers consider Rene’s dualism through his cause and effect statement as not fully embracing the nature of consciousness and our being, the wholeness of our being, and of our reality, and our relationship to its formation and experience. Descartes may have put de-cart before de-horse. Much of our knowledge serves to obfuscate and distract us from this most important issue, so we must continue our exploration of the mind, its knowledge, and the labyrinth of illusion that it creates which hides us from the blocks to our return to our original nature.
What is Knowledge?
What we, as a human race, presently accept as knowledge can be defined in many ways. It can be 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. By accessing all aspects of our intelligence, we can 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 perceptual attribute 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 unconscious knowledge, an act of will drowning in capriciousness and/or eccentricity. It appears as a 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 was right; they continued to harass her. This selection process dramatically impacted me, and has influenced my understanding of group dynamics ever since. 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.
The conscious being has infinite capacity to witness life and then create knowledge, where necessary, around those interactions. It only takes one time getting bitten 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. On the other hand, the curious and conscious ones might just walk around the snake, study it, and learn the lessons, without fear, that the snake has to offer.
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. Finding the real truth behind each new situation that presents itself to awareness is challenging.
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.
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.
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. Understanding what we now consider to be sources for knowledge is all important, as well.
Life in the Information Age
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.
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.
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.
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 looking there 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?
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.
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.
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.
Speaking up and participating are important. 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? 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.
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. Sometimes, just accepting the fact that we only truly know a little bit, compared to the whole of knowledge available, will keep us humble enough to remain open to the vastness of the unknown.
The unknown is the opening in our mind and heart that God (or 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. The unknown can be a long neglected best friend even for the curious and the conscious. 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!
Finding Truth
Truth 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 by the past, and its version of knowledge. 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. A quick type into Google, and you are being fed an illusion, and/or probably just another Capitalist and/or Christian theory. If the truth that we find on Google brings pleasure to us, remember, it is somebody else’s truth, and not necessarily our own.
Is truth to be relegated to our history, or to some distant past? Is truth somehow trapped in ancient scriptures, or in the ghosts of long deceased prophets? What if I told you that everything that you think you know about yourself is only a theory, and potentially an unproven one, at that? What if I were to tell you that everything that you think you know about your significant other, your children, your parents, and even your best friends are only theories, and potentially unproven ones at that? What if I were to tell you that 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 potentially unproven ones, at that? What if I were to tell you that everything that you think you know, or believe, about God, the Bible, Christianity, or other religions are only theories, and potentially unproven ones at that?
So, just what is Truth, anyway? Truth is the antidote for all inaccurate, second-hand, toxic and limiting theories. Truth is not just for the saints and sages. Yet, very few people have any interest in it, because of the belief that they are already covered by their religion, or that only their savior has the truth, or is the truth. There are others who believe that they already understand it, or, for others, that there is no such thing as truth. Sadly there is also a category of human beings who are so absorbed with their material world existence that the search for truth never even begins, because it does not sound very interesting or entertaining.
Truth is extremely difficult to conceptualize, because truth is elusive, and exists above and beyond all of the words used to chase it with descriptions. Truth is often times best described through poetry and music, where more of the brain becomes engaged to the energy attempting to be shared. But our words still serve a valuable function, yet forever remaining only pointers, or place-holders, for the energy that must be personally experienced, or it will never become psychologically real to the witness.
There is only a God when there is no longer a me questioning what is while still trying to justify one’s own opinions or ignorance. In that silence, Infinity finds its expression, and the observer is the observed. And there is no longer a need, or a desire, to find God, for God has found us. Yet, there is no longer the us, only the witnessing of infinity, by one no longer limited by a verbally intoxicated mind. It is in this silence that love flourishes, and moral and ethical action becomes spontaneous and natural. All that we will ever see, unto whatever eternity that we can perceive, is our Self. How will we see our Self today?
Pythagoras is credited with saying, “Know thyself, and thou will know God, and the Universe.” And Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” These two quotes set 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? 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. Whose prophecy are you now willing to fulfill?
Chapter : The Labyrinth, An Exit Strategy, A New Path Of Awakening
“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
If you seek help from the speaker, you are lost. There is no help from anybody, of any type-that is a dreadful thing to realize for oneself. You have realize the appalling, frightening fact that you, as a human being, have to stand completely on your own feet, there are no Upanishads, no Gita, No Bible, no leaders, no avatars, nothing than can save you, you have to save yourself–Krishnamurti and The New Mind
All that we see, or will ever see, unto eternity, is manifestations of our mind, and our self. Whether we are observing results of subatomic particle collisions within the CERN Hadron Particle Collider, observing internalized family and cultural systems, or using the Hubble telescope while peering nearly back to the beginning of time through our endless universe, all that we see are extensions of our own sensorial derived observations and our previous mental coding.
Literally, as we understand the outer world, we also are given vast insights to the inner workings of our minds, for the outer universe, though infinite in nature, becomes merely a collection of symbols, observations, and theories, and a de facto extension of the inner universe of our infinite, though often memory encumbered and numbed mind. We need to have enlightening clues, proper maps, or schematics, if we hope to understand the process for building or maintaining and repairing control systems, finding our way home if we are lost in the wilderness, or finding the exit to an imprisoning labyrinth. We also must understand all of the symbology used for proper interpretation of those helpful models. If we are lost in the wilderness, if we understand how to use a compass and an accurate map, we will also be able to find our way home again.
The basic process control theory underlying all modern industrial and manufacturing systems has an equivalent in the human mind, where we use feedback and feedforward information loops for refining and maintaining order, through mindfulness, personal inventory, and meditation. For humans, though our primary system of control is through our values, morality, ethics, and the laws of our society and of our religions, as we have not yet developed the understanding of all of the boundary conditions for our human experience, randomness of important life events and instability within one’s own spiritual ecosphere are all too common of human experiences.
In our world, there are countless examples of self-organizing systems, and all creatures, and the minds of those creatures, are examples of that miracle in action. Our bodies appear to be primarily organized through the pattern created by the history of the human species, and it’s interactions with its earthly environment. Our DNA appears to carry that pattern within our very cells. Rupert Sheldrake has coined the term “morphogenetic field” to help describe our life force, its field of possibilities, and our continuous connection with it. Our minds also have a self-organizing principle, as it organizes itself into our unique personal sense of being.
Naming and Using Words
Names are a convenience for communication, and are never comprehensive and inclusive enough to completely reveal the true natures of what they were created for in our minds to represent in the first place. As many spiritual advisors have stated, in their own unique way: “The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.”
Naming is the way that our consciousness weighs and measures new forms of life, ideas and experiences, in the attempt to insert the present unknown and the mysterious into a context for verbal understanding, which always has a past frame of reference. Naming attempts to attach a dynamic process to a fixed point in time and space, and thus lodges it in the past. Naming, in its negative essence is part of the very propagation of illusion, though, in its positive essence facilitates the transferring human energy, facts, and understanding.
The intellectual and the atheist, though possessing finely tuned minds, are tempted to believe that the highly developed intellect is the ultimate in human attainment. Thus, they can never explore the mystery, and the depth, of the human soul, and comprehend that, beyond our limited and limiting words and thoughts, we all have a connection with Infinity. The willing explorer of the new paths of consciousness and the mystic both have access to the limitless territory of the Spirit, and will soar to new heights and see the sights rarely seen by the rest of mankind. Mystics and spiritual journeyers have found their own true path, and need fewer outside forces to help them maintain balance and order in their lives. Their words are more inspired by their connection with their wholeness, and thus serve as bridges towards healing and communion, rather than the typically divisive self serving propaganda that most egos feed upon, repackage, and redistribute to the world.
Eventually, we must lay down our innate capacity for naming and defining our experience, with its continuous recording into our memory banks, and make peace with the unknown and mystery of the moment. If we are not yet experiencing our own unique version of enlightenment, it only means that we are still clinging to controls from our past, controls that were designed to keep us feeling fairly safe and secure from ongoing threats, be they real or imaginary. The controls have kept us within the boundaries of order, yet this order, observed with soul awareness, is only the ego’s order, which is limited, limiting, and apt to keep us pilloried to the past, rather than open to the ever creative and energizing mystery of the present moment. When the capacity to witness life without an endless stream of words and thoughts erupts within consciousness, the mystery of the Self is revealed, and replaces the historically disfigured prisoner called our ego with its awareness.
If establishing or maintaining order in society, in a manufacturing process, and/or in our self is our concern, we can effectively channel all relevant knowledge into intelligent systems of understanding, and, potentially, control. These controls will maintain maximum stability wherever necessary, but only under those conditions where we understand most or all of the variables of the system(s) we are attempting to repair or bring balance to. If we develop understanding of the variables of a complex electro-mechanical control and/or chemical process by understanding the relationships between all the components, what its purpose is, and using the proper test equipment and feedback sensors, we can troubleshoot and repair any system should a dysfunction occur. The same can be said to be true for complex human psychology, with its often unpredictable behavior. Yet, humans, through the ego, often create special control programs that disregard basic facts while entertaining illusions and delusions that promote division and chaos. What are the nature of these algorithms that we so blindly and ignorantly access?
We must come to understand our archetypes, mythology, cultural and religious narratives, ancestral and current internal family system dynamics, genetic, instinctive, neurological and perceptual predispositions and the intentions behind the way that we form words, and all of our historical responses to these primary control factors behind our conditioning. The development of all of our industry, science, religion, society, family and personal sense of self are manifestations of humanity’s need to express itself, while seeking higher orders of happiness, comfort, stability, security, and understanding. And, these factors together, in the ultimate, define and express the very extensions of our self into the universe.
The activity of self-organization in consciousness is the greatest mystery of life. The mystery and, potential majesty, of the word has impressed, and confounded, thinkers throughout the ages. How the ego binds itself to a word, or series of words, makes the philosophers wonder what came first, the word, or the sense of one’s identity? And, are we merely a verbal construct, or is there something much more fundamental, and profound, to our existence, only to be accessed by our suspension of our need to abide in the world of knowledge, and all of our words and thoughts?
Parents are always quite pleased when their children speak their first words, and they then know that they have a viable, healthy child. Usually, the first word is mom, but it can be others. The initial words become the initial organizing energy around which the developing being initiates the launch sequence into consciousness itself. In biblical terms, the word becomes flesh, and dwells among us. It is a mystery of why and how this process actually works, and neuroscientists continue to study the brain, and the human mind, as they attempt the impossible, to locate the physical source of our sense of self. It is much like using a flashlight to find the bulb encased within itself.
I did not develop verbal abilities until relatively late in my childhood My sister reports that she spoke for me until I developed the capacity, or inclination, to speak. Once I started talking (close to age 4) I proved that I had the capacity for speech, and a lot of it. My father wondered, at times, if I would ever shut up. I proved to be quite precocious, once I engaged my verbal skills. I remember that I would start talking about things that were around me, giving new information that my parents had no knowledge about. My parents thought that there was no way for me to know anything about what I was spouting off about, so I was mostly ignored. But I can remember how good it felt to be talking, and sharing the excitement of the magic of words exploding in my mind! I intuited quite early that built-in to the very fabric of words is an access to imagination and knowledge beyond the word, or sequence of words, spoken. Looking back now, I can see also the incredible capacity of the human mind to represent the real world with words and internal imagery, as well as to create false realities while remaining utterly convinced of their truth, even in the face of non-supporting facts. I, as an individual person, and as a collective, acculturated human have been subjected to and unconsciously adapted to many false realities throughout the course of my life.
Sociologists and psychologists have found that healthy integration of the human self revolves around how well the infant and young child feels accepted by, and connected to his social and physical environment. Thus, happier senses of self arise, and are supported, by myriads of successful interactions with its environment and, giving positive, life affirming names to those experiences. Goodness, personal value, security, love, and joy, if they become the flesh around the internalized word “me” or “I” at an early age, a more spiritually responsive, happier life is virtually guaranteed.
The nature of self-organizing and self-regulating systems is that once the quiescent point (also known as the Q point, set point, the functional operation level, the balance or the homeostasis point) has been altered, the system naturally seeks a return back to its native state, or “normalcy.” For our human experience, this may be both a blessing and a curse, depending on the state to which we are being returned back to. Typically, if we stretch a rubber band, and then release it, it returns to its original state. But, if we have stretched the rubber band too hard and too often, the rubber band loses its elasticity, and will never again return to its original state. A similar experience is to be witnessed in process control systems, where the system that strays too far from its programmed responses and established boundary conditions will descend into an irreversible chaos, until the system is reset, and balance restored.
A human being who has been stretched beyond their capacity through excessive stress, anxiety, and/or addictive behavior cycles will not be returning to their normal state, once it is recognized that the normal state was, in fact, an unhealthy, abnormal state of being in the first place, which in turn led to the creation of their present chaotic mindset.
Humanity’s egregious blunder has been in attempting to bring stability to itself while disregarding the laws of our spiritual heritage and of Mother Nature, which mankind continues to ignore, at its own peril. The instability introduced into our collective Earth life system by humanity’s ignorance of these laws will not be correctable until we humble ourselves enough to learn from our mistakes, be they theological, philosophical, religious, economic, ecological, or social in nature.
Begin the Search for Truth
I have lived two complete lives in my time on this planet. Much of the first life is still available to me, both through my family history, my writings, and my own very good memory. In the first life, I was plagued with toxic, self debasing beliefs. Had it not been for a deep need to understand my dysfunctional process, and try to find an underlying healing truth amid my personal chaos, I would not have awakened, and instead I would have passed away long ago. Some aspects of my former life eluded my ability to communicate around and about them, and thus added to my personal and our cultural conspiracy of silence. Some wounds were so deep and primal that I had no language for them, with just a vague, ongoing anxiety and disconnect from others that plagued me through the first iteration of my self.
If we began our search for truth and healing, we will eventually find the common threads that were woven together into straight jackets, and then burial shrouds, rather than as potential mantles signifying discipleship to higher spiritual possibilities. Often, our clues are not immediately evident and obvious, and available.
It pays great dividends to pay attention to our dreams, poetry, physiological issues, conversations with family members, therapists, and, sometimes, just following up on hunches and our intuition to finally expose what our clues may be, or where to research further for them. A good assumption to start with is that we have been traumatized in one or more ways during the course of our childhood, especially if we are presently not experiencing joy, love, and a sense of purpose. How might a successful search for truth begin?
- By tiring of the way things are, and becoming willing to make changes in course.
- By studying the narratives of our culture, our family system, and ourselves;
- By becoming aware of collective archetypes that unconsciously, influence us;
- And by listening to our intuition, insight, and dreams.
I began seeking healing and balance in earnest in 1987. Prior to that point, the act of creating personal stories with their isolated lonely context characterized my personal narratives. I found that just being conversational about the details of my life, without accompanying insight, did not dislodge the detritus from my field of conscious awareness. The Devil is in the details, figuratively speaking, and, as my desire for change was great, I found that I needed to pursue a way to see under the vast matrix of my oft times conflicted mind, a mind disordered by fixation to chaos generated from the past.
The journey to healing is to find the timeless silence at the foundation of our being, but this requires great insight and dedication. Otherwise, the process of naming, and the resulting stories that arise from naming, are just more time based narratives, characterized by intellectual knowledge and self satisfying entertainment. To develop the capacity for insight requires a tremendous depth of desire to know one’s self in a different, more profound, holistic, way, while overcoming a lifetime of suffering, ignorance, indifference towards and oppression by others, and repression of one’s emotional and spiritual nature.
A system or a life out of balance means that not enough knowledge has been uncovered, or applied, to guarantee harmonious system operation. It is also of greatest importance to realize that no man, or woman, is an island in this vast universe, and that our perception of harmony and balance is inextricably intertwined with the Earth, and the rest of humanity. No matter how healed, balanced, or empowered we believe that we are becoming, we are eternally linked with the rest of humanity, and the universe, in our attempts to create order or balance out of our own unique versions of the collective chaos known as human experience and its knowledge.
An awakened life is a self regulating life, and always seeks to return to balance and equanimity. The awakened, self-examined life demands that we take inventory on our self, and make every effort to understand the motivations behind all of our thoughts and actions in this world. The deeper we dig, the more that we learn that we are connected at a much deeper, more profound level with the rest of humanity than we ever dreamed possible. It is then that the healing we undertake as an individual can have a “ripple effect” upon the rest of humanity, because we all influence the collective, as well as our individual, consciousness that we experience as human beings. In the end, we realize that the fragmentation in our lives, and in our minds, is caused through duality, the quality of a sleepy mind that sees a world separate from its own thoughts and perceptions. We are truly awakened when we see the world as the very extension of our True Self, and fine tune our perceptions accordingly.
Awakening is an interactive process, encouraged and motivated by the desire to end the pain and suffering that we experienced, while also remaining engaged with the “real world.” We who choose to awaken must strive to keep an equilibrium, between our need to confront the forces of oppression, repression, darkness, and mutual imprisonment, and our spiritual requirements to love, and to listen carefully to the needs of those promoting values antithetical to the very spiritual values that we are affirming and practicing in our own lives. A continuing part of our education and evolution is not to reject the human being still covered in a darkened shroud, but instead to reject the ideas that the ignorant person is still clinging to.
An Awakened Path
In the absolute, all that we ever see, unto eternity, is our own self. As I look upon the world, and all of my relationships with the people, the land, the animals, and inner and outer space, I see an evolving landscape that demands collaboration and involvement by all people, and representation for those beings who do not have a voice in such matters. This is a landscape that demands that I make my own unique impression upon it. I must first confront the demons within my own mind and heart, and give them personalized names representing the truth of my personal experience before I strike out against the outer world, lest I project unhealed non-verbalized images and intentions upon the unsuspecting population.
Insight and mindfulness, meditation, walking away from self-destructive dependencies, maintaining dialogue with others, speaking my truth, fighting against oppression of others, and repression within my own heart and soul, following new paths of consciousness, working out my own salvation, while helping others on their own paths as well, are ways to develop collective awareness, and healing, and bringing peace of mind to my own interior universe. I cannot love others, or my own life, completely, until I make peace within my own heart and soul.
My True and Healed Words must become flesh, and dwell within me, and be extended unto whatever version of eternity that I live into. If I keep moving within my Spirit, I won’t be buried. Keep moving, world, I am not yet ready to be buried with you! I know that the world, and my Self, have not yet died to each other, if my world still responds to me without throwing more dirt over the grave they tried to bury me in the past.
I continue to look for my reflection in the mirror of life. Sometimes my life is vast and immeasurable, sometimes it is in good order and manageable, and sometimes it is out of control, and just plain fucking dreadful. Hope and Love remain guiding forces, whether I abide in light, in the material world, or in my own unique marriage of the two.
In the ultimate, if we can build our new awareness and experience around the silence at the center of our being, we will have infinite access to the wonder, healing, and magic of spiritual enlightenment. To continue on the same path as humanity presently travels guarantees a dark end to humanity’s long journey. How do you see your life today?
This chapter is short, but there may be material from somewhere else that I can add to fill it out.
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