A Meditation On Love, Anger, Hatred, Indifference, Spiritual Healing, Pseudo-Christianity, and Death in Trumpville

This opsimath blogger strikes again!

Somehow, the words just keep popping up in my mind like popcorn in a hot pan. Feel free to add your own corn kernels of wisdom to this one, and together we can cook up a big barrel of insight!  Add your own butter and salt to suit your tastes!

The Voice Of Awakening

As the slowly shifting desert sands of time,

Create ever taller dunes for lost souls to climb.

It is in this selfish, hateful world of so little reason and rhyme,

That I seek the way of Truth, the path of the Sublime.

I did not start talking until I was nearly 4 years of age. My sister would speak for me, until I finally let loose my first words. I remember having an incredible need to be creative, to tell stories that would capture the limited attention span of my father. It never really quite worked. My father would ask my mother, “Will that boy ever run out of things to talk about?”, and “Will that boy ever shut up?”. When I turned 15 years of age, after years of non affirming feedback from other aspects of my life, I went back into a world where the repression of myself became the norm, and I lost all will to create. For the next 17 years I sank into drug and alcohol abuse, and a suicidal depression almost took my life in 1986.

In 1987, I had a miraculous spiritual healing experience, which catapulted me far beyond all previous understanding that I had about life, love, and the universe. Yet, I struggled for many years to find the language to communicate my new experience to others. I found my new voice in 2016, just prior to the death of my father. My present experience as a writer has been quite similar to my experience with my inattentive father when I was a youth, with a four year trend continuing for my inability to capture the attention of most readers. Such is the life for this writer, but it does not discourage me. I found an updated sense of self once I broke free of my father. And, I am developing an updated sense of self while I churn out material that is unappealing to most people.

I must continue to write to live, or I will lose my voice again, and finish the dying process that I began at age 15. Today, I choose to overcome my feelings of being oppressed by the indifference or inattention of others. Today I choose to overcome my own need to repress myself, as a reaction to my perception of having been rejected by others. A trusted editor told me that with my loving intention for any potential reader being firmly embraced by me, receptivity to my writing is inevitable for those whose hearts are awakening.

Hopefully, the reader’s mental stylus won’t get damaged by the “scratches” or on the deep or uneven grooves of this “album”. This blog, like my life, is a continuous work in progress, and eventually all of the scratches will be removed. I don’t know if I will ever fully heal from the ramifications of toxic masculinity, toxic politics, toxic capitalism, and toxic religion, which are four dark pillars supporting the pervasive spiritual and social disease within our world civilization. Yet, I continue to write about these topics, knowing that eventually our civilization will look completely at these issues, or will die from the continuation of the unconsciousness that results from this darkness. Those four previous listed toxicities, combining with my personally unresolved angers, indifferences, and hatreds, become all of the scratches that have appeared on my album of life. In the interests of sonic bliss, I continue to work towards the healing of my self, and the world. I can do nothing about the deep or uneven grooves, however, for those are innate qualities of life itself.

This writer must profess, from the beginning of this blog, that I have spent much more time in the last 30 plus years hating or being indifferent to Donald Trump, rather than in “loving” him. Donald Trump is the poster boy for toxic masculinity, toxic politics, toxic capitalism, and toxic religion, and I have enjoyed throwing darts at this horse’s ass, err, I mean bull’s eye.

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All that Donald Trump sees are threats against himself. Donald Trump hates any truth that threatens his illusory sense of self. Donald Trump hates anybody with scientific or practical knowledge that conflicts with his selfish, divisive agendas. Donald Trump hates anybody who does bow down before him, and give him an oath of loyalty. Donald Trump hates anyone who dares speak truth to him, including judges, intelligence officers, military commanders, health officials, or climatologists. Donald Trump hates anything that Barrack Obama accomplished as President. Donald Trump hates non-white immigrants, Muslims, “shit-hole countries”, disabled people, poor people, or anybody who might be in need of help. Donald Trump hates anybody who is Democrat, or Republican, who speaks out against his cruelty and incompetence. Donald Trump hates virtually anybody who does not accept his conspiracy theories.

The top nine principles of toxic humanity that Donald Trump’s life has been partially defined by are as follows:

1. I am the center of the Universe. The rest of humanity is here either
   for my pleasure, for my profit, or for my disdain. I may attend a prayer session occasionally with my religious puppets, so that I can create the impression that I worship a higher power than myself. But, I already know that there is no higher power but me. HUMILITY IS NOT AN OPTION FOR ME, and is only for the poor and weak among us.
2. Truly loving another human being is a sign of weakness, and thus I
   must continue to suppress all such impulses so that I can achieve my
   selfish goals. I will carry on a campaign of hatred, judgement, and
   condemnation of all people unlike myself, all the while claiming to
   represent their interests at the highest level of my being. The ignorant people populating my tribe will hopefully associate my hateful behavior with their understanding of what love is, thus damaging the hearts and souls of all who may fear, respect, and/or follow me. My schizophrenia will be confusing to others, but may still be normalized, as others that I have influenced model and support my behavior.
3. People are most valuable if they can be monetized. If I can’t make
   money from my relationship with people, then I don’t need them,
4. Never admit that I am wrong. Always blame somebody else for my
   problems. The admission of guilt is a sign of weakness, and only for
   those who do not have sufficient monetary and legal power. I don’t need your forgiveness for my mistakes, because, as far as you should be concerned, I do not ever make mistakes.
5. If I can’t get my way through truth-telling, then the telling of lies
   becomes my most potent weapon. If I am caught in a lie, then it is only your misunderstanding of my point, and not what I said, that is wrong. If I tell the same lie often enough, then people will start to accept the lie as the truth.
6. If I can’t get my way with another human being, then I will cajole or
   bully them into submission, or attack their name and character, and/or impugn their dignity, until they either submit, or are discredited by my allies.
7. I have a right to use my strong emotions to intimidate and threaten
   anybody that I need to in order to get my way. My anger is a weapon, to be wielded whenever necessary, and its expression is my first selection from my arsenal of control tools in manipulating and controlling my world.
8. Never spend any time in self-reflection or meditation. Developing
   insight is difficult and time-consuming, and I have more important
   things to do I am already perfect, I always have been perfect, and
   everybody else needs to change to accommodate my needs. If I am not “perfect” today, I always have someone, or something, else to blame.
9. If there is no conflict currently in progress, then I must start
   creating the conditions for the next one, and politically position myself so that I can maximize emotional and monetary profits and visibility for myself. I will never obtain enough money, power, sex, or attention to make or to keep me happy. I will take from others as needed to achieve my aims and promote my agendas.

These are NOT the indicators of a man who loves the wholeness and integrity of life, who loves himself, who loves other people, who wants to unite and collaborate with everybody, or who has any self-respect.

From the first time I saw him promoting himself in the National Enquirer in the 1980’s I saw what a fraud and a huckster that he was. It was like I was watching a cartoon of the fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes” every time that I saw him. My “little boy” of reason kept calling out to the world “that con man does not have any clothes on!”, except for the magic invisible golden threads of hypnotic suggestion that are trying to deceive the world out of its gold and respect.

Beginning in 2016, I started writing about the danger of supporting this mad man, because of the apocalyptic vision of many corrupted Christians that he was commandeering to support his quest for the Presidency. I feared what would unfold in our country, and our world, if this conniving human devil made it into the White House. Any reader that has made it to this blog, and stayed to read more than one post, probably can resonate with these statements. Yet, having lived with the pendulum of hate and indifference towards this corrupted human being for so many years, while attempting to live a more conscious, spiritual life, I continued to seek another more spiritually expansive way to experience and to bring some measure of healing to the insanity of our collective situation.

Thus, the following missive was inspired.

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 divergent directions. Love is an open system of frictionless 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 differing manners.

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 the emotional and spiritual oppression of others, as well as 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.

We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to
say ‘It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’
Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those
people my heroes.
— Fred Rogers

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 attunement 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 a radical variation of positive empathy, one may even experience shared mental images-telepathy-and spiritual healing, and those are subjects that I will briefly address later. 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 that other person is feeling. What they actually help us to feel is 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.

I have a story that exemplifies some of the power and the mystery of deep, positive, empathetic connections.

This photograph is from around 1991, when I was an apprentice with the Local 48’s Electrician’s Apprenticeship program(1988-1992).

Three years ago, I saw David McElwie at the Oak Grove Fred Meyer’s (person in front, on the left of photograph), who was an apprentice in the same class that I was in. Through our conversation I learned that Gary Johnson, the man sitting next to me in the center (to the left of me in the photo), had died shortly after our apprenticeship had finished. I began to tear up, and I cried for a little while in the store.

The back story to this is that Gary and I had a “miracle moment” while we apprenticed together. One class day we had a major test to take, and I had noticed how Gary had been struggling with the course material (it was much too easy for me, since I had 6 years of electrical engineering training). For some reason, I began to intensely want the very best for Gary, in effect, “praying” for him, something I would never even think to consider to do in most situations. Why I did here, I will never know, but, at the end of the test, Gary came over to me, and thanked me for praying for him.

HUH?

I was stunned and shocked. THERE WAS NO WAY HE COULD HAVE KNOWN THAT I HAD PRAYED FOR HIM. My spiritual life was a great secret that I kept from my construction worker peers. I always hid my ‘sensitive nature’ from the coarse masculine energy that permeates our electrical industry, and the apprenticeship classes were no exception.

We are all linked together on a much more fundamental or foundational level than we realize. Our thoughts may be nothing more than unfocused prayer, so be careful with those thoughts that we entertain in our private little worlds, because they always become quite “public”, in reality. Intuition and non-verbal energy exchange may be nothing more than a more direct, though intermittent, connection to the underlying truth that connects all of us together.

Thank you, Gary Johnson, for helping LIFE reveal one of its greatest truths to me!

Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, one should preserve it.

– Anaïs Nin

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. The exceptions being when one is in an extremely hateful state, or those whose indifference may arise from sociopathic or psychopathic natures. A conscious person would never abuse any person, or animal of any species (including eating it, unless no other choices are available), after recognizing the unity of sentience that exists in our natural world. Of course, much of mankind is unconscious, and we can’t even keep from harming each other, let alone the whole of the animal species. Mankind has “dehumanized-de-sentienced” humans and animals so as to justify cruel and destructive relationships, as well as with the natural world that supports all of us. The Judeo-Christian western religious tradition and its misunderstanding of the wholeness and unity of life, and it subsequent influence on thinkers throughout the ages has been at the forefront of this travesty for millennia.

Empathy has been found to have not just a positive or “good” 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. Those who have read all of my works are well aware of my profound experience in 2017 with a dying friend with brain cancer, and the dangers, and spiritual growth potentials, of such an extraordinary relationship.

Marty C and me.

Over the years, I have become deeply disturbed by the developments within our shared world, within my individual consciousness, and the points of connection between self and other, through language, religion, and philosophy, that have created oppression, repression, and the resultant physical, emotional, and social disease.  Starting within myself, I have seen how a lifetime of oppression, and repression, had brought about a sequence of serious illnesses, physiological as well as spiritual.  I saw how a dark force, common to all of humanity, lived, moved, and had its being enshrined within my own heart and soul.  I also saw how the medical, economic, religious, cultural, political, and spiritual traditions had failed in their understanding of humanity, and it’s basic, innermost needs of being valued and listened to.

Virtually all men and women have experienced oppression, repression, and the resultant diseases of the spirit at some point in their lives, and we have been both the victims, and the conscious and unconscious perpetrators, of this behavior. We have all attempted to manage our symptoms in our own unique, yet all too often broken and dysfunctional ways.  I have wanted to help myself, my father and several of my male friends, to develop greater insight into these issues over the years, but I did not find a consistent interest being expressed by others in exploring these issues with me.  But my friend Marty did begin to show great interest in my Facebook posts beginning late in 2016, and this opened the door to a different level of sharing between the two of us. 

Together, Marty and I shared over twenty years in a couple’s group (three couples who were long term friends), many weekend trips, nights out for dinner and entertainment, and then the book club that we also shared together for the last several years, Marty and I were quite friendly with each other, yet rarely spoke at great  length or depth, or showed extraordinary interest in developing a deeper friendship apart from our wives.  I noted how his wife organized and dominated his life over the years that I had known him, and how she would all too often speak for him, or even verbally run over him in group meetings.  It was common knowledge that when his wife was present, Marty would not consistently reveal himself and his own story, and he would instead defer to his wife through his silence.  My own experience of his wife was that she was usually quite willing to listen to what I had to say initially, then she would often fill whatever empty space appeared with herself, rather than wait for me to finish my story and whatever message I might be trying to deliver. At this point, much like Marty, all further talk from me would end, and I would just listen to her, no matter what important items I might have to share with her or the group that we might be attending together..

This brings me to January 11th of 2017, when I had my first ‘seizure’.  I awoke at 2:45 in the morning, and went into my office and sat down.  Suddenly, I lost all ability to move, and to even think, though I remained quite aware during this approximately one minute process.  It was then that I became aware of a “black mass”, almost the size of a golf ball, in the left portion of the brain area of my inner field of body awareness.  This was the first time that I had awareness of the energy field of my body since July of 1987, when I had my first, and only, experience of detecting my own “life energy field”.  I became quite concerned by this whole experience, though I kept it to myself initially.  Every subsequent time I looked internally, I could still see the dark mass.  In February, I had yet another seizure, this time much milder, and in a public setting, while playing cards at Jim’s, who was a mutual friend of both of us (and another member of the couple’s group).

I did not talk about the seizures, or the black mass, initially, because I thought that I might be losing my mind. I later began talking about it with my wife, and two friends, and it was theorized that it might be related to something spiritual or psychic in nature.  But I came to know it as “death”, at least in a spiritual sense.  I saw that there was no negotiating with it.  Prayers, meditations, affirmations, reading, talking with others, nothing seemed to have any impact upon the dark mass.  I knew that some sort of death was coming my way, though I felt little need to discuss it with a doctor.   I did tell my family doctor that I feared that my own death might precede my father’s, when I took my ill father to see her about January 4th of 2017..

On March 5, 2017 Marty suffered a major seizure and was hospitalized at OHSU.  , Marty had been in a four year recovery phase from malignant melanoma, a process first diagnosed in late 2012.  He appeared to have been successfully treated with Interleuken II therapy, a powerful immunotherapy regimen.  Now, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  My wife Sharon and I visited him two days prior to its surgical removal.  Marty and I talked about our seizures, and I was struck by the similarity of his seizures with my own, though mine were relatively tame by comparison.  I told Marty that my perception was that Death was making itself known to me, through the dark mass that I could “see” in my own energy field.  I was also beginning to see a relationship between our problems, but I was hesitant to tell Marty about it, though I told him that I hoped that his brain mass did not indicate a death for him.

That next day, Wednesday, at noon, I had another episode of such intensity, and duration, that I dared not even attempt to get up from the couch.  I had previously arose from the couch, and briefly lost consciousness, so I was all shook up, yet I still had no desire to get a doctor involved.  Sharon came home later that afternoon from her creative writing class, and found me quite compromised.  She listened to my story, and accepted my decision not to seek further medical attention, since this was perceived as a spiritual crisis, while she offered her own love and care. She monitored my blood pressure, and when she noted when my breathing became shallow, to offer me a paper bag to breathe into, lest I sink into a panic attack.

Each time I tried to get off the couch, I became quite dizzy.  I continued feeling quite physically subdued, and some sort of anxiety reaction was also happening with my body/mind.  I was also losing my ability to talk.  It took all of the power that I could muster to force words out.  It was reminiscent of a time 31 years before, when for two days I had an event that prevented me from speaking during a portion of my trip through the underworld.  I lost my voice for two days when confronted with the reality that there were dangerous people I was associating with, and this fact had finally, and powerfully, struck home with me.

The present time, I actually felt like my consciousness was trying to escape, and it took all of my resources just to hold it together.  I characterized this present event to Sharon White as almost losing my mind, while having an almost neurotoxic component to it.  I did not want anything to do with another neurological exam, having been through that horror several years before, when I had experienced excruciating headaches.  I tried to go about my normal activities, while being grateful that I did not have to provide care for my disabled father, whose care that week was taken over by others.

Thursday came, and I had not improved much.  It also was the day that Marty’s tumor was being removed.  I had dual concerns, for Marty, and for myself.  I went about my limited daily activities as best I could, but I became quite conscious of my own fear and anxiety around Death, both of self, and of other.  I continued to listen to the occasional taped “spiritual wisdom” tapes of some of my past teachers, hoping to hear something that might bring me comfort. Well, I listened to Jack Boland, a nationally renowned speaker and master of the recovery process.  I owned a tape where he referred to me personally, said he knew me, probably better than I knew myself. He then stated that he wished pain, not peace of mind, to all who had not yet fulfilled their interior spiritual obligation to cleanse their hearts, as this is the great precursor to any lasting spiritual progress . Those who understand this statement UNDERSTAND.  And here I thought that I had already performed that process!  How wrong I was.

Thursday evening came, and after yet another nearly sleepless night, I got up and sat in the family room, and awaited for Sharon to join me .  My life’s message was bubbling up within me, and I felt a compulsion to share it with my world.  Yet I also knew that there were few, if any, people presently in my life who had the time, or even the interest, in listening to what Spirit was trying to pour through me.  As I lay out on the couch, feeling my own emotional/spiritual death about to overtake me, I cried out in despair to Sharon, to please share my message, since I didn’t believe that I had the capacity to deliver it in a way that others could hear, or understand.

Sharon looked at me with acceptance, love, and compassion.  Sharon had been listening to my story for close to thirty years, and she had witnessed me sitting on my voice for most of that time.  She then stated unequivocally that my message was my own, and must be spoken through me, or not at all.  Even my tears, and begging, would not change her mind.  I was in such pain and agony, that I knew that I could not go on with my life in any kind of healthy way, and I did not know what to do.

I had the experience of a lifetime of people experiencing me as less of a human being than I am, starting with my own diseased father, followed by a steady progression of angry, sometimes hateful, judgmental male and female power figures, with a few very notable exceptions, and I did not know how to act or feel differently.   My voice had been silenced by myself and others, even in many settings where spiritually aware, conscious people gathered to celebrate connection.

This loving act on Sharon’s part by refusing to speak for me was instrumental in the recovery of  my ability to speak and to write.  I could not let myself die again emotionally and spiritually, so I asked my Spirit how to best deliver my message.  A prayer from my past, first created from a dream in 1992, formed in my mind and began with “Grandfather, Great Spirit, Thank You”.  All of a sudden I was COMPELLED to write, and I did not stop the process until fifteen pages of a story poured through me. My Spirit chose the format of a parable, perhaps knowing that it would be discarded, without reading, by those who already believed that they knew me.  But the curious ones, the ones who had an inner Spirit that had not been yet stymied, would read, and appreciate, this aspect of the message that I now felt compelled to give to my world.

It took less than two days to write, and it was the first story I have ever written.  I was never a writer, and before recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction, most of the insight that I had was irrelevant to recovery and healing, and certainly was not worth “writing home about”.  While hospitalized for a month in 1984 for alcoholism, the journal that I was required to write about my daily insights seemed to be written by our society asking for permission to continue to be dysfunctional, rather than me getting in touch with my pain, and making progress with healing.  People pleasing stories may be easier to read and write, but they sure lose their allure when one finally decides to move into the neighborhood of truth and real insight into self.

The dark mass in my body of energy disappeared upon completion of my story, coincidentally at about the same time that Marty’s tumor had been surgically removed.  To this day, I remain healed of that darkness, though I am forced to write, and to share with, the One who listens.  When I don’t write, I start to feel ill. Yes, I have finally learned that I need to listen to myself, more than just listening to other “authorities”. 

As a result of this process, I had an insight that is extremely difficult to talk with others about, an insight about my relationship with Marty and his disease in the final year of his life.  I saw how I had become attuned to Marty on a psychic level.  Some have called this connection radical empathy, some have called it telepathic, some have called it just plain fucking mysterious, and some would call it insane thinking on my part.  For me, this is a natural outcome of “prayer” as I defined it earlier following my experience with Gary Johnson of my electrical apprenticeship program.

Somehow, Marty’s structure of consciousness, his ego mind, part of his sense of self had been transmitted to me, and I “felt his presence” within my own sensitive, susceptible consciousness through my love, compassion,  and concern for the man.  This is how I was able to sense the dark, golf ball sized mass in my own brain. It was not my cancer, it was Marty’s.  And I was also finally able to articulate the forces of oppression and repression within both of us for the first time.  I never had the capacity to communicate around the two “black holes” or tricksters, revealed by the teaching from the Master on July 21, 1987, that were embedded within my own field of consciousness before this time.  Somehow, through the mapping of Marty onto my peace of mind, a bridge of words was created to describe the vast matrix whose complete description had eluded me for all of these years.  The light of my own awareness, shown through Marty’s and my shared matrix of consciousness, created the shadows, or words, words that ached to reach from the unknown to the knowing parts of myself.

When Marty died using the Death with Dignity approach on Septemmber 11th of that year, I began the excruciating process of letting go of my love and healing intentions for him. My father died on the day of Marty’s funeral, and so I had two major life events requiring the fullness of healing intentions. Indifference was never a blocking agent for me, so I experienced a tsunami of energy, and the cumulative impacts of empathy, unsuccessful healing intentions, and grief nearly drowned me in the turbulent seas of anxiety and depression. The way to survive a tsunami is to get into the deepest of waters, far from the shores where the tidal wave causes chaos and destruction. Of course, I was able to swim to deeper waters and I recovered, forever strengthened by this extraordinary life experience.

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” of thought may need to be “sacrificed” so as to make way for the truth of the moment.

In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

– Eric Hoffer

Perhaps our knee jerk reaction has been to hate and despise Donald Trump. There has been much written by conscious, caring people about the necessity of not hating Donald Trump, but to instead perceive him as an ill person, as a poor person, or even as a suffering person. This change of perception may open our own personal doors to compassion, sympathy, and love. It is OK to be angry with the President, as long as that anger does not get institutionalized into our minds. By clinging to anger and resentments over a long period time, there is an enhanced susceptibility to them becoming transformed into hate filled memories, or personally institutionalized hatred. We witness daily the collectively institutionalized hatred within our world culture, manifesting as religious persecution, patriarchy, xenophobia, misogyny, racism, bullying, homophobia, nationalism, earth ecology destructive (including extinction of countless species) and other self-destructive energy exchanges. We really do not want to add to the suffering of others, or of ourselves, by creating new pathways of institutionalized hatred.

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.

What can be most difficult to consider is the truth that Donald Trump hates himself, and is truly indifferent to most of America. He tries to disguise his self- loathing and hatred through false narratives of his own greatness, while he derides and demeans all unlike himself, as well as any sincere detractors. His multitude of lies and deceptive behavior, and his need to manipulate our own perceptions of him show an absolute need to hide from the truth of his own diminished sense of self. He continuously projects out of his mind, and accuses the innocent, and the guilty, of all his personal shortcomings, deceptions, and criminality. His 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 his hypnotic trance, his 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 Trump’s hatred of himself. 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 Trump continues to manifest.

This is an absolutely normal and natural response. Yet, as we become more conscious, it is revealed that we need no longer climb into Donald Trump’s pigpen and unconsciously support him in his self- hatred and self- loathing.

We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.

—-Anais Nin

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 overpredict, at times expecting something to be there that is not. That expectation can, literally, create a self-hypnotic suggestion or hallucination, and a non-existent thing can be perceived as if it was really there. Until we free ourselves from our internalized models for reality, we, as human beings, move from one self-fulfilling prophecy, to another, until we wake up from our dreams.

THE DREAM:

Around 55 years ago, at 9 years of age I had a most amazing, realistic dream.  This was during a period of time when I slept very little, as I usually got to sleep no earlier than midnight, no matter how early I went to bed.  I lay in bed and reviewed the day every night before sleep, and see where I could have done things better, or said something a little differently.   My dreams had finally evolved beyond the continuous nightmare phase that I was accustomed to, prior to age 8.  But, being so immature, and not too worldly in my knowledge, I did not have the necessary background to know what to think about the dream.  I had discussed the dream with my older sister, who seemed to have some partial answers to its mysteries (based on her understanding of reincarnation), but so many mysteries remained to be explained.  I waited and watched for further answers, and went on with the all of the important business of being a carefree boy, though at times, I fleetingly experienced “self-awareness”.

Here is the dream:

The priest, having received his directive from “on high”, then returned to his village along the lake in the high mountain region.  He gathered all of the villagers together, and informed them that they were to take every golden figurine, every sacred symbol that they owned, and they were to throw them all into the lake, and never to think about them again.  Then, he told each villager that they must each go into their own home, and face the “evil one” without any protection or care from any of their gods or their symbols of the sacred.

The priest then returned to his own home, having tossed all of his own idols and treasures into the deep blue lake.  He stripped himself bare of all clothing, and then began to summon the forces of the dark.  He became surrounded by a fog, and as he lifted his hands, sparks started flying out of his fingertips at the unknown force of darkness that lay just beyond his visual field, still hidden beyond the boundaries of the fog.   The priest refocused his energy into his arms, and hands, and the sparks grew into a steady energy field, extending from his body, his heart, and his spirit, towards his unknown adversary.  He was determined to overcome this force, this dark energy, and he redoubled his efforts.  The priest’s heart began to race out of control, he began to sweat profusely, and a growing sense of fear and dread began to take hold of his entire being, as he finally understood that his energy could not last forever.  Yes, for him to continue this battle, he must sacrifice all of his life force. Yet, he felt that he had no choice but to keep engaging the enemy, to finally see the face of the force that had terrorized his village since time began.  He desperately strained and stretched to see the object of his fear and disdain, even as the ebbing energy field flowing from his fingertips continued to cut through the fog.  Suddenly, a face began materializing before his faltering gaze.  As he collapsed to the floor, almost drained of all life, he could no longer fight an undeniable truth– the face of the evil one might be his own!

A difficult truth must be embraced:

All that we will ever see, unto eternity, is the extension of our consciousness. And, we must never forget, no matter how isolated or independent that we feel, that we share consciousness with the entirety of planet Earth. How we see ourselves determines the quality of our life experience, and the integrity of our connection with our “higher power”. Insight into the corrupted matrix of human consciousness and its limited understanding leads to the new pathways of consciousness where intuition and spiritual power are more readily accessed.

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 become addicted to the religious junk food continuously being processed from the limitations of our distant past, rather than feasting at the table of the infinite Spirit of Now. The Vice President Pence justified sharing in hatred of gays and drug users in the 1980’s and 1990’s by claiming AIDS was God’s punishment for all such people that God hated for not obeying “God’s laws”. We all suffered because of the collective narrative of hatred being shared by the victims, and their accusers.

One can only wonder what the twisted, secret narrative that both Mike Pence, and Donald Trump, are entertaining in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am not sure that Pence has evolved much from his hateful AIDS postures of the past. His own self-hatred, as represented by a corrupted view of the “will of God” may well be one of the primary reasons behind the administration’s incompetent, hands off approach to the disaster unfolding in our country. Pence has entertained more than one “apocalyptic narrative” that justifies his position as a passive witness to God’s wrath punishing the wicked and the heathen, rather than him acting as an active participant in the salvation of the oppressed. Like Trump, he disregards the seriousness of the pandemic, and won’t even wear a mask to protect others from the potential of his own viral infection. They both continue to manifest their hatred of the world through their shared callous disregard for the safety of the people that they make contact with.

Trump and his administration are guilty of many mistakes over the course of the last three years, but their response to the pandemic is enough to stir anger and distress in any saint, or sinner that I know.  Pardon me if I mistake Trump’s moves as the “mark of the beast”, or the actions of a broken, spiritless man.

* refusal to heed early warnings from abroad,

* refusal to listen to expert advice from within the US health care system,

* punishing those seeking to implement a timely strategy,

* lying to the American people about the pandemic,

* failing to provide enough tests soon enough,

* failing to produce adequate medical equipment soon enough,

* refusing to get samples of the virus necessary for work on vaccines and therapeutics,

* prioritizing contracts for companies connected to Trump or to the Kushner family,

* failure to implement enforceable social distancing and face protection rules,

* failure of federal leaders to practice safe social distancing and face protection,

And, most damningly,

* failing to formulate a coordinated national response.

* failure to acknowledge a massive loss of life, and a massive amount of suffering, with no caring, conscious leader to lead the national mourning for our victims.

As their response to the “outer world” is their response to their “inner world” (remember, all that we ever see, unto eternity, is ourselves), it is obvious that they do not respect or honor much of who they are, or their neglected, but sacred, relationship with all of humanity. As we “empathize” with Trump, or even Pence, with their self- hatreds, that hatred attaches itself to neglected or disassociated fragments within ourselves, and circulates within our consciousness underneath the surface, taking on a disturbed life of its own. We have allowed this administration to plant seeds of their own self-destruction into our minds. We are all susceptible to some extent, depending upon the depth of our own self-awareness and personal insight. Thus, a “trickster” of hatred can be introduced into our consciousness, taking us to sometimes undesirable and uncomfortable psychological places. Yet this awareness may lead to amazing, healing insights for ourselves, so we need not judge or be harsh with ourselves. In the “seeing”, these illusory processes, or “mirages of thought” are no longer unconscious, and our freedom of perceptual choice is returned to us. We are learning and healing!

Trump is a pathetic, and, at times, a deplorable human being, as are some of his ardent supporters, yet we can all be spiritually reduced a notch or two by supporting this devil and his tribe by sharing in his hatred of himself. We will no longer “waste our hate” on Trump, or anybody else for that matter, realizing that they (the image of the other created in our own minds) has become a projection of a newly formed aspect of our own unconscious collectively shared negative self-image. “You” can never be real in any ultimate sense, since the “you” or the Donald Trump, exists as only a conceptual image in our minds. The mental pugilist blows that we direct at Donald and his friends ends up being directed predominantly against ourselves, because we are fighting the creations within our own minds, and the collective mind that we share with others, rather than actually exchanging energy with the objects of our objections, which is the only place where objective change may occur. 

Donald Trump always retains his advantage of being a one-way transmitter of negative energy to the world. He rarely places himself in a vulnerable position where he can be a genuine receiver of the abhorrent behaviorial energy that he emits, and is continuously attempting to reflect back to him. We all have witnessed his deplorable confrontations with reporters, who can only serve as surrogates for us, as a concerned public. So, we must still write our letters to our congressmen, stage our protests (when safe), and hold community meetings to speak our truth and maintain our own sanity. We must not indiscrimately crash our personal truth against the rocks of corruption and injustice, and instead join with others with like mind, and develop conscious plans of action against all oppressors.

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

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

Stop breathing life into those projections, stop those mental pugilist blows,

There is a Peace in each new moment, be the One who in the now knows!

The only way to permanently remove this spiritual eyesore 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 we also remember that 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 which is in relationship to the collective.

We remain wary of the theological theories of Jesus and Christianity. In their misunderstanding, Jesus negatively empathized with THE WORLD, and took on the sins of the world, in the ultimate act of the stigmata syndrome. His crucifixion was his sacrifice to God, to save us from our sins, according to the theological theorists. Apply grains of salt liberally here, ok? There is no God in heaven or on earth that would EVER use this dysfunctional philosophical vehicle to bring redemption and “salvation” to the human race. If Jesus truly believed that by sacrificing himself, the world would be saved, Jesus was much more unevolved than history would leave us to believe that he truly was. This mistake is a carryover from ancient Judaic tradition, where sacrifices of animals, and, sometimes sons, were required to placate their misunderstanding of God. He died because he was unpopular with the status quo, and hated by the religious leaders of his age. His crucifixion was the standard punishment for revolutionaries in those days.

The truth is that the writers and theorists attempting to represent Jesus’s teachings are the unevolved ones. Their own supplemental theological speculations over many generations, coupled with the overall ignorance of the Christian religious world, continues the promotion of those spiritual fantasies as truth. The Buddhists made the same mistake as the Christians, proposing the idea that “grace” was available to the worker who toiled in the fields all day, the worker in full survival mode and having no time for reflection, meditation, and personal transcendence. They did this to protect themselves from the jealousy and resentments of those outside of their sacred field of energy, an energy which is only available to those who have the deepest desire for truth. In Japan, monks were attacked and murdered, until the monks developed a doctrine which incorporated the idea that even the insincere religious follower could be benefitted by some sort of benevolent collective spiritual action, or “grace”. The truth eternally remains: no teacher or act of grace will effect our salvation, we must each work it out for ourselves. We are personally responsible to take all necessary steps towards our transcendence. We must follow NEW paths of consciousness, and let go of all controls which keep us tethered to the past.

Our permanent “salvation” is only worked out within the individual minds and hearts of true seekers of Truth and Love, and can never be delivered through the efforts of someone else, no matter how historically exalted of a position that individual occupies in the religious pantheons. 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. We do not need to self-crucify, to remain connected with the rest of the human race, and to bring healing to the world.

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.

While what Donald Trump is, in truth, remains impossible to ascertain, his negative, self-defeating behavior will likely continue to be troubling to all thoughtful, moral, ethical, caring beings. Is he the Devil? Is he a rattlesnake, just waiting to bite all of us, and inject us with deadly venom? Or is he an angel, and we just don’t have the perceptual tools to see it? Well, I am sure that he is not wholly just one of these assessments. Trump probably carries a fair amount of all of these qualities, though unevenly weighted toward the darker sides. The point is for the rest of us to maintain a keen curiosity about our world, and all of the people in it, including Trump, and continue to be conscious, and aware, of our tendency to overreact to each assault on our spiritual and political sensibilities.

We all must cultivate a better spiritual presentation for ourselves than does this President. To hate Trump is to negatively empathize with him, and subject ourselves to his divisive energy. We must save our empathy and energy for those who truly can benefit from it. Donald Trump does NOT want to change, he wants everybody else to change to conform to his disfigured understanding as to how life should be. Yet, most mindful people have certain aspects of our own lives that we would like to change, to enhance our own self image and self worth. These are things that we can work on successfully. Those others who also want to change, while still suffering under the disfiguring conditions of our civilization, want and deserve our empathy and compassion.

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

She had been holding weekly meditations and tape recorded playbacks of Joel’s actual messages since 1962. Marie would sit in the front of the room, and lead a 15 minute meditation, followed by the playing of a cassette tape of one hour length.  She had a collection of at least 300 tapes, of which I eventually copied virtually all of them, and committed them to memory as best that I could. Marie had over 1000 hours of his recorded messages, which she ended up giving to me, and which I converted to digital format.. Some of the tapes were the old style reel-to-reel, and I was not able to convert those tapes to the more modern digital format.

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

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

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

with

“All that is human, is illusion”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—–Marie Schmidt

At lunch with Marie, my wife Sharon, and I, around 1990

Believe in yourself. Believe in your potential. Be in your UNIQUE PRESENCE.

BE NOW, AND BE STILL, AND KNOW THAT “I AM” IS THE DOOR TO THE ONLY GOD THAT WE CAN EXPERIENCE AS HUMAN BEINGS.

And, please save yourself.

Wasting energy on a man who is wasting himself is not a productive endeavor. I am not advocating indifference towards the President or to his supporters, but instead more like taking the posture of a detached witness to him, his continuing shenanigans and his minions, while responding in emotionally intelligent manners that do not bring harm to ourselves or to others. We can cultivate the thought and feeling of wanting better for the man than he wants for himself, remembering that Trump is indeed sick, and suffering under the conditions of his own spiritual disease.

Donald Trump continues to create the conditions for his own disrepute and destruction. This is why Donald Trump is now dying, for he has lost love and self-respect for everyone but his own limited tribe of understanding. Roger Stone, the sleazy political operative and personal confidant of Trump, has publicly stated, as far as political advertising is concerned, that “hate is a more powerful motivating force than love”. We can see that Trump enlists and employs that energy to mobilize his base. We need not follow him and his supporters into the darkest of ditches. Trump steers his consciousness towards chaos and division, while we steer our own towards unity and understanding.

Donald Trump, like all self-haters, just wants to watch his world burn. We need not burn with him.

The Voice Of Awakening (continued)

Oh seekers of Truth, God’s high mount we must climb, while sometimes stumbling through the desert dunes shifting sands of time.

We must stop being fooled by culturally accepted rhyme and reason, for they are surely to get charged by Love with treason!

Are we but marionette’s dancing images trapped upon ATM screens of corrupted monetized minds?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As an entrant in hate’s marathon, only on Life’s treadmills will we perpetually stand,

To make these missteps over and over dooms us all to fail and become life’s also-rans,

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

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

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

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

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

So our wisdom must object to this deceit, and charge those thoughts with treason!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is little wonder why any of us found ourselves becoming repulsed by this man, and some even hating this demon. Yes, negative empathy, in sharing Donald Trump’s hatred of himself, while not sharing the objects of his hatred, has brought to us many lessons about ourselves, and how we might see the whole of life more clearly. We have cleared the film off of our glasses, but Donald Trump remains blinded by his hubris and self-hatred. We have healed the parts of ourselves that would create hatred and havoc as a response to this damaged, corrupted human being. We can hope and pray for this disfigured man to see the light of love and reason, yet none of us are holding our breaths until it happens.

There is as much to learn from a spiritually disfigured human being as Donald Trump, as there is from exalted figures from our spiritual heritage and history. Trump is part of our present existence. Trump is an emanation of our universal consciousness. Yet, the thought of Trump brings few to a state of bliss or contentment. By the seeing of Trump as he is, we can see the blocks to our access to that which exists BEYOND such a distorted image, which just might be universal love and truth. In the seeing, we may transcend that which is seen, and soar to new heights of understanding and experience. Some of us may even experience the same realms as those pointed to by Jesus, the Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, or other revered saints and sages.

A long term friend of mine, who is also a long term friend of the Dalai Lama has said that my understanding is contrary to the teachings of this Buddhist monk, but I will not let that deter me. Had the Dalai Lama been raised under the same conditions of life as I had, and vice versa, our spiritual theories and realities would have been significantly different from our present positions. There are millions of opinions as to how to best live life, and even my friend’s take on the Dalai Lama is only an opinion. Today I choose to not allow other people’s opinions to support my tendency to be repressive of my true nature, and I instead opt to be more fully present for my truest sense of self in this moment.

My two cents worth is a better bargain than the nickel that Lucy charges.

The conscious people, the people who have already embraced healing and transformation, are co-writing with me a new story for mankind. Together, with my spiritual brothers and sisters, we are co-creating the new religion, the new world order, the new blueprint for humanity and its eternal evolution through this universe. Together we are overcoming millennia of oppression and repression of the human, and the animal spirit. Together, we are defending and honoring our sacred Mother Earth, the true creator and sustainer of life on this planet.

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.

If we lose love and self-respect for each other, this is how we finally die.

—Maya Angelou

In case it was not directly observed, what I have presented here is a meditation on love, hatred, indifference, anger, spiritual healing, and the process of forgiveness. 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, hate fragments. 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.

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 (1) via negative- through negating what is not real, seeing what might be real, (2) via positiva-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, (3) via transformativa- 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, and (4) via creativa- 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.

Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.

– Matthew 9:17 (NIV)

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.

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

— Maya Angelou

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“HE IS HAVING AN EXPERIENCE WITH GOD”

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

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

Pink Floyd-Brain Damage

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

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

“HE IS HAVING AN EXPERIENCE WITH GOD”.

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

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

I then drove towards Portland,  from Larch Mountain, and was guided to go to NE 73rd and Glisan, where the US Postal Service’s EAP program was based.  I walked into the door, and I was greeted by both Larry and Mike (Mike visited me in the Care Unit 3 years before, and Larry was the director of the EAP since I could remember).  I called out to them by name, yet neither man immediately recognized me.   When I mentioned my name, they were both blown away.  I was happy, or, more precisely, ebullient, and Mike said that I was simply “radiant”.   They wanted to know what was going on with me, and I stated, with a matter of fact attitude, that I was having a “spiritual experience”, and they both gave me a huge hug and acknowledgement.  Inspired by this reception, I returned to the Main Post Office, and checked in with the Personnel Department, where Eleanor Workman was the head of the department.  She immediately recognized me, and then offered me an application to reapply for my “lost” position.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. As we look upon all of life, we finally gain the insight that ALL is the extension of the “I am” that we are. All that we will ever see, unto eternity, is, thus, our SELF. for “I am” is distributed throughout all of creation. Everything that we see is our brothers and sisters in Spirit, and, in Truth, and all are extensions of the “I” that “I am”. Our collective error in understanding is believing that “You” has any reality in ultimate Truth, for “you cannot be real”. “You” is forever just an image of thought, created by the collective, or by the individual, mind of man, while believing that he is a separate, isolated being in a lonely universe.

My third intense spiritual healing experience of 1987 would reshape my entire understanding of life. I could have never anticipated the experience I was about to have, on this particular day, July 21, 1987.

The Master Teacher

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

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

Almost immediately, a “laughing, happy voice” seemed to be speaking to me, or, more precisely, through me, in this “secret place of the most high”. Messages floated through, like “No teacher shall effect salvation, each must work it out for themselves”, and, “think no thoughts”, with “Follow new paths of consciousness”, And then, a mathematical formula for re-entry back into the great unknown was given to me. It was a differential equation that I could understand, and which stated (in layman’s terms) that with the total elimination of the movement of time based thought, the direct perception of reality was possible. The limit, as delta T goes to zero (T is thought as a function of time), divided by delta t (t is time itself), delta is the “change in”, or as LIM dT/dt, as dt approaches zero, with T=f(t). The solution of this equation is the great unknown, INFINITY, or that which I sought.  The difference between spiritual “being” and human “becoming” took on mathematical and spiritual significance for me on the deepest level.

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

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

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

The two extra identity vortices in the ‘human energy field matrix’ that constituted my conscious sense of self did not really ever disappear, they just became unconscious again, for me. I later was to name them “black holes” in consciousness.  Little did I know that they were to become the most critical components to understand in my desire to form a better ongoing human/spiritual experience.  I now understood the basis for the potential for the development of “multiple personalities disorder”.  I saw how the whole human race suffered from this disorder, to varying degrees. Schizophrenia, oppression of others, repression of self and feelings, passive/aggressive behavior, people pleasing, prejudice, racism, misogyny and the like all shared a common foundation.  I had no one to discuss this earth shattering spiritual event with, save one person, Masha.

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

WOW!!

That was too much to digest in that moment, in that year of 1987, and for many years to follow.  But, this is a true path of humility, to finally see in its totality the shortcomings of the human mind, and to become willing to go beyond it.

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”. Yet our world suffers, because of the collective belief that we are not of this world, not of each other, or not of this Universe. The unconscious people of the world continue to bring harm to Mother Earth, and to all of her inhabitants, in the name of their own religions, their own disfigured political and economic principles, and their own ignorance. We all suffer accordingly.

I realize that I am an insignificant voice. I am yet another voice calling out from the wilderness of human misunderstanding, trying to locate lost fellow travelers, and aid whoever I may make contact with, in whatever humble way that I can, in our shared journey towards healing. We will heal together, or die alone. I am one of millions of spiritual “Johnny Appleseed’s”, spreading the seeds of our potential for transcendence on the rocky grounds of human consciousness on our planet Earth. I will not live to see the good that may arise from my work, and the greater works of others, and that is OK.

“The finger pointing at the moon, can never be the moon”.

—The Buddha

Were the reader to ever have a similar apocalyptic spiritual experience as I did, on July 21, 1987, the reader would see, as I now see, how pathetic and inadequate can be our words. Words are limited containers for infinite energy, and though they point to a shared reality, they will forever fall short in their intention for communicating what lies deep within the heart. While living in a verbal consciousness, the word remains the way the human world is measured. And the word, because of its inherent limitations, continues to create imbalances within the mind of man. Mankind, with its religions and its political science, continues with its pride and hubris, and clings to its knowledge like it was truth itself, forgetting that our words and thoughts will forever only be theories chasing after the truth that is continuously being updated by the present moment. The universe laughs with us, when we see that all of our words are but simple pointers, to that which exists within each of us, yet also exists far above and beyond the limited and limiting boundaries of human consciousness.

The sun shines, and the artist interprets its light upon the beautiful landscape, and paints a classic piece of art. The wolf howls in the lonely, cold, snow-covered wilderness, and, miraculously, another wolf a great distance away howls back at him, reassuring both that each other is still there, waiting to bridge the distance and make a meaningful connection. The bird sings alone in the forest, yet, a hiker stops for a moment, listens, and her heart begins to sing and her spirit soars with the bird. The divorced and lonely man sings in the shower, and the travelling salesman at his door hears him, and is so impressed by the man’s voice that he encourages him to try out for a local band. An isolated man stumbles upon the miracle of silence within his being, and a resultant bridge of words many years later connects this sacred silence to his latest writings, creating poetry and healing balms for all who are receptive.

“Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate’er you may believe.
There is an inmost center in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception which is truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it, and makes all error: and to KNOW,
Rather consists of opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.”

—–Robert Browning

As I look at my life’s history, I bear witness to Love and its healing Mystery. The greatest insights that I have ever had continue to arise through the sacred silence within my being. Words are formed to become the bridge from that silence, to the conscious mind, in its attempt to bring balance back to which the verbal universe has brought imbalance to. Yet those words, though sacred to me, are only pointers to the potential for others. Yet, to continue to point I must.

In retrospect, My father only appeared to cast a shadow over my life. And, more recently, Donald Trump only appears to cast a shadow over our world. It was up to me to find my own unique voice, in my search for my own truth, so that I could arise from my own self-imposed shadows, and be with Life as a partner on love’s endless journey. It is up to all of us to arise from our self-imposed shadows, and confront those demons, both within our hearts, and within our political world, and demand necessary change so that our world, and ourselves, can be embraced by each other’s, our Mother Earth’s, and our Universe’s, healing caress.

And, no, father, in whatever form that you may now be appearing in my life, I will never run out of things to write or talk about, and

I WILL NEVER SHUT UP.

The Silence continues to reach out to the turbulence within our world.

My world will never be the same.

How about yours?

Never judge an album by its cover.

Never judge a cover by its album.

Writer’s note: Writing in my blog is like singing in the shower. Few people ever hear if I am off key, especially when I go for the high notes. I encourage all readers to continue their own writings, and do not let the off-key “high notes” discourage you. Our creations are precious, and sacred, when wrapped with loving intention. Like all writings, and speeches from others, please salt this one to personal taste.

Tom Sawyer

Rush

A modern-day warrior
Mean, mean stride
Today’s Tom Sawyer
Mean, mean pride

Though his mind is not for rent
Don’t put him down as arrogant
His reserve, a quiet defense
Riding out the day’s events
The river

What you say about his company
Is what you say about society
Catch the mist
Catch the myth
Catch the mystery
Catch the drift

The world is, the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his skies are wide
Today’s Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you
And the space he invades, he gets by on you

No, his mind is not for rent
To any god or government
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren’t permanent
But change is

And what you say about his company
Is what you say about society
Catch the witness
Catch the wit
Catch the spirit
Catch the spit

The world is, the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his eyes are wide

Exit the warrior
Today’s Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you
And the energy you trade
He gets right on to
The friction of the day