THERE AND NOT THERE

Once he had “made a name for himself,” and then rather quickly discarded it, for it was false to him, he was false to himself, and the name that came to be on a small but real pedestal, the personage that he now fulfilled and had to keep fulfilling not unlike a balloon full-filled with hot air, had become an overinflated role that he could keep fulfilling or could just let the air out and walk away, which is what he did. As much as he enjoyed the power, the image he now had built, had earned even, he knew it was false and no longer to be maintained. He understood the meaning of “false images” and conceived that perhaps all such idols in the eyes of men are false. While he didn’t necessarily want to be invisible, he realized not been seen or known to be much closer to the truth of things: to be empty of self is truer than to be full of self, for self has its own way of claiming and identifying with power, thus becoming the role it plays, the masque it wears. We all become what we think we are, often to our great detriment, be it notable or notorious, famous or infamous. And now, in his old age, though he regretted his invisibility at times, he also relished it; for he could walk in the forest unseen and unheard, like a breeze among the trees, or saunter upon the beach in the surf, watching his footprints vanish behind him at each step he took. That was invigorating to him. For, in looking back, he could see so clearly now all the mistakes he had made in his life, all the hurts he had inflicted in his self-absorption. For he had been so blind to others and their needs, never knowing or caring who they actually were or how they cared for him. He felt this now, deeply in his heart, in his soul. And he could not “make it right” to those others. As for the sorrow within him, he didn’t know if it was due to his sins of omission or if it was a reflection of the great sorrow of humanity itself in its own lostness.

THE INHERENT WHOLENESS OF BODY AND SOUL VS. THE NEED TO ADD CHEMICALS

Of course the question is: Adding these chemicals, the drugs to my body for the purpose of having a certain effect or a counteraction in my body including my mind, does this actually improve my health and functionality? What of the “pain-killers”? Am I to actually have my pain diminished? The symptom placated, as it were? Does my experience of the pain as it is have a “higher” or, for that matter, “natural” function that is necessary for my human experience? Is serotonin, which reduces symptoms of sadness and depression and their particular perspective, actually to not be taken, so that I might feel certain things and attain perhaps a deeper and more comprehensive understanding and experience of myself? For the serotonin taken in this way seems to cut my consciousness off from the pain within the depths of myself which seems to hold certain kinds of awarenesses and revelations for me. It seems to me that many of my bodily ills come to me as a result of a adding these noxious chemicals to my body.

          In the exact same vein, as it were, there is the world of technology that takes control, that takes over society and culture, replacing, it seems, a vital “natural connection” within us. People become, in many respects, as almost crazed automatons, addicted to the electronic devices that come to control their minds and their behaviors. I can see that this kind of monitoring and supervision could improve the human race but that it definitely has not; it seems that this cyborgian reality has disconnected humanity from itself and each other, at least on a deep “human” level, far more than bringing it together.

The body begins to fail in all its pain and in all our loss. It stops working properly, required medical external treatments, some of which seem somewhat effective. One never wants them for one finds oneself more and more less human. Is this part of God’s Plan for: to us to see these meds and drugs that effect us in the body as they do as part and parcel of God’s Work? We are much better off if such is our experience, if our “improvement” is simply another expression of the goodness of “what is”. Or have we become cyborgs, part literally machine and chemical with a rather smaller claim at “being human” and a “greater need” to see ourselves as “less human/less natural” and more mechanical and lacking in human qualities like emotion and, in due times, intelligence itself—as WE become worked on, manipulated, even controlled by forces greater than ourselves. What we once called miracles are now part of the treatment for the machine that we become.

          In my mind I still find myself actually “praying for miracles” entailed healing in my own body and in my wife’s that enable me to endure as her companion and caregiver. This is my biggest prayer and it seems there is much rejected of the reality of “what is” in existence and specifically in my life and other’s lives. Most often, people who are “afflicated” must follow their afflication “to the end” without either recourse or alternative, though if a “still greater context” is found and experienced dependably, the existing rules, as they were, may be alleviated if you know how. I see myself as “somewhat advanced”, both my focus and preference, but also by a “faith in what is” perhaps even more than a faith in God, though what God is, or perhaps the function of God, is quite squarely present is all that is, denoted a level of faith at least as strong—and by my criteria immeasurably stronger than that of Christianity simply because it is not based in sentimental, magickal, elemental theory but it foundation laws of existence.

          But now I begin to tire and consequently fade quickly, having gotten up and finally taken the meds I use to help me get through the night with sleep and reduced pain: glips, hydro, and zolps. I suppose they are now part of me—as much as I’d prefer otherwise. Part of my dream now, though I think I can skip the “happy pills” and just let my depression down dips drown me a bit before I return to a semblance of human once more. I don’t know if “crushing the soul” on a regular basis weakens its fabric and future performance or if has the effect of consequently keeping it “flexible” and able to “go with the flow,” or hopefully create its own. The latter is what I ultimately count on. “Happy pills” make too much of a buffer between myself and myself able to be in the world; such buffer becoming a “wall.”

PAIN: ITS WISDOM, GUIDANCE AND VIRTUE

I would much rather believe that this excruciating pain is punishment from God for my transgressions and that it has the effect of purifying my soul, thus washing the karmic slate clean. Otherwise, I am to accept the pain simply as it is and with no “productive benefit.” The medieval belief that one’s suffering purified one’s soul and thus brought one closer to God and to Heaven helped to maintain the status quo of the innumerable slaves of the masters who were consequently accepting of their lot in life. The fat priests did their job of making sure the populace were willing to keep their backs bent and their untold suffering between them and the Lord, who was a great listener and who was waiting in Heaven for them when they finally loosed the crushing yoke of their meager lives. But they held their suffering and loss in this context and thus we able to live good, even happy lives, even as they were being crushed. I only wish that I could hold and believe that my profound physical pain held meaning and purpose for me, that it was purifying my soul at the expense of my body. Does this severe, crippling pain act on behalf of something sublime? Does it bring me a certain understanding? Obviously it does—in one way in particular: it severs my identity with my physical body, thus enabling me to be quite willing to let go, to even look forward to it, when the times comes to pass beyond it. This is one major benefit, for such physical pain puts one in a quite different state of mind and being than the normal bodily state. And I suppose that this being moved, almost against one’s bodily will, into a different, more “spiritual” state of mind and being, is another way of explaining the benefit of such. To be able to consciously disidentify with the physical life to a life beyond that, more sublime, as it were, than that is a blessing, for the physical life is inherently transitional and temporary, if not short and brutal (Hobbes?). To disidentify with it enables one to make the transitional out of it so much easier, and then to whatever follows so much easier as well. To be in the “proper reality” is like being able to speak the local language and thus communicate and relate oneself within it. To be able to speak the language of Heaven enables one to belong in it.

          Of course, I speak too metaphorically, not literally, though some, perhaps many, would take all this quite literally. I do wish it were as literal and as simple as the stories I have been told, that the Loving Father will reach down and pick me, his child, up in his arms, for we all know that he is a great giant and that we are as small dolls in his hands, or perhaps even as grains of sand in his hand, though I knew a woman, Roxanne, who suffered in Alaskan Outback as a child and had to beg for food at the Salvation Army and various churches where she had to sing for her supper. She had to sing, He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, but she knew she had fallen through between his great gigantic fingers. Her younger brother, whom she took care of, stranded in a cabin in the deep snow, where they almost starved to death, came to my hometown, dressed himself as a clown, and went through the town putting a nickel in the parking meters that had run out of time, thus saving the owners of the cars from the impending parking ticket. He was soon arrested and jailed for this act of kindness. I don’t know what became of him or of his sister, who was a waitress and a poet of profound depth and beauty. Certain things, certain people, certain stories stick with me, in my soul, in my heart, in my mind, and become a part of me. Love demands this; love of our fellow human beings, who are not only as ourselves but are ourselves.

          So I seem to have answered my own question as to what may be the benefits of this most severe pain in my body. It may be that pain opens the heart so that the pain of others may be enabled to flow into our own heart, that we may be able to see that there is not “your heart” and “my heart,” but, in truth, only our heart. When I finally had to accept that my daughter had “severe and profound” autism and that she would be and she would be, the walls around my own heart crumbled and I felt myself to be the father of every single disabled child in the world. One’s heart does not usually open willingly but its walls are destroyed by the missiles of whatever life itself brings. And so, I prefer to believe that the gods themselves send those missiles to open us up to all life and expand us to include all life, which, I believe, is necessarily a most painful process since all that we have come to believe to be ourselves is absolutely destroyed. And in our devastation, we are shattered, but learn how to rebuild ourselves with the pieces we choose to pick up and put together in a better way until the next time. So I find that I am able to have this pain that is so in my body speak for itself here. I had no idea that this would happen, though I was guided by that same pain to come to my desk here, sit down, and write these words. In this respect, my pain has direction and it leads me. I could speak of pleasure and that I have had a life of profound pleasure. But pleasure wants more pleasure. Pain, I do not think, seeks more pain, rather, pain seeks to express itself and tell us another kind of truth about ourselves and our existence. I would like to say that in this expression of pain through me, through this mind and these fingers, the pain in my body has diminished. It has; I am less pained in this moment, in body and mind and feeling. If only it were so easy as that. But time will tell.

From "fragments" to "pieces of the mosaic eternal"

I have changed the blog title. Life is no longer “fragmentary” to me; it comes in pieces, in colors—all integral pieces of what I call the “whole,” the “mosaic eternal,” for, in time and space, it will come to be evident, though it is evident now only to those who are able to see it in non-time and non-space, which I am calling “eternal.” I suppose I have my own version of my own vision, which I do not relate to any particular belief system, though I suppose I must credit many of them for perhaps providing passing experiences of such “vision,” which I have consequently used in the creation of my own.

          I believe that one must be able to “find peace” in one’s life, not by self-deception but by self-revelation, self-discovery. If you will read my previous blog, you will see that I made the following choice: “I would much rather have gods who are “task masters” (on my own spiritually developmental behalf) and who care (in my own mind, if such must be the case), rather than no gods at all, because I know I so often do not know, am so distracted (by the drama of my own mind and emotions) and may be too hurt or too angry to care (about myself) at all.”

          As a result, I am finding that I am in fact very much in a state of peace of mind, emotion, and body—which is rather amazing to me, for I never expected it whatsoever. 

THE FAITH I POSSESS

Life and its demands, its requirements, its rules, its regulations, even its well-worn patterns-become-beliefs-become-traditions demand their pounds of flesh, their money and angst and submission. It is a deadly game played, a stupefying and numbing game, a giving up of the soul in bits and pieces until one must not only play but be … dead. The body itself requires that it be fed, that it’s teeth be cleaned, that it be made to survive healthily as long as possible, that its bed be comfortable, though it is the mind the requires that the body be attired fashionably and that it maintain an attractiveness in society. It all requires the maintenance of a certain level of control of all external and internal forces as if there could actually be such a thing, as if we could respond instinctively and intuitively and most appropriately to all stimuli, like a sunflower’s trope towards the sun. And so we end up in contrivances of all sorts that will give us the impression and belief that we are in control and possessing the image of success, of this control, whatever it may be. If not material wealth and social power and fame, then at least savoir faire, a convincing pretence of such, or perhaps a little of each, though a small amount of pretense properly applied can cover a surprisingly large area and last a goodly amount of time.

          I once more consider “taking all my writings and publishing them in an actual book.” At least partly so that I can bury or otherwise hide a few copies in a redwood trunk and then find that said redwood trunk next lifetime so that I can be further bored out of my wits. If life cannot be “tongue and cheek(s),” it has no purpose. My life has purpose. To be able to be self-denigrating in a most humorous manner allows me the wherewithal to successfully denigrate other selves as well. But why? Why would that be a life purpose? To remove the one thing we are most proud of and that we hold onto to prove that we are worthwhile in this world: self-image. Self-image, which is false at heart, self-deceitful, usually mean-spirited (especially in its showy, smiling, goodness), superficial and simply stupid. We are good creatures at heart though generally know no better in mind, though which we sin against the God of our own being, not because we are evil but because we just don’t know what’s real, because we are so utterly ignorant of ourselves, especially of ourselves in the world. Even the world is not evil, though the devil best dwells in our minds and souls here. To be in bodies with which we come to identify is utter and complete temptation to become what we are not, and to cause a rift, if not an abyss, between our true selves and our false selves. We make wrong choices based in wrong identity, mistaken identity, and only life itself, or, the gods acting upon us through the exigencies and emergencies of life, has the effect of sloughing off our false skins and our false notions and identities, returning us to a true semblance of our being. It is not that there is “hope”; rather, it is that truth does will out in the end in spite of us and our stupidities. And it is not that “life is cruel”; we cannot blame life for our own blindness: life just comes at us, as it were, and we just respond poorly until we finally learn, by trial and error and perhaps even by divine grace, how to respond appropriately, according to our true nature, true being.

SAYING WHAT IS NOT SAID

Whenever I write something, whenever I “make a point,” I am acutely aware that I am “opening Pandora’s box,” releasing so much more which has not been said. My so-called “thesis” releases so many anti-theses. In making a “positive” statement, so many negative statements are instantly revealed, though unwritten. David Miller expressed such points of view, noting also the revelation of so many “mis-takes.” To “say something,” one must “take a point of view,” “a position,” that, by its very nature, is de-cisive, that is, “killing,” as it were, other points of view which are also “true in themselves.” So, is it wiser or “truer” to not delineate anything at all, but to keep silent? Or is silence itself a particular point of view or position taken? It would seem that silence could be a definite statement and not representative of impartiality or a superior moral stance whatsoever. It seems to me that silence can be quite active, with its own inherent agency. For instance, if one does not vote as an expression of one’s disapproval, the absence of that vote is a vote for the “other side.” Of course, there are those who believe themselves to be “above it all,” and of the cosmological and metaphysical “greater context” in which time and space and humanity and history occur, so that they may deduce that “nothing matters” in such a context. I have been of that mind and still often am, however, it is a fatalistic and nilhilistic perspective that perceives one’s life and oneself as inherently insignificant, if not even invisible to the point of non-existence. It is a view that one is fated to nothingness, to be nothing. And it is an absolutely false view in that it holds the individual as somehow not a part of the whole, as not a participant in the unfolding of what happens and of what is. In fact and logically, we are a part of “it all”; we participate in the unfolding and expression of fate, of what happens, of life, and of our own lives in particular. What we may call “God,” “the universe,” the “Dao,” our “ground of being,” Self, or source, is not separate from us, not only “out there,” but also “in here,” within ourselves. Of course, this brings up the questions, “Well, then, just what are ‘we’”? and “Just how do we define ‘inner’ and ‘outer’”? Every thought we have digresses to another perhaps underlying thought and endlessly so. Nothing can quite ever be explained, much less understood in the way of explanations.

          To come back to my original statement that what we say reveals in its own particular way (which is not just “reading between the lines” and surely not necessarily oppositional or paradoxical) releases so much more of what is not said. I read somewhere that Wittgenstein said of his writings, something to the effect that, “the value to be found in this book is in not what I say, but what I do not say.” Forgive me for not being able to find the exact quote. However, Wittgenstein does reflect, in Tractatus, my own points here and elsewhere:

The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists—and if it did, it would have no value.

If there is any value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental. 

What makes it not-accidental cannot lie within the world, since if it did it would itself be accidental.

And so it is clear that ethics cannot be put into words.

If we take eternity to mean no infinite temporal duration but timelessness, the eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end…

God does not reveal himself in the world.

(John Gardner, Mickelsson’s Ghosts, Knopf, 1982, p.479)

          Everything we think, believe, and say is out of context because we do not, at least consciously, have a knowledge or even really a grasp of the possible vastness or simplicity of context. Our thoughts, and the thoughts of the “great minds” of religion and philosophy and physics (for that matter) weave in and weave out, warp and woof, ebb and flow. That which I present in my writing tends to be that which “arises within me” implicitly (to use Giegerich’s descriptive term in The Soul’s Logical Life, 45), or somewhat intuitively, which I then truly attempt to make explicit. If it simply provokes thought in the reader, I am satisfied. 

SOUL, IDENTITY, "LOCATION"

Just where are we “located”? This is a “loaded” question, requiring a multiplicity of answers.

          First, there is the “we.” The many “I”s. Theosophy (and Hinduism, in particular) present a person as consisting of the physical body, the emotional (or astral) body, the mental body, the soul (or embodied spirit). There are other sub-bodies, as it were, but this is sufficient to work with. It is said that the soul, which is “higher” or less dense than the other “bodies,” is inclusive of them. This implies that if the physical body is eliminated at death, the soul still includes the emotional and mental bodies, which is to say the feelings and thoughts (mind) of the person who did exist, which thus both “individualizes” the soul and limits its self-awareness, for it remains “tied” to specific feelings, thoughts, as well as memories. Just because it is now absent the physical aspect neither makes it “enlightened” or “purified,” for it remains “tainted” and even with a personality. It still has a long road to haul, be it purging of that which is false through the Catholic “purgatory,” or through myriad reincarnated lives.

          Second, if, in fact, we are souls (including mind, emotion, and body), or embodied spirit, just “where” is this. Doesn’t spirit permeate the universal? Would it be equivalent to what we refer to as “God,” that is, if it were purified to the extent that it was free of ego, which is to say, self and self-reference, which is to say further, from thought, feeling, and flesh? Wouldn’t it become as “pure energy” permeating the whole universe and even universes? There have been Hindu holy people who have stayed coma-like in meditation, maintained by devotees, apparently connected to their body by a thread of consciousness only, and/or not even needing normal nourishment. I have read of such things and known a few people who knew a few other people. I take it as true. Over the years I too have had my own “out of body” meditational and otherwise experiences, which took me out of my body and far out into the universe. I don’t think it was sheer imagination or a dream-state. I believe “I,” my consciousness, my self-awareness, traveled spatially great distances. I have also noted elsewhere in these writings that I have traveled through time, as it were, and experienced different reincarnations of my “own,” that is, of this soul of which “I” am the current manifestation as the person I am.

          Third, so where am “I” (or we) actually “located”? The answer lies in which level of being that we identify ourselves as primarily existing in and in which our living experience actually occurs. A case in point: Over the last ten years I have “moved” my “level of being” so that it is less physically-identified, less emotionally-identified, and more mentally identified and probably soul-identified. Very recently, I “returned” to a specific situation which requires greater physical and emotional beingness after a ten-year movement away from that kind of being. In that situation, which was a bit surreal for me, I remembered how it used to be but is not now. It was very clear to me that I had made such a shift out of necessity and out of love. My point here is not to be enigmatic or vague, as it may appear, but that this identity we have of “ourself” can express and manifest on many different levels in many different, even very distant, “locations.”

          It seems to me that we have a rather habitual bias that “we” are definitely located in the physical body, since the physical body is our primarily apparent locus of activity, even though our locus of feeling and thought may be even more primary than our body, especially if we consider that perhaps we have had many physical bodies that have “dropped away” over the eons, but the emotional and mental bodies have evolved and continued to develop for a very long time. We may have forgotten that this is so, believing that it has always been a “clean slate” upon each new birth, but there are many who realize that they have carried feelings and thoughts, if not actual memories, from previous existences. So it is that we have a “predisposition” to our physical existence, which is also a biological predisposition with the purpose of survival of our species, of “ourselves,” as we see it.

          At this point I could digress into the notion that “I” do not really exist but, rather, am a figment of my own imagination, which begins to flow more towards the Buddhist way of seeing. But I won’t go there for now. Rudolf Steiner’s view is that upon physical death, the soul “blasts” (if I recall correctly) out of the body into the universe, literally passing the planets and proceeding to the “edge” before being drawn back into the next body into which it has reincarnated. I have no idea as to the veracity of this. It could very well be that, for a physical body to be animated by a soul, that soul must literally focus itself within that body and thus be “contained” for a lifetime. Given some of my own experiences and that which I have read and heard, I don’t believe that such energy is necessarily that contained. Is not the whole notion of “enlightenment” one of one’s consciousness or awareness going beyond, while still including, the physical body? Don’t the various “saints” and shamans of religion “talk to God”? Of course, this leads me to “the cloud of unknowing” of Meister Eckhardt, which I will not pursue here and now.

          If an atom bomb exploded down the street, my body would be instantly vaporized. But that would still leave me right where I am. That’s how I see it. We think so many things to be certain, when they are not at all.

YOUTH OF DISTRACTION, AGING OF DEATH

We find much “purpose in life” in youth and middle age, in family and career. It is the “normal distraction of life,” it could be said. Such distraction = purpose and meaning. A very apt carrot hung before us that is truly motivating. And we tend to live our lives accordingly and engaged.

          When family and career fade and we are then left with ourselves in old age, we lose the “inherent distraction of youth and middle age,” and, left with ourselves and perhaps a spouse as well or even still with children, our bodies begin to reveal themselves as a painful limitation to our activities, even to ourselves “as we are,” or so is our interpretation. We begin to “bide our time,” to become more aware of our lives “slipping away slowly” (or perhaps even quickly). We find ourselves waiting to be out of these pained bodies that we still inhabit.

          “Life” in itself does begin to become invasive and demanding as the culture and society changes, dumbs down, loses itself even more in falseness, becoming even more violent and cruel and downright stupid, electing a representative president and government who takes pride in lying, falseness, violence, cruelty, and stupidity. The world goes merrily to “hell in a handbasket.” It becomes ominous and hateful; one begins to feel this weight upon oneself. The Kali Yuga brings us down on “all fours”; we find ourselves barking and biting.

          But then, it is the weight of the crumbling, the deterioration of the body, of the mind too—of the life one has defined for oneself and lived, be it partially or fully, according to one’s retrospective. Such is normal; it is preparation for actually looking forward to leaving the body. Some religions celebrate such a parting. My own perspective is at least an appreciation for the unfolding of my life, even in its strange and often painful ways. But the pain of life leads us beyond itself into something much more real, much deeper, so far within that it is beyond; it may be called the “underlying life” not just within the outer life, but which is the matrix of all life itself. It is not a belief system or doctrinal though it finds its way into those institutional contexts. I, with the suggestion of John Gardner, the author, may call myself an “opportunistic fatalist,” or what could be a “positivistic nilhilist.” The notion of “life’s unfolding” I see as “fate,” and I am a student of fate, a follower of “what is,” of what reveals itself in each moment, including my particular hopefully evolving, contextually expanding, response to it. It’s not so much that I see life as a “good thing,” rather, it is the “happening thing.” It is thus not to be denied, simply because it IS. One must participate, so why not make the best of it? And one makes the best of it by knowing what it is. And “what it is” is not what it means or how I feel about it, though those may be by-products of knowing what it is. And, of course, one cannot know what life is unless one knows what one is in this context of living. So, “knowing fate” is based in knowing oneself in the context of one’s life, which is the only context in which one can be known, for it is the only backdrop, the only comparison available that we have. We can only see ourselves in the context of our existence. That said, “our existence” is of a multi-leveled nature; we “exist” physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually (or, taken as one, psychologically). This is my particular perspective. I also see that there is some kind of “matrix” or “living structure” in and through which we exist, such “structure” permeating all existence, all life, in some way. This “matrix of being,” as it were, has myriad names, mostly religious. This would define me, not as an atheist, I suppose, but as a deist. But the deity is not inherent self-conscious and could be Nature, or the permeability of life, or even perhaps the “storm god” or “mountain god” of the ancient Hebrews. Do I “worship” such a “god”? No. Rather, I am aware of such a “matrix” upon which all like “hangs” and depends, like all children upon their mother, though I also see this matrix as fundamentally and completely existent within each person or thing, which is a central notion of pantheism, though my running joke is that I’m a “pantyist.”

NEGATION OF THE NEGATION: UNIFIED OPPOSITION

Sometimes I find myself in a state of “utter compassion” in which I am overwhelmed with a “beingness of complete love” of all things, and find myself moved by all of it. But before this occurs, I became aware that it is not “knowing” but rather “being” that matters. Being is the end-all, not knowing. To be is reality; “knowing” only seems to be an attempt to explain that, as if it even matters. Of course, it’s very “interesting”—all distractions are most interesting.

          Giegerich, in The Soul’s Logical Life (Lang, 1998), speaks of the “negation of the negation” which is to say, the “living dialectical relationship” of that which we see as opposite, but which is in a living relationship of tension within itself, perhaps like Jung’s transcendent function, perhaps like Hegel’s opposition of thesis and antithesis moving to synthesis, perhaps like my own metaphor of the electric light in which the positive and negative poles interact when electricity is introduced by producing an arc of light, of illumination, a living dialectical relationship borne of the tension of polarity, of time and space, of dual location. When faced with pain (often pain-of-recognition), one chooses to accept it to the point of experiencing it and becoming it, which is not the same as even “becoming one with it.” If one becomes pain, pain-as-an-external affect ceases. This may be similar or even the same as “letting go of oneself” so that “I” am not at the effect of anything. These notions can become more than just philosophical concepts; one can experience so completely that one is identified with that which is experienced; “it” becomes what one is and is expressed through oneself. The wording makes it seems like ideas are being combined with experience, and “experience” itself becomes confusing because we have different levels of experience, including physical, emotional, mental, psychic, spiritual, and these in themselves overlap and become vague and simply conceptual rather than experiential; any interpretation is thus further removed from any reality of what is really happening. The point is that there is no escaping ourselves or what is happening. In that non-escape, we face the negation with our own negation, our own psyche, which is our own not-self. And so the seeming opposition of our nature and being is thus expressed as a unity even of non-united elements.

          Giegerich refers to “the idea of merely freeing the … opposites from their insulation [and isolation as ‘opposites’ in our mind] and bringing them into living dialectical relation with each other, into a situation where the pulsating … movement from one to the other and back is no longer artificially prevented. … this movement does not occur as a succession in time (now this, now the other). It occurs as the internal logic of one and the same (truly psychological) other.” ... One “no longer divides something or someone else into two (the person into ego vs. self, consciousness into an old vs. a new status), and his dividing is no longer an activity that he executes upon someone (or something) else” (34). “The soul is not ‘empirical,” it is not a ‘transcendent mystery,’ it is the dialectical logical life playing between the soul’s opposites” (38).

          Soul as used here is psyche. Paradoxically (I suppose), as it reveals itself, it further hides itself in such revelation, for its nature is a negation; it is definitely not what it appears to be, not as one thinks it to be, or as it seems to be: it continually and perpetually opens upon itself. The soul is not conceptual but experiential, but not sensorially experiential. It is the process of self-becoming; the process of being. Consider, for example, Jung’s process [as described by Kerenyi] of being “reached and touched, indeed ‘gripped’ by the Notion of the soul. And because he had been touched and gripped by it, he had a grasp, … a Notion, of it and he could grasp it. Both oppositional aspects … belong together. (41)” A specific example of this is Jung’s words regarding Freud as “ ‘… a man in the grip of his daimon’ … because the idea of sexuality ‘had taken possession of him’; for Freud, sexuality was undoubtedly a numinosum.’ The ‘emotionality with which he spoke about it revealed the deeper elements reverberating within him’” (35). Thus, Freud’s seeming “psychological discourse” is not that, but rather a revelation of psyche, soul, or daimon, however, as it is reflected upon and interpreted, such “psychological reality” fades into psychological presentation and case study. But even so, Freud’s “work as a whole with its fixation on sexuality allows one to sose that there must have been a mystery, one that has been systematically excluded and obliterated” (35).

           Having personally experienced the state of negation, the apophatic, the via negativa, the dark night of the soul, studied and researched the topic, and written a thesis, The Rebirth of the Christian Apophatic Spirit; Embracing the Dark Night of the Soul (The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, March 1996) on it, I feel that I do possess a vital sense of the “Notion of the soul,” though it is best expressed not in words but in no words, which is challenging when presented in the medium of the written word.

GHOSTS AND OTHER THINGS

When I was young, in my 20s, I was so sure of myself, so certain in my thinking. I think it came from all the support I got from this theosophical group, Arcana Workshops, to which I belonged for ten to fifteen years and with whom I meditated daily and then studied the writings of AAB and wrote a lot for my mentor there. I actually came to believe that I was the World Avatar! Now that’s confidence. It’s also delusional but then I never shouted it from any rooftops or even whispered it to anyone, including my wife. It was my secret and I was just biding my time until the right moment to reveal myself to the world—which never came.

          My participation began in 1971 after I was assigned to two years’ civilian alternative service as a conscientious objector at Greer, A Children’s Community, near Millbrook, New York. I had never meditated in a disciplined way before, though I had been exposed to some Rosicrucian (AMORC) meditation techniques, and also teachings pertaining to the various “levels of being.” I had learned, for instance, that it was the astral level, or emotional level, on which ghosts or earth-bound spirits existed, and that to free oneself from haunting by ghosts, one had to raise one’s level of consciousness, of being, above the astral, to the mental.

          At Greer I began to experience a whole horde of grabbing, mischievous, dark, frightening “ghosts” who would literally grab at my clothes, face, hands, and try to force me to slow down my pace and stop when I would walk out of my cottage at night. But worse, they appeared to the children to whom I was houseparent, at night when they were in bed, and literally pinch their toes. The children would wake up screaming and terrified several times a week. My first response to this situation was to instruct the kids to say to the ghosts, if they could gather their wits to do so, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I order you to leave this place and to move on.” I even splashed “holy water” from a Catholic Church in the rooms, and burned sage, though more for the kids’ sense of safety than my belief it would work. The hauntings actually increased, probably since they now had our full attention. At that point, I noticed a small ad, I think in the back of Atlantic magazine, that said: “Meditation with a meditating group. Raise yourself above the astral level.” I was amazed that it actually noted “raising consciousness above the astral.” I became involved very quickly, was practicing the mental-spiritual meditation, and was noticing that when I did go out and walk at night, the ghosts no longer bothered me, even though I could still sense their presence. I was “raising my vibrations” through this meditation. Then I got my boys together, ten of them, ages four through ten, and I taught them how to do this meditation, which, in turn, gave them the confidence to confront the ghosts and tell them to go away “in Jesus’ name.” Each night we meditated together for a few minutes before bedtime. The children were “on board” with the whole process, since they, having firsthand experience with the ghosts, definitely did not like them.

          Not long afterward, I had one more intense experience with the ghosts. My wife, Nikki, was very susceptible to the ghosts. She could literally see them; they would fully materialize in front of her. I didn’t see them, but would feel them, emotionally and physically. However, on this one night we were in our apartment in our cottage and suddenly Nikki froze, her eyes staring at something, her mouth open. I looked where she was staring and saw a woman standing there in an ankle-length black dress and high-buttoned black shoes, but only as far up at her knees. Nikki could see the whole person. Then, in that same moment, the whole room, which had lights on in it, suddenly became darkened, as if filled with odorless smoke. And the temperature in the room fell below freezing so that I could “see my breath” condensing in the cold air. There was then another dark figure in the room and a frightening sound of the wings of a large bird, like a crow. We were so terrified in this darkness, these figures, and this sound of wings—so overcome by a feeling of overwhelming evil. The room was pitch black and freezing. As strange as it may be, we both jumped into bed and piled covers upon ourselves, holding each other tightly, waiting for the very worst to happen. Then they were gone just as quickly as they came; the room was lit and it was warm. The ghosts never appeared again in such a personal way, though a couple of times after that, in broad daylight, I saw perhaps twenty ghosts standing at the edge of the meadow at a distance in front of the great trees of the bordering forest. They seemed to just stand there unthreatening and still, gazing at me. I felt a sorrow and silently told them to move on.

          There is a historical explanation for the presence of the ghosts. In my research, which consisted of talking with a few “old-timers” around the town of Millbrook and a farmer near Greer, plus my own study of the history of the place itself, I discovered that it had been an Episcopalian orphanage, built in the mid-1800s, consisting of two large Georgian structures, which now housed the administration and the school. What had happened was that, in the 1890s, the place was swept by some kind of plague, probably either smallpox or cholera, that killed almost every adult and child who was there. And the adults, in their black Episcopalian, Victorian garb, for whatever reason, remained. But it wasn’t just that, in my estimation. It seemed to me that there was also a particular presence of evil that permeated the atmosphere even on the sunniest, most beautiful days, like the day I saw the figures lined up along the edge of the meadow. I had thought that perhaps they were just shadows of the trees behind them in the late afternoon, but they were not; the sunlight was directed towards the forest—there could not have been shadows where the figures were.

          Some of the houseparents there, who had been there for many years, should not have been there, in my estimation. I knew one or two that physically abused the children or were able to bribe the other children under their care to beat certain “disobedient” children. And there may have been a pedophile, though I couldn’t be sure about it. On the other hand, there were other conscientious objectors like myself, who were young and caring and tuned-in to the children, and were excellent houseparents. One old woman had survived the fire-bombing of Dresden in WWII and told me horrendous stories about that. Another, Galen, a conscientious objector, was a cowboy from Montana, who played a guitar and sang cowboy songs to the teenage “tough” boys from Harlem, who loved his music and respected him greatly. My little kids liked me too because, though white, I was a bearded, long-haired hippie, and rather disliked by the administrators and campus policeman, who once called me a “recalcitrant, Marxist hippie” in front of the kids. Though I doubt whether they knew what “recalcitrant” and “Marxist” meant, they certainly didn’t like and were afraid of the campus cop, and must’ve felt I was somehow “on their side” after that.

          My dismay at the behavior of some of the houseparents towards their wards caused me to contact the AFL-CIO in the naïve hope that to unionize the houseparents might provided some good “child-training” courses to show the houseparents how to actually help children with love and concern rather than to promote fear and racism. When I met the local union rep, it was like meeting a Mafioso chieftain, literally buffered by bodyguards with guns. I started secretly organizing, meeting with houseparents on campus to persuade them to join the union. The campus policeman and his crew, who cruised the Greer campus with guns in the pick-ups, may have been informed by a houseparent. I had discovered, though another houseparent whose girlfriend worked as the personal secretary of the man who ran the whole operation at Greer, that this administrator had embezzled funds to send his family to Europe and actually pay his children’s tuitions at Ivy League colleges. What finally happened was that my co-organizer, a conscientious objector, Lee, was killed in an accident; the brake lines of his truck had been cut. I was closely watched by men in pick-ups on the campus after that—and was followed by them at a distance when I left the campus on errands. The union didn’t come about.

MY CLAIM TO FAME

I had been assigned to working for two years in alternative service as a result of attaining status as a conscientious objector with the Selective Service and had found a job as a “child care worker” or houseparent at an institution for “emotionally-disturbed” children, called Greer, A Children’s Community, near Millbrook, New York. I was houseparent to ten young boys, ages four to ten, in a “community” consisting of perhaps fifteen home-like buildings housing boys and girls, ages four to eighteen, who were mostly children removed from homes for neglect and abuse but whose families were unwilling to put them up for adoption or into other foster care. Though the institution termed these children as “emotionally-disturbed,” they provided no counseling or mental health care whatsoever, except, of course, for the psychiatrists who prescribed medications to keep the children “obedient” and “stable.” When the boys attained the age of eighteen, they were turned out into the world by being given the choice of joining the US Army or Navy. The children lived on site and also attended a grade school on site, though I am unsure about whether or not there was a high school on site.

          “My kids,” mostly from Harlem, had been removed from homes due to severe drug use and violence by parents, which also included neglect; in once case, their baby brother had starved to death in the same bed with them. Some of the children from other places had parents who had died and either no family to care for them or family that was fighting over custody, in the case of one brother and sister, very well-educated, and used to having servants take care of them. All the children, having had severe trauma in their lives, could fit into a category of being “emotionally-disturbed,” often with violent episodes of PTSD. They sometimes behaved quite viciously as if they were little feral creatures. But they were not “disabled” physically, were verbal and could be “age appropriate” in their social responsiveness and behavior, while also easily be pushed or provoked to aggression, including aggression towards adults.

          The institution had weekly meetings attended by administrator, a social worker, a psychiatrist, the “child care workers” (houseparents), and anyone else they deemed necessary. At this particular meeting, which occurred when I had just begun my job, there was also a school teacher from the on-site school that the children attended. She was fresh out of college (as I was too) and quite inexperienced in teaching children who were to be considered “abnormal” for many reasons, including trauma, death of a parent or sibling, physical abuse, neglect, and absolute lack of formal education. The teacher was white and very soft-spoken—not authoritative whatsoever. I note that she was white because most of these little boys were African-American and had never dealt with a white woman as their teacher. She was in tears because the children were utterly “disobedient, disruptive, and disrespectful.” She couldn’t even get them to sit down, much less listen to anything she had to say. When I started caring for them, I found them to be so distracted and restless that I had to use a much louder voice and also “bribe” them with food they liked to get them to behave and be manageable. I suggested as much to the teacher but she just didn’t feel confident enough to believe it could work. I have to wonder if she was even being paid, and that this was some kind of “apprenticeship” for the acquisition of “teaching credits” on her part.

          Everyone at the meeting, except for me and the other houseparent, at the suggestion of the psychiatrist and administrator, decided that all the children should be “put on Ritalin immediately,” since this would allow the teacher to assert some authority and establish adequate control in the classroom. They said they would “revisit” the medication for the children once they “settled down.” That same night I was provided with the Ritalin and told to give a dose to each child before school the next day. I hadn’t even heart of Ritalin and what it was for, so I thought it might help the situation and gave it to each boy the next morning. When they got home from school that day, they were like little zombies and immediately went to bed and didn’t wake up until I woke them up the next morning. I knew this was bad and that I was not going to give them any more Ritalin. I was expected to give them Ritalin daily. At this point I knew that the boys and I would have to “make a deal” to save them from zombietime.

          The next day was a Friday, a school day. After getting them up, I told them all that I would let them stay up to watch Creature Features on Friday night, would get them pizza, make them ice cream sundaes, give them hot dogs anytime from now on if they would simply keep the secret and behave well in school and be nice to the teacher. “But she’s a honky lady (indicating, I surmise, their dislike of white, young, women social workers from the Department of Social Services),” they complained, to which I said, “Well, if you want Creature Features (which was past their bedtime), pizza, ice cream sundaes, hot dogs, and other good stuff, being nice and obedient to the white teacher isn’t such a big deal, is it?” So we made the deal and I dumped the Ritalin in the toilet—every day for the next almost two years.

          The following week, at the next staff meeting, the young teacher attended, this time with tears of gratefulness, at the “profound expertise” of the psychiatrist and administration, who soundly patted themselves on the back at that meeting, and at every single meeting for the next almost two years. Once or twice, soon after this meeting, I brought up the idea of “revisiting” the continuing necessity for the medication and was told not to “rock the boat,” since “what is working is working.” It was approximately twenty-two months later, as, once again, the psychiatrist and the administrator were crediting themselves for “having done such a fine job” in medicating the children so as to produce such “consistently excellent behavior,” I said, “In truth, the kids immediately attained all that excellent behavior on their own with only a kind suggestion on my part and their overwhelming desire to show respect to their teacher and, of course, to me.” They all stopped congratulating themselves and stared at me in utter silence. “And just what do you mean when you say ‘on their own’?” I said, “After the first day, when they returned home like little zombies, I dumped the Ritalin in the toilet, and they promised me they would behave well, which they have—for the last almost two years. They just decided, as a group, to behave, and knew nothing about the Ritalin they were supposed to be taking.” By the next moment, everyone, except the other houseparent, whose cooperation I had also engaged (but who was not suspect because I took full credit for dumping the med), was in an absolute rage, screaming at me that they would call the police and have me arrested for “endangering the children.” My response: “You’re the ones who endangered the children. Obviously, the results speak for themselves. And I would love to tell this story to the Poughkeepsie News. So go ahead and arrest me.” I was fired immediately and told to leave on the spot. 

There are lots of other stories within this one. I'll share one. The boys had to attend a music class with old Mrs. Parks, who made them sing a song when they got to class, which went like this: "Hello Mrs. Parks, Mrs. Parks, Mrs. Parks. Hello Mrs. Parks, how are you today?" The three older boys refused to sing. It may have been one more racial thing and they may have simply felt humiliated having to sing such a silly "honky" song. And so Mrs. Park's smile cracked and she sent them to the Principal's Office, who then sent them home to me, telling me to "deal with them." When they sang the syrupy sweet song to me, I understood their dilemma, even with the promise they had made to me. So I started thinking about what we might do to alleviate the situation. I had a solution but it had to be their solution and they had to arrive at it. So I suggested that they find way to sing the song perhaps with more "suitable" words. I started singing it very slowly with them. Very slowly, after mentioning that they could use words that rhyme with the words in the song. Very quickly, on their own, they were singing, with big smiles on their faces, "Hello Mrs. Farts, Mrs. Farts, Mrs. Farts. Hello Mrs. Farts. How are you today?" The very next day, I received a call from Mrs. Parks in which she praised the boys and praised me for "talking some sense into their heads." And I noticed that Mrs. Parks was also a little hard of hearing. "Praise Jesus," I thought.

Since we're on the subject, one of my other favorite bumperstickers: BEJESUS LOVES ME!

ON IMPARTING WISDOM

One must refrain from imparting wisdom because such wisdom is always partial rather than whole (or impartial, for that matter). “Part of the truth,” therefore, is not the truth, and is, in this respect, untruthful, though not a falsehood, a lie, which, I would say, require deceitful intention. When I had happened to inquire of the Yijing of what it might have to say, it did say, in so many words, know yourself internally before you express yourself (externally), or, find your inner wisdom before you attempt to express any wisdom to others. It seemed to make the point that, in its opinion (which is that of the universe, after all), I am quite unillumined. I took this in, already instinctively (or even intuitively) having published nothing of my “wisdom” in my blog. I also interpreted myself to be quite Daoistically tuned-in, having already followed the instructions, not even knowing why. And since then, I have been thinking: “One finds one’s place, not by doing nothing, but by trying, making mistakes, and thus further defining oneself.” Knowing this to be utter bullshit, I knew that I wanted to “keep form” by once again doing the wrong thing, since that is “my way” and it just “feels better.” I know “good advice,” and even “true advice,” and have always made the mistake of not following it adequately, which indicates that I at least knew it and yet “took the plunge” anyway: the plunge of “imparting wisdom,” which may be like gas passed as one, having taken the plunge, hurtles towards oncoming oblivion, twisting and turning in the wind.

GODS SEEING THROUGH OUR EYES

As I sat on my redwood perch in the deep Forest of Nisene Marks yesterday, I allowed my head to gently rest on my chest, and closing my eyes, I feel asleep in the absolute silent stillness of the forest, far off any electrical grid, surrounded by sixteen “offspring” of three mother redwood trunks, cut down between 160 and 100 years ago. I don’t remember what I dreamed but as I awoke, before opening my eyes, I realized that we are gods come down to the earth and in these bodies, seeing it all through these eyes, living it all in these bodies and their lives, which we forget are also our divine lives. I opened my eyes then and saw the forest as if I were a newborn babe and it was all absolutely new to me. I deeply inhaled in utter amazement at the beauty of the forest and moved my old, wrinkled hands before my eyes, as if I had never seen them before. They too were amazing to me. I climbed off the great tree trunk and, with my walking “stick,” clambered down the steep twenty-foot path, and then out of the forest to the fire trail and lot where my car was parked. Everything I saw and smelled stayed “new” pretty much until I got to the parking lot maybe twenty minutes. By then I was already thinking that I had to go by either Gayle’s or Dharma’s and get a nice meal for my wife and myself. Pesto pasta from Dharma’s, I decided. I could talk with my old friend, Josh, behind the counter, or exchange a joke with Bernie, the owner, whom I knew, what, 35 years ago, when he started McDharmas, and was sued by McDonalds and had to change the name. Babba Hari Dass, a teacher of Ram Dass, and guru of his ashram at Mt. Madonna, a few miles south of here, had died. Josh told me about his cremation and how he got to place a carnation on the exact spot of Babba’s heart before he was burned up. That’s why I like talking to Josh.

It would be good if we could remember just who we are. Gods, pure beings, are looking out through these eyes of ours. If we could realize this and keep realizing it in our lives, the world would be a much different place. I do not subscribe to religion or to such belief in religious gods, which are presented falsely but perhaps well-meaning clergies, who are nevertheless corporate-minded, bottom line in mind, which is a bit harsh because there are good people and aware people everywhere, including there. One has to trust the sorrow within oneself. We know on some level our plight as human beings. We feel the split between spirit and flesh as though the twain cannot meet, though we know also that it does and must, for here we are in the world of matter as most divine beings of pure spirit. We must learn to live as if all of us, each of us, were worthy of love and kindness. It would seem that trusting others in this kind of existence would be utterly impossible, for people do not even bother to know themselves enough to come even close to trusting or knowing themselves. Instead they allow themselves to be lead like sheep to the slaughter by those who would manipulate them to their own ends. Sometimes there are no reference points for us. Sometimes there is nothing online to explain our thoughts or what we know to us. There is no backup. We have to move forward in our thinking, our own thoughts—divine thoughts, if you will, that arise from some place within us of which we are totally unaware. These thoughts are which ultimately move the world to a better place. And we are thinking them and understanding them even now at this moment. We cannot give up on ourselves, on our ability to know things, to know what to do, to know what is right. Such is our destiny.

TECHNOLOGY, A-I, IMAGES & THE DEVOLUTION OF HUMANITY

The devolution of humanity. We do not necessarily regress into animalism; rather, we “progress” into technology and “artificial intelligence.” We become as machines, even seeing this as a good thing, as progress of the human race—a race we are bound to lose. We focus on, via technology, images, which we share with each other and the world without communicating to each other what it is that we actually see. We see only what we see; no one sees the same thing or even attempts to explain what we see to others. Everyone is particularly imprisoned in their own point of view, their own world. But we have even lost the awareness and self-understanding necessary to articulate our thoughts regarding what we see, how we see, or even how we feel about it. We are no longer aware that we are even meant to communicate our thoughts to others. We see and share an image, believing that we are all in agreement about what it is we are seeing, even though we do not know what others are thinking and feeling about the image we have all seen. We believe we are building a great ziggurat reaching up to God in Heaven, so progressive and artificially intelligenced and robotized, until we realize that the tower is collapsing and crumbling around us; until we realize that we have not been in communication whatsoever regarding any plan or understanding of what we are doing. For we have not only lose our ability to think for ourselves, we have lost our ability to think at all. This is the devolution of humanity who let the machines think for them.

Such are my initial thoughts. I think that the technological focus on image resulting in the loss of communicative skills and even the awareness of the need for communication may be worthy of thought. The devolution of humanity is already known as the Kali Yuga, but now we can see just how the unraveling is occurring. It is no accident that we are now governed, both literally and figuratively, though an increasing level of insanity.

JOKES, NIETZSCHE, ETERNAL RECURRENCE, AND "AMOR FATI"

Sometimes when I’m driving, I find myself noticing women drivers whom I find attractive or even beautiful. Any woman under 70 is lovely to me. However, when I was engaged in this distraction recently, I was pulled over by a policeman--who gave me a citation for erotic driving.

One joke leads to another: A werewolf says to another werewolf, “Let’s go and get a burgher.”

Now to proceed to a new perspective (for me) on Nietzsche’s concept of “eternal recurrence,” which I believe I misunderstood even though I read Eliade’s The Myth of the Eternal Return. I had mistakenly interpreted Nietzsche’s idea with the Hindu notion of reincarnation repeating itself in exactly identical cycles interrupted by pralaya, which might be seen as “the ending of all,” before a new “creation” in which all is repeated. Nietzsche doesn’t subscribe to any belief in God, reincarnation, or afterlife. Instead, he upholds a notion of “eternal recurrence” in which the life one is living is to be repeated endlessly, for which he says he has proofs but which I do not comprehend or would accept if I did. His aphorism is “amor fati,” or “love your fate,” which is to say, “choose you fate” as opposed to being at the mercy of it, or “live your life rather than having your life live you.” I believe that Nietzsche is speaking metaphorically in order to provoke the reader to come to terms and live his or her life as it is, rather than as it is not. In other words, BE WHO YOU ARE, which is the Socratic dictum, “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” Take the plunge and start where you are, rather than pretending you are somewhere else or better. Such philosophizing becomes trite very quickly, but my point is that I’m glad I now have a better understanding of the notion of eternal recurrence and what it actually is meant to lead us to. This whole process of “being who you are” is, in my estimation, learning who you are not, piece by piece, until finally you realize “you” are not who you think you are and never will be. There is an absolute irony and one must learn to hold that reality of “being and not being” at the same time, which is right now. And my thought about that is: TOO MUCH IRONY MAKES ONE OVERWROUGHT.

          I arrived at this point of view regarding Nietzsche’s notion of eternal recurrence after reading a rather interesting “psychoanalytic” book, When Nietzsche Wept: A Novel of Obsession by Yalom.

Here’re a few brief quotes:

“To live forever with the sense that I have not lived, have not tasted freedom—the idea fills me with horror.” Then … live in such a way that you love the idea.” (252)

“… we must live as though we were free. Even though we can’t escape fate, we must still butt our heads against it—we must will our destiny to happen. We must love our fate.” (274)

          Nietzsche emphasized the idea of “will to power,” which I “understood” but didn’t really understand. It is quite subtle and rather dark and untrusting, such as, when someone says “something nice” to someone else, it is a ploy to attain power over that person. Nietzsche sounds pretty paranoid and with am “inferiority complex” to me, though his understanding and analysis of our shadow aspect is spot on. He exhorts us to “live” so strongly, I think, because he was utterly afraid and alone. He noted that in order to live, one had to first die, and to be able to tell the truth required devastation of oneself first. I don’t mean to just touch on this and then stop but I will take up aspects of it in due time.

          This blog is called “fragments” and so it is.

SOURCES OF OUR THOUGHTS & OUR ABILITY TO RESPOND TO THEM

In reading about various modern philosophers, such as James, Dewey, and others, what appears is the notion of “our thoughts” as “ours” as distinct from “our thoughts” as “not ours” but, rather, as coming at us and into our minds, thus causing us to “reflect upon them,” to “think about such thoughts.” This reminds of James’s metaphor of consciousness or thinking as a flock of birds (or of thoughts) in flight, but only thinking when the flock stops and perches, thus “thinking about itself,” “gathering its thoughts,” as it were. One understanding, perhaps of the Greeks, is that our thoughts comes from the gods, who are seemingly interested to see what we will then do with them. Isn’t this supposed to be a great source of their entertainment in Olympus? So we receive the thoughts and then try to “make sense” out of them, try to determine how they might be best applied in our lives or even in the lives of humanity.

          These “thoughts that comes at us” seem like they very well could be sent to us by the gods or by God for those who “believe,” or that they are the thoughts, the overall penetrating collective consciousness of humanity as a whole, perhaps having been initiated by those overlording gods watching down. Having had many “organizing thoughts” that seeming came “out of the blue,” I am willing to subscribe to some overweening source of such thinking consciousness, be it divine, collective, or both. How many times in my life has “something” stood directly between me and impending death? How many times have I “sensed” danger and moved instantaneously in my muscular intelligence with nary a single thought? Is this the body’s wisdom of survival and preservation or could it be my literal auric “guardian angel”? Am I to find myself, an unbeliever in the manufactured “blue-eyes Jesus” or the “protector of the good Catholic (or even simply Christian) sheep,” paying homage to my guardian angel, who could very well be right here in some kind of fashion at my side? That something could so personally care about me brings tears to my eyes and a hope welling in my heart. And it could also be an inherent, even divine, part and aspect of myself. Could such a self-caring and self-protective aspect be a vital element of each of us? Is this seeming metaphysical reality a literal part of our physical being, seeking to protect and preserve us from harm? All I can honestly say is that I am clearly aware that I have been saved from harm and from death many times in my life, and it seems as if that protection was even external to me, or at least external to my awareness, my consciousness, my thinking of it.

I believe in what I would call “the fatefulness of each moment,” in one’s responsiveness to “what happens” in each moment. It’s not that things are “meant to happen,” but rather that we can mean ourselves to respond accordingly, which is to say, to comprehend ourselves enough to know how to respond in the moment. In other words, we learn from whatever occurs; we learn to respond in a way that enables us to be who we are in life. It is as though, when something happens, we ask “What is this that’s occurring?” “What is happening right now?” And we take it in as though we were observing it not so much as ourselves, but from a distance. “How best do I respond to this if I do not have to be limited to being myself with all my known responses?” So whatever happens, we are able to transcend our reactions, our limited responses, and incorporate a more knowing, a more inclusive response that is therefore more effective, more appropriate, wiser. Thus, I am able to truly learn from whatever happens how to be a better human being, on a personal scale and also on an interpersonal, collective scale. “Not-self” becomes a very good vantage point from which to respond. If “I” am not there to react emotionally in anger, hatred, vengeance, fear, desire, craving, habit, etc., the response does not cause one more chain reaction. I may attain a level of acceptance and of understanding, even appreciation, or even wonder and mastery. There is no “hope,” no “God,” no expectation that the outcome or result must be any particular way. It is as it is. To attain this level of understanding is profound.

THE ERSATZ BODHISATTVA

Did I “give up nirvana out of compassion for humanity”? Perhaps. Or else I simply had to choose to return for my own karmic purposes. But a “poor substitute” still may somewhat suffice in a world lacking even that.

          Well, let’s start at the beginning. But, hmmm, which one, and was that a beginning, an end, or a replay? At what point, then, to plunge in? Suddenly, great waves of sorrow even at the thought of “going there” once again. I am sometimes hammered by desperate dreams of repetition in which I present the same series of numbers or letters endlessly in an attempt to finally “get it right” even though it really is exactly the same as it was endlessly before. Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence all over again. There is no “doing it over and over until we get it right”; there is simply do it over and over, the eternal sameness. This would drive anyone insane.

          Is it that we all inherently know this, and so choose to be born into the distraction of being in bodies, in flesh, identifying with such, dying to such, and then again choosing to repeat the cycle until bodies themselves as potential forms end, but then finding another form in which we might find almost ultimate distraction, until finally the pralaya occurs, and we are once again absorbed into ourselves-as-nothingness?

WHEN I CREATED ALL AND INHALED IT BACK TO NOTHINGNESS

In the early 90s I was engaged in practicing Buddhist vipassana meditation. In those days I actually had various “experiences” during my meditation. Some were rather literally phenomenal. This is one to be noted:

I suddenly realized that when I exhaled, I was literally creating not just the universe but All. My mouth was the mouth of God literally creating all Life, all Being in one exhalation. I was not aware of myself as God, nor was God aware of itself as God; it was a literal experience, not a conceptual one. “God” was simply a function of “creating” in itself. In that exhalation, All was created, All was breathed into beingness. That exhalation lasted an endless eternity. Then, just as suddenly, I inhaled, and when I did so, all life and being, was drawn back into nothingness, and ceased.

It was that simple.

WISDOM

The gods gave me challenges in my life to which I had to find the proper responses. One must make the wise and right choices or be doomed to fear, anger, and belief. There is nothing to cling to for safety. It is a maelstrom. But one learns that even the maelstrom in all its undeniable power moves in certain ways. One learns how to respond by going with the flow and rolling with the punches. One learns that to be hardened is to be brittle, unable to move, unable to see and recognize what is happening in the moment. One learns to be supple and quick, soft and caring, and no longer stupid and oafish. One learns compassion that stands up to all in its selflessness, for if I am not here, you cannot stop me. I learned to put others first after the gods gave me others who needed me to put them first for their own survival. To do so, another gift from the gods, was easy for me, for the gods taught me love and, for those I loved it was second nature for me to put them before me, or at least know them as myself, for they had already become an integral part of me. I found and expressed the proper responses to that which the gods imposed and graced me in my life and thus attained a level of self-understanding and of life itself and my role in it that comprised a degree of what might be called wisdom. Wisdom is simply a response to what is happening that does no harm but may actually help to bring relief to the situation. Wisdom only comes in the absence of oneself, when there is not an “I” to be attended to. Wisdom is a selfless occurrence, therefore possible to anyone who is no one, at least in that moment.

Such “wisdom” therefore necessarily leaves one rather deflated, even sad, when it finally comes to mind, for it does not suffer pride of accomplishment or love or caring or anything. Wisdom is not a self-reflective act but rather a non-self-reflective occurrence; there is no self, no sense of self, at all in wisdom.

WHAT HAPPENS IN OUR LIVES

When I was in high school, I was acquainted with many students in my high school. I had a few friends but most I just said “hello” to now and then. A good number of students had graduated with me from grade school, in fact probably most. But I had few that I was close to, much less “knew.” Part of that was because such was my nature. I could be funny and charming but I didn’t tend to “let people in,” as it were. I had little confidence in myself and conversed with a few friends but not many others. I actually preferred being along—at least up the point, maybe 16, when I was found and claimed by a beautiful girl and then fell in love, which changed everything as she became my friend, my lover, and we had our incredible adventures for the next couple of years. Prior to that, depending on the season, the boys in my neighborhood would either play baseball or football in my backyard, while I would be up in my room diligently working on my stamp collection, with them all yelling in the background. I had absolutely no inclination to join them.

          My own inclination is to “seek greater context” for my life and myself. This has been my lifelong quest. I was presented with Catholicism as that context and I did learn many important lessons, such as the importance and reality of “mystery,” of “not knowing,” but I ultimately “threw the baby out with the bathwater” and went on my own personal “search for understanding” rather than accepting what I had been trained to accept. I am philosophical by nature and also seek peace and solitude actively every day. I look at what happens in life and do what I can to incorporate it into my own reality which I have created from whatever I have learned of life and my own experience of learning it. “It” is always a work in process. I don’t claim it to be necessarily “right” but it is what I have to work with; I am what I have to work with. I have no choice but to be with myself even as I am. So the “philosophizing” part is much like perpetually adding pieces to the unending jigsaw puzzle that I am and that will never be finished, not even after I die.

          But there is another part: the memories of my life, the stories of my life. Sometimes these take great precedence over the philosophizing, over the putting it all together so that it might make some kind of sense. The memories, the stories have their place. They appear to be the life and color and sound and feeling in each of the myriad pieces of the endless jigsaw puzzle that comprises me and my life. And they often rise to the surface of my consciousness, probably embellished into much more than they actually were, but in retrospect, in memory, we add to the story for effect and for meaning, for our lives must have meaning to us. We are always to be forgiven for such expansion of soul and spirit and heart. And we can no longer tell the difference anyway between “the fact” in itself and how the event impacted us and registered itself in our consciousness. In terms of our memories, are there really even any “facts,” clean cut and certain? We remember what we saw, what we heard, what we felt emotionally or physically, what we thought? All of it was fed to us through our own senses, our own experience. No body cams then or there. Perhaps reports and point of view from others, but probably not. We have no choice but to have faith in our memories, even as we have no choice but to have faith in ourselves, flawed as we may be. No one else is going to tell our stories to ourselves. We must be able to do that for ourselves. We know ourselves best, which is to also say that some of us don’t know ourselves at all. To know yourself is the primary goal of being human if you subscribe to the classic humanism of Socrates or even if you are unaware of that. To me, that equates with “loving God.”

          To return to all these fellow students at my high school and before that, they are now a part of my being, my life, my story, myself. I never anticipated at the time that they would be so stored within my mind and available for instant recall—but they are. I can even hear their adolescent voices in my memory. Last night I dreamed that I was talking to some of the girls with whom I was only slightly acquainted. We are still physically of the time but are now speaking with a wisdom of age, and are thus able to convey a warmth and a touch that would have probably not been possible during our youth. People do not lose their beauty. It may seem to retreat or be covered over but it can rise to the surface to meet itself in others. We do carry each other within ourselves, almost as though they were ourselves. When they die, they do not leave us, but even become more a part of ourselves, perhaps since they can no longer carry themselves as they did. But it never a burden to us to contain others in this way, for they somehow enhance our being with themselves. Of course, the sweet ones are easier to include and the sour ones a bit difficult perhaps, but they all bring something to us that is needed in some way. Perhaps this is the all-encompassing circle and experience of love, or simply of being. Perhaps there is no difference between the two.