A FEW "EXPLANATORY" THOUGHTS AND "THE BEST POSSIBLE PREPARATION" FOR LIVING

I am quite aware that probably not quite everyone writes a blog. For some it may be much the same as “taking a selfie,” which is to say, “Here I am. Look at me. Pay attention. I exist. This is proof to all!” As narcissistic as I may be, I don’t think that’s quite my intention. Today, while waiting for a PT session for my wife, I handwrote the following in my journal:

So I say what I say in my blog—which is my attempt to make sense of life and convey that to myself, though also to others. I feel satisfied that I am doing this, though also rather exposed to judgment from others (and myself) and some embarrassment. But life is a search, a quest. Life is a search for meaning and I have searched just about my whole life. I don’t know if it is right or proper to share such a seemingly personal quest. Doing so makes me feel vulnerable and embarrassed, but it is not just my search, my quest; it is something I believe I have in common with just about everyone. Thus I do not see it as only my quest. If my own experience or what I have to convey can help anyone to attain any insight or understanding in their own search, it is worthwhile. I have to accept myself in this role—with all my flaws and self-criticism—and the more I do, the more “natural” such sharing becomes to me. It becomes not so much a sharing of my quest but a contribution to all our quests.

And later, as I waited outside in the car, while my wife, moving quite slowly, shopped for a few food items, I handwrote the following in the journal:

All these endless tasks to do—but such is life; such is my life. I count my blessings. I am most fortunate—even though my wife suffers. I am here to help her, to take care of her. I will see her through it, believing her healing or improving to be quite possible—only a matter of time in fact. (Such is my perpetual wishful thinking.)  And I worry, yes. And I am anxious, yes. And I even have my sometimes severe pain, yes. But such is life and I know this. In truth, what else is to be expected? When the worse happens, the worst happens. And sometimes the best too. Not to worry; it will happen as it does. That understanding is the best possible preparation. God did not do it to us; he’s been asleep on the couch for billions of years. I simply don’t have a “need to believe” in that. Better to be able and willing to see the goodness in the hearts of human beings, including my own.

ETERNAL RECURRENCE, FATE, AND ONESELF IN THE GREAT MIX

"Eternal return (also known as eternal recurrence) is a theory that the universe and all existence and energy has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space."

          This notion, in its "recent" form, was put forth by Nietzsche, but has its primary roots, at least in my own readings, in ancient Hindu belief, and also seems to be quite present in Daoism and Zen Buddhist thought. It relates to Fate as well, but what I would call a “fated fate.” I’ve had a copy of Eliade’s The Myth of the Eternal Return sitting in my library for many years; it has finally made its way to my desk to be read. Nietzsche ended up in a mental institution; I have to wonder if this notion of eternal recurrence with its absolute inevitability and no possible resolution (and all possible resolutions!) had anything to do with that.

          Eternal recurrence or Fated fate (as I see it) is the repetition of existence and all that it includes over epochs and epochs, ages and ages. It may begin at a “big bang” and end as it is reabsorbed into a black hole to nothingness. Hinduism presents it as a period of seemingly endless existence which begins and ends, and, after a period of absolute nothingness, begins again, repeating itself exactly the same over and over and over. From a view of reincarnation, one is born and dies myriad times in a cycle of existence, and then the whole show repeats itself like a TV re-run. In one cycle, one may perhaps evolve over millions or billions of years; Hinduism and Buddhism would say so. The “fated fatedness” presents the notion that whatever one “knows,” whatever one has learned makes no difference; it is one’s fate to know and perhaps to have fear or ignorance within the very fiber of one’s knowing. This is one of my doubts regarding the gnosis of Gnosticism or any approach to “spirituality,” for being “we as we are” is our own fate. As Krishnamurti said, somewhat paraphrased, “we are the path that unfolds with each step we take.” Such a “path,” or such “knowing,” is not “out there,” rather, it is “here.” We tend to see the universe as external but we are the universe; we are the very breath that breathes us. That sounds most strange, I know. Now I’m faced with having to tie that thought in with the notion of Eternal recurrence, and I could say something logical and clever, but I can only say what I have experienced (and then corrupted through some kind of interpretation) or what has “occurred” to me as insight or even a “cosmic logic.”

          “Fate” has interested me for most of my life. It is by no means a negative idea to me. Rather, it is what happens and it includes me as an agent in my happening, but not as an agent that changes anything because I am already included in the equation or logarithm, if you will, of what happens. What happens, happens, even if I know what it will be. Now that sounds very much like the concept of predestination, which is Gnostic (which is Hellenistic) and Calvinistic, but is preceded itself by Vedic thought and, so I’ve read, by Egyptian beliefs. This line of thought leads me into “magic,” or what I would call the manipulation of the natural energies of physical and perhaps emotional “substance.” This is the substance of most religious thought and teaching, especially Judaism, and including Christianity. Those Biblical “miracles” are magic, pure and simple. (Though, to be fair, Jesus does say something like "Blessed are those who--without all the miracles--have eyes to see and ears to hear".) But I don’t like magic or trust it, for it is of the “lower nature,” the dense, physical substance: it is devilish in other words. Thus, I prefer the “bare bones” of Zen and the acceptance of fate, of the “suchness of being,” as is said. I think that this is the only perspective that can be put in place and utilized for the best with the theory of Eternal recurrence. It can be seen as Existential but perhaps without the “shit sandwich” of Sartre. If everything is going to happen in the seemingly endless series of reincarnations, everything is going to happen exactly as it happens. This is not to imply a passivity or negativity or judgmentalness at all: one is as one is, be it positive or negative, accepting or nonaccepting, etc. It’s all going to happen at one time or another. What we think about it, or feel about it, or know about it, or don’t know about it makes no difference. I find it very strange to say that but it seems to be the closest to what is true that I can get to. It is not a choice; it is simply where I am, where I have gotten to at this point. I would simply love to be a “believer” but it’s not there for me; I don’t believe that way. But I’ve been thinking about this too. There is the notion of “God” as some kind of “supreme being” (probably from the Baltimore Catechism I had to memorize as a young child in Catholic school) but this same notion, to me, is seen as “the goodness of people.” That is not something I "believe,” but, rather, something that is just “true for me.” Eternal recurrence, then, is another ride on this very strange, profound and profane roller-coaster.

      Some people are quite articulate as well as intelligent. I am neither. However, I am also "compelled" (in too many respects) to convey my thoughts to the ethers as best I can. And so here it is... Perhaps these thoughts could even be etherial.

FROM ROSE-COLORED LENSES TO SOMETHING ELSE

In my life I have had many beliefs and have seen existence through the lenses of such beliefs. One can believe so strongly and intensely that one’s own experiences are used as proofs of such beliefs. My systems of belief have been quite varied and often on different levels, as it were, simultaneously. I have believed in “God” from Christian, Hindu, Theosophical, Gnostic and other frameworks, as well as Buddhist, “natural” and American Indian perspectives. I have “followed” Jung, Trungpa, Blavatksy, Steiner, Bailey, Gurjieff, Krishnamurti, and others, and once interpreted life from an astrological perspective. At this point I don’t have belief in such “systems,” though some of them remain of interest. My view now is more “zen” in its focus on “emptiness of self” and what might be called the “falseness of thought, self-concept (or all concept), and so-called knowledge.” I now tend to observe everything, including what I call myself, more than to decide on the “truth” of anything, though I still do seek to “understand what life is,” what I am. To understand is to have greater control of life itself, which is to say to survive, the prime instinctual directive of existence. There is no getting around this, but rather getting right into it. To live our lives, we must live them, which is to say, we have to “get down and dirty” (a paradoxical Gnostic concept). We must know “impurity” to thus attain “purity,” or be able to actually experience and see our ego selves if we are to be able to get beyond it. And, to be quite honest, I wonder if it is simply foolishness to think or believe there is any “getting beyond it” at all. I don’t think it’s about “transcending ourselves” at all but rather just going through the stages or process of our existence(s) very much like a flower growing to maturity; Hinduism in particular sees the lotus is  as an apt metaphor: born in and of the earth, rising up through the waters of feeling and emotion, breaking the surface into the light, then opening, blossoming. Much more to this, obviously, but my point is that it’s all about being.

THE VIRTUE OF HOPING AGAINST HOPE

We expect much of life and of ourselves. Too much. Thus, life disappoints us and we disappoint ourselves. Life does not measure up to our expectations and we especially don’t measure up to our expectations, or perhaps, more importantly, our hopes. And so we find ourselves ultimately hoping against hope, which is to say that we still hope for an outcome in awareness that such an outcome is almost impossible, though still possible. It is the carrot that we hold before our eyes so that we asses may be on moving rather than stopping forever. We thus put a positive spin on the most dire of circumstances. I do, and I think almost all of us do since there is no choice but to keep on keeping on in light of our many responsibilities and choices and in light of our own responsibility to ourselves. We don’t have the option of walking away from, of abandoning, ourselves.

FINDING AND LOSING AND FINDING AND LOSING CONTEXT

That which has been most important to me in the living of my life is that I am “focused upon and engaged in that which is true, that which is real.” In so many words, that I do not waste my life. How does one measure the “value” of one’s self? I seem to think that a life spent in seclusion, “without distraction,” as a “focused spiritual being,” is best. I did spend time in a Buddhist monastery as a Zen Buddhist monk and also spent much time at a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur once upon a time. I was not impressed with either. And I was especially not impressed with myself, for after a few days, I was not “peaceful and focused” at all but absolutely distracted. I had to face the fact that life itself, that living in itself, is distraction; that being in a physical body that is meant to survive and having to survive in it is a distraction; that thinking and thoughts and emotions are a distraction: a distraction from the “higher being,” the “spiritual being” which is the essence of life. I have often questioned my attitude towards existence in this body here and now; it would seem that I think I’m “above it all” in some way. I do somehow think this, however, I have also “made it in the world” by being successful in business once and making plenty of money, taking care of my familial and social responsibilities, and so on. While it may be true that I was a bit of a sanyassin in my 20s, I did find success by my 30’s and retired by 40 to take care of my children, one who was disabled and required active caregiving. Now, in my 70s, I am again an active caregiver (to my wife) but also see myself, appropriately, as a sanyassin, more or less, though I have to wonder rather than wander. I am glad I have responsibilities that are other than myself, for, to be honest, I am utterly boring and just about that bored with myself.

          I see my role as one of not only “finding context” for myself, but also being able to convey such context to those in need of it. “Knowing oneself” consists in knowing who you are, what you are, where you are, and perhaps even why you are. Of course, such knowing is probably impossible; we are as moving targets even as we ourselves move—there is no nailing anything down at all. I think the most we can do is take all these fragments and make some kind of interesting mosaic with them. We are an undulating jigsaw puzzle with unlimited pieces of no particular shapes that do not fit into each other. So we make these fragments into a fragmentary story of ourselves as best we can—which seems fine and good in itself but is actually detrimental to us because “our story” really isn’t like how we have put it together. We have created something that has taken on its own life and is now “me” as I see myself and believe myself to be. Upon death, all the pixels of seeming solidity and reality, dissolve into something else. But, even while alive, we do not quite live because we are only our (and our culture’s and our society’s) version of ourselves and not really who we are. We just don’t know who we are and, for the most part, would rather not know, instead using our opposable thumbs to send tweets about what we had for lunch, and taking selfies to prove to ourselves and others that we actually do exist and are not just figments of our own imaginations (which are actually no longer our own since we see only what we want to see and what is trending in the moment). Descartes proclaimed, “I think, therefore I am.” But once we are no longer able to think as ourselves, we no longer exist as ourselves but as units in the matrix, as it were. People now prefer to be cyborgs. Living is much more convenient and without real choices, much less consciousness.

THE CURSE OF TECHNOLOGY (IN TWO PARAGRAPHS)

Technology moves us ever closer to the machine of ourselves, that is, to ourselves as machines, albeit fleshy and organic ones, as beings to be fixed and repaired, as cogs in a still greater technological framework. Technology moves us ever further from the soul and the spirit of ourselves as human beings. In its movement for control, which may be seen as improved and better physical and perhaps mental function, technology leads away from the heart of ourselves. Many might say that technology, like guns, is used as the possessor sees fit, for better or for worse social function; that technology is innocent of any blame by those Luddites who cannot fathom it. But this is not so true at all, for loaded guns are not to be put in the hands of infants; not that they will do evil with them, but that they might inadvertently pull the trigger and hurt themselves or others. “Forgive them Father, for they know now what they do.”

But that is not the essence of this conversation. Humans now have technology as a great convenience and as an improvement in many fields, such a medicine and statistics of all kinds. Technology “crunches numbers” far faster than any human mind could do so in lifetimes. And it promotes both the notion while creating the reality that we are human machines. But technology aims outward and expands; it does not lead us inward in order to discover just who and what we are in this order of human being. Worse than being loaded guns in the hands of infants, it is a distraction from our discovery of ourselves, of ourselves as far more inner (or greater) beings which we must find if we are ever to be truly human and be able to live accordingly. Our inability to live accordingly makes us as infants—with no understanding of our world or mastery or control of ourselves. Humanity still lives in utter ignorance of itself, though now possessing the technological means to destroy itself.  Technology wonderfully leads us away from ourselves as human beings into a cyborg reality in which we are as machines. And most people LOVE that this is happening.

ONE MUST HAVE "FAITH IN HUMANITY" AND IN ONESELF

I see that we are “occupied by our thoughts” and, depending on where they “come from,” we are just this side of absolutely insane, having created and now living in a world which is seen as “normal.” If I were a “proper Christian” with a particular Christian point of view, I would rightfully say that “the world is evil and the devil rules.” It would even seem, given the ground of being of a President who uses mind control by constantly interjecting his own sick and insane thoughts to create a mindset and a direction and a confusion (a “direction of confusion and divisiveness”) and instructs his circle also to do this, that what the Christians call Antichrist is quite alive and well and very active in the minds of the masses and the elite in this country and also throughout the world. The sane and the holy are diminished, while the insane and the unholy are becoming rampant. Witness not only Trump’s followers but 92% of the Republican Party itself at a recent count. Minds—and souls—are being subverted by evil. People have not learned as children how to be humane and sane in their humanness, and to behave with a sense of self-respect and respect of others, with a self-controlling sense of basic morality. Michael Novak, in Belief and Unbelief, touches on this: “As Aristotle remarks, unless a man is in his youth taught to feel correctly pleasure and pain, and shame and pride, he will not even have the data for correct moral judgment of the noble and the ignoble; he will never have tasted the one, nor have been taught to recognize the other” (64).          

          Stupidity-as-normal and hate-as-normal are a most dangerous mix, and not specific to either right-wing or left-wing. The normalizing of such ignorance and its repetition that acts to brainwash whole populations is most dangerous indeed. And propagandists both feed and fan fires of stupidity and hatred, unleashing violence upon us through both the masses and the elite. It has probably always been like this throughout human history with the difference being that now we have instant worldwide web and instant technological weaponry, the perfect mix for profound destruction and death.

          I don’t see that great numbers of people will necessarily “come around” at this point; this is surely not the norm. After the social fabric was all but destroyed in “the Terror” of the French Revolution, after the best were guillotined, most realized that it was again time for national order and safety for all. I hope Americans have enough basic sanity to realize what is going on and make the necessary changes without resorting to extremes that escalate, creating their own infernos that burn everything to the ground. I don’t see that “public education” will affect those who make themselves “blind followers.” However, I am of the belief that large number of people are capable of “seeing the light,” as it were, of having the cover pulled from their eyes. In the meantime, I for one can do what I can do. For me that translates as writing and sharing what I write as best I can, but perhaps more to the point, observing myself and the “thoughts that occupy me and thus direct my actions” through my personal practice of zazen. To be able to see oneself is to be able to see how oneself is in the world, and what one contributes to or detracts from existence as a whole on the planet. We each make it better or worse—for ourselves and everyone else.

          

WHY LIFE IS BEST SEEN AS "FRAGMENTS" WITHOUT LABEL OR INTERPRETATION

I previously noted that life should rightfully be seen and experienced as “fragmentary,” as pieces of existence experienced by each of us. We humans tend to be afflicted with a “need for meaning,” a need to understand everything in terms of ourselves, our beliefs, and what we think we “know.” This is considered to be quite normal. However, it presents the profound problem of creating ourselves as false identities, and, as such false identities, merging with other larger forces of false identity, and proceeding to oppose other false identities whom we identify as enemies, to the point that we do our best to destroy and massacre with the permission of our “divine sources.”

          Let me give a prime example. One has a sudden sense of clarity or of feeling a sense of joy and peace, or of seeing the “beauty of nature” in its myriad forms, or feeling a “close bonding” with another person or even oneself, or of “understanding” an abstraction of mathematics or physics in which there seems to be an “expansion of insight or awareness.” Such occurrences do happen to us, but the problem arises instantly when we feel compelled to interpret what such experiences “mean,” for, when we do this, as we all do, we infect and corrupt the original experience with our cultural and social beliefs in which we have been raised and have come to identify as consisting of our “own” beliefs. Depending on the culture and society in which one lives and whose beliefs have been informed, it may be a “message from God” and that God may be Jesus, Allah, Vishnu, Satan, etc., or a “message from the ancestors,” and it could therefore be telling us whatever the prevailing beliefs or messages of that particular religious perspective may be. Or, one may take it as a message that one is the Avatar, or world savior, or, at the very least, has attained enlightenment. Or, if one is not particularly religious, but is more of a psychological or medical or philosophical bent, it may be taken to be a sign that one is becoming senile or perhaps wise or has a chemical imbalance in the brain or a disease of the eyes. In all honesty, I would give some of the latter medical and psychological and philosophical approaches some attention since medicine could possibly though not necessarily explain such experiences. I know people who were delusional and paranoid and who were “cured” by taking an antipsychotic med. So I seem to argue against my own point at least on the physical level of being.

          When one believes, one naturally interprets one’s experiences in ways that will affirm that belief, so that the belief becomes more and more “real” in one’s life. We have an insecure need to affirm ourselves, to prove that we exist, as it were. In this same manner we create ourselves, our own personality and other various traits, including appearance. But, in our interpretation of our experiences as proof that our beliefs are not only right but true, we create a tautology, which is to say, a circular loop of self-deceit, of falseness. And this enforces what can become a deadly matrix of difference between us—as individuals, as clans, as nations. So naturally, a believer in God and/or religion sees “divine messages” or perhaps devilish ones, thus also creating a dilemma of belief and trust in oneself, perhaps then leading one to external authorities for “proper interpretation.” A similar process often occurs in the vast field of psychology; there are numerous “specialists” and “priests” to tell us “what it all means,” and further, what to do to solve the problem.

          What if we had our experience, which might be “transcendent” in the sense that it brings us beyond a normal awareness of ourselves and/or our world, and just were able to be with it as it is, without having to instantly label it and determine what it “means”? As I say this, I become aware that I have been practicing this process of “non-identification” in the practice of zazen over the last forty plus years. This is exactly what zazen is about: non-identification with one’s self-defined notion of oneself. But that has been my own path; each finds his or her own way, as I see it.

          What if we could simply experience ourselves, with our thoughts and our feelings and bodily sensations, without having to instantly react with self-serving or self-loathing, for that matter, interpretations? What if we just let all interpretations go? And what if we went a step further and even let the experience itself go, no matter how great and profound the insight or understanding it might bring? What if we didn’t go down that rabbit hole of the self? What if we just let even the notion of “myself” go? Interestingly, if the thought of self or “me” vanishes from our mind, “I” cease to exist. At that point I do not get in my way, though at this point I think I am going beyond my original intent in being able to see “reality” as fragmentary rather than as “solid and full of meaning.”

          If we do not have to add our “personal veneer” of belief to that which we experience in its pure form and are able to just “be with it as it is,” we come closer to ourselves as “we are,” that is, without preconceived notions of who we are “supposed” to be, both socially and in our own minds. I’ve been reading, Novak’s Belief and Unbelief: a Philosophy of Self-Knowledge, in which he states: “For when a man (or woman, I add) knows that he (or she) knows, and knows better what his (or her) knowing is, then there is every likelihood that he (or she) will avoid many mistakes in what he (or she) claims to know; his (or her) epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, art, and politics, and his (or her) ethics flow from a clearer stream” (29).

         

          

TELEPATHY, INTUITION AND INSTINCT

In my experience, people don’t have to be particularly close or even known to be telepathic. One is just “that way” with various other people who are also telepathic; people may share a similar “frequency.” My definition of telepathy is knowing what the other person is thinking, at least in the current moment. It is a kind of “mind reading,” of knowing another’s thoughts, and feelings as well. Much of what we call “telepathy” is present in intuition and instinct as well. To intuit is to be aware of the reality or of what is occurring on a deeper mental and emotional level with others. This requires a level of being able to intuit oneself. One not only “reads thoughts” but is also attentive enough to “read faces,” and “read eyes” and body language as well. If one is intuitive like that, it seems to me that this would include telepathy. A more basic, more physical, body-oriented, level of intuition is instinct, which precedes intuition from an evolutionary perspective. Thus, we “sense fear,” and we are instinctively aware of danger, or, for that matter, sexual attraction. It is part and parcel of the human pleasure-seeking and pain-avoidance. Of course, the mind with its thoughts and feelings enhance instinct, and probably intuition as well.

          Life occurrences bring about the development of telepathy and intuition and instinct in us. I refer to my own life experiences, the progression of nature, and logic or common sense here. I intentionally try not to make too many connections though, since that puts all the fragmentary memories into a too convenient and conclusive story. Being born premature and installed in an incubator away from human touch for the most part for the first few months of my life deprived me of an adequate sense of human bonding, both physically and emotionally. It may have diminished the intuitive sense of connection with others while increasing the instinctive sense of having to survive on my own. Since there was no or very little verbal communication with me, I may have had to develop more telepathic skills as well. Then later, as a young child, I was physically abused, which also had the effect of giving me an increased instinctual sense of danger and ability to not only see it in the eyes and the body language, but also telepathically to read it in the thoughts. On occasion, during the times of abuse, I “saw” scenes of battle and carnage, and felt emotions of absolute fear and confusion within such dangerous chaos. I believe I could literally see the thoughts of the abuser who was on Normandy Beach and in the Battle of the Bulge and other places in the European Theater of WWII. It took me a while but I was able to realize that these thoughts were not “mine.”

          My first wife and I were telepathic, though we hardly even conversed with each other. I tended to go on very long hikes in the mountains and enjoyed literally getting lost and then finding my way back to civilization. At such times I sent her “messages” which she apparently got because she noted the time as did I, which was later corroborated. My wife, Amy, and I are absolutely telepathic. She often says what I’m thinking and vice-versa. I naturally respond even to her mentally unspoken needs, such as when her feet are hot and she needs her sock removed. I took care of my daughter who is disabled for many years and possessed a kind of “mother’s intuition,” knowing when she needed something or was having a seizure in the middle of the night (from a different room). Then there is the most recent occurrence in which I asked her a “yes” or “no” question while I was dreaming, at which I was startled awake by her as she lay next to me sleeping, saying loudly “Yes” as she slept. It was 7AM, she did not waken, I went to the bathroom, climbed back into bed and went back to sleep. Now THAT is telepathy.

          Let me add a bit to this. I have literally seen “ghosts” and even conversed with one of them. It may be that one requires a certain type of sensitivity to “see ghosts,” though it may or may not be an indication of intuition. To be brief, a man hung himself in what was to be my bedroom six months before my father got a “good deal” and bought the house. The hanged man appeared to me only once but hung around (as it were) for another couple of years; we conversed regularly when he would “appear” only with slight physical indications in my room. Then there were the group of Victorian ghosts who haunted the children for whom I was houseparent at a state institution for “emotionally unstable” children. The children, with my exorcizing directions, were able to dispel this group of Victorian Episcopalian teachers who died of cholera or smallpox around 1900. There are other similar occasions but this is most sufficient in my estimation.

         

          

FRAGMENTS IN A FIELD AFAR

                                          THIS MUCH IS "TRUE"

In my dream (of two nights ago) I ask Amy (my wife) a question requiring a “yes” or “no” answer. At that very moment, I am literally awakened by her saying “Yes” loudly as she lay sleeping right beside me. Amazed at what just happened, I check the time (7AM), get up, relieve myself (as it were), and go back to bed and back to sleep. In the dream that follows, again with her in it, she looks at me intently and says, “I am the Queen. You think my thoughts.”  

                                                        *

As time progresses, or perhaps from the beginning, life becomes a bad habit.

                                                        *

The “second wind” may come at great cost; the cure may in fact be worse than the disease. But nevertheless one undertakes to breathe as best one can in the circumstances. One hopes the blindness will pass, that they eyeballs will no longer stick to the eyelids. One finds oneself praying for deliverance from the bottom of the abyss which, by its nature, offers no way out, no escape, though one can be rescued by God alone, but one must be able to find such a God, the reality and presence of such a God. Otherwise one is held down by one’s own weight, one’s own history, even simply gravity itself. Falling to the bottom “knocks the wind out” of one. As one lies there unable to breathe, in that interlude in which one sees oneself, a reckoning may be made. The next breath comes, and then the next, and the next. But one must deliver oneself from such darkness in which one finds oneself. And this is possibly but most difficult because one purposely forgets and any “second winds” become fewer and much less likely. I don’t know if one “climbs out of darkness” or some miraculous light of power and agency intrudes into the prevalence and perhaps even preference of darkness. No, I do know; one must climb out, holding oneself above oneself as each rung is wrung from oneself. It is no different than this. There is no “easy way out”; it happens in the smallest of increments. It is a discipline requiring clear sight. And though very specific, it remains very enigmatic, for we are shadows unto ourselves, opaque at best, and “through the glass, darkly.” Innuendo and out the door.

                                                         *

                                      The Curse of Technology

Technology moves us ever closer to the machine of ourselves, that is, to ourselves as machines, albeit fleshy and organic ones, as beings to be fixed and repaired, as cogs in a still greater technological framework. Technology moves us ever further from the soul and the spirit of ourselves as human beings. In its movement for control, which may be seen as improved and better physical and perhaps mental function, technology leads away from the heart of ourselves. Many might say that technology, like guns, is used as the possessor sees fit, for better or for worse social function; that technology is innocent of any blame by those Luddites who cannot fathom it. But this is not so true at all, for loaded guns are not to be put in the hands of infants; not that they will do evil with them, but that they might inadvertently pull the trigger and hurt themselves or others. “Forgive them Father, for they know now what they do.”

        But that is not the essence of this conversation. Humans now have technology as a great convenience and as an improvement in many fields, such a medicine and statistics of all kinds. Technology “crunches numbers” far faster than any human mind could do so in lifetimes. And it promotes both the notion while creating the reality that we are human machines. But technology aims outward and expands; it does not lead us inward in order to discover just who and what we are in this order of human being. Worse than being loaded guns in the hands of infants, it is a distraction from our discovery of ourselves, of ourselves as far more inner (or greater) beings which we must find if we are ever to be truly human and be able to live accordingly. Our inability to live accordingly makes us as infants—with no understanding of our world or mastery or control of ourselves. Humanity still lives in utter ignorance of itself, though now possess the technological means to destroy itself.  Technology wonderfully leads us away from ourselves as human beings into a cyborg reality in which we are as machines.

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That which has been most important to me in the living of my life is that I am “focused upon and engaged in that which is true, that which is real.” In so many words, that I do not waste my life. How does one measure the “value” of one’s self? I seem to think that a life spent in seclusion, “without distraction,” as a focused spiritual being, is best. I did spend some time in a Buddhist monastery as a Zen Buddhist monk and also spent much time at a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur once upon a time. I was not so impressed with either. And I was especially not impressed with myself, for after a few days, I was not “peaceful and focused” at all but absolutely distracted. I had to face the fact that life itself, that living in itself, is distraction; that being in a physical body that is meant to survive and having to survive in it is a distraction; that thinking and thoughts and emotions are a distraction: a distraction from the “higher being,” the “spiritual being” which is the essence of life. I have often questioned my attitude towards existence in this body here and now; it would seem that I think I’m “above it all” in some way. I do somehow think this, however, I have also “made it in the world” by being successful in business once and making enough money, taking care of my familial and social responsibilities, and so on. While it may be true that I was a bit of a sanyassin in my 20s, I did find success by my 30’s and retired by 40 to take care of my children, one who was disabled and required active caregiving. Now, in my 70s, I am again an active caregiver (to my wife) but also see myself, appropriately, as a sanyassin, more or less, though I have to wonder rather than wander. I am glad I have responsibilities that are other than myself, for, to be honest, I am utterly boring and just about that bored with myself.

          I see my role as one of not only “finding context” for myself, but also being able to convey such context to those in need of it. “Knowing oneself” consists in knowing who you are, what you are, where you are, and perhaps even why you are. Of course, such knowing is probably impossible; we are as moving targets even as we ourselves move—there is no nailing anything down at all. I think the most we can do is take all these fragments and make some kind of interesting mosaic with them. We are an undulating jigsaw puzzle with unlimited pieces of no particular shapes that do not fit into each other. So we make these fragments into a fragmentary story of ourselves as best we can—which seems fine and good in itself but is actually detrimental to us because “our story” really isn’t like how we have put it together. We have created something that has taken on its own life and is now “me” as I see myself and believe myself to be. Upon death, all the pixels of seeming solidity and reality, dissolve into something else. But, even while alive, we do not quite live because we are only our (and our culture’s and our society’s) version of ourselves and not really who we are. We just don’t know who we are and, for the most part, would rather not know, instead using our opposable thumbs to send tweets about what we had for lunch, and taking selfies to prove to ourselves and others that we actually do exist and are not just figments of our own imaginations (which are actually no longer our own since we see only what we want to see and what is trending in the moment). Descartes proclaimed, “I think, therefore I am.” But once we are no longer able to think as ourselves, we no longer exist as ourselves but as units in the matrix, as it were. People now prefer to be cyborgs. Living is much more convenient and without real choices, much less consciousness.

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Fragments, by their very nature, are problematic, for they do not "fit in" anywhere and are thus never "convenient" or able to be "pigeon-holed". Normally, it would seem that framents necessarily "fly by" without being noticed. But I notice them. Trying to "make sense of oneself" with them is rather impossible besides being absurd, but this is what we humans do. 

                                                           

THE NECESSITY OF GETTING BEYOND OURSELVES

As we age, the body's nature is to deteriorate, and, as this occurs, our self-identity begins to alter. We may identify ourselves more with our mind or our feelings or perhaps with that which we call the soul or spirit (though soul may be defined as "embodied spirit"). Though difficult to accept, such self-definition as other-than-body gets closer to the reality of things (or no-things, if you will). It is quite logical that when the physical existence ends, that, if, in fact, there is a continuation of being or consciousness, it will occur on the non-physical levels of mind, feeling, and soul or spirit. Now it could be that mind and feeling are so inclusive in body that they cease as well, though it's not logical. It is logical that, if there is such a continuation of consciousness as self, we would want to prepare ourselves for this transition. Such is the purpose of probably all the world's religions in one way or another.

Om mani padme hum, the Buddhist mantra and directive, states,
"You hold the lotus in your hand" (according to an acquaintance who has studied and translated such things). Of course, we/our nature is the lotus, borne in earth, proceeding up through water, and finally breaking the surface into the air and the sun.  

So, upon death, how are we to prepare ourselves for being in a state beyond the physical? Many would say to "put your faith in God," though I and many others would not. In fact, they would say, "Put your faith in yourself" (though I would want to be prosaic and use "yourSelf"). However it may be articulated, we do need to be able to experience that level of being that is beyond self as we have come to know it. Some claim to have found this in a kind of God-driven awareness. I haven't. I have been able in my life to find practices that allow me to disassociate from my physicalness and perhaps even "transcend" it. Once I ingested a lot of LSD for a while and this definitely got me "there," giving me quite a glimpse and experience of what is beyond the physical. I also would lay in
"isolation tanks" for extended periods, which did give me a certain experience beyond the body, as it were. Such experiences actually did provide a definite impression and memory of "transcendence," however, the most practical practicum was that of formal Buddhist meditation, which consisted of initially vipassana, and finalized in many years of zazen. This practice did not so much "get me there" as it did simply to give me a "break" from the physical identity and a kind of experience of an identity with "true nature," as it's called in Zen Buddhism (and perhaps others as well). I should note that something of this nature did occur in the years in which I practiced the theosophical meditation as presented by Alice Bailey, however, that was a very intellectual experience which I ultimately could not translate into my reality. Zazen, on the other hand, has the effect of non-mentally stripping one down to that which one is--which is essentially no-thing. It's a much more natural process which does not have to be dissected or followed or "understood." It is more a settling into one's real self, which, seemingly paradoxically (though only seemingly), is no self at all. It actually relates to the Cartesian directive, "I think, therefore I am." If you do not think (of yourself or at all, i.e. are without thought reigning in your mind), "you" cease to exist. Though I don't know if Descartes actually had this reverse-thought.

Winding up, to die adequately, we must realize such things.

THE PROBLEM WITH WRITING THINGS OR EVEN SAYING THEM

David Miller, a professor at one time at Pacifica Graduate Institute, noted that as soon as one says something, the opposite as well is instantly "true." This made much sense to me for I had always been aware that when I made a statement, it always was inherently very limited and even inherently quite "wrong" because it was most "decided." In other words, there were all the things about what I said that I didn't say, which made is therefore almost a false statement because it wasn't totally complete and could never be totally complete. Obviously, this doesn't apply to measureable things, such as one's weight or height, the color of one's eyes, whether or not one went to work today, or the horsepower of the engine in my car. Though one could accurately say that there are many other elements regarding me or my car that have not been mentioned. However, I think I'm referring to what one says about other things, like, for instance, the essay I wrote here yesterday. When one speaks of "large ideas" or concepts, how much does one assume the reader can understand? And how much does one assume one's self understands? As I speak, for instance, whole new thoughts and new directions and horizons of thought rise up into my mind, as it were. Some of them I follow, I go with, and others I leave behind and do not speak or write them. There is so much that is unsaid; it is far, far more than is said. Wittgenstein noted in the introduction of one of his books that what was far more important, in fact, most important about his book, was not what he said but rather what he didn't say. That resonates with me very much.

I have often thought that the most accurate communication we can do is to say or write absolutely nothing--simply because whatever comes out of our mouth or is written down is instantaneously erroneous; it hasn't been presented in its fullness but rather only in its partialness. I am forever having to explain myself so that others might possibly be able to understand me. My focus of my thought is usually rather abstract and obscure and of little interest to most people, and what I say seems clear enough to me. However, I have been told that I speak and write as though I were talking to myself rather than others, that my writing is "dense and intense" and can be hard to follow and understand. Part of it is that what's on my mind is simply not on other people's minds. It may have been Oscar Wilde who said something like: Those who keep their own company often fall in with the wrong crowd. My "business card" shows my name and then right after it, "Soliloquist." One who talks to himself or herself. I like that but it can create too many fawning admirers who aren't there. And then, there is also the fact that, though I write to others, I am attempting to understand myself in and through the process. I believe that writers tell their stories to themselves foremost. Nietzsche said that philosophers all present their own philosophies of life in the hope that others might agree and thus validate the philosopher's existence and reality. 

FAILURE OF MAGIC (RELIGION) AND TECHNOLOGY (SCIENCE) IN KNOWING OURSELVES

Religion with its magic and miracle and Science with its technology and progress has not brought us closer to who we are as beings of many worlds but, rather, has distanced us severely from ourselves. Religion ruled and failed, since it was more interested in extending itself than whatever truth it may have possessed and had lost over time through its own corruption and dogma to be imposed upon the faithful. Science and its technology arose as a force in the period of the Enlightenment, bringing the antithesis of religious belief and spirituality, and the truth of the physical world, as if that were all. It had the effect of mechanizing the spirit so that we might see ourselves as organic, fleshy, machines.

It would seem at this point that humans have so identified themselves as such that they believe they will progress quite well as cyborgs, ultimately with all the necessary apps implanted in their brains at birth, and all the necessary tools to keep their bodies intact and healthy and alive for at least hundreds of years. It seems that humans at this point would opt for an existence free of "difficult personal choices," now seen in terms of obsolete "existential dilemmas." One's life will be pleasantly planned out for him or her. In a sense it already is and has been since the beginning: one is born into a social, cultural, familial process that is already churning through its endless cycles. However, now there is still or most recently a sense of personal choice, which is real for those who come to make it as such, and not real for those who only make wishes or who are literally trapped in their lives. Many are either literally or psychological already quite imprisoned, if not enslaved, in the reality they have fashioned for themselves and/or has been fashioned for them by culture, society, and family. We are born into mindsets and their respective realities on all of those levels. And this must first be realized if we are to be able to create in any way something different for ourselves.

Both religion and technology have and do strongly form and continuously inform us. For many, religion as already come and dominated but has lost its hold to technology, which now controls us and with which we now identify as literally an integral part of our own being. We allow it to act for us and to even think for us. Technology is now the body-snatcher; it is the alien that now possesses us. We will not think to question it or ourselves regarding it. We give up our own particular existences in order that we might be able to think like it, becoming part and parcel of its matrix, the web itself. We learn to ably think it and speak it. We are willing to give up what has become the trifle of the human soul in exchange for the endless benefits of being part of the One Mind. It's a very religious and technological attainment for us, but spirit and matter are not joined; spirit becomes as matter and is brought down to the darkness of matter. Spirit is mechanized and put to use like a robot.

One may ask, "So why is this such a problem? So what if I become an efficient thinking, feeling machine?" The problem is that this is not what you are. You are not a machine. You must make existential choices. You have a soul, as it were. There is something within you that is far greater than the machine-world, than the physical world. If you cannot attain contact with that vital element of yourself, you will find yourself very lost and confused when you finally leave the body. Even if there is no afterlife at all and there is not soul to go anywhere, then whatever energy of awareness or consciousness that was you may then be added the the "pool" of all energy. If you have allowed yourself to become identified with only the physical, the mechanical, what will happen to the collective level of energy? Will you be one more monkey-wrench thrown into it? But that's a moot point; nobody particularly thinks about that, or cares.

If one is so identified with themselves as other-than-human, and other-than-spirit, what happens when one is plunged into a world that is not human but of the spirit? If one has no references, just what does one do? What do you do? Or, put differently, what if you suddenly discover that there is no you, but all you know is you? I think it is wiser to prepare for this perhaps ultimate reality. If you end when life ends and there is simply no more consciousness, that's fine and well. But, you must ask, "What if I am thrust into a totally different reality, one that I had every opportunity to seek out, but, given the conveniences of technology (or religion, for that matter), didn't? What happens then?"

The main feature in Dante's Divine Comedy is, to my mind, that those who are suffering grievously in Hell are totally unaware that they are in Hell; they believe they are still alives and living their lives from day to day. That is most interesting. To not even know but to live hellish lives over and over in eternity. Now, of course, that's just a story, but I find it to be philosophically and psychologically quite credible, if not inevitable. For this reason in itself, we are destined to inquire within ourselves to find that which is beyond ourself and our world.

BRIEF WORDS RE FOCUS

I realize that speaking of "fragments" and the "fallacy of reality," in itself becomes a distraction and a kind of abstraction that may effectively remove one from the matter at hand, whatever that may be. Claiming that "it's not supposed to make sense" does not remove one from being in the moment and responding as well as possible.

Not so long ago, a few years, I was obsessed with "what happens when I die." I wrote a number of essays based in my own "education" regarding death, which made some kind of sense and which I was willing to take seriously at that point, having taken such perspectives even more seriously and with pronounced belief prior to that time. But then, as I could accept that I just didn't know for sure, I stopped perseverating over what happens at death. 

I'll return to this in due time.