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.