notes

In criticizing another, you are being critical of an IMAGE in your mind. You are at war with YOURSELF. When your snarky critique disappears, your internal conflict stops raging. This is one of the side benefits of "Judge not."

I pray we understand that the ground on which we stand is the same ground interpreted differently, that the cosmos to which we open is the same cosmos viewed infinitely.

I just don't get it. God took human form and had himself killed so that all who believed that God took human form and had himself killed would live forever. What makes more sense to me is that the Wellspring is springing forth all the time and living and dying every nanosecond and that is who and what we are.

I like the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas because they are just that: sayings. There is no dogma or doctrine or triumphant christianism wrapped around them. They can go directly to one's heart-mind without impediment.

In my journey from a B.A. degree to a Ph.D. in three years, I went totally insane -- outside all realms of "normal" consciousness. Excellent shaman training.

In olden days, four groups existed: merchants, priests, warriors, and working people. All was fine when the four were in harmony. These days, the merchants look to rule the world, the priests are in hot pursuit, the warriors do as they are told, and the working folk are saying WTF!

The noise of the world entrains the consciousness to a numbness that prevents clear vision.

It beats the heck out of me why folk who say they believe exclusively in the linear thinking of ratio logic and ratio-nality cannot see that as a faith based and mystical endeavor.

It's simple. We sit down, get quiet, open to the One, get all happy, get up, go through the day, downloading the One as we go.

"The observer is the observed." Get it? "What you see is who you are." Got it?

The eternal present consists of the One's radiance as Intelligence which radiates as Soul which opens as the sensible world (that available to our physical senses). These four realms are one eternal continuity. A human does not experience this continuity unless s/he opens to it. One either experiences this flow-through or clings to, insists upon, some small image of oneself. (Thoughts from reading Plotinus)

With a startling burst of energy, he sprang from his rump-sprung chair full-blown into the day.

Like all artists, the One works with the material it has, and with the limitations and capacity of that material.

Spirituality is the infusion of energies from the One and the radiance outward of those energies. When one doesn't do so, one moves from being an Heir to being an ingrown hair.

Bitching is the basis of all science, literature, music, and art and therefore is the mutha of all social interaction.

Fifty years ago I was deep into the practice of throwing attacking guys hard onto the floor and getting them in a choke hold or joint lock until they submitted, plus practicing the moves for ripping out throats, cracking elbows, dislocating ribs, and other more gruesome maneuvers with great gusto and enjoyment. Seems funny now. What was I thinking?

My To Do List:
1. Laugh
2. Evaporate all bounds (Redundant to #1)
3. Wad this list into a little ball and eat it.
4. Face and deal with all that arises as it arises.

Love is a trap designed for obliteration. I hold friendship in higher esteem.

A friend passed through Flagstaff recently and was struck by the use of the word awesome among our citizenry to describe everything from a pizza to a public event. The use of the word has degenerated to meaning almost nothing. Awesome means to be filled with awe. Awe means, or used to mean, "fright, fear, terror, anguish, dread mixed with veneration." If something was awesome, it made your hair stand on end, your soul fill with fear and dread, your whole life hanging in the balance as to the outcome. Awesome.

And the Ultimate Corporation sat alone amongst the debris of the world and said: "I do not understand. We only wanted to make a profit!"

Last night an Aikido master approached me in a dream, a dream as real as this dream where I drink coffee now, more real in some ways. We were in a clear open space, a room with no walls. He was fierce and direct and with no words invited me to dance. We merged into same body while continuing individual spirit and moved without thought. Calm. Strong. Open. As one. I feel blessed.

I picked up one of the three volumes of Rumi's Mathnawi this morning and opened it to this: "The heart that is the rising-place of the moonbeams of Divine light is the opening of the doors of Reality for the gnostic. To you it is a wall, to me it is a door; to you a stone, to me a pearl. What you see plainly in the mirror-- I see more than that in the brick." My heart laughs in delight and recognition. The two worlds have never been so separate and so clear. I and others walk side-by-side and yet in different worlds. My vision is different, always has been. My heart is at peace with this.

The ongoing human story line: X is good. Y is bad. Y prevails so bad prevails. When X prevails, good will prevail. Human Group A thinks that X is this and Y is that. Human Group B thinks that X is that and Y is this. And so on. Human Group Z doesn't care, just wants to dip its wick and frost its doughnut. The Earth rocks on.

I am adopting the point of view that I know nothing, that I am among the most ignorant men on earth, odometer set to zero, and will proceed from here. Empty and open, I listen to no other human, only to the Inner Guide.

We cannot, contrary to romantic imaging, make of ourselves anything we wish. We have to use the putty we are given.

Dear Abby, I have a feeling that if my consciousness were inside your head, your head would explode.

Each of us has our own model of reality. This has much to do with our capacity to see. Talem eum vidi qualem capere potui ("I saw him in such a form as I was able to take in").

In the ongoing flow of interdependence, God continues to be born.

Morning meditation, in which the more expansive is amused by the more condensed.

Think I'll go downtown, sit on a bench, drink coffee. Too much metafizzuhkull clattering around my head. I need my skull to fall away.