It All Depends on Who You Listen To

One of the fundamental problems we all run into is where we get our information from; who we follow, who we believe, what we consider credible. Often we make the decision of who to listen to based on what we ‘think’ we want. You don’t need me to tell you that you often find you did not want what you got, even when it was precisely the thing wanted. Often we find that the need we had, that the thing was supposed to fill, still remained. It’s apparent that we were either confused or badly informed.

All of us have occasionally experienced the desire for something we couldn’t define. “I want something but I don’t know what it is.” I remember telling my wife that just the other night. In fact both of us have alluded to this mysterious pull on several occasions. I’m not suggesting there is anything spiritual going on here. What I intend to point out is that this vague unrest is present in all of us and we fill it with different things, temporarily distracting but not satisfying the impulse.

There is a ‘you’ that you recognize as the person who goes about each day and thinks and acts in a fashion familiar to you. That is not you, that is the personality. Behind, or within that you is another you. This ‘you’ keeps the personality like a house dog. Often the personality is unaware of this other you. Your personality can hope for nothing more in the way of satisfaction that temporary respite on its own terms. The personality cannot be happy unless it is in concert with the other you. Achieving this hook-up should be the chief goal of all. But it depends on who you listen to.

The world lies to us all the time and we find that fascinating. We hear about weight loss programs and beauty creams. We hear about how many different areas of our life will improve if we get that particular new car; certainly we are supposed to get laid if we buy that car; that scotch, that outfit, that scent, that whatever. Chances of you getting laid as a direct result of that purpose are scant. It’s a lie. And if it turns out that you did it likely won’t end well. We watch movies that show us the benefits of certain behavior. The good guys win. The right guy gets the girl. You know what I’m talking about. Life’s not like that. I’m not saying the good guys don’t win. I’m not saying it doesn’t all work out in the end. Yes they do and of course it does. But...

You’re told if you work hard and practice certain virtues that success is inevitable. What’s success? Success is getting the outer you to interface with the inner you, that is success. What kind of success can you have here when you are just passing through? If you are just passing through then everything you are passing by and all of the things you collect upon the way must really only have meaning in terms of where you are headed. They can’t mean a whole lot if you’re going to forget about and lose them all upon leaving. Worse; if these things compromise the positive conclusion of your departure then you might be worse off then when you arrived. You don’t’ want to become a hungry ghost do you?

Every nation teaches its residents to be patriotic. Every religion dispenses polemics on right behavior. Most nations behave badly. Most religions mislead. They lie. And the result of this is that you may wind up lying to yourself. It all depends on who you listen to. If you are listening to the ever changing statements of the world and if you are constantly adjusting to the conditions of the world based on methodologies given to you by the world, well then; sometimes I suppose things will be alright and sometimes they won’t.

If you are getting your information from sources external to you and accepting that this world external to you is the only world- the real world, then that is what you have. You live and die according to the whims of that world militated against by the degree of your grasp of circumstance and eye for opportunity. Some wit once said if you see the Buddha on the road, kill him. I’m not overly fond of statements like that because they can be needlessly distracting from a more simple understanding of things. There’s a quote in the Bible which reads, “Greater is that which is in you than that which is in the world.” I take that to mean that no matter how powerful appearances seem, you possess a power greater than all of them. But most of us do not know from where things come and where they go. Most people do not realize they are here only to wake up from the dream of being here in terms of the flawed understandings that keep them here.

Now there are a lot of ways a person can go about the same thing. And there are extremes as well. One can exhaust themselves within the sensory delights of the physical realm and one can also run to a monastery or live in a private distaste and rejection of all the world has to offer. Results are what counts. What are you looking for? I don’t see this world as bad and I don’t take all the lies as a personal offense. I know that the ‘you’ behind the ‘you’ is putting all of us through all of this for a purpose. I just think that it’s more useful to be able to grow at a faster rate. I think it’s more fulfilling and more joyous to connect with the primary ‘you’ sooner.

There are many mechanisms available. At the base of all of them is the practice of remembering. It’s not about coming to something new, it’s about recovering something that has been lost, or obscured. Yoga has many vehicles; western mysticism, prayer and meditation all work toward the process of re-unification. But who are you listening to?

Quite a number of the people who teach these things know just enough to teach enough to leave you confused about why you aren’t getting anywhere. Hey, I’m not saying I know anything. I do have a facility that tells me when others don’t however.

Inside you, surprisingly enough is the master of all masters. Inside you is the very teacher that taught every great teacher. What is inside you understands you and your needs better than you ever will. Of course, because you lack the vast overview of this intelligence you find yourself objecting to the directions that it gives. This is how you got disenfranchised from it and lost in the first place. Now the farther you go away from it in the pursuit of whatever you are seeking- and being guided by the limitations of your understanding, the greater the pain of separation and the greater the general pain of life you will encounter. It’s a guarantee.

Think of Karma, or that which defines your tendencies toward impulse and reaction as being like a ball thrown against the wall. Mayhap you cannot stop the ball from hitting the wall but you can run forward and catch it, instead of waiting for it to bounce all the way back to you. It’s also possible to be changed in such a way that the Karma coming becomes redefined as a result of your transformations. You could hear all this and get all of this happening from this ‘you’ I’ve been talking about but it depends on who you are listening to.

Interior hearing doesn’t suddenly manifest because you took a seminar on esoteric bodywork. It comes about in the same way that one would prime a pump. It increases the same way muscle tissue does when you lift weights or work out. It’s seemingly non-existent in the beginning and intermittent after but by degrees like practicing the guitar you will hear the melody. If I could point out the single most valuable thing anyone could do and the single most valuable thing anyone could have (besides loving and Love and really, you don’t want to go anywhere without Love as the primary focus) they would be two aspects of the same thing. Practice listening interiorly. Really... Give it a month. Why be cheap with your time when you waste so much of it already? Having a working intuition is priceless. If you don’t have it then I can safely say you have NO idea. A garden gate will open into a wonderland of possibilities and you will find that your ordinary life events suddenly become as smooth as moonlight sliding over a frozen lake.

Everything in your life and the way it happens and resolves itself all depends on who you are listening to.

Visible sings: ♫ I Need More Light ♫
'I Need More Light' is track no. 4 of 11 on Visible's 2001 album 'God in Country'
Lyrics (pops up)

A Matter of What is Real

How real is anything? Those of us who have studied in the teachings of the East have often come across the phrase, “nothing is real”, or “it’s all an illusion”. Those of us who have hit our heads on an open cupboard door or barked our shins may be inclined to dispute this. Getting our hearts broken leaves us in no doubt that the pain of our loss was quite real.

This brings us to the consideration of real in the absolute sense and real in the relative sense. Some things are more real than others; perhaps that is a better way to put it. The relative aspect of life is always passing, always in a state of transformation into something else. The pain of the injured head; the barked shin, the broken heart all recede over time. In terms of real in the relative sense it is more real at one point than at another. In an absolute sense it is always as real as it always is. Relative real exists in the realm of time which marks the degrees of its passage into something else. Absolute real does not exist in the realm of time though it may affect conditions in the realm of time.

If one were to possess a clear objective capacity it would be apparent that the way most of us see things most of the time is upside down. We see things wrong because our judgments are based on subjective reasoning. We take the report of the senses and determine the meaning according to our understanding. A child and an adult perceive the same thing differently. And every individual has a different experience of most things based on their conditioning; what they have been conditioned to believe. Perceptions of the body in the world of the senses have the nature of a dream. Life is dreaming. It could more truthfully be said that we wake up when we die. Our understanding of death is based on more conditioning which is based on conjecture. Most people don’t have a clue about much of anything. Many people are less interested in what is real than in what they are after. It is an obvious fact that religion and philosophy are continually subverted for the purpose of justifying what we want.

This is a peculiar thing. Is it better to have ones perceptions of meaning adjusted to support the exercise of ones appetites and desires or is it better to adjust oneself to what is essentially true? In the latter case; how would you go about that if you didn’t know what was true? What makes it the more difficult is that what is true stands in contradiction to almost everything that is declared and accepted to be true by the temporal realm. Of course, those who speak for the temporal realm in matters of ethical behavior and the definition of what is right and wrong all say the right things; it’s just that they don’t practice them in fact- that’s your job. It doesn’t sound fair does it? Well, it’s not fair.

Consider the war on individuals who take ‘controlled’ substances and then consider that those who provide those substances- if you follow the trail back to the bulk providers- are connected to and often members of the very government that proscribes their use. At the same time the most destructive substances are legal; that would be alcohol and tobacco. More people die from these products in one year than die from all the illegal products in a century.

Consider the organized church that prohibits sex unless it is practiced according to their tenants, yet fields an army of pedophile priests. The examples of governmental and religious hypocrisy are legion. I could not hope to address all the inconsistencies in this small venue. So it appears that both government and religion are the enemy of truth. It becomes more interesting to note that the heroes of humanity in terms of their efforts to bring fairness and understanding into the arena of life are often slain by government and the same is true of those who have worked to the same ends in the area of religion and philosophy.

At this time, the degree of hypocrisy and venal activity on the part of the church and state has hit a level of absurdity that surpasses anything previous. Within our hearts and minds each of us knows what is right because we have an intelligence that informs us of it. We know when we have spoken and acted against the common good, even in the smallest detail, because we feel it. As one ignores these messages ones offenses become more consistent and potentially greater. A sociopath does not feel anything and there are far more of them today than there were. Still, after all, it’s all well and good to talk of living the truth but hardly anyone does; get real. Interesting that phrase, “get real”.

It stands to reason that one must remain silent about a good many things. There is a phrase in the Bible that states, “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” Anyone, who cares to, can look over their life and see the compromises they have made to carry on here. We collectively accept the need for this. Since we are all liars and all compromised; then how can we say something is real when we are not? We declare to be real that which serves our purposes.

It’s pretty obvious that few of us tolerate the presence of people who tell us the truth. I am excepting the self-righteous and pedantic who go on ad infinitum about Byzantine, Confucian hair-splitting of dogmatic verities. But no one wants to be bored to death either.

One who seeks to discover and experience the truth is put in the position of being seen as Frankenstein’s monster. We must become the most veiled of undercover operatives; except in those instances where we are required to be an example of the power that everyone else rejects simultaneous with the lip service being paid.

Do you really want to know the truth? The cost of the truth is the destruction of every lie you have accepted, as well as the destruction of everything constructed upon your false assumptions. The Bible and allegorical tales of many cultures tell us of the degree of our willingness to embrace that which is beyond the ongoing machinery of the dream world in which we live. We live ‘in’ it but we are not ‘of’ it. All our pain is based in this conundrum. Our inherent immortality wars against our embrace of temporary deaths. The truth in us is at war with the lie that surrounds us and is at war with the compromises we make.

Truth tellers are marginalized to the lunatic fringe. Truth tellers are jailed, beaten, slandered and killed. But you can’t kill the truth, or the one who bears it. It only seems so and many truth tellers willingly accept this appearance of demise which is in fact a promotion. But what if ...what if??? Uh huh.

Those who believe in God have a fundamental disposition to. Those who believe in God see the evidence of God everywhere they look. Those who do not believe in God see the evidence of God’s absence everywhere they look. Those who embrace the letter of the law but reject the spirit of the law are always at work to exercise the principle of anthropomorphism upon the personality of God. Those who embrace the spirit of the law realize that God is something more than what can be comprehended. In their yearning for this which is greater than themselves they are grown into something greater than themselves.

I’ve mentioned frequently that these times are perilous and uncertain. We see trends and events that are alarming. These are but the tip of the iceberg. I am at pains in this regard because a time will come when the confusion will become very great indeed. It is imperative that every soul, for whom the truth is the most important thing, be capable of reminding themselves that appearances are just that and not to give them a power greater than their awareness of the source of all power that lies behind all apparent phenomena. Safe harbor isn’t a location; it is a state of being.

Visible sings: ♫ Something Good (is Coming Soon) ♫
'Something Good (is Coming Soon)' is track no. 10 of 10 on Visible's 2002 album
'911 was an Inside Job'
Lyrics (pops up)

Greetings, Salutations and Genuflections all Around

I promise tomorrow to have something dealing with whatever aspect of the whole my attention falls upon. But for today it is probably good to present something that deals with the writer, his conditions and the state of his mind at this time. At least that seems like a good idea to me.

I'm very heartened by the responses and the large body of emails I get. These days most of them seem to be about the blog; added in with my other ventures it comes to a goodly sum. Considering how off the beaten path I am it's encouraging. I've yet to even answer certain people from weeks before, but I will.

It's hard not to go full steam when the steam is so very present. I get these creative uproars a few times a year. They come and they go and when they're gone I have whatever is left from the harvest. For that reason I'm mainly focused on translating the recent downpour into product. Refinement of the product can be attended to with leisure but the initial wave has to be gathered in at the beginning. In the midst of this we are house-hunting for something in the Sintra area of Portugal and, to some degree in Southern France, where I'll be staying through May. During that time, blog entries may diminish. The house has nearly every amenity but a phone. I've been told I can go to the owners home for calls and internet- but I'm not the sort to advantage that kind of thing very often. I can write something to floppy and then transfer it but I'm sure I won't be doing it with great frequency.

The house has a sauna and I want to do a detoxification program while I'm there. You sit in a low heat sauna, say 140 to 160 degrees for five hours a day and it drains everything from your tissues. After a few weeks of this you experience a tremendous sense of revitalization. All of us carry toxins of all sorts in our tissues and they have an effect on our state of well being. I've been through a lot. I suppose all of us have. Certainly my lack of a clear vision and impetuous nature were responsible for a lot of it but that's neither here nor there. The point is to act upon all good information when you receive it, never mind about the past, and fully embrace what possibilities might be available for new growth and change. To that end I want to take my own advice and wash away, as much as possible, the ill effects of former stupidities and blindnesses.

I haven't had much luck with the more commercial aspects of life, whether that was in the artistic theaters where I operated, or in terms of applied business acumen to the end of achieving abundant capital. In one sense I ran from both of them. In another sense, what associations I had seemed always to bring me into contact with incompetent or venal mindsets. When seen from my particular vantage point of the moment it looks, by turns, funny and- on occasion- tragic.

Regardless of the results though, I've continued without thinking about it and have accumulated quite a body of work; certainly enough to keep a pickup truck from skidding on an icey road surface- if I don't go too fast. Along the way I worked at every kind of odd employment to finance my opportunities for creative output. Maybe there was a reason for this and maybe it will all prove useful to those who come across it. Maybe it will all sink like a tramp steamer in the Burmuda Triangle. That's not for me to say. Regardless of where any of it winds up I have no choice but to keep doing it. I'm not at war with myself over this. I know I missed out on a lot of the ordinary things that can make a life meaningful. At the same time, I have had adventures that have given me a perspective you don't pick up on the road more traveled.

A few years ago I was doing dinner theatre on Maui. The producer, a mortgage banker from San Francisco said to me, "Les, you need to start thinking about your retirement. You don't have anything. What are you going to do when you are faced with yadda yadda yadda?" I replied, "God will take care of all that." A few months later, when I was now performing in local clubs with my music, I started saying to my friends- or whomever might be listening, that I was going to go to Europe and do my thing over there. Out of nowhere a beautiful woman appeared and the correograph of what followed was amazing to behold. Within a month I was married (never married before) and after that I was in Europe where I remain to this day. One of my friends came to me and asked, "Les, how did you know? I thought it was just dreaming on your part and now you're leaving for Europe next week." Well, I can't answer that. The thing is, I rely on a certain thing to guide my life and it works! Now I would say that such things as retirement (something that will never happen anyway) and security are not a concern and don't look like they will ever be and I STILL have nothing- seen from a certain perspective.

Many people have faith in the existence of a God. In some cases they want to believe but their idea of 'what' it is that they believe in is not clear. I 'know' there's a God. I've had many, many instances of proof beyond question. Now I have not always acted as I should, but I have learned. As I learn, my capacity to dance more gracefully with the cosmic Fred Astaire has improved. As my moves have improved,so have my circumstances. There's a tiny, yet terrifying leap one must take within the privacy of their hearts. There is the appearance of risk that must be overcome. But really, is anything guaranteed? Does the possession of millions of dollars affect much besides one's capacity to worry over it and the temporary use of it? If you don't know how to enjoy yourself in the first place then what have you got? The real riches we have are in what we are, not what we have. Many a prince of the kingdom walks in ordinary circumstance- but within him is a fabulous garden of perceptions and feelings that no fine circumstance, or chemical can equal.

Now look what I've done. I was going to talk about something and wandered off down into the southern end of the property where I'm looking at my succulents. I'm real fond of succulents and I hope to have quite the collection one day.

Anyway, if I'm only here sporadically for the next few weeks I hope you will bear with me. I'm doing some things right now that I haven't attempted before. They're ambitious and take a lot of concetration since I don't have a natural gift for musical intricacies. It's like hauling brick in a hod up a ladder sometimes. Also, my book, The Dark Splendor, is going into a second printing and I've got to clean up errors that were overlooked the first time round. It's also going to be in bigger print with half again as many pages. Busy.

I've created another blog (how's that for the irony of not having time for this one on a regular basis?) called 'Smoking Mirrors'. You can find the link on the front page here. There's nothing there yet but I need a space where I can write the occasional rant and more passionate, inflamed sort of a thing. I've gotten so many letters about that. Some people are afraid I'll lose my edge. In fact, I would like to lose some of my edges and that's what I've been doing. However, I recognize now that I'm not all sweetness and light and that a portion of my abilities do have to do with heavier material. My chief concern should be if I'm telling the truth, not in dancing away from controversy. So, if you have been an appreciator of my comments on politics and social dysfunction then that is the place and I'll be contributing there too. Otherwise, for those who only like the more elevated metaphysics, you can just stay here.

Well, I've got to go back to work so I'll bid you adieu for now. I will put something up tomorrow no matter what. Thank you for coming by and all of your kind words. It gives real fuel to my ability to accomplish it.

Visible sings: ♫ Some Lovers ♫
'Some Lovers' is track no. 5 of 10 on Visible's 2006 album 'Songwriter'
Lyrics (pops up)

The Guiding Light; Coming and Going.

(I’ve been very, very busy lately- in one of those ways one cannot predict and I apologize to those who have come by here looking for something new. An unexpected thunderstorm of new songs manifested on my horizon and I find myself occupied in every waking moment; writing, composing, recording, mixing and what have you. That weather will move on and it is necessary for me to get as much of it as I can downloaded and materialized before it does.

So I find myself looking at the clock at a certain point and finding that it is 4:00AM. I’ve even missed some of my meditation periods. It’s times like this that I appreciate eating only once a day. But I know I can make the time if I just do it and so here I am. I don’t know what I’ll have to say, it’s Easter so I suppose it will have something to do with that.)


We’ve all heard, or maybe you haven’t, that the Christian holidays were grafted over pagan rituals. Some make much of this. They wish to authenticate what’s called pagan, or point out essential hypocrisies in emergent religions. There’s nothing all that hypocritical though. What’s true is always true and it stands to reason that the new would be formed upon the cycles of the old. The light has been made flesh in a number of vehicles, Christ, Buddha, Mohammed (though I’ve my doubts about Mohammed. I feel like Mohammed didn’t make it into the mysteries of mysteries and I have my reasons for that and they have little to do with the definitions of the Muslim religion that have been in the vogue lately), Krishna (note the similarities in spelling with Christ) to name a few.

A new avatar approaches as we enter into a new age. This avatar has been called Lord Kalki. He’s supposed to come on a white horse and bearing a sword. The returning Christ is also supposed to be on a white horse. Of course they are one and the same. God forms his spirit into flesh to bring a new testament, a new vision into the world of humanity. New powers of apprehension will come and new understandings will be made available. The avatar becomes palpable long before the actual appearance. Some say that avatar has already come. Some say he has not. I am purposely avoiding the presentation of various data and opinions in this regard. They’re not important to my point.

When God comes it is always in order to benefit those souls who are spinning on the wheel of birth and death. He comes to bring a window of freedom and an opportunity to make a quantum leap. At this particular time we are at the close and beginning of a twenty-five thousand year cycle; it is especially momentous. God also comes to drive the wicked before him and to punish evil-doers. It’s not like God is given some pleasure in this regard. It’s really that there are no other options. Some number of souls are so deeply entrenched in relative evil that nothing short of the spirit ‘informing’ matter through a powerful application of force will do. It may seem like punishment and it may serve to be punishment but it’s not punishment per se by intention. There just isn’t any other option.

God first comes to all of us as a gentle nudge. Each succeeding touch is a degree harder and continues until the point is made. Everyone has the option to listen before things get intense. As my uncles used to say, “Those who cannot hear must feel”.

It is the nature of materialism and of the material mind to slip ever more deeply into an obsession with the physical realm. Unguided and allowed to run its course, many would finally turn to stone.

At this time, all of the manifest forces that impact upon our senses and translate experience and control behavior are joined in a single effort to confuse and make ignorant the entire human race. Most of the human races willingly obliges in this effort. It could be appetite, it could be fear, it could be an appeal to the desire to become rich or obtain personal power, but whatever it is, there it is. You’ll get contacted in the area of your interest because the broadcasting towers are appealing to every possible interest. The point of this effort, besides the enriching and empowering of the few, is to distract you from the light.

Many of those operating on behalf of the enslavement of the race have no idea of this latter feature. They are just willing drones in the process. Some few know very well what they are doing and whose interests they represent. They do evil for the sheer joy of doing it.

Much is made of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Whether this happened in the manner it is presented to have happened is open to debate. One thing is certain however, it is not Jesus Christ who is daily crucified, it is you. You can reason this out if you are of a mind to. The church makes great profit over the crucifixion angle. It’s good for the production of guilt and guilt is a powerful force for control and remuneration. Guilt is a whip to drive the masses toward production.

Enter the world and all of the opportunities it gives to act in a manner so as to increase the guilt. Enter the mind that has all of the complexities of rationalization and the powers of alcohol and myriad libations to ensue that acts producing guilt will be committed.

It’s a movie really, as I’ve said many times before. The same scenes and opportunities for performance are repeated daily. Whether you are in a toga or a business suit, it doesn’t matter. The garments and settings and technologies change but the scenes being outplayed do not. Because it is a movie it serves that we should act at all times in accordance with our best interests. The return upon our best interests is not always immediate and may often seem to be without reward. Trust me, nothing gets missed. Act as if you are always under observation because you most certainly are. What weighs and judges watches through your own eyes, as well as the eyes of all participants involved.

Today the equinox has occurred and on a certain level the light walks among us, resurrected as it always is. This great mystery passes unnoticed in many respects. Even for those celebrating it, only a few hours need to pass before something else has become the object of focus. Very, very few souls make the consciousness of the divine their moment to moment concern. It has seldom been as hard as it is now.

For many of us there is the idea that we lack the strength to accomplish total focus; to be right on to the matter at all times. This is due to a misunderstanding of the process. It’s not your strength that is required; it is merely your attention. You don’t accomplish it. It is accomplished through you. It is a simple matter of bringing the mind back over and over again to the reality of the conscious light that permeates the universe. This is most easily maintained through Love.

We much more easily accomplish what we desire when we love that upon which we are engaged. Yes, it’s a struggle, no question. However, can you think of a finer occupation? Can you think of a more critical application? Do you remember how important so many things seemed to you once? You probably cannot even remember most of them.

You’ve got only the one job, to be conscious of that in which you live and move and have your being and to work in accord with it to the best of your abilities. In whatever way you are spending your time you will get your reward. It is my fervent hope that this will be the reward sought in the most sincere and certain part of the yearning heart. As someone once said, “If you don’t look for God in the springtime of your life, he won’t be there in the winter.”

Visible sings: ♫ Who do You Love? ♫
'Who do You Love?' is track no. 5 of 10 on Visible's eponymous
'Les Visible' Music Album
Lyrics (pops up)

The Dreaming Islands Upon the Incomprehensible Sea

“All you need is love, love, love is all you need.”

Truer words have not been spoken. You’d think as simple as the implication is that we would get it fairly quick. As positive as it is; as enervating, life-giving, hope-inspiring, heart-lifting and assuring as it seems; what ever could be our problem?

We can be certain that some part of the problem lies in how we define Love. In a way it’s a ‘cart before the horse’ sort of thing. We don’t define Love. Love defines us; so does our lack of it. Considering the vast collection of things that pass for Love; that are called Love, that are sought after as Love, that are used to enforce Love and to explain how and why Love does what it does and is what it is, well... it’s not hard to understand why we may have a problem.

What we call Love, even much of the higher expressions of what we call Love, are not Love in essence though there may be an association and possibly an inlet; Life is not contained specifically in a rose, or a cat or a person. Life is present in these things but life is not specifically these things. The same applies to Love. The pure Love of the spiritual realm would pass unrecognized by most and would reflexively be avoided, panic inducing and flight propelling as well. Its deeper aspect is like a high keening, piercing rapture that annihilates most of the affected vessel, Love may not be frightening, but what it does can be.

We can think of Life as a mountain and Love as both the impetus to climb and the reality of completion. Just as life can be a mountain it can also be getting out of bed in the morning; the miles you walk, the things you do, the choices you make, the problems you encounter and both the known and unknown portions of each new drama you encounter. Love could be thought of as the power that lifts you from your bed; what carries you across the miles, what determines the things you do, the choices you make and what resolves the problems and illuminates the portions of each drama you encounter. At the same time, the amount of Love present, determines the manner in which you arise from your bed; the manner in which you walk those miles, the kinds of choices you make, the way in which you meet those problems and the way in which you react to the known and unknown portions of the drama.

Every person here and everything they think and say and do is determined by the quality and amount of Love that they possess. Consonant with this is the fact that Love has no interest in the majority of the things we think and say and do except in terms of changing them. Getting out of bed, climbing a mountain, walking the miles and all of the rest require a commitment. At some point the commitment in most every life is compromised by other things. A compromise is worked out in the mind of the participants.

Love isn’t lazy. No matter how far you think you are willing to go, Love is willing to go farther. No matter how much you believe you are capable of giving up, Love’s interest is in the total loss of it all. Love has no possession greater than itself and is diminished by whatever degree it might think otherwise. It doesn’t think otherwise. So it’s quite possible that Love is the greatest enemy of all your hopes and dreams.

You are a dreaming island surrounded by an incomprehensible sea. As you are, the idea of sinking into that sea, of total dissolution into that sea is also incomprehensible. All of your survival instincts war against it. Within the individuality of your personal island you sit atop this sea and chatter and dream and engage with the other islands in a seeming performance of reality. Some islands acquire large audiences of other islands by virtue of unique skills. Some of the skills are of the entertainment variety. Some of these skills promise to improve your island condition. Some of the skills promote confusion; some promote necessary items of protection and sustenance. Few of the islands broadcast the information that you should melt into the sea. Maybe Love is madness.

It’s ironic that islands work against being islands in their desire to be uniform in behavior while forever being destined to act as islands- so long as they are islands.

The life of islands, individually and collectively, is separated by periods of varying conditions. It’s like the seasons. The weather goes about being stable and then it changes. The islands are in a continuous stage of adapting to these conditions. Still, no matter what the island does it’s a temporary phenomenon.

Islands create weather too. Islands attract weather. Did the earthquake create the tsunami? What made the earth quake? Nature is often disregarded and very often treated like a whore. Some worship but most are casually indifferent. Some number plunders at will. There’s a scale in nature that measures the interests and temperaments of the islands. As long as the scale registers at a certain point Nature is not reactive; after a certain point Nature is continuously reactive. Nature measures the aggregate mind set of the islands and, like the mirror that she is, reflects-reacts to whatever is imaged there.

If you wrestle with yourself, who wins? If you abuse yourself once or a thousand times, what is the result? If the abuse is collective does it become exponential? If the balance between common truths and untruths is upset- due to a large increase in the latter, what happens?

In the present day the amount of lies and self-serving action have become so ubiquitous that such activity is accepted as normal; most would be hard pressed to tell the difference between the actual and the fabricated. The daily feed of lies from the seats of temporal power has become so consistent that the truth is not told at all. The degree of absurdity increases by the day. Gullibility and confusion increase by the day. Polarities widen and tension increases.

Once, during a period of heightened awareness, I saw a flaming alphabet written into every physical thing that I observed. It occurred to me that this alphabet was the vibrational integrity of each thing; the power that defined it and maintained it as it was. It was written in me as well. Something holds all of this together and you are part of that. Love is the unifying principle. It has by-products like balance and harmony, stability, protection and a host of desirable facets. We are not so close to Love as we need to be. We are far enough away that any further departure could prove catastrophic.

As universal as Love is it is also intensely personal. So, the whole world might fall down around you but not one piece of it would injure the residence of Love. Recently I was inquiring within myself as to what I might do to better my circumstance; my spiritual circumstance, not the ongoing ephemera. Still, no doubt I intended to include all of my life, the whole of it- the idea of the best expression and resolution of it, in the quickest and most direct way in this questioning. Fairly immediately a voice came into my mind and said, “Love God more.” That was repeated several times. In the ensuing hours I received many an example of how directly this impacted on every aspect of my existence. I could not hope to cover it here.

I point this out because ‘Life’ as we know it is entering a transitional period. There’s going to be some real shaking up. There’s going to be some shaking up for which I lack the necessary superlative. You’ve had some preliminary indication and we’ll be moving along toward even greater expressions of the same. I don’t want to be an alarmist, though it would seem any fool could see the writing on the wall. It appears not to be the case.

So what I’m saying, since nothing can harm Love, it’s best to be as closely aligned with; immersed in, in pursuit of, aspiring to and generally thinking about Love as much as you are able. To Love God more is to be going about in the most effective manner in which Love increases itself within you. Loving God more- also directs all that you do into the finest expression of Love for which you are capable. If destruction seems to loom over the islands, the best place to hide from the surface weather is in the sea.

Visible sings: ♫ Pure Sweet Love ♫
'Pure Sweet Love' is track no. 8 of 11 on Visible's 2001 album 'God in Country'
Lyrics (pops up)

The Tree of Irony and the Waters of Hypocrisy.

I’m not sure if it should be the waters of hypocrisy and the tree of irony or the tree of hypocrisy and the waters of irony. We all deal with problems of proper association, this one’s mine- or maybe not, since I managed to pick one. I suspect it works either way. Something gets watered, whether it is alive or not. In this particular case we can certainly say both hypocrisy and irony are alive and flourishing.

The peculiar matter of Terri Schiavo; I’d be remiss if I did not address it. It is so rich with both irony and hypocrisy at the most grotesque level. If it were a movie it would be a farce along the lines of “The Loved One” or something out of Monty Python. It would not be a tragedy, except in the sense that the culture as a whole is tragic; should you be immersed in it and if not, once again a farce; ballooning ever more and more out of proportion depending on your distance from it.

I’m not going to go into the technical data of the cerebral cortex vis a vis the brain stem except to tell you that the former is the seat of what makes you, you. The latter is the seat of automatic processes; ‘you’ don’t have to be there for this to go on- heart, breathing, digestion, smooth muscle work etc; Somewhere around four minutes plus of anoxia (oxygen deprivation) and the cerebral cortex is cooked. This does not apply to certain yogis and special cases where the ordinary laws of physical existence are set aside.

The behavior rituals of humanity fascinate me. I can watch for long periods of time and I often do. Sometimes I will sit in a mall food court; sometimes I will sit in a sidewalk café or any location that grants me a view of humanity in passage. I like to listen to people speak as I reason out their intentions. I like to watch them watching each other and eavesdrop in my peculiar fashion upon the interior goings on. I’ve my own censoring devices, lest you think there’s a prurient aspect. I’ll admit in earlier times there was but that sort of thing doesn’t have a sustaining interest unless you’re possessed by an entity that is fixated upon those features. After awhile, recognizing your commonality with it all, you just don’t go there. We must at all costs avoid the tendency toward attributing superior status to ourselves. We can fall from a high place as easily as from a low one.

What I’ve noticed in this case is the swell of associated celebrity that I see in the face of Terri’s sister and parents. The self-righteousness is especially delightful. They’re really enjoying the spectacle. I’ve watched them enough not to feel I’ve misjudged them. I’ve studied the husband as well. Karma never fails to be interesting. It’s never the karma so much as it is the way we carry ourselves though. It’s the way we carry ourselves that defines the outworking of our karma.

The activities of the GOP are as ludicrous as anything life can present us with. The hypocrisy must stink like the garbage dump ringing Guatemala City. Especially in the case of Tom Delay whose activities in office are outrageous. His skimming of Indian casino monies and literally anything he could get his hands on; and the subsequent actions of the ruling party in both houses to protect him are one of the scandals of our time. We’ve not seen this kind of arrogant disregard in a long, long time; this is Huey Long redux. It’s another irony to watch someone who has passed on and is in a vegetative state being used as a football for pandering to a shrill political base which is also in a near vegetative state.

Polls were taken by major news organs. Polls were taken by all of the major news organs and the American people responded at about 87% across the board in support of the husband. In none of these major news organs that took the polls were the polls published. Imagine that. Why didn’t they publish these statistics? It is because it detracts from the ongoing spectacle. It’s better to have the appearance of parity in the argument- the better to profit from the hoopla and madness.

Let’s consider a rather more important feature. Just where is Terri Schiavo at this time? Her body is still in a state of forced maintenance. Is she networking with Walt Disney and Ted Williams? The corruptible body releases the soul at its demise; or should we say that the soul discards the body when it considers its work to be done? One might say, from a point of reason that some limbo effect is in operation.

The teachings of Jesus Christ express the concept that one achieves eternal life through faith. If this is the case then what is the point of sustaining the corruptible envelope? The people most adamant about sustaining the vegetative life are those who most stridently define themselves as followers of Christ. The rich loam of hypocrisy and irony herein would make any farmer weep at his wealth should he possess it.

As I have been at pains to point out in the past, life is a movie in which every possibility of expression is played out and demonstrated for the benefit of a collective enlightenment. The odd case of Bush becoming president is a movie with a sure lesson attendant. The behavior of political and religious interests is another movie with a sure lesson attendant. The Iraq war is a movie with a sure lesson attendant. All of them possess a wider lesson for humanity and a personal lesson for the participants.

Sometimes the only way for truth and balance to reinstitute themselves is for life’s drama to be pushed to the point of absurdity. Oh, I’ve gone on about the poisonous diet of the most flowered aspect of advanced culture. I’ve mentioned cellphones and how the poisonous radiation affects the location of the brain where the phone comes into physical contact; especially in the case of children. I’ve noted a multitude of practices that lead to suffering and death; quite possibly to a place in a bed next to Terri. The irony is that medical practice is so devoted to the suppression of symptoms and indifferent to prevention. Of course, the AMA-Pharmaceutical Combine is a global industry and it profits from the fact that you require its less than tender ministrations as a result of bad lifestyle. Most individuals expend 90% of their savings in the last year of their life on horrendously expensive medical practices that achieve zip. Common sense should tell you that if you have become terminal you should get what morphine you require and expire at home. But...they...won’t...let...you...do...that.

I’ve consumed enormous amounts of alcohol and drugs, smoked unfiltered cigarettes and run riot for periods of time in all manner of excess. No doubt I let it go on longer than I should have, but I’m not very bright sometimes and evidently more willful than I give myself credit for. Truth to tell, I have no idea why I was as I was. I do know why I am as I am now. Good diet is one of the things that carried me through with very little attrition from what I can tell; that and long periods of abstinence. Legal pharmaceuticals caused me more harm than all the other things combined. Doctors invariably caused me harm. I avoid them.

You know, I live in this small town. I have no real social life, nor do I miss it. If I’m not working as I am at this moment, on this project, I’m working on another project, or reading a book, or meditating, or reflecting on something. Perhaps I’m having my meal which comes about sometime in the afternoon, or I might go to the library, or walk in the woods which surround me here. Maybe something will happen from the things that I do, or maybe it will just go on as it does, or maybe something else will happen. I could sit back and think about what I want. To tell you the truth I can’t really think of anything. I’ve an idea for my walled garden but that’s a given in the process anyway.

I gain no real satisfaction from anything except my projects and my meditations. In my meditations I can come into communion with the mind and location to which I am directly bound. I can increase my sense of residence in that particular realm which is the particular kingdom of mine in God’s vast, incomprehensible estate. I cannot make sense out of what others do. But I know there is no endeavor that I have not at some time been engaged in. It is with supreme gratitude that I recognize the place to which the divine has taken me. I cannot express how grateful I am. I cannot contain it. I cannot explain it. It’s a simple, simple thing. It’s not at the corner store, or any store. It’s not to be acquired in a particular country. You can’t buy it and you can’t sell it and you cannot transmit it generationally. It’s the waters of the spirit freely given. Why it would not be the chief interest and industry of every man women and child is a puzzle. Perhaps it is... by diver’s ways.

Regardless of the travesties, tragedies and inequities of manifest life, we are all directed there. It is hard in any moment to comprehend this but I have that assurance. It brings a smile to my face and I find it hard to be at odds with anyone knowing how very true it is.


Until we Walk Across the Bridge

You can travel in the depths below
You can climb the highest ridge
and I will walk beside you always
Until we walk across that bridge
I will walk beside you all the way until we walk across the bridge

Until we walk across the bridge
oh sometimes we cannot see
that through the fullness of the landscape
you are walking next to me

Our minds make us seem different
but that was never so
we are one and always have been
take me with you when you go.

When we walk across the bridge
when we walk across the bridge
when we walk across the bridge
when we walk across the bridge

Until we walk across the bridge
always hold me in your heart
our eyes make us seem separate
although we've never been apart

until we walk across the bridge
after that the work is done
The New Jerusalem is rising
and now the bridge is gone
New Jerusalem is rising
and now the bridge is gone.
Yeah, now the bridge is gone

You can vanish in the depths below
You can climb the highest ridge
and I will walk beside you always
until we walk across the bridge
I will walk beside you all the way
Until we walk across the bridge

till we walk across the bridge
until we walk across the bridge
until we walk across the bridge
until we walk across the bridge...

Visible sings: ♫ Walk Across the Bridge ♫

All Aboard- Sailing on The Ship of Fools.

They say you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. They don’t tell you that you won’t have any kind of an omelet if you kill the chicken. It’s also said that when the blood of the innocent is spilled there will rise a warrior from every drop of blood. Given the intricacy of reincarnation, there may be no innocent bystanders. Then again, what came first, the chicken or the egg?

It’s also been said that the ultimate destiny of evil is that it destroys itself. There’s an obvious irony here. As with most obvious ironies, it’s not apprehended unless the necessary detachment from the process exists. In other words, it’s hard to objectively reason from a subjective mind set.

Most anyone of average intelligence could see, if they chose to, the strange case of global corporations whose insane quest for profit seems destined to destroy not only the quality of life it presumes to improve, but the resource for their product as well. It’s amusing, were it not so tragic, to see Coca Cola machines in elementary schools alongside junk food vending machines. Then to hear the pronouncements of the corporations that no harm comes from the enjoyment of their products. One is also told that moderation should of course be exercised. One is also told that this needs to be instilled in the home. Of course, by that reasoning it’s all the fault of the parents. In a way that’s true. If you don’t protect your kids from unwise choices, who will?

Most parents can’t follow their young daughter into her bedroom with her boyfriend when they are away at work. It’s assumed they were raised to comprehend the results of all the choices that confront them. Does anyone reasonably expect an eight year old to know that junk food and soda destroys their health at a time when good diet is more important than at any other point of life?

It’s puzzling how fashion designers, magazines, television, music and any number of resources where one receives images and information about how life is to be lived and how best to enjoy all of the beckoning fruit on the vast tree of plenty... It’s puzzling, the ‘push me pull you’ effect that says, “Hey baby, it’s all here for you.” followed by the small disclaimer to ‘use our product wisely’. It dangles before you, it creeps like sugar plums into your dreams. It strokes your body as you move through it. A thousand voices call from all sides; all the tantalizing possibilities where the packaging does not truthfully declare the contents; not at all.

Everything in life emerges from a spiral. You have your upward spirals and your downward spirals. There’s involution and evolution, there’s entropy and the divine order. It shouldn’t be hard to see the state of a nation’s culture and the implied direction. Then again, as I’ve said, it’s not possible to reason objectively from a subjective posture. If you’re a feeding, rutting unit in the midst of an orgy of opportunities how can you measure the guaranteed result against a necessary restraint? If you add in the imprimatur of religions that are no more than corporations selling a product they do not even possess, well then. You’re born with the thing they’re interposing themselves as agents for. You live and move and have your being in it.

I think what we are seeing are people selling their birthright for a mess of potage. It seems okay within the context of the surrounding phenomena. Eat drink and be merry and get a few extra pallbearers. Obesity is seldom associated with spiritual advance. When you watch an entire nation descend into the slough of a comforting, swallowing flesh you would think that the bells of reason might peal. It’s hard to hear with the ipod going and the cellphones ringing.

Maybe I’m an alarmist. It’s all good right? The thing is, there are so many indicators dove-tailing to the same conclusion. Anyone who thinks there isn’t a concerted effort at mind control is assuredly under control. The governments, the corporations, the religious propaganda mills and the blanket control of media present a chilling picture. For those of us who recognize that the present cycle of history is just another chapter in an age old system of reoccurrence, there’s no surprise to be had.

I suppose this puts a number of us into the same position Lot was in. The cities of industry and distraction are always aflame. They have an unchanging intention and result. The glamour is powerful, more powerful than most would admit. It all seems so real doesn’t it? Turning into a pillar of salt is an interesting metaphor for something or other. Did you know that if you take a blood sample on a slide and drop a particle of salt into it that all movement ceases? The higher science, the one we don’t practice generally, reaffirms every truth that we have been given by the occasional messenger of truth. In the most mundane of events, the spirit is present and acting according to law.

The ark of contemporary life is not seaworthy. It’s interesting that so many would think they could pile upon the thing and that it will bear them away toward some promised land. That ship does not have the paper work to enter such a sheltered harbor. The very hubris of its assumptions guarantees it will sink.

Powerful men and women in all walks of life trumpet the blessings of comfort oriented progress. Far be it from me to oppose new discoveries in medicine, food production and the like. But if the thing itself is rotten to the core it’s still a case of diminishing returns to find new ways to plug a leak when the thing is rotten to the core.

I’m not a paragon of virtue. I’m not Jeremiah wailing at the end of a righteous fast. I struggle with all of the things anyone might encounter. I do have the advantage that there’s nothing I really want except self-realization. This has come about as a result of periods of excess, no question. But I was always searching for the same thing, even if I was looking in the wrong place.

Your leaders are marching into the desert. There is no water there. There is no food there. Peer pressure might prevail upon you to crowd aboard the ship of fools. I’d advise against that. But what do you do? Can you run in some other direction? Is there an agency you can contact? How will you be found among all the rest, even with the greatest of intentions to be realized and reached, how will you be saved?

The key is in the recognition that you are connected at all times to that great power out of which every good and bad thing is formed. It is conscious and present. The most important thing is to strive for that connection. The most important thing is to recognize that you are connected. Living in the consciousness of that connection brings a daily increase of assurance. What you put your heart and mind upon are the things of value you receive. So why are all of the horns blaring? Why is the surround sound carnival, everywhere in evidence, wailing at such a shrill peak? Why is the force of material splendor so incredibly strong in appearance? It must be that another door is opening and that the entire circus is designed to distract your attention from it.

Although I am not a member of any church, save the unchanging hierarchy to which every sincere soul, in every creed is bound, you can indeed find the roadmap in The New Testament. You can find it in the Bhagavad-Gita. You can find it in the Book of Nature and you can find it most certainly in the secret temple of your heart. It should be no surprise that the world is calling out and calling hard for as many as will be led into the ship that will not sail. But you should ask yourself; why is it at such a state of high pitch at this time?

Do you want to be free or do you want to be bound? You become a slave when you cease to be your own master. Oh, we all have a master, one way or the other. You do have to serve somebody. But the freedom of the one is beyond the calculation of your mortal mind. And the bondage of the other is too. Maybe you don’t care. There will be other opportunities, though they will come with the price of great suffering- even such as you may be suffering now, or worse. But if you want your real reward make sure you are waiting in the right line.

It All Reduces to One.

Everything reduces to one. It doesn’t matter what it is, where it is or how it may appear. It doesn’t matter what color it is; how big or small, whether you love or hate it, whether it actually exists or does not exist at all. It all reduces to one. The silence swallows every argument.

We are all familiar with the tale of the fallen angels; those angels that, for whatever reason, were cast out from the Heaven in which they had formerly lived. They were basically cast out because of the inability to accept the fact that everything reduces to one. There is the idea in the minds of some that these angels walk among us with a power that can challenge the single purpose of the ruling throne. It’s an impossibility whose only power it that of appearance. They appear to have the power. But any power possessed by anyone or anything derives from a single source. Power can be applied in all manner of ways. An axe may be used to chop wood or to remove someone’s head. We have heard of the use of resistors in electricity. We can understand the applications but we don’t actually understand electricity. We just know that it operates according to certain laws. We don’t know all of the applications or all of the laws; just some of them.

It could be said that the chief power of the fallen angels is to give the idea that everything does not reduce to one. There is the idea that we have something called free will. Free will has only two possibilities of expression; to act in resistance, in any of a myriad of ways, or to operate in the understanding that everything reduces to one.

There have been many arguments about how life can be lived most effectively. There are dietary routines that appear each day. There are codes of conduct. There are minutiae beyond comprehension in respect of every religion, lifestyle, political mechanism and any system of cataloguing and defining every science and philosophy. They all reduce to one. They all reduce to a point beyond definition or explanation. We as individuals in the midst are not happy with the idea that nothing we attempt; fight for or against, believe in, aspire to, stand in contempt of, or wring our hands over makes any difference whatsoever and will be absorbed beyond identification into one. No sane mind can accept this. One might well ask what sanity is.

Hidden in the multiplicity of things is a power beyond reckoning. There is a freedom we cannot understand that soars and sings in a realm we can not imagine. It is in the celebration of the one, in ones capacity to be like melting snow that we achieve to the high destiny of our birthright.

Through centuries, the virtue and power of love has been exalted in the work of mystics and artists; in the thoughts and computations of our grandest minds and in the pure contemplations of the most simple and heartfelt among us. We stand at the cusp point of the passing of one age into the next. For the last two thousand years, love has been most finely expressed in the idea of sacrifice. Jesus Christ most fully exemplified this state. In the next age, Universal Brotherhood is the schematic through which Love will be most fully expressed.

As wonderful as some of the things to come will be, this is just another age. Many ages will follow and many have come before. The mountains of the past have been reduced to the sand upon the seashore. New mountains rise and will in time become sand. From a single point whose location is unknown comes the beginning of the whirlings. Out of the whirling comes all that is manifest. It expands and stretches beyond comprehension. It contains armored men on horseback and fine cities in riotous splendor. It contains Kabuki dancers and whirling dervishes mimicking the divine intent. It contains old bearded men poring over ancient texts and illumined rishi’s contemplating the whole in a place beyond words. It contains bandits and demagogues, warlords and cocktail waitresses. It contains everything and it all reduces to one.

We are dreaming. We dream in the body that wraps us in the moments through which we pass. We see everything in a dream whose continuous passage grants the appearance of reality to ourselves and our surroundings. Even those of us who think we have awakened from the dream are still dreaming. We have all had that experience when we have fought to awaken from a nightmare; thought that we had awakened and later found that we had continued to remain asleep. Many have thought that death takes us to a place of sleep but it is only at death that we awaken. Though it is a rare event, it is possible to awaken- to die in a sense, while still in the body.

Great efforts have been made here. Tremendous efforts have been made in applying the personal will against the resistance of the terrain. History is filled with individual efforts made to secure wealth and kingdoms, to disseminate ideas and to awaken the masses into a finer freedom or a deeper and more confined prison. It all reduces to one.

Love reduces everything to one. Love is the fluid being of unity that melts the whole construct back into the totality of one. Love reduces the individual into the cosmic. In the minds of many who have contemplated this truth is the idea that one loses themselves entirely in the process. But what is the point of that? It may well be, after a curious fashion, that we do not disappear at all but rather become the celebratory focus of the thing in a new identity of perpetual realization; the self when it knows itself to be God.

It is a curious thing to me to have the teaching of Jesus Christ and all of the rest of the masques of God interpreted according to the endlessly dissected minutiae of leaden dogma as if God, rather than the devil, were in the details. It all reduces to one and there is no guide and no salvation that can resolve our dilemma except Love. Love too has been splintered into a variety of segments; compassion, charity, sacrifice- and lesser states that are poor relations in poor circumstance. Love at the point of origin is a light without qualification. Once it passes through the prism into the manifest it takes upon itself a variety of colors and qualities. Love, being profoundly real, can be followed back to the source.

It stands to reason that the reason wise men and women can know one another, without a common surface language is that they all recognize the reductive truth that inter-permeates all phenomena while existing outside and beyond as well. There is no truth that has been told that does not apply in every time and place. We can see the commonality in the teachings of them all should we care to look with the understanding that it all reduces to one.

It is only in dreams that we must contend with dragons and monsters. It is only in dreams that we need armor and weapons. It is only in dreams that our separate self is propelled toward passionate union with another- in the hope of a Love expressed in the shadow of a Love already complete. One love is celebrated here and condemned there. It is defined according to the customary rules of a place and a time for the purpose of control within the parameters of a confining space. It is called upon and driven like a beast of burden toward fields of enterprise and for the good of a nation and the exaltation of a creed. It is forever misunderstood so long as it is interpreted for the benefit of a point or an end. It is no surprise that our hope is less than it might be and we has yet to be able to command a mountain to toss itself into the sea.

Our biggest obstacle and our primary source of confusion is that we do not realize that Love is conscious. Love is a living thing, it’s not some serendipitous force that comes and goes, on the one hand filling us with light and on the other, with its depature- leaving us poorer than we were. Love is conscious. It knows what it is about. This is why it has been noted that one must become as a little child. Think of yourself as a plate of ice cream sitting in the sun. You don’t have to be concerned with what may be expected of you. That part of the process is automatic.

There is no Time 'but' the Present.

At the center of our being we realize that we are a focus of the divine; particularized in the unique vehicle in which we are presently contained. In the transitory awareness of our mind and personality we see our selves as separate units of being. We see ourselves as a thing apart in the midst of many. In reality we are one with everything. Though some of us suspect this, few of us know this.

All our suffering is based on the idea that we separated beings. It is this illusion that it is our chief business to overcome. Now life, all by itself, is designed to bring us to this understanding of a self unified with all life. It’s a long haul, no mistake, when the process of recovery is left to the evolutionary force. It’s a quicker route when we are determined to cooperate and offer ourselves up for transition. Of course, our suffering may intensify greatly as a result of this decision. The crying sirens on the rocks are not inclined to let us go either quickly or gracefully into the light.

Some of you may have wondered at recent trends. There has been a sharp curve downward of late in respect of collective awareness. In every aspect of the manifest world we see a ‘dumbing down’ of the collective mindset. The realm of art and culture has always had a popular garbage aspect; in any time there has been a certain celebration of the trivial, but there was always high art to counter it. These days it is in little evidence. Commerce and the need to sell products have the characteristic of a cancer. Food processing is eliminating the nutritive aspect and we are all familiar with the effect of poor diet on ones intelligence. Nearly everywhere you look things have taken a frightening persona. One has only to watch TV for a few days to see where we are at.

Our political leaders are without honor and either pander to interests that will ensure their own promotion, or are bought and sold beyond any capacity for human concerns in their actions. The news organs are nothing more than shills for special interests. We have become a nation of pimps and whores. It is now celebrated to be such a being; you’re pulling a train while the crowd roars in approval. People with no idea of the qualities of the question are asked their opinions and the results are published as the heartbeat of vox populi.

Everywhere I go I see young women leaning over their cellphones and doing something. I’m not sure what it is. Occasionally they will be talking on the instruments but much of the time they are fondling them and receiving some sort of information from it.

It is my nature to always bless my food before I eat it. I hope to consign the energy produced by the food into transformation into light. I intend to show my gratitude for being fed. I have not seen a single person perform such an act in a very, very long time. And I am watching; I sit in large eating areas often, just for the purpose of observation. People sit down and just shove food into their mouths. I notice they barely even chew; 50% of the digestion takes place in the mouth. I cannot accurately put into words what it is that I see.

The medical community is dedicated to an allopathic practice of their art upon the phenomena of disease and physical distress. The pharmaceutical companies are devoted to the sale of chemicals that will react against the reactions of nature against the practice of bad lifestyle. You’ve eaten some bad food (you may ‘only’ eat bad food) and drank too much alcohol. Then you are encouraged to take some pills to offset the natural reactions of the body to your poisoning of it. Add in the side effects of these to the ongoing attrition of all round bad behavior. The prognosis is not good. Add in the fact that 60% of the people are overweight and 30% are obese. What do you think would be the natural result of a combination of bad food, bad drink, bad lifestyle, bad information, bad TV, bad music and the images of conspicuous consumption on all sides? Add to this the deluge of pharmaceuticals taken to offset all these along with the paranoia and sense of personal helplessness in the face of draconian forces bent on control of thought and action... it’s not a pretty picture.

The natural life has been sacrificed on the altar of quick sensation and constantly shifting focus of attention. The result is predictable. Just as there is uproar in the personal unit at its increasing separation from all good practice, there is the ever growing reaction of natural forces to the larger environment. Thimk! Yes, that was intentional.

Gee, I’ve painted a grim picture. Well, I haven’t painted it. I scarcely have the time or the ability to have engineered such a vast canvas of bad art. I’m merely pointing it out; fat lot of good that will do- but pointing it out none the less. Am I wrong? Is this only the crying out of one dissatisfied soul whose own hopeful designs have been compromised by the greater collective of different choices? Many people are living quite successful lives in the midst of this, or so it seems. It probably looks normal doesn’t it? Normal after all is the median point of the bracketing extremes.

What is taking place at this time is a world wide composting of old forms that has been brought to the furthest level of their absurdity. The most superficial, non nutritive possibilities of form are the commonplace face of the present state. It’s all meant to be. The new age is coming and all of this is going to be swept away. We are in the middle of a vast recycling process and your individual fate in this transition is determined by your focus. It is determined by the energy field in which you are contained. Your energy field is made up by your thoughts and actions. If you are devoted to the forms that surround you, you will be processed along with them; if your attention is devoted to the eternal consciousness doing the processing then you are transited to the next phase. This is not to say that the individuals processed along with the outworn forms are intended for any lasting destruction. Rather they are moved into a holding station for the next round of incarnate life for the purpose of further schooling and a more direct experience of conditions designed for lessons unlearned.

One might wonder what my point is. From where I sit it’s pretty clear but I’ve learned not to expect that to be the universal apprehension. You are in a cusp position. It is possible at this time to make the great quantum leap in consciousness. It can not be said that this is a simple thing. After all, the whole world is crying for attention to its products. The sensory onslaught of information on all sides is the amplified voices of the sirens on the rocks. Real sirens are also going off. It is time to become increasingly contemplative. It is time to pursue a deeper connection with the divine. How else are you to get the insights you will need? You have to get your information from one of two places; the frenzy of the world surrounding, or the author of life itself.

Take a close, discriminating look at the world. Look carefully and with all the penetration you can manage. Make the wise choice for yourself and anchor your boat in the safe harbor. It’s been said that not a sparrow falls that the Lord doesn’t know about. It’s also been said that you are far greater than the lilies of the field or the birds in the air. Surely then, you are cared for beyond your capacity to understand. Either God is real, or the world is. They’re both real within the schematic of their activity. However, one is certainly ‘more real’ than the other.You must decide whose lead to follow. God is indestructible and with infinite capacity. The world is destroyed and recreated in every minute.

It is an irony that people have no time each day to communicate with the divine, yet somehow they have hours free every evening to watch TV. They have no time to pray, but they have all the time in the world to worry. Job had some interesting reflections on this. Worry is a form of prayer and meditation, but I assure you the result is less desirable than the positive alternative.

No matter how crazy things may appear, there is a sane center. That sane center is also infinitely more powerful than the phenomena that seem so vast and overwhelming. Put your trust in the proper bank. There’s no time like the present. There... is... NO TIME... ‘but’... the... present.