~~~All of the Personal Dramas of Our Impermanence~~~

 

 

So in this idea, then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality. Not God in a politically kingly sense, but God in the sense of being the self, the deep-...down basic whatever there is. And you're all that, only you're pretending you're not. And it's perfectly OK to pretend you're not, to be perfectly convinced, because this is the whole notion of drama. ~ Alan Watts ...from "The Nature of Consiousness"; also published as "What Is Reality?" (1989)

~~~~What's Our Problem?~~~~~~~

 "Relationship is our problem, and not the idea about relationship not at any one particular level but at all the levels of our existence."

 

 

    Jiddu Krishnamurti

~~~~~~~~~~~~Camping Out~~~~~~~~~~~~

   My brother & I had psychic experiences, he the participant & I the observer, at the tail-end of the '60s, particularly during the year 1971; therefore, since the age of 21, I intuited that this world was only a derivitive one, and all of my personnas since, the psychological clothes we wear, were woven of my past spiritual experiences. The essence of all these was an adaptation of Hunter S Thompson's gonzo journalism & acid visions of society. My identity was seperate from my culture, and I tried on many sets of psychic clothing to wear, many lifetimes in one. Middle class suburbean TV Generation: High School to College. LSD Hippie Dropout. Fundamental Christianity reborn on a college campus and exorcised upon being kicked out of a cult. Healthcare Corporate Management Type. Taxi driver. Ski bum. Golf bum. Now? Old guy. you know, someone who has been many things.

   These days I just try to see things as they actually are, but thought is thought, and image only illusion. I guess it doesn't depress me, too much, the seemingly inate violence of this world, because all the clothed that I have worn are now in tatters. Isn't it sad when your favorites wear out? But this world is not all that there is it is, there are other ones, and I trust in the spirit like a little child to clothe me while I am still here. We're all just camping out here you know? One fine day we all will strike tent and head home.

 

 No grand plan here anymore. No flow charts. No Theory of Everything. Not even a 'teaching' like Jiddu Krishnamurti and Ekhart Tolle have each come up with, although, I enjoy meditating upon both of their 'teachings' I deal with all  of the evils and negativity this life dishes out by accepting it, as  duality is necessary to what's going on here. I used to try and blot it out with ideals & meaning & stuff like that, angry at the evils within this world, the darkness of our selves, reflected in society, as most of what I have written were words spit out in anger at the seeming injustice of  it all.
 

   Plato's Cave Metaphor is the great grand-daddy of all spiritual metaphors. DNA and sociological/racial conditioning trap each of us into the roles we play in this Shakespearean Drama we call being human Some get it good. Most not so good. Every twist & turn of  human lifes plots covered as mankind as a whole gets it everyway it can be gotten. Many mirrors in the prism. Many observers to the double-slit experiment, as we're all a bit skewed in our perceptions, to some degree or another.

 

   The Life Within Us All, that supports us and all of this, is Truth, not skewed in any way, and that is why I look at the evils within this world and don't hide from them anymore, or get angry. I just look in wonder. That could be me. What's that guy up to? I'm glad that death is an integral part of this life, not a bad thing, for death is like Life's Alarm Clock. When death comes it lets you know that you were always just camping out here anyway, and now it's time to head home.

 

   But now? While I'm here? I want to see things as they are, and that requires a death of sorts, while still living. No self. No observer. All of  the synchronicity you see in nature when you are not there, timeless, in the moment, clothed in an ever-expanding and ever-new wineskin. The choiceless awareness of the spiritual winds that are ever-moving through our lives. Having the eyes to see is not a constant reality in my life, for it comes, then it goes, always of it's own volition. very personal, but I have no control over it. Sometimes I'm out of the cave basking in the timeless sunlight. Sometimes I'm sitting in the darkness trying to figure out what those dancing and flickering shadows on the electronic cave wall are doing. Sometimes there. Sometimes not. Camping out, being human, doesn't seem to allow for all the comforts of home.

 

   Who knows? Is this personal relationship with our creator real? Or is all this personal stuff just an illusion of mine born of my christian days? It's one thing for sure that the timeless has a hard time establishing itself in time, that is, in human consciousness. The Life is everywhere, but mankind can't seem to bottle it. Abstract it? Yes. But grasp it? Hold onto it? Control it? Organize it so that it is always available through belief and religion? No. Thought, like all the psychological clothing that we wear, can not touch upon Life's reality, for thought is only a substitute, an abstraction, something that is not The Life. The Life? That is only there when we are not. Old wineskins can't hold new wine. What a strange and paradoxical world we live in where we must cease to be for The Life to flow.

 

   The Life touches and sustains all that there is, but where is it's source?

   Are we all just camping out here?

   Is this all just a dream?

 

   Why all the confusion?

   Why all the misery?

   Why all the old wineskins?

  "The ending is the beginning,
    and the begining is the first step,
    and the first step is the only step."
        Jiddu Krishnamurti

   It's a funny world when all the enlightened ones leave it,
   and the beginning,
   The Life,
    walks hand in hand,
   with death.

  

~~~~~~What Happened To The Knower?~~~~~~

 

 

Advaita (Nonduality, Oneness, One Love)

In Advaita Vedanta, the knower is the last to go. What comes after the knower? Silence! There is nothing else.

Just think how much knowledge you've gathered all these years. Reading so many books. Meditating for years. Seeing so many teachers. Having so many discussions, debates, arguments. Can't you see now this is what's been holding you back? This is what has been holding you back. For you have believed that you're the knower. For you have to become a knower to become free. Yet no one has to know anything for there is absolutely nothing to know. Why is there nothing to know? Because there is only omnipresence, infinity, absolute reality and there is no name for this.

In other words, you cannot know absolute reality. You cannot know pure awareness. As long as there is someone who knows about it, it doesn't exist. It's only when you put an end to knowing that you become the Self. The Self has no shape, no form, no identity. It is no thing. Yet you are that. What are you going to do about it?

~ Robert Adams

...from "The Knower Is The Last To Go!" - January 9th, 1992

~~~~~~~~~Flying Dreams~~~~~~~~~

   i've had two~~~flying dreams~~~that i can remember. one was half a lifetime ago when i was 31 years old~~~the other two nights ago. i've named the 1st dream~~~Takeoff~~~and the 2nd~~~Landing, but they might as well have been named~~~Birth and Death. the 1st dream came after escaping from the personal strictures of fundamental christianity~~~and finding my tenuous balance~~~in the spiritual world~~~once again. the dream consisted of finding myself floating above lush green fields scored by rows of trees and streams~~~much like springtime in baltimore county. 1st feelings of apprehension were replaced with a growing trust as i found breath controlled my altitude~~~for as i breathed in i gradually went up~~~and out~~~i gently descended. the dream ended when i landed on my feet near an old stone wall~~~and only slightly turned my ankle. it was a dream of empowerment.
   two nights ago~~~my brother david and i were in a convertible car that was bigger and more powerful than mine~~~and i was driving as dave rode shotgun. something bad was back there and after us and we were on the run~~~as i gunned the car down the pavement that became off road smooth rock~~~and then~~~we were launched into the late afternoon air...
  dave took off and went much higher than me~~~and i found myself wearing an old weightlifters back brace belt that arched my body into a foil shape~~~kinda like the foil shapes of the kites~~~that the guys that ride boards on the ocean with~~~and i was as one of those foil sails that pull them. below us was southwestern desert~~~with rocks and cacti~~~and dave descended as i arched my back and rose higher. he was wearing that gray flannel hat of his and a clint eastwood poncho as he hit shoulder 1st into cacti and a rock shelf~~~and at impact his legs came up so that i saw his tennis shoes. he hit slow enough that i knew he survived~~~and was probably cussin' up a storm'.
   he was 1500 feet or so below me and i knew that i could not get down near him as my foil shape kept me too high aloft~~~and i was being pushed westward by the wind. spotty fog began to cover the ground~~~and i could see the light was fading~~~and the fog thick~~~where i was heading. no way to tell what was below the fog~~~the lay of the land~~~or water. whatever it was~~~i was headed there~~~and then? i woke up.