Shakespeare and Religion by Aldous Huxley

Shakespeare and Religion by Aldous Huxley

How do American Indians celebrate The 4th of July?

Looking for the end of the white man...

Personal Relationships are Seeds of Growth

Over a lifetime there are few relationships that change your life. People come and go and it's usually based on a shared enterprise. You share the same job or hobby or habit and together you seek that which you desire~~~or need. They begin on earth and end on earth~~~for that is where the seed is planted. My brother David and Ron McClinton~~~in the picture above~~~are two people that~~~when I hung out with them at The University of South Carolina in the early '70s~~~changed me forever. It's one thing to postulate a spiritual life through thought~~~and quite another to live it. In those days Ron and David had psychic abilities and powers that in no way were derived from the society I was conditioned and formed by~~~and the medium that helped transport us to the other shore was LSD~~~but it was more than that~~~more than just a drug. The seeds of relationship transported my awareness into another reality. I've met every flavor of religion on this planet and they didn't have the spiritual juice or power~~~just dead words. Living life with Ron and Dave in those days was the seed planted within me that grew over the last 40 years into the spiritual life I now lead~~~and no stories or evidence I could provide would convince the skeptic of the reality of all this. Put it this way~~~the difference between day and night is the difference between a person who has seen a UFO~~~and a person who believes in them. So where have your seeds been planted? The difference between an unconditional relationship and a conditional relationship is the difference between heaven and hell. Get it?

Psychic Bubbles

Today is the 6th of May 2010 and these days we're all aware of The Housing Bubble and The Financial Bubble and even remember The High Tech Bubble of some ten years ago. Bubbles, and what is it about bubbles? Even the literal ones that float through the air on a mid-summers day? It isn't a long journey before they pop~~~and disappear.

Bubbles are inflated by hot air or true belief and there's not much difference between the two~~~and their illusions only last for so long. They are houses built on sand. Bubbles can never stand up to the test of reality for very long. They exist only as long as the surface tension holds them together~~~or the tension involved within a network of false belief~~~take your pick.

Political and Religious Cults are living within bubbles too. Psychic Bubbles. It is True Belief of a spiritual kind that is The Best Drug of All~~~and when these bubbles pop civilizations fall and cultures disintegrate. The essential duality of the universe that we live in provides a tapestry that allows maya and illusion to flourish~~~with many thanks due to thought and it's limitations. Yeah we can live the lie~~~but only for so long. That's the beauty of it~~~death always brings us back to reality.

So creation is all about bubbles~~~even the universe of which we are a part~~~is an expanding bubble. Becoming somebody is a bubble~~~for some day if you live long enough to have Willard Scott say look who's 100 years old today~~~he probably won't mention what you did for a living~~~but that you like prunes in the morning~~~or something like that.

What is the basis for bubbles? Even though they are temporary~~~they do exist for a short while. Is it greed? Ambition? Stinking thinking? False Hope? Or just a very long Hail Mary Pass? But? Maybe bubbles are memories of the way things used to be? Reminders of where we came from? Harbingers of a reality of where we used to be? So what is real and what's illusion? One thing is for sure around here though~~~bubbles exist within the consciousness of all of us~~~it's just who we are~~~none of us gets it all right~~~and the bigger and deeper the bubble~~~the bigger the pop.

Searching for The American Dream

Is there a Yellow Brick Road that true believers of The American Way can follow? To a Bright and Shining City set high upon a Hill? America? Merica? The Promised land? Or maybe that's just The Repressed Feminine walking hand in hand with All That We Lack? Courage, Brains, and a Heart. Wizard of Oz, or no, America lacks the courage to admit she was founded upon The Genocide of The American Indian and The Enslavement of Other Human Beings. America has brains, as we all know, but it is Thought that is destroying our planet. The Multi-National American Corporation has been granted super individual rights, as those of a human being within our society, and it is at The Doorstep of these Corporate Entities that the rape of indigenous cultures, the extinction of species, and the destruction of the environment lay. America has spawned a managerial class of these Psychopathic Groups of People bent on profit and having no human values whatsoever~~~except the craving for The More. Yeah, Dorthy you're skipping up The Yellow Brick Road, but good luck on finding a Shining City on That Hill. Remember Love Canal? The cigarette executives and their spiel? The S&L fiasco of The 80's? Enron? Coal Mine disasters? All the car company CEO's flying to DC in their separate jets to ask for bailouts? The health care reform Tea Partiers screamin' like Holy Bejesus? The Wall Street Smart Boys makin' bets that Americans would fail? Well? Is there a Moral to This Story? Yeah. America has No Morals. Just a bunch of laws, and Obama would impress me~~~as he cleans up All The Shit That Texas Dumb Fuck left behind~~~instead of shakin' his head at the health care smucks and the investment mechanical monkeys and the crazy assed fundamentalist republicans~~~if he could somehow someway get a Heart into that silly assed American Corporate Strawman. Barack~~~if you're really gonna set things right~~~you're gonna have to require Corporate America to adopt the values of the human beings they serve. Otherwise? There just gonna be more and more messes.

Open The Doors and See All The People

Log Community Meeting circa 1976

The Other Side of The Red Door

The two little guys in the center of this picture are David Nodar~~~on the left with the beard~~~and Steven B. Clark~~~on the right with the shiny head and glasses~~~they respectively were the overall leaders of The Lamb of God of Timonium, Maryland and The Word of God of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Both were, and I suppose that they still are~~~big believers in something that doesn't exist~~~Spiritual Authority~~~and it was their personal ambition that consumed many a spiritual pilgrim along the way~~~and led to many an untold Shakespearean Tragedy in the lives that their political powers touched. All that they built imploded and collapsed around them~~~although they both probably got out of it all with a pretty big hit from the money machine. So much for being the spiritual men of God they took themselves to be~~~they ended up looking like a couple of bumbling Spiritual Idiots. I wouldn't want to be around when death brings them face to face with reality~~~because it's probably gonna be pretty messy scene~~~but I would like to know the ending to the story that I was once part of as I got kicked out of The Lamb of God in the fall of 1978 when I was labeled a Son of Satan and a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing come to deceive and lead the flock astray during my last prayer meeting~~~and always wondered what the horror of the end of days of LOG was like. Damn~~~I missed The Ending.

The Lamb of God, Inc. 1972-1991 RIP

Saint Joe's Parish Hall

Texas, Maryland

Years later, reflecting on our experiences in The Cult, my friend Michael Miller put it to me this way~~~when you walked through That Door, the red one pictured above~~~it was like entering a different world. What happened to me when I joined LOG and that door figuratively closed behind me? Cutting me off from the outside world? Making that world my only world? LOG became my own personal and spiritual Plato's Cave. It's where I learned the ways of the world, the inadequacies of power, and personally it's as far from The Truth as I ever got in this lifetime. I passed Through The Looking Glass when I joined The Lamb of God Charismatic Christian Community~~~especially when I began to believe that a hundred or so twenty somethings had been singled out in a special way to do a special thing by God Himself~~~over the other six billion people on the planet. I believed that LOG had been anointed and set apart to do a new and special thing and that we knew something that everyone else didn't. We had to be better than all the rest because of this~~~our esoteric relationship with God~~~LOG was the best. Me? I was as crazy as a bat outta hell for even considering thinking such a thing~~~but after about a year or so of imbibing this mantra day after day I was sold on it. I believed. I bought the ticket~~~and took the ride.

Where Is Your Treasure?

Is your heart's fulfillment really rooted in this world? Have you found what you're looking for? Are you satisfied? Have you found peace and fulfillment in the temporal things of this life? Or has meditation opened the door to another way of living for you? Another world? I heard it once said that you don't join the movements of God~~~You're Ushered In~~~and there are many gurus, cults, and religions that want you to join them so that they can show you the way. When I was young I used to think that living the spiritual life might be that easy, but as in the picture above, we all go it alone~~~and the spiritual life is not to be found by joining a group. Sure there are fellow pilgrims you meet along the way, and even groups that refresh you on your journey~~~but only for a time. No matter how it comes at you the spiritual life is all about grace from God~~~Manna From Heaven~~~and the timeless spirit of our creator is in every fleeting moment. Such immortality is a living thing~~~always flowering~~~anew. It's the only thing that sustains the spiritual pilgrim as he or she meanders through this world~~~and really~~~it's the only thing that sustains the whole universe~~~that we are only but a part of.

All life in the spirit begins by asking the questions in your heart directly of God, for timeless questions are like spiritual seeds, and what is planted by the spirit grows by the spirit~~~one step, one moment at a time~~~and it's a journey back home, that is always perfect, even in it's imperfections. Krishnamurti said that Truth Is A Pathless Land when he dissolved the group gathered around him and called this solitary process, this spiritual sojourn~~~The Flowering of Aloneness~~~but in actuality? You are never really alone, for~~~All is One.

Insight upon insight change the way that you see and value this life, even impacting your long-held identities, as consciousness is no longer tormented by all the conflict involved in personal becoming~~~and self's achievements. Thought has limits. Death has beauty. Fulfillment requires nothing. Being nobody is everything. Meaning has escaped society's boundaries, for that which now nourishes and sustains you~~~is no longer of this world.

Like an innocent child be true to your heart and you will find more than you ever desired~~~at a price you never imagined that you could pay. The spiritual life? It's a living relationship with God~~~the proverbial Pearl of Great Price. And for those of you that would judge all this as delusional? Well it may be~~~but if you take a good look at the world around you~~~how insane is that?

Truth is a Pathless Land

Jiddu Krishnamurti

I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot
approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed upon others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those that are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices. You must climb towards the truth, it cannot be stepped down or organized for you.

The Dissolution of The Order of The Star

Ommen, Holland

August 3, 1929