Category: meditation

Embrace the Mystery

I am no theist or deist.

I embrace all religions, as Walt Whitman did.

Today if one rises and says 2 + 2 = 5 and repeats it enough, others will believe them and you have a new religion.

In a cosmos of mystery, anyone offering assurance, is raised up as a false god.

No other or thing can be your god.

This is what trump did.

I can offer you no assurance of anything.

I can’t even tell you what death is.

So how can I tell you what birth is?

We only have impressions.

If you can let your dogmas and beliefs go, you can read any book, sit in any church and appreciate the emotional expressions.

Epictetus said: “What is good enough for the universe, is good enough for me!”

I concur.

My church is all of this.

We do not have reasons or logic to explain things, we only have impressions, visions.

To have a clear mind is a great benefit in this wayward lost world humanity has created.

To be free of theories and suspicions and conspiracies allows one to live the best life they can.

To make calls to a savior or god or priest or portal or princess or president is dishonest and dastardly and stupid and wrong.

One should ignore fools spitting this or that truism or morality or theory or belief or god.

We all just have sense impressions.

Yours are no more or less valid than mine.

Your conclusions are, for I have none.

To claim some absolute truth is nonsense.

I only report my impressions of life.

That is all anyone can do.

There is no system, there simply is what is.

What we see is superior to what we reason about.

What establishes itself in the age and in the heart is the only real logic and the only real verification anyone has.

Do you accept the universe and all that is in it?

This is the most important question I feel.

We take it all in.

Some can see farther and deeper than others.

Listen maybe to these more than the logicians and reasoners.

They do not know.

They live apart from this.

But I am of this and I know myself and thus know this.

No one can claim or explain absolute beginnings or endings.

These are children and fools doing so.

They should know better than to draw such conclusions.

I do not disdain life, I love this and am optimistic about this, based on my experience of life.

Realizing only my mind made this world and life and death a hell was freedom.

Evolution no more clears up our beginnings and endings than any philosophy or religion does.

There is no demiurge or apocalypse in my mind.

There are no angels or demons tearing me apart.

Far from it.

These are the rantings of those lost in imagination.

There are no serpents or lizards or conspiracies against you.

Those are concepts that create a hell and tyranny in our minds.

Do not resist these concepts, simply let them pass through you.

People hurting others know no better.

They only hurt themselves.

And their punishment is felt in themselves, you know this from experience, just as kindness and virtue and character are their own reward.

You will not be rewarded in the sky by a god.

Or punished in a hell later for what you do now.

You punish or reward yourself through your actions.

Let all of this pass through you and notice what is happening.

It is foolish to deny the substance and feeling of life.

That is the ground of our being.

We have imagined so much that we have lost our way.

Come back

Come back

Come back

Mystery is not the denial of reason, but its honest confirmation.

Reason leads to mystery.

If you have not this sense of things, you are lost in your mind.

Come back

Come back

Come back

Mystery is not superstition.

Mystery and reality are two halves of the same sphere.

If you have lost the mystery of life, I am sorry for you.

You nor anyone alive knows Jesus or any from the past.

We are here now.

I can’t tell you who they were.

We only have manipulated stories.

Let fixed positions and stories and myths and facts pass through you.

Let prophecies pass through you.

Let dogmatism pass through you.

Let the lies pass through you.

Grab nothing.

Those who hate others, hate themselves most.

Let easy answers and conditioning pass through you.

Mystery is on the other side of this.

Wondrous mystery.

There you will find your joy.

There you will find your greatness and beauty.

Your fate is yours, as your will is yours.

I claim all as my religion, nothing need be excluded.

The universe is more than enough for me.

I need nothing more.

To shun others, is to shun yourself.

To silence others, is to silence yourself.

I am not irreligious or an infidel.

I am deeply connected to my being, or I couldn’t write like this.

It is all meaningful and all beautiful.

Hell exists in the imagined distance one maintains from this.

Most live in their own imagined hell.

You will never talk anyone out of their own hell.

You can only find your own way out of it.

I am not traditionally religious, no.

My religion is being a human being in the cosmos, a mystery.

I need add nothing nor take away anything from this.

There is no conflict here.

We end, where we began.

So enjoy the ride.

I have nothing to argue with anyone.

Their view is their own.

It is easy to beat a believer and prophet with the mystery of the present.

It is easy to beat a materialist and eschatologist.

I can beat them with a look.

I bend into shapes they could not imagine.

Let artificial positions and conclusions pass through you.

Nothing imagined can beat what is.

To know thyself is to know the mystery.

It is a koan, we can’t penetrate the mystery, but only acknowledge it exists.

The best words and actions cancel themselves out and simply leave what is right before you.

The best words show you, your identity is make believe.

There is no mine or yours.

There are no borders to defend.

I have no one name, all names are mine.

The cosmos = zero.

Sometimes you’re up, sometimes down.

But it all ends in zero.

Energy can’t be destroyed or created.

So what happens when you die?

Here is what I think, speaking for myself, which is no self really.

The self is the imagined problem.

That’s the whole problem with all of this, right there.

That word, self.

That is not a word, that is not right, that isn’t.

How did we forget this?

The body stops a cell at a time.

But the brain keeps firing those neurons.

We don’t really feel any of this.

We are too busy in the moment to remember.

Every atom in my body was forged in a star.

This matter and body is mostly just empty space.

This energy that appears as me is just energy vibrating very slowly.

There never was a me.

Electrons in my body mingle and dance with those in the ground and in the air around me.

We are no longer breathing when we die.

Then we remember there is no point where any of that ends and I begin.

This is dying before dying.

This is the only way to remember.

I remember I am energy, not memory or self.

Everything I feel I am, came after me.

I was before them and will be after.

Everything else are pictures that rose up in imaginary time.

We are knots of space-time.

We have a sword, a sharp one that one can cut through the knot when you are ready.

I am the lightening that ties all the pictures together.

I am returning home.

A drop falling back into the ocean.

All of this is one.

The cosmos and its infinite dreams.

We are the cosmos dreaming of itself, thinking we are selves.

Thinking and dreaming, the same.

We forget our dreams so easily.

But when I remember, there is no time or death, life is a wish made again and again.

I am that I am.

Good luck with your stories, and myths and conspiracies.

None of that will remain.

You and all of this is but a dream, here and gone.

Take solace in this.

Relax into this.

Then you will know real peace.

How Best to Live Your Dreams

With all your being!

Life may be but a dream. Dream or not, we appear here as dreamers of dreams, so how best shall we live? The stoics still have some of the best practical advice in my opinion.

The below is from a stoic discussion board. I did not write this, but thought it damn good.

Stoicism 101: The Stoic Love for Mankind

The Stoics believed that we are essentially social creatures, with a ‘natural affection’ and ‘affinity’ for all people. This forms the basis of Stoic ‘philanthropy’, the rational love of our brothers and fellow citizens in the universe. A good person

“displays love for all his fellow human beings, as well as goodness, justice, kindness and concern for his neighbour’, and for the welfare of his home city (Musonius, Lectures, 14).” – Donald Robertson

Humans are rational and social beings.

Although we learned that friendship and other people are ultimately indifferent, they are very much preferred. The Stoics prefer to live with a friend, a neighbor, and a housemate, but they do not depend on them for the Good Life.

Basically, Stoics are able to live the eudaimonic life without a friend but they prefer not to go without one. Why? Because of their natural affection for mankind and because they can practice the virtues much better when around others (think about justice and courage).

“We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has born.”
– Marcus Aurelius

It’s our human nature to do good to others and we should not care whether they care or not. Marcus goes so far as to say that all our actions should be good ‘for the common welfare.’ This is our nature, it’s our job.

And he could practice this very well since he was the Roman emperor… Wouldn’t we like that the people in power only had the common good in mind rather than their own?

There’s a caveat to this: The main reason to act for the common welfare is the underlying virtue of justice. We live in accord with virtue and therefore benefit ourselves when we act for the common welfare. Also, the better a person has developed himself, the better he can serve mankind. As Rudolf Steiner said, “If the rose adorns itself, it adorns the garden.”

“Man is born for deeds of kindness; and when he has done a kindly action, or otherwise served the common welfare, he has done what he was made for, and has received his quittance.”
– Marcus Aurelius

Do good for the sake of doing good. Expect nothing in return, remember, virtue is its own reward.

And what if others do wrong?

The Stoics believed that nobody errs on purpose. People act the way they think is best for them. They don’t know any better.

Massimo Pigliucci said it well:

“The wrongdoer does not understand that he is doing harm to himself first and foremost, because he suffers from amathia, lack of knowledge of what is truly good for himself. And what is good for him is the same thing that is good for all human beings, according to the Stoics: applying reason to improve social living.”

The wrongdoer does wrong to himself. We should not blame them but rather pity them. As Epictetus said,

“As we pity the blind and the lame, so should we pity those who are blinded and lamed in their most sovereign faculties. The man who remembers this, I say, will be angry with no one, indignant with no one, revile none, blame none, hate none, offend none.”

Don’t hate the wrongdoer, he does not know any better. It’s your job, because you see, to act as an example and do the right thing for its own sake. Do it for yourself (at the same time it will benefit everybody else).

It’s what you do that matters. It’s what you do that makes your character.

The Greeks had a word for this, Agape.

Epictetus on Philosophy as a Way of Life

“No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”

—Epictetus – Discourses  – Book I, ch. 15.

See http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Epictetus.html

As I have practiced stoicism, what I find online is often superficial and analytical and unsourced. Pierre Hadot is an exception with his books “The Inner Citadel” and “Philosophy as a Way of Life.” He presents the stoic spiritual practices that must be practiced to benefit from.

I have noticed a trend in the modern stoics relying heavily on written commentary and readings and not a lot of talk on practical application. Many argue esoteric points missing the heart of Epictetus in my opinion.

Books are good weights, but not the real thing.

“Epictetus’s chief concerns are with integrity, self-management, and personal freedom, which he advocates by demanding of his students a thorough examination of two central ideas, the capacity he terms ‘volition’ (prohairesis) and the correct use of impressions (chrēsis tōn phantasiōn), Heartfelt and satirical by turns, Epictetus has had significant influence on the popular moralistic tradition, but he is more than a moralizer; his lucid resystematization and challenging application of Stoic ethics qualify him as an important philosopher in his own right.”

—From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epictetus/

Thus it is very difficult to discuss these topics online without coming off as a moralizer of your own viewpoints when no one can see the application of said practices in your life.

Should we then say nothing online? Perhaps. But there is benefit in discussing and wrestling and pointing to the gold imho, but these dialogues are no substitute for practice and application.

I, as all of you, am a work of art in progress.

Epictetus spoke from the heart and was funny, not just in his mind. His philosophy was lived and practical.

You have to attain on your own. We can’t just moralize our viewpoints to others. Around normal folks not versed in these practices, example is the best teacher.

The below from “A SELECTION FROM THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS WITH THE ENCHEIRIDION”

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10661/pg10661-images.html

LII.

In every thing (circumstance) we should hold these maxims ready to hand:

Lead me, O Zeus, and thou O Destiny,
The way that I am bid by you to go:
To follow I am ready. If I choose not,
I make myself a wretch, and still must follow.

But whoso nobly yields unto necessity,
We hold him wise, and skill’d in things divine.

And the third also: O Crito, if so it pleases the gods, so let it be; Anytus and Melitus are able indeed to kill me, but they cannot harm me.

Vision and Power

The Destiny of a Human Being is to confront fear.

You have everything you need to do so.

Two are made one within you.

Wander and seek until you find, then rest.

I can tell you from experience, this is the way.

The way of no way.

Once you know the I AM as you, you will go beyond the I AM into the Absolute, where all is then available to you.

I had to face the worst and most evil in myself and in my family.

I had to expel my hatred and anger.

It was the hardest thing I have had to do.

Enacting your will is the only thing that grants you power.

When you have come to the beginning, you will come to the end.

“The life of a person is a circle.
From childhood to childhood.
So it is with everything where power moves.
When a vision comes from the Thunder beings of the west,
it comes with terror, like a Thunderstorm.
But when the storm of the vision has passed,
the world is greener and happier.
For wherever the truth of vision comes upon the world, it is like a rain.
The world you see is happier after the terror of the storm.
It is not enough to have a vision. In order to have its power,
you must enact your vision on earth for all to see.

Only then do you have the power.”

–Black Elk on his Vision Quest

Only then.

Witness of Love

I have witnessed the miracle of love today. I am humbled and in love with love. It is not love that must be found, it is us who strays from it. Today love has shown me, anything is possible, where two or more gather in solidarity of heart.

There was a great evil lurking in my family I have wrestled with for years. I became love’s flaming sword in the hand of god. Through courage and righteous anger, it was called out and its head cut off. In the shadow of that sacrifice, courageous acts of love filled the void. Cleaned out the puss and planted seeds sprouted where death and decay had reigned.

I cannot tell anyone the meaning of life. But what I was apart of today, has brought me back to the only meaning I could know. I am a witness of love and forever shall I hold it high in mind and body and never fear the lowly or the lost.

I AM a Human Being

Not that anyone asked or needs to know, but know who you are reading.

A human being.

“I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?”

—Seneca the Younger

I am no nihilist.

I am no atheist.

I am no agnostic.

I am no believer.

I am no mystic.

I am no Angel.

I am no spy.

I am no Demon.

I am a human being.

I move swiftly, like 💨 and 🔥

Seneca the Younger spoke against the folk religion of the common people. But he had a deep sense of the invisible mover of our Will, God. Choose your name. Let us call it the original human religion.

I do not deny the invisible hand in my life, truly, I credit it with creating my will and body. I do not preach about this god. I reflect on the beauty of it in my life. I cannot teach this god. I cannot reveal this god to you. I cannot name it, nor do I claim it. Nor do I feel myself more special than any other. But I know this as I know my breath. Both mysterious in a way and profoundly beautiful. I am not so arrogant to imagine myself god’s special creation. This is all special and wonderful and beautiful and the ugly is beautiful too in a way. God itself can correct me through my clear burning Will, but no human could.

To know your Will, is to know the face of God.

I practice the first and only true religion.

It has no prophecies.

It has no priests or priestesses.

Zeus himself showed me.

Being a Human Being.

Warriors of Love

Virtus Unita Fortior…Virtues United are Stronger

“Then out spake brave Horatius, the captain of the Gate: To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his Gods?”

Throw it all in the 🔥

Be a Great Engineer, Be a Great Human Being

I support a team of highly effective engineers.

We build great things.

I build high performing teams.

I don’t lead them. 

I don’t teach them.

I demonstrate how to be great.

Because I know what is great inside of me. 

And I call this forth in them. 

Be great!

…

I have been having a little debate on my team with some of the younger engineers. I like to wrestle with them. I enjoy a good wrestling match. They get me down on the mat sometimes, but they can’t pin me, yet. Well, old goats 

🐐

 know a trick or two to make up for being so dumb and stubborn. 

When I wrestle, both win. I don’t try to beat my opponent. I want to share a superpower that will make a good engineer great and give you an advantage over 99% of the folks working today. I know this to be a fact, as I have lived it and from experience, I can tell you the theme in the below article works. 

A great engineer is not the most intelligent or highest paid, they are the ones who get the most done in a clutch, exerting the best amount of energy, for maximum effect. It ain’t always pretty or evident who is holding things up on their shoulders. No one may notice your contribution, but you know. That’s why you don’t have to work 80 hours a week to be great. If you work that way, you will be the worst actually. 

Until you have honed this superpower, it will feel counterintuitive and strange exercising it. Give this a chance maybe. We are not independent minds and contributors, we are a team, a network.

A great team is not a higharchy, it’s more like a self organizing mesh network, look it up. https://lnkd.in/gaJs8_5z The node that makes the most connections, is the best. You extend the network one node at a time. You can have a full or partial network. One big benefit is a node doesn’t need the strongest 

💪

 signal to talk to a central station, it needs just enough to send info to the nearest nodes. When the nodes are connected optimally, you get a much more consistent, even speed across the network. Because a mesh network provides multiple possible paths for transferring data from point A to point B, the network will preferentially use the fastest most efficient path. But if that path becomes blocked or congested for some reason, alternate paths can be and are used instead.

Thus, a team is only as good as its connections between its members. This superpower will help you to design and implement the best solutions. I learned this at Adobe for 5 years. A guy named Steven Webster taught me this. I wasn’t very good at this at the time. This superpower will supercharge your interactions with teammates too. Don’t judge the other, always lend a helping hand. 

When I interview someone, it is the soft skills that are most important to me. I know using these, I get the biggest bang for my effort and best teams. Practice them and you will see. Study what makes teams great. Study yourself. Brutally refactor and cut away what is not needed. Practice. They take years to develop. Be great! I don’t hire calculators or machines, I hire human beings. 

And what is this superpower? 

Empathy 

Article – https://lnkd.in/gfgmhkPx

Fear Falling, Courage Rising

“Courage is the mother of all virtues because without it, you cannot consistently perform the others.”

—Aristotle

Courage is not dead in me yet. I am thankful for that. It lives in individuals. Like a Lion waiting to move. But one can’t really know if courage will be there when needed until they are tested. Truly, we fear our own weakness most. Nothing and I mean nothing can replace experience. Courage is one of the 4 Stoic virtues. Courage is the ability to exert one’s will in the face of risk. Aristotle said that the highest risk was death and that the most courageous man was the one that acted fearlessly in the face of death.

I recently faced my own death, twice in a month. I can’t say I was fearless. But something arose inside me. Something I haven’t known very well, my will. I pushed myself forward beyond my fear and it was a catalyzing experience. Do what is necessary when it is necessary. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. One day, it won’t.

Why not give all you have to what you do? In your relationships. In your work. In your play. What are you saving your fear for? Fear is a corrective and it can be a poison. Honestly, I didn’t know I had much courage left in me. I have been reckless with my life and opportunities at times. But I have cultivated my focus and it paid off when I needed it to. The feeling of possible death feels like falling off a ladder from a 1000 feet up. You are totally alone and feel powerless. It is humbling, but necessary to know how life is like balancing on a pin. One day I will fall off and that’s how it will be. The one thing we can know for sure in life.

Don’t go looking for trouble, but when it comes, be ready. Until death and I meet again, I’ll smile like I mean my life. Every second of it. Success is just the next breath, the rest is gravy. Yum.

Best Results

Don’t go off half cocked, before you are ready
Pack your powder, well
Cock the hammer, fully
Don’t aim, rest into position
Squeeze just enough, don’t pull
FIRE 🔥

You will hit something, the bullseye 🎯