Tag: essay

The Ruins of Love

Sufi Pt 1 Lyrics…

My secret beloved
Send me a secret message
Give me your soul
Give me your life

Wander like a drifter
Now on a journey

Walk into this fire embrace
Be like a salamander
Come into a source of flame
Fire transmutes to a rosebud

Don’t you know that my thought
Is better than the queen of roses?
Don’t you know my heresy
Is the essence of spirituality?

Then surrender your spirt
Surrender your life
For God I know
That darkness is better than a cage!

Walk into this fire embrace
Be like a salamander
Come into a source of flame
Fire transmutes to a rosebud

Don’t you know that my thought
Is better than the queen of roses?
Don’t you know my heresy
Is the essence of spirituality?

Then surrender your spirt
Surrender your life
For God I know
That darkness is better than a cage!

I know a palace is better than a ruin
And the owl in this world
Loves to live
In the ruins of love

I am always learning how to read better between the lines of language and life. Words are just representations. Of what, is the mystery. They are magick in a way. Evoking and caging sometimes something in us. I’ve practiced Zen now for a bit, this is the essence of Zen, to know our true nature where we are, nothing more, nothing less. 

I know a palace is better than a ruin
And the owl in this world
Loves to live
In the ruins of love

I studied these lyrics a bit years ago and meditated deeply on what is said and not said. I looked into the Sufi path and what they meant by flame and the beloved. I am not trying to be clever here, but I have felt all the deities are within us, drawn to the light/flame, as we are a shadow, a portal to the nameless faceless. The owl, in this world, loves to live in the ruin of love. I choose not to name or make distinctions. The deity is the one who I point at, when I point back at myself. This is cutting to the root. This is going headless. This is directly perceiving beyond words. 

I love Rumi, but I really know Shams, who was behind Rumi. Somehow I feel Shams is close to me and represents my secret beloved. He showed me to let the distinctions go. 

“A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, eastern or western…divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water.”

–Shams Of Tabriz

“The universe turns differently when fire loves water.”

That’s a koan. 

When I listened to this song first, I felt the flame 🔥 inside me leap. Yearning for freedom. I felt it. I felt like crying and laughing at the same time. Fire loves water.

Rumi said sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment, that’s got to be one of my favorite written poetic lines.

I think the lyrics point to the freeing of the flame within us, which is always free. This awareness transmutes us, by realizing our lives are not cages, that we are already free. This is the real Alchemy. This returns us to Eden. The world of matter is a ruin in away, a compromise, in between chaos and light.

Somehow it can know itself better in the ruin, but this world is a sham. It is not that the flame 🔥  needs escape, but that it simply is uncovered. 

The water is all around us, love is not the flame, it is the water, which the flame is attracted to. We would think flame fears water, and perhaps it does for awhile, then it seeks to dowse itself in love. When fire loves water, the universe turns differently.

If the bird can get just a glimpse of what is around it and within it, instantly it is transmuted and free. So the body is the cage. 

This awareness does not make me want to fly away, it deepens my connection, Aslan, there is no where else to go, here we are. Allah is clothed by rational thought, occulted by matter, but known through awareness. The lion. In Hebrew, 

Aslan means ‘satan‘ which means ‘lucifer/first light in the morning’ which means ‘daybreak’. The circle is closed around the point, the central sun. Everything is contained within the circle. 

⭕️

I could not always see with my real eyes 👀 I was in a cage. But I embraced the prison and it opened to Eden through my heart, to the point, naked singularity. I can’t show anyone, I can’t really tell anyone, but like knows like. We can point to it. We can sing 🎶  about it. We can dance 💃 around it. Flame 🔥 joins with 🔥 And we embrace water 💧 seemingly a crazy thing for a flame to do, and then the universe turns differently for us.I was withering in my life 10 years ago, dying. But a great wind blew through me. It lifted me high into the air and brought me face to face with the ☀️ Our source, itself only a representation. Like words, all form is just a representation.

 What appeared to trap me, turned to dust and I flew for the first time. 

But I returned, and now I rest here, in the center of it all. I rest in the chaos, in the center of my life. I feel the heat, which is behind all form and I love it, for this is loving and knowing myself. I saw what was behind all esoteric and what was occulted, what was behind all religious and secular symbols.

Where you gonna go?

Where you gonna hide from love?

The morning light dawned inside me. 

I don’t cry anymore.
I’m smiling 😊and laughing with joy.
I feel Aslan within me, laying on the savannah, roaring within. This is the true path to god/love, an ever present connection, it ends where it began, full circle. I drink deeply now from this ocean, I could hardly believe it was real. I was dying because I was thirsting for this love, but terrified of it. This never dies. Anywhere this light breaks into the world, matter forms around it, cults form, religions are born. The matter longs to connect with it or naturally is attracted to it. So we have the planets rotating around the outer sun, as what is inside us rotates around the inner sun.

Bound by gravity. 

Bound together by love. 

Sometimes I do cry 😭 because it is too damn beautiful to contain. 

I weep blood into the dirt through my cries and words.

The birds are returning.

All deity reflects love. 

All deity seeks to free us.

We are only held back through this egoic force. 

In Rumi’s allegories, amongst the free birds, the Owl and the Falcon represent the two primary options once one is freed from the cage. The Owl lives in the dark, far from civilization, only relating with its own kind, whereas the Falcon rests upon the arm of the king, staying close to the power source and maintaining his relations and connection with any and all who venture to the court. The Falcon holds a pure, open vision, flying during the day and returning to his master’s arm at night, while the Owl lives in seclusion, coming out in the dark, lost without the guidance of a master. The Falcon represents a follower who has fallen off track, one who has insight but has pointed it in a skewed direction. Falcon as an exemplary option working in contrast with the Owl who has lost his way after enlightenment.

For Rumi, the last and most powerful bird is the Phoenix, a bird so exquisite it nearly plays the role of God himself. The Phoenix is rare, and when sighted acts as an omen, serving the purpose of reminding humans to stay in awe of God’s power. The Phoenix reminds one to soak up moments with the divine because they may be fleeting and far between. The Phoenix is quite likely an unreal creature and therefore its existence can only rely on faith. The Phoenix reminds us to have faith even when we cannot see it, to hold God close and be open to any help He may have to offer us because He is always there.

The pagan and the religious and secular all experience life differently perhaps but rotate around the same source, are of the same stuff. 

The fire is the force, the purpose, the will, that pushes us through life. 

The bird knows the way back. 

I can’t judge the paths others take in life, but I can see the intensity of the 🔥 within them. I call out to it in others. Tempt them to let it break free, as they tempt me. Passion reminds us of this contact with the unseen, it celebrates it in whatever form it burns. 

All words can provide guidance, but no answers ultimately. I feel that we all must search for the things that we love and feel passionately about and then follow them until death do us part.

I hope all can come to know this freedom.

The Hard Fucking Work of Living with the Pain and Fear of this Life

Last night had the craziest dream about a gravitational anomaly eating a hole through the earth.

It was depressing and scary.

I kept trying to get further away from the anomaly but the water kept coming and then I was in this giant whirlpool that was spitting the earth into space.

So damn real.

My fear woke me up, I wanted out of that fucking dream.

I heard the ocean waves on my sound machine when I woke up and the central heater was running and I felt like there might be an ocean outside the window.

Sounded like it.

It turned out a military project triggered the event in my dream.

The mind is just amazing.

Since I stopped smoking pot I can remember my dreams incredibly vivid now.

I never thought I’d stop smoking pot, but I stopped drinking and smoking a bit ago and I can tell a big positive difference.

Switched to a vegan diet, started exercising more.

Feeling good, clear.

Got my shovel out and started shoveling the shit, put my back into it.

I was letting my body go.

But my heart and body brought me back.

I’m going to volunteer at hospice I think.

I have a knack helping people let go of their fear.

Maybe I can be of a little service to some before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

I’m 50 now and feel like I’ve lived four different lives.

Maybe I’ll read them poetry and shit like that.

Been working on my writing, can’t say it’s getting much better, but I’m keeping at it.

For I have found the best in life is incommunicable.

How bout that?!

Been writing about the folks I’ve come to know and love through their art, but want to know them deeper.

I want to know their pain and joy. Ralph Waldo Emerson has some good shit to say about that. He says know that all in history thought and felt as you did.

I’ve been digging deeper everywhere and have to say I’ve never felt more alive, focused, productive, calm, in love.

Had a surreal day on Saturday.

Very existential, was just accepting of the whole damn mess of this beautiful life.

Had some serenity I guess.

It was nice.

Had some fun and not so fun interactions with some folks on Reddit and FB.

Peeps are angry.

They don’t like their lives.

Downright miserable.

I like to swim out into the deep water with people.

Can’t say I’m very patient with misery.

Fuck that shit.

Recently even stopped fighting with my wife so much.

I love the girl, she’s crazy about my ole smelly 🐐 ass.

Been talking to my Brother more who I’ve never really talked much with

Been really nice to bond over our pedophile father and insanely religious family, haha.

What a fucked up family we got, let me tell you.

The brother of my sister’s husband killed himself.

Found out that fuck molested my niece years ago.

Found out my dad molested her too.

I hope it hurt when he died.

It’s tough not to wish my dad the pain he inflicted on others.

But I can’t judge anyone.

I never hurt a child, but I inflicted plenty of pain.

God only knows how many people my asshole Father hurt.

One reason my sister, mom and niece turned to Jesus.

The only man who wouldn’t hurt them they dream.

That is what makes them so mad at me.

Cause I turned my back on their savior.

I dared to kill my god.

But I tried to tell them, Jesus met me as a brother and friend, not god.

You can’t love your neighbor until you love the worst of you and the worst you find in life.

They can’t hear me at all.

I’m over their shit, I’ll tell ya.

Heartless bitches, but they are just in great pain.

Unbearable pain almost.

Almost killed my niece before she sobered up.

They hate me more than my puke dad.

How fucking ironic is that shit?!

My brother doesn’t understand it.

I kinda do.

I think I’m gonna write a bit more about my father and my old religion and those bitches.

I remember when he got his belt out and beat us the other day.

He must have hated himself.

He took it out on us.

Probably partially what made me such an angry asshole I guess.

It’s good when you know that fucking child disease is not in you.

My brother and I been going deep together.

We share these inner depth sounding experiences.

I feel like a big brother now.

I feel like a husband.

I feel like a friend.

Took me awhile to hit my stride, but I fucking did.

No, I’m not going to leave my marriage again like I did in the past.

I don’t quit shit anymore.

I follow through.

I won’t give up until I’m dead.

I wasted enough time in my life.

If I had known Plato and Socrates and Diogenes, I would have just had a beer with them and talked about the shit in life we all have to bear.

One thing I can say all us humans have in common, we feel this shit.

Deeply.

All these people in prison, destroyed children, terrified and hardened.

It hurts a lot.

One thing I have is some fucking deep emotions.

I’m very close to them now.

Not letting that pain twist us into monsters is the great work and art of living and dying.

Transmuting the shit of life into gold is godly I find.

I dunno, guess I worked my shit out.

But there is always more shit to shovel.

I’ll get back to it.

That Which is to Give Light Must Endure Burning

Some quotes from Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” that remind me to endure the 🥵 in life. He lived through the Holocaust. Many on the right want us to forget our ugly history.

No, I won’t forget. I will remember man’s cruelty and hatred towards man. I will not let anger take root in my ❤️ I will vigilantly pull that anger out of myself anytime it sprouts.

I gladly yield to love.

Love is the way, this is beneath that which is occulted, behind and binding everything.

To receive and give love is hardest for those who have suffered most.

They have something to show us about what it is to be a Human Being.

—

“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. 

No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.

By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized.

Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.”

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” 

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”

Walt Whitman and William Blake: Madmen, Artists, Mystics

Walt Whitman is a mystic poet, one of my favorites. One can be transported in the incredible words of Whitman in “Leaves of Grass” and the poem contained within, “Song of Myself.” One can see he was seeing the totality of life and is filled with a glowing Light and great power, as in Blake. Whitman saw everyone as an expression of the whole. Each a work of art. He tried to remind people how beautiful they were. A leaf among the grass.

1

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,

…

I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.”

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version

Whitman and Blake experienced and saw amazing things in being and themselves as part of the whole. They suffered greatly in life and felt the suffering of others deeply. I could read them forever and barely see where they walked. It is as if the Sun filled them with Light, but also the Shadow clearly speaks through them. Each contains Legion voices. They captured I think what it is to be a Human Being captured between worlds. I am moved deeply by them both.

In “Walt Whitman Speaks,” Whitman says about Blake, “Blake began and ended in Blake.” I researched this and it turns out, Whitman was confounded by and then came to appreciate Blake. Harold Bloom, a great literary critic, felt the two were of the same cloth. The falling of America made Bloom miserable. He would despair about today’s world. I recommend a great book by Bloom who loved Whitman, “The Daemon Knows: Literary Greatness and the American Sublime.” This sublime aspect of Whitman’s time was a presage of our time. Whitman warned us about technology and the age of specialization. Like a hippie version of Ted Kaczynski. Where Ted used real bombs, Whitman used bombs of Love. I love Bloom’s YouTubes. He had a photographic memory and remembered everything he ever read. Amazing to listen to, poetic in his writing and speaking. I highly recommend Bloom.

“Bloom loves Emerson and Whitman but he doesn’t believe them: to him, belatedness is now a permanent condition of man, and there can be no overcoming it—no return, even in America, to an original fullness or freshness or purity of spirit.” —The New Yorker Profile on Bloom – The Prophet of Decline 9/22/02

About Blake, Bloom thought…”The true Romantic, as represented by Shelley and, above all, Blake, looked not to nature—a thing external to the self—to save him but to the world-altering power of his own imagination. Nature was material, and therefore fixed and limiting. Only by struggling to liberate itself from the world entirely—to fill itself with invented mythical forms rather than natural ones—could the imagination be free.” —The New Yorker Profile on Bloom – The Prophet of Decline 9/22/02

The genius of all three of these men drips off their pages and is seen in their art. There is a deep sadness in them all, Bloom the most. Whitman and Blake though saw through the sadness.

Blake invented a form of art combining images with texts, relief etching. The first comics? He had incredible visions. I have a large folio of his work and he strikes me like Jung’s art does in The Red Book. These men have walked through heaven and hell. Whitman wrote, like Blake painted. But Blake’s poetry! My god. Blake was mostly ignored in his time. He said he wrote for his audience in eternity. His visions he felt were real and removed all doubts. Perhaps it was this assurance Whitman didn’t initially like. Blake was a rebel and feared by the establishment. Unlike Swedenborg, Blake spent as much time in the hell of London as the heaven of his soul. For this he has earned my esteem and respect. Whitman felt him dark. But Whitman didn’t like Poe either at first, but in “Walt Whitman Speaks” Whitman comments about writers of his day and confesses he came to like Poe after reading him again and again. He and Blake were so alike, but very different, as Whitman himself wrote.

“Awake! Awake, O sleepers of the land of shadows, wake! expand! I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine. I am not a God far off, I am a brother and friend; within your own bosoms I reside and you reside in me: Lo! we are one, forgiving all evil, not seeking recompense” (Blake-Jerusalem.,Chp.1,lns.6,18).

Whitman wrote privately after reading Algernon Swinburne’s “William Blake: A Critical Essay”, that while both he and Blake were mystics and “extatics“, the differences between them were vast. I admire Whitman very highly and see in his work a sweet pragmatism that inspires me. How these mystics loved. Whitman took care of civil war wounded and this grew a great compassion in him.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35995/35995-h/35995-h.htm

If you are following the call of your deepest pain and love, one must spend time with Whitman and Blake, both truly sublime and profound.

ICECREAM

I heard a wise sheriff say today, I want to make this a PARADE, not a PROTEST!

There is yet one good person around and thus we are all given the benefit of the doubt.

I feel the same way as he does…YES!

Let’s celebrate our lives!

Not follow lies.

Trump doesn’t represent us. 

We love each other, we want the best for each other, we love nature and we feel a deep desire to be One and also to be known and respected as persons. 

We all just want our best lives here now minus the anger and fear.

This morning, watching the riots, I saw children marching instead and they were all laughing. I walked up to one and asked why are you marching and he said, ICECREAM!

The riots are complete lies. Personal rights are misunderstandings. 

Everything is a sign of this.

Then Seneca wrote me a letter, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_16

Every moment, pointing here…

“You must persevere, must develop new strength by continuous study, until that which is only a good inclination becomes a good settled purpose. 2. Hence you no longer need to come to me with much talk and protestations; I know that you have made great progress. I understand the feelings which prompt your words; they are not feigned or specious words.”

“How can philosophy help me, if Fate exists? Of what avail is philosophy, if God rules the universe? Of what avail is it, if Chance governs everything? For not only is it impossible to change things that are determined, but it is also impossible to plan beforehand against what is undetermined; either God has forestalled my plans, and decided what I am to do, or else Fortune gives no free play to my plans.”

It doesn’t matter if God, Fate or Chance is rolling all this out. 

“Whether the truth, Lucilius, lies in one or in all of these views, we must be philosophers; whether Fate binds us down by an inexorable law, or whether God as arbiter of the universe has arranged everything, or whether Chance drives and tosses human affairs without method, philosophy ought to be our defence.”

“There is no reason why you should put confidence in yourself too quickly and readily. Examine yourself; scrutinize and observe yourself in divers ways; but mark, before all else, whether it is in philosophy or merely in life itself[1] that you have made progress. 3. Philosophy is no trick to catch the public; it is not devised for show. It is a matter, not of words, but of facts. It is not pursued in order that the day may yield some amusement before it is spent, or that our leisure may be relieved of a tedium that irks us. It moulds and constructs the soul; it orders our life, guides our conduct, shows us what we should do and what we should leave undone; it sits at the helm and directs our course as we waver amid uncertainties. Without it, no one can live fearlessly or in peace of mind. Countless things that happen every hour call for advice; and such advice is to be sought in philosophy.“

We let philosophy hold the wheel. 

“She will encourage us to submit to God with cheerfulness and to Fortune with defiance; she will show you how to follow God and bear what chance may send you.”

Seneca advises to not let the spiritual enthusiasm cool off or fall away. 

He says now that you have it, keep a hold on it and put it on firm footing, so that what is at present an enthusiasm may become a settled spiritual disposition. 

So it goes, even smelly goats learn self integrity is the most valuable substance in creation come hell or high water. 

What are you gonna do when alone with the alone?

How will you act?

How will you know what to do when it is only you?

Others have been generous with me and I pass that on joyfully. Kindness has taken hold of me. This is the best way to be. To freely give and receive. But there is a balance between loving fool and deadly bastard, we must draw from both aspects.

Natural desires are limited, but falsity has no point of termination.The false has no limits. The road must have an end or one wanders in falseness forever. 

What wisdom humanity has realized, and haven’t we asked the questions we do today yesterday so much more clearly it seems to me. Seneca is a human being and his account of life is true wisdom, practical knowledge, the greatest stuff really. I love Seneca as another Father. When I read him, he sets me straight and is a clear mirror.

It is like the Tarot how I find this letter. This letter was written to me across time. That creates a wormhole. Space collapses between us. The universe sees me struggling and in it comes to set me straight. 

Who guides my steps indeed.

“But it is not my purpose now to be led into a discussion as to what is within our own control, – if foreknowledge is supreme, or if a chain of fated events drags us along in its clutches, or if the sudden and the unexpected play the tyrant over us; I return now to my warning and my exhortation, that you should not allow the impulse of your spirit to weaken and grow cold. Hold fast to it and establish it firmly, in order that what is now impulse may become a habit of the mind.“

“Recall your steps, therefore, from idle things, and when you would know whether that which you seek is based upon a natural or upon a misleading desire, consider whether it can stop at any definite point. If you find, after having travelled far, that there is a more distant goal always in view, you may be sure that this condition is contrary to nature.“

My deepest voice says to me…you must never believe anyone else can help you. 

Damn, so it’s like that.

And so it is, but I suspect still, this all is for our best. 

I have found my Fathers, now I must know my Mothers.

Straight on.

Evidence of Things Unseen

dervish_at_the_door

Sometimes, in my mind, when I let myself think about it, I’m terrified looking at my heart splashed out here on the Interwebs on this blog and other places. That is the best sign I am on the right track to know my Self I feel. Turn over every stone. My ego says delete that ASAP after writing less and less. My words stand as they came. Just like my bad choices and their consequences in my life stand, so do the good and great ones. Deciding to express myself creatively, actively and foolishly examining everything inside and around me, has brought me so much Joy and peace, I wouldn’t go back to my old self or life on my worst day. Being exposed and known for what you are, warts and all, is terrifying in the best way. I kind of love it now.

So, tip of the hat to all who can muster the courage to expose themselves with no hope of acknowledgement or agreement. Writing from love and the heart for no gain but to bring your Light and Love into the world does something to you. It does. It frees you from your self and the opinions of others. You have to stand alone sometimes. Terrifying to a monkey brain, but evolutionarily required it seems. I fear someone is going to come and get me sometimes. I’m good with crazy. Crazy is fun to read, right?  I just don’t want to be boring or too pedantic, but boring is good sometimes too.

Exploring the spirit in our culture unfortunately is not encouraged. You are encouraged to belong. The Ancient Mysteries used to be supported by the Greek and Roman state, now we are so driven by profit and corrupt, they would never support a spiritual school all attend. Only the wealthy or ones who can be used seem to be taught how to reason properly in their ivory towers. Only they have been trained great at thinking about how to rape the world and keep their foot on our necks. Is our society only valuable to a few people at the top? You will be isolated and removed like a virus if you rock things, unless you are part of the cure. I come from an Evangelical background. You don’t go looking into all religions from where I come from. Unfortunately, my heart and poems seem to have cost me access to my family and old friends. I have spent this last year writing as I felt inspired. I have been a square peg in a round hole my whole life. It sucks sometimes. It sucks to be so misunderstood. People I thought who would embrace me, just walked the other way.

So, to the reason I wrote this essay. Well, my writing and poems terrified my family to the point they will not let me see my Mother’s or Sister’s families. I just tell them I Love them and I do, so much. I stay out of their face. I’m no martyr, nor have a desire to be so. I want to celebrate and explore being alive here, now. I leave much unsaid, but what bubbles out is the expression of the life force poured into me from some other place. The personal rejection for sharing my heart hurt like hell in the beginning, which was a lesson. I guess that is a common Religious tactic for those who leave the fold, isolate and discredit them and finally torpedo their ship until its sunk. Interesting to experience it.

I encourage all to find and share their voices in spite of rejection, personal and professional. Hold your course and focus. Check your course often though. We need help sometimes. Weather the storms best you can until you find a good place to tie your boat to.  Where I led the way before in my family, now I am persona non-grata for asking questions and sharing answers no one I know from my past wants to hear or see. I stay away and do not seek to agitate. I only hoped for a detente or a live and let live. There is no argument with my family from my side. Funny, everyone was fine with me living messing my life and others’ up for 20 years, but to awaken and write about a peace I have never known is the terrifying part that has branded me with a scarlet letter with friends and family. There is a great lesson there for me and evidence of the things unseen I know and feel. It is an excellent confirmation I am on to something here.

Whaaaaaaa me. I’m the dumb dumb who didn’t keep his lips hermetically sealed. I’m exploring here and remembering my Self. I move with no thinking in the creative place as much as I can. It’s messy and not calculated. I am as far from calculated as you can be. The spirit encourages me to be sincere and open with my heart every place I go and with every person I meet now and pursue when led. Be quiet most of the time. I write to my Self.  I am sharing the email from my Sister below that clarified their position. She never reads anything I write, so no problem posting it 😉 I had asked to restore contact. They had read my email until the point they disagreed and then I got this email below. I am not looking for sympathy. I’m a big boy, but I felt led to share it. Not to shame, but explore the thinking that separates people and families. This is the mind set you face sometimes in Religion. Its a lot easier for you start out believing nothing with no faith maybe when starting to explore thyself.

I feel anyone can find themselves anywhere they are, so I could care less what you are or call you self. I am a student of the Universe. I have no creed but Love. I listen to all and follow none. I only encourage people to be real and love first and judge…never. I know I am on the right track for me. I am responsible for my self and my actions. Perhaps my sister and I will laugh about this one day. But I accept that they may never be able to accept my presence in their life again like they did. That makes me sad, but there is much to learn through this. Then I remember all have to walk their own path. We are all students. But, to this day, I can’t understand how they never asked me one question about what happened to me. Not one. They only told me I was cursed and lost. As my life blossoms like never before they condemn me. I know the lesson there. I’ll tell you a secret, no, that’s what got me in trouble in the first place. See, I’m learning 😉 It goes slowly.

Listen bro,

XXXX just read some of what you wrote. For real. XXXX, you are NOT Jesus. Period.

I wonder if your awareness of “Self”/let you see into the future let you see your family waving good bye and weeping over you.

Keep Denying your first love, keep disrespecting our only true God. I’ll be sad to say good bye at the parting of ways. Sad.

You are not all seeing, you are not God. You are not I AM. You are not. You are LOST.

YOU are a false prophet. A self centered false prophet.

You, unfortunately, will not have any contact with our family nor our children while you are in this state.

Much of this is like sweet nectar. It also is evidence of things unseen. There you have it. Well, I understand their reaction. I do. I love them so much, but I love my self most. Yes, I am totally Self centered. I’m going to print this one out huge to remind myself never to judge another’s sincere personal exploration, ever. I wish you well with yours.

I wanted to share a great poem provided me in a dark time by Rumi. I will always be a witness of and share the Love Rumi writes of so beautifully and humanly.

Dervish At the Door – By Rumi

A dervish knocked at a house
to ask for a piece of dry bread,
or moist, it didn’t matter.

“This is not a bakery,” said the owner.

“Might you have a bit of gristle then?”

“Does this look like a butchershop?”

“A little flour?”

“Do you hear a grinding stone?”

“Some water?”

“This is not a well.”

Whatever the dervish asked for,
the man made some tired joke
and refused to give him anything.

Finally the dervish ran in the house,
lifted his robe, and squatted
as though to take a shit.

“Hey, hey!”

“Quiet, you sad man. A deserted place
is a fine spot to relieve oneself,
and since there’s no living thing here,
or means of living, it needs fertilizing.”

The dervish began his own list of questions and answers.

“What kind of bird are you? Not a falcon,
trained for the royal hand. Not a peacock,
painted with everyone’s eyes. Not a parrot,
that talks for sugar cubes. Not a nightingale,
that sings like someone in love.

Not a hoopoe bringing messages to Solomon,
or a stork that builds on a cliffside.

What exactly do you do?
You are no known species.

You haggle and make jokes
to keep what you own for yourself.

You have forgotten the One
who doesn’t care about ownership,
who doesn’t try to turn a profit
from every human exchange.”

Peace from a lost false prophet.

You Are Limitless

Take that in to yourself. Think about it often. Believe that to be true about yourself. I don’t know if you know this, but you are limitless. I am not selling a “Program”, nor am I listening to too much Oprah. I have been meditating on and experimenting with that idea. That idea draws a lot out of me. Part of me immediately says, “No you’re not!”. I begin to realize there are several “I”s in me fighting to come to the fore. It takes a focus of will to keep the reality of my limitlessness in my mind. Nothing will show you more all the things trying to distract you, than when you to try to focus on ONE thing. If you are limitless, what limits you, the world or yourself?

in·tu·i·tion
ˌint(y)o͞oˈiSH(ə)n/
noun
noun: intuition
the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.

There is a purity in letting things present themselves in response to our actions, for it does take action to make change, can’t escape cause and effect. Part of the secret is to embrace that things are always changing. You do not need to think to decide a course of action. Try that. Thinking is useful in understanding what has just occurred though or to communicate awareness to others. Thinking helps you adapt to your environment, for we were designed for adaptation. It’s very freeing to experiment with action with no thought. Where does that intuitive impulse come from? Have you ever wondered? Some people naturally live by intuition, while others must unlearn a lot to learn to live this way.

Intuition is guided by intent. If you live for your own needs only, you will eat everything and ultimately yourself. Everything exists to serve you and your needs.  If you live your life in balance, considering other Things’ needs in balance with your own, you find “steady breath” in living. There is no planning, no desire, there are needs, but choosing things with balance, things kind of take care of themselves. Living life can become as un-conscious as breathing. This is what I am learning, how to live as naturally as breathing.

With this knowledge and learned skill you will find that you quickly can exceed previous limits, naturally. The things you are will begin to express themselves purely in the moment when needed. Every moment presents a new opportunity to grow and tweak the program, push the stick. I have learned living this way can fuel explosive creativity. Expressing yourself creatively helps to increase your ability to live intuitively. Most discoveries were moments of inspiration, no thought involved. If you are limitless, then so is everyone else. You should listen to All of them. If nothing else, you can see the valleys and heights you can aspire to, but go further. Always push further.

When you are done comparing yourself to everything else, then your true life can start. If you see things in others you admire, then take those traits in, if you see things ugly in you in others, let them go. Don’t filter the action through the conditioned mind. Just act with creative and compassionate intention and you will be guided to your best self. See everything around you as a mirror, showing you your strengths and weaknesses in the moment. Let things be settled in the moment. The choice you make now creates the future. Live every moment with no limits and you will be limitless. You still live in a material Universe though, right, so maybe there are limits, but maybe not if there is an infinite field of probability that is the real reality underneath the projection around you.

It will all work itself out if you live in the moment limitless, you will be your future, no fortune tellers needed. If you bring the limitlessness that is you into the world, you can make it what you want and wisdom begins when you want nothing. Could your consciousness be the key?

Is Naturalness Dead?

Is the Universe knowable or unknowable? Based on recent Large Hadron Collider findings, it appears a knowable natural Universe is unlikely. What might this mean? It means our Universe might be a bubble in the Multiverse, an infinite number of other Universes, created and tuned for our existence, not determined and predictible, which makes me kind of happy. Arkani-Hamed, one of the greatest theoretical Physicists alive today, laid out the seemingly contradictory implications of recent experimental results at the LHC after the Higgs discovery.

“The universe is inevitable,” he declared. “The universe is impossible.”

Most Physicists feel that there is something more fundamental to nature than the experienced dimensions. Our reality emerges from more fundamental structures. Arkani-Hamed discovered a new geometric pattern that can simply predict particle interactions, an amplituhedron. This natural structure emerged from the math and is a simple version of quantum mechanics at the most fundamental level. Geometric structures explaining reality, interesting. The geometric object is an example of the most fundamental logic of the Universe: describing intersecting lines and planes. It appears the motion and history of the Universe is encoded in this pattern. In unpublished work, he feels the interchangeability of points and lines in the geometry of the amplituhedron may be the origin of a mysterious mathematical duality between particles and strings. Everything emerging from crossed lines.

amplutihedron_span

This puts Einstein’s dream of a natural, beautiful, inevitable(determined) and self contained Universe in jeopardy. I’m an engineer, not a Physicist, but I am always trying to understand my experienced reality skeptically. Well, I seek less to now understand reality and focus more on the best way to experience it resulting in maximum spiritual growth. I think reality is just a game and we are all players on it’s stage. I’m not going to take your word for it or anyone else’s. My question, could the Multiverse not be a real time reality, meaning, infinite possibilities existing concurrently in different Universes? If all possibilities are possible in the Multiverse, the rest and best realities exist out there.

Supposedly string theory, an attempt to unify Einstein’s relativity with Quantum Mechanics, the sub-atomic world of particles, supposedly has 10 to the 500 possible Universes in the Multiverse in 10 possible dimensions, we live in the first 3. That is not intuitive to humans. More and more the physics anomalies are growing, we are missing something. See Thomas Khun’s book, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. Considering the effect of consciousness on reality may be part of what is missing.

The Anthropic Principle is the Law of Human Existence. It is well known that our existence in this universe depends on numerous cosmological constants and parameters whose numerical values must fall within a very narrow range of values. This does not make sense to most Physicists also, thus was born the Multiverse theory. I think the Multiverse exists as potential, and answers the question, how could we be so lucky? That is just an intuitive statement and just my opinion.

From the string theorist most Physicists feel is the brightest among them, Edward Witten, “I would be happy personally if the multiverse interpretation is not correct, in part because it potentially limits our ability to understand the laws of physics. But none of us were consulted when the universe was created.”

Einstein said, “Religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law and this feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work.” My life is no different than that, I have a sense of awe at the Universe and am trying to figure out my place in it. I stopped caring so much what it is.

All of this makes me excited and affirms what I feel intuitively. I am not looking for the God of the gaps. I know the creative force that created the Universe, I feel it and experience it. You will never have all the answers. The answers are not the point. The point may be the questions and how you ask them and more importantly how you experience the Universe.

We can never know what exactly the Universe is if we exist in a Multiverse. We can not test this theory. Is this the end of Science? I hope it is a humbling time for Science. Because we all need some humility seeking to unlock such secrets. Perhaps in our current state we can not see more than the matter we are made of. What do you know?

Arkani-Hamed, a hero of mine and a great person and Physicist(like a child), found success by pursuing his own ideas with unbridled enthusiasm, politely disregarding naysayers and tackling obstacles head-on. I will try to be worthy of this mantle of great seekers in my pursuits. They are looking for more hints from nature to understand what the Universe is and want to build bigger colliders. I think this struggle of Physics reflects our internal spiritual struggles and striving. It was spiritual for Einstein. I believe the way forward will be born from a synthesis of the natural and the spirt. We are half blinded in our search. I think Science and spirit are complimentary, but beneficial or destructive based on your intent. You manfiest your own reality I believe. I wasted my life for so long on meaningless material pursuits.

No more!

No limits!