Thursday, February 22, 2007

What happened to us? Where is American's spiritual common sense?

What happened to us? Where is America's spiritual common sense?

Why did millions of Americans allow television evangelist types to take over our country? Do we honestly believe such people have a hot line to God? Granted, many of them have a talent for raising money, and some of them certainly have colorful sex lives, but shouldn't matters of the heart be between each of us and the mystery of existence?

To be fair, it's not just the Religious Right; it's now virtually all institutional religions. Pedophile priests, for example, are still regarded as spiritual authorities! And sad to say, millions of people lost their moral respect for the last Pope; not because they resented his ethical preoccupations, but because they felt his strident moralizing lacked the warmth of compassionate wisdom.

The Middle East is a veritable cancer of religious hypocrisy that metastasized to the entire planet. What good can come from conflicts between Muslim "Holy Warriors" (that ultimate contradiction in terms) and the real estate ambitions of a "chosen people"?.

How glaring is the contrast between doomsdaying preachers and gentle Jesus. Jesus spoke to our hearts -- as did Mohammed and the Hebrew Prophets (those beacons of Justice). They talked to us as heart travelers into mystery. They didn't lust after political power.

Surely Jesus would be broken hearted to see his life affirming compassion and love replaced with Armageddon death wishes and "Last Days". And what would he have thought of the lucrative account of his life and teaching in the "Left Behind" fictions? Jesus didn't want to leave anyone behind! His was not the arrogance of the fundamentalists nor the way of might makes right. And certainly not the way of multimillionaire authors.

Jesus counseled us to "judge them by their fruits." And the fruit of murder in the name of God fanatics is always poisonous. Their rationalizations for violence are abhorrent and we long for a return to humanity and kindness.

Just as we long to be delivered from this money worshipping President. How conveniently the Bush/Evangelicals forget that the only time the founder of Christianity "lost his cool" was when he whipped the money changers out of the temple. Jesus loved the poor in spirit. He also didn't cancel their health benefits and under fund their schools in order to give tax breaks to King Herad.

The tragedy is that none of these things should have to be said. The institutions of religion are always, at best, footprints of an ineffable and vulnerable journey in which each of us (to borrow a caption from a poignant photograph of Edward Steichen) is "alone with the beating of my heart".

Sadly, many of us are afraid of his journey, so we huddle together in righteous synagogues, mosques, and cathedrals, desperately trying to define ourselves by what we hate. It has always been so.

The puzzle is why early 3rd millennia earthlings are losing their spiritual nerve. The fundamentalists (of all religions) are a tragic symptom of spiritual regression. Their hubris and contempt for other religions should be a sober warning to all men and women of good will.

The perennial truth is that carnivorous cults, Popes and pamphlets, tents and theologians are expendable, but our hearts and conscience are not. So can we return, please, to the America of spiritual common sense?

Monday, February 19, 2007

How many "literal" Nazis are running the Bush/Republican Party?

After WW2, members of the Nazi Party were scattered all over the earth. Argentina was probably the most high profile country which harbored quantities of Nazis, but many other international countries willingly (money talks) provided cover for the toxic residue of the 3rd Reich.

We have the Israeli's to thank for tracking down many of these monsters, but even their awesome (and understandably passionate!) intelligence capabilities couldn't get them all.

Granted, many years have elapsed since 1945, but it's a near certainty that many arthritic goose steppers are still around, keeping alive and (more importantly) rejuvenating the satanic agendas of the 20th Century’s Heart of Darkness.

Which now brings us to that turgid period in the history of the Bush Royal Family, when high level

transactions took place between Fritz Thyssen (German industrialist and original backer of Adolf Hitler) and Skull and Bones members, Prescott S. Bush and E. R. Harriman.

Multitudes of extensively researched articles about additional Bush/Nazi bonds are available, so here’s a brief sample from the historically timely Zanesville Signal, Zanesville Ohio, on Thursday, July 31, 1941:

************************************************************************

Thyssen Funds Found in U.S.

New York (INS) Existence of a $3,000,000 fund established here by Fritz Thyssen, German Industrialist and original backer of Adolf Hitler was disclosed today in a news story in the New York Journal American.

(break)

Whether the money is for Thyssen personally, or, perhaps, for some of his high placed Nazi friends in the event of an “emergency” compelling them to leave Germany, no one knew.

(break)

The money exists in funds of the Union Banking Corporation; an investment company incorporated and licensed under New York state laws in August, 1924

Money for its $400,000 capital stock came from Thyssen’s bank, Voor Handel En Scheepvaart in Rotterdam.

Among members of its board of directors are E. R. Harriman, Ray Morris and Prescott S. Bush, partners in the firm of Brown Brothers, Harriman, and company, of which W. Averill Harriman is now American minister plenipotentiary to England.

(end of article)

************************************************************************

Prescott S. Bush, of course, is our president’s grandfather and both he and Harriman were members of the now infamous Skull and Bones “club” at Yale. Plus this news piece from that time is the tip, merely, of an iceberg of subsequent journalistic investigations into connections between the Bush Family and the 3rd Reich.

However, the more comprehensive questions before us are (1.) is the Nazi Party really “dead”, and (2.) if, not, how deeply do their tendrils reach into the heart of our Constitutional Republic? The nature of the factual and public Bush/Nazi relationship is a separate (although clearly imperative) question.

Over and over again see uncanny similarities between the Bush/Republican Party and the Nazi Party. Certainly, their MO is identical. Propaganda to the max and nationalistic/religious fanaticism melded into corporate dictatorship and cultural totalitarianism. In short, EXACTLY, the thing the war to end all wars was supposed to scourge from the planet.

When the shoe fits so perfectly, you have to wonder how much is it is still being made by embedded Gestapo shoe makers.

Keeping the Faith

After the year 2000 Presidential election, it felt like we had fallen into a dark and terrifying pit. That, as we all remember, was the year the Bush/Republicans criminally stole their first Presidential election. Then, in 2004, they stole that election as well. According to the exit poll international standard for voter fraud, John Kerry is now unequivocally President of the United States.

We are dealing with magnitudes of evil our country has never experienced since the middle of the 20th Century when the Nazi 3rd Reich attempted to conquer the world. But by their open and repeated admissions, the fascist/fundamentalist Republican Party has exactly the same ambition.

When George Bush sold his soul to Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and company, our foreign policy became a tail wagged by the dog of the another country (i.e., the Likud Party), and from that day own we have watched with agonized eyes the systematic dissolution of our country.

However, we already know about these betrayals and atrocities, so may I talk to my American brothers and sisters from my heart? Because (as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be), only our hearts and spirits can save us from the quicksand of despair.

Yes, the 2006 midterms were a baby step in the right direction, but one step forward can't cancel out the 20 steps backward our tragically wounded country has taken during the Bush Family's treasonous attack on our Constitutional Republic.

We should certainly have no illusions that after 2006 things are going to get significantly better. The Democratic Congress is still walking around in diapers and cowardly betraying the mandate of the 2006 elections. Our country cried out at the ballot box and also in poll after poll, but the Democratic Congress is not listening. Their token photo ops and toothless bills mean next to nothing.

Hence, as always, it's up to us -- meaning it's up to our hearts and spirits to keep our Ship of State from going down for the third time.

So, let's not talk about politics, since politics is the bone American elites throw to their suckers, servants, and tax cows, i.e., us.

Sometimes in life the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are so maiming and overwhelming (like now!) that we have to step back into the soul of our lives and seek nourishment and healing from these living, spiritual waters.

This can be prayer, of course, and lots of it, but it can also be meditation (are they really so different?), but WHATEVER we call it, it isn't looking for fairy tale political miracles.

Rather, it is keeping the faith that our hearts and spirits can "somehow" rise to the challenge of the metastasized cancer which is killing all that is good, kind, and sane in America.

The lines of battle are clearly drawn. This is a life and death fight between Good and Evil. Said religiously, George Bush is the anti Christ of the 3rd millennia. Said psychologically, the Republican Party is an army of psychopaths. Said nationalistically, the Republican Party is the rebirth of the Nazi Party in America. Said financially, it is now heart breakingly clear that the United States of America is now and always has been a Dictatorship of the Rich. Not to see these things is not to see the sun.

Against such dimensions of evil only spirituality can hold the line. Not wishful thinking spirituality, but spirituality which is grounded in the iron nobility of truth and love.

We must not, we must not, we must not despair. To the degree that we despair, evil has won. To the degree that we despair, Republican greed vampires will bleed us dry. To the degree that we despair, we dishonor our wise and courageous forefathers. To the degree that we despair, Mother Nature will continue to be raped and murdered by Texas energy companies.

Politics is merely a symptom of matters of the heart and a country that has lost its faith is already dead.

So, my dear American brothers and sisters, let's KEEP that faith! Let's hold hands around whatever spiritual fires we can keep burning during this long night of Bush/Republican Evil.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

10 appalling questions Americans never dreamed we'd have to ask.

(l.) Did elements in the Bush administration in any way actively encourage 9/11? Remember, before 9/11, George Bush was in a political toilet, but after 9/11, he was media transformed into a cardboard hero (but why -- for cowardly hiding out while reading children's books upside down?).

(2.) Has America's foreign policy been taken hostage by another country? Specifically, has the Lukid Party become the true control center of the United States of America? It's now self evident to barnyard animals that the neocon lobby isn't lobbying for the well being and national security of OUR country.

(3.) Is George Bush deliberately trying to kill our one and only planet Earth to "speed up" his pathological, Armageddon death wish? Said differently, is Bush ignoring the international scientific community, not because he thinks they're wrong, but because he's afraid they're right, and thus resists any rational strategy to slow or stop global warming, widening ozone holes, polluted air, water, and food, and the general rape and murder of Mother Nature by Texas energy companies.

(4.) Why did only high profile Democrats receive anthrax in the mail and what are the true circumstances of the tragic death of courageous Senator Paul Wellstone? Remember, his circumstantially preposterous death gave the Senate to the Bush/Republicans.

(5.) And just what funny business is going on between George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden? Remember, bin Laden's "photo op" before the 2004 Presidential election dramatically helped Bush to steal the election more than any other factor (always nice to have friends, isn't it?). And why has the collective fire power and intelligence capabilities of our country been unable to find ONE man in going on seven years? Also, why were members of the bin Laden family flown out the United States a mere few hours after 9/11 (service with a smile!)? And why was bin Laden allowed to escape from Afghanistan. Questions, questions, questions . . . but no answers.

(6.) Have the Republicans factually stolen the last two Presidential elections (plus several 2002 midterm elections) with corrupt voting machines and illegal dem/progressive voter-trashing tricks? According to the exit poll international standard for measuring voter fraud, John Kerry is now unequivocally President of the United States. In short, is the Bush/Republican administration systematically (and rapidly!) murdering our Constitutional Republic, which is based on free and fair elections?

(7.) Is our country, after all, a mere a Dictatorship of the Rich? Are we in denial about how less than 1% of America controls nearly all of the wealth? How many jobs do you now have to keep your kids in school and put food on the table? Think of where you were six years ago, before the Republican greed vampires took over our country with a stolen election.

(8.) How much of the 20th Century Nazi Party is still alive and well in the sewers of the Bush/Republican Party? 1945 may seem like a long time ago, but the beat goes on with transcendental evil, and the MO of the Nazis was absolutely identical to the MO of this administration, i.e., hypnotic propaganda (e.g., the American Judas media), fascist/corporate dictatorship, and cultural totalitarianism. Multitudes of Nazis were scattered all over the planet after WW2, and they have surely been proliferating like viruses, perpetuating their Heart of Darkness horrors. And what better host than an army of greed obsessed, Republican sociopaths? This is not empty speculation, as study after study has revealed that an international network of fascist/Nazis (the name is irrelevant) is still living, monster like, deep in the infrastructure pits of human civilization.

(9.) Once and for all, who are dem centrists like Hillary Clinton really answering to? They certainly aren't speaking for progressives and the American middle and lower classes. Maybe the bottom line is that "centrism" is fascism light, since they are the court jesters of the America's astronomically rich. The problem with Hillary is that no one knows if she's really there, since she has never taken a stand about ANYTHING. Hopefully, her all glitter and no guts DLC politics will be annihilated in the context of 2008 life and death issues. When civilization is desperately fighting for its life, centrists are the luke warm ones Jesus said he would spit out of his mouth.

(10.) And lastly, for a little comic/serious relief, what's the story about Senator Joe Lieberman? This likudnik Arron Burr is betrayal incarnate. The fact that he's the only congressman George Bush ever kissed (in public) says it all. Boy, that kiss sure reminds you of Judas, doesn't it? Except it wasn't given by Christ, but by the 3rd millennia's number one candidate for the anti-Christ.

Thursday, February 8, 2007

The Zoom of Abandon

(a rhapsody of personality transcending cognition)

***********************************************************************

Spontaneous immediacy is the already ongoingness of being alive. We have no vote in this. Each of us is going with the flow willy nilly. To be alive is to be living and living is nowing and nowing is the zoom of abandon.

But we love to think we're preparing to live and/or that we've somehow dualistically stepped back from life -- even though this is like singing a song in which part of the song is singing about singing the song. There's no stepping back from the song of immediacy. The alleged stepping back is just part of the song.

Immediacy (or better, "immediacying") is the thing in itself of being alive, the This is It of pure living, not some abstract limbo of pre or post living. I can write about these matters and we can discuss them, but nothing is one upped thereby. These realizations are like a mathematical limit and forever beyond the reach of thought. The realness of nowness is the origin of thought and never its object. Tails don't wag dogs.

Relatedly, self-control is one of the core delusions of the human condition. It seems to reassure us to play that game, but it's a game we play with paradoxical abandon. The Pacific Ocean doesn't control itself and neither do we. Reality realities spontaneously. The fullness of the moment is never premeditated. However, this knowing can be deeply unsettling and the un-transcend ability of spontaneous living is perhaps the most deeply repressed truth of our species. We probably fear this truth more than death itself.

But why? Let's find out. Let's say you just suddenly realized (and realized all the way through, not just tinker toy "theoretically") that the already ongoingness of being alive is absolutely beyond the reach of dualistic self-control. When you're in spontaneous free fall it's impossible to separate yourself from the zoom of abandon so as to control or improve yourself ("from the outside in"?). Acting on impulse isn't a variable, it's a constant, and this is it.

But for some of us (practically all of us?), this is virtually a description of psychosis. But why is this the case? Isn't it because the "spontaneity constant" (let's call it that) is mutually exclusive with self-image identity? After all, the self I've been conditioned to identify with is supposed to be able to control itself. But there's no self-control in the abyss of abandon. Identities of separateness can no more live in spontaneous immediacy than moths which fly into flames.

Let's imagine we're participating in an outburst of spontaneous applause at the end of a concert. But, what do we mean by this? It means the applause wasn't planned in advance. We weren't watching the clock to carry out some scheduled behavior; rather we are acting on impulse. OK, then what's "acting on impulse", i.e., the applause is behavior that's emerging from WHAT? Did we "stop and think" and then decide to applaud. We know that's not true. The thought aspect of this is merely a sideshow. The applause is more of a "feeling choice".

Thought may try to play catch-up with the zoom of abandon, but it's always the bridesmaid and never the bride. Any house visited by thought has been long since vacated by spontaneity. But the arrogance of thought is unwilling to acknowledge its limitations and thus from the thinking about point of view (i.e., the identity of separateness), if the applause isn't answering to thought, then it must be a hiccup of randomness or a knee jerk of inevitability. Thought sees itself as the only independent variable in the functioning of our lives.

But spontaneous applause ISN'T the creation of thought! It's more like the proverbial expression of feeling. It's the self-activity of autonomous (and thought form transcending) ISness, and the same thing is true for all living. Taking in this truth, past a certain point, probably triggers the Homo sapien psyche into either fragmentation or "awakening", because these are the blue waters of nuclear transformation. Here, self-image identity is forgotten and the babble of thought is ignored. Life is now looking at itself.

Untheoretical realness is saying, here I am, look at me! We are none of us in control of anything -- least of all our alleged "selves". Dualistic control (including self-control) is a game of the mind. It has nothing to do with anything. Preparing to live is a waking nightmare. Nowing IS living and the nowing of living isn't self-controlling, it's the zoom of abandon, but the zoom of abandon isn't out of control ness or running amuck (the accusations of thought); it's the self-directedness of that which is already the case. The fullness of THIS moment is being ongoingly actualized by dimensions of realness indifferent to thought. Nowing is realitying.

Only life itself can understand itself. Mosquitoes of separateness can never bite the "Iron Bull" of suchness, but these realizations are within the reach of birthright intelligence just because birthright intelligence is the self-activity OF the Iron Bull. Here, contradictions are obliterated, and reality realities self-knowingly. Being and knowing are one.

The zoom of abandon is also the zoom of already occupied-withness. I can't "begin myself away" from what I'm already doing! Of course, thought's perspective on this is that nowing is a mere point on a time line. It's not even a verb, it's more like a thing/instant. A vacuum, at best, of potential. Thought never seems to worry about how these instants of absence can add up to the presence of beingness.

Curiously, thought painted itself into a similar corner after the invention of calculus by Newton and Leibniz. Area under a curve (or between curves) was understood to be the area under a line made up of an infinite number of points. It was further conjectured that the area under a point is zero. You can see where this is heading. If a line is made of an infinite number of points and the area under each of the points is zero, then how can there be any area (which, of course, there is) under the line? Advanced calculus addresses this problem and its solution lies in a rigorous definition of the "limit", e.g., area under a curve is the convergence of a sequence of partial sums (an informal interpretation of a limit is that it's an exact description of a place you'll never get to). It also shows that atomizing a line into an infinite number of points can generate paradoxes of abstraction. The territory, after all, doesn't answer to a map -- it's the map which must answer to the territory.

Occupied-withness is unself-interfere-withable responsibilitying (the very awkwardness of these constructions is perhaps a symptom that we're talking about dimensions of realness inaccessible to conceptual models). This is oddly similar to the realization that the Homo sapien visible world is a function the interval on the electro-magnetic spectrum with which we Homo sapiens evolved in concert and which, in turn, is a function of the relation between this planet and its associated "yellow" sun/star -- a revelation which jars us somewhat, like discovering that there's one more step than we had expected as we descend a staircase.

There's nothing theoretical about occupied-witness. It's the marrow of immediacy. It's not a goal, ideal, or remembrance. It's where we already are. But we don't live like this -- we don't even "think" like this (and acting out what we think is the "human condition"). Indeed, we think occupied-withness is precisely where we're NOT. We’re in the passive "safe house" of separateness, preparing to live and/or doing our theoretical thing. But this is the consensus delusion of our species. This is the thinking about point of view -- the identity of separateness.

Occupied-withness is what it is independently of thought. It's the territorying of the territory. Pre-living and separateness are constructions of delusion. Desiring the better isn't coming from a "desirer". Immediacy is unself-controllable. The intuition that spontaneous immediacying (the zoom of abandon) is the already ongoingness of occupied-withness, is the self-awareness of life itself! This is intelligence freeing itself from time.

However, the tar baby of the world is a masterpiece of fail safes. Identities of separateness are always seeking solutions and answers. That's because where there's no seeking, there's no seeker. We seek IN ORDER to be seekers. There's nothing to seek and there isn't any seeker. Dreamers don't wake up from dreams. Dreamers are awakened from by that which is more real than dreamers! Spiritual goals are delusional fail-safes.

It boggles us to think that Salvation and self-improvement are equally meaningless. Achieving and receiving are strategies, merely, to perpetuate "achievers" and "receivers". The challenge and alchemy is elsewhere. The challenge is where it's always been. The challenge is NOW. The challenge is radical truthfulness. The challenge is to choose truth over safety, intelligence over desire, and time plays no role in this whatsoever. We don't need to "read a few more books", take a trip to Tibet, or find a validating guru. And we certainly don't need acronym advice faucets (PhD’s, MD's, etc.), nor to find some meditation technique that "really works". We don't need two or three more retreats and we don't need to "stop and think". Dear God, the human condition is already virtually NOTHING BUT stopping to think!

What we need is to make eye contact with life -- which is certainly never ceasing to make eye contact with us! We need, simply, to meet the gaze of realness. Language, of course, greatly complicates the saying of this, reinforcing, as it does, the (delusional) "we's" who need to do this or that. So we have various options here. One is succumbing to the language/thought version of life by equating the "thinking about" with the "thought about" (the maya option of choice for our species). Another is mute resignation. Still another is to allow intelligence to liberate itself from the straight jacket of language by "making the best of a bad situation", i.e., to communicate with, and IN SPITE OF, the arbitrary structures of language. Language can be a useful and creative tool, but it doesn't have to be our God. The point isn't to eat the envelopes, but to open them.

So all this "we" talk is the hubris of language. It's not a validation of separateness. The challenge is real, but it's not a challenge to identities of separateness. And notice how difficult it is to deal with these matters without slipping into "What should I do?", or "How do I do it?" questions. But no advice is being given here, no formulas, and no technology. Pursuing such questions is recycling craziness.

We must stay fast on our feet with this though, because the "moral" isn't that we SHOULDN'T ask "What should I do?", or "How do I do it?" questions. That's because there ISN'T any moral and we aren't talking about shoulds or advice. Plus, this isn't a conversation between self-image identities. Something is going on here which has one foot in the world and the other foot radically elsewhere. Three-dimensionality is communicating with n-dimensionality. This writing isn't coming from a "personality", but neither must it be seen as coming from a "meta-personality" that's "channeling" its communications to us. The sun of truth shines with its own light. It doesn't need to be peopled with glorified or Greek God-like projections of personal pronouns.

Personality is now being used in the etymological sense of "the mask we talk through". It's an artifact of time and conditioning and a cartoon only of the mystery of humanness. To identify with personality is to betray the vulnerability of our hearts. Vulnerability is all of a piece with the zoom of abandon. To be vulnerable is to be real. To lack vulnerability is to lack existence. Self-image identities are creatures of memory -- "smiles" (or frowns), at best, of Cheshire Cats of beingness. The spontaneous ongoingness of already occupied-witness, is NECESSARILY the ongoingness of vulnerability, because vulnerability is "unself-controllability" and the (no alternative) ongoingness of being myself living is the This is It reality/universe.

The This s It reality/universe is where we ALREADY ARE and being myself living is what we're ALREADY DOING. We don't have any "unplaced trump cards" of potentiality or separateness. We're reality beings living reality lives in a reality universe (the soul intuition of liberation). And clearly this is equally true for all life forms, from zebras to eagles to extraterrestrials. However, the life form aspect of this can also be misleading, since vulnerability and spontaneity sound depths of voidness beyond the relative morphologies of our species. One wonders if "whales" self-classify themselves -- or classify (self-classified) Homo-sapiens.

To be alive is to be vulnerable. To be vulnerable is to be alive. Vulnerability is hard-wired into beingness. Self-control and separate selfness are merely strategies to avoid vulnerability. Of course, they don't really avoid anything, any more than death denial ever tricks death. The pseudo avoidance of vulnerability is the pseudo avoidance of the zoom of abandon. Living is unconditional committed ness. The mutterings of thought notwithstanding, self-image identity is neither a duality away from totality nor true selfness.

To think of vulnerability as a "limitation" is like thinking nature is limited because it can't be other than what it is. The naturing of nature IS nature. Should we then see nature as limited because it can't abstract itself away from itself so as to control, observe, or escape from itself? These conundrums of thought aren't solved with effort, but "dissolved" with realiazation.

The actualizing context of durational immediacy (it's not a "point"), is the home of true selfness. It's where we all "live and move and have our being". Huang-po, a 7th Century "Zen Master", called it "Absolute Thisness". Now that's a real conversation stopper, similar to Jesus', "Before Abraham was, I am." Or to play with a phrase from the 19th century, we're all in mid existential leap. There are no thought-created hand holds on the mountain of life -- and death is as real as birth.

Clearly implicit in any desire to transcend vulnerability is the judgment that vulnerability is what's rotten in the Denmark of the human condition. But, isn't this just more bad advice from thought which never tires of cooking up alternative realities to reality? Thought's version of vulnerability is that we're vulnerable to the precise degree that we can't be other than what we are. Thus, the ISness of selfness, for thought, is anathema, because the ESSENCE of thought is to "think about". Indeed, the "thinking about point of view" (the perspective of separateness), IS self-image identity and self-image identity is what presumes to puts reality into perspective.

Accordingly, it horrifies thought to think that true selfness is one with itself and therefore unthink-aboutable. But the actualizing context of immediacy is the origin of thought and never it's "object". Nowing is the self-activity of that which is already the case and the unclassifiability of this realness may be a limitation for thought, but not for the realness. This realness transcends classifiability and it's intelligence-accessible precisely BECAUSE of that. What's invisible to thought isn't invisible to itself.

The pet in our house isn't the concept in our mind. And neither are we or our families or neighbors. And neither is ANY (classified) "life-form". These nets of memory may be pragmatic and useful, but they catch only theoretical fish. "Reality fish", however, swim only in oceans of thought/form transcending realness -- in which they're neither fish nor "they's". When all boundaries become insides of outsides and outsides of insides, then all "relata" disappear into relationship. The "world of form" (which is always species specific), is absolutely without independent realness. Figures are figures only IN RELATION TO grounds, and visa versa. Interdependence and polarity is all.

And in this ocean of transcendence, self-nature self-natures with abandon. But why should this trouble us? Religion, science, metaphysics, etc., are at best closed systems of speculation. However, all this can be LEFT by opening to the ISness of transcendence! But can this truly be “done”, and what is the “way” or “path”? It can be done becaue there isn’t any “doer” to do it, and there isn’t any path to where we already are. Nowing isn’t on the way to the desired. Nowing is the heartbeat of God.

Sunday, February 4, 2007

Spontaneous Anger

OK, you're mad. What do you do?

Well, you can eat it, be nicy nice, and talk the politically correct talk -- but your stomach knows better. And someone keeps looking back at you from the mirror who you can never take seriously. Someone you've seen, perhaps, most of your life.

Or, you can "express your feelings"! Step right out there and say it like it is (at least for you). But . . . sometimes that has lots of interpersonal consequences, doesn't it?

The thing about anger is that we don't get to plan it. Nobody "counts down" to being upset. It just grabs you, like a hiccup or sneeze. Suddenly, you're seething and only THEN do we do an intervention on ourselves (or not).

"Hey, let this turkey have it. He/she asked for it!"

(or)

"No, play the game -- it's always better in the long run."

And then the second thoughts. We all know about second thoughts, don't we?

"Oh, oh, now why did I say or do that? Perhaps I just should have just kept it to myself after all."

OK, time for yours truly to be pig in the middle:

I recently wrote a piece about election fraud. I actually tried to cancel the piece (second thoughts!) but I sent in the request too late. Was I upset about election fraud? You bet. In fact, probably a hundred times more than it showed in that submission since I love my country and don't want to see our democratic elections stolen from us.

So what's the problem? The problem is that anger is CONFUSING. Probably the most important thing of all about anger is that you don't get to meet in on your terms. Remember John Lennon’s, "Life is what really happens to us while we're making other plans"? That's anger . . . and love and car accidents. But when you get right down to it, isn't that what life is like ALL the time? We love to think we're in control of events (or at least spectators), but that's just a game Homo sapiens play.

Goethe had Faust speak of "Plunging into the flood of fate". But as opposed to what? We love to think most of us are on the bank watching the courageous (or reckless) few in the flood, but isn't the truth that ALL of us are in the flood, but most of us are pretending we're on the bank? The flood of confusion, the flood of NEVER being "one up".

And yes, I'm still furious about election fraud! And yes, I still have second thoughts about writing that piece. Jeez.

Mythology: Fact or Fiction?

Actually neither.

The mythologist Joseph Campbell used to practically stand on street corners warning people not to take mythology “literally”.

Did the Red Sea literally/factually part? Did the virgin birth historically happen? For Campbell, such questions are meaningless, since mythology (Christian, African, Scandinavian, etc.) has nothing to do with a newspaper version of reality.

Then why bother to read such stories? That's easy; it's because some truths can be talked about ONLY mythologically -- something like those things you can see only out of the corner of your eye.

The virgin birth, for example, can be understood as the opening of the heart chakra in the context of Kundalini Yoga, just as the "Promised Land" mythology surly has more to do with deeply personal awakenings than hypocritically coveting Palestinian real estate.

In any case, mythology appeals to our big, BIG picture sense of things and a sense of things which is indifferent to the certainty machines of literalized religion (the Red Sea really did part!) or white cassock science (which unconsciously hops from metaphor to metaphor).

Mythology speaks to our vulnerabilities, our humanness, and our LACK of certainty. But more generally, so do all the fine arts. So isn't it wonderful to escape the hubris of religious pamphlets and scientific monographs and be nourished by music, painting, literature -- and mythology.

Friday, February 2, 2007

Why is it OK to challenge the American right wing, but never the Israeli right wing?

All countries have a political spectrum that runs from left, middle, to right. It's oversimplified of course, but we know what it means.

For example, we speak of the Christian Right and the extreme right wing of the Republican Party -- which the (Republican) Nelson Rockefeller once called the "lunatic fringe".

It's planetary common knowledge that the neocon lobby has values and policies which, shall we say, "echo" the values and policies of the Israeli (usually Zionist) right wing.

It's also planetary common knowledge that the foreign policy of the United States of America became a tail wagged by the dog of the neocon lobby in the year 2000 when our illegal "president" George W. Bush sold America's soul to Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and company, i.e., the neocon lobby.

From that day on, it's been hard to figure out the name of the capital of our county, since it certainly stopped being Washington D.C.!

Over the last six years, we have been very gradually working up the courage and political muscle to take our country back from the Bush/Republican coup d'etat.

When these scum controlled EVERYTHING (including the Judas media), we had to proceed one step at a time; however, the 2006 midterms were a mandate to keep fighting the good fight to keep our American Ship of State from being scuttled by corporate fascism, religious fanaticism . . . and the neocon lobby (which certainly isn’t lobbying for the well being and national security of the United States of America).

Well, we're doing reasonably well with the fascists and fundamentalists, but the neocon lobby is still getting away with murder. Paul Wolfowitz, for example, is now effectively living on another planet and thus never has to answer to anything.

So what's the deal? Why is the neocon lobby getting a free pass? And why don't we widely acknowledge the self evident fact that Israel, like every other country on the planet, has a virulent right wing?

Ironically, just like America, their right wing (a.) doesn't represent the majority of the country, but (b.) currently has the country by the throat.

The parallel is almost exact, especially the religious fanatics who see themselves as having a mission from God (which one?), and are true believers in such barbarisms as "might makes right", and "the end justifies the mean". Hence, Israeli and/or American right wingers are indifferent to such niceties as Constitutions, rules of law, and the common good.

The real issue, however, isn't the internal dynamics of another sovereign nation. We have enough to worry about with our own lunatic fringe without being overly concerned with Israel's. We can, however, wish Godspeed to Israeli progressives and moderates, as they are almost surely wishing Godspeed to us.

No, the issue here is why and how does the neocon lobby have such limitless power and influence in OUR country? And what can American citizens realistically do about it?

We should be very, very clear that taking our country back means MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, taking our country back from the incestuous marriage between the un American neocon lobby and our pinhead, fascist/fundamentalist president.