Saturday, July 12, 2008

The Everything Game

What would you do if you began to realize you were playing a vast social/political/worldly game whose number one game rule was that the game wasn't really a game at all?

The problem is how would you communicate this to the other game players? After all, wouldn't they be mystified or offended or even threatened if you suggested they were "lost in a game"?

Let's think of this as the "Everything Game", because it would be a game, so to speak, without boundaries. So long as you played the game, you would be defined by the game and you could never, never find any secret, hidden place within the game in which the game wasn't king.

Even if you tried to stop playing the game, that would just be a new variation of the game.

You could take drugs; go to Tibet, pray, meditate, be a scientist, whatever, whatever, but the Everything Game would always have the last laugh. Paying bills, getting into arguments, going to funerals, watching movies, fantasizing about the future, regretting the past, etc., etc., etc. All Everything Game.

Now let's imagine that you woke up from this game, like waking up from a nightmare or a waking dream. You just "snapped out of it" and were living and breathing in a non game place or dimension.

In fact, what if the social/political/worldly game turned out to be "you"?

Then what?

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

We are a slob species with glorious potential for transcendence.

Morality should be our breath. It shouldn't be a fatuous word in meaningless religious games.

We are such cowards. This is our essence: cowardice. Many readers will object to this, but if we had the courage of our potential, this world would be a heaven on Earth.

The ultimate challenge for human beings is to integrate spirituality with nature. This, after all, was the vision of the Holy Grail legends. Even in the 12th Century, most people well knew morality didn't belong to inauthentic priests or bishops.

For example, the knowledge was somewhat esoteric, but many people also knew that (1.) love between two adults was real, and (2.) it had nothing necessary to do with marriage (a convenient nonsense the clergy invented to manipulate the populace). The "sacrament" of marriage -- not on this or any other planet. The priests did everything but get in bed with the married couple.

The Tristan and Isolde story deals with such things. Love, marriage, and sex. That's a real juggling act, isn't it? But with institutional marriage factored out of the equation, then humans go back to directly relating (and loving!) other humans.

The core problem is that we are (hopelessly?) entangled in social games, mostly invented by the vampire rich -- such as "politics". We are brainwashed into thinking that "political action" is the God of human existence, so we obsess about rules and laws and elections, and (pain in the ass) "commandments".

But social reality is froth and babble (as in Tower of . . . ). We aren't "social beings". We are children of the universe and have no soul or being independent of nature. This should be see spot run obvious, but most of us think nature is a virtual illusion which we much transcend with religious wackosity.

How is it possible people can think that? How is it possible that such psychosis can be the pseudo soul of our species. How can we not realize that the sky above and the heaving oceans and the morning sunrise are REALITY? Yes, use the right word. Nature is our home. It is what we are born out of and die back into.

And back the 12th Century; Nature is also spiritual. Indeed Nature and Spirituality are the same thing and we don't need words like "God" to realize it. There's certainly nothing wrong with using God as a metaphor, but that doesn't change the fact that the metaphor is a metaphor for ultimate mystery and that this ultimate mystery is all of a piece with Nature.

And it must also be added that this ultimate mystery has NOTHING essential or critical to do with institutionalized religion. Or politics. Or marriage Or ANY of the social games invented by religious fanatics and the vampire rich to enslave the human race.

Society is pragmatics. We use it like we drive a car or comb our hair, but it is not who we are! And it is not the reality which defines who we are.

Our slob civilization is grounded in social existence. EVERYTHING for us is social.

But what about the reality of nature? Is a hurricane the creation of a conversation? Can we think or talk our way to eternal life? Does religion (any religion!) even microscopically transcend nature?

The big, big intuitions and truths have caught up with us. The criminally simplistic and abstract social games have turned into the home of evil.

The out of the box analogy says it to perfection, because our true nature IS an out of the box nature. The box creatures are rapidly killing the planet because we don’t bring 10 dimensional solutions to 3 dimensional problems.

If we only “actualized our human potential”, we would transcend evil and worldly civilizations of boggling stupidity.

An ancient intuition is, “You don’t wipe off blood with blood.” Meaning, in the box problems don’t have in the box solutions. You don’t vote or buy or talk your way out of hell.

Transcendence is all. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Evolution is the rule, not the exception. We're the exception.

In statistics, when an observation is too many standard deviations away from the mean it's called an "outlier". Outliers are often discounted by professional statisticians because they radically diverge from the collective trend of things.

The collective trend of things on this planet is evolution and evolution is integrated and harmonious process.

Now if we shrink our focus to the human game, what we see are extreme "outliers" in the form of a few thousand billionaire elites.

It is common biological knowledge that if "outliers" (used in a broad sense) are allowed to run amuck, that life form or, more importantly, that ecological system, is in grave danger of going extinct. Indeed, it is a near certainty that extinction will follow since the outliers are destroying any possibility of creative harmony which is the homeostasis of healthy evolution.

Thus, the Earth's vampire elites are the metastasized cancer of our dying species.

This isn't weirdness, or empty speculation, or doom saying. This is FACT. This is the way evolution works. This is the way the world works.

Evolution needs magnificent harmony, balance, and energy. The ideal human society for Mother Nature would be socialism. This isn't complicated or debatable. This is the high rationality of nature.

Said in language perhaps many would prefer, nature is functional Democracy.

It is NOT an oligarchy (dictatorship of the rich), theocracy (brainwashed robots), and perhaps least of all some version of monopolistic capitalism. In short, it is not EXACTLY what now rules the Earth.

So it seems we're in a life a death race to rid the planet of pig, pig rich people.

From the point of view of evolution, the "means" to this end is irrelevant.

So it should also be for us.

The core explanation for human tragedy is that we are a species uncommitted to wisdom.

Exceptions, yes, and God speed to them. Science, for example, can be an exception, but we shouldn't forget that science is a function of scientists and a random sample of scientists is simply a representative sample of the human race.

Is this being negative and perverse? Well, Jesus said to judge us by our fruits and George Bush (and Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin, etc.) are fruits of the Homo sapien tree.

But, that's a minor point because WHY DO WE ALLOW SUCH TRASH to mutilate human existence? Another question: WHY DO WE ALLOW VAMPIRE RICH ELITES to treat us like human cattle? We allow it because we're so g.d. incompetent as a life form. The absolute truth of the matter is that we don't have to allow ANY of these things any more than we have to suck up to brain dead religion cults.

However, it also needs be said that none of this discounts the reality of human evil. Evil, too, is all too real, but it’s a symptom of feeble or nonexistent wisdom. Wisdom is more than equal to the challenge of evil. Indeed, foolishness is the host of evil; hence the buck stops with the human species, not some transcendent higher evil power. When you bury your life in 40 IQ sitcoms (television and otherwise) you abandon your children to cars in the street – and murder in Iraq.

Here's another way to say all this. We don't have the courage or "character" to be in touch with reality. That's the dead center of human existence, i.e., we are creatures profoundly out of touch with reality.

Look, there are BILLIONS of human cattle and only a literal handful of international elites. Is that pathetic, or what? And we've been living like this or at least 6,000 years. Why do we allow a few thousand human beings to enslave literally billions of the rest of us?

We aren't "overpowered", that's b.s. Neither are we "brainwashed" by religion. More b.s. Excuses are meaningless since ultimately all human atrocities and tragedies are "allowed" and only a life form that's a walking vacuum of wisdom would allow such things.

Can we change? Of course we can change since global stupidity is ultimately a choice. So why do we choose it? Hard to say, isn't it? All the "deadly sins" come to mind. Probably, mostly cowardice, since we have the neurological equipment to split the atom and write Bach Partitas, but our brains are clogged with the sludge of fools.

The unequivocal claim of this piece is that social/political/religious/etc foolishness is a CHOICE. We don't have to be living like this. May I repeat that? We don't have to be living like this.

We are living like this because we are indifferent or cynical about "wisdom". Wisdom is more real than foolishness, but we took the wrong turn. We are a foolish species, not a wise species. One can imagine that our galaxy is teeming with wise species . . . but we aren't one of them.

If we WERE a wise species, would we be living like this? Would we keep allowing the Have and Have Not Horror? Would we be selling our souls to dufus religions (talk about being out of touch with reality!)? Would we be sending our children to cannon fodder oil wars for the vampire rich? Would we keep allowing the billionaire religious fanatics of the Israeli lunatic fringe right wing to TOTALLY dictate our foreign policy? Would we keep obfuscating a massively objective examination of what REALLY happened in 9/11?

Bottom line? Our species has made the fool choice, not the wisdom choice, and the human condition is the inevitable consequence.

The Buddha’s First Nobel Truth is that life is suffering. Not to realize this is not to be alive.

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

W. Christopher Epler (Bill)

ps Buddha’s Fourth and last Nobel Truth is that consummated wisdom is Nirvana . . .

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Civilization can no longer afford the hypocrisies and violence of institutional religion.

Institutional religion is a game. It has rules and punishments, but it has NOTHING to do with the human heart.

The human heart doesn't need institutional religion. Jesus wasn't a "cleric" and neither was Mohammed or the Hebrew Prophets. These men didn't have "institutional back up", such as gargantuan buildings and game rules written by men in dress-like institutional uniforms.

These last eight years have put religion under a spiritual microscope and what we have seen is beyond loathsome. Mostly, we have seen religious fanatics who justify murder in the name of God. Indeed, God, for them, is virtually a synonym of murder.

We also shouldn't forget such IQ refuse as those who actually believe the world is going to go boom in next week or two (Armageddon). Such thinking (and similar nonsense’s) is grounded is abyssal stupidity and is more dead weight of institutional religion.

Is the human race ready yet to face the fact that most of what passes for "religion" is moral trash and criminal stupidity? It's time for this meaningless free ride to end. It's time for civilization to transcend religion.

"Religion" is a tricky word because some of us can play the religion game in a tongue in cheek manner, while remaining committed to the transcendence of spirituality and morality. This is probably harmless enough since the individuals who do this know full well the human heart is all, and such religious peripheral game playing can have a certain pragmatic value.

But this is light years away from the Homo sapien morons and cowards who have handed over their lives to cult leaders and Pope types. The first step of spirituality is realizing that TRUTH HAS NO AUTHORITY and when it comes to transcendence or "God" (if that word works for you), you are 100% on your own. Indeed, the more you depend on the cult "leaders" is the more you kill your own soul.

George Bush is an archetypal boot licker of religious masters. So is John McCain. These two spiritual vacuums are the essence of what spirituality ISN'T.

However, this isn't so much a spiritual critique of certain individuals (however evil); it is rather a critique of institutional religion, or just religion itself for that matter.

To say it point blank, religion is mostly a lethal virus in civilization, but we keep looking the other way and acting as if religion is kind and helpful. Yes, about as kind and helpful as eating ground glass.

Religion is now the enemy of civilization. How can we think otherwise? Has it come to the aid of bleeding human beings during these last Bush/neocon/Nazi-like eight years?

Has it heroically stood up and pointed out that Bush's neocon cabal answers ONLY to the Israeli lunatic fringe right wing, and that this "ally" (what a laugh!) has been wagging America's foreign policy nonstop for the last eight years (actually much longer)?

Has it DEMANDED that we put 9/11 under a microscope, since hundreds of internet sites are overflowing with evidence that the Bush/Republicans didn't just "screw up" with 9/11, rather they played a dramatics role in ENGINEERING it.

Has it come to the aid of the American people to protect us from being driven bankrupt (along with the country at large) because of the manipulations of Texas energy corporations and such monsters of greed as Cheney/Halliburton? More specifically, where has religion been while the gap between the increasingly non existent lower and middle classes and the vampire rich is greater than it has ever been in American history. Jesus' heart went out to the victims of elite greed, but the American pulpits are occupied only with immoral, Bush-validating wimps.

Show me a clergyman, and I'll show you someone who can’t even spell the word morality and compassion.

We could go on and on, but the moral is simplicity itself. Religion has now bonded itself with political evil and has become in every respect like the spiritual filth Jesus whipped out of the "temple".

The human race is doomed unless and until it wakes up to the reality of dead weight religious evil, since, to use our children's language, it as gone over to the dark side.

Please do not read this as hyperbole or jive. The churches have abandoned us. Period. And a few token remarks by Pope X, Y, or Z mean nothing. Judge them by their fruits indeed. Most Americans in one way or another are dying in a ditch, but the institutional priests (of all religions) keep averting their gaze.

The moral, social power of religion could (and should) be awesome. It should be in the face of the evil which is murdering America. But, to borrow a phrase of T. S. Elliot, religion isn't even letting us die with a bang, but with a whimper and we should NEVER FORGET IT.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Prettified speech notwithstanding, where do Hillary's loyalties lie?

Too much water (e.g., racism, sexism, assassination innuendos, and kudos for McCain, etc., etc.), have passed under the bridge in the last year or two to suddenly regard Hillary as even a team player for the Democratic Party, much less a committed supporter of Barack Obama.

Hillary, exactly like her husband, is an archetypal politician (ugh!), which means zero commitment to values, morality, and the American Constitution, and 100% commitment to the "Clinton Me". This pair of egomaniacal game players with the American institutional soul have been the other side of the evil coin of Bush/Republican fascism from day one.

Hillary has been the incarnation of the Republican/Democrat, without whom the neocon cabal could never have stolen our country. We must never forget that (a.) Hillary has always danced to the strings of the neocon cabal, and (b.) the neocon cabal has always danced to the strings of the Israeli lunatic fringe right wing.

And these Hillary/cabal policies have led us where? To two oil wars, for openers, which are costing us BILLIONS, into which we keep pouring our cannon fodder children (never forget Hillary's voting record on these money cow wars for America's vampire rich!). Also Christmas tax breaks for America's elites and back breaks for the rags of what is left of our middle and lower classes. Again, check out her voting record "against" the middle and lower classes. The mutual adoration society between Hillary and our 0.05% astronomically rich is putrid to behold.

Hillary keeps bragging about her feminist supporters (gee, isn't that called sexism?), but probably the greatest tragedy of all is the fact that when we finally had a shot at a woman in the highest office, it turned out to be Hillary Clinton, who is an absolute contradiction and disgrace to all the values of the Goddess. Yes, yes, YES, America needs "Goddess energy", but Hillary probably set that vision back at least a decade, with her groveling racism and Clintonian "victory at any cost".

Simply put, the Clinton's DLC (because it was their toy) has always been part of our national problem, never the solution. It was a Clinton invention and lived where the sun doesn't shine in the Bush/Republican body politick. Ol' smiley Bill was always sucking up to the elites and "readjusting" the Democratic Party into closet Republicans. And like husband, life wife, Hillary was doing the same.

So, our work is cut out for us. Yes, we must come together as a nation to rid ourselves of these Republican Nazi-like fascists, but it's going to be a high wire act to allow Hillary into the policies and appointments of these next several months.

Realistic pragmatics, compromise, and positive judgment calls, yes, by all means. But realism includes not forgetting precisely those people who have betrayed (over and over again) those values and policies where "talking the talk" means NOTHING, and walking the walk means EVERYTHING.

We haven't come this far by being gullible fools.

Is this the beginning of the bounce after hitting bottom?

Are we being rolled out of intensive care back to health? Forgive the metaphors, but it’s hard to talk about immensity any other way.

The agony of our country has many parts:

(1.) The dead center of everything is the neocon cabal which has hijacked our country for the Israeli lunatic fringe right wing. Call the author anything you like, BUT MOST OF AMERICA KNOWS THIS IS TRUE. The Likud Party nut case religious fanatics and billionaires of Israel's right wing extremists have totally dominated our foreign policy for the last eight years (actually more).

(2.) 9/11! This will be the watershed event of America since the Civil War. The depths of this treason are sunk into bottomless hell. The Bush/Republicans didn't just "screw up"; they almost certainly facilitated the event. Literally hundreds of sites on the net are burgeoning with facts, scientific analysis, and hundreds of observations which powerfully indicate this event was not only "allowed", it was ENGINEERED. And by whom? Well, who was in office and who were they answering to? Questions, questions, questions of national/international treason . . .

(3.) Money cow oil wars for America's vampire rich, fought, of course, with our cannon fodder children for Cheney/Halliburton vampires of greed. The gap between the pig, pig rich and what's left of America's middle and lower classes has never been so great. America is now unequivocally a Dictatorship of the Rich, ruthlessly defended (from us!) by what is now an Elite Police State.

(4.) The utter soul selling of America's news media and "entertainment" industry. A few heroes and exceptions prove the rule, but otherwise it’s all follow the money. And the money trail leads where? To the neocon acronyms, of course, that are now America's masters.

(5.) The rape and murder of Mother Nature during the last eight years and trashing of most of our hard and heart won environmental protections is heartbreaking beyond words. It's also a recipe for Homo sapien extinction.

This list, sadly, could go on and on, but the big idea is that as a nation we are dying. This is no exaggeration. Our Constitutional Republic, as stated above, has been in intensive care.

We all know the feeling. The feeling that international vampire elites and religious psychopaths have bonded with American Nazi like fascists to engineer a literal coup d'etat in our country.

We have been living in national chaos and agony since Bush came to power (not in the stolen year 2000 Presidential election, but after the treasonous 9/11 infamy). Bush was in the political toilet "before" the timely 9/11, but then he got to play the game which is finally showing signs of pulling him back into the hell he crawled out of.

May I use a dated word and say that the "vibes" of where we are now are significantly different. You see, I want this piece to be a song of hope. Things are being said all over the net which were taboo before. Are we FINALLY getting our second wind? Are we finally acknowledging that 9/11 was infinite treason? Are we finally acknowledging that our foreign policy has been a tail wagged by the Israeli right wing for the last eight years. Are we finally demanding that we get our media back (in any case, we have the net, so screw this army of Judas').

The United States of America has not only been in intensive care; we have virtually been in a coma of despair, loss, and murder of our children in Bush Oil Wars. We have basically lost EVERYTHING!

. . . but here we still are. Here you are and here I am, still breathing, still fighting the good fight, and suddenly much more aggressively setting the stage for the biggest political/social/patriotic SMACK DOWN of local and international evil for the last several millennia.

There's a good time coming and it ain't so far away.

The seabirds from the continent of justice and rationality are increasingly filling the sky.