I am convinced each of us exists independently of this waking dream in our own cocoon, and that we create our implementation of the world by interpreting the auspices of a Grand Imagination.
Think of Earth and life as a river. Initially, we tasted our desires a sip at a time at the river's edge and then slipped into its sensual waters as smoothly as if we were shaped for its warm embrace alone.
In the depths of the dream it is difficult to understand how we maintain our independence and freedom of movement because we are held deep in its turbulent flow by our broader strength.
But we surface to step out again, and walk along the shoreline, until we tire of the view, create a new dream or wish for a taste of the old life.
When we step into the river each life is created anew in whatever era along the bank we enter. Since we walk along either side in whichever direction we choose.
u3C
Dear Gods
Some years ago I was rummaging around a second hand bookstore on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley California when I came across The Ancient City by Fustel De Coulanges.
It discusses how their deceased forebears were central to the religious and civil institutions of ancient Greece and Rome. It explains to us in the modern world that our progenitors in the ancient world worshiped their fathers, important ancestors and a select few others.
The gods in their graves were honored members of each family and offered food as part of the culture of taking care of the dead. They lay on or within the family estate the ownership of which descended from their graves.
Before the wonderful Gods we know, Angels, Grand Religions and Colorful Deities there were the simple house gods, and among them a father perhaps a grandfather - a small familial pantheon kept in the earth out back who would dependably work for us from within their graves.
And all the miracles and special circumstances could be attributed to them.
The rituals were within the family and a bond that held them together across the boundary of death. Smoking food upon the table offered to the gods and shared with the familial partners: objects and details have come down to us in whole or part such as a simple wood table; the plate of food with wine
From such simple beginnings come our holiday table piled with food and the prayer offered before the meal; the edifices wherein we genuflect and hold up our offerings of symbolic blood.
Some people were not so special as to have a god.
The godless were the unfortunates who for one reason or another did not have a god to whom to tender gifts: the gods were quite particular about who had that right. The godless went about the world unprotected and without the services of the dead.
The current God is democratic and universally accepting of gifts and no one need be godless now.
So we've come quite a long way from performing rites for our dead relatives to worshiping Gods who were never dead in the first place.
I wonder what happened to get us away from the edge of a grave containing someone we knew towards a God for whom we had no physical body somewhere that we could visit.
Our Gods are not substantial and proclaim their edicts through rare and special human intermediaries. Our Gods live in perpetuity and stand forever above us and beyond our understanding.
Think about that for a minute.
We have gone from gods we knew who were related to us to Gods that never physically existed.
People are known for their delusional behavior and imagined beliefs, for their inability to see the truth if it offends their prejudices or simply requires some thought. People also believe adamantly in Gods they cannot see whose hands were never available to be touched.
Are the Gods generically available today really dear to anyone?
It discusses how their deceased forebears were central to the religious and civil institutions of ancient Greece and Rome. It explains to us in the modern world that our progenitors in the ancient world worshiped their fathers, important ancestors and a select few others.
The gods in their graves were honored members of each family and offered food as part of the culture of taking care of the dead. They lay on or within the family estate the ownership of which descended from their graves.
Before the wonderful Gods we know, Angels, Grand Religions and Colorful Deities there were the simple house gods, and among them a father perhaps a grandfather - a small familial pantheon kept in the earth out back who would dependably work for us from within their graves.
And all the miracles and special circumstances could be attributed to them.
The rituals were within the family and a bond that held them together across the boundary of death. Smoking food upon the table offered to the gods and shared with the familial partners: objects and details have come down to us in whole or part such as a simple wood table; the plate of food with wine
From such simple beginnings come our holiday table piled with food and the prayer offered before the meal; the edifices wherein we genuflect and hold up our offerings of symbolic blood.
Some people were not so special as to have a god.
The godless were the unfortunates who for one reason or another did not have a god to whom to tender gifts: the gods were quite particular about who had that right. The godless went about the world unprotected and without the services of the dead.
The current God is democratic and universally accepting of gifts and no one need be godless now.
So we've come quite a long way from performing rites for our dead relatives to worshiping Gods who were never dead in the first place.
I wonder what happened to get us away from the edge of a grave containing someone we knew towards a God for whom we had no physical body somewhere that we could visit.
Our Gods are not substantial and proclaim their edicts through rare and special human intermediaries. Our Gods live in perpetuity and stand forever above us and beyond our understanding.
Think about that for a minute.
We have gone from gods we knew who were related to us to Gods that never physically existed.
People are known for their delusional behavior and imagined beliefs, for their inability to see the truth if it offends their prejudices or simply requires some thought. People also believe adamantly in Gods they cannot see whose hands were never available to be touched.
Are the Gods generically available today really dear to anyone?
an uncelebrated whimsy
We generally think of ourselves as thinking and feeling although you can laugh that some people don't or aren't.
And the face we show to the world may not look very thoughtful or feeling.
But in the midst of all this intense and desperate posturing which accompanies our struggles in life, in the back of the psyche where we contemplate in privacy there is a fairy like thought that creeps up on us and whispers into our inner ear.
It disguises itself as unimportant, playful and improbable; but asks us a question and then vanishes.
In the midst of a cold dark night, it is the hope for a warm ride. When hopelessly alone; an endearing companion; or even a smile on the face of a stranger. .
To each of us a different improbable event; object or person.
I give my whimsical wish and find it materializing around me. As if some magical person behind the curtain were seriously considering the consequence of my life.
u3C
And the face we show to the world may not look very thoughtful or feeling.
But in the midst of all this intense and desperate posturing which accompanies our struggles in life, in the back of the psyche where we contemplate in privacy there is a fairy like thought that creeps up on us and whispers into our inner ear.
It disguises itself as unimportant, playful and improbable; but asks us a question and then vanishes.
In the midst of a cold dark night, it is the hope for a warm ride. When hopelessly alone; an endearing companion; or even a smile on the face of a stranger. .
To each of us a different improbable event; object or person.
I give my whimsical wish and find it materializing around me. As if some magical person behind the curtain were seriously considering the consequence of my life.
u3C
talk to me about me living forever
I’ve read a lot of books about the afterlife. It is supposedly the place where we all end up although I’m not entirely sure we ever left.
An easy thing to think about is the prospect of rebirth, and the inevitable forgetting that that involves. After all, you really don’t want to take your fourteenth century self into the twenty second century, it just wouldn’t fit in. Besides, knowing all that old Spanish when you really want to learn the new Spanish would be endlessly confusing; and if your parents were the bitter enemies of your former allies, you may not be the bundle of joy they were contemplating.
The critical question might be who do you think you are?
We like to think that it's just ME reincarnating time and again; but what if the soul is bigger than ME? What if it stays deep in the after-place and spits out silly little ME to live and struggle and then reabsorbs ME back into itself when we get back home? Each of us, a fresh little bit of the whole thrust onto the earth to live anew, joyfully; or suffer painfully; or experience something of a balance of love and torture.
You can be thankful that you are more than what you believe; or frightened and angry that after a possibly painful life your identity is subsumed into a greater Being, which is possibly sufficient onto itself, living joyfully and immortally in la la land.
But Michael Newton, PH. D. actually described something like that in Journey of Souls a rather lengthy compendium of sessions with people describing their experiences in the times between incarnations while in a hypnotic state.
For those of us wanting an idea of what to expect when we step into the void it was a refreshing and no nonsense view of all the potential stuff that happens at the end. But there is a lot of variety, depending so much on who you are and what you were doing here.
Who you are is tied up with how long you have been around and doing stuff here; but more than that it is how many challenges and difficult circumstances you have been willing to accept.
Some souls have a genius; or talent. Lucky them.
My suspicion is that life on the other side is so vast that no book could do it justice. Almost as though a small travel guide would suffice to discuss any of the major countries, or even minor countries on the face of the earth.
u3C
An easy thing to think about is the prospect of rebirth, and the inevitable forgetting that that involves. After all, you really don’t want to take your fourteenth century self into the twenty second century, it just wouldn’t fit in. Besides, knowing all that old Spanish when you really want to learn the new Spanish would be endlessly confusing; and if your parents were the bitter enemies of your former allies, you may not be the bundle of joy they were contemplating.
The critical question might be who do you think you are?
We like to think that it's just ME reincarnating time and again; but what if the soul is bigger than ME? What if it stays deep in the after-place and spits out silly little ME to live and struggle and then reabsorbs ME back into itself when we get back home? Each of us, a fresh little bit of the whole thrust onto the earth to live anew, joyfully; or suffer painfully; or experience something of a balance of love and torture.
You can be thankful that you are more than what you believe; or frightened and angry that after a possibly painful life your identity is subsumed into a greater Being, which is possibly sufficient onto itself, living joyfully and immortally in la la land.
But Michael Newton, PH. D. actually described something like that in Journey of Souls a rather lengthy compendium of sessions with people describing their experiences in the times between incarnations while in a hypnotic state.
For those of us wanting an idea of what to expect when we step into the void it was a refreshing and no nonsense view of all the potential stuff that happens at the end. But there is a lot of variety, depending so much on who you are and what you were doing here.
Who you are is tied up with how long you have been around and doing stuff here; but more than that it is how many challenges and difficult circumstances you have been willing to accept.
Some souls have a genius; or talent. Lucky them.
My suspicion is that life on the other side is so vast that no book could do it justice. Almost as though a small travel guide would suffice to discuss any of the major countries, or even minor countries on the face of the earth.
u3C
very cold streets at night
I like to think that we dwell in a vast imaginary world. And there are points where it touches down and we feel the earth beneath our feet and in some sense our interaction is both imaginary and real.
I get that idea from the fact that everything I work on is the result of somebody's grandiose imaginative scheme that must be designed by me and implemented. So I have spent much time lifting what will become complicated software up into the air and and letting it coalesce into some workable permutation that I then code.
At some point I became convinced that since this worked so well in some areas of my life, I should apply the same dreamy sort of approach to the direction and focus of my life as a whole and pursued my dreams.
San Francisco is cold, even in July in a three piece wool suit; It is also bustling, crowded and Asian; with trolley buses that feel a little like a roller coaster ride for the uninitiated.
If you watch the local news you can see that the Bay Area is violent with an immense freeway system which is complicated to navigate; some of the neighborhoods can be described as depressing.
The streets of downtown San Francisco intimidated me as I walked from interview to interview on my first day.
I'm afraid that I don't interview very well either.
A bit of "What on Earth am I doing here?" came into my mind.
Before dawn on the day before we would leave I had a dream: I saw the hills of the City from the air without buildings, just bare sand colored rock without earth or covering of any kind. One hill in particular attracted me and I melted into it; it was conscious and feminine and a feeling of warmth and substance went up my spine and dripped out between my vertebra.
I awoke feeling confident and utterly at home in San Francisco with a new attitude towards the City. I was hired. But that morning I was certain I would be.
u3C
I get that idea from the fact that everything I work on is the result of somebody's grandiose imaginative scheme that must be designed by me and implemented. So I have spent much time lifting what will become complicated software up into the air and and letting it coalesce into some workable permutation that I then code.
At some point I became convinced that since this worked so well in some areas of my life, I should apply the same dreamy sort of approach to the direction and focus of my life as a whole and pursued my dreams.
San Francisco is cold, even in July in a three piece wool suit; It is also bustling, crowded and Asian; with trolley buses that feel a little like a roller coaster ride for the uninitiated.
If you watch the local news you can see that the Bay Area is violent with an immense freeway system which is complicated to navigate; some of the neighborhoods can be described as depressing.
The streets of downtown San Francisco intimidated me as I walked from interview to interview on my first day.
I'm afraid that I don't interview very well either.
A bit of "What on Earth am I doing here?" came into my mind.
Before dawn on the day before we would leave I had a dream: I saw the hills of the City from the air without buildings, just bare sand colored rock without earth or covering of any kind. One hill in particular attracted me and I melted into it; it was conscious and feminine and a feeling of warmth and substance went up my spine and dripped out between my vertebra.
I awoke feeling confident and utterly at home in San Francisco with a new attitude towards the City. I was hired. But that morning I was certain I would be.
u3C
my dearest pleasure
I often think about how horrid life is. Here you are, thrust into this place by someone else’s act of pleasure; utterly ignorant and dependent upon the circumstances you find yourself in. You listen to the musings of your leading lights as though they were holy writ and you see the world they imagine; whatever it happens to be.
Thus a picture of the world begins to haunt your imaginative environment.
Picture this world of darkness and overcast skies with the coke plant in the distance belching out an aroma that would rot the lungs of anyone breathing it in partial purity. Cars and trolleys and tracks on a brick street and houses looking at each other across a narrow alley of dirt all gray or dark brown. In each house the smell of coal in the basement and the concomitant dirt and filthy dust; all this next to a large dirty manufacturing plant brick wall.
And I would take the pleasure of waking to life in this?
u3C
Thus a picture of the world begins to haunt your imaginative environment.
Picture this world of darkness and overcast skies with the coke plant in the distance belching out an aroma that would rot the lungs of anyone breathing it in partial purity. Cars and trolleys and tracks on a brick street and houses looking at each other across a narrow alley of dirt all gray or dark brown. In each house the smell of coal in the basement and the concomitant dirt and filthy dust; all this next to a large dirty manufacturing plant brick wall.
And I would take the pleasure of waking to life in this?
u3C
meta mythical mystical
Why are things the way they are?
Some people try to answer that question by looking at the physical universe, and that makes a lot of sense. Entire industries are based on physical science knowledge: all of what we live with from automobiles, and wireless to our perceptions and explanations about what goes on in the larger world. But it doesn't explain everything which, when you think about it, it really shouldn't have to.
Physical explanations also don't speak to what I think matters to people which are emotional, personal things.
Science is rather imposing, and as such pronouncements by people who claim to represent scientific opinion carry an authoritative weight separate from their message.
And the message may have nothing to do with Science as we like to think of it.
God doesn't exist, for example, because there is no objective evidence of Him. Which is probably enough to send a cold chill down some spines and get the adrenaline flowing in others.
I would probably agree with that statement, although I've had dreams of what could be regarded as suitable stand ins. I suspect that what's actually there has no relation to what we think about it. But life is, I believe an illusion that we touch taste and feel, and we are nowhere near the truth with a capital T.
u3C
Some people try to answer that question by looking at the physical universe, and that makes a lot of sense. Entire industries are based on physical science knowledge: all of what we live with from automobiles, and wireless to our perceptions and explanations about what goes on in the larger world. But it doesn't explain everything which, when you think about it, it really shouldn't have to.
Physical explanations also don't speak to what I think matters to people which are emotional, personal things.
Science is rather imposing, and as such pronouncements by people who claim to represent scientific opinion carry an authoritative weight separate from their message.
And the message may have nothing to do with Science as we like to think of it.
God doesn't exist, for example, because there is no objective evidence of Him. Which is probably enough to send a cold chill down some spines and get the adrenaline flowing in others.
I would probably agree with that statement, although I've had dreams of what could be regarded as suitable stand ins. I suspect that what's actually there has no relation to what we think about it. But life is, I believe an illusion that we touch taste and feel, and we are nowhere near the truth with a capital T.
u3C
meta magical dreaming
I think of my dreams as adventures, sometimes horrifying and sometimes a peek into a completely different world. But when I think of how diverse and creative they are I am a little surprised.
My little brain came up with all that?
And my dreams tell me curious things.
I've had what I might call precognitive dreams, that in retrospect were quite clear that, for example my cat would die, or that I would have some surgical procedure done to my abdomen. Surprisingly, my first warning.
There are idiots who will say that my mind or brain is coming up with this stuff for Freudian reasons. Or some other reason. But the fact is sometimes my mind knows things that it is not expected to know. And is either terribly creative, visionary or sees things remotely in space and time.
That's a little frightening if you grew up thinking the world obeyed scientific laws; it throws them out the window.
I'm not good at figuring out what my dreams mean. I'm not sure I want to know what they mean; but most of all I don't want to know when something painful is going to happen.
But the dream predates the pain and is predictive.
Some times a dream is telling me that something is going on at some distance.
When I dream that someone died, they're dead. But I tend to dream about a death about the time it is happening. I fell asleep at 4:00 in the afternoon one Saturday and had a nightmare about someone I knew. I dreamed I was him, dying.
Unpleasant, but accurate.
I was sitting in the Chicago airport waiting for my flight to Madison Wisconsin when the feeling came upon me that I had permission to die. I thought I could die if I wanted to. The feeling stuck with me for a while because it is something that is basically foreign to me. I have not been given permission to die yet.
My brother-in-law was dying. Right then. I found out a few days later.
As you have probably guessed by now, I believe that I will die when I wish to abandon the world. Which seems perfectly normal to me.
I find it equally unpleasant when my dreams inform me of a large body count somewhere in the world and I have to watch. They can be places I know very little about; like Kashmir. Why would I dream about that? In bloody color.
In my dreams, time is oddly dimensioned.
Past, future, multiple presents and lives that run along side mine, more or less.
An odd thing is when I have a dream; like the one where one of the gas giants (I think Uranus but could have been Neptune) was up in the sky instead of the moon.
Close enough to suck stuff into space which according to what I think I know had to have happened so long ago that man should not have been on the planet; let alone a technical civilization that strongly resembled ours.
But I suppose our paleontologists probably don't know everything either. They've just got the bones they can find.
Or it might be in the future; which horrifies me.
I do regret contradicting much of established science; but my dreams do that every time I know something in vivid color that I should not.
I dream about lives that resemble mine in my parents, siblings and time setting but not necessarily all three in the same dream. Other dreams resemble our time with the same people but obviously different genetic makeup.
I have dreamed of a world where the air pollution is so bad every back yard is glassed in and the quality of your house and life is determined by the quality of your air filtration system.
Other dreams are clearly of different civilizations and I cannot tell if it is forward, back or sideways.
Time is thought to be linear, but my dreams tell me it is more complex than that. I wonder if it is real at all.
So what can I say definitively?
If I can see things in my dreams that are future, past or sideways then our concept of time is sorely lacking.
Nothing is real in the sense that we like to think things are real. But things are real in a different sense. And real once means real forever.
u3C
My little brain came up with all that?
And my dreams tell me curious things.
I've had what I might call precognitive dreams, that in retrospect were quite clear that, for example my cat would die, or that I would have some surgical procedure done to my abdomen. Surprisingly, my first warning.
There are idiots who will say that my mind or brain is coming up with this stuff for Freudian reasons. Or some other reason. But the fact is sometimes my mind knows things that it is not expected to know. And is either terribly creative, visionary or sees things remotely in space and time.
That's a little frightening if you grew up thinking the world obeyed scientific laws; it throws them out the window.
I'm not good at figuring out what my dreams mean. I'm not sure I want to know what they mean; but most of all I don't want to know when something painful is going to happen.
But the dream predates the pain and is predictive.
Some times a dream is telling me that something is going on at some distance.
When I dream that someone died, they're dead. But I tend to dream about a death about the time it is happening. I fell asleep at 4:00 in the afternoon one Saturday and had a nightmare about someone I knew. I dreamed I was him, dying.
Unpleasant, but accurate.
I was sitting in the Chicago airport waiting for my flight to Madison Wisconsin when the feeling came upon me that I had permission to die. I thought I could die if I wanted to. The feeling stuck with me for a while because it is something that is basically foreign to me. I have not been given permission to die yet.
My brother-in-law was dying. Right then. I found out a few days later.
As you have probably guessed by now, I believe that I will die when I wish to abandon the world. Which seems perfectly normal to me.
I find it equally unpleasant when my dreams inform me of a large body count somewhere in the world and I have to watch. They can be places I know very little about; like Kashmir. Why would I dream about that? In bloody color.
In my dreams, time is oddly dimensioned.
Past, future, multiple presents and lives that run along side mine, more or less.
An odd thing is when I have a dream; like the one where one of the gas giants (I think Uranus but could have been Neptune) was up in the sky instead of the moon.
Close enough to suck stuff into space which according to what I think I know had to have happened so long ago that man should not have been on the planet; let alone a technical civilization that strongly resembled ours.
But I suppose our paleontologists probably don't know everything either. They've just got the bones they can find.
Or it might be in the future; which horrifies me.
I do regret contradicting much of established science; but my dreams do that every time I know something in vivid color that I should not.
I dream about lives that resemble mine in my parents, siblings and time setting but not necessarily all three in the same dream. Other dreams resemble our time with the same people but obviously different genetic makeup.
I have dreamed of a world where the air pollution is so bad every back yard is glassed in and the quality of your house and life is determined by the quality of your air filtration system.
Other dreams are clearly of different civilizations and I cannot tell if it is forward, back or sideways.
Time is thought to be linear, but my dreams tell me it is more complex than that. I wonder if it is real at all.
So what can I say definitively?
If I can see things in my dreams that are future, past or sideways then our concept of time is sorely lacking.
Nothing is real in the sense that we like to think things are real. But things are real in a different sense. And real once means real forever.
u3C
a containerized dream
During a rather peculiar set of circumstances I had a realization that beliefs were simply strongly held fantasies; this is an idea which is both frightening and liberating at the same time.
My scientific world view simply crumbled as I saw it was composed of fluff. And airy fluff at that.
The next thing I understood was that the me focused on the world was not all of me or even a significant part of Me. Behind me was something infinitely more comprehending and capable. In a moment I stepped back from myself and beheld the difference between the two.
I feel held deep in the river of life by a greater part of me that I normally don't sense.
On a related note some years later I had the strangest dream about what I might really be:
Imagine for a moment a cavernous gray cell then think about a rhinoceros sized blue tear-drop shaped electrical cloud grunting energetically around the floor.
Weird, isn't it?
I had been dreaming, and the dream abruptly ended. There I was at rest on the floor of this cavernous box, a roiling blob of vibrating energy.
I felt strangely peaceful although I was very aware of the drone and power of my vibration. I held myself there momentarily observing the walls, comfortable and content until I decided to create a new dream, and put my cat and all my friends in it. I powered up, felt myself revving, and exploded to fill the space; and there I was, me in the new dream, creating the world exactly as I wanted it. Until I woke to this life.
u3C
My scientific world view simply crumbled as I saw it was composed of fluff. And airy fluff at that.
The next thing I understood was that the me focused on the world was not all of me or even a significant part of Me. Behind me was something infinitely more comprehending and capable. In a moment I stepped back from myself and beheld the difference between the two.
I feel held deep in the river of life by a greater part of me that I normally don't sense.
On a related note some years later I had the strangest dream about what I might really be:
Imagine for a moment a cavernous gray cell then think about a rhinoceros sized blue tear-drop shaped electrical cloud grunting energetically around the floor.
Weird, isn't it?
I had been dreaming, and the dream abruptly ended. There I was at rest on the floor of this cavernous box, a roiling blob of vibrating energy.
I felt strangely peaceful although I was very aware of the drone and power of my vibration. I held myself there momentarily observing the walls, comfortable and content until I decided to create a new dream, and put my cat and all my friends in it. I powered up, felt myself revving, and exploded to fill the space; and there I was, me in the new dream, creating the world exactly as I wanted it. Until I woke to this life.
u3C
woods and fields and dreams wisconsin
North central Wisconsin – still in the woods but close to the prairie, open fields and some old trees, will always have a magic for me which is only diminished by my visits. My memories are old, and the changes unsettling. I don't go back anymore.
We rented what could best be called a tar paper shack for a minuscule amount of money every month (we were far from rich) and we would go there as soon as school let out and come back just as school was beginning. I spent the summers there from the time I was a year old until I was seventeen. No electricity, an old and rusted hand pump outside, an outhouse; a kerosene lamp and lantern to light the way at night. It took a long time for us to get a radio.
The house sat on 40 acres which was largely wooded and fenced in except for a couple of small fields. It was dairy country and heifers were kept there; we pumped water for them. Deer would come up to the salt lick and drink from the water we had pumped. There was an old fallen down barn which had been a log cabin. The place seemed drenched in history since it had been built in the 20’s. On one of the trails there were pieces of an old model T.
The train would take us there; my parents somehow finding a ride for the last leg of the journey. Sometimes arriving late at night and only having the lit kerosene lantern to guide us; or the starry sky and moonlight. Other times we would get a ride all the way there.
I learned to read books because I got bored with comics. In that atmosphere the silence could at times be felt. I eventually became interested in ideas. I discovered the world of dreams. The kind you think about not the ones that come at night.
Between vacations we would live just off of First Street in Milwaukee; between Mitchell and Lapham. We left there when I was 10 but it still lives in my memory as the most depressing place I have ever lived. Originally, I didn’t mind it much, but then I went to school and that absolutely horrified me.
In Kindergarten I felt like I was an adult who should be 80 which I think is kind of odd for a child of four.
That dark and dreary place in the city and school represented an unyielding regulation. Some of the other children weren’t civilized; some of the adults weren’t great either. So there was a contrast between the freedom and friendliness of the summers and the inhospitable winters.
When I was 10 we moved to a more middle class area and I eventually went to a college prep high school; developed an interest in science and technology. I learned that the city had a nicer side to it, parks and a university. And a new kind of heaven opened up to me.
u3C
We rented what could best be called a tar paper shack for a minuscule amount of money every month (we were far from rich) and we would go there as soon as school let out and come back just as school was beginning. I spent the summers there from the time I was a year old until I was seventeen. No electricity, an old and rusted hand pump outside, an outhouse; a kerosene lamp and lantern to light the way at night. It took a long time for us to get a radio.
The house sat on 40 acres which was largely wooded and fenced in except for a couple of small fields. It was dairy country and heifers were kept there; we pumped water for them. Deer would come up to the salt lick and drink from the water we had pumped. There was an old fallen down barn which had been a log cabin. The place seemed drenched in history since it had been built in the 20’s. On one of the trails there were pieces of an old model T.
The train would take us there; my parents somehow finding a ride for the last leg of the journey. Sometimes arriving late at night and only having the lit kerosene lantern to guide us; or the starry sky and moonlight. Other times we would get a ride all the way there.
I learned to read books because I got bored with comics. In that atmosphere the silence could at times be felt. I eventually became interested in ideas. I discovered the world of dreams. The kind you think about not the ones that come at night.
Between vacations we would live just off of First Street in Milwaukee; between Mitchell and Lapham. We left there when I was 10 but it still lives in my memory as the most depressing place I have ever lived. Originally, I didn’t mind it much, but then I went to school and that absolutely horrified me.
In Kindergarten I felt like I was an adult who should be 80 which I think is kind of odd for a child of four.
That dark and dreary place in the city and school represented an unyielding regulation. Some of the other children weren’t civilized; some of the adults weren’t great either. So there was a contrast between the freedom and friendliness of the summers and the inhospitable winters.
When I was 10 we moved to a more middle class area and I eventually went to a college prep high school; developed an interest in science and technology. I learned that the city had a nicer side to it, parks and a university. And a new kind of heaven opened up to me.
u3C
the mystique of belief
A friend of mine doesn’t believe in anything that can’t be proved to be real. He thinks we must have a testable paradigm that has been confirmed for anything that we might want to believe.
His is not a viewpoint that I share. Although anything that can be proved real may have technical and scientific merit, in my personal life that is trivial. This is because I have given up asking if something is true and I have begun asking if it is useful, amusing or entertaining.
One of the ideas that I find entertaining is that somehow you can change reality by changing how you think about it. The idea is that you can work with your beliefs and take action that facilitates that change. I dream of wealth, for example, having previously been unworthy (and abysmally poor); I change my belief about my worthiness and that is the one change that cascades into everything else and makes my world a nicer and perhaps wealthier place.
It's really more complicated than that; but you get the idea. It is part of a larger concept that your beliefs and ideas about the world are part of an organic system that is both selecting and creating what you experience. Change your beliefs and ideas and you change the world you live in, and your personal part in it. This is not a solipsistic exercise; because you live in a world of other creatures like yourself, it is a communicative exercise with a far greater breadth than what you would think.
The author of this idea about beliefs was a woman named Jane Roberts; and she created the Seth material. I find it fascinating that she simply came out with this in trance. And her husband just took notes and they published the stuff. Consistent, well thought out, with examples just straight off the note pad with no rewriting. Volume after volume in small print.
If you believe that Seth is a real person or entity as he described himself as he spoke through this woman, then he is a brilliant master of metaphysics; if you think she’s the author then she is imaginatively brilliant.
Whenever anyone says: “You create your own reality” they are repeating something very likely first seen in the Seth books. It was a radical idea at the time. Scads of people who had never read Seth went around repeating it like some new mantra. It has gone on to become part of the language and people say it without thinking in every day discourse.
Seth went on to say that all creation was a translation of something he called feeling-tone into material reality; and that we were in reality each within our own universe. As individuals we are each a component of an entity; what we see is in fact an electrical field upon which reality is materialized so that our multiple lives occur at the same time. They're just intermeshed as the images flash through the field. And the entity puts it together and experiences all it's separate "realities" simultaneously. This would be tantamount to being able to watch a dozen or so movies by seeing a frame from each flash upon the the same screen in repeating sequence. First a frame from this film, then a frame from that, a frame from the third and so forth. At the same time being able to mentally separate the movies and see each as though it were showing in it's own theater. Mental gymnastics that we do without even thinking about it.
On the face of things I would guess that it’s not easy to fit all that into a mechanistic testable paradigm. So I shall have to simply be entertained.
u3C
His is not a viewpoint that I share. Although anything that can be proved real may have technical and scientific merit, in my personal life that is trivial. This is because I have given up asking if something is true and I have begun asking if it is useful, amusing or entertaining.
One of the ideas that I find entertaining is that somehow you can change reality by changing how you think about it. The idea is that you can work with your beliefs and take action that facilitates that change. I dream of wealth, for example, having previously been unworthy (and abysmally poor); I change my belief about my worthiness and that is the one change that cascades into everything else and makes my world a nicer and perhaps wealthier place.
It's really more complicated than that; but you get the idea. It is part of a larger concept that your beliefs and ideas about the world are part of an organic system that is both selecting and creating what you experience. Change your beliefs and ideas and you change the world you live in, and your personal part in it. This is not a solipsistic exercise; because you live in a world of other creatures like yourself, it is a communicative exercise with a far greater breadth than what you would think.
The author of this idea about beliefs was a woman named Jane Roberts; and she created the Seth material. I find it fascinating that she simply came out with this in trance. And her husband just took notes and they published the stuff. Consistent, well thought out, with examples just straight off the note pad with no rewriting. Volume after volume in small print.
If you believe that Seth is a real person or entity as he described himself as he spoke through this woman, then he is a brilliant master of metaphysics; if you think she’s the author then she is imaginatively brilliant.
Whenever anyone says: “You create your own reality” they are repeating something very likely first seen in the Seth books. It was a radical idea at the time. Scads of people who had never read Seth went around repeating it like some new mantra. It has gone on to become part of the language and people say it without thinking in every day discourse.
Seth went on to say that all creation was a translation of something he called feeling-tone into material reality; and that we were in reality each within our own universe. As individuals we are each a component of an entity; what we see is in fact an electrical field upon which reality is materialized so that our multiple lives occur at the same time. They're just intermeshed as the images flash through the field. And the entity puts it together and experiences all it's separate "realities" simultaneously. This would be tantamount to being able to watch a dozen or so movies by seeing a frame from each flash upon the the same screen in repeating sequence. First a frame from this film, then a frame from that, a frame from the third and so forth. At the same time being able to mentally separate the movies and see each as though it were showing in it's own theater. Mental gymnastics that we do without even thinking about it.
On the face of things I would guess that it’s not easy to fit all that into a mechanistic testable paradigm. So I shall have to simply be entertained.
u3C
pj reads a book and learns something
After I had attenuated my spiritual endeavors, and between marriages I began to think that there was some relationship between our thoughts, feelings, and desires with the events and material status of our lives. I had noticed a similarity between daydreams and patterns of thought with what showed up in my life.
I couldn’t put words or particulars to my general sense and then came across one of the many Seth books that had begun to populate the shelves at the local university bookstore.
Some of the ideas in the book were the polar opposite of what sensible people think; but having had some psychic experiences and dreams I was developing a disdain for regular sensibilities, I continued to read.
And so began my long journey and adventure into the life of those who at least endeavor to “create their own reality”.
Although I would be the last to admit it, we live in a world of relationships: friends, family, work, government and others who in some way impinge on our lives. We have work relationships, love and sex relationships, casual get together and drink relationships; come over and let’s celebrate Christmas relationships. These all provide us something and expect something from us. Our friends want us to show up at the appointed tavern and get drunk with them, our bosses want us to be fully functional at work. Our wives want other things, and I’m not sure I want to speculate too much about that.
When we want to change in some significant way, our relationships tug at us; complain to us; potentially pat us on the back or kick us in an inappropriate to mention spot. So we are forced to make decisions; although fate can intervene – in my case a couple of my friends left town. Sometimes people around us don’t want us to succeed; these can be friends or relatives. You fit as you are into their little universe, and when you suddenly say, have more money, you don’t fit the same way.
Learn to say goodbye. Sometimes you have to leave town.
One of the points of the book that I took home is that if you want one thing in particular, you may be able to achieve it. If you want two things that can’t both happen, then you have a problem. This described me perfectly, full of contradictory ideas about how things are; or how things should be.
It helps in the first place to have an idea of what you want: the clearer and more concise the idea the better. For some unfathomable reason that I will probably never know (lots of friends and relatives with diametrically opposed ideas?) I had decided that I shouldn’t know what I want.
Or if I did I shouldn’t tell anyone for the embarrassment that it would cause. Never say you want a great paying job to a socialist relative that you don’t want to disappoint. And if you loan them enough money, they may never feel right about you again.
I could also speculate that I suffered from having given myself over to ideas of enlightenment that were essentially non-rational; this is perhaps the failure of the Western perspective of Eastern ideas. But it had the unfortunate effect of failing me personally along with it.
It is wonderful to be full of Bhakti, or in Western terms the love of God, but it can be bad when you have to work for somebody else and you have to at least appear rational about things.
The university was full of people who were less rational about things than me; the working world was not. What a rude awakening that was!
Maybe I had drunk too much vodka and smoked too much weed and had washed up on the continent of stupidity.
I had quite some distance to crawl back from but at least I had been given a map.
u3C
I couldn’t put words or particulars to my general sense and then came across one of the many Seth books that had begun to populate the shelves at the local university bookstore.
Some of the ideas in the book were the polar opposite of what sensible people think; but having had some psychic experiences and dreams I was developing a disdain for regular sensibilities, I continued to read.
And so began my long journey and adventure into the life of those who at least endeavor to “create their own reality”.
Although I would be the last to admit it, we live in a world of relationships: friends, family, work, government and others who in some way impinge on our lives. We have work relationships, love and sex relationships, casual get together and drink relationships; come over and let’s celebrate Christmas relationships. These all provide us something and expect something from us. Our friends want us to show up at the appointed tavern and get drunk with them, our bosses want us to be fully functional at work. Our wives want other things, and I’m not sure I want to speculate too much about that.
When we want to change in some significant way, our relationships tug at us; complain to us; potentially pat us on the back or kick us in an inappropriate to mention spot. So we are forced to make decisions; although fate can intervene – in my case a couple of my friends left town. Sometimes people around us don’t want us to succeed; these can be friends or relatives. You fit as you are into their little universe, and when you suddenly say, have more money, you don’t fit the same way.
Learn to say goodbye. Sometimes you have to leave town.
One of the points of the book that I took home is that if you want one thing in particular, you may be able to achieve it. If you want two things that can’t both happen, then you have a problem. This described me perfectly, full of contradictory ideas about how things are; or how things should be.
It helps in the first place to have an idea of what you want: the clearer and more concise the idea the better. For some unfathomable reason that I will probably never know (lots of friends and relatives with diametrically opposed ideas?) I had decided that I shouldn’t know what I want.
Or if I did I shouldn’t tell anyone for the embarrassment that it would cause. Never say you want a great paying job to a socialist relative that you don’t want to disappoint. And if you loan them enough money, they may never feel right about you again.
I could also speculate that I suffered from having given myself over to ideas of enlightenment that were essentially non-rational; this is perhaps the failure of the Western perspective of Eastern ideas. But it had the unfortunate effect of failing me personally along with it.
It is wonderful to be full of Bhakti, or in Western terms the love of God, but it can be bad when you have to work for somebody else and you have to at least appear rational about things.
The university was full of people who were less rational about things than me; the working world was not. What a rude awakening that was!
Maybe I had drunk too much vodka and smoked too much weed and had washed up on the continent of stupidity.
I had quite some distance to crawl back from but at least I had been given a map.
u3C
missed my train
Normally, my wife would drive me to the BART station at El Cerrito and we would get there in time for the 7:25 train; which would take me to Fruitvale in time to catch the shuttle to the business park I worked at. The secretary at my place of business would also be on that BART train: every morning without fail.
One morning everything was going normally, and then strangely, things started to slow. We didn’t make the light we always made; we got behind somebody who was slow. And I missed my train.
The secretary hadn’t missed the train. And when I arrived at work she asked me if I had been on it and had seen the man who was walking up and down the center aisle with a knife demanding money from people.
u3C
One morning everything was going normally, and then strangely, things started to slow. We didn’t make the light we always made; we got behind somebody who was slow. And I missed my train.
The secretary hadn’t missed the train. And when I arrived at work she asked me if I had been on it and had seen the man who was walking up and down the center aisle with a knife demanding money from people.
u3C
there can be only one
It takes effort to create a piece of fiction, especially readable fiction, and I should think that creativity of the kind that creates my dreams should be required to work more. That would be more fair, and I believe virtuous. I’m simply much smarter asleep than awake and it bothers me. I think I should like to go through life asleep, I would do much better in so many things.
It would be nice if I could come away with something really inspiring from my dreams, but they confuse me. Such variety, colors, textures and experience. I am inclined to think they should tell me something, but the simple truth is they’re my dreams. And dreams are just dreams, right?
I have visited the gods or been visited by them, so much that I believe them to be friends; and I have seen madmen in my dreams and dictators and heads of state; visited ancient places and the moon planets unknown to us, but promised in the future. Some of the dreams seem like they could be today, but me in a different life that could have been. Or in a world that could have been. Or perhaps a different world or time altogether.
But there is only one world?
What if the basic assumption that we operate on that there is only one: one world, one Maya, one universe, one person, one soul, one God is wrong? What if the whole scheme of things is based on a misconception that we are real?
What if we and everything about us is only here virtually?
Perhaps there is only one BOX that flickers with electrical life and we are all a series of images and ideas within its vision.
u3C
It would be nice if I could come away with something really inspiring from my dreams, but they confuse me. Such variety, colors, textures and experience. I am inclined to think they should tell me something, but the simple truth is they’re my dreams. And dreams are just dreams, right?
I have visited the gods or been visited by them, so much that I believe them to be friends; and I have seen madmen in my dreams and dictators and heads of state; visited ancient places and the moon planets unknown to us, but promised in the future. Some of the dreams seem like they could be today, but me in a different life that could have been. Or in a world that could have been. Or perhaps a different world or time altogether.
But there is only one world?
What if the basic assumption that we operate on that there is only one: one world, one Maya, one universe, one person, one soul, one God is wrong? What if the whole scheme of things is based on a misconception that we are real?
What if we and everything about us is only here virtually?
Perhaps there is only one BOX that flickers with electrical life and we are all a series of images and ideas within its vision.
u3C
Maya
An interesting Indian idea is Maya which in the books I read was translated as illusion, but it is more than that it is a personified God: someone in charge of the illusion; and perhaps the illusion itself.
Hinduism is a sophisticated religion: we live under a wishing tree and desires are met; we are serviced. Maya provides the framework for servicing.
But there is another aspect to Hindu thinking: the Law of Karma, which is not a deity. Karma is not personified: it mechanically keeps us chained to the wheel and dispenses rewards and punishments. The wheel is life itself and the prospect of continuous rebirth, which is seen as a bad thing. As we move forward Willy-nilly being alternatively bashed and pleasured by this uncompromising arrangement.
Rewards and punishments are both earned.
This is unpalatable for any of the more genteel and advanced spirits fortunate enough to come across an enlightened Master or Teacher willing to guide them to their salvation away from all this. They also have to be willing to do the work that the path entails.
The goal and purpose of Hindu based mysticism is to free us from the afore mentioned wheel. And get us outside the purview of Maya. Although I'm not at all clear where that would be.
Would I really want to go there?
u3C
Hinduism is a sophisticated religion: we live under a wishing tree and desires are met; we are serviced. Maya provides the framework for servicing.
But there is another aspect to Hindu thinking: the Law of Karma, which is not a deity. Karma is not personified: it mechanically keeps us chained to the wheel and dispenses rewards and punishments. The wheel is life itself and the prospect of continuous rebirth, which is seen as a bad thing. As we move forward Willy-nilly being alternatively bashed and pleasured by this uncompromising arrangement.
Rewards and punishments are both earned.
This is unpalatable for any of the more genteel and advanced spirits fortunate enough to come across an enlightened Master or Teacher willing to guide them to their salvation away from all this. They also have to be willing to do the work that the path entails.
The goal and purpose of Hindu based mysticism is to free us from the afore mentioned wheel. And get us outside the purview of Maya. Although I'm not at all clear where that would be.
Would I really want to go there?
u3C
possibly enlightenment
Enlightenment means different things to different people. Naturally, in pursuit of mystical goals it is not the French Enlightenment or intellectual enlightenment. Mystical enlightenment is also difficult to talk about or define, although it can be a personal goal.
According to the original Taoist text the way or path you can talk about isn't the Way.
I happened to become involved in Hindu mysticism some years ago which is from a different culture than the Midwestern American one that I came from.
Hinduism is a complex mixture of Gods and Beliefs: eccentric and all encompassing at the same time; entirely unknowable especially for a westerner who speaks no Hindi.
It also has a long tradition of Yoga and Mystical practice which I was fortunate enough to come into contact with in a personal and life changing way. At the same time I was influenced personally by friends who were involved in Buddhist and Taoist thought.
Hindu mysticism involves a kind of spiritual physiology: Spiritual Eye, Thousand Petal Lotus and all the Chakras that descend down the spine to the power located at the base.
You may ask if this is just wacko weird stuff, but when you work on it long enough and intently enough it can surprise you with its reality.
Now that I look back I wonder why this strange stuff happened to me. But I think I stumbled onto a genuine mystic, and he was of all things a retired auto-executive.
He cautioned everyone at the initiation that these things are kept secret because people have been persecuted for talking about them in public.
If you have read any western history you know about the love of the torch and the bon-fire; but this is the internet age and anyone should have the option of experiencing a greater psychic depth; bon-fires not withstanding.
Enlightenment is an approach to something that subsumes someone in a love and joy, sense of service and responsibility that transcends the goals normally associated with the good life. Not to disparage my Buddhist friends, but I don’t think it snuffs anything out.
I do however have to insert the disclaimer that I never made it into the embrace of that something special which I sought.
u3C
According to the original Taoist text the way or path you can talk about isn't the Way.
I happened to become involved in Hindu mysticism some years ago which is from a different culture than the Midwestern American one that I came from.
Hinduism is a complex mixture of Gods and Beliefs: eccentric and all encompassing at the same time; entirely unknowable especially for a westerner who speaks no Hindi.
It also has a long tradition of Yoga and Mystical practice which I was fortunate enough to come into contact with in a personal and life changing way. At the same time I was influenced personally by friends who were involved in Buddhist and Taoist thought.
Hindu mysticism involves a kind of spiritual physiology: Spiritual Eye, Thousand Petal Lotus and all the Chakras that descend down the spine to the power located at the base.
You may ask if this is just wacko weird stuff, but when you work on it long enough and intently enough it can surprise you with its reality.
Now that I look back I wonder why this strange stuff happened to me. But I think I stumbled onto a genuine mystic, and he was of all things a retired auto-executive.
He cautioned everyone at the initiation that these things are kept secret because people have been persecuted for talking about them in public.
If you have read any western history you know about the love of the torch and the bon-fire; but this is the internet age and anyone should have the option of experiencing a greater psychic depth; bon-fires not withstanding.
Enlightenment is an approach to something that subsumes someone in a love and joy, sense of service and responsibility that transcends the goals normally associated with the good life. Not to disparage my Buddhist friends, but I don’t think it snuffs anything out.
I do however have to insert the disclaimer that I never made it into the embrace of that something special which I sought.
u3C
What is that Buzzing?
Just a few days before my birthday I had the most bizarre sexual experience of my life. If I hadn't been obsessed with esoteric yogic ideas I would have made something completely different out of it. In yogic circles it is considered the prelude to Samadhi and Enlightenment.
Unfortunately my fingers could not hold the trapeze and I fell off.
An ordinary person might think of it as sex with God - it is that powerful and exhausting.
Kundalini lies coiled around the base of the spine like a serpent, and can be roused to stand erect with the head in the center of the brain.
This experience is one of the goals of Yoga and it can be enlightening, devastating or simply frightening and exhausting.
I have heard horror stories about some people who raise it and have severe problems, but it's not the kind of problem that you can go to the doctor with because they don't believe in it.
I didn't really believe in it either. Like most people I don't believe just because someone told me.
But something started slithering up my back during sitting meditation.
A couple of nights later, I had done my normal meditation and lay down before drifting off to sleep. My mind was unusually calm and I was able to relax my normal mental conversation and become quiet. Then I felt something at the base of my spine that felt erotic. I tried to feel it move back and forth. Something locked in the coccyx. I worked with it.
Something warmly sexual and vibrating emerged.
Imagine a big lumbering bumble bee; deeply throbbing and buzzing, beginning to ascend your spine as you lay relaxed. It is sexual; so sexual you can feel yourself becoming aroused and as you are about to burst forth a deeper feeling hits you and you drop; feel yourself drop through the floor and start to move towards your head.
It was one bizarre all engulfing sensation after another. I panicked and was afraid of fatal consequences. It was that scary; my heart raced.
After the experience, I felt weak and utterly limp, as though my whole body had done things I could never physically do. I slept and was thankful to be alive and uninjured the next morning.
u3C
Unfortunately my fingers could not hold the trapeze and I fell off.
An ordinary person might think of it as sex with God - it is that powerful and exhausting.
Kundalini lies coiled around the base of the spine like a serpent, and can be roused to stand erect with the head in the center of the brain.
This experience is one of the goals of Yoga and it can be enlightening, devastating or simply frightening and exhausting.
I have heard horror stories about some people who raise it and have severe problems, but it's not the kind of problem that you can go to the doctor with because they don't believe in it.
I didn't really believe in it either. Like most people I don't believe just because someone told me.
But something started slithering up my back during sitting meditation.
A couple of nights later, I had done my normal meditation and lay down before drifting off to sleep. My mind was unusually calm and I was able to relax my normal mental conversation and become quiet. Then I felt something at the base of my spine that felt erotic. I tried to feel it move back and forth. Something locked in the coccyx. I worked with it.
Something warmly sexual and vibrating emerged.
Imagine a big lumbering bumble bee; deeply throbbing and buzzing, beginning to ascend your spine as you lay relaxed. It is sexual; so sexual you can feel yourself becoming aroused and as you are about to burst forth a deeper feeling hits you and you drop; feel yourself drop through the floor and start to move towards your head.
It was one bizarre all engulfing sensation after another. I panicked and was afraid of fatal consequences. It was that scary; my heart raced.
After the experience, I felt weak and utterly limp, as though my whole body had done things I could never physically do. I slept and was thankful to be alive and uninjured the next morning.
u3C
Infrastructure of Imagination
I often ask myself when I look at the world, is this an infrastructure of imagination?
I dreamed I was in a gray cocoon where I could dream of anything, materialize anything I pleased. I created a dream of a new life and lived it. But do the ideas and the company come from within me? Am I participating in a solipsistic paradise, and my playmates and friends just figments of my fantasy?
What am I then, but a gossamer of frequencies and light. A blue electrical haze that, between dreams grunts around the floor of this enormous gray internal edifice.
I dreamed I was in a gray cocoon where I could dream of anything, materialize anything I pleased. I created a dream of a new life and lived it. But do the ideas and the company come from within me? Am I participating in a solipsistic paradise, and my playmates and friends just figments of my fantasy?
What am I then, but a gossamer of frequencies and light. A blue electrical haze that, between dreams grunts around the floor of this enormous gray internal edifice.
Shadows and Patches
Some people don’t need glasses, others see quite well with them and then there are those unfortunates who can see light, shadows and perhaps a patch of color if everything is just right.
My psychic ability falls into the “shadows and a patch” category. It’s not enough to point to someone and tell them that they cheated on their wife, but it is enough to sometimes get out of the way when something truly ugly is coming down the road. I had one such lucky experience and many simple feelings that I know I should have paid more attention to. It's amazing how useful this kind of talent can be.
Occasionally psychic stuff is simple nonsense: I remember once I knew that if I entered the office check number pool I would win. I agonized over whether it was fair for me to take other peoples money if I had an unfair advantage. I gave in to greed the second time I had that insight and then proceeded to play when I knew I would lose out of a sense of fairness. I also had a run of football pool winnings for a couple of years when almost every team I "liked" won. Other kinds of contests don't work out nearly as well and I lose consistently.
This is not enough psychic ability to start a conversation about the existence of psychic stuff, but it is enough to get me into trouble if I talk loosely about it to people with rigid ideas about what is real. I don't mention finding system problems by intuition, and when I know things I shouldn't I invent rational reasons to explain my views.
I appear very rational and predictably right. I lie with a straight face which is odd because normally I have a built in resistance to lying.
The insanity and disingenuousness of this is not lost on me, and the list of things that convince me that my talent although imperfect is real is quite long. So sometimes I know things; and it makes no sense to anger people by talking about it so I simply either hold my tongue or create a reasonable lie that sounds good if I have to. I bow to the gods of rationality because some people worship at their temples.
So many of my relatives, coworkers and friends are either scientists or have a scientific bent and I don’t believe in some ideas dear to their hearts for the simple reason that something important in life is clearly not talked about in scientific writing.
In fact my view of things would be considered patent falsehood. Instead of observing phenomena, people predict from some theory that this can't happen and that seems terribly unscientific to me.
I can't be psychic because there is no scientific framework to hang it on. Rather like dawn on a world on which Heliocentric theories have not yet risen.
I don't think the world is ultimately material either, but that's just me.
Crazy, right?
The scientific and traditionally Aristotelian viewpoint is that the world is material. Which by the way is all we need to know or discuss since nothing else matters, and life, thought and so forth is a side effect of that.
Well this is so self evident it is assumed to be fact. But we really don't scientifically know what materiality is. We just play along with what seems to be there.
Everybody believes what everybody sees. Fish do not believe in air.
Well, you can say that there is the hypothesis is that this world is real but what if you saw something every now and then that contradicted that, and indicated that the world wasn't real in quite the way we think?
One fact breaks the hypothesis. My problem is that it's hard to share the facts.
Sometimes I look at a person and glimpse the the halo surrounding them; and I see it move and change; and the egg like shape of someone’s enclosing light; and lightning like flashes in it when I angered them; the ripples and explosions that surround a person when they are upset.
All these could be blithely chalked up to hallucination although they do get reported by psychics but what about the dreams that I have when someone I know dies and I seem to be going through it with them?
And then they are actually dead.
When I seem to be experiencing someone's death, I find the ideas they have of death strange; I had a different experience when it was me, although in my case I didn't die (which I cannot prove).
So I don’t talk about what I see in polite company and especially around those people I care most about. Well maybe my blog is my way of doing that.
My psychic ability falls into the “shadows and a patch” category. It’s not enough to point to someone and tell them that they cheated on their wife, but it is enough to sometimes get out of the way when something truly ugly is coming down the road. I had one such lucky experience and many simple feelings that I know I should have paid more attention to. It's amazing how useful this kind of talent can be.
Occasionally psychic stuff is simple nonsense: I remember once I knew that if I entered the office check number pool I would win. I agonized over whether it was fair for me to take other peoples money if I had an unfair advantage. I gave in to greed the second time I had that insight and then proceeded to play when I knew I would lose out of a sense of fairness. I also had a run of football pool winnings for a couple of years when almost every team I "liked" won. Other kinds of contests don't work out nearly as well and I lose consistently.
This is not enough psychic ability to start a conversation about the existence of psychic stuff, but it is enough to get me into trouble if I talk loosely about it to people with rigid ideas about what is real. I don't mention finding system problems by intuition, and when I know things I shouldn't I invent rational reasons to explain my views.
I appear very rational and predictably right. I lie with a straight face which is odd because normally I have a built in resistance to lying.
The insanity and disingenuousness of this is not lost on me, and the list of things that convince me that my talent although imperfect is real is quite long. So sometimes I know things; and it makes no sense to anger people by talking about it so I simply either hold my tongue or create a reasonable lie that sounds good if I have to. I bow to the gods of rationality because some people worship at their temples.
So many of my relatives, coworkers and friends are either scientists or have a scientific bent and I don’t believe in some ideas dear to their hearts for the simple reason that something important in life is clearly not talked about in scientific writing.
In fact my view of things would be considered patent falsehood. Instead of observing phenomena, people predict from some theory that this can't happen and that seems terribly unscientific to me.
I can't be psychic because there is no scientific framework to hang it on. Rather like dawn on a world on which Heliocentric theories have not yet risen.
I don't think the world is ultimately material either, but that's just me.
Crazy, right?
The scientific and traditionally Aristotelian viewpoint is that the world is material. Which by the way is all we need to know or discuss since nothing else matters, and life, thought and so forth is a side effect of that.
Well this is so self evident it is assumed to be fact. But we really don't scientifically know what materiality is. We just play along with what seems to be there.
Everybody believes what everybody sees. Fish do not believe in air.
Well, you can say that there is the hypothesis is that this world is real but what if you saw something every now and then that contradicted that, and indicated that the world wasn't real in quite the way we think?
One fact breaks the hypothesis. My problem is that it's hard to share the facts.
Sometimes I look at a person and glimpse the the halo surrounding them; and I see it move and change; and the egg like shape of someone’s enclosing light; and lightning like flashes in it when I angered them; the ripples and explosions that surround a person when they are upset.
All these could be blithely chalked up to hallucination although they do get reported by psychics but what about the dreams that I have when someone I know dies and I seem to be going through it with them?
And then they are actually dead.
When I seem to be experiencing someone's death, I find the ideas they have of death strange; I had a different experience when it was me, although in my case I didn't die (which I cannot prove).
So I don’t talk about what I see in polite company and especially around those people I care most about. Well maybe my blog is my way of doing that.
Ambiance & Meaning
Life and dreams seem oddly imbued with ambiance, pathos and meaning. Whatever they happen to be at the time.
I had the oddest dream of walking in an area of town that was close to where I had grown up. A chill in the air, snow on the ground and the various store fronts and wooden buildings gave the whole place a Christmas postcard glow. As I was walking, I abruptly changed perspective and took a very close look at a small part of a door in the distance. Miraculously and surprisingly, I was able to ratchet it closer and closer.
Have you ever taken a look at a picture in a glossy magazine through a microscope?
Dots, small patches of color on a glaringly white background. Like little daubs of paint on a canvas making up the whole picture. As though the buildings I was looking at weren't really there, just painted onto some larger than life stark white canvas.
Naturally, it ruined the ambiance and I woke up.
I had the oddest dream of walking in an area of town that was close to where I had grown up. A chill in the air, snow on the ground and the various store fronts and wooden buildings gave the whole place a Christmas postcard glow. As I was walking, I abruptly changed perspective and took a very close look at a small part of a door in the distance. Miraculously and surprisingly, I was able to ratchet it closer and closer.
Have you ever taken a look at a picture in a glossy magazine through a microscope?
Dots, small patches of color on a glaringly white background. Like little daubs of paint on a canvas making up the whole picture. As though the buildings I was looking at weren't really there, just painted onto some larger than life stark white canvas.
Naturally, it ruined the ambiance and I woke up.
A Painful Memory
My very earliest memories are of being mercilessly teased by my next oldest brother and sibling rival. I must have been about two when he told me to jump up and down naked on my bed and then said he would tell our parents that I was jumping up and down on the bed naked.
I began life laughing at his jokes and enjoying a pleasure in life that I recollect with a sense of envy.
But life can change. A few years later I feared for the lives of my parents and prayed for their continued survival. My mother was desperately ill and my father had heart disease both of which had presented about the time I was eight.
It was rather touch and go.
That was back in the good old days when not a lot was known about these diseases compared to now. I asked an older sister about how people got sick and she told me about bacteria and disease.
In my child’s mind I thought that I could learn enough about biological science that I could
bring my mother back if she died. I didn’t know very much about corpses then or how final death really is.
Both my parents managed to survive much longer than I had anticipated. I didn’t find out until
later their actual medical condition and how fortunate I was to have them at all.
The trips to the shack in north central Wisconsin managed to strengthen my mother: long walks, sunshine, fresh air and as I learned later proximity to where her family was originally from.
I think having the kids out of the house in the summer months was great for my father because he had time to do home projects like paint the place (the inside, it was a rental) and not have children under foot.
It was a let up from stresses of family life.
Both my parents were actually quite old by the standards of that time and I knew it.
Eventually there were books on bacteria and my understanding of such things in my teens grew because my older brother, the one who occasionally protected me from the deliberate teaser and rival was passionately interested in such things and kept those kinds of books around.
The sister who had explained bacteria and disease to me had been living in London for a couple of years by the time I was sixteen and after she came home for a brief visit I rode the bus back to the airport with her. After I saw her off I had an uncomfortable feeling that I would not see her again.
She died of a brain tumor in London.
That particular sister was one of three that were children of both my mother and father. She was also the one without apparent brain dysfunction and both beautiful and helpful. She was my personal Angel responsible for so many of my better sensibilities and I loved her dearly.
I think her death crushed my father. He was sitting in a chair at the dining room table and I stood over him as he heard the news and he broke down and cried. He said "A father should not outlive his children." He apologized to me for weeping in front of me as I put my hands on his shoulders and said it was OK for him to cry. I was simply oblivious and unfeeling.
At the same time my mother was lying close to death in a local hospital and my father forbade us tell her about our sisters death. He was afraid of losing them both.
I knew she wouldn’t die then. I have no idea why.
I began life laughing at his jokes and enjoying a pleasure in life that I recollect with a sense of envy.
But life can change. A few years later I feared for the lives of my parents and prayed for their continued survival. My mother was desperately ill and my father had heart disease both of which had presented about the time I was eight.
It was rather touch and go.
That was back in the good old days when not a lot was known about these diseases compared to now. I asked an older sister about how people got sick and she told me about bacteria and disease.
In my child’s mind I thought that I could learn enough about biological science that I could
bring my mother back if she died. I didn’t know very much about corpses then or how final death really is.
Both my parents managed to survive much longer than I had anticipated. I didn’t find out until
later their actual medical condition and how fortunate I was to have them at all.
The trips to the shack in north central Wisconsin managed to strengthen my mother: long walks, sunshine, fresh air and as I learned later proximity to where her family was originally from.
I think having the kids out of the house in the summer months was great for my father because he had time to do home projects like paint the place (the inside, it was a rental) and not have children under foot.
It was a let up from stresses of family life.
Both my parents were actually quite old by the standards of that time and I knew it.
Eventually there were books on bacteria and my understanding of such things in my teens grew because my older brother, the one who occasionally protected me from the deliberate teaser and rival was passionately interested in such things and kept those kinds of books around.
The sister who had explained bacteria and disease to me had been living in London for a couple of years by the time I was sixteen and after she came home for a brief visit I rode the bus back to the airport with her. After I saw her off I had an uncomfortable feeling that I would not see her again.
She died of a brain tumor in London.
That particular sister was one of three that were children of both my mother and father. She was also the one without apparent brain dysfunction and both beautiful and helpful. She was my personal Angel responsible for so many of my better sensibilities and I loved her dearly.
I think her death crushed my father. He was sitting in a chair at the dining room table and I stood over him as he heard the news and he broke down and cried. He said "A father should not outlive his children." He apologized to me for weeping in front of me as I put my hands on his shoulders and said it was OK for him to cry. I was simply oblivious and unfeeling.
At the same time my mother was lying close to death in a local hospital and my father forbade us tell her about our sisters death. He was afraid of losing them both.
I knew she wouldn’t die then. I have no idea why.
Some Crazy People
Some crazy people think that there is a level of the imagination where we communicate and that what we imagine can be made real.
If you have ever had a sudden inspiration that someone you were thinking of and wanted to see would be somewhere and you then met them there as if brought by invitation then you have an inkling of what I mean.
We wander into events such as this without even thinking of them as bits of things that cannot happen which intrude into the world. I like the term coincidence to describe them especially when they seem so common. Well, common for some of us.
The idea is that the connection between the imagination and reality is a real and physical connection. We think imagining is something that our brains do.
But are we just our brains?
This makes sense if you think of the physical world as being an extension of this congress of minds rather then existing like some dumb thing on it’s own in a cold and brazen universe.
If you read about Milarepa who was a yogi who lived in Tibet quite some time ago, you will see that ancient magic is composed of two parts: visualization of something and the ability of the mind to focus entirely on it and make it real. That second part is something that can be developed through years of the practice of concentration: until the mind serves as a
device to create and abruptly make real.
Is this where Buddhist one pointedness of mind comes from?
But like a genie in a bottle or the magician's servant set loose on the world there is a catch: the creation does not stop there, and there are rules some of them hazardous to the health of the hapless practitioner. But I don't believe that these rules were put in place by some authoritarian power, but rather are the structural characteristics of creativity itself.
Even such an unmapped land as the imagination has contours, barriers and watchdogs that bite. Shooting oneself in the foot is an ancient human characteristic even before the invention of guns.
But the principal that imagination is creative physically has a broader sense for those of us less endowed than the musclemen of the long dead past: and a more natural and low key process.
There are those sleepy moments when thoughts flicker across the inner eye and each one is at once a feeling that communicates its level of comfort and pleasure: brightness, a gestalt of color, sky and perhaps a splash wind and water. Each also a glimpse into the texture of a day you believe is a day to come.
I would think that this is not the vision of what is real but not yet; this is the creation of what will come; a day or two like some construction project yet to be completed and made firm in the mind. We do this every day of our lives and think nothing of it.
If we are creating the future, what is it when we get there?
Well, real life: believed to be cast in concrete and unalterable.
If you have ever had a sudden inspiration that someone you were thinking of and wanted to see would be somewhere and you then met them there as if brought by invitation then you have an inkling of what I mean.
We wander into events such as this without even thinking of them as bits of things that cannot happen which intrude into the world. I like the term coincidence to describe them especially when they seem so common. Well, common for some of us.
The idea is that the connection between the imagination and reality is a real and physical connection. We think imagining is something that our brains do.
But are we just our brains?
This makes sense if you think of the physical world as being an extension of this congress of minds rather then existing like some dumb thing on it’s own in a cold and brazen universe.
If you read about Milarepa who was a yogi who lived in Tibet quite some time ago, you will see that ancient magic is composed of two parts: visualization of something and the ability of the mind to focus entirely on it and make it real. That second part is something that can be developed through years of the practice of concentration: until the mind serves as a
device to create and abruptly make real.
Is this where Buddhist one pointedness of mind comes from?
But like a genie in a bottle or the magician's servant set loose on the world there is a catch: the creation does not stop there, and there are rules some of them hazardous to the health of the hapless practitioner. But I don't believe that these rules were put in place by some authoritarian power, but rather are the structural characteristics of creativity itself.
Even such an unmapped land as the imagination has contours, barriers and watchdogs that bite. Shooting oneself in the foot is an ancient human characteristic even before the invention of guns.
But the principal that imagination is creative physically has a broader sense for those of us less endowed than the musclemen of the long dead past: and a more natural and low key process.
There are those sleepy moments when thoughts flicker across the inner eye and each one is at once a feeling that communicates its level of comfort and pleasure: brightness, a gestalt of color, sky and perhaps a splash wind and water. Each also a glimpse into the texture of a day you believe is a day to come.
I would think that this is not the vision of what is real but not yet; this is the creation of what will come; a day or two like some construction project yet to be completed and made firm in the mind. We do this every day of our lives and think nothing of it.
If we are creating the future, what is it when we get there?
Well, real life: believed to be cast in concrete and unalterable.
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