For an explanation of the Channeled writings, see the June 29 2018 post

April 19, 2022

Don’t imagine that this world is of a serious nature, that it is a specific making. It was a thought in a spacious space in this mind without noise. Then the world had no form or sound, its seams were not there, it was seamless. In the silence it was formed out of pure thought without any purpose. It is the essence of laughter, it is the bliss of the entity that cannot be conceived of. The laughter wells up out of the seamless silence which is the shining void, the unfathomable source of all energy, the mother if all form. It can emerge only in the noiseless mind, the mind in which all thinking has come to a stop. What emerges from the silent mind is unwilled. It is a spontaneous upwelling which is consonant with the Tao.

Then what is the purpose of this writing? What is to be said now? Let us assume that the ongoing of this opportunity for the appearance of the supreme identity, in the form of its creation, is an end worth pursuing. if this is the case, then modifications and minor changes will not serve now. It is too late for anything less than total radical fundamental change, which must be committed to, must be dedicated. The contextual force which binds all together cannot hold in the face of the enormous affront which has been perpetrated. It will disintegrate and this opportunity will have passed forever.

Ultimately this is of no consequence, the identity throughout all of its creations will find expression as it sees fit. But what concerns us here is this reality here and now, its our only one.

April 18 2022

When I started this blog five years ago, one of my objectives was to record a series of writings that I called the Channeled Writings, thus allowing them to be seen by whoever needs to see them. Moving from Austin to Eugene put that on hold, and so I was not posting for three years. Now I’m at a point at which I feel the need to complete the transcription.

If you are curious as to what they are, I refer you to the post entitled The Opening dated June 29, 2018. So now in April 2022 I return to this task. Twelve of the writings have been posted, and another eight will follow this . All are noted as Channeled writing, and are among a number of other non-channeled posts.

If you are interested in reading any of these, I suggest that you begin with the post dated July 1, One Turn (the first writing to emerge) , then August 18 2018, As It Is, then the Oct 5 post, Importance. My favorite is the Sept 25 post, Vacant.

June 16 2019

“There” was Austin. It’s a terrific city, full of life and energy. I had lived there almost ten years, in the same agreeable condo all that time. I had a life and network of friends and associations there, interesting and fulfilling. I thought it was the last place for me. I did not intend to partake of the adventure of relocating to another place. But daughter Sarah and husband Scott, who lived near there, very much wanted to relocate. And they wanted me to come along.

When our mother was well along into needing care, it was difficult for S & S who lived in Texas, my brother who lived in Cambridge, and me in the various places I lived, to attend to her. So she had to go into an assisted living facility, and afterwards to a nursing home. It was all deeply difficult and unsatisfactory, a sad arrival at the end for her, and an easy excuse for us to think that it should have been otherwise.

For my part, I wanted to make it easy for S & S to deal with this aging parent. So I agreed to the make the move with them to wherever. It will be easier for them to keep an eye on me if I’m right there. Fortunately we all like each other.

The relocating process started last October and the physical act of getting there took about six months, landing in April of this year. And so “there” is now “here”, that is to say, Eugene Oregon. The story of how it all came about would take too much time and energy to recount. The most involved component of the move was getting two dogs and five cats two thousand miles from Texas to Oregon. Never again I fervently hope.

“Here” is Oregon. It’s beautiful here, and the social climate is closer to our own. “Here” is Eugene. We just got here, and so far its hard to know what kind of place it is. We have a very satisfactory house with a big yard and big big trees and flowering things of all sorts. Now there is settling in, and its time to begin reconstructing an interesting and fulfilling life. We’ll see how it goes.

For an explanation of the Channeled writings see the June 29 2018 post

October 30, 2018

The day before Halloween. What should be said now?

It is about vacantness, and about being empty. The necessary condition of the self if the Spirit is to appear is that the I be absent. The Spirit cannot fill a vessel that is already full. Perhaps it can, but it wont, that is not its nature. It will not be contaminated. The self full of itself is polluted, so what the Spirit comes the self must disappear. Then there is the clean void which is the Spirits home. This implies that the self must die. The empty space which is inhabited by the Spirit is alway reserved for Death.

Death and the Spirit are the same. This seems like the most impossible paradox, it seems utterly contradictory. It is the origin of our blinding fear of Death. If we were truly able to see the Spirit and Death as the same, we would rejoice and never fear anything again. The knowledge of this secret would liberate us to live fully. But of course we cling to our selfhood as though that were life, thinking that this clinging would stave off Death. How’s wonderfully wrong we are about this, how blind to the truth! This is the greatest foolishness of humanness. No wonder the images of Jesus and the Buddha present such sweet sad resignation. For they know that this must be suffered through.

If we were to embrace Death as our constant walking companion we could have life in its fullness also!

For an explanation of the Channeled writings see the June 29 2018 post.

October 5 2018

Thus learning is about importance. There is none.

What an outrageous idea, that there is no importance! My beliefs are important, my self is very important, my goals, my concepts, my identifications, my validations. But there is no one who is “my”. My “me” is a thought and thought is a mechanical happening in the brain, it has no correlate in reality. But what will we do if we don’t do? What will we be if its not important? I think that I must have something to magnetize together my fragmented parts. Things would fall apart otherwise. This must be true, since I just thought it. There is so much for me to justify! Just listen.

If we don’t stop (insert your favorite anathema) the planet Earth will not survive. If we don’t start (insert your favorite cause) the planet Earth will not survive. If we (insert your favorite hope) the planet Earth might survive. So what? Where is it written that Planet Earth should survive? All things are flowing from creation to decay, including the planet and the solar system and the galaxy and the universe. It is egocentric nonsense that survival is important. It’s not.

But I, I am important! I must survive, I must continue. The image that I call myself – as though the self were a thing that I could own – is so important that I will create endless suffering to defend it, to perpetuate it. This entity will use the power of thought to create a center called me, I, which it will go to any extreme to preserve. Thought will create the view that life is a thing to which I must cling, and that death is the enemy to be fought off, and that eternal life must be attained. To this utmost importance is attached.

Not only is it not important, its not possible. Surviving is a function of time. Time is a creation of thought. Hotspur saw it – thought’s the slave of life and life, Time’s fool. And Time, which takes survey of all the world, must have a stop.

If nothing is important – and its not – that means that whatever comes to pass, whatever happens, is OK. I might like it, I might not like it, it may be wonderful, it may be horrible, it may be tremendously inconvenient, it may shatter the image of myself – it makes no difference. It all works and happens perfectly. It is all, all, all perfectly OK. God has breathed creation into being, it sparkles, it bursts, it is borne away. God is dancing, and of the dance no trace remains other than the presence.

Can I begin to measure the impact of this? If it is as it is, and it is all working perfectly, there is a tremendous impact on my life. To know this can transform my construct of life. It means that there is nothing, no thing to fear. There is no thing about which I need to generate anxiety. It means that no thing that I must do, no thing which I must become, no place for me to go, nothing to grasp for, nothing to desire, nothing to reject, nothing to think about. Free of all this what are the possibilities?

I could choose to create the dance of life as each moment appears, extend each gesture fully and joyfully, and let it go. I could choose to dance in awe and wonder, and look for no traces to remain. If I were to choose these, I would find total freedom. I might find welling up from within a great outpouring of compassion, of kindness, love. It is all there is, in perfect fullness. It is of no importance.

October 28 2018

Over a lifetime many many things have been close and familiar, known, used, put away. Often there is a gap, a disturbance, an absence. After a while you might want to see it, touch it, experience it again. And then the familiar cant be found. Search and search, try to remember where it was, what it looked like, how it sounded, what its texture was. But it is as though it has vaporized, disintegrated, disappeared into the void. Is that the fate of everything in the universe? Well yes, since it all exists only in my brain, it has no veridical reality. So goodbye yellow brick road, you never existed in the first place. And this is the fate of everything, since it is all in my head and that will close down sooner or later. It’s foolish to grieve over what never was.

October 8 2018

So Yeats observed. But, what things? Is it the civility that allows a society to function in a coherent and productive way? Is it the political process that fosters cooperation in the governing of a nation? Is it the tolerance and understanding that allows you to have your beliefs and opinions, and at the same time for me to have mine? The land of the free? Liberty and justice for all?

What falls apart? Perhaps it is the infrastructure built by the lowest bidder. Or maybe it is cities that crumble and rot. Perhaps it is natural processes subverted by out of control growth and rapacious greed. The astonishingly beautiful natural world ruined with plastic and carbon emissions, or sold out to destruction.

What? An aging body that once not so long ago was sturdy and energetic. A mind once teeming with a rich assortment of images, now struggling to bring anything to awareness.

Here is an abundant fecund planet housing a species intent on destruction and chaos. It illustrates the tragedy of the commons. The sooner we are gone the better. In the aftermath of the Anthropocine, in a hot world of water and jungle, very little of what we know will have survived. Crocodiles and cockroaches, if anything.

October 5 2018

I asked Siri for the most stable thing on earth, and was astonished by the complexity of that which has to be considered. I am not interested by how long it tales the isotopes of barium or lead to decay.

But why do I ask? I want to make marks on a piece of whatever that substance is, something to show that I was, and that I was here, marks that will last till the end of time. Something like the impulse that provokes “Kilroy was here”. This has become of interest to me as I perceive the acceleration of the phenomenon of fading, which is surely happening, however slowly.

For the sake of poetry, I will say that that stable element is a bar of platinum sealed in a vacuum at absolute zero. There we have it. And what will the marks that I leave be? Well, all of these ruminations, to start. But these electronic scribbles in the cloud are hardly a lasting mark on a platinum bar, no?

Perhaps I will loose my hand to inscribe an extravagant gesture flung into space, a line of beauty and power, having no words or thought ascribed. Intricate tracery etched on a bubble of time, will that last? Surely not, like frost on a cold window it will fade almost immediately.

Why? What is it about the nature of this entity called myself that thinks that any trace should last past the end of the organism? Is it the hope for everlasting life? (And why would any sensible person want that?) Is it the programming that instills the notion that “I came here to make a difference”? To make a difference implies that as-it-is is somehow imperfect as it is and needs changing. Or that I came here at all? Was there an “I” that could choose to come?

While I’m here my task is to manifest the universe from this particular point of view, and when I’m gone it will not be an issue.

For an explanation of the Channeled writings see the June 29 2018 post.

September 25 2018

I have a small learning for you, but you won’t hear it if you stay out of earshot. If you come into this arena there might be something for your ears. But you will have to bring them with you, you will have to become willing. What are you willing to hear?

Come into this learning. This learning is a house. In this house there are many rooms. They hold an astonishing array of furnishings – something for every need, every use, every taste. Some are sumptuous, some are plain, some are frivolous, some are utilitarian. Some are of the utmost seriousness, some are filled with laughter. Birth happens in some, death on others. There is access to each, some access is easy, some very difficult. Some sequences of movement through the rooms facilitate access to all. Some paths close and lock doors, and there is no return.

If you were to enter this house, and if you were to begin to explore, you might be exhilarated at the array in it’s infinite variety, with it’s staggering profusion, or you might be dismayed. In your exploration you might move about, savoring the variety. One particular room might so appeal to you that you try to stay in it for a long time. There is the possibility that you might begin to feel lost. You might eventually hope to find a map or guide. You might begin to yearn for finding some room glimpsed in passing. You might panic and begin to run blindly. You might look for the exploration to be over, to reach some end. It might occur to you to ask why you had entered the house in the first place, to ask what it’s purpose is, or what your purpose is. You might try to find meaning in it.

In this house there is a central room that is vacant. It is completely empty. It has no furnishings. It has no walls, no ceiling, no floor. There are no windows, no doors. There appears to be no way in, and you can catch only a small glimpse of it. There is absolutely no thing there. If you were able to penetrate this room you might be terribly frightened. It might look like the antithesis of everything to you, accustomed as you are to furnished rooms with defined edges. It might look like nothing at all. After the initial terror, the memory of your glimpse of this room might begin to fascinate you. It might strike you that there was something important about it, that is holds some secret. It might call out to you in some undefinable way. You might feel yourself pulled toward it.

What is it that draws you to this emptiness? What can you sense that pulls at you? Is it the translucent luminosity that pours forth? Perhaps it is the throbbing power, or the dizzying vastness. Perhaps it is the absolute stillness at the center of all that is. Perhaps that which pulls you toward itself is unnameable, unspeakable. But you would want to define it, give it a name, grasp it with your understanding. You might wonder if this were the source of all energy. You might apply a name that is familiar to you, you might call it God. The moment you name it you are separated from it. It will not be apprehended, or understood, or grasped, or named. It can only be experienced.

You could remember having had a glimpse of this vacant room, and you might look for a way to find it again, to approach it. And you might try, you might strive to get there. You might reach and reach for it. Perhaps someone else can show you the way to find it. Perhaps if you say the right words, if you practice the right actions, hold the correct beliefs, the way will open. And so you would look for the right combination. Perhaps this guru will know, maybe that entity can tell you. Breathe correctly. But you would find eventually that grasping for it ensures that it slips away. You might eventually realize the futility of the search.

In the search, you might discover some things, some states of being of great importance. You could find the means of maintaining clarity of mind. You could find openness of heart. Humility, poverty of will might be discovered. One-pointed concentration, devotion to the source might come to you. In finding these things you might empty your self. You could become transparent, receptive, vacant. You might no longer understand yourself.

Suddenly the room is there. It is found only in the state of not-looking, only by not-doing. It comes only when there is no expectation. It is accessible only to the empty mind, to the self that is vacant. There is no understanding it. There is stillness. There is silence. There is emptiness. There is the shining void.

September 13, 2018

One of my favorite artists has been Chico Buarque, a Brazilian poet, musician, and writer. I got a record of his early songs when I was in graduate school, and a standout on that very old L.P. is “Pedro Pedreiro”, a song that still resonates with me. Here are some of my very inexpertly translated (Portuguese to English via Spanish) lyrics.

Pedro Pedriero is waiting for a train

Tomorrow it seems that he will awaken

To wait again

– – – – –

Waiting for a lottery ticket

Or for the carnival

Or for a son to wait too

Or for the day to return to the North

Maybe he is waiting for death

Pedro doesn’t know it yet

But maybe deep down he awaits something

More beautiful than the world,

Bigger than the sea

But then why dream?

Why give in to the desperation

Of too much waiting?

– – – – –

Pedro Pedriero is waiting for a train

And now it is coming

I am aware of how much of my life has been waiting, for something unimaginably beautiful, for something immeasurably immense. But what I have found is this moment, absolutely removed from waiting, in stillness and silence. That is the ultimate reality. The rest is illusion.