A Doubleheader

I - ON THE TRAIL OF THE GODS

When I left university to go looking for capital-t Truth about life, my first stop was the New York City Public Library.  I had figured - since I got all that I knew up to that point in time out of books - 'Where is the largest public library in the Western world?', and in response to my answer to myself, made a beeline across the continent to Manhattan, seeking nectar.  I wasn't to be disappointed; just to be made aware that this was going to be rather an ongoing enterprise.  It was also going to require me to look elsewhere than just outside of myself for such answers; was going to require an inner journey as well.  But I get ahead of myself, in this little vignette about truth-seeking.

The trail was fascinating.  What interesting ideas and concepts we humans have put our minds to.  Madame Blavatsky's root races; Ouspensky's cosmology; Krishnamurti's practicality; William James's 'Varieties of Religious Experiences'; Edgar Cayce, Spiritualism, ESP - and even UFOs.  I was expecting the kitchen sink to be thrown in from the stacks at any time, from my incessant requests for material.

The UFO connection was a particularly intriguing one.  At one early point in my search for knowledge - and wisdom - on the subject of Truth, I applied my rational, left brain to the matter, and got wondering: What were the origins of civilization on the planet?  The early experiences and beliefs of our ancestors?  Surely there's a clue in there somewhere.  I had come across a little of this business in my freshman-year Western Civ course at university - Mesopotamia, and The Fertile Crescent, and all that; but what was behind their belief systems?  And what were their belief systems, in a little more detail??  

So I went to the relevant section on the shelves, and excavated there a little in old Sumer.  And found a clue.  Just like that.  

In their clay-cylinder depictions of their gods, as opposed to just their kings (according to the experts), they put a star above the heads of the former.

I looked at this. And looked.  And it finally landed. 

This was no mere metaphor.

They meant it.

This was late '55.  A lot has come out since, on all of this stuff.  For example, at that time I had to read in an obscure book or two, mostly in translation from German scholars, about the fact that the Christian religion was based on much older religious motifs that were still prevalent at that time in that area; a 'vegetation' god named Tammuz, and so forth and so on,  That there was nothing original in the story, as it got handed down in the 'gospels' that were not even written by the persons whose names got attached to them.  That 'Christianity' was a success because of political expediency.  And on and on, in that suddenly surfaced vein.  All this in dusty tomes on the shelves and in the stacks of - at the very least - the New York City Public Library; nearly 60 years ago, now.  And now we have, literally at our fingertips, and at the click of a huge elephant-scaring mouse (that's the elephant in the room, of 'religion'), the likes of Acharya S's extensively researched book 'The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold'.

What does all of this mean?

It means, at the very least, that on the trail of our gods, it would behoove us to look to the heavens.  That is to say: to the stars.

And then we can look to the real heavens.  And find other answers there.

It all depends on what you are ultimately seeking.

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II - MOOD INDIGO

Sitting in my little pad back in my old hometown - sans TV or radio, and with a number of books; so that it feels a little like a hermit's cell, where I can live out my days in the contemplative life1 - I am reminded of a couple of things in particular.  One is that I have sought out this very form of life a number of times in my life (in various monastic orders; including a Vedanta one), and now - lo and behold - I've got it; having long ago released the impulse, and moved on (to a spiritual community, granted).  And the other is the title, and spirit, of a book, by Thomas Wolfe - who also spent a period of time in his life living in New York City - that he called 'You Can't Go Home Again'.

I think he was referring to the idea contained in the old WWI ditty called 'How Are You Going to Keep'em Down On The Farm After They Have Seen Gay Paree'.  (He was from a small town in the South.)  It's similar to the 'idea' of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, that, in essence, you can't unscramble eggs.  But I have to confess: I don't really know, in that I never read much of his book.  I had it recommended to me, in my Down & Out in Manhattan period (this was 1955-'56, during my concentrated search for Truth), and even had come across a cheap copy of it, in a small bookshop in Times Square, that I used to haunt regularly, looking for interesting nuggets on my path of exploration into Life.  (Capital-t Truth and capital-l Life: That was my literary period.  In its way, sort of like Salinger's character in his short story 'De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period'.)2  

As an aside: It was in particular cheap because it had been bound with the cover upside down.  I took it with me a couple of times on the subway, just to see if anyone noticed that I was reading a book apparently upside down.  (No one noticed, that I was aware of.  But then, there are all kinds of interesting characters who ride the Manhattan subways. I wasn't particularly outstanding amongst them, with my strange reading habits.) 

Whatever Thomas Wolfe's take on the matter, mine has been a bit of disorientation.  It has been like Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle: I 'fell asleep' for a good many years, and when I have 'come to', everything around me in my old hometown has changed.  Well; not everything.  The tram rails are still here in the roads.  But interestingly enough, now they are being used.  In my day here - this is the 1942-'56 time period - they had fallen intro disuse, with the advent of domestic buses and intercity freeways.3  I realize that a time traveler from before my time here would have felt the same way from his memories of the place.  So: perspectives.

And on that subject: I find it fascinating how, in our day now, people like David Wilcock (who was apparently Edgar Cayce in his last incarnation - he of my reading about in my literary period in NYC in 1955-'56; which was all 'new' to me then)4 are drawing our attention to the relativity of things including the space-time continuum that we live in - for a time.  That there is a time-space continuum, that is our realm's sort-of doppel-ganger; our 'double', only backwards - from our current perspective.5

Sort of like my 'attempting' to read 'You Can't Go Home Again' upside down...

And now I have more 'time' to reflect on all of this sort of thing.  As, e.g.: What is 'time' anyway?  Really??

People can travel in time.  At the least on one level.  On the mental level.  People have - and can have - precognitive experiences.  The 'future' is not, on some level, in the 'future'.  On some level, it is Now.

On some level, all is Now.

In the book 'Your Life After Death', an entity called Joseph talks (through a medium, named Michael) about being a spirit guide as part of his 'work' 'on the other side'  - in the realms of spirit - but that that's not all that he does 'over there'.  He has another 'life' there too.  So he takes breaks from his 'spirit guide' aspect; but when he comes back to it, he picks it up precisely where he left it off.

Meaning?  That Time is an illusion.  Is part of the illusory world-dimension that we live in.  For now.  Is part of the construct that we call the physical universe.  Which can be interpenetrated, by beings and things from other dimensions.  Because no. 1, it is malleable; and no. 2, because we are not alone.  Which is true on many levels.

Where am I going with all this.  And 'going', as in quote marks.

I am 'going', for one 'place', to a bit of advice; to wit:

Don't 'count on' anything 'out there'.  The only thing that you can 'count on' is non-material.  ('Where neither moth nor dust doth corrupt.')

I can sit here in my little contemplative container, near a beach, and an ocean, and a city's skyline, and range the universe - and beyond.  And it doesn't matter, really, if that skyline changes or not.

Because it's going to anyway.

And that change really - really - doesn't affect me.  Because I - the real I - am not of it.

Rather, 'it' allows 'me' to be.  Here.  Now.

And then off I go again, ranging far and wide, in the compartment called my mind...

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footnotes:

1 I do have a computer, which allows me to link to the Internet; but it is 'just' a glorified book to me, is all that I use it for. 

2 His 'Nine Stories' being one of the nuggets that I came across in that bookshop.

     And just for the record: I revisited Times Square in the l981-'82 time period, and that bookshop is a thing of the past.  Like so much else.  'You Can't', and so forth.

3 I was to find out later in life that it was because of the power of Big Oil: 'They' bought up the tramway systems and then closed them down, so that people would guzzle gas in their individual people movers.  Cagy. 

4 I fully understand how some people have given up on the idea of reincarnation because of its reputation for being somewhat flaky; many people stepping up to say that they were such-and-such an historical figure, etc. All I can say to that criticism is: Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.  There is simply too much evidence for the fact of reincarnation (and its attendant Law of Karma) to dismiss it out of hand.   In Wilcock's case, there is also an uncanny resemblance between him and the younger Cayce (people are born with birthmarks from previous life experiences); and also, the interesting fact that a number of his current-life acquaintances have ended up being told by sensitives, or otherwise informed, that they were involved in Cayce's life as well.  This would tie in with the experiences of other commentators on the subject as well; e.g., Dr. Arthur Guirdham, who wrote a number of books about a 'pod' of souls who reincarnated with one another in different time periods - of which, he found out, he was one. 

     There are more things under heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies, Horatio, & Co.

5 His recent book 'The Source Field Investigations', summarizing the latest scientific research, is a must-read into all this.