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.

---

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...

---

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.      

Another Poke In the Eye Today

...this time to the 'left' eye, and

The Democrats

Don't get me started.

Oh, all right.  A little.

What were they thinking of, when they introduced federal programs like Aid to Families with Dependent Children1 without proper safeguards; built-in measures to keep it from turning into a way of life (paying females to have babies, on the taxpayers's dime; what a nonsense)?  Which simply institutionalizes poverty and dependency; creating a permanent welfare class.

It would appear that that was the intention all along.  A permanent class, of votes.2

To pry the nation free from its roots, in individual initiatives and merit, with the government there primarily to secure the blessings of liberty to the founders and their posterity, as a gift as well to the world, to help break it free from dependency on and to Royalty or Church or other arbitrary power over The People, rather than of The People.  As a free people, beholden to no one or nothing; no agency but themselves, and their personal mental, emotional, and spiritual development, as free moral agents, attending to their souls's business.

And then along came the spider: the statists, with their lust for power over people...

The Founding Fathers did their best to keep this sort of thing from happening, here, in this grand experiment in self-goverenance and -determination.  But it's up to each generation of such citizens to keep the dream alive.  With self-governance comes self-responsibility.

I know it's hard to keep an eye on the bigger picture when you're busy in your own life's doings.  But that responsibility 'comes with the territory', in such a system, of citizen politicians and governors.

Today could be seen coming many years ago.  A lot of the statist intervention in the lives of The People can be traced to the '30s, when 'the system' seemed to be on the verge of breakdown, and other systems were afoot in the world - primarily socialism (Soak the rich - excuse me; 'redistribution of wealth'.  There, that sounds better), communism (Everybody's equal; and some are more equal than others), and fascism (The rich rule by right of might).  But then, somehow, 'the system' - with some aspects of socialism spliced into it to help assuage the bite of naked capitalism, red in tooth and claw ('survival of the fittest') - muddled through (actually, it was the war wot done it), and carried the country into the post-war years.   But the other systems were still in place in the world (fascism got moved to behind-the-scenes America, was all; another story), and their proponents still eager to 'catch' the great prize that was America (and still is; although to a more enervated extent).  I remember discovering the extent of socialist infiltration into the education arena when my oldest nephew was starting school, and I decided to look into Why Johnny still Couldn't Read, from the mid '50s, when the issue first came to public attention, and caught my eye as I was leaving university.3

This was now the late '60s, and not only was I alarmed by the look-say method of teaching reading - which seemed to be the chief culprit; and which by its nature limited the child's vocabulary (and therefore thinking) just to the words presented in the readers4  - but I discovered examples of outright indoctrination in the stories themselves.  One5 was a story (with, of course, illustrations; since a picture is worth a thousand words; even in the best of phonics times) about two squirrels, one of 'whom' was busily gathering nuts while the other was looking on, somewhat bemused.  Finally the second one asks the first what he is doing, and when told ("I'm gathering nuts for the winter"), says, "Don't you know that the little boy who lives in the white house will feed you?" - and there, in the background of the last sketch is the little boy, sitting sweetly on the stoop of his white house.  The only thing missing was some front columns to the house; but that might have taken the whole thing out of the realm of sublimation, and made it just a little too obvious.  

And here I'm reminded of the video shot of a young black female supporter of Obama during his campaign in Florida, who was so excited, not only from the energy of the rally, but by the prospect of his actual election, when "I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car.  I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage.  You know, if I help him, he's going to help me."6  

One of two things was going on there.  Either the equivalent of the squirrel story has been carried on to this day in our public schools; or both stories were squirrelly - to say, propaganda from the right-wing likes of the JBS; who are fighting their corner just as hard as the Left is fighting its.

To the finish.

When the real finish should be a synthesis of both positions.  The best of both.  Honoring the individual, as a unique spark of divinity, with specific talents, that should be given the opportunity to be fully expressed.  And honoring us all as a collective of souls, living in cooperation with each other; no longer in competition with one another, as though we were separate entities from one another, fighting each other for supremacy.  When in fact, We Are All One.

And in the meantime: No female has any business having babies that she can't take care of properly, on her own dime, or that of her immediate family.  Not that of the taxpayers - and especially not when many of them can't afford to have their own children, and are being responsible in the matter by not having them.  

Let's get clear.  No one has a right to the earnings of any other person.  This business of the Democrats 'teaching' prospective votes that it's okay to have children on 'the government' - i.e., on the taxpayers's dime - is flat-out immoral.  It is not an 'entitlement'.  It's theft, pure and simple.  And theft should not be rewarded.  It should be disowned.  By any right-thinking person.7  And by that, I don't mean by the 'right' side of the political game going on these days - and for long enough, now.  I mean the right as in the honorable.  

So stop with your temptation nonsense, Democrats; your seduction of voters.   And Republicans: join them in creating a better world for us all.  

Us.  We.  Who are One in essence.  Experiencing Itself.  And needing a better job of it being done from Its Parts, than It is getting yet.

In this day and age.  But which is rapidly changing.  So, be a part of the change.     

The real Change, in our time.

Into a closer approximation of the One that we fundamentally Are.  By our spiritual nature; as, essentially,  spiritual beings having a human experience.  Looking to ourselves for our sustenance.  And, yes, to our collective Self.

But the right One of those.

---

    

footnotes:

1 or whatever it was called; I understand there is a new such program these days.  I wonder if lessons have been learned?  Doesn't appear to be the case, yet

2 not even 'voters'. They're not looked on as individuals; persons. They're looked on as tools.

3 and heading out into the world to find out what ALL was going on; including the Truth about life itself. Another story as well.

4 To the initiated: The look-say method is a form of hieroglyphics, whereby the child is taught to recognize words by their shapes - e..g., the word 'monkey' by the picture, along with the story, of a monkey hanging on the 'tail' of the 'y' - instead of learning how to sound out words for him- or herself, by the tried and tested phonics method.  

     The rationale is to try to increase the child's comprehension of what (s)he is reading, rather than letting them rattle along merrily by themselves.  But this is not really about comprehension.  It's about control.  

5 in an article in a publication of the John Birch Society (which has always had to be precise with its claims, since the Left has been trying to demolish/demonize it from its very beginnings, as a classic reactionary movement.  Both sides knowing that this is a fight to the death, between collectivism and individualism), which I found in one of their bookshops, when I was continuing my wide-net investigations into what was really going on in the world, i.e., behind the scenes of oh-so-innocent daily life.

6 This 'story' was recounted in a recent book entitled 'Blacklash', by a remarkable black woman by the name of Deneen Borelli; who knows whereof she speaks.  She grew up in the black-ghetto dependency culture, and escaped from it, by sheer personal integrity and guts, and is doing her best to alert her fellow American citizens to the dangers going on, of (as her book's subtitle puts it) 'How Obama and the Left Are Driving Americans to the Government Plantation'.  She doesn't want that for her 'racial' people, OR for her 'other' people - the American people.  Or for the world, to become anyone's plantation slaves; but for the people of the world to stand on their own two feet.  Like she has done.  And well done, her, for it. 

7 I'll tell you what is a real entitlement.  A person who works hard is entitled to the fruits of his or her labor.  And a person who doesn't work as hard as another person is entitled to the fruits of her or his labor as well - i.e., their own.
     Yes, the society can help those who are truly in need.  And it is not an entitlement.  It is a gift of the heart.
     Energy follows thought.  if a person thinks they are 'entitled' to something, that is an entirely different mental construct than if they are appreciative for having received a gift.  Let's get real here.       

A Strawberry Statement

I can hardly wait for the end of the profit-motive culture, and that way of running things.  Not only for a move to a more natural way of dealing with health issues, e.g. (from the current system, whereby the medical profession - actually, the medical-pharmaceutical complex; more actually, the medical-pharmaceutical-government complex - is paid to keep us coming to them, and the more, the better - for them).  But for a return to better-tasting strawberries.

When I was a kid, my (older) brother and I used to be shipped up to northern California - actually, the San Francisco Bay area - from our home in the southern part of the state for the summers, to spend them with our paternal grandparents (I'm sure to give our mom - recently divorced from her second husband - a break from us as much as to allow contact with that side of the family).  Grandpa Stanfield was a farmer, born and bred, and had taken his love of the land, and that way of living, with him into the City, when the economic realities changed and it was harder for small farmers to make a go of it.  His penchant for growing things, and that way of life, was in abundant evidence all around their house: they not only had a backyard 'kitchen garden', of lettuce and cucumbers and the like (which Grandma kept a trained eye on, when she wasn't baking all kinds of goodies), but he had taken over the plot of land behind theirs, and was growing in it all manner of things.  I remember in particular the rows and rows of corn - if not as high as an elephant's eye, pretty close (especially to a small boy).  And between the field - looking a little incongruous, in the middle of a town - and the house, there was a row of rabbit hutches and a chicken run; both of which provided manure for the garden, as well as food directly for the family.

And the curb section, running the length of the house, was planted not with grass, but with strawberries.  Little strawberries.  Delicious strawberries.  Especially with cream...

Two follow-ups to this memory.  The first is from many years ago now, in this, my hometown area (which I have come back to, in my 'golden years'), when a story was reported on, in both the daily paper and on TV news, about a 'grower' - he was not really a farmer; at least not like of old; at least not like my grandfather - who was not able to sell a whole big field of strawberries for more than it had cost him to grow them, and, in fact, for a lot less.  I forget the details; whether Big Ag had wiped out the little guy - yet again; or, more likely, just an ongoing story - or there was either a momentary or a chronic glut on the market, with strawberries able to be brought in from Mexico far cheaper, even with the transport costs factored in,  Whatever the specific facts in the instance, the mainstream media allowed him his day in the court of public opinion, as he then, the next day, plowed under all his hard work in front of the cameras.

A sad sight.  A sad day.  But it seemed - another vignette of Life In Our Times - the way things, simply, were.  Nothing to be done about it.

The second follow-up is from yesterday (at the time of this writing), when I browsed through a weekly street market in downtown Long Beach.  I have gone to it a couple of time, now; and bought a loaf of bread direct from the bakery the first time (although Walmart sells it for less than I paid for it; another sign of the times), and some cherries and carrots direct from two different farms the next.  And this time, a number of the farm stalls were selling strawberries.  Big strawberries.  I was a little too quick on the draw, and bought a 3-pack for $5 when, further on, another farmer's stall had theirs (they all looked the same) for $4 for a 3-pack.  But that's not what I really want to report on.  What I really - really - want to report on, is the taste.

I don't know what they're serving at Wimbledon these days, but these over here are ridiculous.*

I understand the economics of the matter.  Including the fact that when years ago, Hugo Chavez & co. were agitating for more wages to be paid to agricultural workers, the growers - caught in between them and 'the market' - started developing machinery to do the picking, which in turn required a hardier type of produce.  Tomatoes with thicker skins.  And strawberries - obviously - capable of being grasped more easily, by metal fingers.  But, really...

Little farmers.  Little strawberries.  Gone the way of the world.

But - you never know.  Life can be full of surprises, sometimes.

Little ones.

And big ones.

Big, big ones.

Really big ones.

And then maybe we can get back to matters of good taste.

---

* As John McEnroe would say:; "You've got to be kidding!"

---

P.S.  I have realized that most people in this generation won't know the pun involved in my titling of this blog.  Briefly: In the late 60s, when opposition to the Vietnam War was building on American campuses into a full-fledged revolutionary movement, creating the likes of the Students for a Democratic Society and its Weathermen faction spin-off, one of those students thus radicalized wrote a book about his experiences during that time, in which he remarked how some very Establishment types, connected with David Rockefeller, were trying to 'buy themselves a revolution' by bankrolling the action at Columbia University in New York City.  He titled his book 'The Strawberry Statement,' after a Columbia U administrator told the radicals that if they didn't have reasonable suggestions, their opinion mattered no more to him than if a majority of the students liked strawberries.   The book was later turned into a rather fictionalized version of the real story of that time on that campus; but the expression took into the psyche of the time.        

Don't Be Daft

I've got some posers for you.

9/11.  All of the eyewitnesses saw at least one of the planes - the second one - hit the towers.

Or did they.

Just like we at home saw on our TV screens.

Or did we...

Bin Laden.  First, he said - i.e., we heard him say, on tape - that he had nothing to do with 9/11.  Then, he said - i.e., we heard him say, on tape - that he did.

We heard him.

Or did we.

Soon into the caper, when he was being fingered as a suspect, we heard - i.e., it was reported - that he had been visited in a hospital - where he was being treated for his debilitating kidney condition - by a CIA field agent.

Or was he?

Nothing ever came of that story.

Why was that??

Or the story, by at least one eyewitness - with proof from at least one stopped clock - that the explosion at the Pentagon on that terrible day came before the plane hit.

The explosion came before the plane hit??

Don't be daft.

Still, stranger things have happened.  Like the report, in Colin Wilson's book on 'The Supernatural', about the boy who was looking out of the window of a house in the countryside, watching a man chopping wood, when all of a sudden he realized that he was hearing the sound of the blow before the axe struck.  And so forth, in that stranger-than-fiction vein, of things that have happened on this intriguing planet.

So.  Stranger things have happened.

Like the two steel-frame buildings collapsing from fires on the same day, when that sort of thing - i.e., buildings with that type of construction - had never happened before, and has never happened since.

Funny, that.

We were told that the jarring of the plane hits on the towers dislodged - must have dislodged - fire retardant coating on the steel.

Could be.

Except that - hold on a second - a third tower came down that day, in the same way - i.e. to say, collapsing straight down into its footprint1 - that had not been jarred by a plane strike.

Funny, that.

Just had some asymmetric fires, from debris from the other towers's collapses (a block or so away).

Which were like pyroclastic displays; like volcanoes.

Like, explosions.

With almost everything - office equipment, people - almost everything turned into little more than dust.

Pulverized.

Except for huge javelins of steel girders (of curiously similar lengths), blown out of the pyroclastic displays early on, like arrows from a bow.

Or an explosion.

But nothing to see here folks.  Just keep moving on.

Because stranger things have happened.


...like - sorry; but it keeps niggling away: like the video, that came out some time after (or was it before.  Probably, in such a world, it makes little difference) we heard - it was reported - that bin Laden was in a hospital for his debilitating kidney condition (for which he needed dialysis treatment, it was so severe), that showed a robust bin Laden admitting that he was behind 9/11.

Or did it.

Funny about the looks.

Especially the nose.

Oh well.  Maybe that sort of thing happens to you when you are deathly ill from a kidney disease.

Maybe the next time we would have seen it grown to the size of Pinocchio's.

If we had ever seen any more tapes of him.  But he simply disappeared off our screens - this Most Wanted of men.

For  a time.

Until a wrap was put on that whole caper with a - presumed - takeout operation by a Navy SEAL unit, that was watched live by Obama & Hillary & co., from a camera mounted on the helmet of one of the team.

Or was it.

Before bin Laden's body was dumped in the ocean.

Or was it...

Surely they wouldn't have taken the risk of not dumping his body?  Don't be daft??

But what if he had died before the - presumed - hit.

Since stranger things have happened.

And he was just being used - perhaps for years - as a poster boy.  (Kind of like El Cid's dead body strapped to his horse, to rally his soldiers for one last charge.  Unless that was just Hollywood's take on reality.  Playing fast and loose with reality.  But to continue.)

But we saw a video of him, watching TV - or a video; something on a screen - in his hideaway, in Pakistan (near a military base).

Or did we.

And has this whole thing - this whole monstrous caper - just been played out on the screens of our imaginations, with our imaginations filling in the details, for us to draw several conclusions from, that 'they' deftly pointed us towards.


'They' almost slipped up once, when one of the images on our screens of the 9/11 atrocity showed the nose of the second plane coming out the other side of the building - kind of like Pinocchio's nose growing - before it was - apparently - caught by the technicians behind the show, and the screen shot suddenly went to black.2

But surely, 'they' couldn't be so well organized as to orchestrate such a massive deception.  Could they?

Don't be daft.

---

P.S. Someone has done an analysis on the left ear of the person in the video shot watching TV - or at least looking at the TV screen - in 'bin Laden's hideaway' (or wherever it was shot, and when), and has concluded that the person - the figure - is not bin Laden.  But then, experts haves analyzed Obama's birth certificates, and made convincing cases that they are forgeries; and what is being done about that?  
     Ir has all disappeared into the same black hole that holds the Founding Fathers's definition of a 'natural born citizen'.
     And oh yes: if that small crowd of actors in the office in Washington were not watching a live feed of the takeout of bin Laden - as some of them have since admitted that they were not (possibly after word surfaced from experts that that would have been impossible to have happened the way it was being sold) - what were they watching? with Hillary's hand so deftly covering her mouth,3 and all the rest of them so intent on the event they were watching on their screen??

Who knows?

All the public knows, and have been left with, is the image they were given, of their political leaders intently watching something on a screen.

And that's good enough for you???

But I suppose that I shouldn't be so daft as to think that our leaders could be so daft as to try to pull off such a story as I seem to be making a case for.  I mean, the BBC in on it too??

But hey - you never know.

You never really know.

Because - altogether now:

Yes indeed.  Stranger things have happened.  In this image, this screen, that we live in, and on.

Where we strut and fret our hour upon the stage, until we are heard no more.

Until the next time we enter into the play of Life.

Before we give it up.  And go for gold.  Content with fool's gold no longer.


P.P.S. I understand that David Wilcock's government insiders tell him that it was bin Laden in that compound; and that he was 'being kept alive' "in order to boost oil prices and profits", because he was apparently organizing teams to mount attacks on Iraqi oil fields and pipelines.  So both sides of this story may have been right, to some extent.  And the real question is, Why was BHO allowed to take him out?
     Could it have had anything to do with the fact that the issue of his birth certificate/ineligibility was heating up (with a book coming out on the subject)?  And TPTB wanted him kept where he is too.  For the same reasons; which are geopolitical ones.

---

footnotes:

1 remember all this, folks.  Such events require the infrastructure to have been taken out.  Remember it.


2 And another time, on another network - this one the BBC - when the female correspondent reported the collapse of the third building that day, when - oops - it happened to be still showing through the window behind the live-feed shot of her; before the picture conveniently broke up, and they cut back to the studio in London.
     But this could all, of course, have been one of those funny 'time' things.  Stranger things, etc.


3 and we do remember her crouching under mortar fire upon arriving in Bosnia; don't we?  At least, that was her good story.  Until someone happened to uncover a video shot of the real thing, that showed her walking casually away from the plane.
     As I say: Oops.
     Or has all of that disappeared down our black memory hole, and all we really care about is what's for dinner, and did 'our' team make the playoffs???
     

The Lotus from the Mud

Part 1 - The Issue of Usurpation

I'm not sure why so many U.S. citizens seem to think that this business of serious questions and matters regarding the background of Barack Hussein Obama (as he calls himself at this time in his life) isn't an issue.  Falsifying documents; hiding documents; lying...this is an issue, and it won't go away until it is dealt with.

By impeachment proceedings?  No.  That would be to buy into the deception, give it some semblance of legitimacy.  BHO is not legally the president; thus, he shouldn't be given the veneer, the appearance of being the president.  He is a usurper; and needs to be dealt with as what he is: a usurper.*

Which is to say: as a criminal.  To be charged for such crimes as falsifying documents - or at least for being complicit in those crimes; for attaining a considerable amount from the commission of those crimes; for being a liar and a con man, obtaining (with murky help; to be investigated as well) ID documents fraudulently...the charge list goes on.

I have heard it argued that 'George W' - the recent George W - 'won reelection with a fraudulent vote count, so what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander'.  First of all, if that charge of illegality is true, why wasn't it followed up on.  Is it because both sides of the political aisle are guilty of voter fraud, and an investigation into such matters might expose that, as 'the way the game is played'?  And secondly: Two wrongs don't make a right.

Corruption itself needs to go.  Before the New can fully take hold.  And that's across the board.  The dismissal of BHO from the office of the presidency is only the beginning of a clean sweep of the federal government (to include the removal of the current Congress from office, for being accessories to and after the fact of the crime of usurpation; with new elections to be called for 'within a time certain').  And I would encourage the citizenry to apply a similar broom to their state and local governments as well.  A clean sweep from power of the 'business as usual' crowd, and mentality.

It's time for a change, alright.  Real change.  Lasting change.  To herald humanity's entry into a New Era.  An era of living in more harmony with, and alignment with, our Creator's wish for us.  Not just to live in peace, and prosperity.  But to live in accordance with divine Law.  Which in its essence is to treat one another as we would treat ourselves.

For we are one another.

And We Are All One.

And All IS One.

And corruption has no place in the purity - the pure essence - of that Oneness, when we start living on that higher level of consciousness.  Like a beautiful lotus flower, growing out of the compost of the past.



* I won't go here into the details of that debate.  The bottom line of it is the intention of the Founding Fathers, in requiring a higher standard of citizenship for the office of the presidency - which person is also the Commander in Chief of the military forces of the nation, and so needs to be someone with no risk of dual loyalties or allegiances (and ESPECIALLY not to Britain, with whom the fledgling  Republic had just fought a hard-earned war of independence, and wasn't about to slip under its thumb once again), which requires him or her to have been born of U.S. citizen parents - plural.
   The man the world knows now as Barack Hussein Obama may, in fact, BE a 'natural born citizen', for all we know of his true birth circumstances.  But the long train of crimes committed in covering up his true 'credentials' still puts him as ineligible for the office.
     As to the issue of changing the Constitution over the years: Yes, that is indeed possible.  And there is a clear amending process for that to happen - though not easily, to guard against light and transient reasons.  (The American Republic was designed carefully, to last.)  And both current political parties indeed tried to go down that path recently, with eight different attempts made by both parties's congressional representatives between 2003 and 2008 to start an amending process on this very issue going through Congress; i.e., to amend the Constitution to allow less than a 'natural born citizen' to hold the highest office in the land.  All eight attempts failed even to get out of committee.
     So what did they do?
     They tried an end-around run on the American people.
     And almost - almost - got away with it.
     'Darn those patriots.  They just don't get it.  They don't run this country.'
     Erm.  Excuse me.  Take another look.
     'They' are finally rising to the occasion, in such numbers as to call your bluff.  'You': The Powers That Were.

---

Part 2 - The Issue of Collusion

I have a great deal of sympathy for and empathy with those Americans who are feeling frustrated, angry, and disenfranchised because the Republican Party, as the current presidential opposition party in the American system of government, has failed to take seriously the substantive concerns regarding the issue of BHO's ineligibility to occupy the presidential office - the highest, and what should be the most honorable, office in the land.

And issue it is, and will continue to be, until justice is served in the matter.

The whole thing - the questions about his birth; the questions about his two birth certificate forms - or at least, the two forms purporting to be his birth certificate forms (which give many indications of being forgeries);  the questions about his social security number(s), and his Selective Service form (which shows evidence as well of having been forged); the questions about his school records, particularly as to how he portrayed his citizenship at those times in his life, but also as regards his curious history during the time he was purportedly studying at Columbia University; his going to work for a CIA front company upon his leaving Columbia; questions regarding name changes involving him and his identity record - the list goes on.

And the Republican Party feels that none of this serious mystery needs looking at??

What in addition needs seriously looking at is the continuation of the Republican Party as a legitimate entity in American politics.  It has failed its primary mission in this matter - to be the serious opposition party to the Democrat Party in the 2008 presidential election, and since - miserably.

I repeat: Miserably.  And I add: abominably.

It has served, in its history, to see one form of slavery out, and another form instituted.  The latter, to a cabal of powerful people - politically and economically - who are bent on harnessing the American Republic to their geopolitical cause, of a fascist New World Order - their phrase - desiring to institute total surveillance and control over the country's - and, in cahoots with their fellow Cabal members elsewhere, the world's - populace, in a remake of the Roman Empire, only writ larger this time.

Not satisfied with the North American Union, or the European Union, or an Asiatic-region union, they want it all.  Under their considerable thumb.

Who are 'they'?

It's not the intent of this piece to go into all that.  But I will echo David Wilcock in his take on 'them': They are, now, The Powers That Were (aka TPTW).

For their day in the sun is over.  And we now move into the dawning of a new day for all humankind.  One not controlled by materialistic forces, but rather serving to bring humanity closer in contact with out highest selves; and our highest Self: the One in Whom we live and move and have our being.

And, 'our' dark side has helped get us here, to this jumping-off point into the New.  So we have things to learn about the roles we play in life; where things are not fully either black or white...

And the Republican Party has something to learn about the role it has played in life.  Not really 'failed' to play.  But played; in the manner of how God moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform...for us to learn lessons from.

So, ultimately, the Republican Party, and its elected members, can't be faulted unreservedly for playing its part so well in the unfolding of the historical process that has brought us to this point, of verging now on the New.  But in terms of the likes of justice being served, it is to be faulted, for not allowing that to happen on its watch.  So it does need to pay the (karmic) price for irresponsibles behavior; and give way to new forms, now, of human political involvement.

Along, of course, with the Democrat Party; which does not deserve to be known as the party of Jefferson and Jackson.  Those two esteemed members of the basically honorable pantheon of American presidents would be turning over in their graves at what has been done in their names, if they knew.  And would be shocked and angered, if they were alive today.

Which - in the way of how these things go - they may well be.

And the likes of Madison.  And Adams.  And even Washington himself.

The original George Dubya.

But I start digressing.  The bottom line: We have work to do, to bring about a better world.

Let's be about it.  And which means to make sure that it is founded on justice.  Or it will just become the compost of a process needing to go yet a little further, to completion.

Let the historical process end here, with us - this generation.  And the real living begin; on a planet that joins us in our Ascension, to a higher level of being than ever known heretofore, on this level of reality.

---

Next Steps for the Planet

I have taken Next Steps in my personal life, back to my old home town (in Southern California), after some 36 years as an expatriate, mostly in Scotland, some Down Under in Australia. I have come back because it's time to get back to work in my home country, in helping it fulfill its highest, spiritual potential - NOT its potential as just another failed Republic, in the mould of what became the Roman Empire. Over-extended, it collapsed. I don't want to see that happen to 'the last, best hope on Earth'. But the U.S. has some hard decisions to make, to avoid the path that it is on at present, leading into that very same historical dark hole. I have given this all some thought, and want to summarize my 'take' on it all here.

I have written a couple of essays (more, actually; but two in particular) leading up to this summation of my thoughts on the subject of Next Steps for the Planet. I entitled them 'The State of the Nation - Parts 1 and 2'. In them I go into the current state of affairs in my home country. I may post them here at some point; but I feel the need, here and now, to 'cut to the chase', and share my perspectives on this particular subject. As follow-on to those essays, I begin it thusly:

So, given the state of the nation AND the world at this time, of great Crisis, what do I see happening.

 I see great Opportunity happening, with our minds wonderfully concentrated as they are now. And given that there is all manner of contact possible with the unseen realms,1 Man can be given leads to future outcomes from all manner of sources. The 'trick' will be to separate the wheat from the chaff; for not all of such information is of the highest order.

Consider your sources.

I would trust, e.g., David Spangler, and his sources. (And speaking of: I wonder whatever happened to Limitless Love and Truth??...)2  However, we don't have to resort to either 'sensitives' or ouija boards and the like. (Dangerous stuff; especially the latter.) We can resort to a good dose of common sense. And speaking of; the bottom line in all this 'life' stuff:

Either there is a 'God' - and all that that 'concept' implies, about life and the universe - or there is not. If there is not, then nothing really matters anyway, and one might as well live one's life exclusively for oneself, independent of the effect on others of that pursuit, as not; for the end of the closed system of life can, then, as easily be seen as that as anything else, a presumed evolutionary advantage in some sort of cooperation with others, or whatever. if there is, however, then certain things follow; and one of the most important of those is that we should be living our lives as if were true, and not as if it were not, as we - largely - are doing at present, in a too-easy 'win' for materialists.3

 It follows, for another thing, that there is Plan in and Purpose - i.e., meaning - to life. And it would behoove us to find out what that is. Otherwise, we are 'flying blind,' as it were. And that, really, makes no sense.

It's time to make more sense of life. Before we make a right mess of it. Along the lines that we already have, and are doing at present.

As to 'making more sense of life': It's all really very simple, in its essence.

A dedicated seeker of Truth4 will soon find that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence for the fact of reincarnation; that therefore we are one another, simply playing parts, and exchanging parts, in a drama of our making. I won't go into all that evidence - or any of it, for that matter - here; I start my short take on Things Relevant To Life from that premise. Which premise will see us through to a New Age - a Golden Age - coming to a theater (of operations) near you; in fact, to the very stage that you and I are on as we speak.

What's different, incidentally, between now and all these years that a number of cultures on the planet have already believed in the concept of reincarnation?

Because it's time, historically and cosmically, for an upgrade of life on Earth. A New Era; one of Synthesis, of all that has gone before.5

But for now, back to the 'argument'. Although there is no argument, really. It's fact. And the fact is, that this phenomenon is what gives us the essential key to our Golden Age future on this lovely planet.

Consider.

 f we are just playing - and exchanging - parts (now a prince, now a pauper; now a male now a female; now of one race or religion or nationality, now another,6 then, truly, We Are (simply) One Another. Some part of Us is experiencing Us in individuation - we humans call it a soul. But obviously, beneath that 'surface' - and the surface on which we are just exchanging parts, in the drama, the illusion, of life - We Are, in actual essence, One.

One Being. Experiencing Itself.

So now let's look at a ramification of that reality, on this level of existence (one of its 'implications' that I mentioned at the beginning of this little treatise on Life). I call it an update, and upgrade, of The Golden Rule, for our time and place, and level of consciousness. Instead of the idea/concept, to Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (not a bad idea/concept, in its own right; but not 'complete' enough for our time and place, now), let's update it to our time and place, and level of consciousness - of awareness - to:

As you do unto others, so do you do unto yourself.

For We Are All One.

And All IS One.

And so we have in this concept - this awareness - the makings of a new social order - strike that; bad word, for its associations; a new social construct to live our - seemingly - separate lives within, and attitude to live our - seemingly - separate - lives by. All of it based on the concept of cooperation (with parts of ourselves); not competition any longer.

That worked for its day and age, in a time of scarcity and low technology and limited consciousness. But it was based on training wheels, for the real thing, the real ride, the real vehicle to operate our society by now: the training wheels of interest-bearing money on the one hand, and fractional-reserve banking on the other.

 A way to do things. But not the way. And not the highest, most spiritually conscious way. It's time, and in this age of globalization (an aspect of the now-to-be-acknowledged fact that We Are All One), to let the training wheels go, and operate our social vehicle by another motive power. Not the one of 'profit'; which has had some success, to give it its due, but which has generated such a high degrees of 'internal contradictions' (to use a Marxist term) that it is about to collapse in on itself anyway. Rather, to do things - share goods and services with one another; and give of our best in the process - out of a higher motive. Out of the highest motive possible: out of gratitude to our Creator (of which we individually and collectively are a Part) for life with meaning.

Out of, in a word: Love.

And for its being a gift to Ourselves as well (by definition, if nothing else).

'Its', being the giving of our best in the process of our unfolding out human, and spiritual, potentials, individually, and collectively.

Like unto becoming Gods in our own right.

Once we get the hang of the process.

And so - (essentially moneyless) Golden Age: here we come. Not for its own sake. But for the lessons we have learned along the Way.7

And with still more to come.

You may be thinking at this point: Is there no end to this business of learning?? 

The answer lies within.

To be drawn forth from. By you; by others, in mutual support for growth along the Path. And by your spirit guides and helpers.

But that's another subject.8

And NOTE: The concept of a moneyless society and system should not be as outlandish an idea as it may seem at first blush. Both Jacque Fresco and Peter Joseph - at thevenusproject.com and zeitgeistmovement.com respectively - have given it considerable thought, and worked out many of the details. They just haven't taken the idea into its spiritual dimensions; particularly as to the motivating factor for people's support for the idea and process. That's the missing key, to open the door consciously to this New Era, awaiting humanity, when they set their minds - and hearts, and souls - to it.

And a main corollary for this move out of the Old into the New is the removal of the moneychangers from the power to run, and rule, the world. The Temple of Life deserves to be in better hands, and hearts, now, than with those who are 'in it' just for themselves as their primary motivating factor. 'Me first, and the devil take the hindmost' is no longer to be the motto in the land of this new kingdom. That, rather, is to be something more like: 'It's a pleasure to serve you. Which, of course, is allowing me to serve me as well' - said, and felt, and done, with a smile.


 ---

 footnotes:


 1 See, e.g., Colin Wilson's comprehensive tome 'Supernatural: Your guide through the unexplained, the unearthly and the unknown'.


 2 the source of his book 'Revelation: The Birth of a New Age'. From the '70s, and still a major work in this oeuvre (if that's the correct word).


 3 As to materialists, and the concept of 'evolutionary advantages': I am aware that Richard Dawkins ('The God Delusion' et al) has addressed this idea with some cogent commentary. All valid stuff. So how do I feel about the likes of Prof. Dawkins and his take on the life thing? Answer: He's a scientist; and, apparently, a 'good' one, i.e., one with an open, searching mind; not bound by dogma (hopefully). He'll come around to the larger picture of things, once he becomes exposed to the facts.


 4 and I consider myself as such, and qualifying as such, having engaged in some 57 years of a concentrated dose of the stuff


 5 I see a lot of truth in the Hegelian concept of a dialectical process in the unfolding of history; i.e., of a 'thesis' generating an 'antithesis', out of which dynamic grows a 'synthesis', which then becomes a 'thesis' in its own right, for another turn up the spiral. Until a plateau in the process is reached. With the polarities of 'religion' vs 'science', and individual nations vs globalization into something more akin to Oneness (economically, if nothing else), now having reached a crescendo point, it is time for breakthrough into a higher level of understanding of where we are at historically. Which 'just so happens' to coincide with a major cosmic Turning Point in the Earth's history as well. We are both - Earth and Human - on the verge of something that could be called (and is, by some students of the subject) Ascension. To a higher level of consciousness. Of, in essence, our Being.


 6 with the attendant Law of Karma playing a role of its own (so to speak :-) ) in all of this. This business of the Wheel of Rebirth. Giving us glorified hamsters some exercise...oops. I give away my essential loyalties...
      I jest, a bit. The whole play is for a purpose: for us, individually and collectively, to grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually from the experience. But let's not get stuck in the process - get caught up in the lower grades. It's time for graduate school. For more on which, read on.
      But just quickly, before doing so; as to the 'issue', of "now a male, now a female," 'and what about homosexuality etc' (LGBT& whatever other category may yet be added to the Rainbow Coalition): there are both karmic and environmental factors implicated in this 'issue', which is too big an issue to go into here. Suffice it to say, at this point, that much of this 'gender disorientation' going on these days especially will be cleared up when we have 'cleaned up our act' environmentally, and will stop creating the loam for such anomalies.


 7 As to the "essentially moneyless" bit: All you - we - need is a system of credits and debits, like a glorified LETS system, to keep track of people's records.
      I know that many who are following political things closely these days, and are - justly - concerned about how TPTB (The Powers That Were, according to David Wilcock.  Let's hope so) are trying to entrap us into their fascist-like New World Order (and would like nothing more than to put us all into a state of dependency on them, and their ability to cut off our access to money independent of their control), may be disturbed by this idea; but (1) read on; and (2) there's nothing wrong with the idea per se. Only in how it might be used, by people with inferior consciousness. But that's not where we're going. We're going through that stage of human development, up to a higher register. That's the whole point, of moving up, now, into a Golden Age.


 8 A good place to start on that one: 'The Joseph Communications: Your Life After Death' by Michael Reccia (& group)

Signs of the Times

A large 'shooting star' lit up the sky last night, I am told. I didn't see it personally. But I - we - have it on good authority: plenty of other people did.

I am being reminded here of my last post, wherein I referred both to a lesson I learned from my university Philosophy 101 professor - about what we know and what we don't really know - and to John Donne's XVIIth Meditation ('Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions'), talking about bells tolling for souls. "Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him. And perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that." I didn't see that meteor (or whatever it was. Space junk, circling the planet like chaff; although particularly dangerous chaff, if you venture into its path, or it degrades into yours?? Small things having potentially major effects...); but I know of its passing. Just as I know that my time here is coming to an end. Know, from 'signs and portents'. And by 'here', I mean in both a microcosmic and macrocosmic sense. In the community, in which I have lived for a large chunk of my life. And in the world. Or at least, in its current 'format'.

Item.

I found out about the meteor last night - passing our way, and on over (BBC reports had it being seen all the way down south to Devon)1 - from an email from a member of my community, who had gone out last night with his wife for an impromptu walk, and who were greeted with that intriguing surprise overhead. There was a first thought, for them, that 'the aliens were coming'. What they couldn't have known, was how it may have been a warning bell, tolling not for them, or for 'us'. But for me. For I am opposed to them, and their little family (they have a small - very cute - daughter), being here. In a manner of speaking.

I wish to explain. My community - this community that I have been a part of for many a year (well over 25 years, now; ever since January of '76, with a couple of periods of time away) - is what is called, and what we call (or used to call, at any rate), a 'spiritual community'. It was founded on some basic spiritual principles. For this community, these are - have been: (1) Put 'God' first, and align with the higher will via inner listening; (2) Do things out of Love ('Work is Love in Action'), not out of an expectation of reward, either in adulation or remuneration; and (3) Give of your best in all that you do, so that you don't let yourself, or 'God' (the realm of spirit), or all those around you, down, in the example that you set. And lastly, tailor-made to and for this particular community: to do all this with a sense of 'Co-creation with Nature'- of living in harmony with our Mother Earth.

If the form of the community is ever to change, it must still continue to abide by its basic principles. Or the dream - the vision - will die. It may be a lingering death. But in the end, it will die, from not being nourished by its roots, rather suffering under the weight of a transplant to it that it couldn't sustain.

I speak of the fact that it is now being threatened with a major change in attitude, which could well demolish at least one of its basic spiritual 'root' principles: that of doing things (and doing them well) for the sake of doing so. Not for the outer reward in and for doing so.

Explanation: The community is currently looking seriously at financial issues like differential pay, and individual needs-based 'sustainability'.

To clarify. This community was founded on a simple note of Service - service to the vision of a New Age. A New Age of consciousness on the planet, when humanity would live closer to its highest potential, as 'spiritual beings having a human experience', in the felicitous turn of phrase of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. When we would (will) bring 'Heaven down to Earth'. And this community has demonstrated the basic principles of how to bring that change about, through the features mentioned above. We have done things in alignment with spirit - by meditating a lot, as the basic spiritual practice of this community2 - and out of Love. Not 'for the money'.

The success grows out of 'putting first things first'.

As to the matter of personal finances: After paying a basic membership fee, whenever a member had used up their savings, or other source of finances, they could go on the community 'allowance' scheme. To start with, that was £5 per week; and continued on that level for many years. (Clearly, its members were not here - in those days - 'for the money'.) Then, when the Foundation could afford it, the allowance for its staff - ie, those who needed it3 - was raised to £40 per month; and after a short 'testing of the waters' at that level (with a couple of years in there of Christmas bonuses, if we had had a particularly good year, financially speaking), it got raised to the princely sum of £50 per month. This was all 'across the board': it did not depend on one's job. We were all giving of our best wherever we found ourselves being drawn to serve; for ourselves, our own personal growth, and for the collective. Then, in 1993, a major change was introduced: the Foundation experimented with giving 'itself' - its staff - a major raise in allowance, by doubling it, to £100 a month.4 Unfortunately, the income for the year did not increase in kind (there had been no reason to believe that it would; it was all just based on the wishful thinking that the Foundation would be able to afford the allowance increase), and the community went into an expenditure freeze in its last few months of that fiscal year; which included a request for those staff who could afford to trim their allowance level back to what it had been to do so, to help the Foundation out.

It turned out that only a few of us did so.

What was this all about? It was about a change in consciousness. 'Championed' by those who wanted to stay longer in the community, and not have to go back out into the commercial world, to carry on with their lives there, after some period of time of giving Service - Seva, in Sanskrit terms - to a centre of Light and demonstration, as part of one's spiritual growth in life. This was also the beginning of the average age of the community membership going up, along with the average length of stay. I left the community at that point;5 and when I came back, nearly 8 years later, that change in attitude and consciousness had started to manifest itself more fully. In a fundamentally dysfunctional way: a huge debt. And I mean, huge.

And in looking to climb out of our financial hole, the body chose to put everything on the line - how to increase its income, and how to cut expenditures - except one thing.

The level of Staff allowance.

Which, by then, had climbed to a massive (to me and any earlier members of the community) level of £200 per month.

And so was obviously part of the problem. But when I broached the subject - in Staff meetings,6 in looking at The Debt and what to do about it - of including in the mix of suggestions the logicality in trimming the monthly allowance, and running the budgetary figures to see how much we could save at different levels of that trimming (by £10 a month or etc hard figure, or %10 a month or etc), I got quite a shock.

I got silence.

Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

The body didn't want to go there.

It was, basically, a new being, from my previous time there. Whereby, now, many - the majority?? - of the Co-Workers7 are championing those amongst them who, for various reasons, need more of an income than the basic level of allowance that the Foundation has been able to afford to contribute to the wellbeing of its staff; at least up till now.

Like the young family who saw the 'heavenly sign' last night. Who are lovely people (and it is nice to have young blood around the place). But who are now part of the putting of pressures on the Foundation that are taking it away from its basic, fundamental principles, and depositing it back into the Old Age's paradigm, in particular of working 'for pay'. Of doing things 'for the money'. When, in the estimation of people like me, it should be pioneering the answer to the world's problems.8

Which is to do away with money.

With the nexus between 'work' and 'income'.

With, that is, the interest-bearing money system. So, not 'away' with money en toto. Just with the mindset of people doing things - sharing their goods and services with one another, and giving of their best in the process - out of the profit motive; which has characterized the human social structure long enough, now. Rather, to do such things out of a higher motive. Out of the highest motive possible: out of gratitude to their Creator for life with meaning. Out of, in a word: Love. And when we do that - when, we do that - we free up the flow of said goods and services, so that there is enough, basically, for all; and for access to those things that are, by their nature, limited, there will be some sort of credit system: people earning credits for their Service to the system.9

But not 'money' per se.

And here we are, in this spiritual community - this harbinger of the New; this cutting edge of the future - slipping back into the Old. Precisely when we should be pioneering, and demonstrating, the new...

My heart aches.

Yes, and for that young family. But they need to learn to stand on their own 'two feet' in life, and not be dependent on either the Foundation - this non-profit charitable trust, that is never, by its nature, going to command the level of income from its programmes to cover all the financial needs of all of its Co-Workers (and so can't properly operate a needs-based system of operation) - or the state; regardless of the current level of support the UK government gives its citizenry. That support base is collapsing as we speak - collapsing, to a great extent, under the weight of the weakness of the philosophy of people learning to rely on the state for their sustenance; and thus has come about the creation of a dependency mentality.

The mentality that is going to see humanity into its Golden Age is precisely the opposite: of realising that, if we do things out of a higher motive than that of 'making money' - out of, in a word: Love - we will create a society that provides enough for all. In one fell swoop. But which operates on the principle of each one taking responsibility for helping the whole work.

NOT on the 'principle' of dependency. Of looking to someone or something outside of oneself to provide one with their sustenance.

Like this young couple at this community. Just starting out on their mutual life path. And looking to the community - this non-profit charitable trust, with a particular trust-deed purpose for being - to meet their needs. And the Foundation now looking at the very possible outcome for itself of sacrificing at least one of its founding principles in order to do so - which also just happens to be the very principle that is the answer to the world's moving into the New. (And, for one example, that young couple's very answer to their situation. Which they would better be supporting. Not delaying.)

The bottom line: the Findhorn Foundation - my community; to date - will never be able to meet all of the financial needs of its staff-at-any given-time, and still get on with its primary job and purpose. That is to expect too much of and from the Foundation (and keeps those individuals in a state of dependency mentality on the Foundation). And, as I have pointed out, is not its job anyway. But that's the road it seems to want to go down, to explore; not to continue to demonstrate the way of Love, ie, the breaking of the nexus between 'work' and 'income'; the breaking of the mentality of being 'paid' for 'work'. And free will is the name of the game...so: We seem to have come to a parting of the ways.

As to this idea, of 'me' and 'it' being truly separate:

There is another issue here, that is also involved in all of this. Roughly speaking, that is to think of ourselves as separate entities. Each one against the world. The identification with 'self'.

In 'the paper' today - ie, in fact, the magazine of the Sunday (London) Times - there was a cover article on a somewhat aging movie star who has become so identified with her body that she is in a terrible mess in her life. The details are not critical to this comment. It's 'the principle of the thing' that I want to remark on. To say: As we have become besotted with our bodies - which are, after all, only a temporary vehicle for our souls to inhabit, in this school of Life - so have we become besotted with - enamoured of - money, and position. Life has become an unseemly pursuit of pleasure for pleasure's sake; just as 'money' has become an end in itself. Not the means to an end that it was intended to be. The end, of humans providing themselves with goods and services. NOT the end of creating 'us' and 'them'; of competition being the grinding stone of accomplishment; of figuring out how to make more money. Rather than how to provide each other with more and better goods and services, and unfold our potentials in the process.

'Each other'. Ourselves. Our true selves...

Consider. If we weren't so besotted with 'money' - which is, after all, as I say, but wish to emphasize - properly a means to an end, not an end in itself (except as it has become), there would be no poverty. Would be enough for all. If everybody just realised, and remembered, why they are here. And got on with 'the business'. Our true business. The business of discovering who we are really.

That We Are One Another. Just, currently, playing parts, in a play, whose purpose - as the playwright put it - is to catch our 'conscience'. Knowing, finally, that not only are we One Another. But that

We Are One.

And therefore, that

We Are God.

That God is not only in us. But Is Us. And We, It.

And it's time to start acting like It.

Not like separate selves, living lonely lives, of varying degrees of despair. But releasing the illusion of separateness.

Becoming who we truly are.

Becoming, that is to say: One.

So, the bottom line for our current level of consciousness to 'get', is that:

We are not our bodies.

We have bodies. But that is not where our true Self lies.

And knowing this - really feeling it, now - I for one am not for much longer going to be identifying with mine.

It has served its purpose, as a vehicle for me to use to gain insight into life's purpose; and I can now no longer relate to it; am having a hard time continuing to play The Game of Life any longer.

Just as my purpose in this community feels like it's over, now, also; for how out of touch I feel with its current reality. And what, apparently, it needs, still, to experience. In its lesson-learning in life.

Which pains me to see, and feel.

As the continuing pain in the world - from humanity's not understanding its true Self - pains me to see, and feel.

Wars, and rumours of wars...

So.

My time here is - feels - over. And by 'here', as I say, that feels macrocosmically as well.

I feel a little like Moses. I don't think I'll see the Promised Land myself. My job seems simply to have been to help to lead my people to its edge.

Its cutting edge...


'And perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.'

I get it, now.

So: Goodbye. Meaning, seriously: God be (with you. And you. And you).

But we'll meet again.

On the other side of the curtain.

Where we can all take our bows. For making it.

For making It.


---


1 which I found intriguing, from a personal perspective on the phenomenon, and this 'matter'. My brother - three years older than I, but who died an early death - was named DeVon. And I was thus given to think of him, and his passing, as I contemplated my own, with these 'intimations of mortality'. But I get ahead of myself...


2 This community - the Findhorn Foundation - was founded on the guidance, the inner alignment with Spirit, through daily meditation, of a middle-aged Englishwoman named Eileen Caddy, with her link with the higher realms starting in earnest in the mid-twentieth century. She titled her first book - compilations of her daily guidance - 'God Spoke to Me'. At first she perceived God as something separate from her, although 'inside' of her ('the still, small voice within'). At the end of her days, she had come to the realisation - or conclusion, for the more scientific-minded amongst us - that there was, in point of fact, no separation. That We, and God, are One.
It just take some doing, to get to that point, of awareness, and self-identity.
And I'll say a few words about that 'identity' business in a few moments.
As for those who might question her guidance; as Peter - her husband; and activator of her guidance into the material realm - would say (and did, often): 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating.' A thriving community, of souls dedicated to helping to bring in the New, grew out of her experience, and inspiration, with the help of Peter, and of their spiritual partner, Dorothy Maclean. That community - a 'centre of Light and demonstration', attracting thousands upon thousands of guests over the years - is now approaching its 50th anniversary. It has been doing something right...
(Peter, who had moved on in his life at the end of the '70s to bring 'the New Age' to Hawaii and the West Coast of America, died in a car crash in 1994 in Germany. He was living there with his fifth wife in this life at the time; and, according to his autobiography, in an Epilogue by his then-wife, Renata, had reached the top of 'his personal mountain', five days before his death. (He had been a major mountaineer in his life; it was a fitting epitaph.) Eileen, who had remained at the community throughout its lifetime, died peacefully there - here - in 2007. Dorothy, who had left in 1973, to take the spirit of the Foundation out into the world, operating from North America, returned to the Foundation permanently - after a number of visits over the years - in the first decade of the twenty-first century, and is seeing out her days here. I say 'here', for now, for me.)


3 NB: This was - is - NOT a 'wage', or pay', for services rendered. They were rendered voluntarily, out of Love.
And incidentally: In the very beginning, the community was simply whoever turned up, and could afford to stay here. Some bought their own caravans or bungalows; the younger people shared caravan space, as available. (There was one caravan known as Seven Berth - bunk beds housing 7 people.) In the early '70s the community was legally constituted as a nonprofit charitable trust - hence the name, the Findhorn Foundation - primarily so that people could get credit for donating to the operation of a charitable trust; which was a particularly valuable way for the community to operate, before the numbers of guests (at first through word of mouth, and then through various publications) started to increase, and the income grew that way.
The purposes of the Trust were/are to run educational programmes of a, roughly, 'religious' nature, and with a particular emphasis on Nature, for the betterment of the world.
Nothing about employees of an employer; about paying 'wages', or even 'pay'.


4 Mine was only one of a couple of voices that suggested, at the community meeting called to discuss the matter, that we should, rather, see how we were doing at a midpoint check-in, and determine then if we could in fact sustain that level of personal allowance sharing-out of the Foundation's income, given our other budgetary needs. 'No no!' I was shouted down. 'We can do it!' And 'Yay!'s all around...I felt, at the end of the meeting, what some experts in 'community building' and union meetings and such know: that it is the voice of those who stay the longest at meetings that wins the day. It felt, to me, like a set-up.
As it does now.
A set-up, for personal gain. To try to make it a fait accompli, before too much reaction sets in, and queers the pitch, as it were.
Not a healthy feeling.
Not a healthy situation.


5 not out of unhappiness at the changes going on in my, and the founders', community, but for life reasons (specifically, entering into a committed relationship with a member who wanted to go back home and be a proper grandmother).


6 A contributory factor to this whole picture was that, by now, 'the community' that I had known, and had left, was but part of a larger settlement of people, who had moved to the area because of the Foundation/community, and wanted to be part of 'an eco-village'. Great. And Eileen's guidance had also carried the 'message' - early on - that the community was to grow from a garden community into a village into 'a vast city of Light', whatever that may turn out to be. But in becoming part of a larger whole, the Foundation found itself up against two main cultural determinants: (1) Other people around who were living a commercial world's level of income, and whom we paid to do various specific jobs for the Foundation on that basis; thus emphasising the difference in 'pay' going on around us; and (2) its own staff's continued desire to put roots down here, personally. And that meant the pressure of having a 'sustainable' lifestyle, and level of 'income'.
Thus the mentality was no longer one of receiving an 'allowance' as a mark of appreciation for one's service to the charity. It was becoming one of 'pay'. Pay for a service rendered. Not the demonstration of the principle of 'Work is Love in Action'. But of 'Work is To Be Paid For'. Heading towards the 'consciousness' of: 'Work is the Means to the End of Making Money'. Grrr,,,,,,


7 another example of the different body here from my earlier time: now including some people who hadn't gone through the normal Orientation process for new members, but who had come in because of a particular skill, or were living in the Wider Community, for whatever reason (a family, eg), and could only afford to give a certain amount of shifts of Volunteer support a week to the Foundation, as part of their sense of and desire for spiritual Service, that drew them to this place in the first place. (That, or simply wanting to be part of an eco-village. Not everybody is here for the same reasons. Which also puts stresses on the culture...)


8 At this point, I want to note that I am intrigued by the relationship between this issue regarding this community, and the issue in America - my home country (and for good reason, I feel - right now regarding its Founders, and how the curretn generation of both bodies is threatening the entity that their Founders created, set into being. And there is further common ground between the two instances. Read on.


9 And I'm not here going to go into the subject of the 'proofs'/evidences for 'a Creator'; for something more than Man. There is considerable evidence for that state of affairs, not least in all the evidences for the fact of reincarnation. Which is evidence for a Plan. Which is evidence for a Planner. An Author of the play we are in. To sort ourselves out, via the working-out of the spiritual-growth principle of free will. For now: He who has eyes to see, let him see; and ears to hear. And I'll continue on with my topic.
But we really need to get clear on this matter. And like, now. Tempus fugit.