Some Flowers and Digressions in my Pathway.

Well now, onward and upward- as I like to say. It’s a gray day here today. I like to think that the weather, overall, in a place where it could be better- given its location- is often an expression of the general mindset of the populace. I live, somewhat against my aspirations otherwise, in a small town in Germany that dates back to about 800AD. It’s one of those picturesque postcard towns. It’s not a poor town. Europe doesn’t have the sort of thing America does. It lacks the wide disparity between rich and poor. It has nowhere near the crime. Of course all larger urban locations anywhere have the sociopathy and moral ambiguity that is the general product of too many people pressed too close together in a place where everything is for sale. Even so, Europeans are much better behaved.

Germany is a depressed place mentally and emotionally. Each country I’ve been to has certain characteristics. Depression I notice here. No matter where we are though, we do not have to buy into the overall vibration. We’re affected by it. If we stand in the rain we get wet. But life isn’t, in it’s essence about what goes on outside of us but inside of us. To some degree we are what we think and how we feel. What we think and how we feel is based on our interpretation of experience and circumstance. Change your view and you change your world; sooner or later.

Well, this isn’t what I was going to talk about so let’s just move on. I like to have a free range capacity when I write. I might be on my way somewhere, or in the middle of something and just want to stop and say, “Look at that.” Or maybe go kick dirt clumps in a field for a moment before I head off toward my destination. I like digression. We digress in our lives more than we probably think we do. Most of us have no idea where we are heading. The difference between our perception of events, the perceptions of our fellows and the truth of events is often very dissimilar. So is the difference between where we thought we were headed and where we wound up.

From the time I first realized I was here and then started looking around and where I am today I’ve come across many individuals who have moved me. Most have moved me away; some have moved me in for a closer look. At some point- and I don’t know when it happened, it wasn’t all that long ago I developed a fairly fine-tuned lie detector; a truth perceiving capacity. All along I had a sense of whether something was bonafide or not but my own desires often compromised my perceptions. It’s kind of like how you can’t cheat an honest man. That’s a very true statement, once it is properly understood.

My interest in the arcane, the occult, the spiritual and metaphysical has been with me all my life. I can honestly say that this interest has superseded all other interests overall. I don’t have that much interest in terrestrial affairs and there isn’t much there to surprise me. 99% of the time I don’t even have to consciously register any of it; its origin, intention and unavoidable conclusion are patently obvious. I’ve been able to affirm this in hindsight enough times where it’s not a mystery. The lives lived here and the things they encounter have been repeating in the same relationships and results for thousands of years. The technologies have been different and the fashions change. The rest of it doesn’t change except to constantly keep changing into the same thing over and over again.

In the midst of this have come and gone the occasional extraordinary individuals. These individuals and their lives interest me. I’m not interested in blood relationships, real estate, bank accounts, eating in restaurants or call girls in my hotel rooms. I’m not interested in micro managing the lives of offspring or sending out Christmas cards; going to the PTA, sitting in meetings about how to improve a bottom line or even much contemplating the lines of anyone’s bottom; I’ve more of an eye for the marvelous symmetry of natures beauties though than I am in how to make money off of it. I’ve much more interest in art than in business. I’ve less than a zero interest in the usual activities or day dreams of the 99%.

This isn’t meant as a criticism of them. Everyone has a right to their interests and their dreams and all interests and dreams have fees and consequences. As far as the basic morality of community standards, I have certainly offended them more than the majority; I think.

In my progress through this vale of tears I’ve been influenced by the work of a few people. I’ll leave the various artists in their various fields out of the equation; if they were any good I probably liked them. Though I am familiar with most of those whose names have come into view as spiritually inclined I am only impressed with a very few. These would be Ramakrishna; Ramana Maharshi, Pantanjali, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Amitabha Buddha, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Meher Baba, Guru Bawa, Omar Khayyam, Paramahansa Yogananda and his lineage. I am also impressed with various alchemical and occult writers; Paul Foster Case, Arthur Edward Waite, Basil Valentine, Thomas Vaughn, Paracelsus, Eliphas Levi and Cornelius Agrippa to name but a few. Then there are those new thought writers like Joseph Brenner, Ernest Holmes, Alice Bailey and a few others. I’ve omitted a few but not many.

What all of these people did was tell me the truth. All of them had a sense of service as well and none of them seemed inclined to make a business of their efforts. These features are key to my appreciation of them. This is not to say that I haven’t left out many righteous, selfless and brilliant, God-intoxicated individuals; I have. Some of them I don’t know about and some of them just didn’t make the cut.

I am less than amused by 99% of those who consider themselves proponents of the new age. Most of these people have no shame. I’ve no use for the Rudolph Steiner’s and Emanuel Kant’s who though possibly accurate, make me want to smother myself with a pillow. I’m not into witchcraft in order to maximize and legitimize my sexual opportunities and quest for personal mystery and power and Satan worship is only a fascination with God’s rear end.

I deluded myself about a lot of things for a lot longer than I wished I’d done. I’ve compromised myself to get along. I’ve lied out of convenience. I’ve been less than I might have been on my way to being what I am. We can’t use the mistakes of our past as some sort of bizarre justification for a continuation of the same. If we do we are a fool. We shouldn’t let past failures imply that we shall always fail. We shouldn’t condemn ourselves for stupid things we did when we were stupid. We should never let peer pressure influence our awareness of what we know to be right. Not if the might of the world appears arrayed before us should we waver in our faith in the source of all power. But zealous outrage and a passion to change anything but ourselves should be viewed as the dangerous business it can often become. I’m reminded of Nietzsche’s comment on becoming a monster.

The people I mentioned never steered me wrong; would that we had more of their like. It amazes me that there are so few. It amazes me how pedestrian are the interests and pursuits of so many. I always feel like I got off at the wrong stop.

Well, I don’t know how this is all going to resolve itself; not the details anyway. The end I know in part- but not the landscape through which I’m going to pass.

I look at all these teachers; these other teachers that I haven’t mentioned. They sit on their chairs in front of their followers and talk of flowery nonsense. Some of these people have some wisdom and capacity. Some of them are telling the truth up to a point. But a great many of them are running a con. I remember quite a few of them that I felt uneasy about and the things that followed for them.

The first requirement of being ‘a master’ is to actually be a master. That presupposes knowing from whence comes the mastery. We never know what we might face. We never know what might be exposed; what traps are laid, what tests wait, what moment may come in which we find ourselves an example of what not to do. Given the opportunity of a wider celebrity in anything, it is a wise soul who knows when to keep their head down, not forget the provision train and remember the examples of the past.