The World, The Flesh and the Devil.

Considering emails I have received maybe some clarification of my methods and intentions might prove useful. First let me say that these emails were all of a positive nature. I’m not responding to anything negative here. I should also mention though, that when I do receive concerns about a direction I may sometimes take, that I give real thought to them. It would be pointless for me to engage in this exercise if my intentions weren’t that something useful would result.

Half the time when I sit down to write I have little idea of what I am going to say. At other times I will have an idea that came to me sometime shortly before sitting down to write. On no occasion do I know what territory it will pass through or where it will wind up. That makes it fun for me and keeps me entertained along the way. It gets written out in the amount of time it takes to type it; seldom do I break for any length of time, if at all. I then check it for spelling and usage errors and may occasionally add a sentence or two. Then it gets posted immediately after. The whole process takes about an hour.

At most times I will have just finished my meditation period. Now and then I am compelled to write first. Those are the times when I already have some idea of what I am going to say and the process takes over, so to speak. I hope this answers all of the questions I got and now, here I sit, momentarily wondering what this will lead to.

There is a good argument for me to always keep my commentary on the highest level. At the same time there is a good possibility that I will eventually become pontifical in the process. I think it is a better idea to leaven the whole with humor and eccentric imagery. This is more in keeping with what I am like personally. I am at pains to refine my nature as I proceed on this journey but some element of the personal is always going to slip in. I don’t like to read dry and insufferably high-minded things myself. Some of my entertainments are pretty pedestrian; we shouldn’t lose sight of our basic humanity. Occasionally some of you get the idea I am some kind of oracle or possessed of celestial understandings. At that time I suggest you imagine me using the toilet or checking the baseball scores.

Yesterday I presented my argument that the world is insane. Indeed, I do believe this. I go through each day with ample evidence of it. To me it looks like the world is a large mental institution and few of you are sane. At the same time, I am not at war against amusements and diversions and all of the entertainments that exist here. I enjoy many of them myself. It’s when we lose sight of the main issue that we get into danger. Many people live unconscious lives. They are literally in a movie and take it for the total reality. It is not. Real pain comes about from moving away from the living waters of being. Eventually one finds themselves in a desert landscape with none but Saturn for a companion. Don’t let this happen to you.

The usual result of living is sorrow and regret. The usual end of life is chronic repetition of banal routine, the loss of perspective and physical disability. As a result of increasing sedentary behavior, range of motion goes, spontaneity goes and a fixed determination for a spiritual end, if it ever existed in the first place, dissolves into an incoherent mind babble of television voices.

One of God’s great mercies is reincarnation. We are given the chance again and again to rise to a higher calling. At the same time, reincarnation leads to terrible opportunities of vastly extended suffering. It all comes down to what you want. You get everything you want; if not in this life then in the next, or the next. Every idea of who you might want to be is slotted for experience. You can take this to the bank. You also get to experience the opposite as well. Have mercy and pity for the rich, the captains of industry, the sociopathic entertainers and public figures whose life is example. Not a moment of it is missed or forgotten. We are all recording instruments of our passage. Our words and deeds are etched upon us.

Like everyone else I have made many errors of judgment. These errors can continue uncorrected and, often, interpreted as, not errors, but savvy business acumen. One can correct their errors in the same life one commits them in. One can make errors far graver than any you or I have committed and redeem themselves in the same life. Besides this there is the forgiving grace of the all high. God’s grace flows at all times and we would be wise to pray for it and to seek it out.

I no longer care if I get anything at all. This does not stop me from imagining and working toward certain ends, even as I try constantly to remind myself of my real goal. Even if we have lost the thrill of pursuing what we have not yet attained that does not mean that we should stop our efforts that reflect what we are in the personal realm. Things and conditions may be necessary for reasons other than the ones we might first believe. Often, unbeknownst to ourselves, we are used as examples for others.

By all means enjoy this world. Eating should be a joy. The food itself should transform into the energy of joy. But just as the act of eating is temporary, so this life’s envelope is temporary too. There are some who did not taste death but they were certainly changed, as the familiar Bible quote proclaims. If you could change automatically you would not die. The change itself is death as it moves from one state to another. Continuous change goes on forever. When you identify with the envelope and the environment in which it plays its part; when you believe that that is you... when it goes, you lose touch with consciousness. Do not confuse the transitory with the permanent. If you continuously identify with the imperishable you will be imperishable; indeed you already are. God created you in human form for this purpose of identification. The job of the world is to distract you from this. That is the world’s job.

The job of the devil, such as he is understood to be, is to tempt you into that which you desire to experience. The purpose of the experience is to awaken you to the alternative. By all means, jump for joy, you have good reason. But understand what that joy is predicated on. You are confined so that you might thirst for freedom... and you are given license so that you will know what freedom is not. Life moves in one of two directions; into a greater density and confinement or into a wider expanse of greater liberty. You learn which is which by the experience of it... or you don’t and you repeat and you repeat; just as old people continue rigid patterns- having lost the capacity for the new. At some point, for some, new is frightening.

The job of the flesh is to contain the elements for the purpose of experience. But the experience is in the mind, not the flesh. The flesh merely transmits from its theater of being. This is an old, old story. There’s nothing new here. Do not cheat yourself of high destiny. Look around you everywhere at the evidence of those who have. Listen to their insane rationales; the tedious convoluted arguments. Read the arguments of those who are apologists for failure. See the justifications for bad behavior. This tragic-comic, grand illusion, ‘shake and bakes’ itself forever. There is always a world for this and there are many other worlds too.

I am not myself strong enough to master the game. There are some who have the virtue and discipline to rise to great heights. There are also those who have risen to much greater heights than you and I who have fallen hard. You might want to go here and click on the images at the right hand side. That’s my area of pursuit, primarily because I need all the help I can get. Other avenues are available but you’d need to be made of stronger stuff.