Reisman quote

Look at all the sentences which seem true and question them.
-- David Reisman

Not believing in anything...

This is just for fun...
One of my favorite old hard-rock songs is Ministry's "Jesus Built My Hotrod". And it's funny to me that while the lyrics seemed very nihilistic to me back when, they seem now to have a lot of truth in them, when viewed a certain way. :-)

... Actually, the lyrics I'm referring to are only in the longer single version of the song (the "Redline/Whiteline" version), and are seemingly sampled from the movie Wise Blood (based on the book of the same name, about faith):

"I've come a long way since I believed in anything...
Where you come from is gone...
Where you thought you were going to was never there...
And where you are ain't no good unless you can get away from it."

I could not find the single version on YouTube, but here is the regular version:

Bill talks

Here's a nice audio recording of a speech by (ACIM scribe) Bill Thetford. (They're not kidding when they say he was funny.)

"Energy shedding"

I used the term "energy shedding", and I was asked to explain it.
The term comes from me trying to get a grip on the process I experience. Here's my picture at the moment: imagine the ego as a ball of tightly wound rubber bands. Each one is a belief held with emotion and energy. (I'm not sure if emotion is the same as mental energy, or a special kind, or perhaps a quality of the energy.)

You can't get at the deeper ones until you have moved the outer ones, one by one.

Lately it seems to me like they are jumping off by themselves, very fast. It's a very intense process, to say the least.

And by the way, it seems sometimes to me like at least one kind of depression is the energy depletion you have when that process has been very strong.

Bridget Winter

Bridget Winter, Documentary Television Producer, reveals the extraordinary chain of events that in 1985 led her to the filming of the two-part film The Story of A Course In Miracles.

Update: Keren recommends this page with recordings.

Getting rid of old thoughts

The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it.
-- Dee Hock

The Big Sponge, a theory of Time

The Big Sponge, a theory of Time
By Eolake Stobblehouse

(This is a quick sketch of a new theory. I hope to refine it as time goes. The ideas which went into this has come from various studies, as well as my personal perceptions and research through about 25 years.)

Time is like a big, spherical sponge.

The center is the beginning of time. The outer surface is the end of time.

Souls start their journey someplace in the sponge, and work their way towards the edge. When they reach the edge, they Awaken, and end.

It's a "sponge" because some souls finish earlier, giving a ragged edge/surface.

The beginning of time at the center starts with one soul-track, which splits into different souls.

The tracks also split whenever a soul has a choice which makes him progress faster outwards, or not. He can't, of course, go inwards or stay level, he always progresses.

The apparency of a life is what is seen as the Big Consciousness is looking at the Sponge, seeing just one track at a time.

All the tracks are there, but if the consciousness chooses the more "Whole" (has less characteristic of split) of two choices, he continues on the track which moves faster towards the edge/end.

Choices which makes for faster progress is any thought which has more unity, and less split. The one which more resembles the Oneness Truth.
... Or at least this is an essential element of Truer Thoughts as it's seen near the Edge.
But *everything* in life helps progress. Any communication through the history of time has helped. Science, religion, commerce, family, all of it plays its role. [footnote]

I think the Many Souls were created very early on, as a solution to no more progress seemingly being available to the finished ego soul (which took an astounding amount of time to develop). (The first soul destroyed itself and rebuilt itself to find out how it had done it, so others could be made (make themselves?).) The apparency of more souls made Communication available, with the theory that if everybody keeps communicating for long enough, eventually all will be known.

The sponge is floating in a Bubble, which is the One Consciousness. The sponge was made as a tool to make the One Consciousness, which is also illusory, realize the illusoriness of its apparent situation, which is one of seeming separation from Source, which is what the bubble is floating in.

Source is infinite.
It is One.
It has no characteristics.
Since it's one, it has nothing to be conscious of, and therefore is not "conscious", though it's aware.
It's our true being.
It is less aware of the illusory One Consciousness or the sponge than an whale is aware of a barnacle on its back.


[footnote]
... Man, I forgot my own favorite: art.
It's my perception that the creation and enjoyment of Beauty is, well, divine. It's a reflection of wholeness and togetherness, and leads outwards.
Late in the game (near the edge) a direct conception or perception of the wholeness is essential. But for most of the time, communication is the most important part. Undeveloped souls (of which it's my perception there are still many) can't really Communicate as we understand it, the best they can do is sort of perceive the warmth of somebody expressive nearby. But they still make progress.

Quotes

The real power behind whatever success I have now was something I found within myself - something that's in all of us, I think, a little piece of God just waiting to be discovered.
-- Tina Turner, O Magazine, December 2003

Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty... Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
-- J

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
-- Walt Whitman

Where your thoughts bring you

You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.
-- James Lane Allen

On progress

It occurs to me that steady progress is often as desirable as fast progress, if not more so.

Why? Because with the marriage between the certainty of steady progress and the certainty of time progressing, victory is assured.

Time, time, time

Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn't seem to be working.
-- Anonymous


I like this. It's funny, and also true. The first part of it I think is the literal purpose of the invention of time.
And the second also seems to have some truth to it... it seems that nearing the end of the universe, time seems to be speeding up and even be messed up, maybe because of interference patterns due to reflections from the event horizon of the End.

Blake

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
-- William Blake

----
Yes, isn't that a funny thing.

ACIM-archives

Just launched: ACIM-Archives.org

From the promotional material:
ACIM-Archives offers you original and authentic material from our historical collection, most of which has never before been released. Here you will find first-hand documented selections from both the Foundation for Inner Peace and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles' vast collection of preserved memorabilia of the early days of the Course.

The website features:
articles
archival photos from 1975-1985
film clips
audio recordings
interviews and
newspaper clippings

Also included are the complete, previously unpublished Autobiographies of Drs. Helen Schucman and William Thetford.

Life-evaluation

You might be interested in this post on my main blog.

Never Forget To Laugh

Never Forget To Laugh, biography of Bill Thetford by my friend Carol Howe. I've only just ordered it, but I have a good feeling about this one. Partly because Carol has been talking about it while writing it, and I've given my input and advice, which I'm sure has been invaluable. :-)

Update: it's a very good book. I recommend it for anybody interested in A Course In Miracles and Bill Thetford's life, his trouble-filled relationship with Helen Schucman, how he finally "made it", and how to make "advanced forgiveness" a lifestyle.

Sage Sagan

Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.
-- Carl Sagan


And funny enough, it is where we have strong emotions that we are the most sure that we are right.

And, I've found at least in myself, that when I see others have strong emotions about something, I tend to believe them right also.

The price of ideas

To be willing to die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture.
-- Anatole France

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
-- Abigail Adams, 1780

Life is full of obstacle illusions.
-- Grant Frazier

Like an ability or a muscle, hearing your inner wisdom is strengthened by doing it.
-- Robbie Gass

Morcheeba - "Enjoy The Ride"

I love the fact that the lyric line which accidentally (through being in the middle of the song) is "the day that you stop running is the day that you arrive".

O'Keeffe etc

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.
-- Bertrand Russell

Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.
-- Arthur Rubinstein

There is one piece of advice, in a life of study, which I think no one will object to; and that is, every now and then to be completely idle - to do nothing at all.
-- Sydney Smith

I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.
-- Georgia O'Keeffe

Quotes, vision

We go where our vision is.
-- Joseph Murphy

Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.
-- Joan Lunden

When you build bridges you can keep crossing them.
-- Rick Pitino

Zimmermann and Du Bos

Be not so bigoted to any custom as to worship it at the expense of truth.
-- Johann Georg von Zimmermann

The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
-- Charles Du Bos

Voltaire

Love truth, and pardon error.
-- Voltaire

Very Important Books

A quick list of my own VIBs (very important books) from recent years:

The Disappearance Of The Universe.
The one-book-on-an-island-book. For my money, the clearest and simplest overview about what is the universe, what's wrong, and what can we do about it. (Preview.)

If there's more interest in A Course In Miracles, the lectures (his books are too dry for my taste)) of Ken Wapnick. Get MP3 CDs (at facim.org) and an iPod.

Jed McKenna's three books for important things about imploding egos and the nature of Truth that nobody else tells you. This man does not sugarcoat anything. (He may be off on some details I suspect, but probably nothing major.) Read them in sequence, "Spiritual Enlightenment, the Damnedest Thing" is first.

Adyashanti's "The End of your World" (audio or paper, though the CDs are expensive) for understanding some of the mental and energy-phenomena which occur before and after awakening.

Depression is Processing

I made a big spiritual step several days ago. I knew well that it would "punish" me for days or weeks, but it felt good and important so I did it anyway.
Sure enough, since then I've been deeply in the dumps.
Seems to be lightening up now, but anyway, I was thinking about it, and the voice said "it's a blessing, you know".
"how the heck is it a blessing?"
"Well, you don't have to do anything."
"Do anything to what?"
"Do anything to get the Processing."

That's it. The depression or anxiety is what you feel when your inner gold factory is doing very heavy processing. A big insight (or say, an A Course In Miracles drill) will knock out a piece of ore (guilt/pain). And then it has to be processed, which happens automatically, like digestion. The ore has be broken down to small pieces and then melted, so you can separate the gold and throw out the rock. (Free the spirit and throw out the ego.)

Normally this is not a burden much, I guess, but when you get really good at knocking loose ore, or your mountain is starting to crumble fast, then your "factory" is running at near-overload, and what you feel is the depression or anxiety. I guess it's just the waves coming off the big amounts of guilt/pain being crushed.

Think of Byron Katie or Eckhart Tolle and so many others, they had long periods of depression or anxiety, and then suddenly one day, they were free and whole and happy. Unknowingly they had been processing like hell, and suddenly they were done!

I'd love to know what is really happening in this processing. It has to be something mechanical, otherwise it could not happen automatically and unknowingly.
I think this is a whole new area of philosophy that nobody that I'm aware of has looked at.

By the way, I think this is what Arten and Pursah is talking about when they say that if you do your job with Advanced Forgiveness (knocking loose ore), then the Holy Spirit will remove the Guilt for you (do the processing).
It is not the "I" doing the processing. It would be incapable of such a thing, it would be like doing a heart operation on yourself. But the "I" can feel vibrations of the process happening, when it's going strong.

I don't mean to assert that this is the only reason there can be for depression or anxiety. For all I know, there may be dozens. But it's also possible that none of those would be enough on their own without there being an ego in the process of being undone. These are very hazy areas, yet.

A manifesto

Please read this manifesto which I wrote for artists in 1992. It's rather amazing to me how well it still fits my core beliefs after all my subsequent learning. I believe it was written wholly "guided".

Truth and freedom

The truth may set you free, but first it's going to piss you off.
- attributed to Gloria Steinem

Hate and Fear, how they relate

I think I've made a philosophical breakthrough, for me at least.

I was scanning for areas I feel emotional about to "deflate" them.
I came upon "Hate".
Immediately of course I thought I felt hate. But no, it was about the way I was feeling *about* hate.

I felt it was the most dangerous thing anywhere. The worst thing wrong with the Universe.
I asked myself how I would represent hate visually, and saw a floating, flying thing of white-hot and poisonous razor-sharp spikes, which might move super-fast and unpredictably. Scary stuff. :-)

I then thought how would I then represent Fear visually? And I saw a deeply frozen wasteland, like central Antarctica. No life, deeply frozen. Real fear is *frozen*. Paralyzed.

And I realized that Hate is Deep Fear which is only trying to reach out, to fix things! It feels something is deeply wrong, and it trying to find and destroy the thing which is wrong.

It is so frozen and in pain that it is deeply irrational, but Hate is really a huge step *up* from Deep Fear. It is the beginnings of some kind of action, an attempt to reach out. An attempt to fix things.
From outside it seems very destructive, but if you think about it, it really is very, very brave.

A super-concentrated crash course

This is from a letter I just wrote to a friend:

It started with me (Eolake) saying:
I've been doing a LOT of work in recent years with various methods regarding not getting over-emotional, because it leads to depression, anxiety, overwhelm...
And recently, all that work is really starting to pay off. I'm calmer and happier generally, and I almost never get depression or anxiety attacks anymore. It's amazing.

AB:
Awesome! Is it the EFT?

Eolake:
That was one thing, but I have used so many things. I find what one must do as one progresses upwards gets softer and gentler and less active, over the years. At really advanced levels one often really does not need to do anything, except observe non-judgmentally and relaxedly, and then conditions change.

I think one of the most important common denominators is learning to let energy and emotions flow (flow away, or "melt"), instead of being blocked or frozen. It's not done overnight, because we are almost all sitting in thousands of layers of old, hard-packed energy, and one can only handle one layer at a time.

AB:
I STILL haven't taken the time to look at EFT! I should listen when opportunities come to improve myself. And...WHO would I ask, right?!

Eolake:
I think everybody has an inner all-knowing teacher. I call it Intuition, some call it Jesus, some call it Holy Spirit, some Krishna, some Higher Self...
For some people it will seem to come more from outside, and for others, more from inside.
Learning to distinguish between the right Guiding Voice and other voices/influences is not always as easy as it sounds, and make take some learning in itself.

It seems one of our great learning paths in life is learning to let this universal force "take the wheel", and let our human egos take a back seat. The Ego hates not being in control, so it's quite a journey to learn this, but the payoffs are great, since the ego was never really in control anyway.

So. Until and if I ever write a book, this was the super-concentrated wisdom of stobblehouse. Keep it. :-)

... Well, just to throw in another mountain of learning here, another vital bit is to learn that everything Outside ourselves is a reflection of our Inner. So another long learning path is to bit by bit not blame others, or circumstances, but look inside for the Cause.

Update: One application of this I often have had much struggle applying myself, but it can be really helpful: if something really upsets you about something or somebody else, look inside you for something similar. Sometimes the similarity can be very vague, but it'll be there.
For example, Bill gets very upset when he hears somebody killed a dog. Looking inside, he discovers that he always hated dogs and tend to push them aside with his foot. See, nothing to censor really, but this is the real source of his upset, no matter what happens i The World. What upsets you in the world is a reflection, no matter how distorted, of things you'll find inside yourself.

Update: ...
But that's another lesson I'm learning slowly:
Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.

The universe knows what it's doing. By trying to run it, even just emotionally, I'm just wearing down my health unnecessarily.

Update:
Eolake:
For some people guidance will seem to come more from outside, and for others, more from inside.

AB:
...someone who is able to look at my situation from a distance and give me guidance that I had not asked for. Would that be an example of "outside"?

Eolake:
It may well be. Often is, I'm sure.

Also some people will have conversations with Jesus or a Guardian Angel or what have you. Some might hear words, for others it will be very abstract or conceptual.

I've had a few occasions where an answer seemed to come from such a place, but generally I'm too "macho" to accept such a position. :-)

I will sometimes lean back, try and clear my head of clutter, emotions, attachments and personal desires, and ask The Universe, "what is the best choice for The Whole", and there will always be an *instant* answer, as an idea in my head. If it's not instant, I don't trust the Source. (Sometimes I'll not like the answer, but then I say to myself, if you didn't want an answer, why did you ask?)

----
Now we are picking at the foundations of the most fundamental problems in the Universe, so one is not to expect a short and easy journey! :-)

Meaninglessness

I think one of the important lines in The Disappearance Of The Universe (a book chock-full of important lines) is when J speaks to Gary and tells him that the world must become meaningless to him.

Because 1) it is exactly what must happen to become free of it. (because it's the only correct evaluation of something which does not exist.) 2) emotionally it translates to not caring, and it's so difficult to change caring. And 3) It's a sin.

DU/ACIM is almost diametrically opposed to so much we believe as humans. One of the things is that it's a crime and a sin not to care.
"Dave died."
"I don't care."
"What? You motherf***ing asshole, what do..." blah blah blah.

But worse than judgement from others, we censor and condemn ourselves when we don't care. To be human is to care, and to be human is surely the most important thing in the world?? (Wow, what a perfect trap. The most important thing in the world is to be the very thing which entraps you!)

But I can feel caring about thousands of things flowing away from me the tide. A relief.

Update:
Often the world seems to have such beauty and love. But the thing is that the beauty of Source (life) "seeps in" through the cracks. Or it's reflected in the things in the World. And while we're on the human levels, we confuse it with the things it's reflected in.
But it's while following this "crumb trail" of reflected light that in the end we are let out of the woods and home.

Skellington

"You would maintain, and think it true, that you do not believe these senseless laws, nor act upon them. And when you look at what they say, they cannot be believed. Brother, you do believe them. For how else could you perceive the form they take, with content such as this? Can any form of this be tenable? Yet you believe them for the form they take, and do not recognize the content. It never changes. Can you paint rosy lips upon a skeleton, dress it in loveliness, pet it and pamper it, and make it live? And can you be content with an illusion that you are living?

There is no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. At best it seems like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere."

- A Course In Miracles

Stay calm

This seems to be something I have to learn many times:
Unpleasant emotional states (for example depression or anxiety) comes on the heels of strong excitement, either negative or positive. Strong emotions, tension.
If I could learn better to stay calm, I could avoid by far most of it.

It's tough to learn, because I'm excitable, and so far as I can see, the Ego *loves* excitement, as far as it's concerned it is what life is all about.

But I have learned I can do a great deal of keeping calm and calming down on purpose, I just need to become better at staying *aware* of it.

Update below: my friend Laurie expands this into the metaphysical realm, saving me from having posted off-topic. :-)

"That excitement feels like LIFE, it's hard to see it again and again as a dangling carrot, as in fact, a scam. Because it never delivers, it never ends up in LIFE, only loss and further desire.

Also, the mind conjures up scenes of the opposite happening to us if we stop feeding that excitement: dull, dead, personality-less, lifeless.

But desiring any object through the senses, for me without fail has led to disappointment. I'm really tired of it."

(Back to me.) She's right. What's basically wrong with excitement is that it's excitement about a thing in the world. Which isn't there. It's absolutely nothing. How can that not disappoint?

We are so slow that we never learn until our last lifetime. ("It's always in the last place you look.")
"Now I'm a millionaire, but I'm not happy. But I'll bet if I had a hundred million, I'd be happy."

Gustav Meyrink

"Man is firmly convinced that he is awake; in reality he is caught in a net of sleep and dreams which he has unconsciously woven himself. The tighter the net, the heavier he sleeps. Those who are trapped in its meshes are the sleepers who walk through life like cattle being led to the slaughterhouse, indifferent and without a thought in their heads. Seen through the meshes, the world appears to the dreamers like a piece of lattice-work: they only see misleading apertures, act accordingly, and are unaware that what they see are simply the debris of an enormous whole. These dreamers are not, as you may perhaps think, dwellers in a world of fantasy and poets. They are the everyday men, the workers, the restless ones, consumed by a mad desire for restlessness. They are like those beetles which laboriously climb all the way up along a pipe, only to plunge down into it again as soon as they have reached the top. They say they are awake, but what they think life is, is really only a dream, every detail of which is fixed in advance and independent of their free will."
- The Green Face, by Gustav Meyrink, 1916

Wilde

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
-- Oscar Wilde

Why breathing is important

I've gained some intuitive understanding of the importance of free-flowing breathing.
Somehow, for some reason, breathing is a very important symbol for BEING. Just being there. Being *aware*. Relaxedly.

I find that when I stop breathing it seems to be mainly when I'm *holding on* to something (a thought, a feeling, a position, what do I know). And *holding on* is one of the main barriers to freedom. When we hold on, energy stops. And the energy stacks up and packs up, and become old and hard. And then we have a vicious cycle, it's very hard to start breathing free and to *let energy flow* when you're sitting in a thick, hard, complex shell of old energy.

The good news is it can be done, and it gets easier over time. And on the day when you have dissolved the last of the old hard-packed energy, you're free and basically invulnerable.

Note: I don't think, like some say, that "if we just learn to breathe correctly", then most of our problems are solved magically. I just think that monitoring your breath (especially at rest in a darkened, quiet room) is an excellent way to find the trouble spots in your energy fields, and start to let them flow.

------
Update: Carol Howe, counselor, adds this:
The reason we learn early on not to breathe is that it cuts off our experience of pain. Watch a baby or toddler who is scared or hurt hold the breath. It becomes habitual.
Then the cartilage between the ribs begins to get "glued" in place and you can't take a really deep breath if you want to because your ribs, and thus lungs, can't expand fully. Deep tissue massage therapy is great for getting "unstuck" physically, which leads to an emotional release. It's quite a process.
-

Writing

I am not posting so often here recently. It is not because I'm distracted from my spiritual path. Au contraire, it's I'm distracted from the theoretical bits by the practical bits. In recent months I'm having more spiritual progress than ever, it's quite exciting. But most of it the kind of thing that's too subjective to write about easily. (And also it's quite exhausting, frankly, so non-essential chores have floated a bit.)

Maybe one day I'll write a book, if it's indicated.

Thoreau and truth

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
-- Henry David Thoreau

Big pictures

A friend asked:
"What if, just a hypothesis, what if I wasn't right, and it wasn't all ultimately meaningless in the Big Picture?"

I'm sure everything is used in the big picture, even if illusory.

The problem is the big picture is too big for human minds. Perhaps the horrible destruction of Earth is necessary for the spiritual salvation of the rest of the galaxy, and we follow on another planet later. *We* don't know!

And we don't know need to know. We just need to know that it's all right, and to follow the next bend in the river.

Ellen Goodman

We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck... But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness.
-- Ellen Goodman

Umberto Eco

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
-- Umberto Eco

Goldsmith

God must become an activity in our consciousness.
-- Joel S. Goldsmith

Married to...

Buttercup Festival.

Body, Gogh

"What is the use of a beautiful body, animals have it too... perhaps even more than men... but... the soul, as it lives in the people, that's what animals never have. Is not life given us to become richer in spirit?" - Vincent van Gogh


---
I'm watching "Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent Van Gogh", a film with some of Gogh's letters read by John Hurt. It's excellent.

Vincent is seen as the archetypical "tortured artist", with some justification. But I think it is much more important that his art came from Love of Life, and like he said himself, from Serenity. He never felt sorry for himself, he took the hardships of life as simply the price one paid to reach Higher. And he saw the Light, Love, and Joy behind it all, and that is what he painted.

Art and awakening

I just had a realization: art, like humor, can facilitate awakening. Well, I knew that, but what I realized is that like humor, but unlike most other methods, it can make awakening into a process which has more pleasure than pain.

Resting as awareness

Opinions

Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.
-- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Fear and smallness

I have come to realize that all my trouble with living has come from fear and smallness within me. -- Angela L. Wozniak

Ego dissolving

Hokey sh*t, here's another huge thing from the same book:

The ego having been fully dissolved is not the same as awakening.

Many wake up, permanently or not, before the ego is dissolved, and the awakening accelerates the process explosively. But the ego may still be there, in fact it can even be a very strong ego, and fight the dissolving process tooth and nail.

This fits my experience so much, and it seems to be one of the few things missing from The Disappearance Of The Universe. In that book the end of the ego seems to be totally identified with Awakening, and it does not make sense to me, because so many people who are clearly awakened also clearly have ego.

What Adya says may explain what happened to me: it might be that I had not just a brief awakening in 1986, but a permanent one (I'm not at all sure, though), but it was obscured by a fantastically strong ego, which has been painfully being dismantled every since, accompanied not the least by crippling fear. It can still be difficult at times, but I'm pretty sure I'm close to the end of fear. I hope very close! :-)

Glimpsing Reality

Once again, Adyashanti has said something I needed to hear (in the book End Of Your World). This one also confirms long-time suspicions of mine.
He talked about how some people have mini-awakenings which are not permanent. They can be longer or shorter. And how it might even be so short as just "a snap of the fingers".
But that even that... Reality is so powerful that just such a glimpse can powerfully change somebody's life.
And start the ego falling apart for real.

Which is exactly what happened to me in 1986. I had a micro-second glimpse of something, and then fear kicked back so hard that it took me two decades to dig back to where I could start getting an overview of what had happened.
One of the effects, apart from the beginning of mystical experiences and the ego dismantling, was that I got in touch with a powerful Inspiration for my art.

I'd figured it out, but it's good to hear that it's a known phenomenon, this brief glimpse of Reality (Source).

Descartes on doubt

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
-- Rene Descartes

I strongly agree, though I would add that once won't do it by a long shot.
And also that "all things" mean all things, not just those which are supposed to be in doubt by humans.

Happiness from without?

From a surprising source comes an article about fool's gold.

Adyashanti

Adyashanti is one of those who sometimes says valuable things I've not heard anywhere else. He has a Utoob channel.

---
Here is a "bootleg" video where he talks about The Secret and manifesting things. Will it make you happy?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but deliverance from fear.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Passenger

One of my old fave songs is The Passenger by Iggy Pop.
I'm gaining appreciation of the lyrics now, it seems to me they are about both "being in the world but not of it", or detachment from the dream, and about going with the flow instead of letting the ego try to control the world.

I am the passenger
And I ride and I ride
I ride through the citys backside
I see the stars come out of the sky
Yeah, theyre bright in a hollow sky
You know it looks so good tonight
I am the passenger
I stay under glass
I look through my window so bright
I see the stars come out tonight
I see the bright and hollow sky
Over the citys a rip in the sky
And everything looks good tonight
Singin la la la la la-la-la la
La la la la la-la-la la
La la la la la-la-la la la-la
Get into the car
Well be the passenger
Well ride through the city tonight
See the citys ripped insides
Well see the bright and hollow sky
Well see the stars that shine so bright
The sky was made for us tonight
Oh the passenger
How how he rides
Oh the passenger
He rides and he rides
He looks through his window
What does he see?
He sees the bright and hollow sky
He see the stars come out tonight
He sees the citys ripped backsides
He sees the winding ocean drive
And everything was made for you and me
All of it was made for you and me
cause it just belongs to you and me
So lets take a ride and see whats mine
Singing...
Oh, the passenger
He rides and he rides
He sees things from under glass
He looks through his windows eye
He sees the things he knows are his
He sees the bright and hollow sky
He sees the city asleep at night
He sees the stars are out tonight
And all of it is yours and mine
And all of it is yours and mine
Oh, lets ride and ride and ride and ride...

Another train dream

(I don't know why I often dream about traveling around in complex train systems.)

I dreamed that I was on a train in the local train system in/around Copenhagen, with a couple old friends.
An area we were going to was nicknamed "Tivoli", according to the train station map. I did not know why, but I found out. (Tivoli is a venerable Copenhagen amusement park.)
Once out there, it happened that the train went into a tunnel, and then went downwards. Like 45 degrees downwards!
While hanging on for dear life, I asked my friends what the hell is this, and they said "have you never been in this area before?", and I said "apparently not by train!"

It went down like a roller coaster, except it went on and on and on and on, with gut-wrenching speed.
I thought, "how and when did Danish Rail have the time and money to build this??!"

It was absolutely, spectacularly terrifying. After I woke up, I had remnants of that fear for over an hour. (Yet it was not all that unpleasant, oddly.)

Then later it leveled out, and soon we came to a station. I ogled a beautiful woman getting off, and then we got off ourselves. I said that I knew the guy in the video store in this town, and we could do some kind of business with him.

When we went out of the station, the stars were out and the birds were singing. Even though the train had never turned upwards again, we were outdoors.

I thought about it a lot after waking, and I'm guessing I can learn that you can be afraid for no reason at all. And that even if it feels like you sometimes go down, there really are no levels.

About everything

Funny, it seems to me that there are two ways to enlightenment:

1) Rejecting everything in the world.

2) Embracing everything in the world.

Would seem like opposites, but I think not.
I think the key is in the word everything.
You can't have any exceptions, because then you won't arrive at unity.

The first one is really looking at the whole illusion and rejecting it.
The second one is really looking past the illusion, and embracing what's behind it.

Addictions and pretty women

I've written about addictions before. I think it's a very important aspect of life to understand if one wants to rise above the traps.

An addiction occurs as a distraction from pain. Which at its deepest level always the pain of the imagined separation from Source (god). That pain is very great, which is why addictions are so powerful.

Addictions are not only drugs, they can be anything. Work, exercise, "love", sex, sports, prestige, wealth, anything that can take attention.

I've managed to stay clear of the most destructive ones, like drugs. But I still have some: coffee, sugar. Thinking. Entertainment. Pretty women. It's especially in the last one that I really notice the power of addiction. The attraction, the pull, of a beautiful woman is so astoundingly powerful it beggars belief.

It's a bit of a special case though. It is my belief that while sex in itself is pretty much just a drug, the abstract part of the Beauty of Woman is one of those things which connect us with god. Which is why it can be so powerful and so painful. It actually helps undo the Ego. I once had the perception that this design was deliberately created to help counter the introversive effect of sex, and offer a way out.

Hicks and Tomlin

“Today a young man on acid realised that all matter is just energy condensed to a slow vabration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather.”
- Bill Hicks


The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
- Lily Tomlin

... the problem with being in the human race is that even if you win, you're still a human.
- Jed McKenna
(Admittedly that was implied by Tomlin, a little bit.)

Indeed. I've never understood people who looooove being human. Come on, it fucking sucks on all levels. The best you can hope for is good sex and a million dollars? Good grief.

Disillusionments

"The process of awakening is a series of disillusionments, and each one hurts."
- Jed McKenna

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Tim points to this article about McKenna, thanks.

By the way, I'm currently reading the ebook bonus chapters of Jed's book, and they are surprisingly interesting. They're not really superfluous I think.

It's a pity that Jed's publishing company is so egoic that it does not have a good deal for somebody who already paid for the paper books and just want to get the bonus chapters, instead you have to pay the full price for the ebooks. (And $17 is too much for an ebook anyway.) They are also so suspiciuos that they use "Adobe Digital Editions" instead of PDF files, so you can't copy text, you can't get the computer to read the text aloud for you, etc etc. I don't think it's in the spirit of Jed's go-with-the-flow attitude.

Articles by Jed McKenna

Articles by Jed McKenna.
(Just dismiss the browser warning, it's meaningless.)
"We don’t want truth, we want a particular truth; one that doesn't threaten ego, one that doesn’t exist. We insist on a truth that makes sense given what we know, not knowing that we don't know anything."

Awakening/lucid

I just realized that what people call "awakening" can't be that.
Since you're still in the dream, it's the equivalent of lucid dreaming. But you're still dreaming/sleeping.
Awakening is leaving the Dream entirely. No more dream at all.
I'm sure there's at least as big a difference between the two as there is between dreaming and lucid dreaming.

No moment

"... the lesson of the moment is that moments cannot be seized. There is no now, there is only the intersection of past and future, both of which poses the curious charm of not existing."
- Jed McKenna


That is so brilliant. It's clear to us that the past does not exist, and the future neither. And it's also clear that the "now" is a dimensionless line where the two are touching. So what does that make the whole universe?

Discipline or flow?

A famous success guru said: "Do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. There are 999 other success principles that I have found in my reading and experience, but without self-discipline, none of them work."

What a life. Sentenced to spend your whole life doing things you don't want to do, all in the name of "success". I'm sure it has made a lot of rich, bitter old men.

Like Jed McKenna talks about, and like I've experienced in my own life, if you start "going with the flow" and let the higher mind guide you instead of forcing your egoic desires on life, you will more and more get into a sort of life where you never do anything you don't feel like.

Think about it: if you're in touch with the Universe's wishes, and you're going in the right direction, what needs doing will also be something you're interested in and you feel like doing, n'est-ce pas?

Doing that more and more will also help undoing the ego (because only the ego struggles against the Flow), so it's not a painless process, but it will get you more and more into a true effortless existence.

Becoming an un-fish

"There seem to two kinds of searchers: those who seek to make their ego something other than it is, i.e. holy, happy, unselfish (as though you could make a fish unfish), and those who understand that all such attempts are just gesticulation and play-acting, that there is only one thing that can be done, which is to disidentify themselves with the ego, by realising its unreality, and by becoming aware of their eternal identity with pure being."
- Wei Wu Wei

This author seems really interesting, and I've just ordered one of his books. I went for All Else Is Bondage: Non-Volitional Living, because going with the flow is something which really hits home with me right at this moment.

A Hard Crust

"You are nothing but consciousness, everything that tells you more than that is like a built-up crust of hard-packed emotional energy that has formed around you like a shell. All true growth and development is first and foremost a process of chopping away this crust."
- Spiritual Warfare page 100

Yes, yes, f***ing hell.
And the reason it takes so much work and time is because it is so incredibly hard-packed and many-layered.
It continues:

"Ego sends us searching in the direction of learning, of becoming more and adding on to ourselves, but everything we claim to seek lies in the opposite direction; of unlearning, of letting go, of reducing."

No breaks

Once I worked for a boss who was testing a new kind of personality analysis test for recruiting. One of the questions was: "do you ever exert yourself to the utmost?" I commented to him: "heck, I always do that."
He laughed and said "come on..." and I can understand that, because outwardly I'm sure I seem like a nicely relaxed person. But it's really true, only in the ultimate sense: spiritually.

I don't know any other gear but top gear, and I don't know any other destination but All The Way.

Creating something real

I've made a discovery:

Trying to create something real is an awakening-process.

They tell us, and I believe them, that nothing is real besides God/Oneness/Source. So I'm sure you can't really create something real. But that's besides the point. The point is the trying.

I do it by art, but I'm sure it'll work with anything, like trying to create a "real family" or trying to build a "real boat", both of them as opposed to the fake ones you get handed from others.

I don't know how it works. Maybe it's simply that when you keep reaching for something real, you get something real, in the end.

Inspiration

Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness - I wouldn't know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self- consciousness. -- Aaron Copland

Julie's words

More from Jed's second book (said by Julie)

"There's not a singly thing that matters about the dream except that you're in a dream. Wake up!"

"I understand fear now, I know what it is, how total it is. You can look at yourself and not see it because you don't see anything that's not it. I know that I wasn't afraid, I was fear."

I think if one really understands those two statements, they are tremendously important.

Update: Another interesting thing she said is that all human feelings stem from and are variations of fear. It's like a human is a prism which takes the incoming white light of fear and creates a rainbow of seemingly varied feelings from it.

On fear

"Depression is fear with hope removed."

"Denial of fear is the motivation underlying all activities in which humans engage."

Both by Jed McKenna

His books are really outstanding. Apart from DU, the most uncompromisingly non-dualistic ones I've read. And like DU, exceptional in being clear despite this. Other non-dualistic books I've tried to read have been nebulous at best.

No big or small

I had a sudden insight at one point which confirms the unreality of the world:

There is no big or small.

If you consider an object as divorced from all other objects, can you judge it's size? No you can't. Size is meaningless without other objects to judge it against.

If a concept demands relativity and relations to make sense, can it possibly be real? Of course not.

And, to me at least, this makes the whole universe meaningless and therefore non-existent, because sizes and relations is everything in this world.

Exhilaration

McKenna talks briefly about a phenomenon of the person who is "breaking free", who is on his way to awakening: elation. An occasional wild, intense, boundless elation. "King of the world, Ma!"

I'm happy to hear it, because I've felt it sometimes for many years, and I've even mentioned it to a couple of spiritual consultants, only I called it exhilaration. It's what has made the hardship of a collapsing ego bearable. The vivid, inner exhilaration I feel by my contact with Source.

New documentary

I've added a second documentary to YouTube:
The Story of a Course In Miracles.

It is tricky and long to chop up 65 minutes' worth of documentary, encode them correctly, and upload them, but the first one had such great reception I wanted to put up this one too.

These seven parts are the first half-part, I hope to do the second half soon.

Update: all 16 parts there now. 

Buy the DVD at ACIM.org!

This Contracted Life

I just had a delightful conversation with A Course In Miracles luminary Judith Skutch Whitson. She told me a story which I found very inspiring. She had been communicating to her sister who had died in an accident. And her sister seemed to be in an "everywhere" space and seemed very peaceful and relaxed about the whole thing. Her sister used the term "diffused" about the state, and she said to Judith that she ought to be aware of the great number of souls who are clamoring to get into the contracted state of life on Earth, to take advantage of the intense Forgiveness Lessons this gives.

Life as a human is tough, and many of us curse it sometimes. But there is much evidence that it was not created by accident: it really is a greatly accelerated course for spiritual progress.

Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment

I'm reading McKenna's second book. I really resonate with his being super-bored with trivial humans and trivial concerns. I am too, have been for a long time. And I'm getting emotional gains by accepting the idea that this is OK, not something I should be ashamed of.

This is related to something from his first book: a young woman is talking to him, and she is broken up about the fact that wherever she goes, she does not fit in. He tells her that she should push aside the curse aspect of this, and look for the blessing aspect of it. She has a big breakthrough on this.

I love this guy for being 100% unconcerned with what people think of him. This is really rare, shockingly rare. (Most people who think they are this way simply enjoy offending or shocking, which is just another way of caring what people think.)

----
A quote:
"Crazy is a numbers game.... when enough people are doing it... it's no longer crazy."
Truer words were never said. For instance, the beliefs of Scientology are crazy because it's a small religion, but the beliefs of Christianity are not crazy because it's a big religion. Watching football is not crazy, but watching trains is. Being turned on by boobs is not crazy, but being turned on by feet is.

More turtles

Old parable: a student comes to his teacher and asks what does the world sit on. The teacher says, it sits on a big turtle. The student asks, what does the turtle sit on? The teacher says another turtle. The student asks, what does that turtle sit on? The teacher says one more turtle. The student asks what does that turtle sit on then? The teacher yells, it's turtles all the way down!

I think this speaks for most religion and most science. You won't find the true nature of the universe by analysing the universe, all you will find are more turtles.

I'm soft in the head

For many years I seemed to lose the ability to hold a firm opinion or belief. And for a while I thought this was a disability. After all, we admire people with strong beliefs. Imagine a politician who changed his mind all the time, do you think he would be elected for anything?

But now I realize that my newfound tendency to not hold tightly to any belief or insight is actually a great strength when it comes to spiritual progress. Because there's no way in hell you're going to arrive eventually at absolute truth without going through a great number of lesser "truths" on the way, and the faster you can let go, the faster will be your progress.

The dark cloud

Something which McKenna touches upon and which I think I have too: the "happy life" approach to spirituality (that spiritual progress will always make you happier) is negated by the fact that when we are in a deep depression is when we are closer to truth than ever. Source is beauty of course, but in this world it is hidden behind a very deep and very black cloud of overwhelming fear and despair.
We don't get closer to Source without passing through that evil cloud.

Belief Systems

"Belief systems are simply the devices we use to explain away the unthinkable horror of no-self."
- Jed McKenna, Spiritual Enlightenment, the Damnedest Thing

Insanity

From the point of view of the Holy Spirit (or an enlightened being), the Ego is clinically insane. 

From the point of view of the Ego, the Holy Spirit (or an enlightened being) is clinically insane. 

There is no compromise or reconciliation. 

A survey

A survey about how you see things in your mind's eye.

Moksha

I think I like the term "liberation" (moksha) better than "enlightenment", because the latter implies some sort of superiority.
Also, "enlightened" does not carry much intuitive meaning for me, whereas I can certainly understand the desire to be liberated.

Or maybe "awakened" is better? Heck, I don't know. It's like a caterpillar trying to find a word which makes it clear what it's like to be a butterfly.

The Iron Piggy Bank

I dreamed that I was back in school and I'd written a report which was pretty good, but they made me do it all over because they knew it could be much longer and deeper if I just put some work into it.

And I woke and stayed in bed in the half-awake state where I often do my best intuitive thinking, if thinking it can be called. I realized it was true, I am very lazy.

Oh, I get the job done if it needs to be done, but every corner that can be cut without too much damage, I cut it. Back in school for instance, I could have been an A+ student, but I was always only a B student, because... what's the point?

So I figured this was something I needed to change, and knew that I could if need be.

But then I got a perception that it was different. That perhaps I should see my laziness in a different way.

I suddenly saw it as an iron piggy bank which I was clutching to my chest and holding onto.

And I carried the laziness/piggy bank with me for a long way, and it became bigger and bigger, and finally opened and yielded a huge wave of gold so big it washed me out the door.

The gold was Love and Spirit, and my laziness is only refusal to use more time and energy than necessary in The World. And the time and energy thus saved went towards the spiritual savings account and have paid big dividends.

------------------------

... I had another dream during a long nap this afternoon. I wasn't gonna tell about it until friends encouraged me.
Partly because I didn't think it meant anything much.
But thinking about it a little now, I think the symbolism is glaringly obvious, and I must have had real resistance not to see it!!

I was going in a private airplane (inside it was more like a house) towards some destination where we had some kind of important mission.
The pilot was a beautiful girl, though there was no kind of romantic interest.
The control room was apparently so advanced that it also served as a kind of kitchen, and she prepared a meal or something.

And in the back was a kind of bedroom, and I took a long nap while we flew, very relaxing, and I woke up a couple hours later and we had progressed most of the way, and the whole thing was just very pleasant.

The message: let the Higher Self steer, and relax!
In fact, at least for me: the less I "work" at it and the more I relax, the smoother the journey goes. 

Hightower

Wisdom is what's left after we've run out of personal opinions.
-- Cullen Hightower

Me or others

Men, said the Devil,
are good to their brothers:
they don’t want to mend
their own ways, but each other's.
- Piet Hein

We're all mad

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
-- Mark Twain

The secret of un-straining

Update: I think I have observed something important about this: I'd been wondering why the pains or troubles usually seemed to return later, and why this drill could be so difficult. "Habit" of thought does not explain such a powerful block.

But Fear does. It is my perception that one retreats into contraction and pain when one is running from fear. Another 'solution' is to go unconscious, on one level or another. And in my case, it seems that the pain was something I created myself in order to *not* go unconscious from Fear, in order to keep functioning. (I sort of compressed my mind/energies so the "gears" ground together.) Fear is the problem underlying pain, much more basic. 

The fear goes very deep, because really it's the fear of God or Source or The Light, and it's there because we have the false idea that we have separated from it. All human fears are based on this single fear. One could say that the whole trip of lifetimes since the beginning is slowly handling this fear, letting the holy spirit or higher self break it down bit by bit. So it's not something which is handled in a week. 

=========
This can be used both for physical troubles and emotional ones, even some that seem to have obvious "causes".

What Roger Linden talks about in the video below, a few minutes in, has been of tremendous assistance to me after he trained me in a phone session a few weeks ago. I have already become more relaxed and happy, and productive.

You relax and unwind, and you experience what you are experiencing (pain, fear, whatever), without backing off from it, but also without reaching out to it. There will usually be some tension or pain in the body to go with it. And you let your mind become softer, and monitor your breathing. It will be restrained if you have tension. So you just let yourself become softer and gentler more and more, while you experience what you're experiencing, letting go of resistance. Letting it be as it is.

[Partial transcript below]

It is trickier than it sounds, but it gets easier, the effect is cumulative it seems to me. It is worthwhile to stick to it for a while! It is amazing to me that for me at least, I *very* quickly fell back into holding my breath all the time, and it takes quite some discipline to continue being aware of breathing, and to continue to just do it, despite pain or other discomforts.

Don't focus on anything, rather you should de-focus.

Relax. Breathe. Let go.

Maybe the free breathing is enough. Just keep breathing is the essence.

Some may find it helpful, though, to see the mind's energy field as it stretches way out as a big web or tangle of tree-roots, and to let it untangle and become looser, bigger, and freer.

Becoming bigger and softer as a being. (Overlooking for the moment that what you really are is not physical, not even energy.)

The theory is that pain, suffering and blocks stem from contraction and tension. Some very intense pains have sometimes been released by this technique.

This may not undo the ego directly, but I find it's much easier to focus on your advanced forgiveness if you're not tangled up in pain or fear! :-)
Part of advanced forgiveness is unflinchingly watching and seeing the ego exactly as it is, and that is a fearful thing. Learning to dissipate that fear makes the process easier.

Partial transcript of the video:

Interviewer: "It takes a lot of energy or will to change the juggernaut of a thought pattern …"

Roger Linden: That can be [the way it is] … or you could just release your breathing. Because the juggernaut of thinking patterns is sustained by contraction in the body … and one of the most obvious effects of that is a restriction in your breathing. So if the breathing is released, just in an ordinary way, the intensity of thought patterns will ease …

It is impossible to have that juggernaut going unless there is some restriction in the breathing.

So learning about something like that … learning how to let the breath be easy … to let the mental focus soften … the mental focus is simply contraction … With a little practice—and the practice is essentially stopping the strain, which is effortless, life becomes easier and more comfortable. It’s hard work to suffer.

… The breath is not the only key, but it is one of the keys, and it is the most obvious, and the easiest to communicate immediately. Essentially, it is about the breath … but the breath and strain around the eyes and the tightening in the body and the solar plexus and the back of the head and neck—all of that comes from the assumption that “there is somebody inside, doing something.” So when one senses there’s a ‘me’ in ‘here’ (head), there is a little contraction that reinforces that. And that I’m doing something, I’m focusing attention here or there, and there’s contraction.

When people learn that this can soften or ease, then it is harder to suffer. There is a pull to get back into contraction, because it’s such a habit … but there is also a desire for the well being.

Lurv

The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

It may seem obvious to somebody who's been near the non-duality spirituality for a while, but it's not many years ago I read a book explaining that the solution to life's problems is Unconditional Love. I guess it didn't explain it well enough for me, because my thought was: "sounds cool, but where do you get some of that?"

Old and new spirituality

"...the old way is the hierarchy has the authority. Church authorities tell you how to worship in church and how to behave outside of church. The new spirituality is that you are your own best authority as you work to know and love yourself, you discover how to live a more spiritual life. The old is God and the path to worship him have already been defined and all you need to do is follow the directions. The new is being able to listen within for your own definition of spirituality, your deeper longings are the compass on the search. And the old says that there's only one path it's the right way and all other ways are wrong. And the new spirituality says that many paths lead to spiritual freedom and peace. You have a rich array of gems from which to draw illumination.
The world's religious traditions, mythology, psychology, healing methods, scientific wisdom, your own experience and that you can begin to string a necklace all your own."

- "The Seeker's Guide", Elizabeth Lesser

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According to survey, only 30% in the US now believe that their own religion is the "one and only true path". I'll bet that number was a lot bigger a few decades ago.

What is progress

On my other blog I have posted a short article about what is Progress In Life?

Religion and spirituality

Oprah talks about how she reconciled spirituality with her religious upbringing, a issue I'm sure many struggle with. (It's part of a long interview with Eckhart Tolle.) Even if we are not religious, we all have some kind of beliefs that we were suffused with during our upbringing. We are hippies or conservatives, atheists, hindu, protestant, whatever. And it takes courage to go beyond your beliefs, because there is always a period of confusion and fear until you get a new belief.

Bill Hicks

Of course since it's not real, ultimately it does not matter whether we spend the money on food or on bombs. Waking up is all that matters.