Assume nothing about the reader, but make every attempt to produce a coherent message.
Message for today is that Deepak Chopra, David R. Hawkins, Ken Wilber, Eckhart Tolle, and all of the world’s major religions are saying and teaching the same thing. What is that thing? It cannot be understood by the intellect, yet they all attempt to explain it. All attempts to explain cannot produce truth. Nor can they produce full understanding. Only subjective experience can do that. And only the continued practice of awareness of your experience can bring you closer to that truth. But, each attempt at explanation can bring you a better understanding, which can encourage you to practice. And that is my hope, that we all practice more.
Today’s message is that evolution and creation are the same process. That Evolutionists and Creationists actually believe the same thing. What is that thing? That in each moment of the Now, life is both being created and evolving. It is the same process and it comes from the Now.
The practice for today is to sit for 20 or 30 minutes and find the Now in your experience. Here is one way to assist you to do that.
Think of the past, the distant past, the recent past, and the more recent past, up to the present past, the last fleeting moment that you can perceive.
Think of the future, the distant future, the near future, and the closest future, up to the present future, the next moment to come.
Somewhere between the last fleeting moment and the next moment is now.
May you find at least some brief moment of joy!
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Crop Circles and Transformation
Crop circles have been getting more and more complex and appear all around the earth. Some complex circles have been discovered within an hour of having been made, making it seemingly impossible to have been man-made. Some crop circles contain ancient symbols. Some contain symbols used by modern science. There is no shortage of web sites and youtube videos showing crop circles. Search for yourself, I have no inside information, I think everyone is guessing at this point. I also think that we can choose what we want to believe. I am aware that I am choosing these beliefs about crop circles. Being a member of the Jazz family, I of course respect your choice of belief for yourself, that's part of your jazz.
What of human transformation into something else? I believe that we are in a transitional phase, which received the first tsunami in the 1960's. We are spiraling toward some strange attractor and two changes seem to be happening at the same time. One has been called "the dumbing-down of America", where mass groups of people seem to be letting go of a need for reason much less wisdom. The other, heralded as the Age of Aquarius in the 1960's, is evidenced by an increasing number of groups of people who are experiencing high levels of consciousness, aware of the unsustainability of our culture as it exists today, and preparing to bring the necessary changes about. Will we go through some kind of vortex on December 12, 2012? If we do, will we notice? Are you noticing now?One video that I have seen is about the transformation of humankind into beings of light, homo-luminous. Is anyone else into homo-luminous and/or homo-spiritus concepts? I don't buy it literally, that physical human form will cease to exist, but it's a fascinating concept. I also don't believe the prophecy of the New Testament's Book of Revelations. Sometimes dreams are just dreams. I believe that humans will exist after 12/21/2012, even if there is a cataclysmic earth event. I do believe that there is truth in the Book of Genesis however, but it must be read from a perspective of nonlinear reality. After all, it's about the creation of the universe for God's sake!
There are lots of choices for what to believe about crop circles. I lean toward the following concept. The crop circles of ever-increasing complexity are physically created by plasma balls, which have been filmed flying over crop circles when created. Some field of intelligence is directing the plasma balls. Maybe the plasma balls are a physical manifestation of this consciousness just like your human body is a physical manifestation of your consciousness. When your physical body returns to dust, your consciousness, your conscious life, remains. Maybe the plasma balls are an ephemeral manifestation of a highly intelligent consciousness (maybe ours). I don't rule out aliens, but I don't buy into the belief that some physical alien life form has come to earth and is trying to communicate with us. No, it makes more sense to me actually that the life form that is creating non-manmade crop circles is a field of highly intelligent consciousness that is capable of various forms of material manifestation. Just like human consciousness is capable of loading into a physical human body and manifesting choice in our dimension of reality. Or, maybe they really are all man made.
May you choose wisely in your time on earth.
Peace and Love
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
My Will Be Done
This is to follow-up on the topic of free will, mentioned in a previous blog. What about free will? Is it that I can manifest whatever I want? What about “will power”? Why does will power so frequently fail to work for people? What about this phrase from the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy Will Be Done”? Is there a conflict there? Who’s will is really in charge?
There are way more questions than answers here, but there are times during meditation when I enter this clear open space and a sense of knowing the answers to these questions pervades. This feeling fills and inspires my body-mind-spirit and for that moment, I think I know. In all the attempts to describe this experience, I feel that Rumi, the poet, says it best:
Rumi - There is a field
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.
I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
There are way more questions than answers here, but there are times during meditation when I enter this clear open space and a sense of knowing the answers to these questions pervades. This feeling fills and inspires my body-mind-spirit and for that moment, I think I know. In all the attempts to describe this experience, I feel that Rumi, the poet, says it best:
Rumi - There is a field
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.
I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
Unfortunately, the word ineffable (incapable of being expressed or described in words) applies in this field. These concepts can only be grokked by experience. You must go inside to find that field. I want to share my experiences, but I can only hack away at the English language in utter frustration. Here goes nothing.
First, a little background. I just finished reading “Think and Grow Rich”, by Napolean Hill. It was written in the early 1930’s and the gist of it is that you can and will manifest whatever it is your mind dwells upon. Sound familiar? If you saw the movie “The Secret”, which came out a few years ago, you heard that same theme. In the early 1980’s, my wife and I met David Spangler and read his books and heard his lectures on “The Laws of Manifestation”. His stories of the huge plants that were grown in Findhorn Scotland were fascinating, real-life examples of manifesting reality through thought or prayer. My wife and I have also met Gregg Braden and read many of his books. His “Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer” is one of my favorites. They are all trying to teach us the same concept, that you manifest your reality based on what your body-mind-spirit is thinking and feeling. This idea has been around for millenia. The Bible makes references to faith and moving mountains. That’s a stretch to the imagination, isn’t it? Scientific experiments are currently proving that the conscious mind can affect sub-atomic particles (and therefore atoms). What this proves now is that this ancient teaching is actually true. Why isn’t this actually believed and practiced by the main stream? It is because we are only human. We cannot believe it because our body-mind training from birth is that there are limits to possibility. That will all change by 2012, but that’s another blog.
We all wonder sometimes, “Why did I do that? How did I get here? I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t plan on being here. I always wanted something else.” Most people’s problem is that their conscious awareness has not tuned in to what they are actually thinking and feeling and thus manifesting. In other words, we don’t know what we’re really thinking. But the wisdom of the ages is full of truth and the truth is that we really do manifest the reality that we experience.
What does this have to do with free will? The answer to that question is related to this question, “How do our thoughts and feelings manifest reality?” Wayne Dyer explains this in “The Power of Intention”. He talks about connecting to “The Source”. David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph. D., uses different words in “I: Reality and Subjectivity”. He says the same thing however, that our thoughts and feelings, i.e. our subjective experience, combines with the collective experience of all consciousness to manifest the next moment. He refers to the one consciousness as the “I”.
At one level, this is pretty simple. You alone don’t move the mountain, it is a collective effort, “Thy Will Be Done”. At the same time, you have choices. You can choose in every moment what you wish to think and to a lesser extent, what you wish to feel. Let’s assume that you have free will. How will you use your free will? What choices and actions will you take?
Wayne Dyer has another book about finding out what you really, really, really, really want. I have not read it, but I know that exploring this question is a very powerful and rewarding experience. It has been really easy for me to forget what it is that I really want from this lifetime. It has been a decades-long path to finding out what my soul’s purpose is here in this lifetime. For the most part, I am a very happy man and have most of what I think I want. Here is a most recent example that I wanted to share because it has been so successful that it is just blowing my mind.
Since December of last year, because I will be turning 60 very soon, I have been saying, “My sixties are going to be great!”. This is my mantra. I got this idea from my mother, who told me that her 50’s was the best decade of her life. My 50’s sucked, so therefore, I needed something to look forward to. I have not been specific as to what that meant, just “My sixties are going to be great!”. But over the last 9 months, my unconscious mind has made it obvious that it knows what that means. First, I quit drinking alchohol with no cravings, which is something I have tried to do for the last 30 years without success. My chronic sinus infection of the last 20 years has mysteriously vanished. I have lost 15 pounds. My back problems are starting to dissolve. Why? Because I know that I can’t be “great” when my brain is fuzzy. I know that I can’t be “great” weighing what I have weighed for the last 30 years. I know that I can’t be “great” when my back hurts. All these changes happened without my having to use “will power” to manifest them.
So, here’s the take-away. You can read all those books that I mentioned and come up with a strategy, procedure, daily routing for managing your own free will. I like using wishes. For example, do you ever eat whole chickens? Save your wishbones. Make at least three wishes for different aspects of your life (career, partner, friends, spiritual, health, etc.). Think about them twice a day, morning and night. Assume they will evolve. Hone them, shape them, and run them through your mind throughout your day. So that you don’t forget to think about them, write them down, keep your wishbones in sight, do whatever it takes. After several months, you should start to have a different feeling about them and they should be changing less often.
Ultimately, you need something that speaks to your unconscious mind, because trying to control your will-power with your conscious mind is a setup for frustration. I call it a mantra. Keep it short and simple. When you say it, it should be easily believable. Say it with an intention to eventually fill every cell in your body with that belief. For me, seeing results take months, but the rewards are thrilling. I can’t wait for my 60’s to start.
First, a little background. I just finished reading “Think and Grow Rich”, by Napolean Hill. It was written in the early 1930’s and the gist of it is that you can and will manifest whatever it is your mind dwells upon. Sound familiar? If you saw the movie “The Secret”, which came out a few years ago, you heard that same theme. In the early 1980’s, my wife and I met David Spangler and read his books and heard his lectures on “The Laws of Manifestation”. His stories of the huge plants that were grown in Findhorn Scotland were fascinating, real-life examples of manifesting reality through thought or prayer. My wife and I have also met Gregg Braden and read many of his books. His “Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer” is one of my favorites. They are all trying to teach us the same concept, that you manifest your reality based on what your body-mind-spirit is thinking and feeling. This idea has been around for millenia. The Bible makes references to faith and moving mountains. That’s a stretch to the imagination, isn’t it? Scientific experiments are currently proving that the conscious mind can affect sub-atomic particles (and therefore atoms). What this proves now is that this ancient teaching is actually true. Why isn’t this actually believed and practiced by the main stream? It is because we are only human. We cannot believe it because our body-mind training from birth is that there are limits to possibility. That will all change by 2012, but that’s another blog.
We all wonder sometimes, “Why did I do that? How did I get here? I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t plan on being here. I always wanted something else.” Most people’s problem is that their conscious awareness has not tuned in to what they are actually thinking and feeling and thus manifesting. In other words, we don’t know what we’re really thinking. But the wisdom of the ages is full of truth and the truth is that we really do manifest the reality that we experience.
What does this have to do with free will? The answer to that question is related to this question, “How do our thoughts and feelings manifest reality?” Wayne Dyer explains this in “The Power of Intention”. He talks about connecting to “The Source”. David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph. D., uses different words in “I: Reality and Subjectivity”. He says the same thing however, that our thoughts and feelings, i.e. our subjective experience, combines with the collective experience of all consciousness to manifest the next moment. He refers to the one consciousness as the “I”.
At one level, this is pretty simple. You alone don’t move the mountain, it is a collective effort, “Thy Will Be Done”. At the same time, you have choices. You can choose in every moment what you wish to think and to a lesser extent, what you wish to feel. Let’s assume that you have free will. How will you use your free will? What choices and actions will you take?
Wayne Dyer has another book about finding out what you really, really, really, really want. I have not read it, but I know that exploring this question is a very powerful and rewarding experience. It has been really easy for me to forget what it is that I really want from this lifetime. It has been a decades-long path to finding out what my soul’s purpose is here in this lifetime. For the most part, I am a very happy man and have most of what I think I want. Here is a most recent example that I wanted to share because it has been so successful that it is just blowing my mind.
Since December of last year, because I will be turning 60 very soon, I have been saying, “My sixties are going to be great!”. This is my mantra. I got this idea from my mother, who told me that her 50’s was the best decade of her life. My 50’s sucked, so therefore, I needed something to look forward to. I have not been specific as to what that meant, just “My sixties are going to be great!”. But over the last 9 months, my unconscious mind has made it obvious that it knows what that means. First, I quit drinking alchohol with no cravings, which is something I have tried to do for the last 30 years without success. My chronic sinus infection of the last 20 years has mysteriously vanished. I have lost 15 pounds. My back problems are starting to dissolve. Why? Because I know that I can’t be “great” when my brain is fuzzy. I know that I can’t be “great” weighing what I have weighed for the last 30 years. I know that I can’t be “great” when my back hurts. All these changes happened without my having to use “will power” to manifest them.
So, here’s the take-away. You can read all those books that I mentioned and come up with a strategy, procedure, daily routing for managing your own free will. I like using wishes. For example, do you ever eat whole chickens? Save your wishbones. Make at least three wishes for different aspects of your life (career, partner, friends, spiritual, health, etc.). Think about them twice a day, morning and night. Assume they will evolve. Hone them, shape them, and run them through your mind throughout your day. So that you don’t forget to think about them, write them down, keep your wishbones in sight, do whatever it takes. After several months, you should start to have a different feeling about them and they should be changing less often.
Ultimately, you need something that speaks to your unconscious mind, because trying to control your will-power with your conscious mind is a setup for frustration. I call it a mantra. Keep it short and simple. When you say it, it should be easily believable. Say it with an intention to eventually fill every cell in your body with that belief. For me, seeing results take months, but the rewards are thrilling. I can’t wait for my 60’s to start.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Fourth Grade
The following is a verbatim transcript from one of my many journals. What amazes me most as I read them is how little has changed in my mind's dialog. These same words could just as easily have been written yesterday. This journal entry is dated Sunday, March 18, 1990.
Of all my years in school, and there were many, I can recall the fourth grade most vividly. My teacher, Mrs. Drew, seemed so out of touch with where we were as fourth-graders. I remember thinking, "I should be a teacher when I grow up to make up for people like her." I had absolutely no respect for her. She had a daughter, Margaret, who was also in the class. Margaret had the red hair and freckles that reminded you of tangerine sherbet and cheeks that hurt. I felt sorry for her. While I was wondering how she could stand the embarrassment, I noticed the pride she had in her mother and truly wondered how that could be so. Then I decided that Margaret must be dumber than her mother and I avoided her.
Once we had a homework assignment in grammar. It was a fill-in-the-blank with multiple choice, like "He (was/were) at the park yesterday". I remember thinking how silly it was and, of course, I assumed everyone thought the same way. So in order to teach Mrs. Drew a lesson about what's appropriate for fourth-graders, I did the entire assignment incorrectly. While I was doing it, I laughed a lot because the sentences sounded so funny. I just knew it was great. We handed in our papers and the very next day, I think it was a Tuesday, Mrs. Drew said to the class, "I'm handing back your papers. They've been graded and I want you all to hear something. Clyde, would you stand up and read your assignment out loud, please?"
"What a coup!" I thought, "this will be hilarious!" As I started reading I could barely choke back my laughter. My head filled with that rush of giddiness that the age allows, and I could barely contain myself. After the first few sentences though, my laughter died down and I began to have an entirely new feeling. This one started in the pit of my stomach and swept over me like a black cloak. She wasn't laughing and neither was anyone else anymore. "What? On no." I thought. I swallowed hard. "Why do they always have to spoil the fun?"
Life could be so joyful! Of all things to do, why stop fun? I still don't quite understand, even now. I let my kids have all the fun they want. As a matter of fact, I think it's their job. Soon enough, they will have to get serious about making a living. let them have fun now, they deserve it because they were born human beings on earth.
That's the end of the journal entry. True to form, Peace Love Jazz prevails. Joy is right up there with Peace and Love on the energy scale. Your Jazz is what makes you vibrate at high levels of frequency. Follow your bliss.
Of all my years in school, and there were many, I can recall the fourth grade most vividly. My teacher, Mrs. Drew, seemed so out of touch with where we were as fourth-graders. I remember thinking, "I should be a teacher when I grow up to make up for people like her." I had absolutely no respect for her. She had a daughter, Margaret, who was also in the class. Margaret had the red hair and freckles that reminded you of tangerine sherbet and cheeks that hurt. I felt sorry for her. While I was wondering how she could stand the embarrassment, I noticed the pride she had in her mother and truly wondered how that could be so. Then I decided that Margaret must be dumber than her mother and I avoided her.
Once we had a homework assignment in grammar. It was a fill-in-the-blank with multiple choice, like "He (was/were) at the park yesterday". I remember thinking how silly it was and, of course, I assumed everyone thought the same way. So in order to teach Mrs. Drew a lesson about what's appropriate for fourth-graders, I did the entire assignment incorrectly. While I was doing it, I laughed a lot because the sentences sounded so funny. I just knew it was great. We handed in our papers and the very next day, I think it was a Tuesday, Mrs. Drew said to the class, "I'm handing back your papers. They've been graded and I want you all to hear something. Clyde, would you stand up and read your assignment out loud, please?"
"What a coup!" I thought, "this will be hilarious!" As I started reading I could barely choke back my laughter. My head filled with that rush of giddiness that the age allows, and I could barely contain myself. After the first few sentences though, my laughter died down and I began to have an entirely new feeling. This one started in the pit of my stomach and swept over me like a black cloak. She wasn't laughing and neither was anyone else anymore. "What? On no." I thought. I swallowed hard. "Why do they always have to spoil the fun?"
Life could be so joyful! Of all things to do, why stop fun? I still don't quite understand, even now. I let my kids have all the fun they want. As a matter of fact, I think it's their job. Soon enough, they will have to get serious about making a living. let them have fun now, they deserve it because they were born human beings on earth.
That's the end of the journal entry. True to form, Peace Love Jazz prevails. Joy is right up there with Peace and Love on the energy scale. Your Jazz is what makes you vibrate at high levels of frequency. Follow your bliss.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Transformation
Note: Originally posted on peaceloveandjazz.blogspot.com on May 28, 2009. That blog has been replaced by this one.
"You know how I have those really horrific, apocolyptic dreams on occasion?" I asked my wife. She had asked me why, first thing in the morning, in the kitchen while making coffee, I was searching the Internet on the laptop for a song that we had sung in church last Sunday called 'Peace I Leave With You'. I said, "I think my dream was a lesson, metaphor-as-meme to teach me something about nonduality, which I have been reading a lot about lately by people who have experienced it. They say that nonduality cannot be explained in words, so maybe my dream world created this metaphor so that I could better understand." Here's the dream.
In this dream, I was both inside sitting in a row of chairs with an audience of people and outside on a city street corner watching the most horrific violence that I have ever seen in any medium, be it dreams, movies, and so on. There was a man who picked up a homemade grenade and shoved it into his mouth where it exploded, slowly expanding his face into a grotesque caricature. There were large menacing insects flying about and one flew into my ear and I could not dig it out. There were people on fire. There were explosions all around and vivid scenes of humans being dismembered, blown apart, and burned, all while screaming and writhing in abject horror. There before me, around me, and within me, was pain, violence and suffering at its extreme. Then, in the heat of human suffering, I begin to hear music. At first faint, it grows louder, but still not as loud as the explosions and screams around me. Soon I recognize it as that song, 'Peace I Leave With You'. It is perfectly played, including the violin part, which we did not have last Sunday. It is played and sung as though by angels. There is a smooth floating violin line above and a series of arpeggio's in the mid-lower register of the organ. The words sung are long and flowing, "Peace I Leave With You. My peace, not as the world gives, I give to you."
Waking up to this was an inspiring experience. Simultaneously, I was feeling both the horror and the peace. The juxtaposition of these two extremes of horror and peace gave rise to a state of mind that I have had before, though rarely. It is a sense of deep knowing and understanding and of accepting this reality without judgement, but with instead a sense of "Oh, that is. And I am also that." Eventually, with the music in my mind continuing into the kitchen, the feeling of peace presided and the horror faded. The big hug from my loving wife helped a lot.
I don't know why I think it's about nonduality. I can see both extremes at the same time. They exist at the same time, extremely different in their extremes, yet they are somehow connected. How are they connected? I will tell you how. But first, let me give you another example that also appeared to me in a daydream this morning.
I saw this in my mind as I was walking the dog around the block on this foggy cool morning. In my daydream was a couple, man and wife. The man was physically abusing his wife. His face was full of anger and hatred. While he was repeatedly and blindly bashing his wife, there slowly emerged a love song from his heart. The love was there, in his heart, both visually and musically. I could see the pink energy flowing out from his heart with this song, all the while bruising her and drawing blood from her face. The words of the song, being sung by an unseen group of musicians, were expressing his deep abiding love and affection for her. How is it that these two extremely different extremes, deep anger and abiding love coexist? How are they connected? In the end of this tragedy, he is transformed by the music and is seen holding her and sobbing over her numb body.
How are these connections possible? What enables opposites to coexist in this way? I can only explain it with a metaphor, that of a stringed instrument. But first, one more example that came to me just two nights ago.
I was visiting my friend who lives west of here, where the housing developments grow further apart, the state forest beckons hikers, and the rolling hills were made for bicyclists. My friend, self-diagnosed as autistic or at minimum having Asperger's syndrome, frequently struggles with fear and inner conflict. In addition to cigarettes, he copes with his hobby, inventing antennae for ham radio, and with surfing the Internet for knowledge. He is the most widely-read person I know and his mind has been filled for years with the current thoughts of today's political pundits, scientific researchers, and leaders from all walks of life. From this internal experience of inner chaos and struggle, profound wisdom frequently emerges. "Where did that come from?" I asked when I heard the words of wisdom and saw the face of knowing. "I don't know", he answered in wonder. Aside from wisdom, my friend is also home to another extreme experience, that of the joy of cycling. By riding his bicycle and training in a certain way, he can experience moments of sheer joy that come out of long periods of effort, pain, and struggle. There are certain hills that seem to dare you to cycle up them and defy you to go all the way. The heart rate peaks and is sustained, the legs burn from the lactic acid, the breath is heavy and constant. The mind is focused on the prize, there is no listening to the inner voices of giving up, of turning back. The struggle goes on and on. Then the hill is crested. The legs continue to spin, though effortlessly now. The wind against the face awakens the mind. An extreme rush of emotional soup courses through the fleshy roadways of the body. The spirit of the moment overwhelms the body-mind, releasing joy throughout.
If this were to be a movie title, it would be called Transformation. There are other examples of this that I could relate, what can be described as the juxtaposition of an extreme dichotomy of extreme states of human existence. If you want to make a movie, I could give you more. But let's get on with the metaphor for understanding.
Imagine a single string on a cello or stand-up bass. Pluck it and watch it vibrate. If you were to see a visual representation of the sound vibrations coming from the string spread across the frequency range of audible sounds, you would see the amplitude is largest at the frequency of the string's musical note (concert A for example). You would also see amplitudes that are not as great but still significantly larger than all the others. There may be a half dozen or more frequencies that stand out. These are the resonating frequencies of that string. Overtones and undertones are sounds that emerge from these resonances, over or under the pitch of the musical note to which that string is tuned. Sometimes these other tones are audible, as if the instrument is playing more than one note at the same time.
I have been told, "Never explain a metaphor. Metaphors are meant to be a learning tool for the unconscious mind." But I am compelled to go on, the intellectual ego demanding its day in the sun. Here is where you choose to go with me or heed the warnings of the metaphor moguls.
Oh good. You are still game. Here it is. We are the string.
We are the instrument, though much more complex and with many more strings, more than an entire orchestra. We are each and all capable of resonating with every frequency.
We can resonate with anger, hatred, and violence toward another. And, at the same time, we can resonate with abiding love and compassion. There seems to be a resonant frequency of love that is an overtone to the frequency of anger and agression. With a little help from a piece of music, we can transform anger to love.
We can resonate with violence and horror and feel the pain and suffering that it generates. And, at the same time, we can resonate with peace. There seems to be a resonant frequency of peace that is an overtone to the frequency of horror. With a little help from a piece of music, we can transform horror to peace.
We can resonate with fear, inner conflict, and relentless coping. And, at the same time, we can resonate with joy. What do we need to transform the fear into joy? How about an anchor? Try now to remember the inner experience of cresting the hill and feeling the wind in your face and the rush of joy.
In nonduality, there is no cause and effect. We don't pluck the string to start the vibration. All vibrations already exist. We can however choose to tune our instrument to resonate with the vibrations or frequencies of our choosing.
Coming: How do we choose? Who's in charge? Do we have the free will to choose?
Also coming: What is an anchor? Why are they good for PTSD?
"You know how I have those really horrific, apocolyptic dreams on occasion?" I asked my wife. She had asked me why, first thing in the morning, in the kitchen while making coffee, I was searching the Internet on the laptop for a song that we had sung in church last Sunday called 'Peace I Leave With You'. I said, "I think my dream was a lesson, metaphor-as-meme to teach me something about nonduality, which I have been reading a lot about lately by people who have experienced it. They say that nonduality cannot be explained in words, so maybe my dream world created this metaphor so that I could better understand." Here's the dream.
In this dream, I was both inside sitting in a row of chairs with an audience of people and outside on a city street corner watching the most horrific violence that I have ever seen in any medium, be it dreams, movies, and so on. There was a man who picked up a homemade grenade and shoved it into his mouth where it exploded, slowly expanding his face into a grotesque caricature. There were large menacing insects flying about and one flew into my ear and I could not dig it out. There were people on fire. There were explosions all around and vivid scenes of humans being dismembered, blown apart, and burned, all while screaming and writhing in abject horror. There before me, around me, and within me, was pain, violence and suffering at its extreme. Then, in the heat of human suffering, I begin to hear music. At first faint, it grows louder, but still not as loud as the explosions and screams around me. Soon I recognize it as that song, 'Peace I Leave With You'. It is perfectly played, including the violin part, which we did not have last Sunday. It is played and sung as though by angels. There is a smooth floating violin line above and a series of arpeggio's in the mid-lower register of the organ. The words sung are long and flowing, "Peace I Leave With You. My peace, not as the world gives, I give to you."
Waking up to this was an inspiring experience. Simultaneously, I was feeling both the horror and the peace. The juxtaposition of these two extremes of horror and peace gave rise to a state of mind that I have had before, though rarely. It is a sense of deep knowing and understanding and of accepting this reality without judgement, but with instead a sense of "Oh, that is. And I am also that." Eventually, with the music in my mind continuing into the kitchen, the feeling of peace presided and the horror faded. The big hug from my loving wife helped a lot.
I don't know why I think it's about nonduality. I can see both extremes at the same time. They exist at the same time, extremely different in their extremes, yet they are somehow connected. How are they connected? I will tell you how. But first, let me give you another example that also appeared to me in a daydream this morning.
I saw this in my mind as I was walking the dog around the block on this foggy cool morning. In my daydream was a couple, man and wife. The man was physically abusing his wife. His face was full of anger and hatred. While he was repeatedly and blindly bashing his wife, there slowly emerged a love song from his heart. The love was there, in his heart, both visually and musically. I could see the pink energy flowing out from his heart with this song, all the while bruising her and drawing blood from her face. The words of the song, being sung by an unseen group of musicians, were expressing his deep abiding love and affection for her. How is it that these two extremely different extremes, deep anger and abiding love coexist? How are they connected? In the end of this tragedy, he is transformed by the music and is seen holding her and sobbing over her numb body.
How are these connections possible? What enables opposites to coexist in this way? I can only explain it with a metaphor, that of a stringed instrument. But first, one more example that came to me just two nights ago.
I was visiting my friend who lives west of here, where the housing developments grow further apart, the state forest beckons hikers, and the rolling hills were made for bicyclists. My friend, self-diagnosed as autistic or at minimum having Asperger's syndrome, frequently struggles with fear and inner conflict. In addition to cigarettes, he copes with his hobby, inventing antennae for ham radio, and with surfing the Internet for knowledge. He is the most widely-read person I know and his mind has been filled for years with the current thoughts of today's political pundits, scientific researchers, and leaders from all walks of life. From this internal experience of inner chaos and struggle, profound wisdom frequently emerges. "Where did that come from?" I asked when I heard the words of wisdom and saw the face of knowing. "I don't know", he answered in wonder. Aside from wisdom, my friend is also home to another extreme experience, that of the joy of cycling. By riding his bicycle and training in a certain way, he can experience moments of sheer joy that come out of long periods of effort, pain, and struggle. There are certain hills that seem to dare you to cycle up them and defy you to go all the way. The heart rate peaks and is sustained, the legs burn from the lactic acid, the breath is heavy and constant. The mind is focused on the prize, there is no listening to the inner voices of giving up, of turning back. The struggle goes on and on. Then the hill is crested. The legs continue to spin, though effortlessly now. The wind against the face awakens the mind. An extreme rush of emotional soup courses through the fleshy roadways of the body. The spirit of the moment overwhelms the body-mind, releasing joy throughout.
If this were to be a movie title, it would be called Transformation. There are other examples of this that I could relate, what can be described as the juxtaposition of an extreme dichotomy of extreme states of human existence. If you want to make a movie, I could give you more. But let's get on with the metaphor for understanding.
Imagine a single string on a cello or stand-up bass. Pluck it and watch it vibrate. If you were to see a visual representation of the sound vibrations coming from the string spread across the frequency range of audible sounds, you would see the amplitude is largest at the frequency of the string's musical note (concert A for example). You would also see amplitudes that are not as great but still significantly larger than all the others. There may be a half dozen or more frequencies that stand out. These are the resonating frequencies of that string. Overtones and undertones are sounds that emerge from these resonances, over or under the pitch of the musical note to which that string is tuned. Sometimes these other tones are audible, as if the instrument is playing more than one note at the same time.
I have been told, "Never explain a metaphor. Metaphors are meant to be a learning tool for the unconscious mind." But I am compelled to go on, the intellectual ego demanding its day in the sun. Here is where you choose to go with me or heed the warnings of the metaphor moguls.
Oh good. You are still game. Here it is. We are the string.
We are the instrument, though much more complex and with many more strings, more than an entire orchestra. We are each and all capable of resonating with every frequency.
We can resonate with anger, hatred, and violence toward another. And, at the same time, we can resonate with abiding love and compassion. There seems to be a resonant frequency of love that is an overtone to the frequency of anger and agression. With a little help from a piece of music, we can transform anger to love.
We can resonate with violence and horror and feel the pain and suffering that it generates. And, at the same time, we can resonate with peace. There seems to be a resonant frequency of peace that is an overtone to the frequency of horror. With a little help from a piece of music, we can transform horror to peace.
We can resonate with fear, inner conflict, and relentless coping. And, at the same time, we can resonate with joy. What do we need to transform the fear into joy? How about an anchor? Try now to remember the inner experience of cresting the hill and feeling the wind in your face and the rush of joy.
In nonduality, there is no cause and effect. We don't pluck the string to start the vibration. All vibrations already exist. We can however choose to tune our instrument to resonate with the vibrations or frequencies of our choosing.
Coming: How do we choose? Who's in charge? Do we have the free will to choose?
Also coming: What is an anchor? Why are they good for PTSD?
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
always start at the beginning
Shall we start with a poem?
This one is by John Gay, who lived from 1685 to 1732.
This one is by John Gay, who lived from 1685 to 1732.
Give me, kind Heaven, a private station,
A mind serene for contemplation;
Title and profit I resign;
The post of honour shall be mine.
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