posted November 18, 2003 08:59 PM         

What DO they mean? Yes, it has become glaringly, painfully, invisibly obvious that there are phenomenon which my puny little brain will never be able to adequately explain, but what of the illusory nature of all that this body can see smell, taste, feel and hear? Where is this illusion, this reflection? What lies beyond the veil?

Not HOW can it be demonstrated. Not where can its signs be viewed..for those are only ripples in the pool. These proofs to the conscious mind serve only as tantalizing illusions themselves, for by definition, if the mind can perceive of them through the senses, aren't they then, simply illusions?

No there is a simpler, more straightforward meaning to this paradox. The great teachers knew something, and what they knew has such profound implications that they couldn't come straight out with it, but why? Is it that they couldn't put it into words?

No, that's not it. It's been put into volumes and volumes of words. Books and books and libraries worth of words.

Always though, instructions for how the blind might walk through the illusion and appear to the sighted. Always how the children could walk among adults in a pseudo half-sleepwalk.

"Follow these rules, reach this way of thinking, bring yourself to regard that in this way," they tell us.

Where though is this leading? What is the nature of this illusion? Where is this maze headed and if it cannot be seen or explained outside of it's most esoteric definitions, how can it matter? Does it matter?

Damn straight it matters. Not only that, but it can be explained.

Thank the good Lord for moments of lucidity. Thank the one, the only God of all, for this glimpse of the reality behind the curtain.

Thanks for letting this puny mind see behind the veil..for just one fleeting second. And now, for the trick..words to describe the deceptively simple:

Matter does nothing. Matter is nothing. Matter is a puppet on the end of a whim. Matter is a dance of sand castles tossed along by the waves, the waves by the breeze, the breeze by ENERGY.

We are the energy which moves this matter. We are the energy which creates this illusion. We are not the bodies that stare back at us in the mirror. That is the illusion. THAT is the reflection. We are that which moves those bodies and more than that, we are the ENERGY in emotion that creates the thoughts which move them. When we give in to desire, we are allowing the puppet to pull the strings. We allow the slave to drive the master. The desires, created by chemical interactions within a dirt brain, become the routers and diverters of electrical signals created by the spirit, that concentrated pool of energy which is WE..US..YOU and ME.

This is all a big fat dead nothing without ENERGY, and the energy..the energy is all.

No energy, nothing. No whirling electrons around nuclei, no lights to trip fantastic.

The ENERGY is the reality, the dirt...is just energy that has been TRAPPED in a dead end. Around and around in circles it goes electrons around nuclei, moons around planets, planets around stars, stars around galaxies, forever pulling us in. Matter is the death of energy. Matter absorbs energy.

Forever trapping the energy in endless repetitive circles. Forever working it's way to heavier and heavier elements that trap more and more electrons...more and more energy...more and more of US.

In the core of the Earth? The heavy metals. In the core of the Sun? Heavier elements.

The reaction of the Sun?

Releases US..takes us from material and we are allowed a chance..a chance to avoid the trap. A chance to LIVE.

The plants take US in and are ALIVE. They are our kin in this, but it doesn't stop there. On to the animals...the wild animals, the human animals. Our kin, alive because WE are in them. That's US...you and me across from you. That's YOU shooting out of that computer screen in the form of electrons..but to what end?

Here then is the call of the Path.

That ENERGY trapped in matter act, not as matter...but as ENERGY.

Not pulling in, selfish, greedy, trapping, denying escape, denying freedom, thinking only of sucking more into itself. Not focused on itself and how to get what it wants.

But as ENERGY, releasing, driving, giving, sharing, nourishing, sacrificing...we are energy and we are all. One light bulb gives all that you can see. One sound wave shares it's symphony with everything within miles. The heat of a fire warms all around it. Energy gives and shares and is one with everything around it.

The eyes of God are upon you. Are you dirt? Or are you energy? Are you real? OR are you a reflection moved about by the real? Will you die as dirt? Or as living energy will you unlock the door to what YOU are and be what ultimately WE are? Alive! We are the LIFE in all LIFE...NOT THE DIRT!

Will you be sucked into the illusion..or will you fight the reflection, becoming within the confines of the illusion what you are in reality?

The driving force behind the illusion!

The veil has been parted, the curtain is gone. Now what?

posted November 19, 2003 02:15 PM         

My daughter was having a hard time getting her head around this idea. Perhaps it was a bit much to expect from a 13 year old, perhaps not. Parents have a responsibility to teach. This is my responsibility to my children, each to their own children, in their own way. So rolling up my sleeves, I headed down that unblazed trail and sought to find the words to answer her many questions. Perhaps we both learned a lot this morning. Perhaps I learned more than she did. Perhaps we'll all learn a bit from it.

"You think you see my hand moving?", I said waving my hand in front of her face.

"Yea," she said with a smirk.

"Wrong, what you see is light being reflected off of my hand. Not only that, but you are seeing only a PORTION of that light. The rest is being absorbed by this hand."

"Huh?"

"Yea, this hand looks like nothing. It's the light that looks like something. Without light, you see nothing. Without energy, nothing. You wanna see what my hand REALLY looks like without light?"

"Sure."

"Close your eyes", she obliges, "that is what my hand looks like. Nothing."

"Yea but I can feel it though!"

"Guess again! What you are feeling are electrical impulses, energy, light that races up your arm to your brain. Wanna know what my hand feels like? Stick your fingers in ice water for an hour or so until they're numb. That's what matter feels like. Nothing."

"So matter is nothing?"

"Oh it's something alright, it's a trap for energy. You know what the model of an electron looks like right?"

"Yea. Protons, neutrons, electrons."

"That's matter, right?", I ask.

"Yea. Right."

"No. That's energy trapped. That's energy running in neverending circles. Kinda like your Dad, going back and forth from work to home. Kinda like watching professional sports. Over and over and over again. Like an illusion of something, that turns out to be nothing because it just starts over again. And the energy can't get out of that trap unless some more energy comes along and helps it get out."

"Huh?"

"Oh yea, and it takes a great deal of energy to set just one electron of energy free. But when it's free, it's very powerful. It can free more and they can free more. It can be a reaction, but FIRST, you have to have enough energy to get it started."

"Cool. Like a nuclear explosion?"

"Yea. There's an example. People that behave like the light that they are, instead of the dirt that their brain is made of and that their world seems to be made of, are another example. They add energy to get momentum going, momentum to change the people around them, to help free the light in them too."

"Ok, I'm confused? What do WE have to do with light?"

"You are a light love. You are not that body. You are not that brain, or those thoughts that run through it. That's all just dirt. Matter. It absorbs, implodes in on itself and takes. It is want want want. Mine is too. But US..we are light. We are what makes this matter move, we are the energy behind the illusion of life in this lifeless matter. It would be easy to demonstrate, except for one big problem.."

"What's that?"

"There is no way for you to show me what you are, other than through the matter that makes up your brain and your body. You have no other way of showing your true self to me.

I have no way of knowing whether you are really light, or just more dirt. No way except by observing your thoughts, words, emotions and your ACTIONS.

If you ACT like dirt, if you are greedy, self absorbed, dark, negative, taking and sucking the life and the joy from others, then you are, as far as anyone can tell, dirt. Because dirt takes and absorbs. Dirt wants more and more and more."

"That wouldn't be good..and if I act like light?"

"You ARE light. But if you can somehow fight past all of the urges and limitations of a dirt brain, and a dirt body and a dirt world and STILL behave like light..giving indiscriminately, without end, all you have to give? If you spread joy and contentment, going out from yourself instead of focusing on yourself, warming and lighting the way for others, well then love...there MUST be light within that dirt shell, because matter cannot behave like energy. Only energy behaves like energy. Then we know that we are looking at YOU, the light."

"Woah! That is crazy! So what you mean is, this is all a trap?! And if we get stuck in the matter, we end up like those electrons?"

"Like the electrons stuck around the nucleus, like the poor couple stuck in the city, like the Moon stuck in orbit around the Earth, like the Earth stuck around the Sun, like the Sun stuck around the galaxy.

If you don't find a way out of this trap, if you cannot stay true to the light that is in you; you belong to matter and your energy will be trapped. The YOU in you, will be lost."

"Riiight."

"Jesus said, you are the light of the world. He didn't have science books. People back then didn't know about energy, or the nature of light. But he KNEW. He explained this the best he could with what he had to work with. Remember a song that went something like..

This little light of mine..?"

She nods..and joins in.

"I'm gunna let it shine..
This little light of mine
I'm gunna let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel..No!"

"Exactly. This body and this brain is the bushel basket. It is the matter that tries to hide your light.

Jesus told us that no man lights a light so that he can hide it under a bushel. You are light. You were not given this chance to live so that you could behave like dirt..you were given this chance to be alive, so that you could shine. So let it shine, baby girl."

"I'll try dad. I'll really try."

"Me too darlin...I really will, from now on...I'm going to be a light!"

Shine people...let it shine.

posted November 20, 2003 11:54 PM         

"The Light is one of the ninety-nine Beautiful Names of Allah. Light is that by which things become known. Things may exist in the dark, but they cannot be seen. Light may be physical, such as the light of the sun or the moon, or intelligible, like the light of the intellect. The latter is that which illuminates the darkness of ignorance with the light of knowledge. Total darkness is non-existence, thus light is that which brings created beings out of non-existence into existence."
- Prophet Muhammad

"You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill can't be hidden. Neither do you light a lamp, and put it under a measuring basket, but on a stand; and it shines to all who are in the house. Even so, let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."
- Jesus of Nazareth

"And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels?"
- The Book of Mormon

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."
-Buddha

"Tell me, if Allah were to make the night to continue incessantly on you till the day of resurrection, who is the god besides Allah that could bring you light? Do you not then hear?"
- Prophet Muhammad

" If therefore your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly full of light, as when the lamp with its bright shining gives you light.”
- Jesus of Nazareth

"If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!"
- The Book of Mormon

"Those whose minds are thoroughly practiced in the factors of enlightenment, who find delight in freedom from attachment in the renunciation of clinging, free from the inflow of thoughts, they are like shining lights, having reached final liberation in the world."
- Buddha

"Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth; a likeness of His light is as a niche in which is a lamp, the lamp is in a glass, (and) the glass is as it were a brightly shining star, lit from a blessed olive-tree, neither eastern nor western, the oil whereof almost gives light though fire touch it not -- light upon light -- Allah guides to His light whom He pleases, and Allah sets forth parables for men, and Allah is Cognizant of all things."
- Prophet Muhammad

"Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up -- that which ye have seen me do."
- The Book of Mormon

"Seeing your body as no better than an earthen pot, make war on Mara with the sword of wisdom, and setting up your mind as a fortress, defend what you have won, remaining free from attachment."
- Buddha

"Man sets an end to darkness, And searches out, to the furthest bound, The stones of obscurity and of thick darkness. He breaks open a shaft away from where people live. They are forgotten by the foot. They hang far from men, they swing back and forth. As for the earth, out of it comes bread; Underneath it is turned up as it were by fire. Sapphires come from its rocks. It has dust of gold. That path no bird of prey knows, Neither has the falcon's eye seen it. The proud animals have not trodden it, Nor has the fierce lion passed by there. He puts forth his hand on the flinty rock, And he overturns the mountains by the roots. He cuts out channels among the rocks. His eye sees every precious thing. He binds the streams that they don't trickle; The thing that is hidden he brings forth to light."
- from the Torah

"The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore when your eye is good, your whole body is also full of light; but when it is evil, your body also is full of darkness."
- Jesus of Nazareth

"So no soul knows what is hidden for them of that which will refresh the eyes; a reward for what they did."
- Prophet Muhammad

"Behold, do men light a candle and put it under a bushel? Nay, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light to all that are in the house."
- The Book of Mormon

posted March 29, 2004 12:14 PM         

Whereas we each must feel like lonely islands where we live...nothing could be farther from the Truth. Certainly there is our Creator, of whom we are and who is always with us...yet there is ALSO this:

As we reach through this electronic medium, as the light within us creates these thoughts and these words in light..as we converge upon this place..we are certainly not alone..but united.

From the outset, it appeared an illusory connection, but in fact, the illusion is the many miles of material terrain that seems to separate us.

Thank you.

Love, light...with and for you all,

posted March 31, 2004 07:44 AM         

I'm so glad you are back and doing well!!

Are you still in Cali?

Thanks for all your time that you spend sharing with us....

I still like my little island.... every now and then.....
Nothing but beach!!

posted April 01, 2004 01:19 PM         

I've missed our beach meditations...they were so helpful to me...probably more so than to you. At trhe moment I'm still trying to reign in the ego again. It's been having its way with me I'm afraid.

Not to fear...I have no doubt that my ability to suppress ego remains UNSURPASSED!

Love,