Sunday, September 26, 2004

One of these Days I'm Gonna Leave this Prison.

Yesterday I was musing on bush matching up behavior-wise with his alleged faith in God. Of course I am certain and convinced that any connection bush has with God comes about only in an adversarial sense. The idea that this sociopath kneels before the master of the universe in humble surrender is ludicrous. He's a sociopath; he mimics human behavior to feign assimilation and achieve his ends, he doesn't actually feel any of these things.

It's said we see things better from a distance. There's a certain myopia that fades, once distance or time has interposed itself. We hear things like 20-20 hindsight and we see the regret and disappointment in others and in ourselves from what we may have been in former times.

With that in mind we can look at the muslim world. The muslim world is 1.3 billion people. Of that billion a small percentage are members of radical sects, a small percentage wage war on the shake and bake mentality of materialism which they perceive as The Great Satan of the West. They're not wrong in their perceptions. In a certain sense, the West, principally America, is awash in a world of things and vain amusements.

Some of these things like junk food, porn, television and other media, debase the human spirit and enslave it to the domination of the senses. I find certain aspects of Western Culture to be as offensive as they do. They don't want to be corrupted by a tidal wave of plastic shit and vapid nonsense washing over their culture and enslaving their people. They have that right.

Last night I saw a Jean Claude Van-Damme film about The French Foreign Legion. It was quite good, far beter than I expected. In the end the Bedouin leader lets Jean Claude (the last man standing) go with the admonition to "tell your people this is our land. It has been our land for centuries, we do not want you here..." there was more. It was very effective. A fine point was made and I agreed with it.

There are terrorists and there are freedom fighters and they both have reasons for being as they are. You will never defeat them unless you understand what motivates them. One should be defeated, the other should win, whether you want them to or not. You need to know the difference between them.

There are 2 billion Christians. Of that number a certain percentage are fundamentalist. A certain percentage wage cultural and real war against the East and seek to subvert their religion. They are indistinguishable from their counterparts in Islam.

They want, more or less what muslim fundamentalists want. They want to control their own people, control the world they live in and wage war on the infidel. They are both luddites and are ruled by superstition and draconian impulse. Live and let live is not in their vocabulary. Both send missionaries abroad to milk the bloody nickles of the poor and gain adherants to their cause.

The demagogues of the East and the demagogues of the West are the same. bush and his opposite numbers have the same thing in mind. bush has more and bigger guns, these are met with tactical reactions that are hard, I might say impossible, to police. Wiser minds could meet these challenges to the benefit of all. But the intentions of both sides are not egalitarian.

Of the two, bush is the greater danger to the human race because of a larger capacity to do greater damage. I'll add here that it is also bush and his handlers who incited the present conflict. I'll also add that there are hard, unanswered questions about what really happened on 9/11 and who was responsible. There is compelling evidence that the administration at least 'allowed' 9/11 to occur. And we can see how well this has worked to their advantage. There is no question that some kind of a Reichstag Fire took place.

Most people want to live and let live. Most people are sane (except for the degree of sensory hypnosis they live under), decent people who care about others. Most of these people however, are capable of being deceived by manufactured evidence and persuasive arguments tailored to their fears.

Demagogues and bad leaders of all stripes have milked human fear and desire through the ages. They pander to nationalistic instincts. They paint foreign peoples with diabolical intent. They set one class against the other. Skilled demagogues like bush, charge their opponents with class warfare in advance of their practice of it. It's a devastating technique to charge the other side with the crime you are committing first. Read 1984 if you can't follow this.

Now the whole thing comes down to another war which is the reason for life in the first place. The reason you are lost and do not know who you really are is so that you can be found, so that you will be compelled to seek. You are apart from the divine love in your heart so that you can strive to regain it. You are ignorant so that you can become wise. You are everything you are for the purpose of mastering and discarding it, until your real self (God) can shine through.

Along the way there are tests. But the playing field is pretty simple. Although there is no real difference between energy and matter, there is the 'appearance' of difference.

The senses report one thing and the intuition reports another. The more you move into matter, immerse yourself in the material world, the denser it becomes (this generates the heat that can be allegorically associated with Hell), the darker it becomes, the more confined you are.

The more you move toward the intuition the less dense it becomes, the less confined you are, the more light there is. That's all there is to life, the direction you choose. It seems far more complicated but it isn't. What is difficult is your resolve to maintain your course. The pull of the attractions and all the amenities and creature comforts of the flesh, the delights of the mind and the funhouse potential of the emotions is very strong.

At this time the variations of- and the magnetic power of attraction for matter- have never been greater. On the other hand, the opportunity for a quantum leap spiritually has never been greater; that's the reason for the former. Doesn't seem fair, but there you have it. shouldn't it be easier?

The fundies on both sides understand this in their own way. They realize that the physical world is a trap set to retard your progress. They know the world is a debauched whore of both sexes singing 'Hello Sailor." And they want to protect you from it, whether you like it or not. At the same time, if you're going to get clean you have to get dirty. If you're going to repent and change your ways, geez, you ought to have some sins. Well, they'll help you with that. They're real good on the black and white, even if wisdom is gray (note your color combinations and work out what this means).

So in a sense you could say they really believe they are right. Even as they are killing and stealing, and enslaving and subverting and lying and mis-interpreting, they really think it's for the greater good; most of them. Some are flat out working the process for their own advantage. Even when they are burning you at the stake and piercing you with hot iron and putting your family to the sword and building huge bank accounts and erecting enormous structures and creating police states, they think they are right. Some of them though, know what they are doing and they don't care. They do evil for the sheer joy of it.

And the one thing they hate most, is the thing they purport to represent. They hate the light that exposes them. They hate Jesus Christ though they cry his name to rally your hearts to their cause. They hate Martin Luther King and Gandhi and Nelson Mandela and Steven Biko and all the righteous warriors who stand for the good of the human race.

It is up to you if you allow yourself to be deceived. It is up to you if you compromise toward your comforts and side step your destiny. It is up to you if fear masters the naked vulnerability of your temporary flesh. In a world of cellphones and amusement parks and expensive things and the awesome attractions of sex and power and fame, it is up to you.

There are two kinds of sugar. One melts on your tongue and the other in your heart. One is more readily available. One takes more work. The heroin of organized religion and the one you shoot into your veins are both addictive deaths which are no more than a temporary fix. What you truly seek lies beyond the boundaries of what they can give. Deep inside you KNOW this and so there can be no satisfaction here.

No matter how many times you are led astray, no matter how many times you wake up with the corn husks and the swine, no matter how often you drown on bad wine and beautiful words, the real hunger remains and the good news is that, one day, you will achieve. Nothing in this world, finally can stop you. One day...

So if it hurts now. If you are tormented and bound. If you are angry, frightened, alone and lost in dreadful darkness, it won't be forever. But the sooner you strive to go beyond this, the quicker your real salvation will come. Everything and everyone serves the purpose of motivating you onward. All of the lies, false promises and disappointments are there to awaken you. It takes courage and it takes faith and one day you will find enough of both of them to carry you across, once you have burned to a cinder your appetite for the things that surround you here.

The real enemy is the separated portion of yourself. It is against this that you war, regardless of who appears to be your enemy. But your real self mastered this adversary long ago. The battle is already over, the good guys already won. If you allow fear to lead you back into bondage, you will remain there until you realize the same thing all over again. And on and on it goes, just like going to sleep and waking up every day.

"there ain't no good guys, there ain't no bad guys, there's only you and me and we just disagree."

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