Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Now I lay Me Down to Sleep, Perchance to Dream.

Well now, I haven’t been around much in this location; many things are going on elsewhere and they have taken my time and my attention. The truth is though that I like it here more than elsewhere. Here I get to talk about things that are meaningful to me. Other places have meaning but it’s often the sort of surface chatter I have to wade through because I am required to participate in the Grand Illusion for as long as I am under that illusion.

Ben asked me a good question the other day and, unlike at other times, I didn’t get back to him about it. He wanted to know “is the sex force the purely physical/animalistic 'urge' for sex or the emotional/psychological aspect (involving feelings of love)? This isn't the first place I've read about channeling the sexual force.”

So, let me answer that within the limitations of my understanding; even though I kinda did in the essay when I said the force expressed in violent acts of passion is the same force, once refined, that expresses our highest nature. I didn’t say it exactly that way but I’m not inclined to go find the sentence right now. The sex force is all of those forces at a different level of presentation. A good example would be a beginning violin student compared to Paganini (hopefully Paganini was a violin player).

This is the whole purpose of life on this planet; instruction in the handling and channeling of force. One might imagine that a star in the sky was once some child learning the violin. We each have some idea of the meaning of Love but we have no idea of what that is like in the heart of God- but we will. We learn by our mistakes. Every one of us is a Magus in training. I remember Mickey Mouse in the movie Fantasia, playing in the sequence called “The Sorcerers Apprentice”. That had a very powerful effect on me as a child. It was only later that I realized why.

Each of us has a gift, or several gifts, in any particular life that we are meant to refine and present. We live in a ‘show and tell’ world. It can be embarrassing much of the time and it can be dangerous when it isn’t. No matter how many times we are told or shown otherwise, we still believe we are doing it. We don’t do anything except interfere and to the degree that we interfere we embarrass ourselves. There is only one prime mover in the universe and all force, all will comes from there.

When you see pictures of Buddhas and ‘realized’ Yogis seated in their postures, you are looking at one who has apprehended this simple fact. They have come to a point of maximum allowance for the prime mover. They don’t know any more than anyone else in many respects but they know who does and they are sitting right there; right there where it is. Those who know they do not know, recognize others who know that they do not know, regardless of language, or age, or dissimilarities of culture or religious form.

We are children of God inasmuch as we are pieces of God. God divided, or exploded, or expanded into an exponential and uncountable collection of expressions, all of which he made out of his own substance. He placed these life forms in many different worlds, also made out of his substance and he permeates and interpenetrates it all.

God is the spark of life in every living soul. Some souls have moved a very great distance from God for a lot of different reasons. Some are moving inexorably toward God at varying rates of speed. Those who are moving away from God are also moving toward God, no matter what direction they are headed in.

The fastest route to the realization of God, awake within, comes through recognition that ‘everything is under control’ and also involves a passionate striving toward that end. How can a passionate striving be of any positive assistance when the recognition of -everything being under control- implies no other recourse but total surrender? Perhaps it is the fuel the flame consumes and perhaps it is the purity, or the intensity of the flame that is important. Certainly the purity of the flame will depend on the composition of the fuel and the intensity will as well. Perhaps it is more. Perhaps it is unfathomably intricate, or too simple to express. Certainly the whole is more than the sum of the parts and it is, possibly in that extra composition, that the answer lies.

When dealing with eternal verities one always comes to the point where the snake swallows its tale. I’m thinking of the Sphinx dashing itself to pieces when its question got answered. It appears that we are the question and the answer. And it is certain that though we may hear the thunder and see the lightning we may not know why. Modern physics has pretty much proven God exists. It just hasn’t proven what God is but... in some cases, it isn’t far off the mark. At a certain point physics naturally evolves into metaphysics and it is only here that the answer, as much of it as we can know, reveals itself.

Nature is the reservoir of a million secrets. We have observed some of them and put them to various uses. We are, generally ignorant of many others. Nature is a living thing and much like a book; partly written and partly unwritten- but very present in content in both respects. There is a mind in nature that comprehends and understands nature. This mind is in our mind and it is possible to listen in.

Part of what stops us from discovering nature’s secrets is the intentions of our heart. Nature is a sacred vessel and immediately begins to move away from a profane mind. The veils of the High Priestess are not drawn over it by some external force. Our own mind veils her.

God is sleeping and this is God’s dream; this dream of life; “row, row, row your boat, merrily...” God wakes up in some people. God dreams elsewhere. Surely a portion of God is forever awake; after all, without God’s ceaseless meditation upon it there would be no world. The question exists; is it worth it? Is it worth it? All this suffering, the long bloody sprawl of history; meaningless gain and loss, death and rebirth and death and rebirth, is it worth it? To what end is it bound?

Many people have considered this and come to many a different conclusion and just as often the same conclusions. I must take some of it on faith. Knowing what I know of God and reviewing what I have experienced and learned and, more importantly, what I can see ahead- for the distance that I can see ahead- I have to say it is surely worth it because I believe; it is a belief born out of some small appreciation of God’s methods that works upon me. It is my appreciation of God’s sense of humor, because I have heard God laughing in the waves that pound upon the shores. I have heard God’s laughter in many a way and I sense that some surprise waits further on.

Good parents are loving and their generosity and understanding is great. God is greater, more loving and more generous than any parent who ever lived, so; what can I expect? Well, I expect we will see.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

beautiful!

Anonymous said...

Peggy Lee's Is That All There Is has been rolling around my mind all week. If that's all there is my friend, then let's keep dancing. Let's break out the booze and have a ball. If that's all. Les-Happy to have found you. Whether I am coming or going..still happy.

Braja Rani Devi Dasi said...

i made a painting once. of vishnu meditating - deep into it with knotted eyebrows, lying down. and you just said that here. there would be nothing if He wasn't meditating to keep His creation alive in His mind.

Anonymous said...

"Modern physics has pretty much proven God exists."

Was doing some reading on quantum physics a couple months ago. It is actually a scientifically observable fact that the way a photon (subatomic light particle) will behave is affected by the presence of an observer. That is - the course of action of a given photon is dependent upon a human being observing it. Prior to observation the given course of action of that photon can only be calculated as a probability.

That little fact alone isn't too far off from saying that all matter is consciousness - which of course it is, but now science is getting close to proving it empirically.

Also, when you get down to the subatomic level, the concept of "time" gets very fuzzy.

I'm fairly convinced we will live to see the day where science confirms much of what metaphysics has been saying all along.

Thanks for following up on the sex-force question Les; and thanks for this essay.

ben

Anonymous said...

One of your better works. I'm not sure why I like this one so much but I do.

CC

Anonymous said...

Les
Your writings are a catalyst for the mind
tony-gg

Anonymous said...

It is so refreshing in this day and age, where there are Christian fascists on the one side and smug atheists on the other, to hear something so simple and rewarding as this.

I felt good all day after coming here and had to come back and say something. Thank you so very much for taking the time to write these things.

Ellen Cassidy

Anonymous said...

love the snake swallowing it's tail analogy. I use it all the time now as it seems to fit American Lifestyle. In fact Americans have swallowed so much of their own tail now that they are coming out of their own asshole. That's the new symbol of infinity.





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