Saturday, December 20, 2008

Christmas and Karma, Surrender and Love.

Christmas Day is on the horizon. Ramadan is over. Diwali is over. The solstice is coming as preface for the Christmas that was grafted upon it, though that takes nothing from the eternal message of the Prince of Peace, independent of the damage done by those who milked the faith of others for their own profit and to the ongoing detriment of the world in which we live.

This is not a reasonable age and therefore we cannot expect a more pervasive awareness of the eternal. The density of form holds the ordinary mind fixed upon present representations of the eternal, rather than allowing for a more boundless contemplation upon the everlasting. It should be obvious that religions, for the most part are celebrations of the timeless rotations of Nature which is the mirror of God... or God manifest as opposed to God hidden from the senses.

In Nature there is the constant cycling of condition and circumstance which mirrors the ages of humanity in its individual and collective transitioning. Every thought, word and deed makes its impression in Nature and brings forth the fruit of that imprint which is known as Karma. Life begins as tabla rasa and continues as the search for tabla rasa. Innocence is lost and then sought. Regenerated innocence is the true, unspoken goal of life. The general accomplishment is senility which is the shadow self of innocence returned. Few achieve this because of the ease of compromise as opposed to the lonely struggle on a narrow highway.

Every cosmic state has its shadow self. A good analogy is the perversion of elves into goblins. This is the blocking of the light from passing through the stained glass windows of the personality. What blocks the light is Karma and Samskaras which are a feature of Karma.

What is true about that which religion represents is different from the representation. Religion is the goblin to the elf. So we are left with sad, tired spectacles of celebration seen through dirty spectacles. This is also Karma. Everything is Karma. The message of salvation given by The Christ, by Mohammed and by Buddha is all about being made free of Karma. The promise of being made “whiter than snow” and all the companion scripture in all of the major religions is about Karma.

Karma is inflexible except in relation to Grace and that too is Karma. The secret to the best and most expeditious management of Karma can be best illustrated in the act of throwing a ball against the wall. Once the ball has left your hand it is beyond your control and will continue in the direction of your intention. It will hit the wall and bounce back but... you can run toward the returning ball and catch it before it reaches you and this brings me to the story of the life of Jesus Christ.

As I said, this is not a reasonable age and because of this... the general mindset is to take everything on faith and avoid inquiry which has the sense of heresy about it. We are not encouraged to question and consider. I sincerely doubt that any of the principals, upon whose lives these religions were based, would forbid you to inquire as deeply as possible into the nature of existence and the meaning of their words. Question everything I would say and... the application of reason will open the portal of intuition.

According to the Koran, Jesus was not crucified. Those who are purported to have carried out this act were deceived into believing that they had but they did not. This is what the Koran says and this is echoed in certain occult texts. Some of them say it was Judas who was crucified. I’m not pushing any of these possibilities. I say, only... look.

As with the returning ball, the life of Christ showed the quickest way to be free of Karma. The submission to the will of the one that is exemplified in the life of The Christ is also found in Islam as well. Islam basically means... total surrender to God. You will find parallels in the life of The Buddha as you will find parallels in all other scripture. In the Way of Lao Tzu we are told to be like the green sapling that bends easily with the wind and not as the hard stem that cannot yield and must therefore break. The teachings of the Christ are filled with companion sayings that mirror this perspective.

I submit that the life of The Christ was a metaphor for the most precise way to accomplish freedom from Karma; if you are a Christian. All of these portals provide a similar relief if you are capable of bypassing the dogma and ritual into the essence of the thing itself. Every event in the life of The Christ and the others is an example for the best behavior. Christmas is a celebration of the birth of the promise of our own liberty. The name Jesus comes from the name Joshua which translates as ‘salvation’. Easter and the living truth of resurrection is there to show you that no condition on Earth, not even death, should have power over you. It is fear of death and want that forces us to compromise and is the cause of much Karma. Desire is the cause of much Karma but, desire is the agent of God’s will so... you are either ‘one’ or you are ‘two’ and there’s that house divided.

Jesus had Karma too. This does not conflict with the idea that he was without sin. Karma is more than the general definition of it. Jesus was a man. Christ is a station. Gautama was a man. Buddha ’hood’ is a state and the hood is a cobra hood which is also the source of the corona around the heads of the saints. God is a serpent. Understanding this clears away a great deal of mystery but mystery will always remain.

You’ve perhaps heard the phrase that one should, “walk contrary to all things in the world” also, “I come with a sword”. This is the same sword which is the sword of Islam and is not a sword of war. It is a sword that is meant to piece the heart. Many lies have been told. We are told that Islam was spread at the point of a sword. This isn’t true. It is a lie. We are surrounded by lies which even a little research would dissolve.

The reason that The Christ presents a message of Love is the reason that Islam speaks of total surrender to God and is the essence of the teachings of The Buddha as well. That reason is that we are in a dark age -the Kali Yuga- and nothing but total surrender or the attitude of a Bhakti yogi will prevail. It is true that there are some singular souls who might walk a different path but that is Karma too.

Love is a flame. Flames consume. This flame consumes Karma. Those who love much are forgiven much. In times of darkness one needs a light. Such a light is concealed within every one of us and it is that which we must feed and celebrate rather than the perversions of the marketplace which are the norm of our time. We’re here to serve and that is the manner by which our karma is reduced. We brought nothing with us but what we had become before and we will take nothing with us but what we have further become after. Given this... there is nothing of greater importance, yet... every day we find some new distraction to take our mind away from the only real consideration in front of us all.

Hard times come to refine the metal but we refuse to endure the fire that will burn away the suffering and so we suffer even more. Intellectuals will tell you what their arrogant limitations have provided them in their worshiping of the vanities of their tiny little minds. Politicians and religious leaders will spin the message according to the material profits they are seeking but... they haven’t got a clue. You don’t have to look that hard for what you are seeking, in every other medium, but can only find in one location, always waiting to be born, in the Bethlehem of the heart.

Visible sings: Then You Let Go by Les Visible♫ Then You Let Go ♫
Lyrics (pops up)

Monday, December 08, 2008

That Indefinable Ease Thing

As it gets harder and less satisfying to compose for Smoking Mirrors, it gets easier to do the same here at Visible Origami. I want to talk about world conditions today and how to live with a greater ease in the midst of uncertainty and punishing confusion. Of course, what you do and where you live can have a lot to do with providing a greater peace of mind but these are considerations you have to sort out for yourself. Besides, we need something that’s going to work wherever you are. Also... it’s quite possible that the right frame of mind will naturally affect what you do and where you are.

It’s your choice whether you believe that there are entities and agencies involved in disrupting your balance for whatever their reasons may be. Let’s assume this is the case, both internally and externally. Let’s also assume that the one mirrors the other and that everything is in your mind and that everything is composed of mind stuff which, depending on your capacity to concentrate and to focus ‘the’ will, determines your capacity to shape the plastic mind stuff and the speed at which you can do it.

Probably everyone wishes they had the ability to cause instantaneous change in their circumstances and surrounding... and, one day you will. But does it matter if what you can do is more gradual as long as it occurs? I assure you that everyone does what masters do only they do it more slowly and less effectively. We don’t want to do the work that gradual transformation requires. That’s how it is in our instant, “I want it right now” world. So... there’s something we are lacking that we need to begin with or we’re not going to get very far. This thing is a little like ‘ease’.

I don’t know exactly what to call this thing but I can describe it for you. I had a friend visit recently and I noticed that he was fidgety, like there was somewhere he wanted to get off to or something he wanted to do. There wasn’t anything scheduled though. We were supposed to just continue sitting where we were and chatting for another hour or so.

I wasn’t fidgety at all. I had sunk into myself and I was pretty relaxed. This is something that has come to me over the last few years that I didn’t have before. I can sit somewhere and not have to do anything... just be. Most people might not know what I’m talking about but... there’s this delicious settling effect that you can acquire by removing your mind from the consideration of time. You have to cultivate it. You have to let go completely of the idea that there is anything more important anywhere else or that there is anything that has to be done and... it wouldn’t hurt to also let go of the idea that you actually do anything anyway.

This is a critical mindset to accomplish before you begin to engage in the gradual materialization of something. It’s important because otherwise, the usual operations of your mind will interfere with it. People can encounter this condition by being around a realized master and also just by being around anyone who has it to some degree. People can encounter it by consistent practice of meditation. You can encounter it by continuous surrender and also by rotating the mind around something like a prayer or a chant... though... you have to watch it with that because it can also busy you up and generate a certain tension unless it is conscious.

It’s right there in your mind right now, this ease thing... this relaxing and letting go of everything so that your center ‘emerges’ and swallows the rest of you. Now we’ve all heard about, ‘letting go’ and all the permutations of this thing that is hard to name. I may not be talking about what your mind may be telling you I am. After all... if it was one of those things we associate with the explanations and interpretations we’ve heard so many times in books or from new age practitioners then we would already have it and most of us don’t.

I tried many different things to get to this sense of ease but they didn’t do it so that I could just have it when I wanted it. How it worked for me was that I discovered it was there all along and I found I could ‘let it happen’. It seems to be aware of itself and it knows what to do. I don’t have to tell it anything, I just rest in it.

This ease thing is the key to being able to do a great many things that seemed difficult before. This ease thing also has the ability to communicate itself to others and so you find that you’ve got less difficulty with people than you had before. You might almost say it’s like ‘being cool’... that’s right, sunglasses and all but different than the posed variety. See... everyone has a heat envelope that they carry around with them. You could call it the desire body. People unconsciously react to each others heat bodies. And there are heat tunnels too, like highways and subways and traffic zones that push and pull us collectively. You can find it in a supermarket line or at the post office. It’s urgency and need along with some other things that you don’t need and which don’t serve you. See... either you are serving it or it is serving you.

Think of it as having a fire in your belly. You can adjust the flame just like a gas stove. You can dial it down. It gets itchy when you try to do this. It requires focus but not effort because it is already there. Cities are high heat areas. That’s what makes New York City what it is. The steam rising out of the grates on the sidewalk is a compelling image.

Timelessness is what you are after and these agencies and entities want you time conscious for whatever their reason may be. There’s a reason why there are few single income families any more. There’s a reason for economic uncertainty and the constant desire for things you don’t have and think you want. There’s a constant advertisement from the market place for stuff and there’s also a constant magnetic pulse for things to stick part of yourself into or to stick things into yourself so as to ease this discomfort of urgency. So... you could say that in some ways it has a lot to do with the sex force and how you channel it.

When the sex force is externalizing... that ages you and hollows you out. It burns you up and anger can enter the mix as well through frustration. When the sex force is internalized it feeds you and maintains your health and makes you vibrant. When you’re young you have a lot of this and that is why youth glows and is the object of such attraction. You get the idea that what you want is outside of you but actually it is inside you. This is the sole purpose of the world... to suck you out into it. It is a conscious personal choice not to go.

This is a warming engine when routed properly or otherwise you ‘might catch your death’ so to speak. I’m talking in riddles but there isn’t any other way. You have to catch the idea behind the words. This thing I’m talking about is listening to you right now. In some ways this is connected to what I said about going into Nature and speaking ‘into’ it. It’s all you but there are rituals that make it possible for you to talk to yourself and get results.

Once you find this thing I’m talking about you will realize that you don’t actually want anything else. It rounds sharp edges and it gives you a space cushion in the traffic of life. When you ‘really’ start to pay attention to what is going on around you, you can see that you have been being played. It’s possible to step outside of what is going on around you while you are inside of it and it deepens and deepens and widens as it goes. This is an actual road that moves like it had eyes toward those states that have been called Satori and enlightenment and the like. Enlightenment is not some instantaneous awakening though... no doubt... that has happened here and there. Generally it is a gradual thing that deepens and widens as it goes.

Well, we’ll give the impression, for now, that we are stopping here but you know that’s not the case.

Visible sings: God in Country by Les Visible♫ Imaginary Queen ♫
'Imaginary Queen' is track no. 10 of 11 on Visible's 2001 album 'God in Country'
Lyrics (pops up)

God in Country by Les Visible

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Richard Dawkins Tells it Like it's Not.

You come across curious things on the internet as a matter of course. Some of them don’t stay with you very long and some of them make you wonder. I can’t remember how I arrived at this site that is set up for promoting one Richard Dawkins but there I was and so I wound up watching him being interviewed by some lady in Vancouver.

I’d never heard about this fellow before but I guess he’s pretty well known. The site says that he’s sold 1.5 million copies of one book and he’s got a lot of other books and DVD’s. In the thread below the video there is one ASMarques who may be one of the smartest people I have come across in many, many a day. He gets roundly hammered by the other residents but it’s clear that he is very clear on what he is saying as it is clear that his opponents have no argument worth mentioning and that they are not bright enough to get his points.

The thread doesn’t appear to have anything to do with the video so, that’s another curious thing one runs across while surfing on the high seas of the vast internet and it’s not relevant to what I’m going to be talking about here today anyway.

Let’s talk about Richard Dawkins. He’s a debonair, professorial kind of a guy which that particular preening vanity that we encounter in academic circles. I get the feeling that Mr. Dawkins thinks he’s an erudite and powerful voice of reason in an age of religious superstition. I watched the video because I was curious to see an atheist argue his take on the indefinable incomprehensible.

I’ve been aware, for a long time, what the main argument of most atheists is based on. In one form or another, from one position or another, it is all about religion. There are some of a scientific nature who may use evolution or the lack of empirical proof as their argument but generally it’s all coming out of the shortcomings of religion as an impossible representative of the divine.

So I listened to Mr. Dawkins only to be gravely disappointed at his performance. I have never seen anyone argue for the cause of atheism who was as shallow and superficial in his presentation. You’ll have to see it to believe it. He doesn’t seem to have an argument at all. To be brief, which, in his case, is the desirable thing, he just basically says, “This is how it is. There’s no God.” And that’s that.

Yes... he’s an evolutionary biologist so he throws in some elements of the other arguments that are not just based on the absurdities of religion. I haven’t read his books or seen his DVD’s. I’m just going on what I have heard him say in the video. However, listening to Richard Dawkins it is apparent that he knows as much about his subject matter as Daryl Dawkins.

Well, you’ll notice if you watch this video that Dawkins just isn’t very interesting. He says nothing new and for a scholar with his credentials he’s an even bigger disappointment. It comes as no surprise to me that he is extremely successful. The secular humanist crowd would certainly appreciate his take and in this age of celebrating the trivial he fits right in with that superficial glibness that earmarks the spokes ‘persons’ of our time. He says pretty much nothing and evades what physicists have already proven about the world being ‘thought born’ and doesn’t enter into the realm of metaphysical inquiry at all. It’s true that the interviewer doesn’t ask him anything that would open to door for this but his evasion of certain considerations makes you wonder. Surely he has a cogent argument for these vast areas which have attracted some of the greatest minds who have ever appeared here and in whose company he is surely not to be counted.

As I’ve said before, the God that the atheist does not believe in does not exist. The God whose existence he is disproving... never was ...and Richard Dawkins isn’t necessary to make this known. This God is just as much of a fantasy as the God of the religious fundamentalists. They are both anthropomorphic absurdities. What Dawson and Christopher Hitchens, what Christian and Muslim fundies refute and believe can be seen as a private cage match that has only to do with each other and upon whom they both rely for their existence. It’s a self contained world that is the theater in which a peculiar karma works itself out over time.

Whether God does or does not exist is not the issue. Science has proven the existence of a mysterious something that interpenetrates everything and there are many examples in many lives over the course of recorded history which stands as definite evidence of some unknown force. The question really is, “What is God?” or “What is this mysterious something that contains everything and made everything out of itself?” We’ll never know that. We don’t need to know that. What we need to know is who we are and once accomplished that will answer as much as anyone will ever need to know about what God is.

The primary and most important area of inquiry is the self. Self inquiry is the only pursuit that anyone who aspires to a greater understanding of life need engage in. The whole of the mystery of life and its creations can be resolved by answering Ramana Maharishi’s question, “Who am I?” If you did no more than to ask, “Who am I?” for as long as it takes to get an answer you will receive the answer. Does that make sense? It wouldn’t to Richard Dawson. It does to me.

I have not the slightest shred of doubt that there is a God. I have seen some of the personalized representations projected outward by my mind upon the world of appearances. I have seen holographic Buddhas in the garden among the plants and I have seen them many times. I have seen Hindu deities at various times and though that may well be a projection of my mind they are no less real. In a certain sense, the mind is everything.

You are, each and every one of you, free to believe or disbelieve as you like. It is not my concern either way. Refuting Richard Dawkins is not the point of this post. He refutes himself very well without my help. This is just to say that you can’t argue about apples and insist that your argument applies to oranges. You can’t deny, without even much of an argument, a false God and expect that this would also apply to a real God. Well, you can but it won’t mean anything.

People find justification and examples that prove anything they want to believe. Logic and reason can be manipulated to prove or justify anything; any behavior and any point of view. The evidence of this surrounds us. The important thing, it seems to me is to separate the real from the false first, before you choose to believe in anything. What is real? ...That which endures. What is not real? ...That which does not endure. Yes... there is relative truth and absolute truth. You may treat with this according to your own way of seeing. One thing is for sure, Richard Dawkins will not endure but that which he has no knowledge of ...that will surely endure. It always has and it always will.

Have I proven anything here? Have I proven anything more than Richard Dawkins has disproved anything? Probably not. My job is not to prove anything to anyone except myself. My life and every life will be the proof of what it believed according to what it proved to itself. Wherever I will wind up and wherever Richard Dawson will wind up will not be known to anyone but the one involved. I wish you all good fortune in your pursuit and it is my sincere hope that you find what you seek, if what you seek is real.


Visible sings: When I Lose You by Les Visible♫ When I Lose You ♫

Friday, November 28, 2008

A Curious and Unfortunate Turning of Events.

When I posted the last two essays, parts one and two ‘an elementary primer’, I had a reason. I’ve had some serious pressures come down on me at times and overwhelm me so that I was unable to maintain my balance and direction. I liken it to being caught in one of those ocean formations where there are waves crossing in various directions which create a cauldron effect so that you are tossed in unpredictable directions and can’t get out. You find things like this among certain rock coves and other locations where incoming waves interact with varying shore depths and then interface with the rocks.

When this happens, I have found that there was something I could do that would draw to me the focus and strength that I needed to get above the conditions. I gave an example of that in both chapters and it was the same example. After a few days of practicing this I was able to meditate again and free myself from certain negative influences that I grabbed at or permitted in order to counteract the discomfort of what I was going through. The alternative is to let it play out and that can involve a lot of time and unpleasantness before the condition changes on its own.

I know there are people who read here, who find themselves in extremis at times and who may suffer more than they let on, given the state of the world at the moment. The scenario that I presented is a way of talking to the inner you while engaged in a ritual with the outer. It’s about talking to your subconscious and implanting positive seeds. It’s about communicating with the higher self/guardian angel and invoking an intuitional flow or a provocation of the subconscious by channeling ‘the’ above, through the conscious self to ‘the below’. It’s a practical application and it works.

The reason I am bringing this up is that I had a strange and unfortunate experience this week with an individual who represents a website that has reprinted my work for; I don’t know how long... a year or more, I think. In all that time there was never anything negative in the exchanges. In fact, it seemed as if the support was unconditional. Imagine my surprise when this individual confronted me over these two postings in a way that I would say was... well, you decide. I’m going to reprint some things that he said to me in emails. I will leave out any indentifying markers of any kind and since I would never name this person or the location where he works, I believe this is perfectly acceptable.

This was the preliminary offering-


“Dear Les,

I read your latest Visible Origami and thought I would communicate some of my thoughts to you. I am no authority, but please listen to what I have to say with an open mind. –I now have this sense that it is impossible to communicate anything that is essential by way of words –any words. Yours, mine or those of others. But I'll try anyway.

About contacting the divine: We ARE the divine. Consequently, no "contact" is at all possible. There's no distinction at all between appearance and essence. Some appearance/appearances are invisible to our ordinary senses, but these still are appearances and are still "at one with" essence. So the question is not: either appearances OR essence.

This also means that there is no mind that is not "connected to essence". Mind is Essence & Essence is Mind. There's no difference –they are not two things. They aren't even "one". No word can possibly express this. Silence is recommended.

This also means that there can be no method, much less one that can "work" ("guaranteed" or otherwise). I have stopped recommending books to people. No book will/can take you to where you want to be. You already ARE "there". Our problem is that we want to be somewhere else than where we think we are. -We don't even know where we are or what we are. The searching is the problem. Stop searching and there's no problem.

Les, there IS nothing but "Nature". There's no "place" to go to –we already are That. We are (what we see as) the dog poo on the pavement as well as the candle & the flame.

Like I said, silence is recommended. This is as close to a "method" that you'll ever get. I've already said too much. Thank you for hearing me out!”



For some reason I didn’t get the first letter so I wound up getting the first two at the same time and this was the second one-


“Dear Les,

You said: It requires repetition and focus but it works.

For what? Not for ultimate realization it doesn’t! -It may well have some mundane effect and in that sense it could be said to ”work”. But ultimate realization cannot be prepared for, there’s no way to it and there ARE no stages. This is not a ”perspective”. It’s FACT. Why do you keep talking about contacting the divine and sowing ever more confusion? Les, the divine cannot BE ”contacted”! If at all it were possible, the divine would contact you, not the other way around. Revelation springs to mind. However, true revelation is utterly unspeakable. We don’t know anything about it. -Round-and-round-and-round...You do want to help people get out from under their minds, don’t you? Then why do you do this, Les? What’s the use of these silly ”spriritual” games?

No doubt each perspective is a stage

Any ”perspective” would be an illusion, but neither dual nor non-dual is a ”stage”. (This would presuppose the existence of a person, but none such can be said to either exist or not exist.) –Dual/non-dual are just concepts and as such, just part of what is. Same goes for Christ and the Buddha. -Nor are they personal or impersonal. They are beyond that. (Jesus & Gauthama can be seen as ”personal” if we are so inclined.)

As far as what's ultimate and more real, all I can say is, I don't know.

Nor do I!! I cannot know. But I do believe that the ’I’ can, that the ’I’ IS knowledge. But then again, this is just a belief. When we know, we no longer need to believe. We know.



So... I sent back another explanation and I got this;


“Ok, Les, I'll send it again, hoping, now as yesterday, that my comment won't put you off in any way. My point of view is non-dual and the thoughts forwarded in your latest Origami are in the dual mode. –So the potential for misunderstandings are there...here goes:


Dear Les,

I read your latest Visible Origami and thought I would communicate some of my thoughts to you. I am no authority, but please listen to what I have to say with an open mind. –I now have this sense that it is impossible to communicate anything that is essential by way of words –any words. Yours, mine or those of others. But I'll try anyway.

About contacting the divine: We ARE the divine. Consequently, no "contact" is at all possible. There's no distinction at all between appearance and essence. Some appearance/appearances are invisible to our ordinary senses, but these still are appearances and are still "at one with" essence. So the question is not: either appearances OR essence.

This also means that there is no mind that is not "connected to essence". Mind is Essence & Essence is Mind. There's no difference –they are not two things. They aren't even "one". No word can possibly express this. Silence is recommended.

This also means that there can be no method, much less one that can "work" ("guaranteed" or otherwise). I have stopped recommending books to people. No book will/can take you to where you want to be. You already ARE "there". Our problem is that we want to be somewhere else than where we think we are. -We don't even know where we are or what we are. The searching is the problem. Stop searching and there's no problem.

Les, there IS nothing but "Nature". There's no "place" to go to –we already are That. We are (what we see as) the dog poo on the pavement as well as the candle & the flame.”



INSERT; I should say here that to this point this person was at pains to be polite in a formal way and I’ve only left these brief sentences out for the same reason I’ve left all of my responses out which is for the sake of brevity. The point of this is not to explore our back and forth communications but to get the readers take on what they think about what this person is saying to me. Is this person correct? Also, why would this person have reflexively reprinted everything that they received and which often contained very similar thoughts and also why would this person reprint anything from Smoking Mirrors (which was also posted as soon as received and never a negative word about any of it)? There’s a mystery here.


So it continues... I try to explain and then I get another letter.


“Thank you, Les, for your answer! I’m not sure we’re getting anywhere, however, so I guess this sequence is coming to a natural close. But let me just briefly say this:

the difference in perspective of a great many people who have achieved enlightenment by means 'other than' what you suggest is invalid.

I never implied this. There are as of this moment 6.6 billion perspectives But perspectives are based upon perceptions and perceptions are of the body, matter, ”this world”, whatever. But what we’re talking about here is BEYOND perception. So I’m not questioning the enlightenment of a great many people, as you say. Whatever people say, is part of THAT, part of WHAT IS. There’s nothing wrong with that. What I am saying (implying), what I’m driving at, is that there is NO CAUSAL LINK between people’s preparation and their enlightenment. We are UTTERLY helpless and there’s NOTHING WE can do, nothing whatever, to achieve / ”attain” enlightenment. To think that attainment is possible (”I” attained enlightenment), would be to presuppose the existence of a person. -Les, there ARE no persons. As for ”contacting” the divine, it simply is impossible for ”you” to do this. The divine ”contacts” you. -It either stays contained IN you, or it fills you completely, floods you utterly, fully and permanently and spills over into everything you think, see & do. If ”preparing oneself” has any meaning at all, it would not entail adding anything, but rather getting rid of something. But even then there’s no causal link. The divine is perfectly free and unscrutable and will not be prompted or goaded by the use of charms, formulas rituals or substances. -We are like I said utterly helpless and can only long for it, yearn or hope for it, while we continue our patient and compassionate work with our fellow beings, loving them, caring for them.

If you are unhappy with what I do then you shouldn't post it


I will not post the primer. I think you are well-intentioned but that you effectively are leading people ”astray” by what your saying in this primer (’astray’ is also part of ’what is’). -So I will not post it.

I'm in contact with something that is present and which over a long period of time has effectively guided me

I am in no position to comment upon this; I can only hope that it is a guidance that makes you feel blessed and loved and that it would make it ever more easy and natural for you to shower blessings and love on our fellow beings. You are holy, beautiful and worthy of being loved. -Unconditionally. As you are. WHATEVER that is. I hope you understand that by now. This is also what you would want to pass on to others, in fact, it is the ONLY thing you can pass on to the myriad beings. If a ”perspective” seems to help in this regard, then go with it. If not, drop it. I can’t think of more to say. All the best!”



And so, I replied, saying:


“It's not possible for me to comment about this with a person who is convinced they are right to the exclusion of all other input or viewpoints. I don't agree with what you are saying and neither do the masters whose work I respect.

My sites have the highest content of intelligent and spiritually aware people of anywhere I have seen on the internet and surely one of them would have said something before about my misleading them. I will make your communications to me the subject of my next posting so as to see what the readers think of your beliefs concerning me. Of course I will not mention any names or the like.

It appears you may have had some sort of an event in your mind that has done something to you because no one switches their positions so quickly, or you may have been threatened by someone concerning your publishing of my work. It's fine, I understand.

I am surprised to see such a totalitarian viewpoint in connection with spirituality and never suspected I would run into it with you. I wish you well and thank you for the time we interacted.

I'll be moving on.

Aloha and be well,”



So... I got this,


“Dear Les,

I am not a person. I am nothing in particular. All input is welcome. There should be no exclusion of anything. But all viewpoints are not of equal value. Some of them spring from confusion, others from clarity. I have not ”switched position” and I’m not aware of any ”event” in my mind, let’s say: recently. What I said to you comes from the deepest levels within me and was communicated to you with sincerity. There are no threats as far as I am aware of. None. I fully intend to continue posting your work, the Smoking Mirrors articles as well as the other ones. You are more than welcome, now as ever, to submit your work to me. I wish that you would continue doing so. Again, all the best!”



Well... I had decided in my last communication that I wasn’t going to send this person any more of my work and leave the situation be. I’ll explain about that at the end. So... then I got this,


Les,

I have noticed that you have posted a Smoking Mirrors article without sending word about it to me. -In view of the recent misunderstandings between us, I now wonder whether this was intentional on your part, or just more of the same technical (?) trouble that we’ve had lately. Please clarify.



So, I said this...


“I just thought I'd leave it be for the moment. My tendency is to back away from contention and conflict; unless I can't avoid it, such as in real life situations. It's not a reflection of any judgments on my part. I've always been inclined to do this. So... it's more of a normal reaction for me and shouldn't mean any more than that. It's reflex. I don't really want to go into it any deeper because I don't really know why anyway. It's just how I respond to certain things. I don't like having them on my mind because I probably don't understand them either.

You're free to repost anything you want, of course. And if it's that important then I'll send them along again.

Warm Regards,


visible”



And he replied;


“Well, Les, conflict (just like pain & fear) is a vital part of life and it’s difficult to see how we can grow and mature without it. I guess what’s important is how we deal with it, rather than avoiding it when it’s there. Resisting it, we are frozen in time and will not transcend it. Facing it, something good will come of it – we’ll remember who we truly are. We all struggle with this; I’m no better than the next guy.

By talking to you about leading people astray, I was trying to remind you of the great responsibility of teaching certain things to people, and implicitly of the dire karmic burden that will accrue when someone does this without being qualified to do it. In general terms, precious few are, and the safest option is to be silent and continue working on oneself.

Regarding ”contacting the divine”, you can be fairly sure that whatever you think you have gotten into contact with is not the divine. We human beings have an enormous potential for fooling ourselves and for settling for the lesser instead of aiming for the Highest, Which is completely beyond experiences, appearances and perceptions. The Masters have done their homework. Now it’s up to you, me & the rest of us to do this too. Devotion to any master will not save us. Nobody can save us. We have to go deep and be very, very serious. Substances, ”powers”, ”experiences”, fireworks & flashes are just childish games that most certainly will hold us back. I too have been dawdling & delaying on my way home and I am ashamed of myself because of all the precious time I’ve wasted. -Like I said, I’m no better than the next guy.

Let’s join, Les, in going deeper and being ever more serious and committed to the way home, gathering in the flock as we do so.”



And this person adds as a postscript that my work will be now turned over to someone else to post as he sees fit.

I’d already begun to feel that this person was being extremely presumptuous because this person doesn’t know me at all, except through my writings and, if he had been paying attention while reading them, then this person would have seen that I present things from a variety of perspectives to engage the reader in thought, to provoke response and possibly self-inquiry. Apparently, I’m not qualified for this and apparently I’ve never had any contact with God. I won’t analyze this but leave it to the reader to speculate on.

So... I basically told this person that I thought they were wrong and presumptuous and various things but I was growing exceedingly weary of the whole exchange. I’m not into endless dialectic and mind numbing exchanges about nuance and the like. I just state my piece and people can take it or leave it.

So... I got this...



“Les,

We are at the ”end of the road”. This is the last time you’ll hear from me. -Reading through your last answer, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to answer you. However, what I’ll say next is an effort to remind you of the kernel of sanity that still is in you so that you could get out of the insidious current of delusion that is holding you back. This will likely be in vain and the effort may be wasted on you.

When I said ”You are holy, beautiful and worthy of being loved. -Unconditionally.”, I wasn’t referring to the Pied Piper of Hamelin (that is your present, self-chosen identity & function), but to something else, of which you obviously are entirely unaware of. ”You” are severely deluded. You need to do something about this.

”You” said to me: ”you are the 'only' person out of thousands with whom I have communicated concerning the specific subject under discussion who has taken this position so I will go with the majority view on what I do.” –I may also be the only person ”out of thousands” who has told you that ”You are holy, beautiful and worthy of being loved. -Unconditionally.” Please remember this.”



Mercifully, this seems to be the end of it. As you can see, this is already going on for a long time here and I spared you my responses because they were pretty much along the lines of what you’ve read here for years. Otherwise we would be at about double the length of the whole affair.


Addendum;

For the last week I’ve been having a series of events that sort of funhouse mirror this. Yesterday I got a letter from another source who reposts my work at a very busy site; much busier than the one under discussion. He said, “I love it!” meaning the latest Smoking Mirrors... “but, I have serious problems with the no plane hitting the building.”

I’m thinking, “What?” because I didn’t say that and wouldn’t so I wrote back to clarify and got the reply that this person had misread what I’d said and he was sorry about that, he’d just gotten up etc.

Also I’ve gotten a couple of letters from readers saying that I shouldn’t be talking about certain things because they don’t exist... the implication was that only what we see and hear is real and this was in relation to my latest radio show. The problem here was that the person said that I said and mentioned things that weren’t. I wrote back to inform the person of this and then heard back that it was true that I hadn’t sent these things but that he was embellishing because I might have well been saying this or that because all these things are grouped together anyway... weird.

I’m thinking a particular planet came into conjunction or opposition with another and in my case the result was a flare-up of confusion about what I do which in all cases I wasn’t doing anyway. I’m not doing anything differently than I ever have. Also people are confusing one blog with another and not realizing that they are separate presentations.

Well... I’ll just go on as I always have. It makes no difference to me if someone reprints my work or not... but it is ‘my work’ not theirs and they don’t pay me and I didn’t solicit their attention... they came to me.

Why have I gone to the trouble of presenting this here today? It gives you the opportunity to let me know if you think I’ve been leading you astray, even as it begs the question of why you are coming along then? (grin)

I’ve said it so many ways but it isn’t always clear to everyone. I am doing this according to intuitional provocation. What I say comes out of it and I’m not inclined to argue about it or defend it. It gets said and the reader can take it or leave it. That’s that, that’s it. It’s free as well. Finally... I’m not leading anyone anywhere and I’ve been at pains to discourage those who are looking for someone to manage their life for them. I’ve had to do this at regular points over time and I always will.

In any case... this may prove entertaining or laborious (I apologize if it is the latter) but it should spark some interesting replies.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

An Elementary Primer on Practical Magic, Part 2

In our last chapter we were talking about Practical Magic; things that you can do to improve your life and improve your fortunes. Of course, talking about these things does no good at all and that is what people mostly do. They talk about things. One of the problems with practical demonstration is the tendency to complicate the issue. This goes at cross purposes to success because the force you need to communicate with is like a child. I am referring to your subconscious.

Your subconscious deals in pictures... images. If you can successfully communicate the image to your subconscious then it will produce it into your world. You can think of it like talking to a pet. Some pets are well trained and some are not. The same can be said of children. I say this because in the initial stages you have to realize that it can take a lot more concentration and repetition than might later be required. At the same time you don’t want to overdo it. The subconscious is also very much like rich fertile earth. It is the most fertile earth that there is and so... once you have planted the seed you don’t want to over water it and wind up drowning it. You also don’t want to give it too much sunlight after it breaks to the surface into the conscious realm.

The mind has three levels; the superconscious in the attic, the self conscious on the main floor and the subconscious in the basement. Ideally you do no more than channel from the attic to the basement. Then you don’t have to get involved in what you think you want since you don’t really know anyway and you can count on getting exactly what you need because the superconscious knows all about it and knows what you require before you even ask. However... we’re not at that level of trust and surrender so... the smart thing is to have the intelligence to ask for the right things because everything else of benefit comes along with them anyway. You’ve heard the phrase, “seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven and all of these things will be added unto you.” That’s very accurate and true.

Some people get agitated by the use of words like, ‘magic’ and ‘occult’ and other terms that indicate that one might be looking to do business with the devil. I should point out that you are doing that all the time anyway no matter what you think. Everyone is already practicing magic but, for the most part, they are doing it badly or ineffectively. There is no devil anyway, besides the part of you that engages in self-interest or which seeks gain at the expense of others. It’s true that the collective energies of billions of people in pursuit of their own interests can create a central figure of fear by all the contributions they drop in the collection plate every time they think or feel or speak or act on their own behalf to the detriment of others... but it has only the power over you that you give it and it is only concealing the presence of an angel.

This may not come as much comfort to those who have scared the shit out of themselves by believing in false appearances until they look as real as real can be. People get weaned off their mothers, or they don’t. It works well for them or it leaves them with lasting conflicts and complications which they carry around with them and visit on others. Generations transfer bad habits and other undesirable aspects from parent to child and so... bad magic gains the appearance of good magic because, “That’s how we do it around here.”

There’s a great book called “The Science of Mind.” By Ernest Holmes which will literally transform the lives of any and all who are willing to be influenced by what it has to say. It does have a Christian aspect to it but it doesn’t require you to be one to take advantage of it. Holmes demonstrated the truth of what he taught. These things work so... why would we not want to avail ourselves of something that can make our lives so much easier and fulfilling? That’s the sixty four thousand dollar question.

The world of philosophical, scientific and metaphysical inquiry is rife with people who talk in a language so complicated that no one knows what they are talking about except for a very few others who are too busy being confusing themselves. They benefit no one, not even themselves. All of their mental gymnastics are for the sole purpose of making them look smarter than other people and seldom contains anything of practical use. It’s understood that certain sciences would be complex because of the nature of the technology and these thing can benefit others even if they don’t understand them but as for those areas that deal with the technology of being... it’s a simple affair and if someone is complicating it then there’s usually a venal reason involved or a personality dysfunction that intends to draw attention to them as some oracle or font of wisdom which this practice proves they do not possess.

I didn’t have to read too many intellectuals before I discovered that it didn’t matter what they were saying if there was no simple practice that could be realized from it. It didn’t matter what they were talking about if you couldn’t use it to improve your life. Jesus Christ; Buddha and Lao Tzu all spoke a simple language. Ernest Holmes and others like him spoke a simple language and what they said and taught can be used at any time by the simplest among us.

There are three basic areas of the mind and it is all one mind. We differentiate these areas but they are all one thing which operates in three different ways and this mind we call our own is actually just the point at which we contact the one mind that is the only mind everywhere and anywhere you go. Your subconscious is just the point where you touch the collective subconscious. It’s the same with the self-conscious and superconscious as well. It could be said that there is only one real self. What all the rest of us are... these are temporary unreal versions of it. Proper communication between these three aspects of the mind can achieve anything the mind can imagine. It goes without saying that it can surely manufacture everything you see because it already has or you wouldn’t see it. It all came out of mind. Everything is thought born. Physicists have proven this yet... the general population doesn’t seem to make the connection and that is why they are canon fodder and serfs for psychopaths. Stop playing their game.

As I said in Chapter One; find a place in Nature that you can visit once in the day time and once in the night. Stand in the same place each time. I’m going to give you something to say but you can adjust this to any personal request you might have. Stand still and let the mood come upon you. Then look to Heaven and say, “Lord of the Heavens grant me your ear. Please hear my request. Open before me the secret Heart of Nature and let her hear me when I speak. Divine mother, I ask you to bring forth from your substance the properties of my Self Realization. Grant me Wisdom and Understanding. Replace my shortcoming with the qualities of God. Grant me access to those realms where I might receive the instructions that will transform my life. Grant me your protection and open the portal of my intuition that I might hear you at all times when the need is present. Inspire me. Give to me the wonder and the awe of your presence. Thank you for hearing me and granting my request as it has been asked but according to your finer understanding of my needs. Fill me with gratitude. Thank you.”

I have given you something similar to what I say but have not included certain things that might not apply to everyone and which might in fact be dangerous for some. You can change the words to anything you wish. You must remember that you are in the actual presence of the divine when you do this. No fooling, it is so. Realize this and speak with certitude and focus your attention while speaking FROM your heart. Do it each day and each night at as close to the same time as you can manage but do it even if you miss by hours. You will find as you continue that something happens and you will see after a time that someone is listening.

Finally, let me say that even if there were no God and no divine feminine principle of Nature this would still work because it is your mind that you are treating with. This is the same mind that has brought forth everything you see... everything. Science- empirical science has already proven this. However, there most certainly is the mind of God and the divine feminine agency which is the portal through which everything appears. And in conclusion let me say again that everyone is already doing some version of this and the results are clear to see in any life you observe.

Visible sings: Almost A Capella by Les Visible♫ I Am Alive ♫
'I Am Alive' is track no. 8 of 12 on Visible's 2007 album 'Almost A Capella'
Lyrics (pops up)

Almost A Capella by Les Visible

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

An Elementary Primer on Practical Magic; Part One.

A reader and I have been exchanging emails about contacting the divine and what is required to facilitate and expedite that. It put me in mind of some things that also tie in with questions people have asked me in the past. It ties in also with whether you should arm yourself against the coming madness. It reminds me of all the things that pass through people’s minds in relation to ‘appearances’. It’s important to remember that you are always dealing with either appearances or essence. Essence is in full command of all appearances. Any mind that is not connected to essence is at the seeming mercy of appearances because, everything you experience and how you experience it is connected to what you believe to be true.

So... I’m going to present a few things which are one hundred percent guaranteed to work and I’m going to attempt to explain why things don’t work or why they work differently than one’s intent. I’m going to do it in the same amount of words I have chosen as my template for these things and I’m going to close one eye and pat my head while I do it. I don’t chew gum so I had to come up with an alternative.

Some people who come here have some idea of what goes on at invisible levels. If you’ve heard the phrase, “as above so below” then you too now have an idea of what goes on at invisible levels if you didn’t before. We’ll be mentioning catch phrases and we’ll get cute with it because, sometimes that works and given the amount of smart asses who come and go around here it might even be helpful.

It’s been said, “All magic is in the will.” That’s true but... whose will? The point is that there is only one so it comes down to channeling doesn’t it? And that implies concentration which is intensifying the focus and maintaining it. At this point I suggest you get a copy of Alice Bailey’s two volume work on Pantanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms. I’ll just wait until you order, receive and read the set and then we’ll continue. Okay... that didn’t take too long. This book explains the whole deal from the yogic perspective. You can find the same thing with different analogies; different terms and often a lot of mysterious veils in the Western Tradition if you need it explained that way. I’ll just wait here until you acquire all of those books and read them.

Okay, let’s get on with it. You will not be able to practice any of this unless you are seriously committed. Sure... you might get some results here and there but your mind will know how you feel about it and how sincere and dedicated you are and it’s your mind that you have to convince... nothing else, just ‘your’ mind. All those magic circles and symbols, routines and rituals, magic wands and sigils and so on and so forth are all about convincing your mind. It’s a way of playing dress-up so that your mind can slip into the role; so that your mind believes you are serious about the role.

I don’t feel like explaining anything right now. I’m tired of explaining things. I can tell you that I have a very good idea of how things work but I don’t really care. When I finally got included in certain eternal understandings, I didn’t really care what I could do with them anymore. Part of what happened to me was that the desire for most of the things that everyone wants got sucked right out of me along with certain human elements that have made it impossible for me to get into things the way people tend to do. I just don’t care.

Of course, I care a great deal but I just don’t care and it doesn’t matter any more even though it matters a great deal. It’s all sex by the way but I’m not going to treat with that this go round except to say that terrestrial sex doesn’t hold a candle to intercourse with the divine and it will ruin you for the things everyone feels like they can’t live without. "But how do you get there Dr. Visible?" Well... everything costs something and you can’t have one thing unless you are willing to lose another. That’s why most people can’t and won’t get where they think they want to go. They don’t really want to go there. Although they meet the Dweller on the Threshold anyway (over and over again) at a certain point in the endless rotation of the wheel of fire they are a tad squeamish about conscious confrontation.

Many people might think themselves brave and toy with the idea of going into the graveyard to meet with Smashin Tara but very few are going to take acid and actually go there, although some of us have. Very few people are willing to risk and endure madness but some of us have. Believe me... living these mundane lives is a greater Hell; in my opinion. But you don’t have to do that to profit from what I’m going to tell you and if you practice what I put here today and you do it religiously according to ‘any’ timeline or degree of routine that you may choose, you will have results. The key is... there has to be some consistency. You cannot expect a seed to become a plant unless you attend to it; not the seed I am talking about anyway.

So... let me go to the nitty gritty and then you are on your own; Oh yeah... this isn’t going to put you up against those big bellied Tibetan demons or Jinn’s in a whirlwind. This is just going to make it possible for you to achieve practical results in your life in relation to things and circumstances you may desire and you should make sure that you desire them because desire is the agent of God’s will.

I’ve been analyzing this while I was writing it and I have distilled it down to one thing you can do and it will cover every need and exigency. This is a guide ...now, as I said, you ‘can’ do it any number of ways as long as it is consistent.

Go to a place where you face Nature exclusively so that the range of sight takes in only Nature. It doesn’t matter if there are houses somewhere beyond; no matter where you are or where you face, that will be the case. First, ask for the ear of Heaven and the blessings of Heaven on your quest. Next, address the secret heart of Nature in what is before you and express your request calmly but with an intensity of passion and focus. Do this when the sun is in the sky and do it also when night has completely fallen and do it in the same spot. Do it without fail every day and, were I you, do it for as long as you are here.

You will find that your ability to express your desire and the desire itself will improve and modify with time. It’s to be expected that you eventually get around to asking for the only thing worth having but there’s nothing wrong with some practical demonstration on the way. I can hear someone saying right now. “What’s the only thing worth having?” If you don’t know I’m not going to tell you.

Alternatively... if you want to fast-track this and you think you’ve got a take no prisoners mindset you can start by taking a day a week when you don’t eat and you put your whole attention upon winning the attention of what is paying attention to you ALL THE TIME.

Yes... you should approach these times with some ceremony and reverence and you should, by all means, be humble yet demanding... remember... you are the child. It is unlikely you will be given a stone... unless that would be a particular stone of which some of us are aware.

This is a good start and if you can’t manage this you certainly do not deserve more. However, if you can manage this you WILL get results. Be clear on what you ask for and be certain you want it. The agency you are asking knows very well what is hidden in your heart. Do not deceive. There is nothing to fear and everything to gain.

Now, I’m going to stop patting my head because it has become very annoying. I forget what the other thing was that I was going to be doing but it doesn’t matter anyway.

Yes... I left out quite a few things so... fill in the blanks.


Visible sings: Something New by Les Visible♫ Something New ♫

Friday, November 14, 2008

Climbing the Mountain with a Piano on your Back

What I am about to say has been said before. Anything that can be said has been said before... ignored before and understood before. One thing that confuses a great many people is; how do you approach that which is everywhere and everything, is both the creator and the product, is you and everything that surrounds you and which creates, sustains and destroys every temporary thing while remaining unchanged itself?

Every religious text concerns itself with this. You’ve got more guidelines; rules of conduct, points of focus and forms of worship than you could possibly use and the more you tried, the more confusing it would become. Scholars immerse themselves in information their whole lives and wind up knowing less than they did when they began. The chaos and confusion in the ever changing world, with its myriad attractions and electro-magnetic impact on the senses and then upon the mind, makes for a real circus.

What to do... what to do if you really do want to achieve self-realization. Let’s take self-realization as the catch-all term for however anyone and everyone define that state which is union with the all pervasive unknowable. Let’s assume that following a religion can eventually take you to a point of better understanding. Let’s also assume that following a religion can also take you into a greater darkness. We have ample proof of this by looking at what history shows us. I do not need to elaborate here. I do not mean to diminish religion and what may or may not be possible. I take it for granted that many hearts have found succor there.

What is written here is not intended as a criticism of religion or a replacement. It’s another way up a common mountain. It’s a direct route and therefore it requires more intensity and focus. It requires unrelenting energy and enthusiasm. It requires certitude. I need to talk about the mountain first and then I need to talk about how one learns to play a musical instrument or how one masters any discipline and whether they do so or they don’t and why either case might prevail.

First, the mountain; let’s think of a snow-capped mountain and imagine that when the snow melts and flows down the mountain that the water is the cause of all the riot of color in the valley below. Let us assume that the water is more pure the closer it is to the source. Let us assume that there are a number of ways up the mountain and that some will take longer than others and that those which take longer are more easily traveled. Let’s also assume that once achieving the top of this particular mountain that you can see all of the ways down.

It’s a given that the higher you ascend on the mountain, the stronger the winds become and the rougher the terrain. I can’t say whether or not the path is easier in the beginning due to the number of feet which have prepared the ground before (coming and going) or whether the increasing difficulty to the terrain further up is due to less traffic. Let’s assume that may have something to do with it. Let’s also assume that this is a metaphorical mountain that exists within your mind and that the real mountain is Life and the conditions it presents.

Let’s consider learning a musical instrument or mastering any particular discipline and let’s assume that the more you practice the quicker you learn. Why is it that some will be more inclined to practice and some less so? It must have something to do with enthusiasm and something to do with the ability to see the end result. It’s obvious that if you love what you are doing you will be more inclined to keep doing it. Still... there has to be some objective in mind. With an instrument or a discipline it’s not so difficult to do this because it is there in front of you. It’s not as easy to imagine what you will find on the top of the mountain under discussion or what you will do when you get there. This is the sort of thing that sends so many climbers back to the valley and into the land of the familiar.

It seems to me that some people have more assurance than others about what is unknown. It is difficult to find the words to treat with this. Is it faith? Is it some faint remembering? Is it some resonance between the seeker and that which calls? Does it matter?

I have looked at this matter in a great many ways and I have been deceived and victimized in my efforts at continuing and understanding... by myself and by the external world. I’ve looked at the scriptures and the costumes. I’ve looked at the rituals and routines. I’ve looked at the fundamental and the mystical aspects. I’ve looked at the world and what it gives and takes and I’ve looked at the promise of doorways out of the world by those who profess to know their location. From everything that I have studied, I have come to a particular conclusion about a particular process whose requirements do not demand any special understanding of complex mathematics or intricate magical or mystical systems.

I suppose at this point you’ll either have to take what I say on faith or move on to something that strikes your fancy more, like another instrument or another way up the mountain or something you forgot back in the valley below. Here is a way up the mountain and you cannot fail if you are persistent and if the objective holds more appeal than the options otherwise which, will certainly be presented for your consideration as you go. If you apply what I am about to outline you will succeed no less than anyone ever has.

There is a book by one Brother Lawrence which is called “The Practice of the Presence of God”. In Russia there was a technique given where one ‘prays without ceasing’. This could be likened to those who chant continuously. There are other books with similar intent such as “The Impersonal Life” and other mindsets which employ similar means. You might find it more to your liking there than here. In any case let us begin.

You are here in this moment reading these words. What ever you will do, can only be accomplished from here and no matter what you do, you will always be doing it now. You will not be doing it in the past and it would be best to let the past go altogether right now. You will not arrive at the future. You will only ever be here. So it is in the ‘here’ that everything will occur.

No matter who you are you will engage in common, repetitive experiences. You will eat and sleep. You will excrete. You will engage in sex of some kind regardless of whether you think you never had sex at all. You will think and feel. You will be employed at something. You can look around you and see what things are common to us all. You will seem to be here and then you will seem not to be here. You will seem to age. You will seem to be ill and you will seem to be well. Conditions may vary according to the individual and according to one’s perception of oneself as an individual to begin with.

Here is what you do. Whatever you are doing, you accept it as a divine process. When you eat; when you go to the bathroom, when you engage in sex, when you work, when you think or feel, you remind yourself that it is divine. You remind yourself that you are already at one; you are already at the top of the mountain. You are already where you wish to be.

How you go about this is a personal affair. I have the tendency to say, “I love you.” over and over and over. The idea is to be able to consciously imagine and to see the divine performing all of the acts you think you are performing when in fact you are doing nothing. The only thing that ‘you’ have ever done is to interfere. You can either oppose the symmetry of the universe or you can cooperate. There is no other alternative. This is all there is to free will. So... what you do is, you spiritualize the ordinary and mundane. When you eat you are eating with God and eating God and are engaged in the presence of God performing the operation and that extends to everything you do... all day and all night long, forever and ever in this moment, which is the only moment you will ever inhabit.

As you continue with this... constantly pulling your mind back to an awareness of this, you will find that the mysterious kingdom begins to materialize within and around you. Spiritualize everything you do. Live this moment in the constant awareness that the divine is living your life in you. Do not concern yourself with analyzing it... experience it. When you eat, you understand that the divine is becoming more and more a part of you. When you excrete you are letting go of what is not really you. You are constantly gaining and ridding yourself in this moment and the only reason you do not progress is because you keep adding your personal version back again. Let go of it. Be careful of what you think in everything you do because that defines what it becomes.

You can’t go to church or read a book or pray before you go to sleep and expect that you will wake up and be able to play the piano that you are attempting to carry up the mountain under your own power. You will become discouraged and you will not make it up the mountain, nor will you be able to play the piano when you are carrying it on your back. If you are not living in the divine in everything you do then you are somewhere else doing something else as someone else.

I’m going on longer than I usually do here but what difference does it make? The moment goes on forever. Get used to it. Associate with temporary things and you will find that everything is temporary. Associate with a mortal mindset and you will find that you are mortal. It’s easy to do because the entire world is engaged in it. You will seem to be crazy but then again, why should anyone notice what you are doing? It’s an invisible thing, unless you think you have to call attention to it. Act as if God is doing everything you think you are doing and you are going to get a big surprise.

The universe is entirely spiritual. You are entirely spiritual. Thinking makes it so. You will quickly see what opposes your efforts to accomplish this if you set about it whole-heartedly. All of the power of the universe is at your disposal. You are the Crown of Creation. Act like it. This will of course require great humility and a continuous sense of awe and you can only get that by being in a state of continuous surrender to that which is eternally in action and eternally still and which ‘thought’ you into being.

It’s here right now. It’s not in the future somewhere. What happens is that the moment begins to expand until it encompasses everything. You will find that you are living in every heart. You will find empathy for every living thing. You will find God. You will not find it in a church when you are the adytum. You will not find it in a book or anywhere, when he is everywhere. You will find it in the practice of it and by living it; not later on this evening and not tomorrow at some specific location. It is a state of mind. It is a state of being and you are so close to it right now. It is holding you in place. It is reading these words with you. It is right there with you. Take it on faith, for it is truly said that, “Faith is the substance of things unseen.” Carry on.

Visible sings: God in Country by Les Visible♫ God's Not Dead ♫
'God's Not Dead' is track no. 3 of 11 on Visible's 2001 album 'God in Country'
Lyrics (pops up)

God in Country by Les Visible

Saturday, November 08, 2008

You are What You are Looking For.

I’d like to talk about a curious thing today and something that, if properly understood and practiced, will lead to certain definite results over time and nothing can or will hinder it either. Imagine that you are in a large public library in a large city. Imagine you are in a large university library or in the Library of Congress or the library at The Vatican. Imagine that you are surrounded by all of these books of which you will never read more than a small portion in your lifetime even if all you do is read.

Imagine that there is a library in your head which is larger than any library on Earth and that these books are a part of what you are. Imagine all of the spiritual texts and scriptures of which you could never read more than a small part of even one religion. Sure, you could read the major texts and some will tell you that is all you need. I won’t debate this. Imagine that the actual and original flame alphabet of the original, unaltered scriptures are written on your heart. There is a secret chamber in the heart where this happens to be true. Is it your heart or the place where you touch the universal heart? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it is.

Computers are based on the operations of the brain. In fact, all technology is based on the human body. Consider the female outlet and the male plug that allows the transference of energy that makes all of the machines work. Imagine that the sex force is the only force that exists in human interaction and that it is either coarsely expressed in the basement or upwardly refined until it becomes speech and art moving through religion until it touches God which is your essential nature. Imagine that the soul is the bride and lover of this essential self. Imagine that ultimately you make love to yourself and that the offspring of that union is eternal life and all pervading consciousness. Imagine that the process that brings this entire evolution through circumstance and time is all accomplished by the real you that unified the separated you that was separated and put into interactive compartments for the purpose of experience whose intent is realization. Imagine that this is why it is important to love yourself.

Imagine then that you operate in the wider world so that, over lifetimes, you acquire all of the experience necessary to come to the point where the door into a much larger world opens within. Imagine that all of the power that you witness external to yourself is only a small expression, along a limited bandwidth, of the power within you which sets the stars and planets in their courses, which slings everything inward outward and which never manifests but a portion of the power that remains unmanifest.

Imagine that the purpose of the world which is perceived by the senses is to deceive the mind which interprets the reports of the senses. Imagine that the world is only a garment that conceals the real world. Imagine that all of the heartbreak and pain in the manifest world has but one purpose and that is to disenchant you with the world that deceives you. Imagine that everyone you ever meet, everyone you are attracted or repelled by is another facet of yourself. Imagine that every person, regardless of their position, is an archetype which expresses a particular presentation of the indefinable for the purpose of demonstration to everyone who, for the most part, never sees it.

Imagine that everything you believe about yourself is something you imagined and none of it is real and yet you live out a lifetime based on beliefs that are constantly altered due to circumstances set up for just this purpose so that eventually you find that nothing you believed was true but was mere projection based on a limited perception of that which cannot be grasped or defined.

Imagine that all of the suffering and the wars are no more than an eternal interplay between shadow and light which makes a world in which such things take place possible and that it is to the degree that you are in the shadow or in the light that you suffer or are a part of the suffering and wars and all that takes place.

Imagine that the idea of evil and evil itself is no more than something you do not understand and have not yet learned how to make use of constructively. Imagine that lightning is a good example of this as are floods and all manner of forces that seem to work against you because you operate in a way that is not in harmony with your essential nature. Imagine that no wild beast or any other seemingly inimical thing could harm you if you were in your essential nature but would otherwise rest quietly beside you or serve you and we have already many example of this.

Imagine that all of the fundamentalist mindsets, the Zionists, the bankers; all of those whose mindset and bandwidth allow only for a material understanding of the greater realm, of which this is only one of the sub-basements, actually have no power over you but what you give them and that anyone who is tormented or enslaved by these elements has voluntarily given them the power to do it.

Imagine, as has been said, “Greater is that which is within you than that which is in the world.” Imagine, as has been said, “There is a man who is so sure of his inward course that no wild beast can harm him, no danger can approach him... and why? Because he has no death to die.” Imagine that the truth of everything you have read which is true is a proven fact within you already and that no book, no teaching, no guru and no energy or entity can possibly confer on you a greater understanding than you already posses but are unaware of. Imagine that it is not learning you require but remembrance.

Imagine and visualize that you are the world in which you live and it is your perception of it that defines the reality you encounter. Imagine that you have only to unlearn or to forget the lies you have told yourself in order to be free of the conditions in which you have placed yourself. Imagine that you are the source and the accomplishment of everything you seek. Imagine that everyone you encounter is you and act accordingly.

Imagine that there are no accidents and that everything always has been and always will be under control and that you can enjoy the confidence of that reality simply by making it real by constantly practicing the presence of it. Imagine that you can go deeper and deeper as you go and that you will never know how deep it is.

Remember that the further you proceed into matter the more dense it becomes and the more confined you are and the more the heat increases. Conversely, the more you proceed out of material attraction, the freer you are, the wider the spaces and the cooler the fire that warms you to the core.

As true as any of this may be you can never communicate it to anyone not disposed to receive it. This is why, although you see suffering everywhere you go you can do nothing about it except to live as an example of the alternative. You cannot change things for another no matter how desperately you may wish or try. They can only change according to what their understanding allows and it is only example that shows the way. It is only trauma and loss that makes ready the ground.

Imagine that this is true for you, that infinite possibility awaits and imagine that you are open for that and become ready for the only meaningful pursuit you will ever discover. Bon voyage.


Visible sings: Down The Roads by Les Visible♫ Down The Roads ♫

Monday, November 03, 2008

The Darkness that Brims with Light

Life’s like the ocean in a way. The tides bring things in and the tides take things out. There’s a lot more going on below the surface than above the surface. Sometimes it’s stormy and wave-tossed and sometimes it’s calmer but it is never still. You could say that the mind is like the ocean; all those thought fishes swimming in and out. You could say your life is like your mind and reflects the state of it.

The reason I bring this up is because of trends that I see coming in on the tides of life. The trends of the moment aren’t different, essentially from the trends of any time. They’re all made out of the same thing; the same thing that you and I and the Earth and the sky are made out of. The thing that I notice the most about trends and conditions is that they always involve conflict. It could be the simple conflicts of fashion and color; the clash of styles, cultures and climates that always create new weather when they meet. It might be the darker conflicts of stressed economies and war. Wherever people are more concentrated, the conflicts are more dramatic simply from the press of so many individuals with different perspectives and attitudes; different needs, different levels of awareness, different agendas and moral codes.

The conflicts within us have some relationship to the conflicts outside of us. We look at it as something that is explained to us by others or as something we explain to ourselves. These days there is a lot less introspection and a great deal more of getting our world view from larger mediums of information. Since these larger mediums have a significant investment in getting groups of people to believe their version of events and conditions it can be readily assumed that conflicts and conditions are often created for the profit of those creating them.

Our physical bodies are composed of four elements that are at war with one another. There are more subtle elements as well. It shouldn’t take any great leap of thought to see where the actions of the elements of our bodies would affect the state of our minds. Looking at the commercial world, the marketplace, we can see how certain agendas, with an eye for their own profit, work upon the human mind and body in order to motivate them toward an interest in whatever they are selling. It stands to reason that those doing this want to provide the least amount of product for the greatest possible price at the smallest amount of expense. This is a trend we have seen at work for some time as convenience and immediacy win out over craftsmanship and durability. It stands to reason that the longer something functions and lasts, the longer is the time period before you need a replacement.

Over the centuries we have been given a lot of explanations for why the world is the way it is. Many people discount the possibility of a divine being because of things that have happened here. They don’t see how God could allow such things so therefore there must be no God. They’ve also seen how religion has been compromised as just one more commercial enterprise which adds to the idea that there couldn’t be any kind of a God described by the religions who would allow his temporal institutions to be used in such a manner. A study of the life and thought of Martin Luther brings up some interesting considerations.

People who read at this blog, or any of my blogs, know that I like to ramble around through the scenery before I get to my point. Sometimes the point doesn’t appear at all because it’s meant to appear in the mind of the reader and not on the page. I look at the personal mind as a room filled with furniture. Sometimes when you rearrange the furniture and make the room look and feel different there is a possibility that the mind itself can be glimpsed for a moment. Regardless of what many people might think, it’s not as easy to see our minds at we think it is.

Another telling point is that there really isn’t a personal mind in the way we generally understand it and that our biggest problem and the source of all of our personal conflicts is our perception of our minds as something personal. There’s only one mind and our idea of a personal mind is just the point at which we make contact with it. You could think of yourself as a small inlet into which an unfathomable sea flows in and out. Things wash up on our little shore and wash out again too. The impact of the greater sea upon the inlet constantly changes the shape and landscape of the shore so that we are never what we thought we were. This is why introspection and a constant effort to see deeper into the nature of ourselves will eventually lead to an understanding that we are nothing like what we think we are. We are much greater and much smaller than our present perceptions of ourselves which are quite often nothing more than an arrangement of furniture or an amalgam of trends and conditions that came in from the sea until they washed out again.

When you look at any period of time you can see a pervasive similarity in the lives of the people. At the same time you can see marked differences between cultures and countries but that the totality of it all is the image of the day in which they live. No matter what time you choose there is always an identifiable atmosphere of the time in which they lived... like there is now. No matter how many generations come and go. No matter how many lessons are played out on the surface of life... people don’t change all that much. They are still selfish and brutal and behave like malicious children.

Across the surface of the Earth there are ruins beneath the surface and ruins beneath those. The earth beneath the deepest ruins is composed of former ruins that are now just dirt. What does that tell you? It should tell you something about life and the permanence of human industry and all of the things that were made or will be made. The inside of your mind is not dissimilar to this. There are also things forgotten that are buried beneath things forgotten... lifetimes... and deeper still. Few are they who dive into these depths.

The world is a gigantic flashing billboard of products; possibilities, events and coming attractions like movie trailers and its sole job is to distract you from this deep diving. That is the purpose of the world. It is a smorgasbord of food and drink and sexual opportunity. It is the promise of riches and power and fame for the few after which so many hunger and spend their lives in the pursuit of which they will not attain. People don’t get it. It abuses them. It confuses and breaks them and uses them for sport and even consumes them but they line up at the door every day. They get sent on the conveyor belt to the shadow realm where the moon weaves them another body and then they bang on the door to be let in so they can do it all over again. That’s how it goes and it goes and goes and goes... round and round on a wheel of fire inside the belly of Ganesha.

You can’t talk about these things with most people. Men in cassocks and suits with bad hair can talk to them. Men in robes and wearing funny hats can talk to them about punishment and reward but you can’t talk to them about living realities or the deep and luminous places in the mind. There is something in the common mind that does not want to know. It wants to understand other worlds as if it were the same world they were contemplating it in.

You cannot tell them that the flames of desire are the same as the fires of Hell or that the world is a carnival of mirrors in a funhouse where it’s not always fun. You can’t tell them that Love is the purification of desire and an altogether different fire or about thousands of curious things that are all around them and which they cannot see and do not wish to see. You can share what you have as what it is but you cannot share it as something else.

All of this is why I consider mediation and contemplation, self-inquiry and compassion to be of infinitely more value than anything the world will ever provide. People will nod their heads over this and then go right back to what they were doing. This is a mystery that conceals a powerful treasure and there it sits. There is sits, right in the middle of the darkness that conceals it.

Visible sings: Almost A Capella by Les Visible♫ Love is Bound ♫
'Love is Bound' is track no. 12 of 12 on Visible's 2007 album 'Almost A Capella'
Lyrics (pops up)

Almost A Capella by Les Visible

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Love in The Devic Realm.

Life means something different for a variety of classes of people. According to a particular ancient tradition there are seven rays, or soul paths that proceed out of the white light of spirit and find their way back again to the source which would mean, I think, that life is just a journey of discovery, or, possibly, nothing more than a process of remembrance.

I intuit from this that some colors blend with other colors more harmoniously but that could be subjective according to the predispositions of anyone on any ray. I intuit that on each ray there are levels of apprehension and cluelessness. One could argue that presuming cluelessness is a form of chauvinism and that everyone has the right to be an idiot or a savant and that it can be hard to tell which is which depending on what is considered important.

It never fails to amaze me that people, who are here only temporarily, would value material concerns above spiritual concerns... that they would rather, “bind to themselves a joy” rather than to “live in eternities sunrise”; that they would kill the thing they love by suppressing the magic of wonder in favor of reshaping the beloved according to their own tastes... as if that were some sort of an improvement and as if they knew what was best. This isn’t to say that we can’t and don’t positively influence each other but the presumption that we know how someone should be, is the source of a great deal of the world’s injuries. The world itself, according to traditions and cultures and customs does this all the time and those who won’t submit are considered outlaws. Sometime they actually are.

It’s a hard call to possess the delicacy of true detachment and not have it come across as indifference. For me, I’ve chosen to bear a certain amount of life’s sorrow on purpose because otherwise it robs me of the poetry of being alive. Feeling loss and grief are natural things... knowing when to let them pass is a matter of wisdom. I always remember what Gibran said “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” Sorrow and loss have real beauty for me but only to the degree that they are useful colors on the palette of existence.

Susanne never had a dog until one day she took off on a plane to rescue Silky Lily Nelson from a shelter in Spain. She was about to be destroyed (Lily, not Susanne). During her time with us she has become a remarkable companion and still is. A year or two later (I can’t remember), two new dogs came in on a plane from Andalusia; Chloe and Bessie Hoover, the Love Sponge AKA Bessie the Magic Dog. As time went by I watched Susanne transform into someone who really loved dogs and began to show an involved interest in doing what she could for them in whatever way that was possible.

She’s not an obsessive, thank god and probably has as little tolerance for PETA as I do. I’ve got zero tolerance for political correctness and no appreciation for it. I’ve got very little use for anything that doesn’t operate with an understanding of what the world is and what our limits are. There’s some irony there because I often act like there aren’t any but that would be a misapprehension that doesn’t bear out over the long run. I’m still here aren’t I?

As I could see the potential for well-intentioned and understandable abuse, I told Susanne that we shouldn’t ever have more than five dogs. You lose a certain sense of the individual after that... or at some number not far beyond five and... I knew that there was always a little wiggle room which is why I said, ‘five’.

Recently I came down to our place in Italy and it wasn’t too long before Susanne called to tell me about some dog a hundred miles or so from here that people were talking about on some forum and I offered to go get that dog (I’m not sure why.). There was the idea that Poncho Moonlight (so named because he glows when the moon is larger) would be relocated. However, Poncho soon became my dog, although I had no intention of it. I’d been content to share out my affections all round; not forgetting to include Susanne in the equation. Then Susanne came down and a couple of weeks later she came home with a one-eyed dog that is now known as Alfie. A month went by and I went to Rome and then came home to find little black Nomi had joined us too.

There has been and is some tension between Poncho and Alfie and there won’t be any more male dogs coming in. Alfie and Nomi are going north with Susanne when she returns to the main home toward the holidays. We aren’t looking to have a menagerie and Susanne is good about staying in the lines with this... though it grieves her every time she has to let one go. I’ve left out some dogs and some interesting events but... where would I put them within the limitations of this piece?

Susanne has one of the kindest hearts I’ve ever known. She’s as rare as a banker’s tears. Just about everyone in this house has a strong empathy for living things which includes the unfortunate insect who can’t get out of a sink or anything but flies and mosquitoes and certain deadly things that are either... not welcome, or require more deft handling.

Before Susanne got Lily there was another small dog named Bonnie who had been her mother’s pet for a dozen years. Bonnie died in Portugal, largely because she was a bit more combative than she should have been but also because the vet didn’t know what she was doing. Bessie died for the same reason. She had a heart condition and a change in medication brought some bad side effects. They seemed to be passing. She wasn’t an old dog. She’d been with us about two and a half years and was around seven years old.

I wasn’t that close to Bessie over the time I knew her until the last six weeks. It was always Lily that I bonded with and Chloe well... she doesn’t get on so good with men. Of course, I attended to and cared for them all but you’re just closer to some creatures than others. Back to Bessie;

Because of the new medication Bessie began to wheeze and cough and it was alarming. I was always saying we had to get the vet over soon. The vet came by and said, “Well, this and that and she should be alright.” The symptoms backed off and I was truly relieved. Somehow, in the process of this, I came to love Bessie’s quiet patience and awesome and available love. Why I didn’t see what a beautiful creature she was in the times before I cannot say. Of course I stroked her and spoke to her and liked her a great deal but it was only in the last six weeks that I came to seek her out and love her for her modest and accommodating ways. She began to come into my room at night and look to lay on the bed with me but since Poncho had commandeered that; even when I would call to her to come she, instead, would find a place under my work table and lay there. As her symptoms eased, I was truly grateful that I had been able to see more clearly as a result of having been moved by her condition and attitude concerning it. I thought, “Isn’t that how life is... my life anyway... so many wonderful things that I don’t see until I see them.”

Yesterday, Susanne asked, “Where’s Bessie? I haven’t seen her in awhile?” I’d taken a nap but I had seen Bessie and a couple of other dogs out among the olive trees and walking around together in a way I’d never observed before. It was almost as if they were having a conversation. I went out to call for her. It was dark night. I called for a few minutes and I knew it was strange but not inconceivable that she hadn’t come.

It took us a few minutes to find a flashlight and then we went out. I went on one side of the driveway and Susanne on the other. Then I heard Susanne say, “Oh, there she is.” It gladdened my heart. I thought she had just seen her coming through the gates. Alas... when I went across the driveway, there she was... laying on the ground at a place I wasn’t accustomed to see her at any time. Susanne was kneeling by her and said, “Oh. She’s dead.” Then she said, “Wait... she’s alive... no, she’s dead.” She was still warm. All I could think was that she knew and she went to find a soft place to leave from- some kind of “Watership Down” thing and being the class act that she was, she went off on her own and then she was gone.

I’ll spare you the personal details in the aftermath. I think you know anyway. We buried her this morning under an olive tree and made a cairn. I was a little surprised when I could see the size of it from the back terrace. It didn’t seem that it took much work.

The night before, Susanne had wrapped her in a sheet and I placed my poster of Venus Rising that I had bought in Firenze two summers ago beneath her. I’d brought Susanne this beautiful scarf from Rome that I had purchased from a Columbian lady by The Coliseum and Susanne covered Bessie with the scarf and laid a rose from the garden on the bier. She lay there on the kitchen table overnight. I don’t have my sequencing right, nor have I done justice to the feeling and the history of things but I don’t want to go on about things which most of us understand but never seem able to convey.

This isn’t really about Bessie. Bessie is a catalyst for an eternal condition that goes on as long as there is the human element to experience it. This isn’t about our losing a friend; everyone does... those that have them. This is about understanding the continuous separation of our being from everyone we meet; everything we have and everywhere we are... sooner or later. It is uncanny to me that we can we be in a position to note; those of us that will make the effort to see... how it is that we arrive naked in this world and leave with nothing but some tokens and whatever they dress our envelope in... before it is laid in the grave or consumed in the furnace.

It amazes me and it always has that we can be so fucking blind to the important things and so clever about getting our way about things that we will take for granted soon after we acquire them. it amazes me how we identify ourselves as a man or a woman of one color or another; of one race or another, of one creed, political party or occupation as if that summed us up; as if what we were was merely the labels we embraced. It stuns me that we can abuse the ones we love and persist in selfish efforts to have and consume so many temporary entertainments of which we will remember so few at the end of our course. It stuns me even more that so many of us are left with these unfulfilled longings after what we wished we had had and done and been when we could have had and done and been far greater things if we had only been a little less self-absorbed... a little less vain... a little less deluded about our importance among so many people and events in this world that cared far less about us... or perhaps exactly as much as we cared about everyone else.

I’ve just got this to say and I will have to say that at the moment I can think of nothing more important than what I am about to say. Make sure that you take every opportunity to let those you love... or might have learned to love or admire know exactly how you feel while you still have the time to do it. You don’t get timed alarms that tell you something you cared about more than you ever admitted to was about to go away.

I’m not sad about my dog so much. Last night I walked out on the terrace and for a moment I saw Bessie fifty feet high and standing among the olive trees with a big smile on her face and saying to me that she hadn’t gone anywhere and that she would be looking out for us and though I know it was some powerful demand from within me that called this forth... maybe it’s all as real as you want it to be.

Mark my words... everyone comes to see that they should have done more to let those they loved know how they felt. Everyone comes to see the shortcuts they took and where they fell short in achieving the finer possibilities of their potential across so many opportunities in their brief time in this particular suit of clothes they call their life.

I hope I never forget that it’s always the right time to do the right thing... to curb my tongue, to look for some way to do a little more for those who made my life worth living because without them I had no life at all. I think I’m beginning to understand that I am defined by what I cared about and judged by the degree to which I made that clear... in the midst of whatever trials or sacrifices it demanded of me. I’m flawed and weak and I know that but I suspect we redeem ourselves by making it our sole concern to love and serve to the best of our ability once we come to understand... and we surely will, that there is nothing more... absolutely nothing more.