There is the flow of rivers, mouth to delta, the longest rivers in the world: Amazon, Nile, Yangtze, Mississippi. White Nile/Blue Nile. Meander through the bulrushes. “The Sea Refuses No River”

There is tributary flow of sundry ilk.

There is the imperceptible unrelenting, often backwards lazy flow of the bayou, brown like an ugly snake in the sun.

There is the swift flow of the rapids throwing down the cataracts.

There are the cement constructions, lazy river flow. There is one in the shape of letters: “lima” “sierra” “uniform”

There is the energy of wind moving the wide expanses with elegant massive power flow. There is gulf stream. There is air stream. The two are related.

There is the flow of the floe of calving ice, releasing trapped and centuries-stored carbon, changing the composition of the vast expanses. Changes in density, changes in salinity. Nothing remains quite the same.

There is the flow of heat exchange, conduction.

There is circulation flow: pumps, pipes, and hoses.

There is the flow of blood, periodic lunar chart.

There is confined flow in contained hose nozzle-controlled.

There is a natural hose waste flow multiplied and shared by all the people in the world, fed by liquidity. It can go into a bucket, it can go into a pot, it can go into a public works, it can go behind a tree, it can famously go onto a second-best bed in an expensive suite with a Kremlin view.

There is the drifting flow of continents, to and fro. There is the clash of subduction zones. Mountains are like the vomit of orogenesis. Very moving.

There is magma flow in a hot spot, remote in the vast expanse. Once exposed, magma is lava, and it flows too: a’a & pahoehoe, leaving a mark upon the earth.

There is electricity flow in a wire. Turn on the light switch: immediate illumination. Think of a Newton’s cradle.

There are the waves and particles of radiation from the sun. There is the flow of photosynthesis.

There are flowing waves in the air, broadcast and caught with a dial on Marconi’s device. Limber limburger Limbaugh limbos to bimbos, unrelenting for thirty years, bending America’s lumbar like Beckham. Lump it and limp.

There is the information flow through a cable, fiber optic. It fills us with too much. It sows chaotic confusion and lack of knowing. [as Declan has said: “they’re gonna take that cable now, and stick it down your throat” and elsewhere: “it’s undercover around your houses, up your skirt and down your trousers”]

There is talk flow, Forrest to Bubba, back and forth, similar to this awkward word flow.

This could go on and on, ‘mimsy were the borogoves’, but I’ll run it through a sort of nozzle, and play with the adjustments:

There is an expression: “Go with the flow.” Some say it. It gets paid the lip service. It is associated with passivity. It is sometimes considered mystical and very eastern. It is represented many times as hippy liberality, a refusal to take part in decent society, a refusal to work. It is long hair and a beard. It is disrespect. It doesn’t stand upright for the national anthem. It smokes pot, kettle black. Lives matter. It is frowned upon in our America. It needs to pull its pants up. Serious social measures are taken to rid us of this mystical eastern passive scourge.

Decent Americans righteously rebel against it, irreligious and irreverent as it is. Yet a cousin of it, ultimately, can be found advocated in the Christian religions, especially in the ones which fight passivity and call for action. It clashes with the concept of the Protestant work ethic of course, but it can find accord in the concept of grace and in the dubious concept of “handing of one’s life over to Christ.” Literally defined, the word for this “handing over” is actually one that draws ire and derision, inciting and inviting violence: islam. (Not many decent ones will remain completely passive about the feelings that I just manipulated and stoked in the dropping of that one simple defining word).

And people talk about it, yes, this (paradoxical within the paradigmatic context) “handing over of life”. Committed people swear by it. What it actually amounts to in practice, I have yet to understand or to truly see. For it seems like the same old self-serving selfishness to me, only “righteous” and “justified.” [But that’s just me. As a gnostic heretic, I do have somewhat of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to this]. [It’s awkward, sometimes, biding one’s time on the execution line for heretics, especially within polite conservative society]. [Dead man walking].

But my written word flow is off again on yet another tangent. Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a mail box. I myself, indeed do advocate going with the flow. It is the way. To me it is the way to go. It is eternal. It is universal. It is beyond time and space. It always was and always will, like the spirits that we truly are.

But, I also see a trap in confusion with “the way,” especially when it is so obvious from my original Bubba Gump talk/list above, when there are so many choices and conflicting flows and ways and means and flows of bad advice with which to go. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” – Hamlet (1.5.167-8). There is almost, seemingly, no way to discern the right way. The concept of “The Sea Refuses No River” and the “We Are All Water” sentiment do offer a bridge to redemptive theology on the matter. Yet, it clashes in a fundamental way. How to know? Traditional authority? The Pope? Formal traditional protest against traditional authority? Institutional?

But reality is that we all must serve somebody. We all must, “at the end of the day” [inane throwaway cliché!] flow along somewhere to something beyond us. This is that which we fear with all our might, all our being, all the while working on the conviction that we can somehow be saved and graced and somehow granted with the opposite of that which we fear in such complicated denial.

People, even the toughest resisters who would never stoop to feminine passive flowing do indeed flow in many lost and circular ways, like the Lost and Old River on the way to Beaumont. Like flotsam, we, all of us, flow on, in on something, one way or another, acknowledged or not. There is a regular flow of fooling ourselves. We call it life. We consider it finite. We look at it as a win or loss proposition. People like to play the zero sum game. People like to project the zero sum game everywhere. The world is like Plato’s cave. Action and initiative individuality and zero sum are shadows on our wall of reality.

Yet, consider that there really is a flow to creation. There is a flow that cuts through all the other flows. There is an uber flow that overrides. Don’t go with just any flow, I say. Don’t get lost. Don’t get old. Slow down. Meditate. Find the overriding flow. See the light. Converse with the one flow in the creation. Flow though time. Flow through space. Flow eternal. Flow out of this world. Find the light. Find the flow that cuts through it all, that is it all. ‘Get on the Right Thing’. Go with that flow.

This post is constructed from two separate posts that an intimate virtual friend of mine shared on facebook recently.

The first part was his answer to someone who remarked that “they can see the love” in a picture of he and his wife of 27 years.  Then, after some reflection, in a general post, he expounded further.

I being of very close kinship to this facebook avatar, have decided to combine the two separate posts into one single work to be published to the world herein:

August 4, 2017.  1:15 a.m.:

Troy Rosamond Thanks. I could see it too. When it was happening I was seeing it and I knew it would show. Not a version of itself. Not an image or a projection. Itself. I’m glad it did.

If you live long enough, and don’t give in and don’t give up, one day we will all run across it, perhaps in the course of stepping over and around it in desperate frantic search for intercourse with something else. If we can drop ourselves we can go there.

If you live long enough after that, and don’t give in and don’t give up, and override the sabotage of good intentions that we all desperately selfishly do, we can stay for a while.

If you live long enough after that, you might start to realize that your desperate clinging for what you were looking for in all suffering of not finding — or of finding and obtaining and suffering to fail, perhaps even trying to garner and enlist the power of the earth of the sun in your deluded efforts to obtain, alas to fail — was not suffering, failure, or the suffering of failure, but it is blessing: blessing beyond blessing: a crucible.

If you live long enough after that you begin, ever so imperceptibly, to perfect it, though perfect is the last word you’d call it.

If you live long enough after that you begin to quit looking over your shoulder. [Fear — desire — arrogance — you name it . . .]

If you live long enough after that you can see where it came from — hint: in the vast, unimaginable, powers of creation — and that is a true transformation. (Not of the kind that will get you kicked out of the army, but way, way beyond that).

I am talking about the love we all could share. When we find it, to try our best to hold it there. With our love, with our love, we could save the world.

Further elaboration posted to a general “selected friends” audience August 5th at approximately 4:28 a.m.:

This involves one of my favorite parables, the Matthew one about the seeds. I was exposed to it in an institutionally structured timely way recently.

Of course, it could certainly do without the blatant explanation attached. That is totally unnecessary. I’m sure that everyone can get a sense of what it’s about without the in-your-face commentary. That said, it’s still a really good one, and one of my favorites.

Rocky ground, thorny ground, on the well-trodden path. We can all get the idea. It is very cool. Deep, nourishing soil is where it is. Very cool.

Many have been exposed to this one. Many more have had it mansplained or have grappled with it in the course of self-guided study, alone or in like-minded group-thinks. The mansplaining and the self-guided tours are, of course, in the style and the fashion of all that is post-1517 (and all that!) . . .

But there is a major blind spot. There is a blind spot that is missed, despite the blatant, detailed and superfluous explanation provided in [inerrant] text. I will be a kind friend and I will enlighten you on this blind-spot trap as a “freebie” before I get into deeper theology regarding this one.

The major blind-spot, universally “un-caught” by the congregated, the mansplained and the self-guided alike, is this: the good deep soil is universally understood to be the sole and exclusive domain of the hearers and select heeders, i.e. those present and willing and active recipients of the word. That is not the case, I say. It is so not the case. Like, totally, otherwise. It is a parable still, mind you. It is a parable despite the burdensome explanatory albatross hanging like golden holy bling from the neck of the thing. The good soil, I maintain in true parabolic[sic] fashion, is indeed something else. It lies elsewhere. Thus, the blind spot is exposed. ‘Flashenlightenment’ flashlight having shone.

You’re welcome.

And if you don’t believe me, that’s fine. Good traps are not easily seen. (And when Jesus got sarcastic, it was always directed to the overly pedantic and ‘law’ ’abiding’/projecting insiders). [Just is always saying].

But, to get on to the theological grub of the thing: that’s why we are here, remember? That’s why I’m [still] here at least . . .

There is an overriding sense of destiny stuck in the heart of the craw in this one. Although theological gymnastics can get us out of it, it is still stuck in the core there. Soils are what we have, what we are. The seeds are strewn and fall where they will. Some take and some either don’t, are taken away, or only appear to take, for a time. We are what we are. It is what it is.

Of course, you can stretch out the tired old explainer of everything mysterious: free will. Of course, then you still must pull it over the frame of the true enough fable of a tiny seed of faith with the amazing ability to move physical mountains. Then thus, of course, path, thicket and rocky ground can be “converted” to deep soil (with grace, of course. One simply doesn’t ‘work’ at these things). But, really, who expects much out of rocky ground? The ‘proverbial’ path has been verily paved into a free-way by now, expanded to six lanes and the traffic has only increased. Where is the deep soil to be found these days but in the pew or in front of the book?

No, there is something altogether exclusionary and deterministic about the whole thing.

But that is parable.

This one continues the context-wide tension that always exists between the few, the proud, the chosen versus the good news offered freely to all. These contradictions will always be in tension as long as we hold onto that fundamental reality of life as once, finite, and for all. They directly lead, cause and effect, to false assumptions about dire recruitment obligations.

Parable.

O that concept of life as once, finite, and for all! This fundamental assumption renders all scripture incomplete. In this context, ends will never meet. This fundamental assumption makes nothing spiritual make sense. This road-map will get you lost. Parabolically [sic], it is intended that way. Scripture beats around this particular bush, always talking about promise yet, cannily, always able to make threats. Scripture never quite achieves the actual spiritual. Rote always falls short. Doctrine is always challenged by parable. Parable deludes as much as it explains, despite the best attempts of detailed explanation to deliver and/or to demystify. There is always a tension. It never quite makes sense. Even the deftest acrobatics merely produce an explanation that only works parable-free. Parables are always there in the life as once, finite, and for all. They, [the parables], haven’t gone away. Nor has the trap.

That is the parable. But there is a time-frame that is spiritual. Life as once, finite and for all it is not. The very idea of life as once, finite and for all is a conceptualization of nothing beyond fear and threat. Fear and threat are death. The way that we have been and the way that we are, continually, institutionally instructed and drilled — (well regulated) — to accept things and to grasp reality is a manifestation of death. No wonder fear is never far away.

There is a spiritual actuality, a true eternity of soul, stretching past and future like lone and level sands that allows for a breakage of all limitations, that allows the cultivation of the soil over an eternal working of over. It allows for the general promise and for the good news to be real and actualized. It is a tree. A tree of life. [Hint: someone restored it, there in the garden]. Or, you can go with your future-tense. Have it as you insist, as learning and tradition have taught you to do. Truth goes against the fundamental of life as once and for all though. It is parable.

Ponder the parable.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Sartor Resartus.
Parable.

No one can steal what is infinite and freely given . . .

At best, all they can hope for is to steal a march on time. But time doesn’t entertain dharmatic tricks. Time is eternal karmic hell to those who think to manipulate and dream to advantage. Don’t ever play games with the illusion of cause and effect.

The thing is, I am not here. But, while I still am, I will say and do to have an impact. I will not cease the practice of stillness and of the emptying of me. The ones who insist that I don’t understand a thing about here, they’re right. I will change it.

It’s temptingly simple to see the world as dichotomy of good vs. evil, light vs. dark, etc., etc., etc.

The concept of light destroying darkness is an appealing one.  And such a good variety of handy fill-ins give our hunger for order and simplicity a seeming satisfaction.  There are just so many bad guys to play the part.  And it is so easy to narrow down the ‘good guy’ to one good convenient version of one.

But, in this creation — invisible behind the material illusion — there are different dynamics going on.

It is not a case of light vs. dark.  It is more a collection of tendencies toward embracing light or toward turning away from light.  This is free will.

There are unlimited degrees, gradations, nuances to choose.  And in the atmosphere of free will, the selfish winds of the troposphere turn a weathervane of whim this way and that.  This is usually mistaken for depravity by simpletons.  Throw in fear and the simpleton remedies are downright hurtful.  Fear is the absolute best proxy for darkness.

Anything short of a full embracing of the light is an embrasure for the absence of light, an opportunity for man to fall short of spirit potential, purpose and destiny.  And there is no shortage of simpleton explanations to mythologize the falling.

Embrace the light!  Embrace the light fully!

Arguments are ‘aplentiful about right and wrong.

Relationships fall apart over this need to be right and to have the other be wrong. Groups band together in righteousness to conquer the wrong. Wrong is called transgression (and worse). It is taken personally. Wars are fought. People are killed.

It is good to be right. It feels good to have your ‘opponent’ shown to be wrong. To have law and violence on your side in this “showing” feels powerful.

But, law and the concept of right are only rough, approximate languages invented by man to grasp at the meaning of an abstract thing. Law and the concept of right are like the language of a math formula: S=[n(n+1)]/2, for example. It is an almost indecipherable formula slapped onto an underlying ‘reality’. The “reality/correct answer” can be approached in several different ways, requiring varying efforts and time commitments. Say that n equals one hundred for example. The answer could laboriously be arrived at adding sequential numbers one at a time until the answer 5,050 is derived. Or, one could write (or picture in the eye) an array of all the numbers and realize that they can be paired off into sets: i.e. one pairs with ninety-nine, forty-nine pairs with fifty-one, and so on and so forth with everything in between. One could write (or picture in the eye) that there would be fifty such pairs, leaving over a lone fifty in the middle left out like an outlier or a sore thumb. Adding all the fifty pairs of one hundred would make 5,000 and topping the cake with the outlier/sore thumb fifty makes 5,050. Or, quickly, one could plug in the number one hundred to the formula. Voila: 5,050.

Now this is just an abstract example (posing as a concrete example) of an abstract concept.

About the law: remember that it was said by a man who does indeed know that law is only necessary and imposed because our hearts are hard.

Our understanding just isn’t there. This includes the understanding of what is actually behind our manly concept of right, i.e. righteousness. It is truly unknowable on material earth. Yet, we fight. People die.

It is the ultimate irony starched on an ironing board of irony stretched ironically that we band together and we fight and we kill and we die and people are killed and people die over the concept of the law of right versus the transgression of wrong. We receive a jolt/epiphany when we awaken to the truth that it is the ultimate statue worship and the ultimate assumption of the role and power of the Creator when we can finally “get it” that the always and everywhere of the creation can only be known by the Creator. We have to know that we have no business in the know business. But we don’t. We know enough to stand up and fight for what we “know” to be right.

The taking of any life in the always and everywhere by anyone lives in a pretty righteous town and how can only be wrong, which is not right.

We are incapable of knowing. Yet, for safety’s sake, we kill in the name of the one who does know and for the unknowable Creator who created know.

Think of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  Actually that might not be helpful.  The pyramid shape seems to indicate an increase of value inversely related to commonality.  That’s where part of the trouble begins.  Yet, throw out the seemingly implied value statement.  I’ll say it outright:  the people at the “top” of the pyramid aren’t “better” than the ones at the base.  The pyramid shape of decreasing numbers with increasing ascension is not a relationship that necessarily holds.

Yet, the hierarchy does explain much.    Yes, the message we normally associate with the pyramid shape is harmful and useless and must be thrown out.  Yet, the hierarchy does indeed explain much.

When it comes to Americans, there is an impenetrable barrier between those who dwell at the actualization levels versus the ones fixated on nurturing and safety levels.  There is an intense failure in the ability to communicate.  I don’t think anyone would dispute this.

Think in terms of vibrations and frequencies of spirit energy, if you will.  They don’t all harmonize.  There is a clashing difference in the frequencies between those focused on physiological and safety vis a vis the actualization prioritization.  I repeat that it is dangerous and unhelpful to assign values to either.  I’ll say it again:  the people at the “top” of the pyramid aren’t “better” than the ones at the base.  But I’ll say again too, that the frequencies of vibration of actualization souls are not very compatible with the frequencies of vibration of safety souls.

The two aren’t able to talk.

But I’ll say it a third time before we move on:  one group of people aren’t better than the other group.

It’s a matter of priority, of frequency and affinity if you will.  For some people it’s all about base needs and safety.  These are what need be protected to give people any chance at “salvation”.  Others seem not to worry about their base needs.  Actualization, “God realization”, is the focus of human spiritual experience to these so tuned, with an affinity focused ever beyond.

I could easily fall into the trap of value assumptions.  Even using terms that I have:  “spiritual experience”, “ever beyond”, “God realization” is a step into the dangers of this trap.  I could be tempted to say that those attuned to actualization are less afraid than those who are committed to protecting the foundation and the base securities.  Even using the word “base”  is too much in the image of the pyramid, too much into the trap of value thinking, comparison shopping.  It is the same with assuming “fear.”

It is hard to think abstractly and constructively about things of this sort.

I’m hopeful that I can convey the abstract concepts I’m grasping at while having fully extracted the concept of value and the concept of “better than” out of consideration.  I’ve had a draw at the venom.  Let’s hope the extract has succeeded.  Then we can move on.

So, I’ll say one more time.  I will taunt us all a fourth time.  It is mistaken to assume some people are better than others.  Period.  Now, as the discussion proceeds, we can allow ourselves to worry a bit more in the other direction.  People who are concerned with our base needs and safety aren’t inherently better than those who don’t seem to regard it with the proper level of due.

Here I want to say something about distribution.

Consider how the human body is consistent with the planet earth when it comes to the distribution of H2O.  It is said and it is commonly understood that roughly 70% of the human body is comprised of water and that this is roughly consistent with the fact that about 70% of the earth is covered with water.  I want to use this easy-to-understand correlation to stand in for an assertion of mine:  the distribution of “good” and “bad” people on earth is even.  By this, I mean that across all identifiers of border or culture or skin color or creed, God has equally distributed “good” people and “bad” people.  This one is sometimes a non-starter in certain discussions.  I’m hopeful that it will gain a fair hearing in this context and forum.  Think about it for a while.

Take your time . . .

Now, I’m not necessarily saying that there are certain inherently good people versus certain inherently bad people.  These are assumptions that, as I will discuss further, commonly get projected on either side of the Maslow’s hierarchy.  I’m not getting into that particular knot much in this essay, but my belief is different anyway.  To me all are imbued with an infinite God potential.  To me all life is a playing out of karma.  To me there are many lifespans of physical avatar and karma is worked out in this manner.  This is neither here nor there for purposes of this discussion.

Just assume and consider for our purposes that a certain amount of “good”ly inclined people and a certain amount of “bad”ly inclined people appear in any slice of humanity that one can imaginatively make.  To get very controversial in a way that I do not mean to, consider only that this means that a comparison of residents of any particular country will slice out in the same good/bad proportions as those residents of any other particular country.  Same across religions.  Same across political creeds.  Same across economic creeds.

Here’s where I may lose some of you.  If I do, I do. There is nothing I can say that will make you buy into this concept.  If you think, for instance, that Americans are inherently “gooder” than those of any other country.  If you are convinced that capitalists are far “gooder” than socialists, if you are convinced that “Christians” are far more “gooder” than [regular, non-quotation marked] Christians or Muslims or atheists or Hindis or Buddhists, than I apologize for asking you to read even this far into what I write.  I have wasted your time.  I’m sorry.

However, if you’re still with me, let me say something emphatic:  it is my certainty that the Creator did indeed create a balanced world.  At any given time in vast infinite history, there has always been a good disproportionate distribution of spiritually inclined with physically inclined. (It has ever been the few who can “see” and the many who are “of this world”).  There has always been a very equal distribution of the propensity and affinity for good with affinity for bad.  It is just like gravity.  It is a universal principle that holds.  As the song says:  “people are the same wherever you go.”  There is much truth in that simple lyric.  Much authority and truth.

But that’s enough on that.  Let’s return to our original discussion:  the inability to communicate.  There is very little understood articulation experienced by people on differing ends of the human focus hierarchy.

Certainly it is to be commended that there are people who sincerely believe that providing for our base subsistence needs and protecting our safety are top priorities in a bad world.  It may well be right that we all must be kept safe and secure in a dangerous world before we have any hope of any spiritual or higher level reward.

Likewise it is to be commended that there are people who recognize our spiritual essence.  These are people who are focused on those things that feed the spirit.  Thank God.

The danger is when a commitment to one or the other approach infiltrates our value system.  For it is easy for either approach to hide bad practitioners. (This might be a counterintuitive concept). There is a blindness when one associates one’s own kind with right and goodness.

Let me explain a bit further, if I can.

Take the mantel of the law and order safety and security focused.  It is easy to see others freeloading on all the good safety and security that has been provided.  It is easy to get caught up in the righteousness of being a provider and protector.  Freeloaders who take advantage of the safety and security provided for them at little or no cost seem to have little or no respect for providers.  They are takers.  Ungrateful takers.  They seem to be continually wasting their time on useless or harmful new-age consciousness expanding spiritual aspirations at the expense of all the sacrifice.  It is easy to see a mistaken belief on the part of such idealists that money is unlimited.  It would readily follow then that redistribution of hard-earned work is squandered,  and that the safety and security and justness of the world is in danger from takers and freeloaders.

Now consider another perspective.  It is easy for one who is spiritually focused to somewhat take for granted base needs, safety and security and aspire to higher things.  It is easy for an intellectual to value free-thinking, research, open thinking, personal development and freedom from the mundane.  To one with a ‘head in the clouds’ it may seem apparent that undue attention, worry and attachment to the base levels at the expense of expanding one’s mind might seem a willingness to live at a more crass level:  ignorant, base and simpleton.

This is oversimplification and not at all explanation, I can see that.
What I’m getting at is much more nuanced and I have the feeling that I am failing in the task.  It is way too simple to say that there are simply two camps, two ways of looking at things.  No matter what efforts I make I seem also to be setting value on what I refer to as “higher” as “expanded” as “open”, such, such, and such ad infinitum.

It is all too simplified indeed.  Too conveniently simplified.  These thoughts seem very unhelpful and useless.  I chase my thoughts like birds.  Any time I get close, they fly away scattered only to regroup inaccessible.

Except that, in America, today, there indeed seems to be a clear division into two camps.  These camps are broad.  Upon close examination, the fractures within the camps are kaleidoscopic.  It is surprising that they hold together.  Yet, the numbers have fossilized for some time.  There is a zero-sum/all-or-nothing split in our country that approximates 50/50.  Call it red/blue.  Call it conservative/liberal.  Call it right/left.  Call it intellectual elite/the “ppl.”  Call it all of these things.  At some time or other someone has.  We have all pretended this means something true and tangible.  And it has not been respectful.  Call it “brainwashed by the liberal fake media” versus “fair and balanced.”  Call it intelligent vs. stupid.  You can bet someone has already.

All the nuances can and have been simplified.  It is all too simplified indeed.  I should, perhaps, give up.  Many have.  Most pretend to one side or the other and disparage all the other side.  I refuse this game.  I say that respect can go all around.  It is important to me that you keep in mind what I said earlier about equal distribution by the Creator of good inclined, good intended, bad inclined, bad intended.  I’m telling you that the Creator will always distribute such human propensities evenly.  How I know this, I cannot tell.  But you can keep it in mind as you work through things with me.

So, the country is painted into a winner takes all delusion corner.  It has divided into two opposing camps.  The camps war with each other, each “side” assuming the mantel of righteousness to fight the gallant fight against the destructive forces of the stupidly “uninformed” “other” “side”.

Friends, how did we get here?

Well, let me tell you what I think.

How shall I proceed?

I have in mind two concepts:  the dao symbol of yin and yang and the Augustinian concept of the depravity of man as opposed to, say, the Pelagians. I’m not sure with which I will start because the two are so entwined inextricably with each other in some kind of neo-Gordian knot.

Let’s try and cut through.

Let’s start with Augustus, shall we?  We Americans are somewhat familiar with the concept of original sin and a little more vaguely and sub-consciously sated with the protestant variety of depravation.  Many consider man to be inherently sinful, always wanting to get something on someone else. People are always wanting, always scheming for the leg up, literally over someone’s woman or daughter sometimes. In this school of thought, protection and strong law and order are indeed called for in a basic, all penetrating way.  You don’t know all the dangers that are out there.  Over time, with sufficient banding together against such threats, the inner threat gets glossed over, taken for granted, forgotten.  There never seems to be a shortage of external enemies.  This has two effects.  First, there is never a shortage of outsiders to protect against.  The more identifiably different and alien the outsider, the easier it is to ward against them with strength in numbers.  This seems to be going on a bit whereby the security and base needs are considered sacrosanct and in need of protection from transgressors and sinners and outsiders.  It becomes easy to see opponents as freeloaders, wanting to take advantage of the security always wanting to undermine the security. They’re always “gaming the system” always “after yer Lucky Charms.”  There is a strong sense of a fortress of goodness under constant siege by the forces that, somehow, can’t stand goodness or are restless to undermine all the hard work that created the safe haven fortress to begin with.

On the other hand, for Pelagians, there is a sub-conscious assumption of the inherent goodness of people.  There is an awareness of a potential to rise above, to make things better, for goodness to thrive.  This potential always seems to be stifled by forces that resist change and development, that fight against the trusting of intelligent aspirations to improve things.  These others will take any measure, no matter how backwards looking or mean and crass to cling to and preserve “law and order” and “tradition.”  Over time, with sufficient focus on the higher callings and intelligent aspirations of life, the strength of the assumptions of human goodness get taken for granted and, after sufficient frustration with those who resist change and who resist intelligence and who resist development for the sake of keeping the status quo intact, thankfulness gets lost.  The appreciation for the hard-earned glue that holds things together gets lost or forgotten.

With these overgeneralized ersatz explanations of the two camps in mind consider each from the noble point of view.  This may (or may not) help understanding.

The one camp, believing at heart in the depravity of man, nonetheless, holds out, almost by definition, the hope that proper discipline and corrections can improve man.  However, those who do not respond to discipline and/or correction are thought to be a corrupt danger who must be isolated and never given benefit of the doubt or, indeed, any tangible benefit at all.  “Lock them up!”

The other camp, believing at heart in the goodness in man, nonetheless, despairs in those who deliberately impede progress.  Try as they may to educate and to “bring up” those laggards, the tendency, with frustration after frustration, is to write these off as hopeless:  deliberately ignorant, inexplicably defiant.  They are “deplorables”, so to speak.  The instinct is to write them off, to consider them not workable.  While progress and change march forth at pace these can be left behind.

So, keeping in mind the tao ying/yang symbol and remembering that one little thing I implied there, the fact of forgetting, remember also that there is a blindness to the little white spot or to the little black spot within each half.  Each camp employs equal force continually turning and twisting around in quest for improvement, perfection, and realization of goodness itself.  Each camp tends to align its own grouping with the mantle of good and to malign the opponent with the mantel of bad.  Each would like to eliminate the other.  Each forgets that, within the heart of them, the spot of the other has never left, be it the yin or be it the yang.   Each contains and includes an element of the other.  This, as a result of the appropriation of mantles of good, becomes, in reality a self-hate.  There is a damned spot that is never out!  Damn spot!  Out!

This is the most important time for me to say what I’ve said all along:  it is a maxim that the distribution of good and bad is equal through any cross-cut of any possible collective grouping of any mass of people.

It should be obvious that neither group is good while the other is bad.  These extreme dichotomies are just not so.  It is human delusion to think so.  And this deluded thinking allows the truly bad, the bad intentioned, the bad hearted to hide amongst their apparent fellows.

For instance, in the Pelagian camp would be those who truly are freeloaders, who aren’t pushing for the community good but truly do want to piggyback on the security and safety and protection hard sacrificed, hard earned by those who have provided the base levels of law and order.  There are some who can hide in this camp who are indeed literal “takers”.

In the law and order camp can hide many who truly are selfish, who truly want to hurt others and deny justice, who want to appropriate more for themselves and who truly want, in a mean spirited way, to exclude others and rig the game in their favor.

 
This discussion should (but maybe won’t) make it obvious what the problem is.  In assuming all the qualities of good for one group and assuming all the qualities of bad for the other, it is all too easy to assume that all the “opposing” camp is bad.  It is an easy picture to paint.  The “other”, in this delusion,  carries all the bad qualities in defiance of the reality of an evenly distributed bunch.

Likewise it should be obvious (but maybe it isn’t) that name-calling only makes it worse.

Ignoring the Creator’s fundamental law of equal distribution comes with disastrous consequences.  It becomes impossible to see the good in those who provide base needs and help secure things – they come across instead as evil selfish graspers and deniers with no interest at all in anything good save to maintain the grossly biased status quo.  It becomes impossible to see the good in those who aspire to spiritual progression and encouragement of developing the inherent good in people.  They come across as elitist manipulators of dependents, always creating division and discontent, always favoring the takers over the hard workers.

It becomes that no one side can trust the other.  It becomes that all lines of communication or understanding are severed.  It becomes to seem hopeless.

This is where America is now.

The only demons that are real stem from an individual’s negativity.

Negativity is, in reality, fearful doubt. Fear manifests in lack of focus and in deficit of trust in God.

Thoughts that remain on God are positive thoughts.  Positive thoughts are light.  They are focused. Sustained light shuts out all doubt, negativity, fear and, yes, demons.

Experience of God, the Creator, is constant thoughts of God.  It is God realization.  God realization is another way of expressing wordless prayer.  It is not periodic.  It does not come and go.  It is constant.  We are like a radio receiver.  We must be tuned.  The signal is constantly there, always was, always will be.  We must tune.

It is not in a rite.  It is not in a weekly assembly, or semi-weekly.  It is not words on a page.

It is devotion.

The capacity for God realization is innate.  As natural as breathing.  As photosynthesis.  As the functions of the organs.  As spirit in the material body in the material world.  The signal might be imperceptible, indeed.  And doubt is demons.

God realization is like seeds sown strewn into the air.  Our receptivity is like soil.

Some, of course, are thorny ground, all protective with aggression, fear and hate.  Some light gets in.  Something grows.  But not very well.  It is not beautiful.

Some are shaded by emotional attachment.  Light comes by and goes by and comes around and goes around.  Adaptation, evolution accommodates.  Ersatz grows here.

Some are stony ground, all obstacles to enemies.  Something grows, sometimes, in the cracks.  Sometimes it is beautiful.  But it is miraculously rare.

Most are on the well-trodden path, afraid to wander, hanging and clinging to conformity.  Not much grows here that the asses’ hooves don’t mix into the mash.  Here, on the path of conformity, lie a prevalence of demons and fears.  This is especially true where the institutionalism of dogma has paved the road, no longer even a hopeless path trod by the hooves of asses.  Consumerist roadways are the most hopeless of all.  They are demon-infested fear.

Some are overexposed to light and shallow in the ground.  They are bleached in the bones.

Yet, as intended, sometimes, the ground is deep and moist.  This is the true intention.  The roots grow deep.  God realization is strong.  It is constant.  It is thoughts and silent prayer.  There are positively no demons to fear.  It is peace.  It is quiet.  It does not need vocalization.

Never fear.  Demons aren’t here.

~~~

Now, lest we get the wrong impression and think that I’m saying that the seed choices are sown in any arbitrary or fixed way or are destined and that hope doesn’t factor in.  Well, no. Don’t fall for the myth of the chosen ones.  Remember it’s been said that faith can move mountains.  These illustrative examples are nothing like mountains.  They can all be moved.  The movement you need is on your shoulder.

Too much of everything and emphasis in this material world is a fight against demons.  Too many believe in the struggle against the evil one.  Some are so possessed with this notion that they come across as possessed.  It is as if they know the demons intimately.  All things are possible, though.  None of the less then desirable soils are destiny.  None are fixed.  Nothing is chosen for you.  No one is “chosen.”  Positive thinking, a God realization, and a turning of thoughts more consistently with the wonders of creation are all that are needed to move the ground.

All is meant to be fertile ground!  This is the mystery of faith.  This is the true Kingdom in the here and now.  All material existence is delusion.  This is not to say that it is easy to have an actual mountain of rock and mineral just up and walk away.  This is to say, though, that the demons of the mind can be cleared away, rocky ground can be cleared, thistles and thorny ground can be cleared, the path can be cleared.  One is not condemned to be trod on by the hoof of the ass in any permanence.  Move that mountain!  Overcome that delusion!  Realize God!

Too much is the sound and the fury.  Consider how, at New Years’ time, the Chinese have a tradition of beating on pots and pans, popping off loud fireworks, all for the final purpose of abating the demons, giving them no rest, keeping them noisily at bay.  Such is our general practice of ritual and what is generally accepted as prayer and worship. It is verbal.  It is sound and fury. It is loud noise battling demons.  It is the enemy to quiet reflection.  It is giving too much credence to what is delusion to what is the product of the negative, unfocused, doubting mind.

Get in the quiet.  Reflect on Creation.  Realize God.  Pray with continual silence.  Feel the silence of the light.  There will be no demons because there are no demons in such quiet light.

Negative and dark are the only demons.

Shine the light!

This space is an experiment at articulation.  I aim to tentatively translate from infinite space-light into the abstract grasp of the material delusion.

You may see and not see.  You may get it.  You may not.  Without going anywhere you may be confused by all things on earth.  In asking you may receive.

This is abundance . . .

P.S. to reach Hamesha through the nether, leave a message with troy@susta.org