A dirty hobo for truth

someone heard that I was writing a lot, I guess from my parents, and sat down with me and told me about how to make money from a blog.

I listened, because they wanted to talk, but I wasn't personally interested, though i enjoy learning new things. This blog is not about making money. I don't have adds, and as far as I can tell, I don't have a place in the search engines. aside from a little link in my facebook profile, I have no idea how anyone would find this. In fact, I don't even tell my parents how to get on to this. I don't want them reading this.

Perhaps this is a hang-up, yeah, I think so, but I am violently opposed to the distribution and sale of spirituality. It makes me angry. Like prostituting out your children. You are taking something of immeasurable value, beyond money, and you are forcing it to do unnatural things, things it shouldn't do, for the sake of dollars and cents.

fuck that.

I will do manual labor for you, as long as I'm not exposed to hazardous chemicals. I will do mental labor for you, as long as it is not destructive to my creativity. I will not talk about spirituality with any purpose other than Truth, for any reason. Talking about these things is sacred to me. when you step into a room with me and talk about God, Truth, Reality, Good, we are in a holy communion, where no falsehood may be willingly uttered, at least by me. Remember Jesus physically throwing the money lenders out of the temple? That is how I feel about that matter.

I'm not actually against other people making there living via spirituality. I do not care what other people do, for the most part. Except when people force they're beliefs on others, or are violent, etc.

But as far as I'm concerned, money, if involved in spiritual pursuits in any way, must be totally subservient to the spiritual purpose. That is, I've got some directive from spirit, and I'm going to carry that out, and if money is required as a means, fine, but compromising morals based on money is totally out of the question for me.

I will not lie to you intentionally about anything related to the quest for God, Truth, Meaning, Joy. I will not throw in a link or name that I would not put in otherwise, with the hopes that you will make me money off it. I would rather live in the woods and live off grubs, or beg for my food.

It's not that you can't be integrious and deal with spirituality, its just that, it is so much easyier to distinguise the real from the fake by asking if they will do what they do, without any personal benifit to them, aside from the helping itself.

Removing possible alterior motives.

I cannot help but lie to you unintentionally, as I talk about this stuff, since I don't have the full picture.

I'm not doing this blog for my own ego masturbation. i don't spend enough time making this look good and polished, or deleting uninteresting entries. I'm trying to learn how to effectively express truth, and at the same time I am trying to uncover truth.

I think Gandhi had a quote to the effect of, "my God is Truth."

I relate.

Though my MO now moves more towards something like Love.

There are spiritual people who do it as a job, make money out of it, and are integrious.

but the very best, the hidden masters, cannot be paid for. cannot be bought.

another quote I heard somewhere, in regards to finding martial arts teachers: "in China, you pay in character. In America, you pay in cash."

With the best, the personal teachers, I strongly suspect that they will only accept the currency of character.

so if you want an ok teacher, do your research, and get your money ready. But if you want a great teacher, do your homework, and get yourself ready.

my intuition says here is one of the places where you cross the line into the miraculous.

I want to write something funny and light and uplifting, to counter all the heavy philosophical/dark stuff.

but I can't.

fuck it.

Feeling everything deeply

I kept (keep) running away from my pain and fear, afraid to feel it.

And THAT is what makes it horrible.

If I allow myself to accept it, feel it, it's currently an incredibly good feeling, even when it is a painful emotion.

I was afraid, of doing "it" wrong. I had such high expectations for myself, and I was terrified of failing, especialy since I was failing. Failing to be what I thought would save me from all the things I am afraid of:

I'm afraid to die, having lived a meaningless life.

I'm afraid to condemn myself to long periods of suffering.

I'm afraid of getting sick.

Afraid of living in misery.

Afraid of never finding happiness.

And so now never feels good enough, and I am so sad, for my weaknesses that make me like I am, rather than acting like the person I believe would be living a meaningful life, a joyful and healthy life, a successful life.

I am afraid that if I just let myself be ok with the moment, I won't become that person, ever, and I'll doom myself to unhappiness and failure.

Like most of our beliefs about how life works, this one was backwards.

What was truly unbearable was not staying up late or playing video games, but being afraid that I couldn't handle the consequences that brought. Fearing what I was creating so much that I refused to experience it.

It's easy to see now, how that is driving my escapism. It's lovable, like a child afraid of the dark, and understandable.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop being escapist. Have to learn to crawl first, and that means simply feeling again. realizing intense emotions, even physical ailments, are safe. safe to live in.

This is the reason that the fundamental fear of humanity is intrinsically linked to identification with a body. When you think you are a body, a mind, then you can be destroyed, fail, be hurt. And so we run away from those experiences. But true dis-identification, or non-attachment, is actually a place where, because of the awareness that you are not a body, but something unending, that's wearing a man suit and dreaming a man dream, because of that awareness (not thought or philosophy, but direct seeing/feeling) you feel safe enough to step into that experience, and live it fully.

It's paradoxical sounding, because we are used to the dis-identification born of really strong egos that are so afraid of being hurt or ended that they try to keep from feeling life. By going numb, by distracting themselves, by above all avoiding their feelings. The spiritual dis-identification is completely opposite. It's like something really tense that's been holding itself into a tight, hard lump, relaxing and flowing into all the cracks, right up against everything.

And that seems to be coming from letting myself feel what is there to be felt, now. And that feels safe because I've been doing a lot of work with this really strong and deeply held belief. A lot. There is more. I very much look forward to the time when I can post a blog entry, looking back several years, and say, "yes, life is pretty generally wonderful. All the realizations I've had, they've rooted and grown, and are permanent ways of being. And all my constrictions are released. The process is quick and automatic, if anything new comes up. Life is beautiful, deeply enjoyed, and it has been through thick and thin, for so long that I really can't see that deviating, and so I am fulfilled, and life is as I always thought it should be."

As a little kid, I really didn't know if this was possible. I thought maybe it was a fairy tail, but I chased it anyways, because it seemed like the only thing worth chasing. And after so many years of effort, I saw that it was a real live possibility. I still don't know how much time it will be, but I am confident it will come about, eventually, and that makes me deliriously happy. Like being told, eventually, I would get to become my childhood superhero. And it will not look like I think it will look. But it will be everything I wanted, and more. And it will not end.

These things, I am confident it. They are lights in the darkness of my journey, far from over. They give me hope.

Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it will be opened

the kingdom of heaven is within.

from an email I received today

"I play no musical instruments, only the cat."

late night thoughts, a priceless secret

I just want to say something briefly, but I don't know what.

there are some fucked up things with ultra orthodox religions. deep suppression, a lack of joy in life and compassion and love for diversity.

there are some fucked up things with our atheistic, hedonistic cultures: emptiness and substance abuse, over sexualizing and and consuming and obsessing about how we look and what we have.

I can't abide by either viewpoint, since they are both obviously and monstrously against life and against love, truth, and joy.

is seems like I have to walk a line that is ridiculed by both: I am ridiculed my modern society for my 'goodness,' for my vehement morality and striving for god. I a scorned by religion because of my lack of conformity, lack of blind belief and distaste in telling other people what to do.

It seems I must be so moral that normal people think me a religious zealot and so self referral that religions consider me a heretic.

And of course, I always fall short of my ideals, so I may also appear a hypocrite.

This is all solved in one simple directive:

Don't bother with what other people think.

That solves all those problems, and all I'm left with is the main one, the founder of this blog; loneliness.

The title of this blog is, "it's easy being alone." and that is the answer to this emotional knot. It actually is easy being alone. What causes the problems is the struggling and trying to resist what so obviously is my reality: I am alone. Allowing that to be requires trust and requires letting go.

Surrender.

This is and has been my theme, perhaps for the year. But lets just call it letting go, or being in flow, for now. simpler, evocative terms. Accurate terms. What I am aiming for is a letting go and trusting. Like that exercise where you close your eyes and fall back and your partner catches you. Except my partner is Life, and I am constantly in a state of falling backwards, and life is constantly in a state of catching me, without stopping the falling. The image I have to go with this is standing on top of one of those bars that gymnasts use to do all sorts of tricks on. I'm balancing on top of one, and then I let myself go, falling backwards, and rather than falling down, I fall around the pole, feet remaining in contact, body falling around and around. Like being in orbit around a tiny planet.

As spiritual seekers, we are always waiting for something to change. But the only way we get what we want is when we start from right now, accepting what's happening now, realizing that this is what we've been asking for, all along. nothing more need be added, nothing need change. simply a shift in perspective, and realizing that this same ol' reality we've always been experiencing is good enough.

This is one of the great secrets of old. You could write a best seller and get rich and famous and have countless spin off's and marketing gimmicks, off of the one phrase I'm about to tell you. You could find it all over the world, in the minds and writings of the most enlightened, wise happy people in the world. This secret is worth more than any amount of money.

And I'm not going to charge a dime. Never will. Because my reward is simply having it myself, and understanding it. Because you can hear it a million times, but until you understand it, viscerally, from deep contemplation and from personal experience, it will be as useless to you as if you didn't know it.

Just saying, putting this concept to use is time very well spent. But I can't spend it for you. Unpack it.

here it is:

"In contentment is found life's greatest happiness."

Quote

"...when you find hatred and negativity, it's all still love, just looking a little wierded out."

--A.M.

voices in my head: introduction

It feels very nice to recognize and acknowledge the different voices inside of me. I used to suffer because I would feel pain and confusion and assume that was the only thing I was feeling, because I thought I could only be one way at a time.

But I was wrong.

There is a voice within we that is completely untouched. Untouchable. It doesn't care what happens. Torture or death or holocaust or winning the lottery or developing superpowers or world peace.

There is a voice within me that sees beauty everywhere and loves everything deeply and personally, and flows constantly in gratitude for every second and aspect of existence.

There is a voice within me that wants to kill myself from loneliness, or run away right now, back to the people I love, back to the familiar places.

There is a voice within me that hates it when I do anything less than saintly. When I miss a sunset, when I go to bed late, when I postpone work or art for watching movies or answering emails.

There is a voice within me that delights in playing video games and writing emails to friends and reading spiritual books and eating good food and watching good porn.

These voices are not exclusive. This confused me at first. I would be despondent and shamed, and at the same time, not care how horrible I felt. Or at the same time, feel sadly grateful.

I wanted the happy voices but not the dark ones. But the any attempt to get rid of the angry, painful, depressed voices just made them louder.

What feels good right now is giving each voice it's due. They all are allowed to voice what they have to say. And in seeing this internal story, I'm realizing that each are equally valid, and the only factor that makes one seem more important or bigger than the other is my attention on it.

Also, it helps to yell and jump around expressing what I'm feeling without inhibition. (window shades carefully drawn and lights low.)

Fluffy bunnies of absolute surrender

I'd like to offer an alternate kind of answer to the free will pre-determinism question:

"why do you care?"

I don't mean this in a belligerent way. I mean this seriously.

what is it, that drives you to find the answer to this question? are you afraid of being powerless? are you afraid of being responsible? what answer are you looking for? what you want? Do you want to feel safe and taken care of and perfect? Do you want to feel totally free and expressive and powerful? why not try giving yourself that, direct, and short-cut the search for somebody's explanation of reality that lets you have that feeling. And certainly don't allow a persuasive world-view/explanation that gives you the answer your afraid of, to convince you of it's truth. It's your candy shop, everything is available, choose what you want. Your wish is the Universes command. Lots of people have talked very well and clearly about mechanics for tapping into this. (If demand arises, I will either write something or plagiarize something or link to something.)

I've used this analogy before, and I like it: Life is like this; your sitting in a bar, next to the universe. The universe is looking pretty nice, so you turn to it/him/her and say, "hey, who are you?" and the universe replies, in a flirty voice, "whoever you want me to be." and winks.

Free will? sure. Pre-determinism? Sure. Both at the same time? Sure, if your into that kind of thing.

the question that keeps popping into my mind these days, is: what makes you happy? because I can no longer find a good reason not pursue that with all the flaming razor intent I can muster. even if that requires me to douse the fire and exchange the razor for some fluffy bunnies.