Are You Ready?

People tend to avoid the subject of death, just as they avoid the life that is coming to them in the present by chasing the illusions of their minds, playing mind games, hiding in a fantasy dreamworld. When you ask someone if they fear death, if they are ready to die, you could receive one of many responses.

Maybe the response would be "I still have a long time before I will die." The truth is, you do not know how much time you have before you die. Your heart could stop right now. Right now, your body is undergoing countless processes to keep you alive that you are not even consciously aware of. Is it you who keeps your heart beating and your body functioning? No, the heart pumps blood without any help from "you." Is it you who controls your breathing while you are semi-unconscious as you sleep through the night? No, the lungs breathe air until they cannot breathe air anymore, without any intervention of "me."

Maybe the response would be more laid back, such as "Well, you gotta go sometime." You aren't going to die "sometime." You aren't going to die in the future. You die in the present. Death happens in the present, just like everything else you experience.

Maybe you would get a response that is more assertive and defensive, such as "I am not afraid of death." When you get this response, you can be sure that the person is either lying, or that they haven't truly become aware of their impending death, whether they realize it or not. Right now, take a deep breath, and exhale all the air out. Imagine that you will not get another breath. Don't let yourself take one until you truly realize that there will be a place and a time where you will not receive another breath, and it will happen in the present. Again, you have no control over when your last breath will be, no control over when your heart stops beating. Every breath you take is one closer to that last breath.

Then, of course, you will get the religious responses, which usually fall in line with one of the potential responses explained above. The most important moment in your life, the moment of truth, is when you truly realize death is upon you, just as everyone does. Everything that is not true, not real, an illusion, will be stripped away, including your beliefs, your conceptualizations, your stories, and your expectations. "You," or what you think is you, your ego, your identity, will be completely shattered. As "you" die, thoughts cease to be as the neurons stop firing in your brain, and the brain is deprived of oxygen. The mind ceases to function, as the mind is just bioelectric activity in the brain, and there you are; your true self (receiver of life) "face to face," completely aware of the present moment before you go completely unconscious, and it is impossible to be conscious of being unconscious.

No shining, winged angels are going to fly down from the sky and carry you away to the pearly gates. No bearded man wearing a sheet and sandals is going to take your hand. Anything you try to imagine will happen, anything you try to believe, will not happen. Beliefs, faith, hope, and dreams are fantasies, the opposite of reality (true life). The experience of ceasing to breathe and your body shutting down will be beyond your imagination, because it will be real, and it will force you into the present, because you will realize that you are not going to be able to take anything with you, not your possessions, not your beliefs, not your memories. There will be intense confusion and fear as the illusion is stripped away. If you haven't tried to seek the truth of life up to this point, you will realize that nothing else you did in your life really mattered, and you will wish that you had thought of it before. You will die in sheer confusion and surprise without any of your illusory fantasies to hide behind. The mind will no longer in the present with you, blocking out life. Death will be the most real experience you ever have if you spend your whole life lost in fantasy, in an imaginary dreamworld. "You" will cease to exist, but "you" never really existed.

I am using "you" in quotations for a reason, because death is not the end of life; death is the end of "you." However, "you" do not die, because "you," or what you think is you (your ego/mind), never really was alive in the first place. This "reality" that you have created your whole life, which includes your identity, is not real, because nothing the mind creates is real. The mind cannot create anything real; it can only manipulate what is. Again, only the life you receive through your senses in the present is real, true life, reality. You are not your identity. Your true self = mirror of life.

You will die physically, and this identity (your mind) that you hold onto will cease to exist, because it is part of your body, stored memories in your brain. Physical death is real; it is in life and a necessary part of life, and it cannot be avoided. The whole purpose of your body is to be a support system for your senses, which allow you to receive and experience life. Physical death is when your body can no longer support your consciousness (what you are). You cease to breathe, and your brain, and thus your mind, is compromised. The physical body, the support system for your senses, will decompose and be recycled by Nature as the worms eat the flesh or the ashes are spread upon the earth. However, your true self, best described as consciousness, awareness, nothingness, spirit, is not physical, thus what you are (consciousness) does not end at death.

Immortality:

Death does not exist from your perspective, the only perspective that matters to you.

As was said previously, "it is impossible to be conscious of being unconscious." Life is continuous and never-ending from your perspective and experience, because you cannot experience anything other than life. You are conscious of life now, thus you are conscious of life eternally, because now is all that is. You are the blank slate on which life is written on, the infinite field in which the game of life is played on, a receiver of life, nothingness. Everything in the universe is connected by "empty space," nothingness, from the space between the electrons and nuclei of atoms to the space between stars. You (consciousness) are connected with the entire universe, here, there, everywhere.

If you look at the big picture, you can see for yourself the tendency of Nature to repeat itself, to go in cycles as it strives for balance, equilibrium. Look around you. Do you see death anywhere in Nature? All I see is energy changing form, cycles, rebirth. The seasons changing, the weather patterns shifting, the tide crashing in and pulling out,the sun rising and setting, plants photosynthesizing, converting the energy from the sun. Death is an illusion; there is only constant change, constant rebirth. Life is eternal. The only evidence you really have is that you were born into this life. Physical death will come, but you will be reborn. Being born happens, or you would not be here now. Physical death is consciousness ending in one body and beginning in another. Death and birth are one event (rebirth) from your perspective, because you cannot be conscious of being unconscious. You are immortal, because it is impossible for you not to be. (For more on "immortality," see page 2 of The Present at Truth Contest)

Fear of Death:

People are afraid of death, consciously and subconsciously, because they are attached to this illusory conceptualization of ego, of self, of identity. This fear causes people to subconsciously avoid death, and because death is part of life, people are avoiding life, missing the mark. People are dead to life, spiritually dead, because they miss out on life in the present, all that is, by blocking out reality with the mind; with useless knowledge, faith and belief, and religious myths. As Mark Twain said, "The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time." The only way to be ready for death, to overcome death, is to get into life completely, to overcome the illusion of "you" and embrace reality, embrace oneness. You must die to your ego and be reborn to true life before your body can no longer support your consciousness. You give birth to yourself as a new being in your current body. You are reborn to life. You just die to your mind, because it never really was alive in the first place. To live truly, you must die to your ego/mind.

People are currently living as their false, mortal mind-self, and they need to do the exact opposite and live as their immortal, spiritual-self, their true self.

When you live as your true self, as a spiritual being, as a mirror of life, you are constantly reborn, because life in the present is always new. To people living in the mind, nothing is more certain than death. To those living as spiritual beings, nothing is more certain than life.

Just remember, life is not your life; life is life. Life does not belong to you, yet the present is all for you. This body is not your body; it is energy in form. Everything your mind creates is impermanent, including "you" and anything associated with this identity that has formed over the years by interacting with the minds of your family, peers, society, and the collective mind of humanity. All of your memories, conceptualizations, expectations, and labels will be compromised when you physically die, along with the mind itself and everything else it creates, including "you."

Your physical death will likely be very painful, and also livid with fear, because it will be beyond your imagination, literally. You must make pain and fear your friends. Your mind uses pain and fear to control you, to perpetuate the illusions it creates, to block out life. You must change the mind from your enemy to your companion, from deception to truth. You will still fear death in this lifespan, but the fear will not cause you to hide behind the illusions of the mind and escape life; the fear will be used as a cue to be with life here now. However, you will not be surprised when death comes, because by seeking the truth and getting to know life, you will be ready. Death sucks, and you will try to avoid pain and death, but when you cannot, you will not block it out, because it doesn't work anyway. You must have the ability to accept life in its totality without picking and choosing to be ready for death. You must have the ability to be fulfilled independent of what happens in the environment to truly be free, to transcend death.

The key to being prepared for death is to get into life completely, to die to your mind and transcend "yourself," to understand and live in the truth and the life before you die physically. Life gives itself to you unconditionally, and you have to surrender to life to be filled with life, to get to know true life, to be familiar with life in the present. You must be like nothing (your true self) to receive everything (life). If you do see the truth and get to know the life before you die physically, even though experiencing death is beyond your imagination, you will know that whatever happens is life, and you will be at home with it in the present.

If you get into life completely, you transcend fear and death; you become eternal life. You must see the truth and realize your true self. Up until now, most people could not know the truth, could not see their true self (consciousness) in relation to the natural harmony of the universe (balance), could not see true life and how the mind blocks it out.

To let life in, to truly live in the present, to get to know true life, you have to know the truth. Knowledge of the truth physically changes the structure of your brain and thus your environment. Your inner-environment changes as your brain is reprogrammed for the present. Everything starts with the truth, including the transformation of your mind, by which you will begin to live your life as an immortal, spiritual being, your true self.

To know the truth, you must seek, define, and spread the truth. Truth before life. There is no other way.

At the beginning of each day, remind yourself you are going to die. Imagine you are going to die that day, because one day, you will be right. Most people take every breath for granted until that last one, when they realize they will not get another one. To be ready for death/birth, you must live in that last breath, as your breathing only happens in the present. You must spread those moments of presence right before death/birth throughout your whole life.

You are going to die, and death happens in the present.
Are you ready?

The Kingdom of God is Present

LET US ALL UNITE

To come together, we must change our perspective, shift from the perspective of the mind which thrives in separation, to our spiritual-perspective, where we see everyone truly, including oneself, as a receiver of life. Therefore, we must change our minds to embrace Oneness. To change our minds, we must seek, define, and spread the truth. To change the world, we must change our minds. Change starts with us, as our world is just a reflection of us. "We must become the change we want to see in our world." - Gandhi

As you seek, define, and spread the truth, it goes subconscious, so that everything your mind creates becomes a cue to let life in, to be present. As a result of taking control of our minds and spreading the truth, building the truth in the collective unconscious, our collective mind, we give the rest of humanity a better chance to wake up. We must try to save others to save ourselves, but ultimately, we are only responsible for seeing the truth and the life for ourselves. As more people wake up, it will get easier to live without the mind, and it will snowball, but until then, people that see the truth have to spread it to keep the ball rolling. We must become prophets of our generation and spread the truth of life. With our love, we can save the world, save our Earth. If enough people do it, there will be an explosion of spiritual growth, of the truth and the life, and there will be a global awakening of humanity in the blink of an eye.

The Kingdom of God is at hand. "Heaven is inside you and all around you." Only when we see God/Life/Love (all that is) as perfectly balanced and fair will we be able to transform our minds and reprogram them for the present without apprehension about the future and/or dependence on the past. As the mind fades into the background and life gets bigger, we just "back into" that surrendering, child-like state by becoming our senses, receiving and reflecting the life that comes directly to us from all directions in the Present. With the truth, we can change our minds, transform into spiritual beings, receive and reflect life without any mental intrusions, live for today, live life in peace, share all the world, and build a heaven on Earth. Everything starts with the truth, and that is why it is so important to spread it.

TRUTH BEFORE LIFE
HONESTY BEFORE LOVE
TREE OF KNOWLEDGE BEFORE TREE OF LIFE
IT WILL NOT, DOES NOT, CANNOT HAPPEN ANY OTHER WAY

We must seek, define, and spread the truth.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
No Other Way
NOW

"Better get yourself together darling, join the human race."

We, the human race, are taking the next step in our evolution, and you've got a ticket to ride.

"I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one."

All is One

Short, sweet, simple, and somewhat silly...
...but certainly serious.

The Spiritual Man - My Vows

While I was on vacation last week, I spent a lot of time sitting on the beach at night looking at the stars. They were so clear out there, so many of them, boundless and limitless space going out forever. Some of those bright lights are whole galaxies, billions of stars. Staring out into infinity, I couldn't help but think about how much fighting and unnecessary suffering we inflict on ourselves on Earth. It seems so silly when you realize that we're all together, floating on this rock in an infinite universe. What the hell are we doing?

The purpose of this is not to put men/minds or anyone down. I am just being honest, and writing what I see from my perspective.

The mind has created the world we live in today, and it will continue to do great things in the future if we do not destroy ourselves. We cannot survive the divisions that separate us. They result in wars and destruction of the environment. We need to find our common ground. We need to get ourselves together and embrace Oneness. Our enemy is not other people; our true adversary is the beast within, our own minds, our false perspective and ignorance. Men have been programmed by evolution to fight and compete. As of now, we no longer have to fight each other to survive. There is only one battle to be fought, and that is the battle between truth and deception. Now is the time to come together and share the world, or else we will go extinct. If we get into another war, there will be mass nuclear suicide, and even if we don't destroy ourselves, Mother Nature will destroy us if we don't come together and start to work in harmony with nature instead of destroying the environment.

As of now, there is absolutely no reason to initiate and glorify war, and countless reasons why war is unnecessary, unwarranted, unacceptable, and destructive. "The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King Jr.

The situation that men have created is too dangerous; we have to overcome our animal minds and take the spiritual path.

As of now, almost all men are slaves to the mind. The spiritual man knows that he is not his mind, and he sees clearly that the mind is the problem. The mind is that which distracts us from life in the present; the mind is our true adversary. The spiritual man sees how the mind deceives himself and others, and by noticing this, he begins to get control of his mind. The spiritual man naturally does the right thing, because he knows the truth, and thus he knows right from wrong. The spiritual man is honest and virtuous, and he will never lie to someone who knows the truth, simply because there is no reason to. The spiritual man is a child at heart, and he has the awareness of a child without the ignorance of childhood.

The Spiritual Man = The Real Man

The path of the spiritual man is as follows:

Men have to seek the truth to overcome the mind. A man is what he knows and more importantly does, and the spiritual man knows the truth and spreads the truth. The spiritual man devotes his life to seeking, defining, and spreading the truth and the life, because he knows that it is the most important thing he could possibly be doing. The spiritual man will do everything he can to create a Heaven on Earth, to make this world a better place to live. Spiritual men will lead the way.

The natural drive for men is to make this world a better place for life, for women and children. It is the mind that distracts men from their spiritual state of giving truth and reflecting love. Men have the potential to be something far more than just a hard worker and a great thinker, a "bad boy" and a sex-machine. Men have the potential to be Truth, to shine with life, and to give their wives and children truth and life, the only true security.

In ancient Sanskrit, "man" translates to "mind." Mankind = Mindkind. "Woman" means "womb-man," or mind with a womb. Men and women are different, but equal. Men and women think differently, and we are biologically different in not only our sex organs, but also our brain chemistry. No matter how much you want to fight it, it is reality.

People really need to look at their everyday lives and see how they give life to their minds and deceive others. We have to step up and stop deceiving others, or else we will never be able to share the love in the present. Honesty before love is the only way.

Both men and women are being fooled by the mind, living in the world of the mind, playing the mind games. However, women are the slaves of the slaves. Women are slaves to men, and men are slaves to the mind. Women have to realize they are being fooled. This is so important, because men built this world to please women. Women have to stop going after the aggressive bad boys, the fools, the deceivers; they need to give their love to a man who is truly ready to receive it. Women need to give their love to a man who knows the truth. Women need to wake up to the truth, because they have to power to change men. If women stop giving their love to men who are unable to receive it, men will take the spiritual path, because men need women to give birth to new life. The love of a woman is so powerful, and men will change when they realize that women really want truth and love. Women want to be loved, they must be loved, so they will change when they realize they are being fooled. Women NEED to wake up, because if they don't, men will destroy the world and the human race. The mind needs to be controlled, transformed, and women have the power to force men to change from deceivers and fools to truth seekers and spreaders. Women have the power to give their love to spiritual men, real men, so that other men will be forced to change their ways and stop using the mind for deceptive purposes. Wake up ladies.

Very soon, women will stop giving their love to phonies and "bad boys" who will never truly satisfy their souls. They will not trade the ultimate romance, creating a mini heaven on earth, a family founded on truth and love, for cheap thrills and animal chemistry. When women see the truth, they will only give their love to men who will give them and their families truth and life. Women will blossom spiritually before most men, because they will realize that they have been fooled by the mind. Women dream about love, romance, and creating life, and now they can have it all. All women ever needed was the truth and the life, and when they realize the truth, that is all they will want. Women are ready to be loved, and giving love to a spiritual man will make all of their dreams come true.

All men and women will take the spiritual path when they truly see it. Men must embark on the spiritual path. Men really will have no choice if they want to have a family and a fulfilling love life. You may as well surrender to life now while you still have a choice, because love will always prevail. It's up to you, yeah YOU.

"Love is the answer, and you know that for sure. Love is a flower; you gotta let it, you gotta let it grow." - John Lennon

To men seeking to overcome their minds and make the transition into a spiritual being, I suggest reading these two books: excerpts from "To Man in Truth" and The Present. The works are free and online. The books will help you to really see that your mind is the problem and the true reason for the strong attraction between men and women: True Love.

These are my honest vows. My intent in sharing this is not to attract people, nor to get attention, nor to make people feel shallow. My intent is to show men the way, to show men that they don't have to be under control of the mind anymore. I am showing men that there is no need to deceive, no need to hide your love away. I am trying to explain that true love, the truth and the life, the present, is all that is. All you need is love.

I vow to walk the spiritual path; I can't imagine doing anything else. I vow to devote my life to the truth and the life. I will not get married until I am with someone whom I don't have to play mind games with. I will not have sex until I am married, thus I will not have casual sex, because casual sex is chasing pleasure, and no pleasure is free; it will be balanced by an equal amount of pain. I seek the truth and the life, complete fulfillment, not just animal pleasure. I will wait for a spiritual woman who truly satisfies my soul, not a woman who just feeds my ego and satisfies my sexual desires and fantasies. When two people can just share the present without playing mind games, just being with each other, doing anything, that is true love. Just holding hands, laying on the grass, eating food, being together. Making love all day long, not just during sex, but sex will be a profound way to share the present with each other, to express love. No need for words, no need for constant entertainment, no need for a big house, fancy clothes, excess material possessions, no need for anything more than true love (the present) and the basic necessities of life.

I will love like a child loves life unconditionally. I will be a mirror of life, reflecting the life given to me in the present without any mental intrusions. The woman I am with will be able to see her mind and her true self, her spiritual self. I will set her free, and she will set me free. True freedom is being fulfilled independent of what happens in the environment. We will be truly free together, like babies when they start to crawl. The love we share will be as an ocean moving between the shores of our souls; we will fill each others' up, but not drink from each others' cup.

I will give my wife truth in words; I will not deceive her. I will always tell the truth and be honest. I will be true to myself, and thus her and everyone else, and she will realize that I have no reason to deceive. I will receive the love she gives me and reflect it back - I will be a mirror of life/love. I will not bring negative emotions into the relationship, because they will just perpetuate her emotions and cause conflict. We will create our own "heaven on earth," our own family based on truth and love, and when we bring souls into this world by conceiving children, we will give our children truth and love; we will raise them in truth and love. I will not deceive my children either; I will not tell them that something is true if I do not know beyond a reasonable doubt that it is true. I will show my children the way; I will show them how to live and love and be present by my example. I will give them truth, so they will not be childish and ignorant, but I will show them that they can be child-like forever. I will not fall to the temptation of another woman; there would be no reason to, because all I want is the truth and the life, and I would already be with a women who I could share the present with, share the love with.

I'll always be true.

Yes We Can

This letter was dropped off at my local post office on August 6, 2009, at 4:10 P.M. EST.

Destination: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, The White House

Dear President Obama,

The world is a mixture of pressing issues that don’t seem like they are resolvable by just one solution. Each problem is like a weed overgrowing in the garden of prosperity, and we cut down the weeds by reshaping and rethinking the structures of our society, but the roots are still there, ready to manifest themselves in other forms. We are the intelligent people that created this world we live in today. All the technology, comforts, and organization are the works of our hands, so why is it that we cannot solve the endless chain of suffering that we inflict on each other and the Earth?

The root of the problem is in our minds. People are trying to change the world backwards; we try to fix the external world, forgetting the source from which it is manipulated. Einstein said; “The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil from the spirit of man.” Human beings do not understand the natural harmony and order of nature and the universe; therefore, they do not understand themselves. Just look at Nature; the Earth is constantly changing in order to keep itself in balance. It moves with the inherent intelligence within all things of the universe. It knows the perfect conditions it needs to sustain life, balance ecosystems, create weather patterns, etc. Most importantly, Nature never wastes anything, because every part of it is integral to its functioning as a whole. Humans fail to function as a whole, because their ego gets in the way and obstructs them from their awareness of the whole. The ego/mind was necessary for survival in past evolution, but now we let it run us blindly into all of the evils of this world: war, prejudice, environmental destruction, excessive wealth, conspicuous consumption and many others. It is America that has been called “the great Satan,” because we have the reputation of having the least regard for the effects of our actions on the whole. The great Satan is really our egos/minds, which convince us that we are somehow better than others, and that our selfish desires are the only thing that matters. The true enemy, the true adversary is the invisible beast within, the ego/mind, and so we show indifference and separate ourselves from the unnecessary suffering of others. “Satan,” the mind, is what obstructs us from seeing the whole or God, from becoming in touch with All That Is. Being in touch with God is true peace and harmony.

Many countries around the world idolize American culture, because we fail to show them the real costs of excessive materialism, the costs of which we have been recently beginning to realize. Instead, we should become role models of honest and balanced living for the rest of the world by making a few changes in the system. First of all, we need to start to seriously prioritize what we invest our money in. Right now, we are wasting billions of dollars on war, when we could use it to fight the battles we could actually succeed in. For example, we should declare “war” for clean energy, especially for solar energy. There is no scarcity of energy; we have a giant nuclear reactor in the sky. Another option is the geothermal energy from the Yellowstone caldera. These projects would also create millions of jobs and help resolve the economic crisis. Living in harmony with nature will actually make us more prosperous. It is also essential for us to be an environmental example to developing countries, because if the billions in India and China started to live as materialistically as Americans, the amount of destruction to the environment would destroy our planet and us along with it.

We also need to create a truly equal society through a government that does not have any personal/ego motivations. The way it is now, our “democracy” helps out those who are already connected to the government by money, power and prestige. We need to redistribute the wealth in this country; there is no other way. We need to level the playing field. We need to cultivate people’s awareness of the whole of society, and how we can help everyone at once through honest work on each of the political issues.

Another issue that needs to be addressed is that of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are so dangerous that we could wipe the human race off the face of this Earth within an hour. America has the most, and therefore it needs to step up and disarm its nuclear weapons. We need to show that there is no necessity to live with fear, and the ultimate way to do it is by disarming. When other countries see that the most powerful country on earth is disarming, they will no longer feel they need to be fearful, and they will follow suit. It is the equivalent to the personal surrendering of the ego, which we need to do one by one, but doing it on a grand scale will inspire many people to try. Nuclear weapons are something we hold onto because of mass paranoia. Let’s just ask ourselves; do we want to live in fear or peace?

We are American college students, and we stand for the ideals we have never truly realized: equality, prosperity, happiness and freedom. These can only be realized with the truth. With the truth, you naturally do what is right, because you understand the nature of the universe. It transforms you into a spiritual being, one who no longer lives according to the dictates of the ego. Sir, the driving force behind your campaign was the emotionally charged phrase “Yes We Can.” You knew and you still know that something has to change; all of us know it, at least subconsciously. This is the change that will cut out the root of the problem, so that the weeds do not grow anymore. We have used our minds to change our outer environment to suit our desires and dreams, to create the world we live in today. Now, we have to use our minds to change our inner-environment; we need to use the truth to overcome our own minds. We must replace deception with truth. Change starts with us, as our world is just a reflection of us.

At the end of your inauguration speech, you quoted George Washington when he said; “Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.” The common danger is our own selves, our own minds, and we have not walked forth to meet it. If we do not, there will be no future generations to thank us for our hardships. We need to take the next step in evolution; it is no one’s responsibility but our own.

Go to www.truthcontest.com and read either The Present or The Present (with religion) to take a step forward in your spiritual evolution. The book shows us how we can create a Heaven on Earth by embracing truth, freedom, justice, prosperity, and God/Life, and by creating win-win situations with our investments.

Your friends and fellow Americans,
JJ and DC

Energy

"I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way" -Mark Twain

And so you're sitting there

and you're wondering for how long??

HOW LONG? Until I do this or that..

Until I get up,

go to the refrigerator,

eat, HOW LONG??

And it will take you

a second to get up

and a minute to be at the fridge

and maybe a half hour to eat.

And you're all caught up in yourself,

in your thoughts.

YOU WANT.. MORE ENERGY

And what is this ENERGY?

Well, your science teacher talked about:

-solids (real close particles)

-liquids (spread out somewhat particles)

-gases (farrr apart particles)

... and you sort of took it in ...

sort of comprehended it,

in that you

told yourself in words > pictures > symbols > gibberish

You told yourself,

some things (hard ones) are solid

and some things (watery ones) are liquids

and some things (hard to grasp, but there ones) are gases.

But you never really thought about what it is they were.

You just sort of took them in as WORDS:

S O L I D S

L I Q U I D S

G A S E S

and were done with it. Easy enough. Said and done.

And you closed the book. The problem is,

the book never closes. You can't close a book that's always

open...

And in that book is your

life...

that thing that's just sort of

going on around you all the time,

just sort of

HAPPENING

You know, it kind of just flows from

one scene

to the next.

Like you go the refrigerator, and then

to the table,

and then back to another room,

and so on.

And during that time you're interacting

with all sorts of things

that you've turned into WORDS,,,

SYMBOLS.

Because you have to turn things into

SYMBOLS to make sense of them.

Because if things didn't make sense

you'd go insane,

at least that's what

ma

and

pa

and teacher

said

(aka the sane ones).

Why? Easy,

because they too

were in your position:

kind of like thrown here,

and then, all confused,

started trying to make

sense of it all,

trying to grasp it

permanently.

But the problem is:

things aren't permanent.

Things are impermanent.

Everything is. Even "you."

Even the Earth and the Sun

and the Solar System are going

to be gone someday.

But they're not going to really

be gone...

They're just going to change,

sort of like you will, sort of like

an apple will when it starts to rot.

You see, there are things HAPPENING.

All around you stuff's HAPPENING.

In your physical reality

and in your mind

things are HAPPENING,

things are CHANGING.

Just look at your hand.

It used to be a lot smaller

when you were younger.

And that's the problem, too.

The fact that

younger

is just a word.

Created by someone just

as confused,

just as thrown into it,

just as human.

A similar someone from a long time ago

that passed that word down

to your

ma

and your

pa

and your teachers.

Who passed it down to you.

They were all trying to make sense of it all,

and so, too, are you. And so those words

really helped a lot,

they gave you some sort of

security.

Some peace of mind.

Because they wanted to forget that

they didn't know,

just like you want to forget that

you don't know.

They wanted to live in those symbols of security.

But when you come down to the nitty-gritty

everything is...

ENERGY.

It really is that simple.

Nothing really dies, or is born, or lives...

things just are...

ENERGY.

It's your mind that tells you different.

It's your mind that attached

ideas

words

symbols

semblance

to things...

to ENERGY.

In reality it's just those forms...

it's those solids, liquids, and gases

except not in the textbook sense...

because

"solids" aren't really solids

"liquids" aren't really liquids

"gases" aren't really gases...

they're just

forms of changing energy.

Not to sound crazy...

I mean, really,

it is that simple.

This is clear cut.

It's undeniable.

It's all around you

and you're trying to make sense of it

because it frustrates you

that you don't know

completely, because you

have a mind that wants to

know, know, know.

Completely.

But only through

surrender

will you find contentment,

only when you

are satisfied with going up to the mountain and shouting:

I DON'T KNOW!

will you ever really be...

satisfied.

Because as long as you're holding on to

those symbols

those ideas

those notions

those thoughts that tell you

you are "you"

and you are "here,"

and as long as you put

specifications and all that

jazz on those heres and those yous,

you're not going to see

the full picture,

you're going to be caught up in:

interpretation

And when you're interpreting things

you're getting it

all wrong.

You're interpretation must come through your being,

your being can't come through your interpretation.

You have to realize that you don't die

you just change.

Death is a word,

death is an absence.

An absence from the vantage point

of people wandering around on Earth

in the vast microcosm of the Universe.

You change,

you don't die.

It's all about change.

As David Bowie says,

"the s~t~r~e~a~m of warm impermanence"

That's what it's all about.

You're in the stream,

a stream that just keeps going...

it never stops...

the water's always changing,

the direction's always changing,

the perspective is always changing...

But it doesn't just stop flowing.

Things don't just come to an end,

they change.

When you get frostbite

it's not like a second goes by

and you suddenly have frostbite.

It takes awhile for that energy

to get all befungled and change around.

And through those changes,

something happens.

Something's... HAPPENING.

And eventually what ever it is that's frostbitten

falls off...

and decays...

and the energy slowly

dribbles away

into the pool of energy,

into the...

s~t~r~e~a~m.

And that energy gets a new spot,

a new perspective,

a new vantage point...

it falls into the form of

something else.

So you don't really get old.

It's just that all that energy's

been moving around in that form

for so long that changes begin to happen;

changes in energy...

and eventually all that friction and such

causes that energy to want a new perspective,

to be relieved... to reach universal equilibrium,

float downstream.

If things are always changing,

if things always want to flow,

then they're going to.

That's just how it is.

That's how it works.

You don't know what it is,

but you know it works.

It's working right now.

And if things always change

and want to

then you have to accept it.

You can't live your life trusting

labels and symbols

because they're just...

symbols and labels.

They're not reliable.

You can use them,

but you can't let them use you.

The day you starting thinking

a tree is actually a TREE

you're in trouble.

You have to realize that

the TREE is just

energy in form.

Energy in this great big circus.

That all those words and jibber jabber are unreliable.

You have to...

SURRENDER...

ALL that you THINK you KNOW

You have to go back to that child-like state,

where things just come at you

and you accept them

as they are.

You can use those words, but...

---

you still have to surrender

---

never take them seriously.

See them as a way to communicate,

not a way to make sense of it.

You can't make sense of it.

And when you surrender, you'll realize that.

It's simple.

You have to accept the fact

you've got

60, 70, 80, maybe 90 years at most

and move on

with the stream.

As John Lennon said,

"Yes is the answer" - "Yes is surrender" - "You've got to let it go"

When you let it go,

your mind let's go of you,

and you are free to swim down the stream.

That's what it's all about.

And when you realize you're free,

when you realize you have that ability,

you realize that all the

bad, negative, craziness is all

created by you and like minds...

you realize that amid all that

mind chitter chatter,

the trees still blow and the Earth still spins

REGARDLESS.

REGARD LESS.

Regard: (v) consider or think of (someone or something) in a specific way

REGARD LESS

You have to realize that every specific state ends...

but the overall thing,

the overall ENERGY,

does not.

The Universe was created by a big burst of ENERGY

that expanded and expanded and expanded and is

Expanding

still.

And as it expands, it changes shape, and keeps changing and changing

again and again.

And it's eventually all going to fold back up on itself and

start over, etc., etc., etc.

It's why the flowers bloom again...

and why when great grandfather dies,

life continues... a baby is born, and...

life continues... and that baby becomes a grandfather... or an old man...

and...

life continues...

But you don't continue as "you,"

you change form.

You're just energy.

This isn't some

far out bull shit...

it's how things work.

You literally feed energy to yourself to stay in this state...

and when the ENERGY that makes up YOU is all worn out...

it goes

elsewhere.

It changes.

Things are CHANGING,

HAPPENING.

ENERGY is just all over the place...

wanting to be all sorts of things...

wanting to interact...

wanting to move...

wanting to dance with joy...

ENERGY is the epitome of

LIFE.

And ENERGY is FIXED.

It can't be created or destroyed.

It just is,

sort of like you just are.

Kind of like when you're really happy

or really living you start to dance around...

When a kid's happy he starts to

jump with joy.

Energy is just sort of dancing around

all over the place.

And you're a part of it,

you are it.

It might seem hard to grasp, because

you've been looking at things

as something other than energy,

but everything is energy

and energy is more than just a word.

When your fingers type you lose energy

so you have to eat/get/take more of it...

you take it from other living things...

or you get it from compounds like coffee...

Compounds that were from things that were once living...

A coffee bean was once alive...

and when you steam it,

you're taking it's stored

ENERGY

and using it

YOURSELF.

It got it's energy from the sun and then it was picked

and dried,

and then stuck in water - one of the purest things around -

and drunk by you for ENERGY.

Energy is just passed around

from one thing to the next.

We're all sharing energy.

We all want it a lot, and a lot of it. And that's where most of the problems arise -

from wanting energy.

All things are done in the pursuit of life energy.

So if we were to all surrender and take it as it comes,

take that energy when we can get it

and not ask for more,

then we'd be in a lot better shape.

If we just shared the energy wealth a little, people would be a whole lot happier.

They'd also be a lot more content if they stopped

trying to understand ENERGY...

if they stopped making up names for it

and stories about how it got here and instead

just:

floated with the s~t~r~e~a~m like a riverboat.

Stop trying to paddle. Just let the river take you.

Stop trying to move faster down the river

and stop trying to stay in one spot.

Stop resisting and stop wanting. In other words,

SURRENDER.

It is the only way to happiness.

Embrace the energy,

but give it always.

Love the energy,

but never understand it.

Seek the energy,

but know it is unknowable.

And most importantly,

let it take you

issues, questions, and possibilities

Why is it that so many people believe organized religions?

People are scared. Whether they deny it or not, they are scared. They have been thrown into this life by the powers that be and look for some sort of foundation as security. That security is interpreted (subconsciously and consciously) as "whatever is popular is right." If there's a church on every corner then the church must have something good and true to say. Hell, if billions believe it then it must have some validity, right? Those chapels are mighty pretty, yes - there's something holy about them, something divine.

These people are not stupid or ignorant, they are simply human beings who have fallen to the games of their mind. Fear is an animal emotion, and whether one realizes it or not, it is the cause of false beliefs in fake gods. Just as the Greeks had their gods, we have GOD today. GOD who will bring you here only to judge you. GOD who will cut you down if you are too human or go against the commandments of antiquity.

The problem of organized religion is a problem with no immediate source. It is a problem fed my misinterpretations, ego-infused mindsets, animal emotions, and the passing down of falsehoods from one generation to the next. It is the pain of being an animal that has people rushing to believe something better must exist. This is also the reason poverty stricken people tend to have stronger religious convictions. They want to have faith that a time of prosperity is drawing closer with each passing day. It is also why the wealthy tend to feign true, devote religion. They are so satisfied with this life (for the wrong reasons) that they give up any efforts towards something else sustainable.

In truth, hope in the future, hope in another life, and hope in a heaven will only bring one temporary and false security (just as money does with the rich) and take he or she out of the true life that surrounds them. When they reach that future, they will wind up just as dead, with no heaven to comfort them. Why believe in those things unknowable and unprovable when life at its core has so much to offer?

And why the hostility towards those who question today's prominent religions?

Those who question Christianity, Islam, etc. pose a threat. Not a threat to the divine order of things as those followers would have you believe, but a threat to their own comfort and security. When you tell someone who has all but convinced themselves that there is a specific God, a Heaven, and a Hell - that what they believe is bollocks - they resist. Why? Because you're showing them reality. You're telling them that beauty, serenity, and peace are not something of tomorrow, they are something of today, if you reach for them. You're telling them that they can no longer find comfort in an untrue future written by men of the past. You're telling them that they are animal and that they will always be animal because they are an animal in the now. And now is all there is.

Witchcraft doesn't exist. Magic doesn't exist. Rituals do not work. Praying does not work. It's a fierce reality, but it is reality that must be accepted one way or another if people are to truly live. I will tell you that you're dead loved one is not in Heaven (or, for that matter, Hell). I will tell you that praying for someone who is ill is worth nothing, accept to comfort the griever. Throwing a penny in a wishing well and making a wish will most likely not bring you that wish. If that wish does come to you it is from your own doing. Do not thank the well. Thank yourself.

If you tell people there's no such thing as good luck and bad, right and wrong, they get defensive. Because they must question all they thought they knew. Nature does not know superstitions, it only knows balance. Just as you should give yourself credit for achieving your wishes and goals, you should give unknowable Nature credit for your being, not a fake God seeking only to judge, condemn, or save you.

Nature is a product of God, no?

No. God is Nature. All things, no matter how synthetic, come from it. We are it and we need it to survive. Nature is not something "God" created, Nature is God. One thing that is truly amazing is how far astray we have been led in regards to nature. It's almost as though we think ourselves above it. You are nature through and through. Your species, the human race, evolved in it and you now survive off it. No matter how far humanity gets in its evolutionary progress, it will never escape the fact that everything it does, everything it is, and everything it senses is Nature - a phenomenon, and nothing else. The Earth is not simply a disposable structure made for our endless use. It is a necessity. Men would not be able to walk if it weren't for their legs. Men would not be able to think if it weren't for the complexity of their brains. Apples would not taste good if it weren't for the intricate taste buds on men's tongues. These were not given to you by some other. They simply have evolved out of that thing undefinable, that thing called Nature.

Humanity has forgotten what it means for something to be natural. Something natural is something undefinable. And why define something you can't define? Let it be and realize that some of the most profound things in life - life itself, most notably - have no need for a definition. Life asks nothing of you but to live. Your body wants nothing more than to work... work so that you may experience this life in this body, and so on.

Faith gives people hope? What's wrong with that?

There's nothing wrong with hope. But someone who is truly fulfilled and grateful for their existence has no need for hope. No matter what arrives at their doorstep, they can see the beauty in it. Only those who are unfulfilled have to hope. Of course, being fulfilled is no easy step. After all, it would be hard to accept something like terminal cancer as just a fact of life, with no Heaven after for comfort. But one must see the overall picture, the idea of a truly vast universe with an unbelievable amount of life. Those consciousnesses must be filled. Filled with you.

And although reincarnation is not provable, life is regenerating all around us. It may not be hardcore evidence, but one could see it as a sign. The infinite amount of animals, bugs, and plants show that life is constantly going and returning. Nothing is permanent, yet nothing is truly impermanent. Energy - whatever it truly is - will always find a new place to lie, if even for the brief moment that is life.

Faith in itself isn't bad. We must have faith in things. Like ourselves, our friends... our faucets to pour or our cars to work. But false faith, that is faith in things which have no proof whatsoever, is wasted time... wasted faith.

There was an eclipse recently in Asia. In India, the superstitious were performing all sorts of rituals to ward off the evils they thought that eclipse would bring. Take the frame back a second and you'll see that such rituals are wasted energy, wasted faith. A bunch of people waving sticks in the air and shouting things while wearing bright, colorful paint will not ward off "evil energy" from an eclipse. Just as praying to a God will not save a loved one, and eating a piece of bread that's supposed to represent Jesus' flesh doesn't mean anything. In the end you are only dancing around and shouting, talking to yourself, and... eating a piece of bread. Or, in other words, experiencing life... So why not just experience life without all the strings attached, without all the incentives and wasted energy.

This is one major problem with the organized religious of today. They hear what they want and filter out whatever it is that disagrees with what they think. When someone prays for a loved one and they get better, they automatically thank God and assume that he must have had some part in it. When they pray for a loved one and that person dies, they say something like "it was his time" or "God wanted him." That is insane. It doesn't make any sense. And it is truly and clearly picking and choosing for the comfort of one's own mind. It is selfish. If a loved one survives something like say, an accident, it was not God who saved them. It was their own effort to live on and the chance of nature. It was random. It was spontaneous. It was not destined. It was not written. By the same token, if 35 people die in a tornado, God didn't "have better plans for them." They died because those things happen. Because the tornado had to hit someone's house. The tornado was not on any set path, it was simply going on a natural course in a natural world.

And in that natural world, humans reign supreme, yes?

Yes and no. Human beings are at the top of the food chain. There is no denying that. Our evolution has far surpassed that of other animals. We have created cities, made art, and proposed all sorts of scientific theories. That doesn't come easy. We do reign supreme, but it is was not set by anything divine.

The fact you are in a human body is most likely chance. I say most likely, because as one who is at the top of the food chain, one who has the unique ability to think and reason, it is impossible to say without a shadow of a doubt that any other animal exists by free will as we do. The fact remains that most of the world's creatures are on an entirely different plane than humans. That isn't to say a lower plane, but most definitely a different one. Animals live by instinct, a natural sort of urge to grow, survive, and eventually reproduce. Humans, as animals, do too. But the ability to think and reason and the presence of a powerful mind gives us an entirely different playing field. It makes us stronger in ways and weaker in others.

We have risen to great heights because of our minds, but we have also created a mind-world where superstitions, conspiracies, false beliefs and all out paranoid madness persist. Our mind has given us a lot as humans, but it has taken a lot of life away from us, too.

Babies have simpler minds and because of that they live more for the now. Animals have simpler minds, and they too, live for the now. Adults, however, get lost in the world our collective mind has created, and thus, a vicious cycle has started, where generation by generation we get more and more lost in an illusion of the right and wrong ways to live life.

Humans have the capability to be the best creature on earth, but also the potential to be the worst. Like we respect ourselves, we must respect others, human or not. Reincarnation most likely does exist. If you are living one life and are surrounded by an infinite amount of other life, it can be assumed (though it is not provable) that life does continue. After all, you're a part of it now and you know it continues after you leave this body. So why believe you won't tag along for the ride?

The form you take may be unknown, but that doesn't mean you won't be taking one. What exactly reincarnation means, or if it is influenced by say, karma, is too unknown. As of now there seems to be two options in relation to animal life: 1. animals are controlled by some sort of natural force and have no real, complete, controllable consciousness. And 2. they are just like you and I, but with less developed brains, more instinct, and more life. Either way, the chances are you have experienced and will experience a vast array of lives in a vast array of inconceivable or predictable bodies. Just think about how truly unique this life is. From polka music to calamari - this world is strange/great/unique.

And in this world live many plants and creatures. Whether or not plants can sense is a true mystery. I'm inclined to say no (although no one knows for sure). There most likely just a part of our vast, singular, Earth, which is living, breathing, and providing day and night continuously. But it is safe to say by most accounts that the animals that live on that Earth are just as aware as you and I, and that they are just as much alive. We must not forget that in the end we are part of the animal kingdom. We share more similarities with animals than differences. They live among us and experience the world, but from a different perspective. They are not here for us, but with us. Just as the Earth is not here to serve us, but to help us along on the journey of life.

More random issues, questions, and possibilities to come...

the currents of the universe

"It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit."

-Antoine Rivarol

"Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature."

-St. Augustine

It has long been known by shamans and seekers that the first step in giving up the illusion of life is forfeiting the ego. The ego, roughly defined, is who you believe yourself to be. From your name to your race, your ego is what society has built as the reflection of you. And you, being the impressionable human that you are, accepted that tried and true. The gravestones of millions display the names of egos now departed. But where have those egos gone? Are they in a "heaven" dancing gleefully with friends and relatives long passed also? A place of eternal joy and perpetual ecstasy? Where the best food waits atop gold tables and grapes grow from passing clouds? Where death is known no more and a bright light shines through and over everything? No. They are not. They are six feet in the Earth, most likely rotted to dust by now. Heaven is fiction (as is Hell). There is no debate, because there is no proof. And there is no point in having faith in that which is not. Heaven was created by men out of their own fear of death, that inevitable not being that we will all face sooner or later. A belief in Heaven is an escapist attitude and those days are over.

But do not fear, fellow travelers. Because at heart we are all on a journey. Our own individual journey. But it does not transcend lives, nor does it end in a Heaven or a Hell - or a nothing. The worst and the best, the brightest and the darkest, the most and the least all play out in the vast truth of equilibrium. And as any good traveler will tell you, one journey's end brings another's beginning. We are on the journey of a lifetime, an infinite one. You will not remember this life 100 human years from now, just as you don't remember the moment you were birthed into this world, or your first step onto it. You will not remember because there is no reason to remember. Those that live in the Present are given something more precious, more true, more abundant, than all the pillars of Heaven lined up until the end of that fictional kingdom. When you are aware of the moment and nothing else. When the past fades away as quickly as the future comes into your sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch, you are on a ride with no end and no beginning. Where the admission is free and the speed indeterminable. You are experiencing life in an IMAX theater of reality. And when you are aware of life you are alive, and you are aware of it now, so why fear? Something - some indistinguishable force - has brought you here. It does not judge you. It will not punish you. And it will never be entirely known. But it has brought you here, know that. And seek nothing else.

The animal fear of death has destroyed mankind. It has given rise to a society built on fake spectacles and trivial pursuits. Escapists minds have built an escapist world. Those that believe they live in reality are in for a rude awakening. Reality is something far different - far more real and overwhelming - than most are ready to accept. Reality is energy. Reality is infinity. Reality is complete and utter shifting, falling, unknown, impermanence. It is the fire of the sun. The depth of the universe unknowable. The beating heart that seems to beat for no real reason at all. It is the flesh rotting off the bones of those men dead long ago.

And so we come back to that fact: why believe in something that doesn't exist? Death is very real. We all join the Earth again someday and yet we live our lives forgetting we walk, sleep, and live on it every second of our lives. It yields to us and takes us back in to yield to those after us. The fossil fuels that run our cars today were the animals of yesterday. The plants grow out of former life that now manifests itself in rocks, dirt, and minerals. This planet is in a constant state of mass recycling. Lives are lived and lived again. But not by the same person, or the same thing. Each living thing is unique in that it is the only one of its kind to grace this Earth, at this time, in this stretch of an infinite universe. So we are unique, we are "special," but we are not infinitely us.

Life is life experiencing life. You are alive, you are experiencing that which is, that which makes up the collective thing called life. But you are not you. You belong to Nature. You have control of "you," but every ounce of your being is something else, something completely organic, something you had no part in creating, only manipulating with your mind. You are the body of a species that took millions of years to evolve. One that literally came from the primordial, fundamental core of this Earth. Society has been built out of a single seed. We are all connected, indefinitely, infinitely, indelibly. Solids, liquids, and gases make up our surroundings. But they are not separate. They are atoms, side by side, connected. Separation is a complete and utter illusion. The flame of a candle is connected to the air around it. It may appear to stand alone, but it is not. Just as a human being is not disconnected from his or her surroundings, or a bird from the sky around it. When you feel the wind on your face, you are not just feeling it, you are coming in contact with it, coming in contact with an energy that is always there, in gas form, surrounding you, feeding you oxygen and life.

Nature/reality/existence is literally feeding itself to you so that you can experience it through it. Life is the miracle of being for the sake of being. Because nonbeing simply isn't any fun. There is, however, such a thing as nonbeing. There has to be. The corpses underneath the headstones in a graveyard are experiencing something, and that something is nothing. But they'll never know it. Just as you'll never know it when you die, because you can never know it. You can only experience it, and when you are experiencing it you are alive and incapable of knowing it - only experiencing it. The truth (life in the Present) is unknowable because if you were to know it, it would take the fun away. What's the point in watching a movie if you can see the cameras, and the cords, and the director in the background all the time? Then you would know you were watching a movie - you would know the magic behind it and that would make it pointless. You cannot know the unknowable and even when in that vast nothing called death, one is incapable of knowing, because they can't know in that state. There is nothing to relate it to, no life to make contemplations and surmises, no senses to make sense of it all.

That is to say, there is no soul. The soul is an illusion. The "soul" is a rough term for the non-interconnected lives that we will live infinitely. The lives are connected by infinite energy that is always present, but not connected in any sort of subjective way. You are not all you'll know and you are not all there is, and yet you are, to you, NOW, but not always. You will be something/someone else, but always linked to it in spirit, or energy in a physical reality that goes on and on and on. There is no higher calling. There is no greater good. There is no infinite soul on a determined journey to achieve some sort of greatness. The greatness is already here and you are capable of seeing it. But first you must open your eyes. Open all of your senses. There is some sort of eternal, objective, good, a recognition of reality that manifests itself as "Heaven," but it is not reached by becoming something. It is reached by becoming nothing, becoming merely a reflection of life itself - the all seeing eye in the midst of things. Walk into the forest, but leave only your footsteps. The forest changes, but does not end, as you will change forms, but will never end.

There are no ends. And Heaven as we describe it today is described as an end. Now is the end and now is infinite. You are not infinite, but it is, and you are a part of it, so thus you are infinite. Each journey breeds another journey and thus no end is possible. One thing done entails another trial to overcome. And that means that the life you are living now is all there is - for now. You will live again, but that life will have absolutely no relation to this one. There is no need to even think about that now, because that hasn't happened yet. Energy hasn't taken up that form, you are here now. You emerged into these five senses and these five senses will end eventually. You are powered by your mind and you have the power to escape it, but you cannot escape your body without ending this life. There is no escape from reality. And physical reality is as much a reality as any. There is no soul that can transcend infinity. To live you must be in a form, and that form is body. There is mind. There is body. There is not soul.

Not to sound pessimistic. There is a "soul" to an extent, just not the one we're used to thinking of. The soul is the state you reach when you're in your mind and body, but have completely transcended out of them. When you have reached a state of nirvana, a state of true acceptance and true appreciation... true love of life and all its details and quirks. When you have come to love the unknown and unknowable and take it as it comes. That is what soul is and it is possible to achieve it. It is possible to live the life of a soul in the life of a body with a mind. But first one must accept that they are in a mortal body, that that mortal body will eventually die, and that another mortal body will follow it. That they are not going to Heaven when they die. That Heaven is NOW. There will be more nows, but why worry about them. They are unknowable, because they have not yet happened, so live in today. Don't live in the past. And don't live in the future. Live in the now and it is there you will find eternity. The dead are dead. The not-yet-born are not yet born. Don't live a life stuck in the past or one glued to the future. Only the moment will set you free. The moment/present/now/exact second is the truth. It is what all humans are looking for. It is why everything from roller coasters, to drugs, to this thrill or that exist. To get people in the Present so that they feel truly alive.

And you are truly alive. Your heart is beating and you don't control it. It beats for you and no one else. It beats so that you may experience and so that you may live. It beats for the moon and it beats for the sun and from just outside Earth you can hear the quiet sound of billions of heartbeats. In sync and infinite, recycling time and time again for the sake of the beat. The rhythm of life. Beyond Earth there are many other lives experiencing life, but for now you are you. Know that by you, I do not mean who you think you are, but the collective experiences the body that you currently inhabit calls its own. And you will live again. You will meet new people, see new places, know new things you could never even imagine existed. There is only one New York City in the universe. There is only one thing called pizza in the universe. There was only one President Lincoln and one Mahatma Gandhi in the universe. Earth is a very unique place, cherish it while you can. Experience as much as you can and love it all equally and unconditionally. You may only be here once and although you won't remember it, living in the Present will render that fact void, because living through all your senses in this precise moment ensures eternity, it is now and it is all you know.

One day you'll awake another person/thing/species in another place in space and time. As you awoke into this body so you'll awake into another. You are in a physical reality and that is all there is. You are your five senses as perceived by your brain and nothing else. You are a part of a physical universe that longs to persist. It is no wonder every species is so concerned with procreation. It is the continuation of life that gives us hope and promise, for we know that we are a part of it. Somewhere far off there are individuals within species just meeting that will one day ensure our life in another place, somewhere in this very universe we will be born again. And again and so on, forever. Forever does exist. Individual life has a beginning and an end, but life itself does not. It is energy, and energy changes forms but never disappears. But the goal of life is not procreation, just as it is not reaching Heaven, or scoring a perfect score on an exam, or winning a million dollars, etc. There is no goal to life except to live. To take it as it comes and love every minute of it for better and for worse. To realize that one is not entitled to anything nor should expect anything. Nothing is certain or expected in an unknowable universe. Your heart could stop a minute from now or decades from now. There is no telling.

And there is no need to tell. Or to know. Or to ask. It is the day man begins to ask who-what-when-where-why-how that he digs his own grave. Life is not a game. Life is not an obstacle. Life is not a puzzle. Life is a ride. Life is a free fall. Life is a journey. Life is your five senses and the body that supports them. Life is not a soul that aims for some higher good or understanding. Life is what you look at every time you open your eyes - and close them. Life is the interconnected energy that makes up your surroundings and manifests itself as an environment. These indefinite surroundings are nothing more than an apparent phenomenon. Think of yourself as the organic matter that you are. Walking across a vast solid sphere in the middle of an infinitely vast space. You are not grounded, you are floating. You are floating in an existence that knows no up or down. You are spinning on a planet that knows no end, in a reality that only knows today. You are part of something huge, but are undeniably small. But you are your world and your world is you. There is brilliance in the greatness of things, but also in the detailed genius of a room or a pile of clothes or a drop of water. The vast universe is made up of little lives, just as our gigantic sun is made of simple flames the size of a candle burst. And across the universe infinite heartbeats beat on and with them, life.

True Love

"Love in its ceaseless, endless changing makes life worthwhile."
- Aristotle

True Love is the opposite of what the human mind thinks it is, because true love is not of the mind. We are looking for love in all of the wrong places, in the past and the future, in emotional attachment, comfort and acceptance, in people or things. True Love is not something to be gained or lost, not something that will come as a result of finding someone or something, not something that will be lost as a result of letting go of someone or something. True Love is a love affair with life itself. Life is always in the Present, giving itself to you unconditionally. Life in the Present is all that is, everything real, completely fulfilling in and of itself, waiting for you to let it in. True Love is boundless and limitless, undying, and always new. True Love = Life, all that you sense in the Present. To love truly is to be Present.

There is really only one choice to you have; to be with love/life, or to be with the mind. This love in the Present can be shared and reflected between beings, or it can be blocked out by the mind and wasted. True love is to be shared, not gained or lost.

Love builds on love. As Kahlil Gibran says in The Prophet: (From Love) "Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love." (From Marriage) "Love one another, but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each others cup but drink not from one cup." True love is being in love with love itself, not with another person or thing.

As The Beatles said: "In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." The more life that you let in through your senses, the more love you have to reflect to others. It is that simple. You have to lay your burden down, lay your mind down, and just surrender to life. The more love you take in, the love more you make, or more accurately, reflect to other beings. You cannot "make" or create True Love, because True Love is not of the mind. You can only be a mirror of love, a mirror of life in the Present, which is your true-self. You cannot reflect love to others unless you open up to life in the present. When you are fulfilled with life, you can't help but reflect it back out to others.

You don't have to give life to your mind, because you are not your mind. You are a mirror of life. Your mind blocks, filters, and interprets life, which prevents you from experiencing life truly and completely. You must be a mirror of life, a surrendered receiver of life. Life in the Present is always new. To experience life fully, to experience True Love, you must let life in and reflect it back out without holding on to anything, without mental intrusions. You must leave no room for the mind to receive the new life that is always coming to you. "Being absent from the body (mind) is being present with the Lord (Life)."

Relationships between men and women, parents and children are the foundation of our society. Over 50% of marriages end in a a divorce these days. Most of the marriages and relationships that last are because of a false sense of security, such as financial security, or attachment, such as emotional dependence or a pleasurable sex life. Of course, some relationships last because of love for the children, and the carnal attraction between man and woman. Carnal love is love for just a part of life, such as love for a women, love for your children, etc. Very few relationships, if any, are founded on truth and love. It is staggering to see the divorce statistics. We must fix our relationships, or we will never be able to live as One and build a heaven on Earth. This starts with realizing what true love is. The foundation for a successful relationship is the truth and the life.

You may have noticed that I speak in generalizations from time to time. Do not let it bother you. It is when we get caught up in the endless details of life that we miss the mark, the truth in the present. We have to look at the big picture, and so sensible generalization is absolutely essential.

Let us look at man/woman relationships:

Men don't realize the true reason they are so attracted to women. It is because women are love/life personified; they are mysterious and beautiful, unpredictable and emotional. "There's something in the way she moves," as the Beatles said. Women balance men out, because they do not feel the need to hide their love away like men do. This is why women often show more emotion than men. Men have been conditioned to hide their love away and control their emotions, or else they will be labeled "soft" and "gay" by other minds. Women bring men into the present with their emotion and presence, while spiritual men set women free from their mind by being stable, not perpetuating the woman's emotions with aggressiveness and stubbornness.

Women give men life at birth, and they give men life after birth with just a smile, a laugh, an eruption of excitement. Women are naturally more in touch with their bodies and life in the Present, so they have an easier time reflecting it right back out. Women give men love that takes them out of their mind and in the present, and spiritual men give women truth which allows women to give love unconditionally. When both the man and the woman live in the truth and the life, they set each other free from the mind, and balance each other out. The unity of Truth and Love is the foundation of a fulfilling relationship, because both the man and the women can be completely present with each other, sharing the love in the present, without their minds blocking it out. The mind complicates relationships, and brings attachment, fear, lust, control, paranoia, and many other negative emotions into a relationship.

Women tend to "blow in the wind" more easily, because women are love, and their natural state is to flow with life. Women give love, and they want to be loved. The problem is, women don't know that they are life personified. When women realize the truth and get in touch with their natural state, they will be free to give love unconditionally, but only to a man who knows the truth. Women really need to be loved, not deceived, not lusted, not obsessed over, not even understood, just loved.

Men naturally live more in the mind. Because of this, men are mostly responsible for creating the world we live in today. Also, men are responsible for creating the minds of women. Women are deceived by men, fooled by the mind. Men built the world we live in today to please women and shape their minds to suit the desires of men. Men have embedded social roles into the minds of women, and this has distracted women from their natural state of giving love unconditionally. Women have been conditioned to believe that their purpose is to please their mate, sexually and mentally, by constantly worrying about their physical appearance and agreeing with whatever the man says. This in turn just strengthens the ego of the man. It is a vicious cycle. Men are under complete control of the mind, and are using it to deceive women instead of giving them truth and reflecting the love right back.

Some excerpts from "Making Love - Sexual Love The Divine Way" by Barry Long:

"Woman must be loved. The future of the human race depends on woman being loved, because only when woman is truly loved can man be truly himself and regain his lost authority. Only then can peace return to earth. Yet woman as she is now cannot be loved for long (or for good) by man as he is now. Together they are trapped in a vicious cycle, and if left to their own ideas of love, there is no way out for them.

By teaching her to please him and satisfy him down through the ages, man has taught woman to desire him, to project herself sexually, to make herself attractive to him. He addicted her to an emotional and physical craving for his sexual attention, and he did this by neglecting to love her."

All relationship problems arise because those involved in the relationship do not know what true love is. Men and women simply do not know how to share the love that radiates from all directions in the present, and this is because men and women are blocking out the love in the present with their minds. As of now, relationships are founded on attachment, which perpetuates the fear of losing the other, losing love. Relationships need to be founded on truth, so that we can give our children truth and love instead of fear and deception. Always remember, love is not gained or lost; love is the opposite of what the mind thinks it is. Love is to be shared in the Present. If we do not base our relationships on a foundation of truth and love, we will continue to mislead our children into deception and fantasy.

Jesus said, "Raise your children in Love and Truth. Cover them with Love and show them the Way of Life through your godly example, so that they will not have cause to depart from it."

BE with LIFE, not the MIND. Let LIFE leave no room for the MIND.
Radiate DIVINE, UNDYING, LIMITLESS LOVE, always in the Present.

Men, seek and spread the truth to transform your mind so that you may receive and reflect the True Love in the Present. Stop using the mind to deceive, to lie. Tell the truth. Do not chase women who will only satisfy your mind and your sexual fantasies. Wait for a woman who truly satisfies your soul beyond physical beauty and mind games.

Women, wake up. Stop giving your attention to fools and phonies who will never be able to truly satisfy your soul. Give your attention to True Love, to life in the Present. Wait for a man who devotes his life to the truth, a spiritual man, one who reflects the love you radiate like a mirror. You will find all the romance and love you could have ever dreamed in your wildest dreams, but it will not be a fantasy, it will be real. Give your love to a man who truly satisfies your soul, your spirit, not a man who satisfies only your mind and your carnal desires.

True love is being in love with life itself.

"Pure Love is a flood which covers all things. Nothing can stand against it, for it flows from the Eternal Sea."

"Love is you,
You and me,
Love is knowing,
We can be."

Mirror Of Life

The wisest question we can ask ourselves is as follows:
Who am I?

We may answer the question by stating our name, but that is just a label, a composition of sounds put together to conveniently identify ourselves and others. We may look beyond this label and answer the question by saying "I am a human body, recycled bits of the universe that have come together to support a living being." But these bodies, these organs, these cells, are constantly dying, reproducing, and changing. Our bodies are in a constant state of change, and your body is not the same as it was one second ago, one minute ago, one year ago. You may think about the unique ego/identity that you use, and say "I am my thoughts." But what "hears" your thoughts, what receives them? Thoughts, conceptualizations, labels, emotions, they are all electrical activity in the brain. What receives all of your thoughts, feelings and emotions? You may look even deeper, and answer the question by saying "I am my mind." But how can you be your mind? Your mind has been shaped by other minds since the day you were born into this world out of your mothers womb. Your mind is the result of interacting with the collective mind throughout your whole life, learning, adapting, conceptualizing. Knowledge physically changes the structure of your brain, and thus your mind. You are not your mind, because your mind is a manifestation of the collective mind formed by all past actions, future aspirations, events, and thoughts. What is it that receives what the mind creates, that pays attention to it?

You keep peeling back the onion, so to speak, until you realize that you are not who you think you are. You realize that you cannot identify yourself with any of these aggregates, as they are in a state of constant change.

Has life stopped coming directly to you? The only thing that hasn’t changed is that you are here now, whoever “you” are.

So, who are you?

The "true self" is beyond labels, but can best be described as Nothingness. Behind your physical body, behind your labels, behind your thoughts, there is the Seer. Awareness. Oneness. You are that. An Infinite Void, filled with life, filled with energy, including the mind. You are a Mirror of Life, a Receiver, a Spirit.

Life is always coming to you from all directions in the Present. At the core of your being, you are a mirror of life. Your mind does not allow you to receive all that is coming to you, because it filters what is coming through your senses. Usually, this includes your sense of sight right in front of you and your thoughts. Evolution has programmed our minds to focus exclusively on these things for our survival, to adapt and to learn about an unfamiliar world. Now, we are familiar with our world. Our minds have shaped our world to suit our desires, to survive. Now, the mind is blocking out life, and we (mirrors of life) still spend most of our time giving life to our minds, getting caught up in our thoughts, and only focusing on what the mind thinks is important. Well, we don't have to miss out on the life that is coming to us anymore. We are not lost on an unfamiliar planet anymore.

The mind is the gatekeeper of life, because it focuses on what is perceived to be important. We know that life is coming from all directions, because we can sense it. We can feel it, smell it, and hear it. You feel the ground beneath your feet, the wind on your back. You hear sounds behind you, beside you, all around you. Life is not just coming to you from where your field of vision can perceive; it is coming to you from above, below, behind, and all around. Life is literally coming directly to you from all directions in the Present.

People don't realize they have two selves. You have a mind-self (false-self, ego/identity), and a spiritual-self (true-self, Mirror of life). Realize that you are the Mirror, a Spirit, Consciousness; this is your True Self. You give life to your mind; you pay attention to it. Your mind is like a valuable tool; when you don't need it, you can put it away, lay it down. Surrender to life. When you are thinking, you are your mind, because your mind is in between you and Life. We don't need to constantly think, worry, conceptualize, and label anymore, because we are missing most of the life that is coming to us right now. This is hard to realize, because evolution has programmed our minds to take control and drive our every action.

We can now see that we are not our minds, because as we receive life, we give life to the mind. We don't have to pay attention to the mind, give life to the mind. We can just let life in and reflect it back out, like a mirror.

When you get angry, it is because you give life to the anger created by the mind. When you worry, it is because you give life to the worry created by the mind. When you hate, it is because you give life to the hate created by the mind. When you are greedy, it is because you give life to the greed created by the mind. When you are sad, it is because you give life to the sadness created by the mind. When you envy, it is because you give life to the jealousy created by the mind. This is all going on between your mind-self and spiritual-self, true self. Life in the present is manipulated by the mind; the mind cannot create anything real. You don't have to pay attention to these negative thoughts, emotions, and feelings, these desires. If the mind creates something, it can stop creating it.

Don't get me wrong; the mind is the most valuable tool we have, as it helps us stay alert, survive, and function. A Spirit/Consciousness (what we are) could not get anything done without a mind.

Friends, it is time to realize that we can control our minds if we realize our true self. We need to put the Spirit in front of the mind, become spiritual beings. The mind has created the world we live in today, but right now, the mind is out of control, and we have become too dangerous for this to continue. We now have the technology to destroy ourselves, and our emotions and impulses are running wild. The mind will continue to do great things if we get it under control. We must see past the mind and embrace Oneness. We each must get control of our own mind, so that it transforms from our boss to our technical consultant, from our controlling overlord to our companion, from The Great Deceiver to our Guardian Angel. A mind in front of the Spirit is deceiving, but a mind serving Spirit is the most productive, most useful tool we have.

It's time to LIVE my friends. Lay down your burden, lay down your mind when it does not need to be active. Stop giving life to the illusions of ego, of false security, of separation. You are a MIRROR OF LIFE. Just let life in from all directions, and reflect it back out, like a mirror. This mirror, this Spirit, is the Unmoving Core of your being.

Life is giving itself to you unconditionally, coming directly to you from all directions, always, in the Present. Your senses are a window to the physical universe through which you receive life. You must become your senses to be fulfilled by life in the present. You are the universe experiencing the universe, receiving life through your senses at your own awareness level, which is filtered and manipulated by your mind. Without the mind blocking life, you receive all of life, and reflect it all back out without any mental intrusions. Being a spotless mirror of life is the ultimate state of consciousness. You must be like Nothing to receive/reflect Everything (Life).

Be aware of your breathing, always happening in the Present, but blocked out by the mind. Taste all the subtle flavors in the foods you eat that are usually ignored by your mind. Smell the aromas that are always there, but filtered by your mind. Feel the ground beneath your feet, the wind on your skin and through your hair, the warmth of the sun. Hear the birds chirp, the leaves rustle, the voices and laughter of humans, the intoxicating sounds of the pick hitting the guitar strings. See all the shades of green from the leaves in the trees to the moss on the ground. See life, listen to life, feel life, smell life, taste life.

All that you sense is in the Present. It is all for you, yet it doesn't belong to you. Life flows through you and all around you, surrounds you, just waiting for you to let it in.

Open up your Present.