About open mindedness

For me a clarifying point regarding open mindedness is a dynamic posed by Don Juan Matus. He posited that each of us has an assemblage point. It is the point or perspective around which we consciously and unconsciously yet deliberately assemble the picture of our world that we call "real." Many factors enter in to the positioning of this point. Religious faith is one of these, but most of the factors are subliminal and not available to our reasoning minds--yet we sense that we are reasoning. This dynamic is born out to a great extent not only by a study of human mentality as a discpline, but by self examination as well. The injunction "Know Thyself" is not to be taken lightly, but is a tool for honesty, insight, and wisdom.

On the level of religious affiliation, if we accept this idea of an assemblage point, we could ascribe that name to our understanding of our own faith, that of others, and of their relative positions on various value scales. Yet, as someone earlier on in this thread mentioned, what we profess and how we act as Catholics are quite dissimilar according to pew polls. I would imagine that in order to remain sane, it would be necessary to "compart--mentalize" our thinking in order to experience a smoothness that includes contraries. Mark Twain said that man is not a rational animal, he is a retionalizing animal. There seems to be some truth in that.

K.G. Mills said ""Perhaps the root of the problem within the world and within yourself is the refusal to face conflicting beliefs, which are obliterated by correct Identitiy." Correct Identity, we might say, can be approached by knowing our Self. This is an intense activity requiring aciduous honesty. There is no room for dogmatic piety or parochial attitudes in this search. So I would say that being closed or open minded is an internal function relative to the integrity one has within the entire arena of their awareness.

For my own part, I had to go through a revison of my entire inventory of beleifs when I had a near death experience. I had to incorporate new experiential data. You might say that my assemblage point was moved for me. It was a rude awakening. I saw clearly that I was not allowing communication between different "persona" which emerged in different situations. There were too many "me's" to have any sense of integrity. I can't say at this time that I am healed and whole, but I can say that I see with different eyes and have compassion for myself and those who are in the trap of a mind closed to itself. I guess I am now more concerned with the beam in my own eye as distinct from the mote in someone else's. It allows me to talk dispassionatley about potentially "loaded" subjects with other "beamers." You might say that my mind is more open because I saw how closed my own can be.

My "religion."

I sent this as a repy to someone who asked what I beleive in as a religion. I am open to any comments or criticsms from anyone who was an associate of Dr. Mills, or anyone who experiential knows the meaning of "Advaita" or "Non-dualism."

"Thanks for your interest. What you might term a religion, I might term a "Standpoint." Though I am not a Christian Scientist, the founder of that faith put it rather well: "The Universe must be interpreted from the Standpoint of the Creator of the Universe.." She also said "God is universal; confined to no spot, defined by no dogma, appropriated by no sect." It should not be mistaken from my quoting her that she is by any means the sole or definitive example of what I stand for. My own Mentor in this Way, Dr. K.G. Mills, used every appropriate quote or passage from any Proponent of this Way he could find. Like a good piano teacher, which he was, he instructed his associates by the study of passages appropriate to the moment, using his own experience and statements as an encouragement and example for the growth in unique expression of each of his voluntary charges.

I say "voluntary" because his contract with us was that he would speak if asked, and otherwise remain ordinary in appearance. Yet I would class him in terms of understanding and action with such Giants as Buddha, Lau Tze, Jesus, St. Francis, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, Merrell-Wolff, Shankara, Byron Katie, and others of their ilk. "Their ilk" is the company of all those Saints and Sages of the ages who, independent of time, location, culture, or training, had and were examples of a revelation of amazing homogenaiety. This revelation has been called Advaita in the East, and I use that name only as a convenience. In the West it might be called Non-Dualism. That said, any "ism" is a limit and makes distinctions, as such is the nature of mortal mind.

In any case, the revelation predicates itself on an experiential understanding of the Allness of God. This makes all of these folks "atheists" in the realm of the ordianry understanding of God as a Being apart and objective to a Creation. The sole reason for this radical* understanding is that the fundamental premise of this Way is the knowledge by Identity** that the component we call "I" is not seperate from God. If a god seems separate, it is due to the misallignment of the component called "me" or "person" which necessarily exists only as an aspect and function of time and space. The delusion of separation is due to the false association fo the "I" with the appearance and association with the limited sensatons of living as a seeming "part" in space/time. This association with a viewpoint also strongly fosters the convincing need for a subject/object mode of awarenss, as distinct from the undifferentiated Consciousness from which it stems and is not separate from.

On examintation, it is possible to discern that we interpret our experience according to language and assumptions we accept, necessarily, as children, from people whose experience is generally survival oriented and parochial to whatever degree. These languages and attitudes have inherent defects due to their temporal and "ad hoc" origins and nature. If we use our innate ability to step outside ourselves and see ourselves in a greater context, as a phenomenon, then we are proceeding in a direction of discovery as to the Nature of our experience as distinct from its circumstances. The examination of this Nature is found to be rooted in Consciousness. Without Consciousness as a Principle supporting our experience as awareness, we really have no life. My Mentor stated that "Consciousness is the Light to the awareness of ideas and thoughts."

The Understanding of life and its exigencies, as well as its natural phenomenon, structures and systems, each and all, from the Standpoint of interpretation that it is all at the root ONE expression of undivided Divinity, with our individual senses of existance not seperate from that, might be said to constitute the premise of Advaita or Non-Dualism. This is not a denial of any feeling or appearance of individuality, it simply attributes the Source of that feeling, etc. more correctly as a pointing to its actual origin.

From that premise comes the ultimate sense of morality. How could I do wrong to myself appearing as another, whether that is person, place, or thing? Is God divided against himself? No. But mentatlity in a space time continuum, due to the appearence of difference, can construe arbitrary divisions based on an animalistic sense of survival not founded in Reality. Knowing that Reality of root Oneness precludes harm to others by any means.

Think about it. If people who dump crap in streams or empty stacks into the air asked themselves " Would I put this in my own home?" woud there be pollution? If people who create money as banks from nothing against your labor and added value asked themselves " would I commit usery on myself?" would we be in the current financial crisis? And on it goes.

A vast simplification of Advaita is simply stated in the two forms we all know the name of: "Do not unto others what you would not have done unto yourself; do unto others as you would have done unto yourself." What does anyone think those admonitions are based on? For may part, a correct reading of the Bible would reveal that Jesus Himslef was a proponent of Advaita. He pretty much declared it by saying "It is not the son of man that doeth the works, but the Father in me that doeth them. " and "I and the Father are One." Not "me," dear angel, but "I." The one and only "I" that ever was or will be, appearing for the sake of the play and brief moment on the stage as you an me. That is a mystery, a miracle, and a joy passing understanding.
I hope that the above has been of some use in a way of understanding at least in theory what is being pointed to."

* it would be worth looking up "radical" and discovering its word origin.
**There is a saying in Borneo: " All knowledge is theoretical until it is in the muscles." Knowledge by Identity is distinct from book learning, assumptions, prejudices, information, beliefe, or any other way of "knowing." It is well and thoroughly treated in Merrel-Woff's book "The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object." His arrival at the points therein are fascinatingly described in his first book, "Pathways Through to Space."

Elections, "opposames," and helmet straps

Sorry, the original entry was deleted due to its rather negative perspective. This is a time where we really need to look to what is the very Best in ourselves and all around us. We can all find lots of information that leads us to an unsavory picture, but it is by looking at our highest possibilities that we have and are a Star to steer by. By that means, anything that is unlike an Ideal will be revealed as specious and unworthy of our attention.

Update: I was just sent this by a good friend. It is a quote from our Mentor, Dr. K.G. Mills, and it applies here.

"Why should we, in our thought - organized and manifested life stream, ever consider those moments when nothing seemsto be happening to be devoid of the incredible Spirit of Newness and Fecundity? Yet we feel the "depression" is something that has come upon us by means that are totally blamed upon a handful of people. Perhaps it has, but we don't have to believe that Power rests in such control." >>Kenneth G. Mills, The Key: Identity Green Stuff pg. 334
http://www.kgmfoundation.org/

Letter to the Venus Project

I recently encountered a wonderful site on line that advocates the idea of a resource based economy as distinct from a scarcity based economy. It is called The Venus Project. (http://www.thevenusproject.com/) I liked what they had to say, but was concerned about a procedural matter, so wrote them the following:

"Dear Friends,

"I call you 'Friends' because I feel a bond with anyone who is doing work toward the fulfillment of our potential as Conscious Awareness Beings on this Earth. I have some questions that I do not see addressed in your material, at least in any heading form. These questions have to do with the deconstruction of the present form of plutosocial systems that are in the hands of private individuals and which control governments. As we have seen, money obstructs change. We have also seen that possession of a human body only denotes potential, not fact or fulfillment. It does not even imply control of that body or its potential ability to precipitate experience, including technology, but especially change within or without the person. In apparent fact the vast mass of humans is unaware of other than their immediate circumstances and the needs engendered by such. This is true of persons living in hunter/gatherer societies even through the populations of great cities which use the inventions of others and therefore think themselves civilized.

"When Mahatma Gandhi toured London he was asked by a reporter "Mr. Gandhi, what is your opinion of Western civilization?" He replied "I think it would be a very good idea." This statement epitomizes the dilemma of the soul based Conscious awareness confronting the plutosocial momentum of those manipulating and those enslaved mentally to the systems currently holding sway over our ways and means. In other words, the general population is unaware of any other way, or even the possibility of any other way. Indeed, if such a way is suggested, as I am sure you know from experience, it is most likely met with the resistance of a cornered animal. A case in point might be the popular ignorance of the actual mechanics and consequences of the fractional reserve banking system.

"So, from the economic top one percent of the world population which owns about 40% of the world's defined material wealth, down to the economic bottom 50% which collectively owns about one percent, we are dealing with a mass of animal reactivity momentum interspersed by a fractionally very small number who are capable of conceiving original thoughts and directions. It is these few who can technologically change things whether by language or instrument. That change is mitigated, as stated, by the factor of those who are invested in the protection of paper and material wealth. The level of attachment indicated by that protection includes every kind and degree of inhumanity ever perpetrated. We have to conclude that there is an immense dysfunction for these people and their minions of whatever description in the quale of self identity. That self identity is attached to and greatly resists being dislodged from identification of self with material comfort and power.

"So, to my question: How do the proponents of the Venus Project, as vastly wonderful as their vision is, propose to confront the laws of inertia as manifested in the plutosocial realm? I greatly acknowledge in this regard the importance and basic rightness of your vision. Indeed, it says in one book that "a nation without vision shall perish." It means, I think, vision in accordance with Nature, and we are currently witnessing and experiencing the lack of vision on the part of the population that has allowed themselves willingly into slavery. I am asking, therefore, what steps you advocate, other than disseminating information encompassing the Project and agreement with it, to precipitate the changes you desire?

Best regards and Q'plah,

Anton Nemeth"

Antidote

I received a return e-mail from a dear friend who bemoaned the depressing nature of some forwarded information on food addatives. Here is my reply:

"Yes, there is a lot of depressing stuff going on, the worst of which "they" are not even telling us, if my alternate sources are correct. However, that is not the point, as I see it, anyways. We are here to grow in Conscious awareness, and promote that growth overall by our presence as the Light to the mundanities of life. Part of that, for me, is being aware of the exigencies of existence in an ego maniacal world. That means information, both about Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, and their ilk, as well as MSG. It is why I am associated with the Consciousness Cinema here, and with other local groups working to reduce suffering through knowledge of whatever sort.

"Primarily, I feel we need to build the harmonious community of our friends. If anything, we can foster the feeling of being more than "this." You do that by just being who you are, _____. It is a great work in this day and age, just Being. There is no other antidote to ego. So, it isn't about saving the world, or fighting the corporations or the governments, or any such thing. It is about being Awake. The enemy is not an institution, it is sleep and ignorance of Self. When we are awake, good public results may follow. Or not. No one said that the human experiment had to work. We are a race that traditionally crucifies its saviors and in the name of a loving god commits wholesale slaughter. But we are also gifted with Giants, such as our dear Teacher, Guide, and Friend. We are privileged to stand on his shoulders and the shoulders of others like him and thus be granted a larger, more inclusive view. And don't discount that you chose to climb up to stand there, however much MSG of any psychic or other form you might have swallowed. That's what counts, my friend. That's why we feel the love that we do."

Quotes from Nisargadatta Maharaj

I was introduced to the words of Nisargadatta Maharaj by my Dear Mentor, Dr. Kenneth G. Mills, without whose instruction and example as Presence the following quotes would have no meaning for me. I offer them as an invitation in the consideration of what constitutes our right Identity, That, which we are before we think we are this, and without which there could not be the perception of thought.


"The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it destroys the world in which you live."

***

"I do not accept paths... All paths lead to unreality. Paths are creations within the scope of knowledge. Therefore, paths and movements cannot transport you into reality because their function is to enmesh you within the dimension of knowledge, while reality prevails prior to it."

***

"Realization is of the fact that you are not a person."

***

"Personal entity and enlightenment cannot go together."

***

"There can be no person that is Self-realized."

***

"Why does this conflict normally occur? Why this dispute between us? People come here with some profound concept of spirituality. They think they have spiritual knowledge and they want me to give them a clean certificate: "yes, you are knowledgeable". This I don't do. I blast their concepts, and hence the confrontation... All knowledge is ignorance."

-Nisargadatta Maharaj

Irony

Yes, irony is rampant in this world. I think that the greatest one is that a biological group that is emotionally and intellectually underdeveloped, due to misidentification of Self, is charged with its own survival in a very adverse and catastrophic situation of its own creation that can take not only other species but also global systems with it. We have the gift of foresight and insight, and as a group subvert those to fear and greed. Our public policies are all of the "last man standing" philosophy, exactly the opposit of what is desperately needed. The last lesson of all this in retrospect will be: "We should have dropped everything and cooperated for all our own best interest." But we seem to want to have that conclusion forced on us as a consequence as distinct from a free choice, a joy, and an adventure into newness. What will change this, our suicidal, fratricidal group tendency?

A city with a view

I maintain that cities ought to be designed around people. That means to me, that since the human brain is wired, they say, for about 500 close "people recognition" connections, cities ought use units of + or - 450 people as an organizational basis. This means that a city could be built of "blocks" that precisely house that number of diverse occupants, with perhaps "blocks" that house specialty cultural components, such as artisans or bachelors, or whatever. Each of these "blocks, would have upper and lower story buildings that house a family on one level and a business on the lower level. This eliminates needs for both community stretching and travel for basic goods.

Then we could add Paulo Solari's verticalization ides and have these units stacked in buildings that would have internal transportation built in, as well as an energy producing skin incorporating the energies of sun, wind, and falling water. Any idea how much energy a 50 story rain downspout can produce and cache as drinking, etc., water? This concept also frees up land for agriculture, perhaps recapturing some of the field and orchards acreage we have paved over to provide insularity for our overblown sense of consumerism and artificial false privacy. Our "current" society is geared to make money for everything that depends on oil, and we have forsaken the treasure of ourselves so that we can commute an hour or more to get a home with a view.

I'd personally be happy with a home having a large deck 25 stories up that overlooked farmland or ranches that provide my food, and from which I could commute to work by elevator and slidewalk. I could even have neighbors to talk with and go shopping on foot on the way home. Heck, Bucky Fuller even designed self sustaining cities for 10,000 that could float not only in water, but also in the air, freeing even more land. The problems really are in our greed and in commercial favoritism, and that means, again, that we do not think for ourselves and vote with our money and our voice at crucial times. Who said "It is great luck for leaders that men don't think?" It was Adolph Hitler. Anybody remember him?

Consciously or not, haven't we cooperated with corporations who, consciously or not, have cooperated with this observation by one of the most adept mobilizers of these last so many decades? How can we more quickly mobilize the same amount of energy and organizational ability to do good, even to the point of saving ourselves from an ignominious end? Was Walt Kelly right when one of his characters misquoted and said "We have met the enemy, and he is us!" Or was it a misquote? Either way, wouldn't our own defeat of our own squanderous ways be our most glorious victory?

About the possibility of a "Dark Age."

(This post is an excerpt from an ongoing discussion about such books as "The Long Emergency" and "The Comming Dark Age" as it appears in a forum called JUSTCOZ at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/justcoz. It is a site dedicated to the promotion of self sufficiency in local communities.)

Yes, Jacob's thesis (in "Dark Age Comming") appears pessimistic, but she states clearly that it is the description of a tendency, not a fate. She has great faith in our ability to change our course and the book is meant as a lens to focus our energies on specific leverage points.

In this regard I certainly agree with the simile of wealth as energy. Money is a symbol of work done, therefore can represent energy and its governance. Faith based and politically based systems are inadequate to deal with money as they are, to various degrees, adversarial systems, and though possibly valid within themselves,
ultimatley not accurate as models distributed wholley over the Universe. Being that they are localized, they are parochial attempts to get by in and explain "Life," and are, as we know them, at the root of the failure of Western society to cope with the world as it actually IS in an epistemological or ontological sense. That is why
societies that percieve Mankind as a function of Nature as distinct from a controler of Nature have a more one-to-one accuracy in their experience of existence, and a more accurate psychological map of our relationship with the World. Anyone as a physcist might appreciate the importance of this perspective as it is outlined in
Bohm's "Wholenesss and the Implicate Order" or Talbot's "The Holographic Universe."

Herein lies the link between personal maturity and responsibility. I am personally convinced that the founders of the great religions had the insight that we (I) and the Universe IS One in Essence, and based their ethic on that premise. This was dogmatized into faith systems, corrupted, naturally, into that by lesser souls who sold it to well meaning folk of lesser insight who were ready to recieve whatever
leadership would help their emotional nature cope. This is the human way. The "highest" path described in religious literature that I am aware of is known by its practitioners, among other names, as "The Path of Ultimate Responsibility."

That Path is at the root of the desired success of the bumper sticker that says "Do No Harm." Why would one harm what or who is Essentialy themselves, or their Self? The vastly immature understanding and practice of the concept of "Self" contributes to the afformentioned adversarial relationships in the most destructive ways. It is why the "Golden Rule" in either form lacks practice. I suspect that if translators had a more accurate grasp of the implications and referents of the the word idea translated as "I" from Aramaic and other languages, we might have a far different face on our dogmatized faiths, whether religious, political, or scientific. The idea of discreet individuals in competition with Nature and each other is an egoic invention punctured by the demonstrations of cooperation based on Love. That sees only Itself growing in maturity and wisdom, incapable of not bringing all its manifestations as people and their world with it. Such a standpoint also enables the perception of dissolution to be experienced as a function of creativity, where the
falling apart of a system is only the necessary step required for the enabling of a more encompassing functional understanding. But again, that requires the impersonal maturity and responsibility of the participents, eh?

"My" world

Lately I have been playing a game that defeats blame and makes me take responsibility for the things I like to complain about and forces a different perspective. When I see something in the news or wherever that I don't like, I say to myself "That's me; I am doing that." That one statement dumps responsibility for my life squarely where it belongs: with me. It is not the other guy's responsibility to change my life and make me live a default. I make my life as it is by creating a harmonic way or by accepting someone else's plan for me as their cow. My Mentor, Dr. KG Mills, said "'You' are the world you wander through. What will it be like?"

Declaration:

It is a gift of the Human condition that critical circumstances are generally met with spontaneously creative innovations that speak immediately to the challenge at hand. This is true in our local situations, whether household or community. Finding now that due to the measurably global impact of our local actions, our definitions must grow to include all the peoples of the world, because these impacts cumulatively and seriously can be seen to threaten our viability as men, women, and children on this planet, as well as the viability of global systems that sustain any and all life as we know it.

As a response in kind, we choose to form cells and organs of perception and action to meet these challenges that are now widely recognized to impinge on all the peoples of our planet. These challenges are personal, spiritual, economic, psychological, and political in scope, encompassing a re-examination of the very nature of our being as humans and our roles within ourselves, within our families, within our communities, within all levels of our commercial and financial systems, and within all levels of our govern-mental structures.

To these ends we unite in circles of group action, that like the rings of a small stone tossed in the water reach to all the shores of perception and action as waves of change. Remembering that the root meaning of "eco-" means "house," these changes are collectively intended to harmonize with and support the laws and means of nature without harm to its systems on any level of ecology, as Stewardship, of this, our global home.

We know that there is no certainty or law that says our collective experience, encompassed as the Human experiment, will succeed. Nevertheless it is our will as the masters of our individual ship and collective fleets of soul, to steer as the Star of success innate in each of us in our synergized endeavor to grow into an unexpected and yet abundant fulfilment of our highest possibilities.

What to do: a mustard seed.

Recently I was confronted with a cloud of ideas that had to do with solving this or that problem in the world. This came in the form of a letter by e-mail from someone concerned with the world situation. This was my reply:

I have considered this matter for years, since my childhood. At first I took it personally, as in dealing with "my" problem. How could I do otherwise? A child learns to make do in his own environment. But as I grew up, I saw that there were others who were having the same problems as I was. I started to postulate the problem as one that "we" had, or as the problem of a bigger "I." A lot of "us" who are part of a "we" make a larger "I." Later, I found out some astonishing properties of this "I." There is even a book now, by a doctor, called The I that is we.

To make a long story short, I realized that we make our problem(s) worse by labeling them as specific to a group. In other words, names divide. I saw clearly that we disipate our energies and fight our like minded brethren by calling a problem as having specifically to do with a group o other person. We call it a problem with American teens, or with immigrants to our country, or of the illiterate in our cities, or the homeless in Chicago. We call it the terrorists, the Mafia, or the government, or the corporations o the banks. We even call it religion and the love of God. We manifest it as a race by acting like animals that defacate in the space that they live without cleaning it up.

What we fail to notice is that in dividing it up like that and not cleaning up our mess, we are missing the core perception of the problem, which is the only level at which we can do any good or effect any real change other than cosmetic. Without naming all the links in the chain, we can go directly to the piece that anchors the problem in our experience. That piece is Identity.

All problems are expressions of the activity of defining identity. Fear is the feeling of threatened identity, love is the feeling of validated identity. Fear is the threat of being a solitary entity against a hostile environment, Love is the feeling of being so One with it all that any threat of the perceived environment is trivial.

What we might need to address is how the human system of conscious awareness, which has now been proved to stem from an identical source in Africa, can globally function at every level of organization with the result of promoting and fostering the feeling of Unity with all his fellow humans, but especially with that "I" that is we.

The Human Idea is of a piece. We now know that at many levels, from the genetic to the cosmic. What we don't know is how to install a pattern of behavior in our children that is big enough to accommodate growth into a cooperative global economy. Now remember, that "economy" stems from a word that means "household management." I cannot think of a more appropriate word to encompass the enormity of all the levels of human experience from internal physiopsycospiritual health to the finding of pied a terre's sin the stars.

In the same way that my Mentor stated that "Consciousness is the Light to the Awareness of Ideas and thoughts" we can and must, if we wish to continue as a productive growing species, proceed in our relations with each other from the most fundamental of ideas. This idea has to be rooted in the muscles so deeply that we cannot harm another. and that brings it back to Identity. If I am established in the feeling that the other person is myself wearing another suit, how could I do harm? Would I harm myself? The Bhagevad Gita says "Established in Unity, act." The two forms of the golden rule say "do unto others as you would have done unto you." and "Do not do unto others what you would not have done unto you." It also o says "Know ThySelf." Could this last have a greater fruit that an experiential knowledge of the "I" that is we? Who would not want to help themselves?

This alone may be our only fundamental problem, and our only task might be to see the fundamental unity of all the seemingly seperate systems that constitutes our world. The most basic system is the human pattern and we share it, each an every single an plural one of us. We carry within us, as our own conscious awareness, the solution to all our ills. It is the recognition that WE ARE ONE is not platitude, it is a Way, but as GK Chesterton said about Christianity, "it's not that (it) doesn't work, it just hasn't been tried yet."

Rant

Jane Jacobs said in her book "The Coming Dark Age" that the disappearance of the middle class is the cause of the abyss of ignorance that constitutes such a period. My guess is that such a period is somewhat of a time of egoistic safety and power for those stuck in the trap of "wealth equals good." In my opinion, all the greedy people could have ten or more times what they think they don't have if they took others with them, i.e. promoted global popular wealth at least to just over the point where each person could have some leisure from economic pursuits and be insured of health and elder care. Along with that would have to go some education, a terrifying prospect for bankers. Such global enhancement would mean cooperation and a seeming reduction in personal power for those who control comparatively vast amounts of money.

I think that personal power without an underlayment of wisdom is a very destructive aberration of the human psyche, as far as it is based on separatism and blindness to the underlying Unity of Nature, and therefore of our ties with each other. Such might be the corporate, and especially the banking mentality of today, which in one documentary was shown to be sociopathic. But if anyone can see the "other" as an aspect of their own self, how could they do harm? Who would deliberately harm themselves? Yet the illusion of being discreet individuals allows many to seek dominance rather than cooperation. One of the forms of this dominance is the destruction of the educational system, especially any aspect of it that fosters the ability to think rationally or feel deeply. It may be why we have gone from first in education in the industrialized world to 29th in 20 years. This may very well be one of the factors in the growing, unfilled gap between the very rich and the very poor in this country.

Many look to the "American Dream" of making it on yur own. And of course, this does work, but again, it seems it is for the few. Rugged individualism also, as an American ideal, is a wonderful phase, and necessary, but it is a teen years phenomenon, necessary only for separation of the sense of self from identifying with the parents. A mature adult has a sense as well of community to which he can fully give that sense of uniqueness he has acquired through trial, and a sense of that community's interdependence with Resource. Yet we are popularly trained to be emotionally reactive, thalmic based cash cows for the comfort of the few and the destruction of all. "Be the best that you can be" should not only be the motto of the US Army recruiters, but of all the educators and their students. But in order to do that there has to be a major reassessment as to the ends and means of society, and therefor of what individuality truly means. Historically, this has happened mostly on a one-by-one basis, and we have for the most part crucified one way or another those who would lift us up, all under the auspices of fear agitated by those who would loose their economic comfort. As a good friend said, "money (of the very rich) stops progress," and this seems to be so for the general population as they are drained of economic resources by miseducation and the ideal of comfort, as corportions infest the public thoughts with false ideals, and the lack of education stops the supply of ideas and patterns fostering wisdom and insight.

A reply to someone who credited the "fish brain" as the root of evil.

I agree with you about the fish brain (also known as the reptilian or monkey brain to some) theory to some extent. One of my favorite sayings is Gandhi's reply to a reporter who asked him, after a tour of the modern wonders of London, what he thought of Western civilization. Gandhi replied "I think it would be a very good idea." I took that mostly to mean that appearance dosn't necessarily mean substance, despite our looking like, or agreeing with each other that we are cultured.

Similarly, it is my opinion that Satan, the name for the fallen Lucifer, is a symbolic--yet very functioning--aspect of awareness. More precisely, of the lack of awareness of higher functions and perceptions, particularly those having to do with the unitary nature of Being. Lucifer means "Light Bearer." In the scheme of things, it seems to me that the fall of "Lucifer" from Heaven is the development of the human ego. My mentor said that hell is the sense of separation. Conversely, the feeling of Unity can be called heaven. And this to me is the crux of "salvation." Salvation is the deliberate or serendipetous regaining of the feeling of Unity with the Source. It is why the religions that postulate a god seperate from a creation can only be misleading the "faithful." They who believe that are doomed mentally to found their belief in god as one irrevocably separate. How hellish is that? And there can be found the foundation of guilt. On the other hand, one who feels that the "other" is an aspect of his own impersonal Essence, though seemingly different, cannot do harm. Who would harm themselves? And thereon is founded an actually viable morality, as far as I can tell.

Last stage (smoothing) before firing of 24" piece, 3 views

making waves in the bathroom