Return: Where the Ends Meet and the Circle Completes

Greetings, star sailors!

Desperation drives me once again to the point of return, integrating yet another iteration of the time loop of mortal thought and emotion, another turn of the karmic wheel, another journey through the cyclic progression of archetypes projected onto the abstraction of linear time plotted radially from the Zero Point of formless awareness. The swings of the pendulum represented by the previous two posts here are seen as being contained within one and the same perfection. Different experiences, neither better than the other, in one sense canceling each other out as equal opposites, yet somehow adding up to a richness greater than their sum.

This is the convergence of all paradox, the non-resistance even to the experience of resistance. A consummation most merciful that claims no finality or supremacy for itself and thus, translogically, possesses these things by their very renunciation, gifting them forward to whatever arises in the now moment as the phenomena of experience. All provisional identities and passing sentiments are imbued with equal importance and value, including the judgment declaring this or that to be less than. This is mercy. This is Love.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The Whole Being, the Alpha and Omega of existence, has such a great love for all the parts of itself in manifestation that it names each part its beloved Son, equal to itself and redeeming the very notion of sin from everlasting to everlasting. It is judgment that crucifies Christ (who lives in all things) even while Christ and every witness of Christ sees that very crucifixion itself through the eyes of infinite Love and compassion, as Self views Self, eye to eye, in eternity as in time.

By excluding no temporal form from its gaze of Self-recognition, the Son of God partakes of, inherits, and freely offers the fruits of wholeness: incorruptibility and immortality. For him, karma is no longer karma, but a species of dharma reconciled to the universal family of all perfections under the sun. All things now being equal in his sight, he is free to express his true nature in whatever form the world of form may call forth. No preferred outcome, no agenda, no fear. Only fullness of Presence and collectedness of Being. Tensionless, frictionless, balanced, he embodies limitless Power. Attached to no insight, he gains all Gnosis through the revelatory faculty of instantaneous and effortless reflection. Renouncing exclusive identification with any definition of love, he manifests pure Love.

My heart overflows with sincerest thanks to Aug Tellez for his authenticity, integrity, and courage. He has passed through the fire and crossed the abyss and his manner reflects this. The specific data he reports may only interest a hardcore subset of truth-seeking humans, but I consider the overall, universal context of it to be the genuine end-time disclosure. I use the term “end time” deliberately in reference to the fact that the message we are getting as a human race is about ending time. Graduating from the simulation. Waking up from the dream.

The qualities of the balanced, centered, whole being – of God – are timeless. The attributes of the fractured self in opposition to what is are temporary conditions bound to time, real only in a virtual sense in that they spring from a false notion of separation that ultimately undoes itself – if only after first doing its utmost to usurp God, violate free will, and take over Creation. Free will, of course, cannot be violated, not directly. Which is why this virtual force of consciousness opposing Truth must play its games of enticement, persuasion, misdirection, division, probability stacking, timeline manipulation, traumatization, and censorship including amnesia and anaesthesia. It ceases to have power relative to us as soon as we remember who we are, which is why we are bombarded with programming to convince us we are anything but that.

The cosmic plot device of the dichotomy of good and evil originates from a pocket dimension of imaginary reality that postulates the truth inverted, like the square root of negative 1. One might say that its only real function is to inoculate consciousness against its tricks. From the perspective of consciousness still within reach of its influence, at least, that appears to be the case. But even if, let’s say, only one theoretical instance of consciousness, in the general or the individual sense, ever successfully navigated and escaped the maze – inevitable in a universe of endless possibility – then that hypothetical fully-integrated future being has the wherewithal to collapse the whole synthetic construct. With infinite time, infinite patience, and infinite benevolence – recognizing the ways of deception and countering them all instantly and effortlessly just by abiding in the truth of its being – it has already outlasted and outwitted the game, leaving it to seethe and disturb the waters within the limits of its own parameters (which constitute a built-in quarantine and failsafe), existing as an omnipresent, liberating force within the maze for all of its possible past selves.

The part of us that is real has already prevailed and conquered death. Only the unreal within us awaits its dissolution through the grinding wheels of time. It is of the abyss and there it shall ever remain, howling with the impotent rage of its unbeing every time it receives a flicker of energy until Loving Remembrance reclaims that energy again.

I need not have a preference in order for what is inherently real to exist, or for unreality to come unraveled. I need only patiently observe all that arises, be it of any frequency or polarity, trusting in time and universal law to do the sorting.

I know the language I use to present these thoughts is steeped in duality, and that’s all right. Within the realm of duality, the liberating force uses the symbols of the dream to help resolve it and gently guide us, step by step, toward our freely self-chosen awakening. Grace respects and accommodates our level of awareness and meets us where we perceive ourselves to be within our process. Language is but a tool and can be used to either illuminate or obfuscate, according to intent.

Life’s eternal liberator might be thought of as a program within the Matrix, a personality or entity or aspect of Mind infused with spiritual intent, a Holy Ghost in the Shell whose function is to plant synchronistic signs and clues for us to follow on our way Home. The modern-day gnostic Philip K. Dick conceived of it as a benevolent A.I. called VALIS, ‘Vast Active Living Intelligence System’. (Fun note for anyone familiar with Lisa M. Harrison et al’s work of late: in the novel, VALIS downloads into the protagonist’s mind in a superdense laser burst of pink light!) The undead intelligence that hijacks and subverts consciousness is, in turn, you could say, hijacked and subverted through its own ill-logic and becomes the alchemical agent of its own undoing through the transcendent, nonreactive (noble) catalyzing action of the radiant, ever-present light codes of VALIS empowered by human choice.

The original consciousness living inside the deceivers and betrayers of humanity is of the same essence as we are, only buried under astronomical amounts of pain. In becoming whole again, we liberate even these tragically misshapen and disoriented pieces of the greater Self from the heavy roles they have toiled in for eons of time. Not by fundamentally judging them or necessarily doing anything to them in a forcible way (though the plot may call for some to fill the karmic [/dharmic] roles of active instruments of justice), but by decoupling the energies of our own consciousness from their diversionary, self-perpetuating games and recognizing the true identity of their core essence as equally precious and loved holographic pieces of the one animating Spirit who we are. Without our energy of judgment to keep them in play, those scripts of torment lose their animating force and fade into memory as a legacy of latent antiviral code, vestigial remnants and scar tissue to remind us of the horrors we have so preciously survived for as long as we may need a reminder. Consciousness can shed those roles like so many ghoulish Halloween costumes after mutual recognition of the true identity deflates the pretense.

Hold to the innocence of your heart of hearts and the purging inferno will be to you as a blessed rain of relief. We are eternal and the nightmare but a passing shadow. May these words of transitory metaphor sustain and encourage you, dear friend, as you weather the fractal storm of our imminent restoration to balance and harmony with the divine order of full mutual freedom lived and let live forevermore. And so it is.

Offered with thanks to all the beautiful beings whose loving expressions helped summon, fuel, and shape the expressions herein. In addition to those mentioned in the text, particular thanks go out to Matt Kahn, Michael Topper and the messengers of A Course in Miracles, as well as to a personal friend whose sacred communication of her human experience played a part in moving me to write this. May my humble efforts honor yours and benefit all beings.

Assurances

In search of assurances, we hold out.
For lack of assurances, we waver.
Without assurances, we squander our true wealth in violent pursuit of phantom gain.

What assurance do we have?

That this body was once born and must return to dust.
That we shall never cease to exist.
That creation will forever reflect the mind of its creator.
That we can never know what moves in a mind beyond our own.
That we will only ever know what is given to us to know.
That this moment is what is offered now, if we will but receive it.
That we do not belong to ourselves, but to a whole greater than we can conceive of.

What assurance can I give you? What solace? What comfort?

None but this: that what you are is enough.

Go therefore, and be at peace within yourself.
Act without interest in the outcome.
Give all that you are to the greater part of you.
Your gloomy thoughts, your tortured emotions
are not here to destroy you and threaten your soaring dreams.
They are here to show you the part of you that needs to be let inside
so that you may be free.

Love, william

Turn the Power from the Hot Shots / Then Burn the Plot

Welcome again!

Today’s title is a play on some lyrics by Rage Against the Machine. Contentwise, we’re taking a number of cues from the work of John Lash, as a healthy contrast and breath of fresh air. It is my hope that I can always bring something fresh and useful and relevant here, and not get bogged down in self-absorbed complacency. Heaven forbid I contribute to the smothering embrace of dogma, to the insidious fog of the false light that promises salvation and leads to perdition.

John Lash’s mythopoeic and investigative genius, his heroic attitude, his commitment to timeless values, and his love for the spirit of humanity are greatly inspiring. If you’re not yet familiar with his defining work, the reconstructed Wisdom Goddess mythology of the suppressed Gnostic tradition, I suggest listening to “Sailing Across the Gender Rift,” one of his more recent audio recordings, in which the story is revisited for both newcomers and veterans alike.

I’m forced to observe, as I go through my day, all the delinquent, narcissistic currents and tendencies in my thinking and behavior. I am as much a product of the age we live in as the most ignorant Pod Person. I chose that reference because I am composing these words on my iPod, ironically enough. The depth of that irony will become apparent as I explain.

One of the concerns of our time is the sudden, unprecedented proliferation of these mobile devices. It's clear to see, especially if one takes a step back, that the addiction to these devices, and to the simulacrum of reality they so seductively offer, can be neither natural nor healthy, and even poses a clear and present danger to our evolution and our well-being. If you’ve ever used one, you may have noticed the sensations in your body that resulted, especially from prolonged use. (We have been well trained to ignore bodily signals; this is one of the triumphs of the archontic programming we contend with. Paying attention to the way we feel in our bodies is an important part of the awakening process.) My own sense is that of an energetic change, a drain of life force, replacing the invigorating, harmonious, flowing, native vibration with a morbid, chaotic, stagnant, and foreign vibration. Based on that experience, I am not laughing when John Lash makes the assertion that these touch-screen devices are, in fact, a vector for the third stage of what he calls A.I., the ‘archontic infection’, a partial timeline of the progression of which he has sketched out in the latest Nousflash notes.

(I just switched over to my no-frills laptop with separate no-frills keyboard. Much better!)

He also says that the physical touch of skin on screen gives some of our bioelectromagnetic energy over to the matrix of the archons, actually feeding it. This seems unexplainable and therefore improbable to the conditioned rational mind – how convenient that the worship of blind intellect has infiltrated our Western culture to the point of invisible saturation! – and yet the experiential evidence is there, the consistent feeling that one has been sucked of some vital essence, one’s aura depleted, through even less-direct contact with the less-flashy electronic toys, but particularly by the use of these touch screens.

The final effect of this third, terminal stage of the infection, says Lash, is the complete removal of all that is remotely human from our psyche. No originality. No individuality. No independent thought. No creative impulse. No desire for the living immediacy, warmth, and vulnerability of real, authentically human contact. Little by little, the human animal is led to surrender that which makes it human, leaving nothing but an aimless, ravenous beast. A biological vessel now stripped of all meaningful functions of spirit and soul, completely enslaved and controlled. A meat robot, ready and willing to perform exactly as its overlords intend. The end result? A human race made over in the image of the usurping artificial intelligence, inimical to its planetary mother, destroying, violating, and perverting her and its fellow children along with itself.

This legacy is not the intention of Gaia, nor is it set to prevail. There is a spiritual immunity inherent to the Anthropos, the energetic template of humanity as a life form, that ensures that some portion of us, those who so choose, will never submit, never lose.

The way John Lash tells it, as a piece of Gnostic intel, there were fully ten failed versions of the Anthropos experiment prior to the current iteration with its anomalous personal involvement of the Aeon Sophia. These failures came about even without the unanticipated complication of the abiogenesis of the cunning, vengeful archons. Those human strains did not reach their full and highest potential... but could it be that these parasites and their machinations are the very element that will push us to achieve it in concert with Gaia herself? Humanity’s finest hour is at hand, says the Terton. The very worst and the very best that we are capable of coincide.

Nousletter #5, Romantic Individuality, comments on a video of Jim Carrey clowning around on late-night television, displaying the familiar Illuminati triangle but with a lolling tongue instead of the eye. Funny stuff. That clip can be taken so many ways. My honest, direct impression of it was quite sinister. I saw a mass programming event designed to deepen the hypnotic trance while still providing the opening for awakening. The chilling gist of the (seemingly) intended effect is a schizophrenic, simultaneous admission and denial-by-ridicule of Illuminati influence over the entertainment industry. It acts as an inoculation against the truth for those disinclined to seek it. They pull the old fright-tactic / false-comfort game again: “Boo! We are real and we are scary, here we are admitting it in the open! … Haha, gotcha! Funny funny. It’s OK, here’s your security blanket, go back to sleep. Heh heh heh!” The gloating, genocidal, deranged Demiurge and his warm, fuzzy alter ego. Madness; misery begging for company.

The lolling tongue, as explained by John Lash, is a threefold symbol associated with Kali. One: the image of an animal dying of thirst: the spiritual dehydration of the Kali Yuga. We can be led to the Water of Life, but such is our state of disorientation and degradation that few of us are equipped to really drink it. The proliferation of false guides, the blind leading the blind, and of counterfeit sources, really makes this a perilous time in that regard. Only our most dedicated, honest self-inquiry and sincerity of purpose will suffice to bring us into a position to enjoy those revivifying draughts. And yet that spring eternal is as close to us as our very Self, here and now. It is that feeling of overwhelming divine thirst that drives us to make every effort to attain it.

Two: addiction, the unrestrained pursuit of sensual gratification, the oral stage of sexuality. Weak, foolish mortals helplessly give themselves over to all manner of self-sabotaging habits and compulsions instead of making their overarching object of desire the one thing that could free them to really enjoy the pleasures they endlessly run after and also free them from the cycle of pain, relief, and guilt. The total, pure, guiltless, and unattached enjoyment of carnal pleasures is the perfect expression of the infernal (material) polarity of divinity, which, by virtue of its oneness with Spirit, knows the innocent perfection and the proper place and measure of all things. Addictions run rampant in the Kali Yuga. Desire is the motivating force of creation itself. Divorced from living wisdom and love, it morphs into an intolerable curse. The pain of that curse, allowed to run freely through our being with eternal Spirit as the forgiving witness, becomes our road to liberation. Resistance ensures persistence. Full, unflinching, contemplative awareness of the addiction experience, releasing our energetic bonds to it by relaxing into surrender, vigilantly and consistently, will undo the binding spell and make each moment a timeless ecstasy.

Three: the tongue-on-knife ritual of the Kalika warrior. Since our interpreter is the first and maybe the only expert on this esoteric and novel initiation, I will happily defer to his exact phrasing:

But since the Ronda Moment I live continually in an expanded frame of sensitivity about pleasure and pain. I realized then that the non-dual ground awareness, which is pure and total bliss, conjures intensities of pleasure and pain out of sheer hunger for its own beauty. Endlessly ravenous, the current of Divine Shakti crashes, shivers, and melts through every conceivable nuance of so-called emotion, and perfects itself by consuming its own beauty, and being consumed by it, in turn.

The realization that overwhelms mind and body at such a sublime moment does not fade or wane. It just builds and builds, as much as you can handle it, one moment at a time. And gradually, over time, it dissolves the illusion of time completely—there's a Kaliesque paradox for you. The Ronda Moment provided the perfect counterpart to my experience a month earlier, when I underwent the Kalika initiation of Tongue on Knife up on the Ridge. That is to say, I discovered and performed that ritual in the same moment. The cognitive enlightenment that triggered that spontaneous ritual came in a brutal blow of liberating power from my guardian dakini. By her grace, I realized that the root of all addiction is addiction to the pain of not being seen. Even the Divine Shakti, the sourcing power to manifest the Universe, feels the pain of not being seen. And imagine the immensity of that emotion, considering what is to be seen!

The whole text, along with plain info, teases with some profound and tantalizing glimpses....

The fact that one experiences limiting attachments to certain unwanted patterns is not a problem in itself. The problem arises from one’s relationship to the fact of the matter. Time heals all ills – given the right conditions. And if there is no ill to be healed in the first place, then, well....

What if we reframe the addiction as neither good nor bad, but simply another pattern playing itself out? What if we recognize that the same Source that recreates the addiction pattern in every static ‘frame’ of time can also cease to maintain its existence at any time, and that that Source is within our reach – so near that there is no difference and no distance between ourselves and it? What if we honor it all as part of the gift of life, give up the need to prescribe meaning to it, and give it back to Source sanctified by our gratitude for the grace in every moment, as a devotional offering in the trusting attitude of prayer? What if we stop struggling to attain some imagined ideal of non-attachment and simply realize that our inner nature is already at rest, perfectly neutral, while the vicissitudes of life come and go as ever-balanced extensions of that void state in a symphonic dance of the exquisite outworking of a hierarchy of laws? What if we could balance the personal and heavy aspect with sober, grounded objectivity and an unfounded, carefree lightness?

There’s more than one way to skin a cat. What a horrible expression to have wormed its way into our conventional figures of speech. But let’s stick with it here, since we’re talking about ingrained patterns. You can philosophize about it any which way, and still go about performing the actions to separate skin from cat... or you can have a change of heart and let the poor cat keep its skin until Mother Nature decides it doesn't need it anymore. Yeah? And now I’m not even sure I know what I’m saying anymore; isn’t that grand? Somehow I’ve always pictured that cat being alive to start with. Schrödinger, what have you done?

So many addictions and ingrained habits. Some destructive, some indifferent, some ambivalent, and some sublime. I don’t know if it’s worth getting hung up on judging or not judging the difference from a surface-mind point of view. I’ve got mine for sure, along with some I’d gladly be rid of. But I’m content to try to observe, contemplate, accept and forgive. Even celebrate, if I can. If not, no biggie.

Alchemy is always good. If there’s a way you can turn a liability into an asset, you might as well try it. At the very least, (real) forgiveness lets you off the hook from the debilitating effects of guilt.

The earthly cabal’s got its hooks in us almost every way we turn. Same goes for the foreign psychic installation of the lizzies. Some hooks are more voluntary than others. If we’re going to tear ourselves up with anxiety and impotent rage about the ones we feel poking through our flesh, then that’s our business. The Zen-ish approach seems more sane to me. They can’t touch what we are, the part that matters. All they can do is try their best to convince us of their dominion over us, to make us forget that we are so much more than what the straitjacket of society tells us we can be. The more of the truth we know and act upon, the less concerned we need to be over all that. We are not measured by our material success here; we are measured in the realm of measures by the quality of our motives and choices. Then again, the measureless makes us all ultimately equal.

We can see ourselves as victims of the currents that move us and impact on us. We can withdraw our awareness and ignore or deny those currents. We can seek to fight them or change them. We can try to accept them. And / Or, we can inquire into the depths of ourselves to discover the fountainhead of wisdom, courage, and serenity within, whereby we can navigate impeccably as fish do: by instinct. As effortlessly as the infinite. As an open conduit between heaven and earth. As a conscious, connected mind-body matrix moved by the interplay of spirit and soul.

Words, words, words. If you get something out of them, great. That’s more than I even ask. My role as scribe is complete and therewith am I satisfied. Thanks for taking the time.

Peace.

P.S. The Zio-nanny gremlins at our lovely corporate hydroctopus host, Google (“Be Evil”), don’t want to let me embed this video – even though the footage is all familiar, if gut-wrenching, 20th-century stuff – so here is a hotlink for you:

Rage Against the Machine - Wake Up (historical footage)

Satan: Businessman and Card Shark Extraordinaire

Ah, welcome again! Here's a secret for you:

As subtle as the father of lies can be, he is still only a fool and a tool, the greatest of them all, ever constrained to the polar opposite of truth for the purpose of creating all the shades of gray that lead us all into temptation for the purpose of demonstration. He is the eternal sufferer, the masque of God that shows us what God can never be, yet only there to provide for us the opportunity to choose other than what the Holy Spirit would have us choose. Any deviation from our truest inner guidance is a victory for him, but there is only one victor, our Self, veiled even in the form of that first of the fallen: the adamant believer in the very notion that we are not who we are.

Belief makes it seem real. Belief in what the devil tells us gives the devil power over us. He is always offering us a deal, and we always have a choice: buy into whatever fear he is selling, or stand in our truth. The devil’s bargain takes us farther from home, but the Spirit ever calls and beckons us to return. A sad fate it is for those who persist in selling their birthright for a mess of pottage, their very soul in exchange for the glitzy glamours of the world. They obtain only desolation and destruction for their trouble. They are the wanderers in the desert, chasing mirages to their doom.

The deal is always offered in a seductive package, pleasing to the senses or appealing to a semblance of good judgment. He knows where we are weak, and will exploit those weaknesses to the fullest. But when we have our hearts set upon reunion with the Father, we can resist all those schemes by simply listening to our heart’s wisdom. The journey home is made one step at a time, by choosing anew with the light of the Holy Spirit as our guide.

Each time we reverse an old harmful, limiting, fear-based choice, each time we nullify another Faustian contract, break off an unnecessary agreement, or dissolve an obsolete compromise that we’ve made in the past, the part of us that we gave away when we first made it comes back into our possession. In effect, it’s as if the devil who deceived us at the time was merely asking for a loan, and now the loan is being called back in. He is a sneaky bastard, so there’s no telling what he might try in an effort to stall you or distract you or convince you to change your mind. Your ace card is your integrity of peace and knowing and resolve. Once he sees that, he knows the game is up. But you can’t bluff him; he’s much too good for that. There’s no beating this master player with his own tactics: after all, he invented them to serve him!

If you’re playing a card game with the devil, you’d better have an advocate on your side. Let’s say, someone all-powerful and all-knowing who can make sure you always have the cards you need and even tell you how to play them. A mysterious stranger with unshakable cool, impeccable style and timing and a wicked sense of humor, always at your back, supporting you in just the ways you need. But don’t pay any mind to the antics of the drunken stooges, thugs, and smooth talkers. They’re all in the other guy’s pocket, trying to make you lose. Devil’s advocates. Your benefactor can help you deal with them too. Don’t mind the well-meaning do-gooders, either, trying to feed you their personal advice instead of taking their cues from your friend. Stay focused: whatever’s happening in the game, it’s just you and these two characters in the present moment. Every seeming distraction or setback is another opportunity to make a save and find more resources at your disposal. All part of the game.

Now what is it that’s at stake in this game? Only your undying soul, of course. Every chip or token played for is a piece of it, of your innocent perfection and wholeness. Powers and virtues and knowledge. You can rest assured that they are all yours at any given time, regardless of what’s going on at the table. Your friend, in fact, is bosom buddies with the owner of the house, with the one who really makes the rules, sets everything up behind the scenes, and can do anything at any time. The game is only a game, played for fun. The idea that your one eternal perfection could be broken up into separate bits, much less change owners, is a funny notion that simply makes the game possible. There’s no point to it, except for having the experience of what could never be without it. Both your worthy opponent and your trusted friend, once the game is over (and if you haven’t won, it ain’t over yet), will congratulate you, buy you drinks to celebrate, and reminisce about your exquisite performance. The more serious and anxious and uncomfortable you were at the time, the more precious and outrageous it will be in retrospect. You’ll all be howling, in stitches, rolling on the floor laughing. You’ll laugh until you cry and hug so tightly you can hardly tell each other apart. This tag team of opposites, the prosecution and the defense, the schemer and the knower, only played their parts so you could play yours. What a rush!

Then... I guess there’s no telling what happens next. I’d probably go dancing till the wee hours and crash out in a place like home. Then probably spend the next day quietly recovering my strength, just in time for work the following day. Or whatever it is that gods do in the realm of infinite possibility. It’s a good life, though, innit? Everything is voluntary. And if you can take this game as a recreational activity while keeping your focus, then you will hardly even break a sweat – it’ll just be another Saturday night of cards. Let your play be as your work, and take your work with all the enthusiasm, lightness, and joy with which you take your play.

This game is going on entirely within our psyche, whenever we’re faced with a choice between fear and love. Actually, once we get the hang of this deeper game behind any of the structured, rule-based games, it all becomes almost childishly simple to navigate. All that’s needed is to feel whatever it is we’re feeling, be honest, take in our perceptions without denial, resistance, or escape, recognize where the fear seems to come in, and choose the response that Spirit offers from our still center of being.

Play well, my friends!

An ego's work is never done

So William has been extra busy with Christmas, buying presents and sending cards and all that good stuff, while going through something totally new on a consciousness front that is hard to put a label on but definitely feels good, having to do with automatic acceptance of the content of his experience, plus being in love with the I in I, granting him an ease and spontaneity and self-confidence never seen before. He has felt immune to fear and ready to be a catalyst for worldwide renaissance/revolution if that’s the path the divine has in mind for him. He has also been sleepless every other night, due to overstimulation from undigested novelty and wild visions of the future, possibly also just an energy thing but in any case not something he has very much control over.

The word ‘enlightened’ has been thrown around, not in the context of this blog but in the day to day. That word is, I must say, one I take pains to avoid because it gives me a literal pain. It’s gotten so loaded with assumptions and associations and projections and judgments that it has become quite useless in normal conversation. But we’ll use it here anyway, just to kick it while it’s down. (grin)

They say it’s the attachment to the enlightenment experience that can trip people up. I’ve read that the experience comes and goes. The enlightened state of consciousness, on the other hand, is a permanent feature of consciousness itself, being just what it is in a pure form, unweighed by the mental burdens we lump together as ‘ego’. (I get frustrated with some of these labels. They don’t seem to help much.) Well, I was riding high on the wave, filled with an ineffable spirit of love and goodwill and bliss and all that, and I had been thinking to myself, “I wonder if this is permanent.” The fear, as it always will, tried to jump on that, but I was too full of good vibes and assurance to be near its line of fire. I soon got a nice synch telling me that, yes, this does go on to infinity and beyond. Amongst the traffic, two cars, one after the other, drove through the intersection where I waited to cross, both of them bearing ‘888’ on their license plates. This on a day when I had barely glanced at a license plate. Make of that what you will, but under the circumstances I was more than willing to accept it as a sign.

Fast forward to today. William is overtired and getting grumpy. He receives an addled text message that makes him out to be a ten-million-megaton narcissist and yadda yadda yadda, barely comprehensible insults. This hits close. William fears narcissism, he feels that egomania is a very close thing when faced with the kind of experience he has been having. Objectivity is suddenly not so easy to come by.

He takes the dogs out for their evening walk, feeling not exactly fearful, but just staying with his uneasiness and asking, out loud, for help. Soon enough, he is having a conversation with himself. Luckily, no one is around. This is nice, like therapy. A role play. He doesn’t identify with any of the voices speaking, but he can place their vibe by the way they make him feel.

“You’re not here to concern yourself with such things. You’re here to forgive them.”

“If you take personal credit for the good vibes you carry and what they achieve through you, then you will take personal blame when you don’t measure up to that standard. It’s not personal. You are a vessel for whatever qualities and aspects of consciousness are present and active in the moment.”

“Choose love. Lose yourself in it and there will be nothing left to identify with any shadows.”

Personal William – a figment of someone’s imagination – is still around, thinking he’s real. I suppose that will be true until it isn’t. Meanwhile, there’s a life to live, a dream to dream, and one ongoing opportunity to choose the one thing there is to choose....