But why Does It Matter?

There are many ways to investigate the nature of the reality we experience, and there is more than enough evidence to show that this life is much more than you may have thought. A question often arises out of all of this: why does it matter anyway?

Below are listed various benefits of the realization that many paranormal aspects of reality are real. I am not suggesting that you “decide to believe”. That is backward. First, you should decide whether to take the time to look into the truth of psi. Once the truth is realized, you will also benefit in these other ways.

Gain an understanding of the big picture- 

You will be able to understand the logic of reality: the big picture. You will find that your life experiences make better sense. The pieces will more easily fit into the puzzle. It will make life seem less random and pointless.

Disrupt the pain of the loss of a loved one-

Many are left with a sense of deep loss and grief over the loss of a loved one. When you understand how reality works, you will find that we are all immortal. You have not lost that connection with your loved one, it has just changed. You may still be sad that they are not participating in your life as they used to, but you will realize they continue to exist and participate in other more subtle ways.

Lose the fear of death-

Many people have an ongoing fear of death. When you see that the truth is, that we were not born and will never die, you realize that there is no reason to fear death. Death is very much like waking from a dream: the dream of life. Yes of course there is the fear of pain or discomfort or other aspects of the dying process, but death itself can be viewed as more of an exciting adventure than an ordeal.

Lose the sense of desperation and senselessness of life-

Many live their lives in a type of desperation. There is a mentality of “we have only one life to live, so we must grab for all that we can, and once it is over, it’s over.” When you discover the truth, that you have been down this road many times, you can gain the peace and calm that come with knowing this experience is one of many chapters in your existence. Once you are convinced that the importance and purpose of this life is about relationships and joyous living, and not about getting everything you can before you die, you can relax and enjoy the ride a bit more.

To realize you had a purpose planned for this life-

You will discover that you had a purpose for living this life, even if you can’t directly recall or immediately discover it. Although there are ways to learn more about what you had planned for this life, just the idea that you entered this life with a particular intention, can help you live with more confidence, positive energy, and joy.  

The importance of the "unreal"

When I tell people that our reality isn't actually "real", they mistakenly take my meaning as: "nothing we are seeing or doing has any meaning or any importance". This is absolutely NOT true. The importance of everything is in the experience of it.

In other words: although everything we see is NOT comprised of matter, is NOT objectively "real", the experience we are having couldn't be more real, and it has great importance.

And even further-
The stuff we experience makes us who we are, and these experiences will be with us forever, will have formed who we are, and are the critical factor in our accumulation of knowledge and wisdom, and drive the progression of our growth-path forward to whatever it is that we will eventually become. So we should not belittle these experiences we live through by seeing them as diminished by the fact that they are not "objectively real" and/or solid. We should revere them as the boards and nails with which we build the structure of our eternal selves.

Physicality

Is this thing “Physicality real” or not?

In discussions about odd occurrences in our world, we often hear people speak about whether something was “really here” in the physical. Whether the thing was “solid”.

I can imagine discussing these things in a new way. A way that allows us to deal with the fact that whether something is demonstrably “solid” is not a definitive way of saying whether it is “real”.

In 100 years “science” will look back at today’s paradigm as a childish, simplistic, naive, and patently incorrect way of viewing our reality, the same as how we look at those from flat Earth times. In some ways science already knows that it is a false representation of the fundamental basis of matter to think of it as comprised of “little pieces of matter” that can be smashed in to small and smaller bits.

At it’s smallest scale, scientists theorize that matter is actually comprised of tiny fields of electromagnetic energy. The fact that these little suckers vibrate without needing any energy input to them seems to me to violate some fundamental laws of physics, but let’s not think about that right now.

So we have this language problem, where we use the word “particle”, we really mean a large number of vibrating electromagnetic fields arranged in such a way as to behave as a single, larger group entity, and as such act as one “object”. I’m not even going to discuss whether this object exists in a physical form as “matter” (that is a whole different topic) I'm simply saying that although it is possible to describe this particle accurately (we just did), it is difficult to carry on a conversation by using that long sentence to convey a an otherwise simple meaning: so we use the word “particle” instead.

To avoid problems, we need some agreement on the meaning of the words we use. We need to agree that the word particle does not mean a little ball of stuff. It is a much more complex and nuanced arrangement of things. When scientists have conversations about these things, I think they are in much more agreement on the precise meanings, but less technical people have greatly varying assumptions built into their language, which leads to huge mis-matches between people’s understanding of each other’s meaning. This leads to major mistakes in people’s understanding of the nature of the world.

Bottom line is this- language forms conceptual models. Consequently, incorrect understanding of the meaning of a word, can easily lead to an incorrect conceptual model of the world!

In terms of whether it generally matters if objects are comprised of “little balls” of matter or organized groups of vibrating fields of energy: I would say it does not. In normal everyday life it is of little consequence to us what comprises fundamental building blocks of our apparently physical world. The real question is: do these objects persistently, objectively and independently exist?

We need to look at these three different aspects of individually to understand the actual nature of things.

Persistence refers to whether an object will continue to be perceived in a particular place if it is not acted upon by another object.

Objectivity refers to whether other observers perceive a particular object as well.

Independence refers to whether an object continues to be perceived when particular observers come and go. A key question here is whether an object is being created by its observers or whether it exists independent of them.

Consider that: the experience of physicality does not not require the actuality of “physical” objects. It is certainly possible to experience physicality (the sense that an object is “rock solid”) in a non-physical environment. Take for example: dreams and OBEs. Given this fact, let’s not confuse the experience of physicality, with the actuality of it.

Just to be clear about our terms-

Physical experience is when we sense that something is “solid”. We can touch it, feel it, smell it etc. This experience might happen in any environment (sleeping, waking, OEB, NDE, after death, etc).

Actual physical is what I am calling having the experience of physical, but specifically while awake. This is the normal case where people describe an object as being “real”.

You can see the problem with language emerging as we are describing very different things here with very similar and possibly convoluted language.

Wording aside: the difference between these two cases is both subtle and overt.

On one hand, it may matter little to an observer whether an object appears to be physical or is actually physical. If the two scenarios are indistinguishable, then what is the difference really? It’s sort of like: who cares if the universe is made of little balls of matter or little strings of energy? Does it really change our experience? Unless we are a physicist trying to study the nature of matter itself, no it generally doesn’t.

On the other hand: if our sense of physicality is simply an experience, and not an actual fact, then it means the apparently physical external universe only exists as a concept, as data. Given that material objects seem to be persistent, objective and independent, we might say that this data is somewhat “stable”, and not created or maintained by any one entity, but rather it exists as an independent thing with which we may all interact.

In dreams and other non-awake states of awareness, we find that we can no longer perceive or interact with these material objects from our awake world. During these non-awake periods we seem to be interacting with a totally separate, perhaps personal, subjective set of objects which presumably are a reflection of a different set of data over which we have substantially more control. In this state it seems also that we have substantial control over the level of physicality of the objects. Meaning: that we seem to have an impact on the rules governing how and whether we can interact with the objects. These differences of the rule-set governing the nature of how we are able to interact with objects is closely tied to what we mean when we say that something is “physical”. The problem is: in dreams when an object behaves as “solid”, we would only consider it as “physical” in our dream mind. When we are awake we might not use that word to describe it. Confusing right?

So although the experience of matter is well known to us: whether is derived from actual physical things or is really just an experience, is the question to be considered. The implications of this one question are fabulously significant to us because it redefines the whole nature of our existence. With this one extra level of understanding, we can see that perhaps all of science and technology, (which does valuable work to help us understand and live in our world) is completely missing what underlies it all.

For hundreds of years, science has been able to get by without understanding this lower, more fundamental nature of our existence. Generally science has been able to get by perfectly well, but this blind-spot has caused problems from time to time: especially when it comes to understanding some of the more esoteric aspects of our reality, such as the paranormal and even quantum physics. Until this oversight is resolved, science will continue to deny these “weird things” because they don’t have the basic tools with which to reach an understanding of them.

I have a feeling that science eventually, will be brought, however reluctantly, (kicking and screaming in-fact) to the conclusion that this aspect of our existence is quite real, and must be considered in order to reach a more complete understanding of our true nature, and how our reality is comprised. Perhaps this progress in science will need to (as Max Planck so famously said): come "one funeral at a time”.  

What About Science?

What About Science?

Another piece for my book-

In discussing these topics over the years I have occasionally been asked whether what I am saying means science is wrong. This is because most would assume that mainstream scientific theory would be in direct conflict with the types of things I am discussing about non-physical reality. After-all, how could the mainstream theory of a material based reality vs a theory which postulates that material doesn't even exist, find any common ground? Oddly enough, I think there may be quite a bit.

First of all: clearly scientific thought has had a huge impact on the life of most of the population of the planet. Every aspect of modern life is derived from one scientific development or another. It would certainly be difficult to suggest that science is irrelevant and totally based on false notions: wouldn’t it? Well,,, yes and no.

While working in the computer design world for several decades, I became very familiar with an engineering concept call “abstraction”. This approach is used because, especially in very complex systems, engineers must design the system in a series of levels, where each level serves a purpose, one building on the next. This approach allows a person or a team to concentrate on a particular aspect of the overall problem to be solved, without the need to pay much attention, or even to understand, what is going on “above” or “below” the layer on which they are working. In a computer programming situation, you might have a person working on some core part of a program, and perhaps another working on displaying the results to a screen, and perhaps a third managing the data storage. Each of these people has a problem to solve, and they just need to know how to communicate to one or more of the other layers, but are not generally concerned with the details of what the other layers are doing, or how it is being done.

A more humanistic example might be the process that ensues when you decide to start your car. You simply put the key in the ignition, and turn it, right? And the car starts. But there is an abstraction going on here. There is actually MUCH more going on that you don’t think about, (or perhaps that you would even understand) in order to start your car. There are thousands (maybe even millions) of individual steps which are necessary to accomplish the task. Luckily for you, a team of engineers have abstracted all that for you, so all you need to do is turn the key.

For the last several hundred years science has discovered smaller and small objects in our world and through understanding these objects, they have invented things: like, telescopes and advanced chemistry, and semiconductors, all of which have contributed to mankind's advancement, literally toward the stars. They have done this by leveraging the work that preceded their own. The interesting thing however, that they almost all fail to realize, is they are working on an abstracted version of reality.

So what does that actually mean?

It means that we do experience the fact that there are little bits of matter making up our world. They attract each other, and and repel each other in chemical reactions. And they seem to emit and absorb energy. And when we smash them, they they seem to be made up of smaller and small constituent parts. Our scientific community has figured out how these apparent pieces of “solid material” interact and behave. While our engineering communities have then taken advantage of these insights to design everything in our world. Their understanding of the universe, and its apparently material make-up, has been sufficient for them to accomplish incredible things. And their understanding is correct, to a point.

Here’s the rub: I am suggesting that although we all have the experience of material objects, these pieces of matter, they only exist as ideas, not as actual stuff. Just because our scientists and engineers have discovered and utilized how these apparent bits of matter behave, it doesn’t mean they are actually made of physical material. They might also be made of something else, but appear to be matter.

The bottom line is: science has made lots of valid discoveries about this thing that appears to be matter, which makes up our world, and they have a pretty good understanding of the rules governing it. All this is valid and true. However, they are almost all making a huge, incorrect and unquestioned assumption: that matter is a physical thing. That we are physical things. That our whole reality is based on physical things. There is no good reason to take this as an unquestioned fact, but they have always done so. This fallacy is the reason why our science is simultaneously correct in terms of that thing called matter, which appears to be physical, while it is also wrong because they don’t acknowledge that this thing is an abstraction. The thing they have always taken as a given, that matter is a solid thing, is only true in terms of our experience. There is an underlying process going on that has been mostly unseen for eons, that has been creating this “matter experience”. This creative mechanism is non-physical in nature and is not understood in the least, but should no longer be ignored. It seems to be associated with the enigma of consciousness. We may not understand how it works, but we should start at least acknowledging its profound impact on our world, and its role in creating the illusion of matter. And we should come to terms with the fact that our whole experience of reality is an abstraction with this non-physical mechanism of physical creation at its core.

But how could that be?

If you think about it, we are talking about trying to understand the nature of our reality, while being encompassed by (and in many ways limited by) the experience of it.

Consider a video game that simulates a world: one like “The Sims” or “World of Warcraft”. Let’s start by imagining that you are a character in a Sims world.

This Sims world is just like “real life”. There is gravity. You can walk, but not fly. If you drop an egg, it will break apart. You need to eat, or you get hungry. You need to sleep, or you get over-tired. And if you plant a seed, and water it, and the temperature and sunlight is correct, a plant will grow and fruit or vegetables will ripen.

When you go to sleep and wake up, you will find you are still in the Sim cabin with everything pretty much the same as you went to bed. The cabin still has the same number of rooms. The tree outside the door is still there. And the garden is still there, full of vegetables. Except,,, that one red tomato that you have been thinking about eating, is now half eaten. Apparently in the night that pesky gopher stopped by for a quick meal. So it looks like you are not the only creature in this world that can do things.

To you, the world is an amazing place. You occasionally wonder how this place works and why you are there, but in the end, you decide it just there is no purpose: it just IS.

That world is pretty ordinary and similar to ours. It is governed by the basic rules of physics and chemistry of which we are all familiar. It is “stable”. That is: it is pretty much the same when you awake as when you went to sleep (unlike a dream for instance), but just as in our “real” world, things do seem to be changeable. Just as in our world, those things that do change seem to be easily explained by the basic idea that matter or energy (both “material” things) can act on other matter or energy and affect it. So wind can blow down a tree. Sun can make a plant grow. And you can light a fire by rubbing two sticks together, and then cook a meal. Nothing very interesting here right?

Now lets take a look a the same situation but from our “higher” perspective in our current physical reality sitting at the computer, watching or playing with the Sims world. From our perspective we can see the plant which produced the tomato that Fred is wanting. But it doesn't exist in what WE would call a physical sense. Neither does Fred’s cabin, or the rock outside, or even Fred himself. All of these things are ideas. They are based on bits of data which were used to fabricate Fred’s world. Every tree, blade of grass, every molecule, every subatomic particle in Fred’s Sim world, is a construction by a powerful system, which is hidden from Fred but not from us. And the fundamental behaviors of Fred’s world, the rules, are all feeding into the system which is manifesting the world. So what Fred sees as a solid rock, is actually just an idea of a rock, manifested by the game system based on the data-set, and the rules governing the game.

But it sure seems real to Fred. Just yesterday he stubbed his toe on that very rock, and he felt that pain for hours. How could it NOT be real? Not be solid? It IS. He knows it more than he knows anything! He knows it just as much as he knows he is alive and breathing. He knows it to his core.

Let’s dig a little deeper.

Fred has a friend, a philosopher named Phil. Phil is always stopping buy with food and wine for Fred. They like to sit for long hours by the river, smoking cigars, and drinking wine, and talking about the big questions of life, and even of existence itself.

Phil has been giving a lot of thought to the subject of the nature of reality. He has come to the conclusion that perhaps, everything we see, touch, and hear, is illusionary. He was half way through explaining this, when Fred stood up, fuming. Fred was amazed that his good friend could be spouting such nonsense, and insulted that Phil expected him to accept such a far fetched premise. He then provided what he considered to be an inarguable demonstration that matter is undoubtedly real: “otherwise how could I do this?” he said, while he banged his fist on the table the wine spilling all over. The argument went along for quite some time, but since Phil’s contention lacked sufficient proof to overcome what Fred felt was the incontrovertible and quite obvious fact of the physical world of matter, the two finally agreed to disagree on this point.

Let’s take a look at this argument from our superior standing on the question. Although we can see why Fred may not be able to swallow what Phil was saying, we can also see that without question, Phil was correct. We know with complete certainly that the environment where they live their lives is an artificial construction. We know the rock which caused Fred such pain, is only a concept. It contains no physical aspect whatsoever. All of this is obvious to us, given our more complete perspective on their world, even though it may be inconceivable for most of the people within that world. It should not be a surprise that they are unable to see, or sense, or possibly even imagine, that the apparently solid world in which they live, doesn’t physically exist.

Let’s pause to make an important point- Of course I’m not suggesting that this little story proves anything about the state of matter in our reality. It is just a story after-all, about two characters in a fictional world designed by software engineers, which is “manifested” on a computer designed by another group of engineers.

What the story does do however, is demonstrate the principal of superior standing (or point of view). It can be clearly seen that a question which is clearly in dispute, one which would be otherwise very hard to resolve within one point of reference, may be quite obvious and easy to put to rest, with a different point of view: a point of view with higher standing on the situation. One that perhaps contains some additional knowledge of the situation that the other observers lack. In this sort of situation, not only can the truth be easily seen, but also the reason for confusion on the part of the people at the lower level of perception is also quite clear. It becomes clear that: of course the players in the game can’t see the situation they are in. How could they? They lack the necessary overview of the situation that would be necessary to make the truth obvious. The fact is however, that the truth IS available to the people in our story, it just isn’t always easy to see.

Imagine for a minute that the world we are currently living in, is such a world as Fred and Phil’s. One where although we all experience solid matter as an obvious fact, the real truth, is that matter is a construction of some kind. And not only is “it” a construction, but even YOU are a creation of some larger system. How would you know? How would you tell? How would you react if someone told you the truth?

I am suggesting that, just as in the fictional Sims example, there is the obvious answer that nearly all people would believe to be true: and then there is the hidden, but ACTUAL answer to the question.

Let’s start with the first of the questions I pose: How would you know?

In the movie The Matrix, a group was walking through a wrecked building with Neo. Neo saw a cat, and then he saw the exact same cat again. Deja Vu. Morpheus explained that this was a “glitch in the system” which indicates they are not in the real world, but rather a simulation. Morpheus had realized that they had come across an anomaly that couldn't be explained by their science, and he was alert enough to not just let it pass. He understood that it was a fleeting example of the actual nature of their reality, vs the nature that most assumed was correct.

I have found that one way to see whether what we are experiencing is material or non-physically based, is by seeing if there are aspects of the world that just don’t fit using conventional thinking or applying the conventional rules of material science. If we were to find aspects of our world that don’t fit with materialist theories, things that seem to be more based in the non-physical vs physical matter, perhaps this could crack open the whole mystery for us. That is where we will be focusing our attention for now: finding those aspects of our world that just don’t fit.

Don’t worry: I don’t ask that the reader believe the unbelievable. I suggest that if the reader can set aside their long-held beliefs, and objectively look at the data which is available, they will find that there are “glitches” in our world that are available for all of us to see, and have been there throughout the whole of recorded human existence. For all that time we have almost universally just decided to turn the other way when they occur. After-all, even if we did notice, we would probably attribute the glitch to some religious story, or myth, or superstition. In the end, we were probably too busy just surviving to really pay much attention.

More recently, especially in the past 200 years or so, we have decided to let the high priests of religion and science to do the work of looking into this. We have abdicated our personal responsibility to make sense of things, and have decided that others are better prepared through their position, education or intelligence to figure out the truth, and explain these things to us. We were probably generally right: they may have been much better prepared to look into these things than the average person.

Until just recently our inability to crack the code was quite understandable as we only had small amounts of evidence indicating the falsity of our assumed physical nature, and further, we didn’t have the statistical tools or scientific means to show us the improbability of the odd things we DID occasionally see, if indeed we noticed at all.

However, with the latest science and the www we now we have:

1- fingertip access to all nearly all of the information ever recorded,

2- scientific methods to create and run tests, and measure results, with amazing rapidity and accuracy,

3- the ability to quickly analyze data with advanced statistical tools and methods,

4- the ability to communicate with nearly everyone on earth about our findings, and theirs.

It is due to these advancements that we humans now have the ability to study the real nature of our world. And further, even those of us who aren’t scientists now have the ability to collect, review, and understand the state-of-the-art in research into the nature of our reality. Anyone with sufficient time, a computer, curiosity, and ability to comprehend, can reach their own conclusions about the nature of the world in which we exist.

But why would we need to do this important work ourselves? Aren’t “really smart” people already working on this? I mean, what happened to all those scientists? In a few cases yes smart people ARE looking into this, but unfortunately I have found that nearly all scientists are doing just what we have all done, they turn the other way when they find a glitch. Or worse: rather than investigating the data and try to make sense of it, they twist themselves in knots to explain away the things that they don’t like, or don’t understand, rather than take the time to really comprehend what they are seeing. After-all, these apparent glitches bring into question the cherished beliefs they hold dear, and which form the basis of their whole working life in science. Yes, I’m saying that the same thing that motivates most people: a good job, well fed and happy children, and a vacation once in a while, motivate a scientist. They are people after-all. All of these things that most people want, require a stable job, and this is a strong motivation toward the accepted status quo. Scientists who go “off the reservation” and start poking around trying to understand the actual nature of reality are few and far between, because there are not many good paying jobs awaiting those who do so. Better to smash bits of “matter” together at CERN, or to teach more young minds about the nature of matter in our world, and thus perpetuating the hold that materialism has on us all.

So what do you say? Ready to take a closer look?

Autumn Story

“An Autumn Story”

(This is not fiction: that is to say, not a construction of conscious thought. It happened this morning just the way I've described it)

Lot's of activity and change this week. Spent some time with one doctor discussing my improving knee and the fact that I can start getting more exercise to build it back up. While I also spent time with other doctors assessing my brain injury and how I should proceed with plans to build a life around my “new normal”.

Today turned out to be one of those spectacular sunny early fall days that exist as a picture in the hearts and minds of anyone who has spent much time in New England, the lust for which is renewed every autumn. All in all it seemed like a good day to begin a daily walking habit.

I walked in the warm sun, with a few early red and yellow leaves drifting in the soft September breeze. I walked by a pear tree at the end of the road, where the plump yellow orbs wafted a sweet lusciousness and invited a bite. And past an ancient just-mowed field where as a boy I rode my pony and where certainly generations before had done the same. The smell of a just-mowed field is one of those touch stones of youth stored away somewhere in my memory. As I walked, my mind wondered over the choices I've made, and still must make, and my imaginings ventured toward the unknown future with some trepidation.

Passing the pond where multitudes have skated and picnicked, and talked, and loved and cried, I decided to rest my sore knee beside the leaf dappled water. I sat on a stone bench erected by broken parents in the name of Brian, their child who left this plane much to soon and who played hockey on this pond so often and so many years before.

While I sat in the partial shade of a large oak I contemplated people's unease of getting older and of life's ultimate eventuality.

I paused and let my mind drift.

~

I felt the warm summer wind with the sun high in the sky as I languished there hanging from a limb. Plump and green and far from danger. An acorn. Life was good, and simple. The days were long and warm and mostly calm. Yes there was the occasional terrible wind and crashing rain which would claim some but not most of our community of nuts living in a rustling world of lush greenness.

One day I noticed that the wind blew cooler and our stems grew stiff and brittle. And first in ones and twos and eventually in great masses, our community was coming to an end. At first we ignored and denied what was happening, but after a time we each waited in fear while we prayed that our time would not be too soon, or cause us much pain. We looked upon those of us now resting motionless on the ground so far below, turning old and brown and decaying. What a pitiful sight. What awful thing had we done to deserve such an abject fate as this?

One lonesome cold day as the wind whipped and rain slashed as I wished the terror would stop but also hoping it would continue for at least one more day, there was silence. Peace. I was weightless and the thrashing noise turned to a soft woosh. It was wonderful. What magic had occurred? Had I been saved somehow? Was it because I was somehow special? Had I sufficiently pleased the bright warm god in the sky?

After a time was a bump, and another, and then rolling, and once again silent stillness.

Looking around I saw all the others, laying beside me in great masses. Still, but quite alive and looking back at me.

Given time to get used to things it was comfortable on the ground surrounded again by the others. Motionless, but in a way more content, for now there was no terror about to pounce except for the occasional bushy tailed beast who would steal away with some unlucky soul.

Like all the others, my shell slowly turned brown and there was a musty smoky perfume everywhere. It smelled pleasant. Expectant.

After a time I saw a crack appear in my neighbor's shell! He must have expired in the night and as he did his body gave way to its fate. Looking around I could see many others whose departed bodies had failed in the same dreadful way and who had left odd stems protruding from those cracks. Their guts exposed in a vulgar last display of fruitless effort to survive.

It was sad to finally realize that although just days before we had all thought we had been saved, it was only a pause in the relentless return to the dark infinity from which we were born just those few months prior. In the end we would be recycled through the ground, and although a new acorn would emerge after the long winter and spring, what would become of us? Where would all those stories of remembered warm days and cool nights and our aspirations and dreams finally end up? Apparently they would devolve to nothing as surely as our dark, now-rotting husks. Lost to eternity: in the end it seems, it would all be a complete waste.

~

Fear of the unknown. Fear of the future. Fear of the loss of existence; is a cold dark thing. It is a dye that stains deep into a soul. It changes how life is perceived and lived and loved.

As I sat there and imagined these things a single red leaf drifted and settled in my lap. I sat by the water and felt the warm sun on my face, and I looked up into the enormous tree from whence it fell. And I smiled because I could see what the acorn couldn't, or wouldn't. It was moving through a longer process than it knew. Those guts it would be spilling in its final act of rage against death were to become its first of millions of roots that would support a colossus that would live hundreds of years. That huge oak would remember all of these experiences, and over its lifespan, spawn countless like it. Each to ignorantly fumble along through its existence. Each never knowing its own magnificence but each unconsciously plotting a unique path to reach it.

I also smiled because I realized that perhaps unlike the acorn, I have been given glimpses of my own real self. Not enough to fully see and experience my eventual form but perhaps enough to see, to know, that a much deeper existence is real and it awaits. Unfortunately for the acorn it must travel successfully through each of the stages of growth to reach the point of being a great oak tree. My glimpses have shown me that I need not worry about such things. My peeks under the veil have shown that eventual transcendence, although having an unknown time and method, is inevitable. Is unavoidable.

So enough time having passed, and having other tasks ahead today, I left the side of the pond to walk home. As I left the gravel driveway and exited to my right, I began to walk, watching the 3 inch white line stretch ahead of me marking the side of the road. After several steps one (and only one) dark spot appeared on the line. As I walked past I noticed it was an acorn. A single perfect acorn with no others to be seen ahead or behind. I leaned down and picked it up. It was perfect and greenish but turning to brown.

When I rolled it over I found a crack and inside the crack, a little pale yellow shoot just inside.

That acorn sits as a reminder on my desk, perhaps considering its existence, as I sit and consider mine.

Sept 28, 2012

JKM III

------------------------

Epilogue

I have been spending a lot of time trying to improve my understanding of the nature of life, of existence, of consciousness, of reality. A big task to be sure, and perhaps a wandering road with no end, but it seems to me a reasonable cause none the less.

Circling around this topic are the existential questions: where did we come from, and upon our demise where do we “go”? In a passage from “Across The Unknown” written in the 1930's a living person was posing questions to an entity about our inability to see beyond the veil of death. This inability, to have direct experience of that which lies “beyond”, is why many rely on faith as a bedrock principal. Unfortunately, to me, and many others, “faith” is intellectually bankrupt, and anyhow far to dull an instrument to be used for such a delicate and important purpose as this: as it doesn't illuminate, but rather it sooths. The entity, which was wholly in agreement, posed something like the following:

you are like an acorn, unable to see the entirety of your situation. If only the acorn could see that what it perceives as “the end” is really just a normal transition to the next part of its existence as an oak tree.

As I thought of it, that crack in the acorn's shell is no different then the teeth falling out of a 5 year-old, or the hair from a 50 year old, or the caterpillar's move into its silken tomb. These are transitions that might be viewed as the end, and so they are in a way, but they are also incremental beginnings, and more importantly in a human these things also contain a continuity of conscious existence.

Even for those who “believe” in hereafter, the conundrum of death is mostly that they can't see the far side of the doorway through which others have passed. However, according to many accounts, we do have the ability to directly experience that door from the other side while living our lives. By directly experiencing it, this would allow a journeyer to step around “belief” altogether for the surety of a “knowing”. I have so far discovered that for me, belief is hollow. It is a knowing which I seek, and perhaps to which the road leads.       

Look more deeply-

Where the acorn sees untimely demise

The oak finds miraculous birth

JKM July 2016

"What It Takes"

~What It Takes~

It takes:

Curiosity-

to look deeply,

beyond the tall walls that others have helped you build,

and which block your way;

Fearlessness-

to face what what appears without flinching,

and to release what has become hollow;

Courage-

to reach into the dim void,

feel for what is there,

and to bring it deep into one's self with love;

Persistence-

to keep trying when 'the search for “it” '

ignores your fumbling attempts;

Patience-

to understand that the journey doesn't care

when and how you succeed,

but knows you will;

Wisdom-

to know when you have discovered the things you seek,

the things you needed to know for now,

the things you need to be,

even though you haven't yet gazed onto the full vista

from the summit of the zig-zagging trail you walk;

Confidence-

to know that the lessons which have become

an indelible part of you: are true,

and will support you and nourish you

until new paths emerge which will take you further

toward the end that drove you to look in the first place,,,

and which calls you still.

JKM

From a dream May 2016