Philosophy

Am I Mad?

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(almost a palindrome…the art of speaking backwards)

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people’, said Alice. ‘Oh you can’t help that,’ said the cat, ‘we are all mad here.’

…. extract from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

December 14th – the birthday of Brian

In the film ‘The Life of Brian’, when Brian was lying in a manger in Bethlehem, a group of exotic strangers with tall hats, entered the stable and started to offer him gifts. ‘Go away!’ repeatedly screams his mother. ‘But we come offering gifts,’ the magicians reply. ‘Gifts! Well why didn’t you say before!’

From birth, we are faced with a bewildering world. People are talking a language we do not understand. Later they arrange a religion for us to enter which we also do not understand. Then the poke us off to school to learn stuff we do not understand. Then we are sent off to work, until we are too old to understand. Then the great mystery wakes us up and we return from whence we came. The oddest thing is that we do not question any of this.

There is something that at a certain point in life, we would do well to understand; to look inside the Magi’s hat, so to speak. For most adults are similar to a placid audience about to watch a ‘magic show’. The magician has set up his props and practiced relentlessly until the show is seamless and the deceptions invisible to the untrained eye. The compliant audience follow the narrative and the hand gestures as if they know they have to in order for the deception to work. Sure enough, the final twist is more extraordinary than anyone’s wildest imagination. It’s a form of collective madness, but it’s fun. Like a joke, it gives us a jolt.

Recently, my dear mother died and I had to return to England for her funeral. The day after, I was sitting at London Airport for serveral hours in a somewhat depressed mood. ‘Departures Waiting’ is a compulsive merrygoround of brightly lit shops, overpriced restaurants and swathes of seating. Recently uncomfortable near horizontal chairs have been added in case you are too giddy or drunk to sit up properly. I watched my fellow passengers quizzically, for their high spirits indicated they believed they were ‘off’ on their long wished for, spring holiday in the sun. They imagined themselves sipping drinks on a beach or clubbing until the night wears thin, and had already begun to live the dream. When we arrived on the south coast of Spain, the weather was not as desired. For the next week it was windy, cold and constantly wet. It was weather that fitted my state of mind perfectly and made me think of those now, unhappy holiday makers huddled in their one star hotels playing endless rounds of cards.

‘The world is as it is’ is a simple truth but hard to realise. We tend to imagine the world is something else and mold our imaginations to fit our dream.

Once I stepped into a crowded underground train in London. There were no available seats except for one, on which a man had placed a goldfish in a polythene bag. I asked him to pick up his bag so that I could sit down. He refused saying that if he did that, the goldfish would die. I was not convinced by his conviction as he had clearly moved the fish already to get on the train, so I challenged him. His reply was the same. I decided to run with the surreal unreal. ‘Does the fish have a ticket?’ He didn’t take the bait on that hook but we continued to argue on his original fishocide position. Those around me were no doubt following this Socratean debate. A man behind me, got up and gave me his seat probably just to make me shut up. Was this kind man averse to nonsense or did he sacrifice his comfort in order to resume the ‘status qou’?

The late hypnotist and therapist Dolores Canon, spent much of her life travelling the world giving lectures and writing books on her work. She found that through hypnosis she could communicate with otherworldly entities, such as the great Nostradamus, connecting across time. One narrative given is that planet earth is presently undergoing a fundamental transition. Some souls will be able to see through the veils of secrecy of lies and tricks and frauds and take a completely new path in life; a path into what Dolores called ‘the New Earth’.

Now odd as this may sound without knowing Doloreses exemplary scientific methods, it may be obvious to readers that much in the modern western world is full of secrecy and lies and tricks and fraud. Politics is a good a example. Political parties in so called ‘democracies’ get randomly donated money to employ teams of persuaders, influencers, nudgers and even hypnotists to design their campaigns and write their speeches. The ‘Brexit’ campaign was designed and conducted in this manner, which is why those more level headed could not understand what the advantages of Brexit were and continue to be. It was all a fish; the infamous red herring.

The present build up to the elections in the United States of America should evoke a response in the average citizen voter;

‘I don’t want to vote for mad people.’

‘Oh, you can’t help that’, replies society, ‘we are all mad here.’

The world voluntarily followed (‘nothing to do with us’) China into a so called ‘pandemic’ based on a slightly harmful virus. We were told by governments across the globe that the situation was ‘unprecedented’ and the virus was deadly, despite the relatively small number of deaths compared to the normal daily death rate. The narrative of reversed common sense continued by insisting masks stopped transmission, cash spread the disease and door handles did not. Vitamin D was good for the immune system and stay indoors…etc. etc. Various novel and untested ‘vaccines’ were the solution to, what was in reality, an imaginary problem. Perhaps the phantom memory of the Black Death and so called Spanish Flu was invoked from the smoke of the cauldron of lies. If you could go back in time, you would see that those were real pandemics, killing half the population of some countries.

During the pandemic in communist China, citizens had to get a green ‘tested clear’ screen on their phones by taking a constant merry-go-round of tests every forty eight hours. The charade was absurd and only a small number of people saw through the illusion at the time at the risk of losing their jobs, fines and prison.

If you have a reflective and analytical mind, you might have been unconvinced by this carnival of absurd narratives and masked figures parading down the centre of your city like the Rio de Janeiro Carnaval on steroids!

If you are still following, let’s return to white rabbits and top hats. Clearly the only person who ever understands the magic tricks presented to the public, is the magician. We the audience, have no idea how to produce a white rabbit from an apparently empty top hat. Magicians are normal people, except that they know how to take ‘power’ from others. The audience sits open mouthed because they have given away their observational and thinking faculties (their power) to a devious stranger.

We all have the means to take back our power from whoever and whatever is trying to decieve us…even if it takes decades. If we are not in the dream, then we cannot be manipulated by it. This is the answer to those who ask ‘what is the meaning of life?’ Life in a lunatic asylum has no meaning. Only those with a truly objective view from high above the clouds might see the slights of hand and madness.

This following paragraph is distressing but real. In the Crocus City Hall in Moscow recently, gunmen shot dead at least 137 members of the audience and injured many more. These were people who had entered the hall for an entertaining evening, as they have done many times before. They would never have expected the horror that confronted them. The headline on ABC News is, ‘Moscow theatre shooting fans flames of a disinformation war.’ Not only did the audience anticipate nothing of the horror of that night but afterwards, governments produced ‘disinformation’ supporting their different versions of the facts.

A macabre example of ‘waking up’ to end this essay but a necessary prod in the ribs because we are all guilty of sleep walking through most of our lives.

In a mad back to front world, it is logical to refer to a ‘fairy story’ for a breath of common sense. Sleeping Beauty is a story familiar to most of us and yet it has a deeper provenance and meaning. In ancient Egypt, the god Osiris is killed by his evil son Seth and placed into a coffin and then a tree. This represents Osisris experiencing a life in a material body on earth. He sleeps whilst in the tree as does Sleeping Beauty for they are both unaware that they are dreaming and mistake dreams for life. In the case of Osiris it is his wife Isis, who discovers him and puts his broken body back together. Similarly, Sleeping Beauty is restored with a kiss from an enlightened being; her prince.

The tales are dark, as is any tale of murder, and yet we lovingly narrate them to our children and let their unconscious minds piece together the ageless wisdom and truth in the story.

The process of learning or ‘waking up’ is a mystery to most, but in present times, the cry to us all is just that, and wake up before you die, not afterwards.

The theatrical tricks and wobbling scenery that we witness daily, should be forcing us to ask the question;

Am I mad or is it everyone else?

Hot Cross Males

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There is a tradition in England to bake special buns at the end of the Christian period of Lent. These are characterised by a white cross symbolising the cross on which, they believe, Jesus the Christ was crucified.

We are familiar with one of the meanings of the word cross is ‘annoyance’. Insignificant in itself but keep it in mind as you read on.

When I was a young student of architecture in London, we had lectures on the philosophy of architecture. I was greatly influenced by an American anthropologist named John Steel, whose philosophy of life in general appeared innovative and exciting to me. He said, for instance, that we should be wary of using right angles in our designs. He sited the geometry of astrology where an angle of 90 degrees indicates a clash, as does 180 degrees. In contrast, the angles of 60 and 120 degrees are harmonious.

I set about designing with architectural plans based on equilateral triangles. Other tutors cited the work of the great American architect Frank Llyod Wright who used this grid extensively. His buildings are greatly valued today for their harmonious relationship with nature and an ambience of content.

In the Chinese order of landscape and building design known as Feng Shui, the corner created by a right angle is called a ‘poisoned arrow’ and needs careful mitigation.

What this is leading up to is an invitation to consider the universal symbol of the cross; two lines that cross each other at right angles. It might be that it is not so benign a symbol after all; if only because it is a depiction of the causing extreme death of a human being.

The symbol of the cross is of course far older than Christianity, whether on the diagonal, vertical or the many other variations.

We should also remember the variation of the spinning cross known as the Swastika and it’s modern association with Facism. The spinning cross was a symbol of the sun for ancient cultures all over world. The Nazi’s reversed it’s direction in a doubtless, intentional Satanic reference because they studied and practiced spirituality for it’s power.

Jesus the Christ called himself ‘the light of the world’ and ‘the son of God’; but we rely on translations for this and it is possible that he came as the solar deity whom the ancient Greeks named Appollo. If modern day Christians are uncomfortable with this association then they are invited to read deeper into this subject.

Whether or not any of the above is absolutely true or relevent is not my thesis. Suffice to say that the crossing of straight lines is generally, a male and solar symbol.

Historically, much of mankind’s evolution over the last millenia, has been male or solar in character and I would argue that it is natural we would expect history to be filled with accounts of male humans fighting; war, opposition.

What was desperate to happen, in terms of human evolution, was the rise of the complimentary feminine principle known as the Divine Feminine. For we are not so bound by our religious dogmas today as to deny that God is equally female and male. The old stereo type of a white bearded ‘nice guy’ needs to be put into the ‘no longer believable box’. Humans were made in the image of the Divine male and the Divine female. Their physical bodies hold more in common than difference meaning the two genders have more in common than difference and are complementary in nature.

The power and relevance of the divine feminine appears in ancient Egypt. Their pantheon is a full of female gods as well as male. Isis and Osiris almost share the same name and are depicted, just as Mary and Joseph, with a divine child from their union.

This balanced recognition of Divinity as a whole ‘yin and yang’ complimentaryness should have informed all of human endeavour to the present day but sadly, the alpha-male energy jumped ahead of the game.

There were exponents of this Divine androgeny based on ancient Egyptian texts, the Greek Cabala and Jewish Cabala and Hermiticism, but they had to operate as a secret society. They were the Rosicrucians whose symbol was a vertical cross with a rose at it’s centre. The meaning is clear; that of a combination of male and female Divine energies forming a Unity.

At a similar time came another religion based on the house of Abraham, Islam. Whilst today many Islamic cultural dogmas (such as dress codes) are based on tribe and tradition. In countries like Iran, enforcement of dress codes if enforced more for male power than to solve any problem. Early Islam was a beacon of feminine influence in society at many levels such as architecture and art. Sufi poets aspired loving feelings towards a soft and nuturing, Creator. Islamic architecture is renowned for it’s flowing depictions of nature and it’s geometric patterns. Courtyards and landscapes were intended as earthly depictions of paradise and were characterised by soft flowing waters and fountains. The contemplative, reflecting, geometric ponds in the Alhambra Palace and castle in Spain, were invitations for reflection and enjoying the solar heat from the cool embrace of shadowed courtyards.

Islam was and is, fundamentally, a lunar religion, still represented today by it’s use of the lunar rather than the solar calendar and it’s use of the crescent moon as a symbol.

This ‘feminine principle’ was carried by returning crusaders and travelling troubadours to the Christian Europe as chivalry. Many of the Crusader knights learnt from Islam the importance of respecting women and the essence that women contained and expressed in enchanting, subtle ways. This sea change should not be underestimated as it continues to inform and revolutionise the feminine principle in modern societies; expressed as ‘feminism’ in modern politics but culturally is far more profound.

The ‘Round Table’ of King Arthur was a practical representation of the sharing of power amongst equals. This replaced the Alpha-male monarch of previous centuries who killed all who opposed him. The circle is a geometric form which expresses harmony and potential infinite expansion and/or introspection. It is a planet and a universe all at once and has none of the negative values associated with a cross. But most of all, it is the maternal womb and the expression of the greatest thing that the Divine Feminine has to offer; completion and life.

It is today, in many European and other progressive countries, that women have been given principle parts to play in the affairs of government and social order. Their plain speaking and intuitive understanding of complexity, is in contrast to the previous male dominated ways. As leaders they have become highly respected, such as Ursula Gertrud von de Leyen in the European parliament.

So may we this Spring season of renewal, view the ending of the male, solar dominated world (open to all to view across North America as a solar eclipse on 8th April 2024) and welcome those gifts that the Divine feminine brings to us in abundance; the natural world, procreation love and an end to those hot cross males!


The Solar Eclipse; a moment for feelings or fiesta?

The Wizard of Light

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We Are Off to See the Wizard!

Most of us live ‘out there’. We see and feel our skin as the join between us and ‘that’; whatever ‘that’ is. For more and more people, the outside world is being discovered to be ‘not what it seems’ or in common parlance ‘fake’.

Films like The Matrix trilogy highlight the idea that what we look at is no more than some sort of construction. But who is making this illusory world?

In medieval times, before psychiatry and psychoanalysis, it was a widely held hypothesis that a being called God made the world and us. God therefore, had to be responsible for the running of human and if that gave you a problem you had an option to pray. Prayer was the only way humans were able to feel they had a say in the matter or else they abandoned themselves to kismet or fate. Both are soft options and unrealised humans, like soft options.

Mystics however held a different view, from times well before the Essenes and their Star pupil, Jesus the Christ. Mystics never believed in the story of an all controlling, Commander in Chief, deity. Instead they experienced directly a love of ‘God within’. As beings made ‘in the image of God’ (the literal consequence of what we now call fractal geometry) we are indeed God or as the poet and mystic Rumi said, a fragment of the mirror of God that shattered into countless pieces. We are, in other words, a shell within which energy and Mind (which is not us) are facilitated.

Picture a movie projector plugged into the electric wall socket and a light shining within the magic box. Out of the eye of this box are projected moving images in a most compelling way.

Because of a certain suseptability within the human mind, our attention becomes fixed on the world ‘out there’. Our attention moves from ‘here’ and ‘this’ (Self), to outside ourselves and we are transported to wherever and whatever (ego). So ‘ordinary life’ revolves around us in a merry go round that we call ‘experience’. Indeed it is because of our growing addiction to this series of dream sequences, that life can become a blur. In modern times the spinning world appears faster than ever and in a way and as a consequence, many feel overwhelmed by a lack of clarity and control. But there is a mechanism by which we can halt the confusion.

The ancient Greeks had an interesting take on how the human eye works. Whilst today we describe the eye as a camera or receiver of light, the ancient Greeks understood it as a projector. They thought the eye projected light, but perhaps they were describing how the process of mental projection works? Could it be that they intuited the idea that we create everything we see?

Quantum physics tells us that we are able to affect what we see by being an observer. The conundrum of Schroedinger’s cat imagines two realities present at the same time. Until the human observer makes a choice, the cat is both alive and dead.

When Jesus the Christ preached, ‘you are the light of the world’ he meant that we hold the power within ourselves to be not only our own light (God), but able to illuminate the whole universe. We hold tremendous power and he demonstrated this with miracles. Moses did the same when one of his followers walked into the rising tide of the Red Sea to certain death…except instead reality shifted and the waters receded. Parting waters was one of the many spectacular ‘tricks’ in ancient Egyptian magic.

We know that in Ancient Egypt the so called ‘Emerald Tablets’ of the demi-god Thoth or Djbuti instructed all beings to ‘seek light’. This is not as simple a process as it sounds of course. The illusion of reality is strong and shadows and false figures have to be ruthlessly eliminated in what mystics call ‘the hero’s journey’. The archetype of the hero as a warrior on the physical plane is nothing compared to the life long war of mystics and seers for understanding of themselves or enlightenment. This inner battle is the true and only meaning of the Islamic ‘Jihad’, whereby the veils that cover the inner light are tantalisingly removed, represented by the dance of the seven veils and the tantalising feeling of the hidden essence.

It is important to understand how all of this can apply to our own modern lives. One of the great ‘inhibitors’ to the removal of the veils is, ironically, religion. I shall not name and shame any particular religion because they are probably all guilty in my view.

How religion interrupts and corrupts the ‘hero’s journey’, is by promoting the description of the world as being ‘out there’. Most distracting of all is the notion that the saints and the angels and the Divine are all ‘out there’.

We might smile at the Renaissance painting of an old man sitting on a cloud today, as the archetypal God, but such a distortion of reality is still widely believed. Prayers are offered ‘to God’ as if such a being has both the time and interest in our self obsession. ‘You get on with it!’ one might hear a Divine voice command dismissively. Certainly in Christianity, humans were given ‘freewill’ at the beginning in the Garden of Eden, as a punishment rather than a gift. This Divine curse means we are always ‘on our own’.

If it sounds like heresy that God may not listen to prayers, then you are probably missing the point. Prayer was never intended to benefit a Universal Mind because God is by definition, complete in every way. Prayer is a mechanical process whereby a human mind can open paths to the human Soul, using those words that are not of one’s ego. Muslims are compelled to pray five times a day because it stops the ego in it’s tracks and can send our concentration inward. The body is bent in submission and the forehead (brow chakra) touches the ground. The arrogance of the ego is positioned (in Sajda) lower than the heart chakra, where Soul resides.

This process of ‘submission’ is found in most gnostic practises as a way of overcoming the constant demands of the lesser self (ego) and becoming aligned with the higher self (Self).

The words of the prophets to ‘know thyself’ are a hint to what today we might call ‘therapy’ or ‘psychoanalysis’. But these will not take you to a destination. They are principally an unveiling of an archetypal journey which is to travel inward to one’s higher Self, with skip in your step.

Body, Mind, Spirit and Heart on the Golden Road to the Wizard of Self 
picture credit Pacific Standard

Back to the Present

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The present is the greatest gift

I visited my mechanic at his garage a few weeks ago and was surprised to find the place deserted. But an impressive Delorean sports car sat there with it’s rear engine exposed as if ready for ‘take off’. After a few moments of wonder, the garage owner appeared wiping his hands on a rag. ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘I thought you had gone back to the future!’

He didn’t laugh and had probably heard the joke all morning but it made me think on the film ‘Back to the Future’. What a nonsense premise for a story I always think. Odd that in a society that considers itself rational and scientific, writers are fascinated by illogical impossibilities and their absurd consequences. Such non-real accounts are of course, fiction, and humans have an ability that is often taken for granted; to live in factual and fictional worlds simultaneously.

Films like this such as Disney’s ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ introduce concepts of non-linear time that I do not believe children are likely to understand or benefit from. Contrary to Lewis Carroll’s original concept, a character known as ‘Time’ played by Johnny Depp, is central to the story as Alice time travels to change the past.

‘You cannot change the past!’ screams Alice at one point in the film.

The same insight applies to the future…a simple fact that children would do well to be taught at an early age. But of course, science fiction knows no end to the concept of jumping forwards and backwards along the illusion of linear time.

‘The Time Machine’, directed by George Pal, 1960. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Whilst Western fiction writers are sending their characters off ‘through time’ in absurd contraptions, philosophers and some indigenous tribes like the Dogon, describe a ‘non-linear time’ model in which all pasts, presents and futures exist together.

Just as one needs a map to know a destination, a time traveller needs to know the where and when of a proposed journey. There are many oracle card designers and readers in Western societies today; overtaking the famous ‘Tarot’. An ‘oracle reader’ will use cards to predict ‘the future’ but preface the prediction with ‘this is only one of many futures.’

It would be good for us all, in my view, if we admit that the fourth dimension which we call ‘time’ is a mysterious, filtered perception and, in my view, better left so.

What then? Well, this leaves us with ‘the present’ and we should not feel the lesser for it. Perhaps we should pause and seriously contemplate how much we live in the present and how much in selected memories of past and an imaginary future.

I have noticed how older people, enjoying the last flourish of their lives, tend to talk too much about things that they have done in the past. Sometimes these stories contain humour or valuable life lessons but mostly they are experiences intended to impress rather than amuse or inform.

This phenomena is not only applicable to personal history, but also scholars of global history, politics, religions and any subject that has come and gone.

We tend to understand now, that history is ‘written by the victors’. Writers filter facts in order to record a biased account for intentional or unintentional reasons. Politicians of all colours, do the same. We tend to put previous leaders on pedestals and forget their misjudgements and misdeeds. For example Winston Randolph Churchill was a man whose military mistakes are overlooked for his finer qualities of oratory and leadership. Nelson R. Mandela was an ANC terrorist imprisoned for his acts and yet later was awarded the Nobel peace prize for laying down the foundations of equality of the races and democracy in South Africa. Mother Teresa valued ‘poverty’ so much she rarely distributed the money she was given to the poor. Are these people really good role models for future generations?

The further back into the past one investigates, the more imagination and conjecture colours and shades reality. Religions have a hard time presenting a solid case around revered or ‘holy’ prophets and saints for the same reasons. The main difference compared to politics, in my view, is that for religions, ‘faith’ can be used to excuse the unprovable.

Religious scriptures that do not change endure, because they can be trusted. The dynasties of ancient Egypt could be argued to have remained powerful through thousands of years for this very reason. An nnovatory pharaoh, such as Akhenaten, was overruled by the priests on his death and past traditions restored.

Today academics study the past, apparently for it’s own sake. A cabinet full of Stone Age flints, for instance, is meaningless to the ordinary person. In contrast, the causes and consequences of war might be considered worthy of study and learning lessons, but this rarely happens. For this we pay a price and wars continue to this day.

The tales of olden times, told around the camp fire by our ancestors, sustained knowledge and wisdom, whereas today there is little such continuity and consensus for our children.

Past and future are fraught with conjecture, imagination, bias, incomplete facts and false reasoning. I suggest that the value of both the past and future as treated in the West today, is at best limited and at worst, misleading.

Which leaves us with the present. The ancient Greeks had a word for the quality of the present moment which is ‘kairos’. It describes the true value of every moment. When they measured time with solar shadows or lunar observations for purely practical reasons, they called it ‘chronos’. The two were distinct and even turn up in the Holy Bible in Acts 13:18 and 27:9 .

In the East, ancient thinkers have encapsulated the same idea; such as in Zen Buddhism and Taoism. In Zen, the meditator is kept in the moment by being struck with a stick by the teacher, should a student’s mind be observed to be wandering.

But perhaps it is a surprise to find the same understanding also described in the Holy Bible. Ephesians 5, 15-17, James 4 and Psalm 118 all refer to and imply an awareness of the quality of the ‘God filled’ moment. What the ancient Greeks called ‘chronos’ is time as a measured ‘tick’ of time, however this might be done. This, apart from being helpful when arranging appointments, is a double edged concept that creates the stress of having to avoid ‘lateness’ and ‘sloth’ and ‘waste’.

‘What a complete waste of time!’, we say and yet how is this ever possible?

In contrast, the kairos moments embrace all our thoughts and actions and give grace for inspiration to enter a persons soul. Those who only measure time experience the frustration which we call ‘impatience’.

In Western Judaeo-Christian history, there has always been an understanding of not only the right moment to perform an action but a right season. For instance, there are times in the Jewish Astrological calendar that is it wise to start a new enterprise. This is the month of March or Aries in astrology. If one is wishing to start a new business, for instance, then the unique qualities of this part of the solar year, add benefit to the enterprise and make it more likely to succeed.

The contrast between chronos and kairos concepts of time bear a parallel resemblance to a ‘five senses’ life and an ‘inner senses’ life respectively. The majority of the population are primarily engaged in the former; particularly the agnostics who believe that when the watch winds down, it is dead. Non such ‘clockwork minds’ are able to give less importance to the five senses and develop awareness of ‘Mind’. Mind is what is happening within ones body / mind unity, as a microcosm of everything in the Universe.

This ‘universal’ way of life, is one of the many graces obtainable through being sensible of the subtle, ‘unmeasured’, qualities of our soul and being present in it.

The poet and mystic William Blake expressed this most perfectly in his poem

Auguries of Innocence;

‘To see a world in a grain of sand,

And heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour,’

The Silence of Words

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Words have both sound and meaning and it is these aspects of words that I shall explore in this essay. My case shall be that there is a subtle and hidden level of meaning contained in the abscence of words as well within words; a fact we tend to ignore in our conventional Western tradition.

A child, when it is born, has no words in it’s head. It has not heard human language and it’s world is without word. It is an obvious yet obscure fact that every human infant is capable of learning any spoken language. It listens, and then one miraculous day – ‘da da’ – it speaks.

From that moment on this organic computer learns what we call an ‘operating system’ based on a language; amazingly, any language. This is all very marvellous and yet in the future our language inhibits meaning, rather than expands it.

At a certain stage in life, we might reflect and realise how words dominate our perception. We have become slaves to both the external and internal chatter of ‘things’. Words run away with themselves in our heads and much of the time we might wonder who we are and who is in charge.

Slavery of the body by another is a very old problem but slavery of the mind is even older. Early philosophers like Socrates, were sent to prison and even forced to commit suicide on account of their desire to cut through the prison bars of language and thought.

Religious and philosophical minds have, at various moments in history, produced a key to unlock the chains that hold us enslaved. In the West, this was done by encoding ritual using a language people did not understand.

In Catholicism this was the Latin language spoken by bilingual priests. Sadly, in recent times church elders have allowed religious incantations to be delivered in the vernacular. The congregation, who previously had been held rather in awe and suspense by the mystery of Mass, suddenly had this balloon popped and replaced by the humdrumness of ‘understanding’. Mystery was unwrapped like presents on Christmas day.

The ghost of Christmas Present

Only those with a deeper calling, such as Christian monks and nuns, are told to move their consciousness away from the meaning of the incantations and ‘just say the words with your mouth’ and ‘keep your consciousness on the presence of God.’ The mystical revelation was that words deceive by reducing mystery to common ‘understanding’. No one explained this to the uninitiated.

In contrast, Islam has not fallen into this trap and in most countries the original words of Divine Revelation are spoken in the original Arabic. Vast swathes of the Qur’an are learnt and recited, without necessarily knowing their meaning, by non-Arabic speakers. When spoken aloud the sound is as important as the meaning as the sounds of the holy words and phrases, even single letters, transmit a power from the Divine.

Exceptionally Mustafa Kemal Ata turk, President of Turkey in the 1920’s and 1930’s, ordered the Quran to be translated into Turkish as part of his ‘modernisation’ political philosophy. Nothing, as they say, is sacred.

Let us pause for a moment and consider the leap of faith that is being suggested here. Behind stories, myths and legends there was always a sacred understanding transmitted from generation to generation. For instance, the mystery of the ‘white stag’ that skips over the horizon or pales into the mist, so evading the hunter, is a mystery that captures and teases with a sense of rapture and bafflement.

This is ‘not knowing’ and has a value that has been largely ignored by ‘rational’ thinkers in the West.

The modern film ‘The Deer Hunter’ 1978 picks up on this theme of and man’s insignificance when compared to the mysteries of Nature. Amidst the heavy hammers of industrialisation, depicted poetically in the opening sequences of a steel works in Western Pennsylvania the central character ‘Mike’ proposes a hunting trip to his friends.

“You know what those are? Those are sun dogs… It means a blessing on the hunter sent by the Great Wolf to his children… It’s an old Indian thing.”

It is hard normally, to sustain this sense of mystery in life, as we reduce it to ‘catch phrases’ and cliché in conversation. We talk to much and our words rattle around other people’s heads like toy trains on a table top track.

Personally, I have always enjoyed travelling in non-English speaking countries and not understanding a word anyone is saying. Instead of grabbing a phrase book to attempt to understand the hubble and bubble of random conversations, I smell the unusual air and absorb the colour of exotic flowers. In essence, the mind can and should be permitted to stand still and pause. There is benefit, if not buying vegetables in a market, from concentrating on the profound reality of consciousness without words; what we might call ‘being aliveness’.

Lewis Carroll, is one of the great nonsense poets in the English language and has guided children and adults into the land of ‘not thinking’ for over a hundred years. ‘Beware the Jabberwocky’ is neither useful nor profound information, without mask or disguise. This sense of the absurd is like a door into the ‘not normal’, a place children love and adults avoid.

It would be wrong to be completely dismissive about words. In poetry and other sublimely expressive forms of language, they can explore and reveal areas of ourselves that are beyond thought, emotions and intuition. Initiation ceremonies into mystery schools are designed to bring about a consciousness that is completely without explanation by language; otherwise books would have replaced all knowledge and experience.

Unfortunately, in the roundabout of real and virtual worlds that we experience today, words come to us in a repetitive form. Anyone who has started to learn a language other than their mother tongue, will understand what it feels like to talk like a child to another adult. We converse like fools and (not wanting to insult the intelligence of animals), like ‘talking animals’.

If we are to search beyond the meaning of words, as far as our human soul will allow, then words perform a function most purely as sound; with or without a perceived meaning. This sound is the most fundamental form of creativity and inevitably appears in multiple opening verses of Genesis in the Bible that begin with, ‘And God said…’. In English these words have meaning but in the original Aramaic their would also be a magical power to the expression, just as magicians incant ‘spells’…Abracadabra! Words have the quality of spells and are learnt by a process dependent on ‘spelling’.

Pure sounds have an effect upon the human energetic system, in a most fundamental way, which is why the music we listen to is so important; as creative energy devoid of meaning. Destructive music such as Heavy Metal, attacks our ethereal essence and can lead to mental and physical illness, should we allow it. The Ancient Chinese respected ‘harmonious’ music for this very reason and viewed the opposite as a signature of decadence in decline in the State.

At the other extreme, music of a spiritual nature elevates our mood and perception in an experiential way. Various mystical traditions around the world, such as Sufism within Islam, embrace these ethereal qualities of music with ecstatic chanting.

There is a tradition in Yoga called Mantra Yoga which uses the repetition of sounds either silently or aloud to stimulate the human subtle energy system known as the ‘chakra’ and at the same time, stop the internal babble of the ordinary mind.

The Universe (of which we are a microcosm) is a cloud of sound as well as electromagnetic energy. Even the planets of our solar system vibrate at a different frequencies to one another and this mysterious concert has been recorded by modern astrophysicists. It is akin to the ‘music’ heard by mystics in trance as a constant hum or combination of harmonious overtones. Pythagoras proposed that the Sun, Moon and planets all emit their own unique hum based on their orbital revolution, and that the quality of life on Earth reflects the tenor of celestial sounds which are imperceptible to the human ear. This truth has often been represented allegorically in Western art as ‘choirs of angels’ playing musical instruments such as the harp and trumpet.

Perhaps the greatest example of the decadence that words can bring is contained in the Biblical story of the building of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. Here the Divine restraint from advancement of civilisation was used to confuse mankind with multiple languages instead of just one. The English language translates the word ‘babble’ as to ‘talk rapidly and continuously in a foolish, excited, or incomprehensible way’. Turn on your television sets today and discover that nothing has changed since this Biblical event! The world spins and makes us giddy, words fail us, we argue and fight, and all fall down.

In the Eastern philosophies, you will find a great emphasis on non-verbal communication. Much of the Japanese tea ceremonies are conducted in silence and participants are taught to ‘know’ how to conduct the ceremony without the interruption of words. A Japanese friend of mine was late for her tea ceremony class and found herself standing outside the room in which the class was taking place. She knew she would be judged on knowing exactly when to open the door and enter the room.

‘Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.’ Lao Tsu

Life and Death

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The Garden of Now

There is a tradition at this time of the solar year, of celebrating death. In South America there is the ‘Day of the Death’ and in Europe, ‘Halloween’ and ‘All Saints Day’. We see this archetype most vividly in nature as the cycle of death and rebirth. Many prophets and ancient gods lived out this archetype in their life story; one of the most famous being Jesus of Nazareth who was ‘resurrected from the dead’. The same archetype is celebrated in China at a different season, in the spring equinox as ‘Qingming’ when families celebrate their ancestors. To a dualistic mind; either end of the stick of ‘change’ will do.

The Day of the Dead in Mexico picture credit: NBC News

Archetypes such as ‘life and death’ exist in all space and all time. They do not go away. Proof of this is that they exist in every moment of our daily lives.

I signed up for an on-line course last week which was a series of lectures given by Dr. Caroline Myss in Vancouver, Canada. Now since I am in Spain the ‘live’ presentation saved me and the environment, cost.

I have always been rather blasé about the benefit of ‘live’ broadcasts on the internet. I could not feel or understand the difference between a live broadcast and a recording. But as soon as I sat in the virtual ‘lobby’ waiting for the first lecture to start, listening to the virtual ‘hubbub’ of the live audience from around the world, I felt and realised the difference. It was exciting to be part of something happening in the present moment, in a way that recorded media is not.

Curious is it not? Recorded media is dead; out of time, out of the present.

Thoughts about the nature of time arose in my mind when the audience I have joined are sat down for a morning lecture and I am in the last rays of the setting sun. The ‘present’ is not a function of time or space. What we experience is our perception changing; what we observe in the present moment, does not.

Only now, as Earthling astronauts, can we acknowledge that there is only one globe. The idea that there are hundreds of sovereign states and ‘I am a citizen’ is outdated. Ancient Greeks had ‘city states’, Empires had ‘countries’ and now, in modern times, we just have ‘planet Earth’.

Thinking of the reason for this evolutionary process, it has always been science and technology that has brought societal change throughout history. For centuries people crossed rivers in boots and then boats. The ‘boatman’, whom you paid to take you across a river or estuary, appears in many ancient myths and legends. The most famous of which is probably ‘Charon’, the ferryman of Hades in Greek myth. He took souls who had left their bodies, across the rivers Acheron and Styx between the lands of the living and the dead.

Sometime in history, physical river crossings by boat were made obsolete by bridges which are probably one of the most revolutionising engineering achievements ever. The bridge builders of the 19th Century like Isambard Kingdom Brunel became the ‘celebrities’ of their time.

The concept of the suspension bridge, was to erect two towers (11) on each side of the river and string sagging wires between them in an inverted catenary arch. From these wires was hung the flat road and / or rail line.

I am writing this on the 11th November 2023, shortly after the celebration of the passage of the ‘Day of the Dead’ and the ‘dying sun’. The numbers 11 and 11 are not lost on those who understand numerology and there are many commentators who will explain better than I. The armistice after the 1st World War was declared on this day on the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

The future of the United States of America pivoted on an axis when the sky line of the city of New York changed forever, as souls were lost in the Twin Towers.

The least I need to suggest here however is that these numbers represent the archetype of change and form a sort of ‘portal’ or ‘gateway’ for human souls. A modern suspension bridge is a representation of this metaphor of transition; from here to there. A bridge enables a two-way flow of people’s souls; from life to death and death to life.

Another phenomena of the suspension bridge which was not anticipated by the engineers was that in an unusually strong wind the roadway will begin to resonate and flex, which in the extreme has torn a bridge down. Winds are associated with ‘change’ and decades as well as seasons are subject to archetypal change. The aircraft encountering ‘turbulence’ is a cause to tighten you seat belt.

The conflict in the Holy Land at present, is a manifestation, in my view, of decades of turbulence that are finally manifesting as an uncontrollable and destructive resonance. Decisions made historically by the wrong people for the wrong reasons, are finally showing their tragic poor design and fragility.

The Middle East conflicts highlight the question of where mankind is going in the future; when the pendulum of ‘war and peace’ finally stops.

British Army
‘Figure 11 Target’

A catalyst for such a transition awaits us in the coming years or decades. This may be controversial but, whether you believe it will happen or not, the appearance of a non-human race on planet earth would be just such a catalyst. Whilst Hollywood and other government controlled media outlets with a covert ‘social engineering’ agenda, have done their best to portray ‘aliens’ as ‘alien’ (the clue is in the word) we should expect life, not death, from their integration with humanity.

Scientists who have devoted themselves to investigating governments and the ‘deep state’, such as Dr. Stephen Greer in the USA, describe a race of benign spiritual beings waiting in the wings. Their presence has long been known but the time for humanity to ‘upgrade’ by accepting that ‘we are not alone’, is for the Watchers to decide.

This would be the introduction of a third leg to the two legged stool (‘us and them’ dualistic mentality) on which humanity now sits and would be a great stabiliser for the Earth and its living things; from microbes to whales.

Suddenly the priorities that governments might face would not be how to overcome ‘enemies’ but how to balance the eco systems of the earth and regulate the use of earth’s bounty.

The ravaging forest fires as well as natural destruction by rising seas, volcanoes and earthquakes are portents of the world to come. Efforts to re-balance the living planet are vital now, in my view, in the way any ‘life and death’ situation is given priority.

The garden is a metaphor for benign harmonious change through design. Adam, in a state of unique bliss, was it’s first inhabitant but everything changed when ‘dualistic’ thinking, represented by Eve, changed everything. But it doesn’t have to be that way and all that is needed is or humans to non-dualise their thoughts and feelings, live in the present, to be in harmony with what is out there.

The James Webb telescope recently spotted a ‘new star’; just fifty thousand earth years old! This protostar is one thousand three hundred light years from Earth, but it’s images are real enough to make us pause and think. How small we are in the design on the Garden but strangely we have within ourselves a part of it’s salvation by becoming masters of our own lives and deaths.

A New Flower in the Garden

Finding Oneself

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Spiritual Love

How ironic that this present and looming war, is centred on the so called ‘Holy Land’. This small corner of the world has been the centre of spiritual love for millenniums.

What we should remember however is that those who wear religion as a mask, commit crimes against both humanity and themselves.

‘To thine own self be true.’

When the media use the names of the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, we should be fully aware that anyone can pick up this badge and wear it. It does not mean that a person represents that religion. Only by their actions will their true character and beliefs be revealed. Then we can make up your minds whether we are watching the work the Divine or the Devil.

I have written before about how weak the English language defines and describes ‘love’ (see my blog above called ‘Fifty Shades of Love’). A primary colour in the many shades of ‘love’, is ‘spiritual love’.

It is easier to define spiritual love by what it is not rather than what it is. Certainly it is not romantic love between humans. This is held in high regard by many societies and often rightly so, but when it fails it does so cataclysmically. The union of two ‘selves’ is tainted by projection of one’s anima or animus onto another, hidden bias, false expectation, unfounded optimism, lust and many other aspects of ‘being human’. These have played out in our theatres and cinema screens since the beginning of time.

To understand spiritual love it is essential to be able to see oneself as four components. The acronym BAHAMAS formed in my mind in a dream the other night and this is what it means;

Body:- most people confuse themselves with their body. The Buddhists cleverly ask that if you lose a leg are you not still yourself? Clearly, we are contained in a body, but are not one.

Heart:- this implies the emotional centre of ourselves which scientists observe is far more important in decision making than we give credit for. It achieves a high level of understanding through empathy and non verbal intelligence.

Mind:- again another place that people believe is where their ‘self’ resides. Certainly the brain is a sophisticated organic centre of consciousness but ‘Self’ can exist outside of the body as proved by many who are conscious post mortem, and return to tell the tale.

Soul or Spirit:- however you define these terms ( and many philosophers and religions differ) there is an overwhelming conscious feeling in most people of a power and intelligence within that is not us, but at the same time is us.

With these four categories it becomes slightly easier to understand what ‘be true to oneself’ means. For the ‘Self’ with a capital S (and the ego ‘self’ with a lower case s), is where spiritual love enters and emerges from within the experience we call ‘ourself’.

It is that part which the ‘crown chakra’ (in the Hindu description of the energetic human ‘body’) plays an important part. Along with the Pituitary and Pineal brain centred glands, it is the anatomical equivalent of the modem and microwave dish!

Energy (of the non-electromagnetic debased kind) containing information is universally present for all humans. The benign aspect of this is known as ‘Divine Love’ and my previous blog ‘The Poetic Universe’ attempts to describe this process. The destructive aspect of this is simply an ineffectively weak aspect of Divine Love which is known as ‘The Devil’. Remember that Hell is full of angels. This characteristic of ‘ineffective weakness’ is being played out in the Middle East at the present time and historically is how all quarrels begin; by weak or absent energetic characteristics such as compassion and respect for self and others. Such weakness can also be viewed as the absence of Divine Love or more precisely, a disasterous weakening of that Love which in good times brings happiness and fulfilment to all creatures on Earth and the planet itself.

Seen through the reverse end of this telescope, humans appear very small. But in reality we contain the Universe and this contradiction is evident in the truth already mentioned; ‘that we are not our bodies’. The only part of ourselves for which there is evidence (near death experiences and past life regression) of being eternal, is our Soul or Spirit. This is despite not being able to see it, in the same way we cannot see our head. Logically one should deny the invisible, or change perspective, or imagine what it is and this is what people do – but it does not help.

The human experience, physically and metaphorically, grinds down most of us and some end up as dust sooner than they may have liked. It is all part of being this illusionary entity which changes depending on from which angle it is viewed or imagined. Like Alice in Wonderland, we also can become hopelessly inflated (consider ‘celebrity culture’ and how these souls deal with fame or not) or hopelessly deflated; known presently as mental illness and depression.

Only by overcoming this Tsunamic wave of illusionary experience can humans identify with the ‘still small point’ of spiritual love which they contain. This is the Divinity within them and ironically, is not the ‘small self’ they once believed themselves to be.

What is left after the destruction of the ego by this wave is nothing and something. That something is a small light that somehow avoided being smothered. It has the quality of eternity because it reveals itself as indestructible. It is the ‘love of God’. English expresses this very well because ‘love of God’ implies a two way love between the lover and the beloved. In human love (which is a faint copy of spiritual love) this is known as ‘requited love’.

When human love goes wrong is when the love is not reciprocated. Many stories and enactments on stage and screen, feature this most heart breaking of human conditions.

The golden lining to this cloud however, is that it casts light on how spiritual love is free of the entitlement, judgment and placing of conditions (the marriage contract for instance) that stifles many romances.

Again, the only hope that can arise from this very low point in human history and consciousness, is that from this pit may crawl some who will see the folly of it all. In those few may rise a new society founded on the oldest principles in the Holy Books of ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. This instruction was given to humanity knowing full well, how weak and pathetic we can become when we are blinded by ego and fail to realise who We truly are.

The Poetic Universe

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“No matter what plans you make,

No matter what you acquire,

The thief will enter from the unguarded side.

Be occupied then with what you really value,

and let the thief take something else.“

Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273)

“The thief left it behind,

The moon at the window.”

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

You may wonder why many great mystics have used poetry to express themselves. The masters who have written volumes of scholarly books might look across the writing table at the snoring companion who finished writing after just a few lines.

Brevity in speech and writing is not accomplished easily. Winston Churchill remarked how much easier it is to write a half hour speech than a five minute one. This paradox is perhaps why men of few words are misunderstood, when they should be revered. In a world where technology encourages everyone to ‘have their say’, words are flying around the globe with a speed and volume never known before.

Yet ‘saying more with less’ is surely an art well worth remembering and putting to good use?

If poetry were an equation then let us suppose, it would look like this;

1 + 1 = 3

To explain:

There is a principle of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole.

The first ‘1’ is a simple fact or what we call ‘information’. It is like a railway timetable or menu. It is not generally revealing of anything except as an aid to the general running of things.

The second ‘1’ is knowledge. It is again fairly basic but more subtle to acquire as it comes with experience, understanding and manipulation of all that ‘information’.

Strangely their sum is not ‘2’. When a person acquires a significant amount of information and knowledge during their life, a moment is reached, or at least grasped out for, which conflates facts and knowledge into wisdom which is represented as ‘3’. Wisdom has the quality of the unexpected and often comes as a jolt or joke…as in the Japanese Koan or the royal court Jester’s flippant remark.

In the game of chess this is represented as the ‘knights move’. The knight decides to take what Robert Frost describes in his famouse poem as ‘The Road Not Taken’.

Wisdom has the same quality as; ‘that’s it!’

So why does poetry use brevity to such effect?

We might define a poem as;

…the realisation of ideas using few words…

This runs counter to most modern philosophy and thought where books are written on obscure subjects using specific terms. In other words, if you used these ideas in conversation with those not conversant with them; no one would understand you.

By drawing back from the minutely specific, a poet has the advantage of not only using fewer words, but unexpected ones that suddenly make sense. There becomes an understanding already in place between the writer and the reader through shared experience of life and perhaps, intution. This might be described as a resonance between a subtle sequence of words and the experience to which they refer. If the reader has not had that life experience, as in a child for instance, then the poem cannot be understood.

Tuning forks work as a metaphor for resonance in the physical world. Usually in the physics lab, they are of similar size but if we use ‘philosophical’ tuning forks, then an infinitely large tuning fork will animate a very small one and visa versa.

Resonance picture credit: Quanta Magazine

In this way, as we experience life, we become literally ‘attuned’ to the Universe. There is a Universal tuning fork and a human one. The human feels the energy of the Universe and the information/knowledge/wisdom that travels with the resonant waves. (Remarkable recordings of sounds have now been made from the planets in the solar system which should be heard to believe!) Beyond this level of vibration is the Perfect Word which we might call Mind or God.

The Ancient Egyptians may have understood this or something similar, as they built temples at several times a larger scale than the proportions of the human body. We know that much of the beauty of the body is a product of precise use of sacred proportions.

In his book ‘The Temple in Man’; Schwaller de Lubitz laid images of an upscaled human body over plans of Temples in Luxor. The proportions known as the Golden Mean and Fibonacci series (as evident in the natural processes of growth and fractal patterns in nature) were used to amplify the resonant frequencies focused in and emanating from the Holy of Holies. By this way whatever was contained and protected within the Holy of Holies – such as a statue of a god in Ancient Egypt or the Ark of the Covenant when in possession of the Hebrews – became energised by universal wisdom or one might say; alive.

Scaled down to the human body is our own ‘Holy of Holies’; the human heart. It is placed in the body at a point of focus, so that when metaphorically cleansed and open, the Universal resonances can tune into the own body’s resonance. What you become is whatever energy you focus on in this lifetime whether demonic or angelic, factual or wise, destructive or creative.

The choice as always, is ours. It will there reflect, your truths and generate into the world the messages which you will relay to other people; just as a mobile or cell phone relay station, receives and transmits microwaves.

As an aside, the manifestation of crop circles in certain parts of the world is, in my view, this same effect. Wisdom from inter-dimensional intelligences is being expressed as diagrams and projected onto the surface of the globe. These diagrams are in a way visual poems; very precise and full of meaning. By merely looking at the patterns, it is said, their message can be absorbed and understood; even unconsciously as in the mandala paintings of the East.

We Are Forever

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From Nowhere to Infinity

Dualistic thinking has a lot to answer for in Western societies. It works in part, but like all approximations, it reaches a point where it is no longer true. What I mean by this I shall illustrated with the following Mullah Nasrudin story.

There was once a King who called all his wise men together. He challenged them to come forward with the largest number that they could imagine. They stroked their beards and looked up to the sky but none could come up with an answer. Hearing of this intellectual challenged in the market place the Mullah Nasrudin begged for an audience with the King as he believed he knew the answer. The King granted his wish and the Wise men and courtiers gathered around to hear his answer.

‘The answer is 348’ announced Mullah.

‘Ptah!’ scorned the head of the Wise men, ‘what about 349?’

‘Oh yes,’ replied the Mullah looking rather downcast but then smiling said, ‘at least I was close.’

Counting is useful but when infinity is placed into the calculation, all hell lets loose. To illustrate this point let us consider the ‘Big Bang’ theory of the creation of the universe. Because in dualistic thinking, everything has a beginning and end it is assumed that so must the Universe. Therefore everything we see today was once not existing before the Big Bang, and one day in the future, will no longer exist. But is this idea a product of truthful observation or thoughts restricted by their own boundaries or a ‘thought cage’? Even the concept of ‘time’ is a ‘thought cage’ where an hour has a beginning and an end. This is true for an observer with a clock, but for a person living in a rain forest, is a meaningless idea.

Certainly if we observe how nature works, everything is cyclic including our own bodies. Within the turning of this circle there is a constant rebirth present, which is by any definition ‘infinite’.

Computer science settled on the idea of ‘on’ and ‘off’ ones and zeros. This carried things along for a few decades but then it reached the cage bars. It could no longer expand. So along came quantum computers which used a new premise of ‘on and off’ being present concurrently. To comprehend the extraordinary effect of this, is not within the scope of this essay but be amazed.

Quantum Computer picture credit: Science Magazine

Perhaps the ‘hippie scientists’ in Silicon Valley had meditated on the Ying Yang symbol for so long that they finally realised, that opposites contain each other. Opposites are not opposite. Beginnings contain ends and ends contain beginnings. This is not a western way of thinking so it took a while for the penny to drop. Off contains on and the other way around, and All is contained in a circular (infinite) whole.

The ‘wheel’ symbol came to the West possibly through the Tarot card named ‘The World’ and itself from the Alchemists depiction of the snake eating it’s tail. Like the spherical rolling ball and the Toroid, these representations of the infinite…a number that has no beginning and no end and no instrument to measure it.

No clock = No start = No time = No end

The James Webb Space Telescope has been staring into space for a few years now. Whilst there will always be various interpretations of what is being observed by the telescope, a well known physicist named Roger Penrose has come to some cage breaking ideas around the Big Bang. Apparently the JWST records galaxies as shrinking rather than expanding as predicted by the Big Bang theory. This means that light from these galaxies is not being stretched and, whilst the non-scientiest will not fully understanding this or other evidence of ‘red shifts being overlarge’, Roger Penrose concludes that ‘there was no Big Bang‘ and ‘time does not exist’. There is a video on You Tube featuring an interview with Roger Penrose for those intrigued.

Suffice to say for the purposes of this essay, that this conclusion can potentially change everything we think and feel in Western societies.

Personally, I have always been a ‘Big Bang’ sceptic and at the risk of sounding smug, I wrote to Sir Fred Hoyle in the late 1970’s suggesting just this. I cited the Hindu story of the ‘Churning of the Ocean of Milk’ imagining space as the ocean of milk. The Churning is brought about in an endless Cosmic tug-of-war between Angels and Demons and a rather discontented snake acting as a the rope. He replied that he had heard of the infinite Universe concept but that he was not convinced.

So what can we learn if there was no Big Bang, provided we are able to agree that this is the more likely theory? Personally I find it rather reassuring that science is able to catch up with what the hitch hikers in the galaxy would simply call ‘common sense’. Obviously you cannot have nothing one day and a whole load of super expanding something in the next nano second. But you can have a whole load of super contracting something becoming a whole load a expanding something.

Put simply this is just like breathing. We breath in and this creates our breath out. Each Universe (and Metaverse and beyond) is an exhalation of dust from dust of the previous cosmic intake of breath. For ‘dust’ also read ‘energy’ as both are interchangeable and that fact is how one can pass through the cosmic nostrils at the moment breathing changes direction.

Add some vibration to the dust and you get waves which in the Old Testament, Genesis calls ‘the Word’. Just as waves on the beach create wave patterns on a sandy beach at low tide, so matter begins to take form.

At a personal level, we are born as spirit (or wave energy if you prefer) into a physical body. Marlo Morgan is an American medical doctor who lived amongst the Real People in Australia. She was initiated into their way of life and ideas in stages;

Female Healer: Do you understand how long forever is?

Marlo Morgan: Yes I understand.

Female Healer: Then we can tell you something else. All humans are spirits only visiting this world. All spirits are forever beings.

Extract from Marlo Morgan’s book ‘Mutant Message Down Under, page 93.

At a few dimensional levels above is the same concept that the Divine Consciousness is within us as infinite consciousness outside of time and space.

With no time and space there is no fixed point for the Divine Consciousness. Logically, with no fixed point (what psychicist invent as ‘singularity’ to explain the Big Bang) there is only forever and ubiquity.

And the ‘Divine Consciousness’ that humans contain in microcosm means that like the Universe we also come and go as spirit moving through matter having a ‘human experience’.

Now that is something to think about and if you are totally blown away by the reassurance the idea brings, it is something to be grateful for.

Australian Aboriginal Painting picture credit: Blanton Museum of Art

Repeat Repeat

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A Bomber crew are flying across a desert. Suddenly, all four engines cut out. They have miscalculated their fuel. The pilot sees a small dot of green below and glides the plane down to crash close by. The navigator lays the pilot down in the shade of a palm tree for the pilot has broken his leg. They discuss what to do and the navigator says he will explore at dusk on a bearing of 90 degrees. He does so and comes back in the morning reporting not having found anything. The next night he does the same with the same result. The pilot asks him why he set off in the same direction as the night before. The navigator replies that he wanted to be sure where he was going, by following his footprints.

That’s how many people get around, even those who can loose of their habits but do not. We learn a route and just keep going the same way. Probably the majority of the human population know how to get to only a limited number places, lierally and metaphorically, limiting their life experience.

In defence of this ‘keeping to a well known track’, humans live complex lives and repetition is a coping mechanism. We know that animals act in exactly the same way, scurrying through undergrowth on well worn paths and so doing become meat for hunters.

As humans should we not be more adventurous than animals? Even in our ‘modern’ city lives our culture encourages ‘everyday’ repitition. Many people listen to their favourite music tracks using the ‘repeat’ button the listen over and over again. Some book their holidays the day they return to go back to the same hotel a year later.

Like everything, exploring the unusual starts in our imagination. As creators we can imagine a thing and make it happen. That is very powerful but when a person lacks the ability to ‘think big’ or ‘out of the box’, then how can they progress through life? When you listen to conversation it is common to hear figures of speech such as ‘so’ (to start a sentence with a conjunction!), ‘to be honest’ or ‘in terms of’ repeated endlessly. They lack the ability to string together a line of words imaginatively without using meaningless words and phrases endlessly. Perhaps they are thinking faster than they speak and have never applied themselves to slow down. Perhaps their habitual words have become unconscious and if you challenged them you would only convince them they say ‘you know’ constantly by recording and playing back their conversations.

There is a verbal game show on BBC Radio 4 in which contestants have to speak for a minute without repetition, deviation or hesitation. It is not as easy as it sounds.

Sadly, much conversation involves listening to others giving accounts of situations in which they found themselves in the past. A simple trigger word such as ‘electricity’ will start them off on a story of how their house had no electricity for three days and they ran out of candles and matches they read books by more candles they found under the kitchen sink. If they have a partner, that person will be rolling their eyes because they have heard this story ad infinitum.

Repetition is boring. I said, repetition is boring.

Subtlety though, even something new, can quickly become a mere copy / repeat. The world of fashion for instance, challenges designers to think of some new design that has never been done before even if it is something as mundane as a new fabric design or hue.

‘Everybody, this year, is wearing blue!’

The designs hit the factories which start to make thousands of identical garments. At the office party the bosses wife discovers she is wearing exactly the same dress as his secretary. The secretary should have gone for the pink dress but had been made to feel it was ‘unfashionable’ by those who are paid to ‘set the trends’.

Japanese Soccer Fans pitcture credit: BBC

Happy souls who support a football team will do so with a level of loyalty that has them acting in greater unison than a school of fish; wearing the same football shirt, sitting in the same seat, eating the same hamburgers, singing the same songs.

Originality knows how to run for the hills, if we let it.

Religions are perhaps the strictest social organiser. They demand complete obedience to certain set norms in dress, behaviour and ritual; down to the greatest detail. Repetition of phrases, verses and even complete Holy books illustrates how humans can reduce their super computer brains to being mere SD cards, when prompted.

So what can be done to release humanity from reptition? How do we make the navigator in our heads walk on a bearing of 91 degrees and then 92 degrees each night; until a village is found at 112 degrees?

Sometimes it takes no more than just a mere tweek, to add variety to life. Those who commute to work probably follow the same route each day for years. Yet, there will always be other routes available even if they may take a minute or so longer. There may be alternative means of travel such as walking or riding a bicycle, performing cart wheels or sliding on ice. ‘Walking buses’ for groups of children is an excellent example of how simple changes can invigorate human activity.

Artists have always been beacons of innovative method and expression. Every author sits down and writes a book that no one has read before. It may follow perennial themes of love and war, but the story and characters will be entirely original. The more boundaries of literary norms that are broken the greater the appreciation of the book. James Joyce’s Ulysses is an example of stunningly novel literary…novel.

In every human activity success comes when imagination and the ability to explore the imagination, fuse into the entirely original. This is true for science as well as art, politics, engineering, design, exploration and all things humans reach out to in order to excel.

Learning how to think is a subject which is not taught in schools. This must surely be a folly partly produced by those who think repetitively. It is assumed that children already know how to think in the same way they acquire language; by repetition. This is true, of but of course the thinking skills involved in early learning are at risk of being mere copies of adults mechanical patterns of thinking. Psychologists like Edward de Bono created thinking tools that enabled the ability to think into infinity, or at least where no metaphorical human had thought before. Managers in commerce and industry sent their staff to learn his techniques and used them to gain commercial advantage.

If you asked the man or woman in the street to make up a new word in ten seconds, they would probably stumble. If you taught them the technique of substituting one vowel for another the task is simple. For example, ‘cat’ become cet, or cit or cot or cut. There we have two new words with no meaning yet ascribed.

Ask a friend to do something in the next minute that they have never done before and they might well just stare at the ceiling for a minute because that is what they always do when they cannot think. A person for whom imagination has no boundaries will roll up their shirt sleeve, dip their elbow in a tin of custard and write their name on the ceiling.

There we have two ends of the same problem. Thinking and acting via mere repetition and doing the same but in innovative ways. Somewhere in between these two extremes is a happy medium.

The human brain that can engage in acting whilst ‘not thinking’ such as a Zen Buddhist monk, can change their world. The pattern of logical thought becomes short circuited and the meditators brain changes frequency quite literally, to a completely new level.

Even though a Zen Buddhist monastery teaches using repetition, there is a level of awareness that eventually arises of it’s own accord; above the casual and ordinary whilst in the casual and ordinary.

In this way the world which humans perceive becomes unlimited and infinite in it’s possibilities. It is neither repetition nor innovation, but it is something. This insight is captured in the line which the singer Donovan wrote based on Buddhist philosophy;

‘First there is a mountain then there is no mountain then there is.’

How we live ultimately comes down to the energy patterns in our neural pathways; in the brain and spine and various nerve plexuses. How we think is directly related to how our synapses are used to work and from children and according even to gender, we run our own brains in increasingly mechanical ways.

At a more subtle level, our energy centres, or chakras, are also subject to becoming inbalanced due to overuse in one area or another. This is a whole new subject which I explore in another website chakracard.wordpress.com. But suffice to say that we live enclosed in what Don Juan in Carlos Castaneda’s book ‘The Fire From Within’ describes as a ‘luminous egg’. This is our energetic connection with the subtle worlds beyond physicality. This ‘egg’ can also be another boundary which Don Juan calls a ‘cocoon’. He explains , and I will give him the last word;

‘A mere glimpse of the eternity outside of the cocoon is enough to disrupt the coziness of our inventory.’ page 115

Picture credit: Tolteclightwarrior