Sunday, November 13, 2005
3. THE MAN IN THE PADDED CELL WANTS TO SAY A FEW WORDS.
What you'll find here is the full text of the INTERVIEW mentioned. It was broadcast on Nov. 12, 2005, and can be accessed for audio by the address shown on the Interview text at item #1 on this blog. The broadcasting originated somewhere in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area, for those interested. Geography, of course, being completely unimportant any more in this electronic, ether-space nowhere world we now inhabit. (I am HERE, and I am THERE, and so are you and together we are EVERYWHERE). No boundaries, no place. So sit back in your little padded spaceship and read on.
What you'll find here is the full text of the INTERVIEW mentioned. It was broadcast on Nov. 12, 2005, and can be accessed for audio by the address shown on the Interview text at item #1 on this blog. The broadcasting originated somewhere in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area, for those interested. Geography, of course, being completely unimportant any more in this electronic, ether-space nowhere world we now inhabit. (I am HERE, and I am THERE, and so are you and together we are EVERYWHERE). No boundaries, no place. So sit back in your little padded spaceship and read on.
Godless Troglodyte. Turnabout is fair-play...
No one can call me that - although it's been tried. Just today in downtown Princeton I was sitting in front of the bookstore (Micawber Books) and some Godless Troglodyte himself walks past me muttering 'Man, that guy is ugly!'. It was directed at me, but I thought to myself, 'Man, THAT guy is ugly!' And, to be truthful, I was the handsome gentleman by comparision - this other guy was a Witherspoon Street low-life and I'm not even sure WHAT he was doing in town. Princeton played Yale, in football. Princeton lost in the very last seconds - at least that's what I heard all the expensive people blabbing about. Maybe that's why THEY were there. I hate football anyway, but in a situation like this you can't help learning stuff. No excuse for the other guy - unless he was selling popcorn.
That's how I see it. Some middle-aged dude on the cellphone to his son relaying each play-by-play of the game, including his incredible disappointment and disbelief at how they lost. Who cares? Well, I suppose HE did. Many of the crowd (those who went to the game) had the tiger-striped Official Princeton v. Yale Football Program booklet in their hands, and there were, to be sure, plenty of orange/black-striped scarves. Football as fashion statement. Who would ever have thought?
No one can call me that - although it's been tried. Just today in downtown Princeton I was sitting in front of the bookstore (Micawber Books) and some Godless Troglodyte himself walks past me muttering 'Man, that guy is ugly!'. It was directed at me, but I thought to myself, 'Man, THAT guy is ugly!' And, to be truthful, I was the handsome gentleman by comparision - this other guy was a Witherspoon Street low-life and I'm not even sure WHAT he was doing in town. Princeton played Yale, in football. Princeton lost in the very last seconds - at least that's what I heard all the expensive people blabbing about. Maybe that's why THEY were there. I hate football anyway, but in a situation like this you can't help learning stuff. No excuse for the other guy - unless he was selling popcorn.
That's how I see it. Some middle-aged dude on the cellphone to his son relaying each play-by-play of the game, including his incredible disappointment and disbelief at how they lost. Who cares? Well, I suppose HE did. Many of the crowd (those who went to the game) had the tiger-striped Official Princeton v. Yale Football Program booklet in their hands, and there were, to be sure, plenty of orange/black-striped scarves. Football as fashion statement. Who would ever have thought?
TEMPORARY NAMES : the Interview
TEMPORARY NAMES : The Interview
...this interview took place over the period of Nov, 2-9. it was aired on Nov. 12, on the weekly interview show entitled 'Uncomfortable Questions', hosted by Susan Grandys. The interview can be HEARD at http://suegrandys.libsyn.com
Title: Uncomfortable Questions
List of Questions:
1. Does Evil exist? Yes, Evil exists absolutely. In fact, it colors and controls much of what we are about. The essential nature of our actions and thoughts is influenced and under assault by Evil at all times, and the minions of Evil do all that is possible to alter our perception of reality so that its Evil does not appear as such. Cloaked, embroidered, colored and concealed, much of that which is done in the name of the Good and the Positive, is, at its base, Evil. Thus, one of the paradoxes of Life as we know it is presented to us. Wow. Why would there be so much Evil? Why does it exist, and where does it come from? At the risk, this early on, of already sounding like a crazy person and having people tune out, I can only say, self-referentially, that if one looks at my #2 blogspot, 'Established Marvel, a Monk by Abbreviation', items #2 and #3 will help. Actually, you may wish to finish this interview first and then come back to this lead-off question with a better feel for what I'm saying. The long layout of human history is predicated upon a series of 'episodes' from very very long ago. Things which we've assimilated into our make-ups and myths, stories, tales, epics. Bible stuff too. The Gilgamesh story, the Upanishads, Mount Olympus and the like, the wars of the Gods, varied Creation myths, and more. We really no longer have a clue as to what they're saying, yet we foolishly invest various thought-patterns into the manipulative belief in one or another creed. Involved in all of these is an Eden-like ideal state, our first creation, and then a Fall, from which all else has grown. Quite simply, the Fall, and the Gods, are all rooted in visitations and alterations upon Earth and upon US, by agents from other realms - we CALL them Gods - wanly described in biblical stories, for instance - Ezekial, Isaiah, Enoch (see my #2 and 3 items), Genesis 6. These conflicts introduced alien influences into our world, and implanted the triumphal presence of Evil onto our experience. We are pawns, being manipulated by agents of grief. In the same sense, the Gods are not Gods, but manifests of various eternal powers with, somehow, a crowding interest in our affairs. I can't say why, frankly. Every human situation has now absorbed some facet of that presence, and we ourselves are a'swarm in the confusion of doubt and error which it all generated. All of established ways, from banking to entertainment to government to medicine, partake of error and falsehood - all of which has been implanted by Evil. Present and working in our world. Once we realize that, we can solve the dilemmas it all brings to us. It's not really difficult, as all it takes is boldness.
This entire subject is a very charged one - and remember the use of the word 'Evil' was yours. Maybe that's one of the problems - it's merely a word. Perhaps 'Negativity' would do it better, or 'Perversity' or just plain 'Falsity.' For that's what this evil is - a great falseness, a mis-representing of the world. And there's nothing more pitiable than one who goes through life misunderstanding life. It's so easy to do - turn your back on your fellows, ignore your own creative impulses, become but one of the crowd, lampoon the serious, assassinate the sincere of mind. There was a time, after all, when the world as we know it was 'right'. We were marauding tribes, we were scarce-but-creatures on the face of the land. We had nothing but our own un-learned resources. We inhabited Nature. The initial impulses were GOOD. Then consider this - the arrival of Evil, the alteration of human DNA into one after the other of 'advancing' specimens of ambidextrous groups, the interdictioin of our impulses by alien forces (literally) intent on a slavishly-beholden race. They intermingled, they taught the wrong things. They enfeebled mankind and introduced violence, tools, toil, pain, sexuality, self-awareness, greed, envy. They interbred and advanced their failing bloodlines into human DNA (where it is still present). They told us THEY were Gods. You learned of the Fertile Crescent (no pun intended)? - merely one area of alien civilizations beginning migrations across the globe. Advancing wrongdoing and advancing primitive EVIL; which we've improved upon in our own ways. We despoil, pollute, kill, ruin, cut and pillage - and in the name of Good. Merovingian bloodlines advanced ideas of royalty and right so that the alien forces could remain current - and to this day - in order to rule the world. Brainwash, conceal, fool, lie. THAT is the Evil I speak of. And that is the fabric of our day and out time.
You ask why so much evil would exist and where it would come from. I've just told you and you'll now not accept it. It came from other worlds and it has enslaved and ruined us. It has floated stories of religion and enslavement. It has advanced false tribes who claim the rights of chosen-people, and it has imbued supposedly religious kingdoms with worldly and evil powers. You will not recognize what I've just said. Just remember, we walk upon the dead of the earth - it is all underfoot.
The point of this interview format is, I suppose, to transfer information. You may hear it all but not accept. OK. For me, it's always been acceptance first - my whole effort has been putting this in written form, though not in a direct manner such as this. More like story-line, image, parable. I find it easier to do that, and I feel it is more accessible for that. I don't care about rules or the caverns where the rules are stacked up. I care about what I see and know and recognize. It's not about stealing a neighbor's wife or goods, or killing someone or speaking ill of God. Those are societal rules, and they are broken a hundred times a minute, everywhere. That's not 'Evil'. That's merely the way things are. Evil is far more pervasive, and it is kept well-hidden. As a dupe, you're not supposed to know about it. So if the word Evil, and the use of it, puts you off - simply use another word. Let's call it 'falsification of the steady premise'. That works much better.
2. What did you find out about life, on your own, that no one told you, but you wished they had? That underlying ALL things there is a lie; a vast, interconnected, perceptual and interpretive Lie. I grew up in a fairly traditional way, watching carefully as lessons and attitudes - the things adults presented to me - were consistently seen to be merely assumptions and not the absolute truths they were said to be. I found everything to be interpretation, and I found the adults presenting it to me to be enforcers of false values and assumptions. I found this all out on my own - it was only later that, seemingly, society caught up with all that. Beatniks, transformed into hippies, who later, unbelievably, transformed themselves back into the same foolishness of their parents, adapted the same ferocious fallacies and then proceeded with their own lives in the same, prefigured, distorted and erratic path. I found that the only 'outside' paths which took people away from the froth of dismay and the bad colors of untruth, were in the creative realm - art and thought, so to speak. Beholden to no one, enforcers of no code. THAT was, for me the direct path to truth and eternity. Unfortunately, those were two specific concepts that no one knew anything else about. Those concepts too, have now - over these years - been usurped and sullied by Evil, the same acting Evil in point 1. It seems as if Life becomes, at that level, one huge rotating circle or re-occurance and retrieval. People endlessly sentenced to repeat the past, with all its faults. Any insight onto why we keep repeating these same mistakes? Why don't we learn or change? Some of us do change, but the fact of changing takes, first, advancement. And that personal advancement has to come with work and learning - which most people simply will not do, being in the harbor of what I just talked about. The salvation needed is all out there, and all one needs to do is source it, accept it and take it within. It goes against everything we know. Just look around, or listen to, the people and the society you are part of - it's all conditioned upon vacuity, polished niceties, and sentiment. It really bears NO relationship to the solid and strong effort needed to bring real fruition to living. You need to WORK, at all times, to advance psychically, as NOTHING is given to you. I know that this is all going to cause confusion and consternation in one's head, but there's no reason it shouldn't simply be accepted for what it is - a new message, and one to which it little matters one way or the other if you accept it. For it is underway nonetheless. You can get on the boat, or not. If you wish to continue to be duped, no one will stop you - (let alone me, though I do offer my writings to you as a means of finding a way out).
One of the reasons we don't ever CHANGE is because we're always kept distracted enough so as not to concentrate on the essence of what it is we're doing - accepting falsity and error. Some strange sort of programmed gestalt keeps our attention unfocused and onto other things. There's so much background noise or foreground fuss created at any one time that our attentions (in a very tribal, ant-like way) are kept on other things, things in which we 'think' or are made to 'think' that we have an effect upon (sort of like democracy and voting). The Romans once called it 'panem et circensus' (bread and circus) - a means of keeping the rabble busy. We fall into the same trap, and we willingly pay for it. Entertainment, games, the entire bit. They win. They advance their agenda through our useless attention to their mind-control and propoganda over us. Again, that's Evil - or as we've agreed - that's the 'falsification of the steady premise'.
3. What are dreams? Dreams are our Greater Self's conscious segues into the makings of another reality, a super-annuated version of our waking consciousness, which partakes of a higher and far-more perceptual reality than we are used to. Dreams, too, are used, in a backwards fashion, so to speak, to reflect back upon the life we are currently leading, and mark out and symbolize various aspects of the elements by which we make up our 'waking' Earth consciousness. Concurrent time and effect here crossover, and bridge for us strange gaps in our understandings and perceptions in symbolic fashions. Our creative consciousness picks at these as we live each day. We somehow categorize and then implement only that which we select to go into the making up of our particular reality. I often realize that inklings of things which come to me are first (sometimes) brought forth as episodes in some sort of 'dream-time' in which my self cycles things through within my mind - which introduces concepts first as unknown and then helps put them into shape. 'Reality' is that shape. I have thereby come to recognize many things - only later - which first appeared there. Dreams are, in that respect, like the 'other side' of reality (or vice versa?). Perhaps if I could speak backwards myself, I'd know. This "Greater Self" is a different concept! Are you saying we are each part of a bigger thing - how big? A collection of souls? We are all part of the larger picture, building. We do not know this, in our active states, as we are focused on this one place. Yet, at a certain level, everything we do is done by our Greater Presence, for the 'greater scene' we are being placed into. Life and its 'time' is a big loop into which we are woven and carried around, being formed into the larger pattern underway. Its illusionary aspects are part of our mass-hallucination, so to speak, the one in which we operate - tiny, small steps, incremental factors, elemental particles of our own unique worlds swimming in the depths of something much larger. Your greater mind knows all this and, smiling, moves you along. Are they all us? Could you expand on this Greater Self idea? They are us, as we are them - psycho-babble to the uninitiated, to be sure. Let's see: we're all in the same restaurant, but we each have a different menu to order from? We're all looking at different art-pictures, but the frames are all the same? We're all reading what we think are different books, but it's only the covers which differ? We have three-hands in a two-handed game? I can't say. It's beyond language, and it flows like current through some sort of psychic wire which only by intuition allows us communication. We sense each other, and we nod, but we are never sure any of it is what we see. The 'music of the spheres' becomes a Karlheinz Stockhausen nightmare, whereas really all it is is a different harmony.
Again, when I was young I was in the hospital a very long time - and in a coma for a lot of that. One thing I remember well is the long and slow coming out of that coma - it was as if consciousness was blinking or going on and off to me and with each pulse the picture added another dot or some other reference point for me to clasp and grasp at. It was, and seemed then, like a slow, airy, painless focusing process in order to get ALL the channels clear and open again. Maybe that's a lot like a dream - although in a more extended fashion. And, I'm afraid sometimes, that the rest of life is paltry by comparison. The logical progressions which we make of things - utilizing reason and logic and all of that - makes for a dreary and unending spectacle of fairly ordinary stuff. All the 'MAGIC' is gone - we've even got Nature on a schedule; by the end of November, all the leaves are down, the winds blow, and by January for sure we're in the throes of winter's icy winds. The same goes for the rest - we have water which 'flows' or 'stops' with ice; we arrange beauty and scenery to be pleasant; we retreat from the horrid and the unsightly. These are very odd things to do, and they are filled with the ASSUMPTIONS of our daily life - whether or not we know that. I always think there's another realm where none of those values are present; where reason and logic are long gone away. Dreamtime, reverie, daydream, coma. Who knows? When we meet our 'dreamgirl', (as an example of this concept), what exactly are we trying to say? Think about it - in light of our ideas of love and passion and all that. Do we REALLY want to wake up?
4. What is hope? Hope is the essence of getting through the morass and seeing (understanding) our greater consciousness for what it is, and finding its presence in our lives. The other day I ran across, on 18th Street, a kind-of streetperson, bum, whatever, dressed in a Winter jacket, hat, big greying beard, boots (it was perhaps 50 degrees out). He was lying down on a park bench and, as I noticed right away, seriously and voiciferously saying the Rosary, with the beads strung through his fingers. Intently, distantly. I wondered to myself immediately what sort of 'reality' this man must inhabit. I concluded that, true to his odd convictions, he was probably as tightly ensconced in his little web of 'well-being' as was I or anyone else in ours. His recitation of that Rosary was, perhaps, his committment to 'HOPE' as he saw it - a satisfactory hope, one he was able to live with, and a 'Hope' which perhaps surpassed any I've ever had. We are each caught up in our trying reach for something, and Hope is our means of getting there. It's different for everyone, as that man exemplified.
5. How do you achieve “greatness”? Do you want to? There is no measure of greatness except that which we ourselves measure. Any other pointed reference to 'Great' is part of Evil's illusion. It's a very cheap word. Yesterday's ogre is today's 'great' man; today's buffoon may yet have an appointment with greatness somewhere down the line. People use the idea of 'greatness' if and when it begins to suit their current need. It is a very fluid concept, and the more distant from the 'present' it is, the more fluid and plastic it can be. Whenever I start hearing that word 'great' bandied about, I check myself - for SOMEONE is operating from an agenda of their own. Twisting points and feelings towards a pre-determined end for their own gain. I suppose, perhaps, that outside of yourself you cannot achieve 'greatness' until others decide to pin it upon you - even if it is incorrect and distorted. I think of, say, Einstein, or maybe Dylan, squirming. Individuals caught up in the misery of what 'others' had or have pinned on them way too early. Complete misery. Greatness (when personified) can't go to the store, can't buy a newspaper.
Back when I was in seminary school we had a Brother who taught us. His name was Brother Matthias, and he used to tell us, almost with scorn, that in all of our lives we'd never think of anything 'new'. It was, in some odd sense, his (and perhaps his church's) way of instilling upon us the utter valuelessness of life, the uselessness of anything outside of the Salvation of the church and the savior and all the rest. Why anyone would want to instill hopelessness into young minds, except to advance the adherence to their own rigid code of following orders and not thinking, was beyond me. I made up a poem about this, and him - a poem which, actually, got me in a lot of trouble. It started 'Brother Matthias used to deny us / he'd say 'you'll never think anything new'...', and then it went on heaping a certain bit of scorn on the entire endeavor. Needless to say, the priests and brothers in whose charge I was were not amused and I was sternly rebuked and corrected. Well, for a while. As it turned out, in my later years I did go on to find various ways of thinking 'new' thoughts, none of them fortunately ever landing me in any jail more rigorous than the jail of conformity and church doctrine would have been. Oh, by the way, by the mid-70's Brother Matthias himself had left the order. I wonder if that thought was an original with him?
The point I'm making is - don't listen to leaders, don't take the word of others for anything. They're all caught up in their own game, and we each come at things from different spots. The main spectral eminence we should follow is our own. In the end, that's where Greatness lies.
6. What is the nature of consciousness / sentience? The 'Nature' of this is the Nature of a shadow. We are at all times possessed of and by greater forces at work within us and around and through us - utilizing our functions as Beings in order to advance and bring forth higher consciousness. Our place in this effort is both as Actor and as Acted Upon. Our goal in life is in seeking to find Understanding of this process; whether through detachment or full acitivaton. I grant, it is a very difficult and sensitive manuever. Sometimes I think that there are two distinct approaches to this - the joyous or the sedate. Each of these paths closes out the other. Like the guy with the over-sized pick-up truck with the bug-shield painted to say 'Midnight Bulldog', we each make the choice (as he has, towards his 'joyous' and selected state) of living what we perceive. I see that truck each time and laugh to myself at the strange sensibility of a guy who'd promote such as his 'cause'. In making the determination between states of being, people select their iconic representations, and most of us end of living exactly that; whichever it is. I think we're born with it, and I think that, early on, we make our determination for some idea of 'Heroic' or 'Dionysian', and all else comes from that. It's a patterning, of the sort that used to be given to retarded or disabled children in order to make them adapt to methods of living whereby they'd 'manage'. They were 'patterned' in group situations to do certain things in certain ways. True consciousness is within each of us. Every one of us bears ourselves as the culprit of that which we've interpreted to 'be'. I can recall, even as a 12 year old, adapting myself to the 'word' and to language (Berryman, 77 Dream Songs, Eliot, Williams) as my selected 'pattern'. I've never left that path, which is still the 'Heroic' one to me. Sorry, I totally missed the reference to (Berryman, 77 Dream Songs, Eliot, Williams). John Berryman was a 1950's/60's poet who wrote 77 Dream Songs, back in the early 60's. He jumped from a bridge, committing suicide, in Minnesota in 1972, and thus ended a period of confusion, both for himself and for his miserable critics. Eliot, I'm sure you know, as well as William Carlos Williams - each of them poets and writers of my growing years who, among others, I took to myself in the knowledge that this was the established path I'd selected - the one which bore the traits of truth and directness as I saw it. Simple references, of no great import in this context. As Yogi Berra said - 'you could look it up.'
I've also always been very attracted to the Gilgamesh Epic. It's a story-line, a tale of very ancient man, many centuries back (more than most people allow there being), written on tablets and found in Sumer. It's about the very basic, elemental growth of early man's consciousness - a great man, a King with his own whimsical ways, a primitive man who challenges and equals but cannot best the King, their dual quest of recognition and immortality, the trek to slay the great beast (the beast of the forest, the Beast within) their struggle, their failure, the King's great remorse, his hopelessness and his further quest for immortality and then, in resignation, his retreat back home as a MAN resigned to the fate of Death and Time. A stirring, odd epic which predates yet includes everything we later learned - Biblical tales, the flood, Gods, Creation, redemption, rebirth, etc. It resigns itself to see Man as the Maker, the brick-man, the builder of walls. To live ONE life, with whatever pleasure one can find within it, and do it singly and with pride to completion. There's a large amount of consciousness stirring in this story - primitive man's blind urges and his will to go on and forge SOMETHING - coalesce with fellow men into nation-states and kingdoms. Sentient man considering his fate. Take time, perhaps, someday to read it. There are hundreds of commentaries written on it, various translations, treatments and versions of it. Completely fascinating material.
7. What is "reality"? 'Reality' is a means of Illusion whereby we undertake an understanding of the structure of what we perceive. Reality is also, unfortunately, the fire which burns down our house, the cancer that kills a loved one, the old age which wears out our dog, the pain with which we stub our toe. Reality is a beating we give ourselves over a long period of time. For that guy reciting the rosary, REALITY was that park bench and the tattered old coat. Sunset. Sunrise. The traffic on the river, the changing of the tides. Newtonian physics tells us that we can measure all that is seen, predict its motion, understand reactions. We can KNOW the friction which brings an object to a halt. Quantum physics, at the same time (illusionary) tells us that that which we cannot see, which is beneath and smaller than our normal reality, cannot be measured, cannot be predicted, cannot be 'touched', so to speak, by experience. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle tells us that just by getting involved in observing we are altering the outcome of that which we THINK we are observing. If all that's not a full platter of Reality to ponder, then I don't know what is.
8. Do you have a concept of the soul? Yes. The Soul is vivid and vital and constant. The Soul knows all things, and knows the deceiving of all things. The Soul only seeks Advancement and Goodness, yet witnesses Evil as it is acting through us, and allows that flow to take place. The Soul provides us the 'Free Will' we need - either to understand OR mis-understand the Life we undertake. Every action has a consequence. The Soul is aware of both. As far as the 'Soul' is concerned, there is nothing linear at all - things go where they please, each thought creates a reality, haphazard sums of disinterested cosmic matter enter and leave our space at will. We run around with labels, attempting to attach a label to each thing - if it would only remain stationary enough for the moment. The 'Soul' of everything laughs at matter, and goes on.
9. What is your concept of the of God (if there is one)? The God is the collector of these Souls. The harvester, the shepherd and the motivator of them. The God, out of time, is timeless, and knows and sees ALL things before and after they occur. What do you mean by this? Why would God collect the souls? What is its purpose in shepherding and motivating them? This God desires goodness and seeks to bring that Goodness back to the creation at Its command. It really demands nothing. Presence supplants action, in this case. If it sees all things before and after they occur, what is it doing (wouldn't it be boring if it already knows everything?) Does it learn? Those are ALL human concepts. I doubt, speaking as a human, that I'd be 'bored', (let's say) if on the end of my fishing line there were, at my command, ten-thousand fish all jumping in varied directions. God doesn't seek a satisfaction NOR a finish to things. The continuing curve of Creation is an unending stream of delight - far beyond any concepts we've encountered. All history and ALL possibilities are at play constantly and at one time on the working screen before God - which is actually not before God but within. At the same time, remember, it's only us calling it God - calling it boredom, calling it creation. We must put such pride away, and learn acceptance.
Again, it's really hard to put all of this in words - simple, dumb words. My way of writing creatively (see blog) again is much more amenable to getting such messages across - as in a sort of 'magical' way by which I can transform these words into force, more of a force than this, almost by rote, method. In this format, 'A' has always to equal 'A', 'B' has to equal 'B', etc.; pretty freaking boring, there. But, that's not a problem for - as you can see - I'm just letting it go as it evolves and comes out. I know, for me, what's crystal clear; I can only hope it comes across that way for you. There's no real Boy Scout Handbook for salvation (even if others tell you there is). I could, of course, quote to you, line by line, things that have meant a lot to me, made sense to me - but that would defeat the purpose of this, 'my' interview. Besides, too many boring words already echo down the corridor.
10. What is religion? Religion is the force of mankind subjecting something unknowable to a forced and assumed knowledge. The worse it is, the more organized it is. It becomes merely a way to identify the missing. It becomes pathetic, to the extent of seeing lawn-signs on churchfronts which proclaim really stupid things - 'Let's Meet at MY House before the Game', signed, God'; or 'Sign Broken, Message Inside'. These are hideous attempts to bring a spiritual sense down to the level of the morose stupidities of the common man. It has lost all direction and, for that matter, any sense of shame about itself. It is pandering to the sickness which now rules mankind. It BECOMES its own enemy, but never has the strength to say that. What sickness rules mankind? Why is it that way? The sickness is the Evil I've already mentioned. People are consumed with false values, gain and loss, manipulation, devious means of getting things done, the assault of time and energy upon an actually quite fleeting life. Deals have been made, and a foul stupidity rules the land. I can't make it any clearer than that - everything you touch is befouled. The leading industry of the land is Negativity and Murder, done in the name of good things. Unless you, individually, get up and make things RIGHT, they'll not be so. Complacency is the horrible needle of a burning, lingering drug.
11. What is death? Why is death? Death is a passage for the deliverance of our lessons and possibilities. Death is both End and Beginning. It is 'lesson learning catching up with itself.'
12. Do you want to be immortal? I am, as is my multi-faceted spiritual self.
13. What is your concept of the "afterlife"? There is no 'after', just as there is no 'life'. These are mental constructions to facilitate understanding.
14. What makes you saddest about life? Its absence in people who cannot recognize it.
15. What makes you the happiest about life? Its presence, as Grace, amidst those who do.
16. What scares you the most? Rigidity, doctrine, stipulations.
17. Is there such a thing as Destiny or Fate? Yes, we attain Perfect Destiny when we reach our summation - fully aware of the value and force of our consciousness as Goodness.
18. Is there such a thing as Free Will? Yes. It is inherent in every action.
19. Does life have a meaning? Life's meaning is a steady-state of awareness in which we, as Greater Beings, collect every aspect of consciousness and put it to good use, proper use - even in seemingly conflicting ways - the perrenial problem with vast questions is - usually - vast answers. One ends up sounding vapid. I guess it's always a risk. To me, the vision which provokes me the most is a sort of awareness of the falseness of reality, and therefore some 'meaning' of it - in that I refuse to believe that what I see is what is there. By that, I suppose, I assume the goal of a life to be to break through the illusion, creatively garner enough personal evidence to realize passage through it onto other working levels of consciousness. That involves w-o-r-k. Life as toil, turmoil, intellectual strife, fighting with reason. It does NOT include foolishness with possessions, culture, entertainment, all the passing scars of the stab of life's supposed reality. What counts is singular creativity, aggressive curiosity, awareness of the Great Factors which inhabit all things, consciousness and grace. I believe in a sort of concurrent time - as in we are living various lives together, at one time, with casual awareness of them through various different focus-patterns which irk us; sleep, dream, daydream, fantasy. We can tap into our greater, cosmic, constant personal Spirit at any time - it can mitigate and alter the present Earth reality we are stuck to. We can change time, we can heal, we can alter the series of events we live. Each of us REPRESENTS a personal working concept through which we build our reality. A form of mass hallucination then occurs, by which we socialize ourselves - to the degree we chose. There is a constant hand-of-God essence in everything. Everything is aware. We recoil from or participate in only that which we wish to. The consequences of everything are ongoing; we pay for what we've chosen and are rewarded in reality by that we've assigned to ourselves. The hand of Evil influences, controls, and alters our world - the workings of which are, at that level, foul and no good. We must overcome tham. We must, in effect, bring our own sword to slay those monsters which assail us.
20. What purpose do you want for YOUR life? To attain a pure, intuitive creativity. Anything else, I probably just mentioned. When I was a young boy, I used to read things like the supposed psychic-seer Jeanne Dixon predicting that somewhere in the east was growing up, right then, a young boy who was going to rise up and lead people to their deliverance. I lived in New Jersey, and thought she really meant me. As far as I was concerned, THAT was the east and I was that boy. I answered every ad for that position I could find. Turns out, to my chagrin, there was another 'East'. The Orient, the Mid-East, an entire other world larger than my satisfactions then knew of. No one wanted me, so I grew up anyway.
I've always thought I wanted joy, and happiness. Turns out I'm the last person to be sought for those two things. I brood, I walk in deep, dark existential clouds and then shake doom off and find myself (just momentarily) laughing about something. Then I'm struck by lightning and decide there's a message in that being struck. Then I figure some message out and feel it's impossible to translate back. It's all very funny - and then, nose-to-the-grindstone, I start writing - writing these incredible heaps of words which somehow manage to perfectly encapsulate what I've been trying to verbalize or say about what I'd just experienced. That's a purpose for me. A just perfect purpose. And it all suits me fine.
21. What is Friendship, and what role does it play in your life? Very little. Life is often solitary.
22. What is love? Is it different from friendship? Love is harmony. It is different than friendship in that it can create.
23. What do you find lovable in a person? Authenticity.
24. Where does sex fit into all of this – what do you want out of sex? Very little. At some point in each person's life, perhaps, there arises a sexual need for both pleasure and/or procreation. But it is a lower urge, nothing to get hung up on. It is often possessed of Evil. It is very human-centered, or at least animal-nature-centered.
25. What do you want out of Marriage (if you want it at all?) - The one thing I will say about marriage is that marriage takes committment. Liars cannot commit. Very many people are liars. Very many people, therefore, should not marry.
26. What makes you, you? At my core, my essence is other-worldly. That makes me, me.
27. If you could change anything about humanity, what would you change? Absolutely everything.
28. If you could change yourself (no limits) what would you change? My time and my space.
29. What is the weirdest opinion you have on life? That it too is a changeable dream.
30. Overall, are you happy with your life? Yes, but to a degree that allows a resounding NO to also pop up.
31. Do you have any regrets? I guess not.
32. Do you have any final thoughts or advice to others? Do not listen, nor give heed, to liars. Speak your mind. Possess fully yourself. Understand detachment. Do not get hung up in the illusion of self-importance. Listen to others.
In addition, I have found this to be a very difficult exercise; paradoxical in that the LESS I said, the more I felt I was achieving clarity. Each time I added to things, built up the words, it got heavier and murkier, and less clear. No one can recognize intent, yet it was my 'intent' to be sincere and sensible, to the extent that I could. I've lived an eventful and interesting life, to this point, and one that I rake through constantly so as to harvest and glean whatever can be taken from it. Yet, never have the sort of pointed questions I just answered been posed to myself by myself in this way. It's discomfiting and almost annoying to have to pin down, butterfly-like, some Nabokovian conclusion to a flutter of wing and color which, until now has been swooshing by me - and which now I've killed and pinned down merely to examine. What can I pass on to others in this fashion? Not much. I can describe the colors, the texture, the migratory patterns, the habitation of that swollen butterfly, but I can impart NOTHING of that butterfly's sinuous and beautiful movement and motion. I can tell OF that butterfly as it lived, but in order to do that I have to first look down at its dead and lifeless body pinned to a card of felt. Forgive me if I've faltered in doing that.
Gary Introne http://garyjin.blogspot.com
email - garyjinn123@aol.com
...this interview took place over the period of Nov, 2-9. it was aired on Nov. 12, on the weekly interview show entitled 'Uncomfortable Questions', hosted by Susan Grandys. The interview can be HEARD at http://suegrandys.libsyn.com
Title: Uncomfortable Questions
List of Questions:
1. Does Evil exist? Yes, Evil exists absolutely. In fact, it colors and controls much of what we are about. The essential nature of our actions and thoughts is influenced and under assault by Evil at all times, and the minions of Evil do all that is possible to alter our perception of reality so that its Evil does not appear as such. Cloaked, embroidered, colored and concealed, much of that which is done in the name of the Good and the Positive, is, at its base, Evil. Thus, one of the paradoxes of Life as we know it is presented to us. Wow. Why would there be so much Evil? Why does it exist, and where does it come from? At the risk, this early on, of already sounding like a crazy person and having people tune out, I can only say, self-referentially, that if one looks at my #2 blogspot, 'Established Marvel, a Monk by Abbreviation', items #2 and #3 will help. Actually, you may wish to finish this interview first and then come back to this lead-off question with a better feel for what I'm saying. The long layout of human history is predicated upon a series of 'episodes' from very very long ago. Things which we've assimilated into our make-ups and myths, stories, tales, epics. Bible stuff too. The Gilgamesh story, the Upanishads, Mount Olympus and the like, the wars of the Gods, varied Creation myths, and more. We really no longer have a clue as to what they're saying, yet we foolishly invest various thought-patterns into the manipulative belief in one or another creed. Involved in all of these is an Eden-like ideal state, our first creation, and then a Fall, from which all else has grown. Quite simply, the Fall, and the Gods, are all rooted in visitations and alterations upon Earth and upon US, by agents from other realms - we CALL them Gods - wanly described in biblical stories, for instance - Ezekial, Isaiah, Enoch (see my #2 and 3 items), Genesis 6. These conflicts introduced alien influences into our world, and implanted the triumphal presence of Evil onto our experience. We are pawns, being manipulated by agents of grief. In the same sense, the Gods are not Gods, but manifests of various eternal powers with, somehow, a crowding interest in our affairs. I can't say why, frankly. Every human situation has now absorbed some facet of that presence, and we ourselves are a'swarm in the confusion of doubt and error which it all generated. All of established ways, from banking to entertainment to government to medicine, partake of error and falsehood - all of which has been implanted by Evil. Present and working in our world. Once we realize that, we can solve the dilemmas it all brings to us. It's not really difficult, as all it takes is boldness.
This entire subject is a very charged one - and remember the use of the word 'Evil' was yours. Maybe that's one of the problems - it's merely a word. Perhaps 'Negativity' would do it better, or 'Perversity' or just plain 'Falsity.' For that's what this evil is - a great falseness, a mis-representing of the world. And there's nothing more pitiable than one who goes through life misunderstanding life. It's so easy to do - turn your back on your fellows, ignore your own creative impulses, become but one of the crowd, lampoon the serious, assassinate the sincere of mind. There was a time, after all, when the world as we know it was 'right'. We were marauding tribes, we were scarce-but-creatures on the face of the land. We had nothing but our own un-learned resources. We inhabited Nature. The initial impulses were GOOD. Then consider this - the arrival of Evil, the alteration of human DNA into one after the other of 'advancing' specimens of ambidextrous groups, the interdictioin of our impulses by alien forces (literally) intent on a slavishly-beholden race. They intermingled, they taught the wrong things. They enfeebled mankind and introduced violence, tools, toil, pain, sexuality, self-awareness, greed, envy. They interbred and advanced their failing bloodlines into human DNA (where it is still present). They told us THEY were Gods. You learned of the Fertile Crescent (no pun intended)? - merely one area of alien civilizations beginning migrations across the globe. Advancing wrongdoing and advancing primitive EVIL; which we've improved upon in our own ways. We despoil, pollute, kill, ruin, cut and pillage - and in the name of Good. Merovingian bloodlines advanced ideas of royalty and right so that the alien forces could remain current - and to this day - in order to rule the world. Brainwash, conceal, fool, lie. THAT is the Evil I speak of. And that is the fabric of our day and out time.
You ask why so much evil would exist and where it would come from. I've just told you and you'll now not accept it. It came from other worlds and it has enslaved and ruined us. It has floated stories of religion and enslavement. It has advanced false tribes who claim the rights of chosen-people, and it has imbued supposedly religious kingdoms with worldly and evil powers. You will not recognize what I've just said. Just remember, we walk upon the dead of the earth - it is all underfoot.
The point of this interview format is, I suppose, to transfer information. You may hear it all but not accept. OK. For me, it's always been acceptance first - my whole effort has been putting this in written form, though not in a direct manner such as this. More like story-line, image, parable. I find it easier to do that, and I feel it is more accessible for that. I don't care about rules or the caverns where the rules are stacked up. I care about what I see and know and recognize. It's not about stealing a neighbor's wife or goods, or killing someone or speaking ill of God. Those are societal rules, and they are broken a hundred times a minute, everywhere. That's not 'Evil'. That's merely the way things are. Evil is far more pervasive, and it is kept well-hidden. As a dupe, you're not supposed to know about it. So if the word Evil, and the use of it, puts you off - simply use another word. Let's call it 'falsification of the steady premise'. That works much better.
2. What did you find out about life, on your own, that no one told you, but you wished they had? That underlying ALL things there is a lie; a vast, interconnected, perceptual and interpretive Lie. I grew up in a fairly traditional way, watching carefully as lessons and attitudes - the things adults presented to me - were consistently seen to be merely assumptions and not the absolute truths they were said to be. I found everything to be interpretation, and I found the adults presenting it to me to be enforcers of false values and assumptions. I found this all out on my own - it was only later that, seemingly, society caught up with all that. Beatniks, transformed into hippies, who later, unbelievably, transformed themselves back into the same foolishness of their parents, adapted the same ferocious fallacies and then proceeded with their own lives in the same, prefigured, distorted and erratic path. I found that the only 'outside' paths which took people away from the froth of dismay and the bad colors of untruth, were in the creative realm - art and thought, so to speak. Beholden to no one, enforcers of no code. THAT was, for me the direct path to truth and eternity. Unfortunately, those were two specific concepts that no one knew anything else about. Those concepts too, have now - over these years - been usurped and sullied by Evil, the same acting Evil in point 1. It seems as if Life becomes, at that level, one huge rotating circle or re-occurance and retrieval. People endlessly sentenced to repeat the past, with all its faults. Any insight onto why we keep repeating these same mistakes? Why don't we learn or change? Some of us do change, but the fact of changing takes, first, advancement. And that personal advancement has to come with work and learning - which most people simply will not do, being in the harbor of what I just talked about. The salvation needed is all out there, and all one needs to do is source it, accept it and take it within. It goes against everything we know. Just look around, or listen to, the people and the society you are part of - it's all conditioned upon vacuity, polished niceties, and sentiment. It really bears NO relationship to the solid and strong effort needed to bring real fruition to living. You need to WORK, at all times, to advance psychically, as NOTHING is given to you. I know that this is all going to cause confusion and consternation in one's head, but there's no reason it shouldn't simply be accepted for what it is - a new message, and one to which it little matters one way or the other if you accept it. For it is underway nonetheless. You can get on the boat, or not. If you wish to continue to be duped, no one will stop you - (let alone me, though I do offer my writings to you as a means of finding a way out).
One of the reasons we don't ever CHANGE is because we're always kept distracted enough so as not to concentrate on the essence of what it is we're doing - accepting falsity and error. Some strange sort of programmed gestalt keeps our attention unfocused and onto other things. There's so much background noise or foreground fuss created at any one time that our attentions (in a very tribal, ant-like way) are kept on other things, things in which we 'think' or are made to 'think' that we have an effect upon (sort of like democracy and voting). The Romans once called it 'panem et circensus' (bread and circus) - a means of keeping the rabble busy. We fall into the same trap, and we willingly pay for it. Entertainment, games, the entire bit. They win. They advance their agenda through our useless attention to their mind-control and propoganda over us. Again, that's Evil - or as we've agreed - that's the 'falsification of the steady premise'.
3. What are dreams? Dreams are our Greater Self's conscious segues into the makings of another reality, a super-annuated version of our waking consciousness, which partakes of a higher and far-more perceptual reality than we are used to. Dreams, too, are used, in a backwards fashion, so to speak, to reflect back upon the life we are currently leading, and mark out and symbolize various aspects of the elements by which we make up our 'waking' Earth consciousness. Concurrent time and effect here crossover, and bridge for us strange gaps in our understandings and perceptions in symbolic fashions. Our creative consciousness picks at these as we live each day. We somehow categorize and then implement only that which we select to go into the making up of our particular reality. I often realize that inklings of things which come to me are first (sometimes) brought forth as episodes in some sort of 'dream-time' in which my self cycles things through within my mind - which introduces concepts first as unknown and then helps put them into shape. 'Reality' is that shape. I have thereby come to recognize many things - only later - which first appeared there. Dreams are, in that respect, like the 'other side' of reality (or vice versa?). Perhaps if I could speak backwards myself, I'd know. This "Greater Self" is a different concept! Are you saying we are each part of a bigger thing - how big? A collection of souls? We are all part of the larger picture, building. We do not know this, in our active states, as we are focused on this one place. Yet, at a certain level, everything we do is done by our Greater Presence, for the 'greater scene' we are being placed into. Life and its 'time' is a big loop into which we are woven and carried around, being formed into the larger pattern underway. Its illusionary aspects are part of our mass-hallucination, so to speak, the one in which we operate - tiny, small steps, incremental factors, elemental particles of our own unique worlds swimming in the depths of something much larger. Your greater mind knows all this and, smiling, moves you along. Are they all us? Could you expand on this Greater Self idea? They are us, as we are them - psycho-babble to the uninitiated, to be sure. Let's see: we're all in the same restaurant, but we each have a different menu to order from? We're all looking at different art-pictures, but the frames are all the same? We're all reading what we think are different books, but it's only the covers which differ? We have three-hands in a two-handed game? I can't say. It's beyond language, and it flows like current through some sort of psychic wire which only by intuition allows us communication. We sense each other, and we nod, but we are never sure any of it is what we see. The 'music of the spheres' becomes a Karlheinz Stockhausen nightmare, whereas really all it is is a different harmony.
Again, when I was young I was in the hospital a very long time - and in a coma for a lot of that. One thing I remember well is the long and slow coming out of that coma - it was as if consciousness was blinking or going on and off to me and with each pulse the picture added another dot or some other reference point for me to clasp and grasp at. It was, and seemed then, like a slow, airy, painless focusing process in order to get ALL the channels clear and open again. Maybe that's a lot like a dream - although in a more extended fashion. And, I'm afraid sometimes, that the rest of life is paltry by comparison. The logical progressions which we make of things - utilizing reason and logic and all of that - makes for a dreary and unending spectacle of fairly ordinary stuff. All the 'MAGIC' is gone - we've even got Nature on a schedule; by the end of November, all the leaves are down, the winds blow, and by January for sure we're in the throes of winter's icy winds. The same goes for the rest - we have water which 'flows' or 'stops' with ice; we arrange beauty and scenery to be pleasant; we retreat from the horrid and the unsightly. These are very odd things to do, and they are filled with the ASSUMPTIONS of our daily life - whether or not we know that. I always think there's another realm where none of those values are present; where reason and logic are long gone away. Dreamtime, reverie, daydream, coma. Who knows? When we meet our 'dreamgirl', (as an example of this concept), what exactly are we trying to say? Think about it - in light of our ideas of love and passion and all that. Do we REALLY want to wake up?
4. What is hope? Hope is the essence of getting through the morass and seeing (understanding) our greater consciousness for what it is, and finding its presence in our lives. The other day I ran across, on 18th Street, a kind-of streetperson, bum, whatever, dressed in a Winter jacket, hat, big greying beard, boots (it was perhaps 50 degrees out). He was lying down on a park bench and, as I noticed right away, seriously and voiciferously saying the Rosary, with the beads strung through his fingers. Intently, distantly. I wondered to myself immediately what sort of 'reality' this man must inhabit. I concluded that, true to his odd convictions, he was probably as tightly ensconced in his little web of 'well-being' as was I or anyone else in ours. His recitation of that Rosary was, perhaps, his committment to 'HOPE' as he saw it - a satisfactory hope, one he was able to live with, and a 'Hope' which perhaps surpassed any I've ever had. We are each caught up in our trying reach for something, and Hope is our means of getting there. It's different for everyone, as that man exemplified.
5. How do you achieve “greatness”? Do you want to? There is no measure of greatness except that which we ourselves measure. Any other pointed reference to 'Great' is part of Evil's illusion. It's a very cheap word. Yesterday's ogre is today's 'great' man; today's buffoon may yet have an appointment with greatness somewhere down the line. People use the idea of 'greatness' if and when it begins to suit their current need. It is a very fluid concept, and the more distant from the 'present' it is, the more fluid and plastic it can be. Whenever I start hearing that word 'great' bandied about, I check myself - for SOMEONE is operating from an agenda of their own. Twisting points and feelings towards a pre-determined end for their own gain. I suppose, perhaps, that outside of yourself you cannot achieve 'greatness' until others decide to pin it upon you - even if it is incorrect and distorted. I think of, say, Einstein, or maybe Dylan, squirming. Individuals caught up in the misery of what 'others' had or have pinned on them way too early. Complete misery. Greatness (when personified) can't go to the store, can't buy a newspaper.
Back when I was in seminary school we had a Brother who taught us. His name was Brother Matthias, and he used to tell us, almost with scorn, that in all of our lives we'd never think of anything 'new'. It was, in some odd sense, his (and perhaps his church's) way of instilling upon us the utter valuelessness of life, the uselessness of anything outside of the Salvation of the church and the savior and all the rest. Why anyone would want to instill hopelessness into young minds, except to advance the adherence to their own rigid code of following orders and not thinking, was beyond me. I made up a poem about this, and him - a poem which, actually, got me in a lot of trouble. It started 'Brother Matthias used to deny us / he'd say 'you'll never think anything new'...', and then it went on heaping a certain bit of scorn on the entire endeavor. Needless to say, the priests and brothers in whose charge I was were not amused and I was sternly rebuked and corrected. Well, for a while. As it turned out, in my later years I did go on to find various ways of thinking 'new' thoughts, none of them fortunately ever landing me in any jail more rigorous than the jail of conformity and church doctrine would have been. Oh, by the way, by the mid-70's Brother Matthias himself had left the order. I wonder if that thought was an original with him?
The point I'm making is - don't listen to leaders, don't take the word of others for anything. They're all caught up in their own game, and we each come at things from different spots. The main spectral eminence we should follow is our own. In the end, that's where Greatness lies.
6. What is the nature of consciousness / sentience? The 'Nature' of this is the Nature of a shadow. We are at all times possessed of and by greater forces at work within us and around and through us - utilizing our functions as Beings in order to advance and bring forth higher consciousness. Our place in this effort is both as Actor and as Acted Upon. Our goal in life is in seeking to find Understanding of this process; whether through detachment or full acitivaton. I grant, it is a very difficult and sensitive manuever. Sometimes I think that there are two distinct approaches to this - the joyous or the sedate. Each of these paths closes out the other. Like the guy with the over-sized pick-up truck with the bug-shield painted to say 'Midnight Bulldog', we each make the choice (as he has, towards his 'joyous' and selected state) of living what we perceive. I see that truck each time and laugh to myself at the strange sensibility of a guy who'd promote such as his 'cause'. In making the determination between states of being, people select their iconic representations, and most of us end of living exactly that; whichever it is. I think we're born with it, and I think that, early on, we make our determination for some idea of 'Heroic' or 'Dionysian', and all else comes from that. It's a patterning, of the sort that used to be given to retarded or disabled children in order to make them adapt to methods of living whereby they'd 'manage'. They were 'patterned' in group situations to do certain things in certain ways. True consciousness is within each of us. Every one of us bears ourselves as the culprit of that which we've interpreted to 'be'. I can recall, even as a 12 year old, adapting myself to the 'word' and to language (Berryman, 77 Dream Songs, Eliot, Williams) as my selected 'pattern'. I've never left that path, which is still the 'Heroic' one to me. Sorry, I totally missed the reference to (Berryman, 77 Dream Songs, Eliot, Williams). John Berryman was a 1950's/60's poet who wrote 77 Dream Songs, back in the early 60's. He jumped from a bridge, committing suicide, in Minnesota in 1972, and thus ended a period of confusion, both for himself and for his miserable critics. Eliot, I'm sure you know, as well as William Carlos Williams - each of them poets and writers of my growing years who, among others, I took to myself in the knowledge that this was the established path I'd selected - the one which bore the traits of truth and directness as I saw it. Simple references, of no great import in this context. As Yogi Berra said - 'you could look it up.'
I've also always been very attracted to the Gilgamesh Epic. It's a story-line, a tale of very ancient man, many centuries back (more than most people allow there being), written on tablets and found in Sumer. It's about the very basic, elemental growth of early man's consciousness - a great man, a King with his own whimsical ways, a primitive man who challenges and equals but cannot best the King, their dual quest of recognition and immortality, the trek to slay the great beast (the beast of the forest, the Beast within) their struggle, their failure, the King's great remorse, his hopelessness and his further quest for immortality and then, in resignation, his retreat back home as a MAN resigned to the fate of Death and Time. A stirring, odd epic which predates yet includes everything we later learned - Biblical tales, the flood, Gods, Creation, redemption, rebirth, etc. It resigns itself to see Man as the Maker, the brick-man, the builder of walls. To live ONE life, with whatever pleasure one can find within it, and do it singly and with pride to completion. There's a large amount of consciousness stirring in this story - primitive man's blind urges and his will to go on and forge SOMETHING - coalesce with fellow men into nation-states and kingdoms. Sentient man considering his fate. Take time, perhaps, someday to read it. There are hundreds of commentaries written on it, various translations, treatments and versions of it. Completely fascinating material.
7. What is "reality"? 'Reality' is a means of Illusion whereby we undertake an understanding of the structure of what we perceive. Reality is also, unfortunately, the fire which burns down our house, the cancer that kills a loved one, the old age which wears out our dog, the pain with which we stub our toe. Reality is a beating we give ourselves over a long period of time. For that guy reciting the rosary, REALITY was that park bench and the tattered old coat. Sunset. Sunrise. The traffic on the river, the changing of the tides. Newtonian physics tells us that we can measure all that is seen, predict its motion, understand reactions. We can KNOW the friction which brings an object to a halt. Quantum physics, at the same time (illusionary) tells us that that which we cannot see, which is beneath and smaller than our normal reality, cannot be measured, cannot be predicted, cannot be 'touched', so to speak, by experience. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle tells us that just by getting involved in observing we are altering the outcome of that which we THINK we are observing. If all that's not a full platter of Reality to ponder, then I don't know what is.
8. Do you have a concept of the soul? Yes. The Soul is vivid and vital and constant. The Soul knows all things, and knows the deceiving of all things. The Soul only seeks Advancement and Goodness, yet witnesses Evil as it is acting through us, and allows that flow to take place. The Soul provides us the 'Free Will' we need - either to understand OR mis-understand the Life we undertake. Every action has a consequence. The Soul is aware of both. As far as the 'Soul' is concerned, there is nothing linear at all - things go where they please, each thought creates a reality, haphazard sums of disinterested cosmic matter enter and leave our space at will. We run around with labels, attempting to attach a label to each thing - if it would only remain stationary enough for the moment. The 'Soul' of everything laughs at matter, and goes on.
9. What is your concept of the of God (if there is one)? The God is the collector of these Souls. The harvester, the shepherd and the motivator of them. The God, out of time, is timeless, and knows and sees ALL things before and after they occur. What do you mean by this? Why would God collect the souls? What is its purpose in shepherding and motivating them? This God desires goodness and seeks to bring that Goodness back to the creation at Its command. It really demands nothing. Presence supplants action, in this case. If it sees all things before and after they occur, what is it doing (wouldn't it be boring if it already knows everything?) Does it learn? Those are ALL human concepts. I doubt, speaking as a human, that I'd be 'bored', (let's say) if on the end of my fishing line there were, at my command, ten-thousand fish all jumping in varied directions. God doesn't seek a satisfaction NOR a finish to things. The continuing curve of Creation is an unending stream of delight - far beyond any concepts we've encountered. All history and ALL possibilities are at play constantly and at one time on the working screen before God - which is actually not before God but within. At the same time, remember, it's only us calling it God - calling it boredom, calling it creation. We must put such pride away, and learn acceptance.
Again, it's really hard to put all of this in words - simple, dumb words. My way of writing creatively (see blog) again is much more amenable to getting such messages across - as in a sort of 'magical' way by which I can transform these words into force, more of a force than this, almost by rote, method. In this format, 'A' has always to equal 'A', 'B' has to equal 'B', etc.; pretty freaking boring, there. But, that's not a problem for - as you can see - I'm just letting it go as it evolves and comes out. I know, for me, what's crystal clear; I can only hope it comes across that way for you. There's no real Boy Scout Handbook for salvation (even if others tell you there is). I could, of course, quote to you, line by line, things that have meant a lot to me, made sense to me - but that would defeat the purpose of this, 'my' interview. Besides, too many boring words already echo down the corridor.
10. What is religion? Religion is the force of mankind subjecting something unknowable to a forced and assumed knowledge. The worse it is, the more organized it is. It becomes merely a way to identify the missing. It becomes pathetic, to the extent of seeing lawn-signs on churchfronts which proclaim really stupid things - 'Let's Meet at MY House before the Game', signed, God'; or 'Sign Broken, Message Inside'. These are hideous attempts to bring a spiritual sense down to the level of the morose stupidities of the common man. It has lost all direction and, for that matter, any sense of shame about itself. It is pandering to the sickness which now rules mankind. It BECOMES its own enemy, but never has the strength to say that. What sickness rules mankind? Why is it that way? The sickness is the Evil I've already mentioned. People are consumed with false values, gain and loss, manipulation, devious means of getting things done, the assault of time and energy upon an actually quite fleeting life. Deals have been made, and a foul stupidity rules the land. I can't make it any clearer than that - everything you touch is befouled. The leading industry of the land is Negativity and Murder, done in the name of good things. Unless you, individually, get up and make things RIGHT, they'll not be so. Complacency is the horrible needle of a burning, lingering drug.
11. What is death? Why is death? Death is a passage for the deliverance of our lessons and possibilities. Death is both End and Beginning. It is 'lesson learning catching up with itself.'
12. Do you want to be immortal? I am, as is my multi-faceted spiritual self.
13. What is your concept of the "afterlife"? There is no 'after', just as there is no 'life'. These are mental constructions to facilitate understanding.
14. What makes you saddest about life? Its absence in people who cannot recognize it.
15. What makes you the happiest about life? Its presence, as Grace, amidst those who do.
16. What scares you the most? Rigidity, doctrine, stipulations.
17. Is there such a thing as Destiny or Fate? Yes, we attain Perfect Destiny when we reach our summation - fully aware of the value and force of our consciousness as Goodness.
18. Is there such a thing as Free Will? Yes. It is inherent in every action.
19. Does life have a meaning? Life's meaning is a steady-state of awareness in which we, as Greater Beings, collect every aspect of consciousness and put it to good use, proper use - even in seemingly conflicting ways - the perrenial problem with vast questions is - usually - vast answers. One ends up sounding vapid. I guess it's always a risk. To me, the vision which provokes me the most is a sort of awareness of the falseness of reality, and therefore some 'meaning' of it - in that I refuse to believe that what I see is what is there. By that, I suppose, I assume the goal of a life to be to break through the illusion, creatively garner enough personal evidence to realize passage through it onto other working levels of consciousness. That involves w-o-r-k. Life as toil, turmoil, intellectual strife, fighting with reason. It does NOT include foolishness with possessions, culture, entertainment, all the passing scars of the stab of life's supposed reality. What counts is singular creativity, aggressive curiosity, awareness of the Great Factors which inhabit all things, consciousness and grace. I believe in a sort of concurrent time - as in we are living various lives together, at one time, with casual awareness of them through various different focus-patterns which irk us; sleep, dream, daydream, fantasy. We can tap into our greater, cosmic, constant personal Spirit at any time - it can mitigate and alter the present Earth reality we are stuck to. We can change time, we can heal, we can alter the series of events we live. Each of us REPRESENTS a personal working concept through which we build our reality. A form of mass hallucination then occurs, by which we socialize ourselves - to the degree we chose. There is a constant hand-of-God essence in everything. Everything is aware. We recoil from or participate in only that which we wish to. The consequences of everything are ongoing; we pay for what we've chosen and are rewarded in reality by that we've assigned to ourselves. The hand of Evil influences, controls, and alters our world - the workings of which are, at that level, foul and no good. We must overcome tham. We must, in effect, bring our own sword to slay those monsters which assail us.
20. What purpose do you want for YOUR life? To attain a pure, intuitive creativity. Anything else, I probably just mentioned. When I was a young boy, I used to read things like the supposed psychic-seer Jeanne Dixon predicting that somewhere in the east was growing up, right then, a young boy who was going to rise up and lead people to their deliverance. I lived in New Jersey, and thought she really meant me. As far as I was concerned, THAT was the east and I was that boy. I answered every ad for that position I could find. Turns out, to my chagrin, there was another 'East'. The Orient, the Mid-East, an entire other world larger than my satisfactions then knew of. No one wanted me, so I grew up anyway.
I've always thought I wanted joy, and happiness. Turns out I'm the last person to be sought for those two things. I brood, I walk in deep, dark existential clouds and then shake doom off and find myself (just momentarily) laughing about something. Then I'm struck by lightning and decide there's a message in that being struck. Then I figure some message out and feel it's impossible to translate back. It's all very funny - and then, nose-to-the-grindstone, I start writing - writing these incredible heaps of words which somehow manage to perfectly encapsulate what I've been trying to verbalize or say about what I'd just experienced. That's a purpose for me. A just perfect purpose. And it all suits me fine.
21. What is Friendship, and what role does it play in your life? Very little. Life is often solitary.
22. What is love? Is it different from friendship? Love is harmony. It is different than friendship in that it can create.
23. What do you find lovable in a person? Authenticity.
24. Where does sex fit into all of this – what do you want out of sex? Very little. At some point in each person's life, perhaps, there arises a sexual need for both pleasure and/or procreation. But it is a lower urge, nothing to get hung up on. It is often possessed of Evil. It is very human-centered, or at least animal-nature-centered.
25. What do you want out of Marriage (if you want it at all?) - The one thing I will say about marriage is that marriage takes committment. Liars cannot commit. Very many people are liars. Very many people, therefore, should not marry.
26. What makes you, you? At my core, my essence is other-worldly. That makes me, me.
27. If you could change anything about humanity, what would you change? Absolutely everything.
28. If you could change yourself (no limits) what would you change? My time and my space.
29. What is the weirdest opinion you have on life? That it too is a changeable dream.
30. Overall, are you happy with your life? Yes, but to a degree that allows a resounding NO to also pop up.
31. Do you have any regrets? I guess not.
32. Do you have any final thoughts or advice to others? Do not listen, nor give heed, to liars. Speak your mind. Possess fully yourself. Understand detachment. Do not get hung up in the illusion of self-importance. Listen to others.
In addition, I have found this to be a very difficult exercise; paradoxical in that the LESS I said, the more I felt I was achieving clarity. Each time I added to things, built up the words, it got heavier and murkier, and less clear. No one can recognize intent, yet it was my 'intent' to be sincere and sensible, to the extent that I could. I've lived an eventful and interesting life, to this point, and one that I rake through constantly so as to harvest and glean whatever can be taken from it. Yet, never have the sort of pointed questions I just answered been posed to myself by myself in this way. It's discomfiting and almost annoying to have to pin down, butterfly-like, some Nabokovian conclusion to a flutter of wing and color which, until now has been swooshing by me - and which now I've killed and pinned down merely to examine. What can I pass on to others in this fashion? Not much. I can describe the colors, the texture, the migratory patterns, the habitation of that swollen butterfly, but I can impart NOTHING of that butterfly's sinuous and beautiful movement and motion. I can tell OF that butterfly as it lived, but in order to do that I have to first look down at its dead and lifeless body pinned to a card of felt. Forgive me if I've faltered in doing that.
Gary Introne http://garyjin.blogspot.com
email - garyjinn123@aol.com
