Friday, February 29, 2008

All Life is Pain Caused by Ignorant Desire.

That is what Gautama Buddha said. He said other things and quite a few of them were unspoken. Much of what was said, so that you could hear it in the usual way, was the same sort of thing you hear from all the rest of them; your Jesus Christ, your Mohammad and your Krishna. The other things, the sub rosa communiques that were transmitted by gesture or intuition are out of print; never having found their way into that medium to begin with. Only those seriously intent on hearing these things will hear them.

In a way it is like the news of the world. There is what you hear reported and explained by the official organs of your time and there is what actually happened but doesn’t get reported.

In a way it’s like the different governments. There is the physical presence of the institutions and their legislative and enforcement arms and then there are the invisible governments that actually operate the people that operate the machinery. There are two kingdoms of residence and where you live depends on who you take your orders from. Do you act according to appearances by reflex, within or outside of the official parameters of what passes for right and wrong ...or are you dancing to a different drummer altogether?

While people live and die; disappear and reappear, expand and contract, there is a common reality of dream stuff that is always being molded to accommodate the appetites and ambitions of the day. Imagine an enormous spider. You could think of it as a kind of darkness that is discernable by degrees of shadow from which everything your senses report is spun out on to a trembling web; life’s cornucopia of never ending things.

Just as any movement on its web alerts the spider, the same can be said of this web. Everything you do is transmitted on the web; just like email, only you don’t have to send the email to telegraph your presence. All you have to do is think, or speak, or move.

Operating in one of the theaters where I operate; hey, call it an operating theater. I hear a lot of things. I hear about how we are all screwed and I hear about concentration camps and worldwide famine on the horizon. I hear about economic collapse and I can almost hear armies of jackbooted thugs from nowhere marching across the landscape. I hear about a small cadre of the elite who control everything. I hear that everyone who is anyone and even those who are no one are all tools of sinister forces who are going to put us in pods; or we are already in pods... and suck us dry or chain us to a wheel like young Conan and force us to drive the wheels of their fell industries... or we are already doing that. I even heard that I was a tool because someone didn’t understand my Obama post at another blog; actually, very few got the gist of that. Maybe I’m too subtle for my own good.

The fact of the matter is that a government far, far more powerful than anything you can imagine; a government, a regent and his emissaries and armies have always controlled and always will control everything. Even the trembling of a single blade of grass is noted within the awareness of this all encompassing, all controlling mind... consciousness.

It is true that there is a temporal collection of beings that are busy with the appearance of terrestrial mismanagement. It is true that they themselves are controlled by invisible entities who manipulate the selfish intentions of separated minds. It is true that unpleasant things happen because of this. It is true that everyone who is involved in this is affected by this.

But... that’s under control too. That is firmly under the control of this single power that is always in control. It just looks like they are in control of your world and when you give them the power that their appearance of power demands then you seem to be a helpless pawn of their rapacious intent. Here is where you get compromised. You let your fear of their appearance of power sway your essential allegiance. In this manner, the shadow cast by the light assumes the appearance of power which belongs only to the light which casts the shadow.

Here’s the deal people; “All life is pain caused by ignorant desire.” And you can also say that civilization is our reaction to pain in our pursuit of comfort. You need food and a market appears. You need shoes and a shoe store appears. You want to dance and a nightclub appears. You want excitement but you would rather watch and so movie studios appear. You’d rather live by proxy and whomph! There you are on the couch in front of the TV.

You want sex and casinos and drugs and so those things appear. Those parts of town appear. Along the way are those souls who want the influence and power that money brings from the wheeling and dealing of the industries that provide the things you want and desire. Enter the devil, Saturn, who limits into form the objects of your desire. Enter in all of those who serve this force in order to acquire the particularization of power they seek from the possession of the coin of the realm and Presto! Black magic... dark lodges, Luciferian brotherhoods, O.T.O. The Rothschild’s, the military/industrial complex, the pharmaceutical/medical combine and so on and so on.

Because you want what you want, it appears. It is because of what you want that you have what you have, or desire what you do not have, that actually chains you to the wheel that turns the industries that manufacture what you want.

The kicker is that they all work for you. These massive jinn’s, demons and elementals are at your command and all the movers and shakers of this world are employed by them and they are employed by the shadow thrown by the light and the light rules over all of it. If you knew who you were you could ask a mountain to cast itself into the sea and it would; somebody or other said that. As it is, because you don’t know who you are, your servants are running the show and they have thrown you out of the castle and you’re blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other. They’re drinking your wine and eating your food and laughing at you. That’s right, they’re laughing at you. Every now and then one of them says, “Boo!” and you go running off in search of a hiding place and they all burst into another gale of laughter.

Angels and demons are a matter of perception. There is an outline of light that glimmers behind every fright mask and that is the angel. What you want determines who you are and what presentation you serve. “Even the devil is transformed into an angel of light at the given moment, be not deceived.” They’ve been editing that out of the Bible the last so many years and you can’t much find it now. It’s been reworked. Check it out.

You are the bank of the divine. There’s a lot invested in you. It’s a shame to see you rag-picking among the prodigals in the dustbins ...but so it is. The good news is that sooner or later the dawn will break upon the darkness of the mind and you’ll be able to hear all of the things these emissaries of light didn’t say to the general public because now you’re tired of processed food and what it’s done to you.

All these things you want are variations of nature... once removed, twice removed and thrice removed and mutated from mutations. In order to fill the orders, the Queen of Heaven must unnaturally turn into a whore... angels turn into demons... Heaven turns into Hell.

Hunger after something finer and you might be surprised. Think you can do better than Lot’s wife? To do a more perfect dance you need a timeless composition; to paraphrase one particular emissary, pick up your lead sheets and follow me.



Anonymous said...

Thanks Les, I really like your metaphysical writings, in fact I like all your writings, they always give me so much to think about,keep up the good work. john

kikz said...

damn well said, les....
its all so simple.
just a little soft-shoe.... to the melodious metaphor "me and my shadow".

uncle al has choice words 'bout the light bearer... which have for some 137yrs... driven literalists to foaming at the mouth with screams of palladism.

"LUCIFER, the light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit
of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning!

hava great wknd :)

Anonymous said...

You rang? Right on time again. Whew. Listen, Mister Visible, I honestly don't know how it is that you do what you do and am far beyond caring or even wondering, I just desire that you keep on doing it.
I decended yesterday hairpinning into a Pleistocene valley from awesome geographical heights - all the while looking behind me at some ominous movement coming from the rear only to find it was the shadow of the rock buggy. But the incredible landscape apparently wasn't enough, I landed into a freekin' movie set with golden robed/staff-bearing gentlemen heralding the passing buggy through the cow pastures. That really happened. Despite all the fun, I knew not what to make of it until today's essay. Now, I have this complete and tidy package of seamless integration of perfect experience, one great metaphorical moment blending sweetly into the next, for which I am flattened in gratitude.
PS the only guarentee of net forums is that no matter how you state the obvious, you will be misread.
Love, Nina

annemarie said...

Dear Doctor Subtle :)

I think that you should start using illustrations to go with your words since some people have great difficulty understanding even the simplest of words and the simplest of concepts. This might go a long way towards solving the problem of misunderstanding or not understanding by some of the kiddies who (attempt to) read your words. I hear that stick drawings and crayons work wonders with some.

Most sincerely,
an Outpatient


annemarie said...

Hallo Les :)

Hallo kikz, nina, john, ever'body :)

There was a point in this essay where I started hearing the rhyme and rhythm of "this is the house that Jack built". You know the one? Anyhow, it was tres tres cool.

I love this. It's brilliant. Shine on dear One, shine on ever'one :)


Anonymous said...

Indeed. Desire finer things.
Years ago I read somewhere a mantra that went "I sacrifice comfort for truth". It struck a cord in me and for the first and last time I blocked thoughts by saying the mantra. Two weeks after I started it our home and business burnt to the ground. Uninsured, we had to start completely a fresh.
It has been an untold blessing because of lack of fiscal freedom, the desires have petered out.
I don't go shopping for anything other than food and hardware supplies.
And for pleasure I try and abide in the kingdom within as often as possible.
Your blog is a reminder to me of great magnitude.
And on that note I am sincerely grateful.
I also hear of the concentration camps awaiting but in my dream it is very different.

Anonymous said...

I want to take a few moments to say something here and at Smoking Mirrors, different things of course.

This is the most outstanding work you have done so far. You are inspired by a higher mind. It is proven time and again. With this work and the one on simpler things you have crossed over into a greater ability. I would not have thought it possible but it is. This one is going to be read in other languages and times.

I can imagine your difficulties and my admiration for you is based more on what I know you have to be suffering than in what you do here. It's not possible in this time to think and act as you do with such intense forces pressing in upon every effort to rise and not feel the heat.

In your struggle for the light you may not see the mighty tree that you are becoming. One day you will shelter many. I thank you with more gratitude than I can say.

Anonymous said...

I have been reading you for some time now close to two years actually I do get around the net a bit and I am pleased to say you are amazing you shine with a radiance that is all encompassing.A lot of times I have come here and to your other blogsonly to find you have already manifested what I was feeling you put int words what I can only dream of.As everyone agrees you are in a class by yourself regardless of what gets linked to what.
Thank you, and keep on.

Anonymous said...

This piece is really resonating with me. Cycling around the village during and after sunset several things came to mind.
The Angel becomes the demon, heaven becomes hell.
And beyond it all is nothing but light. Something we have stopped noticing. Again thanks for the reminder *******

Anonymous said...

Ciao Les,

Here you're speaking a higher truth, as I see it, than your dualistic diatribes over at Smoking Mirrors. I detect some attempts at integrating the absolute & the relative views at both blogs. Personally I've spent more than enough time on the lower wavelength & feel much more at home here.

When Oneness is a constant experience, not just a belief, there's your freedom. Freedom from fear, from hope, from desire, everything. The General Strike has shut down reality. All is well.


Anonymous said...

Dear Les,
You are very perceptive. Being an independent (interdependent) thinker you may not be interested. I wanted to suggest that you read some of Adi Da Samraj's recent writing. I think you are in a space where you would appreciate what He has to say. Religion and Reality, Up?, Not Two Is Peace and The Mummery Book are some that come to mind.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous above,
Adi Da or Da Free John or one of the 10 000 names he has chosen is so steeped in ego that the words that come out of his mouth are pure esoteric whitewash.
One of those writers that says all the right things and yet there is no resonance.
One's self knows the truth and the resonance is recognition of it.
I don't think Les needs to read anything.
I think that is the beauty.

mc said...

Thanks Les, I needed that - this posting was so in tune with how I have been feeling - the servants have definitely taken over and I am exhausted...time to run my own place.Perhaps many wish for chaos - the drumbeat heralding the great unleashing reveals desire...but it is not mine - must search to understand my/our true nature - I feel you speak to this search - and what a relief to read your words.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful Les.
1. Nature will perform the necessary cure.
2. A tool you certainly are; a tool of The Power that Is.

Anonymous said...

Like others have already commented, metaphysics is the subject that I prefer to focus on more so than politics or culture, though they're all connected in the same sense that wrapping paper is connected to the gift inside. Politics is the paper that obscures the surprise and culture is the ribbon that initially draws our attention to the mysterious box of existence, and if only more people were aware of how they've been mesmerized by the packaging all this time while neglecting to open it, then... Well, I can't even imagine what could be accomplished if that happened on a grand scale, but I'd like to find out.

This here blog of yours is an effective tool for helping accomplish that very thing, and I find it inspiring on many levels. There really is some kind of psychic internet that we're all connected to, and I continue to be amazed at how often some new line of thinking will enter my head shortly before I'm suddenly reading or hearing some form of that thought everywhere. Dr. Rupert Sheldrake may be on the cusp of a robust, testable theory explaining this, and it's clear he's on to something big (I highly recommend checking out his work).

In this case, I've been pondering the Light/Dark thing again lately, and your statement "Angels and Demons are a matter of perception" sums up where my thinking has been heading. It started after I read Hunter S. Thompson's book about the Hell's Angels. If they are Angels, then they are the best in some arbitrary sense. And if they are of Hell, which is the worst place in some arbitrary sense, then Hell's Angels are therefore the best of the worst, or the worst of the worst depending on one's perception, though they mean the same thing in this case.

I really liked the parts in this post about footprints since I'm an avid tracker, and tracking is the embodiment of an enlightening question: What happened here, and what is this telling me? I look back at my past tracks and also can see where I veered from the Path, and there is still some dried mud stuck to my feet and ankles from those past missteps which now serves to remind me that not all ground is equally firm. So I guess the lesson is that when life hands you mud, make mud-aid.

As I explored the perception of Light vs. Darkness, it became apparent that some of my missteps weren't. They were simply a matter of the inevitability of pissing some people off with the very best of intentions, a phenomenon with which you are vividly aware and that's been circulating around the psychic internet lately. While mulling all this over, all of a sudden an epiphany gelled in my mind: I am a member of a lesser-known gang known as Heaven's Demons. The moment that phrase popped into my mind, the whole spectrum of its metaphoric implications was instantly self-evident. Too bad it's not quite as catchy a phrase as "Hell's Angels," but given time this might change.

As I said in a previous comment to one of your posts, sometimes love has blood on its hands, albeit reluctantly (and usually metaphorically, fortunately!). This is easy for martial artists to understand; we learn how to maim and kill because of the love we feel toward those we wish to keep from harm. Heaven's Demons will gladly do the dirty work and even mop up afterwards to spare those we care about the darkest of life's illusions, or at least that's the desire.

I suppose this may well be an ignorant desire, just like all the rest. Can some desires be less-ignorant than others? Can they?!?

Questions like that are WAY above my pay grade; I'm still having trouble just being here right now. Fnord!

'Till next time...

A classic Visible post:

With gratitude to Patrick Willis.
