Tygarjas Twyrls Blog

So, since my birthday is coming up this week, and that’s where my mind kind of is, I thought I’d see what my association of thoughts would come up with accordingly for this week’s entry. Almost immediately I was reminded of a saying I’ve heard many times spoken by Dr. Betty Jandl of the Idyllwild Church of Religious Science, which goes something along the lines of, “When you were born, you were the only thing on God’s mind.” And that seems to me like kind of a heavy notion, so, the natural thing seems to meditate on that notion for my entry this week.

I am instantly reminded of two teachings about God when I reflect but for a moment on this saying of Betty’s. The first is the teaching of Gurdjieff:

“. . . of everything known to most of them concerning cosmic truths, this expression of theirs is the only true one of them all.

“And indeed, each of them is the image of God, not of that ‘God’ which they have in their bobtailed picturings, but of the real God, by which word we sometimes still call our common Megalocosmos.

“Each of them to the smallest detail is exactly similar, but of course in miniature, to the whole of our Megalocosmos, and in each of them there are all of those separate functionings, which in our common Megalocosmos actualize the cosmic harmonious Iraniranumange or ‘exchange of substances,’ maintaining the existence of everything existing in the Megalocosmos as one whole.” (B.T.T.H.G. Chapter 39)

And the other saying I am reminded of comes from the Hebrew Bible: And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Genesis 1:3

And I am reminded of these because, and I grant I don’t claim to have a concrete memory, but it seems to me that the first thing a person must perceive, before having a perceptual basis by which to compare it to, is the presence of some form of light. And these two quotes, in my mind, work well together because if a new person is a self-actualizing micro-cosmos of divinity, and all God is thinking of the moment you come into existence is you, to begin existence, it is as though divinity as yourself, or divinity as that which creates us says in the moment of that beginning, “Let there be light.” Let there be light meaning not just that light touches the newly created eyes for the first time, but that what has been created is also a reflector of light, a being of light, more light brought into the world. “Let there be light” is not merely that which we see by, it is that which is seen. And so, to me, these two phrases coalesce perfectly together within the context of one being born being the only thing on God’s mind in that moment of that person being born. When one is first born, their mind is that of the divine undifferentiated, aside from that newly perceived light, by which divinity can define itself existent.

So, to all out there, whatever day it may be, Happy Birthday to you, you pinch of God-stuff you!

TTFN

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Going to take a break from the usual for this Easter.

In the meantime, here’s a bit about where the holiday comes from. Enjoy!

TTFN

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So, I have a posting in progress about this little divine revelation I had one nice afternoon in June several years ago, but I don’t feel like I’m ready to publish it just yet. I mean, it’s not even fully written, but that could be taken care of in the time it takes me to type this posting. Which brings up the next point, I’m just not sure what to write about. . . So we begin with a ramble, or as my 12th grade English teacher would say, a mumble, and see what comes out of it.

I was thinking first about writing something about suffering, and how to make it stop, but I’m enjoying myself too much to right now so maybe I’ll come back to that one later; maybe on a day, God-forbid, in which I’m suffering.

As I write that, though, I’m immediately reminded that there are many, many people suffering. As in, they don’t even have a computer, or, like, you know, water to drink let alone piss in. And I mean that literally. I am so very blessed that I can piss in water without giving it even a second thought, and there are many, many people on this planet who don’t even have clean water to drink. And thank you Michael Foley for that observation!

So quickly, I suppose, the topic naturally progresses into: Gratitude.

And here’s the thing about gratitude: naturally feeling it is great as a symptom of one’s life, but it also, often, can act as a cure. I mean, people actually have the audacity to complain when it is raining. Now, I’m living in a state in which we have a drought and the water bill is high. And people complain when it is raining? How pathetic is that? I mean, if anything in this universe, call it what you will, is kind enough to regularly provide the basics for me continuing my life, I find myself considering how fortunate I am that the only inconvenience I possess is that my pants are a little damp, or that I have to use windshield wipers, rather than, you know, starvation or dehydration. How nice that nature, or whatever, is kind enough to replenish regularly my supply of life-giving substance which I can urinate in!

So, lately I am blessed enough that gratitude is a symptom of my life for at least the moment, but I have not forgotten that as I worked for these moments I perceive now, it was often I needed to thank existence for what I did have in the face of the suffering that seemed to try to pull my gaze toward the narcissism of self-pity. And so, in the face of what I longed for, I could at least thank God I knew of such a notion at all. And not only that, but that I had clothes on my back, food in my stomach, a way to pay the bills, and clean water to drink, never mind to piss in! In fact, truth be known, when it comes to water, my guiltiest pleasure is that I can even bathe in it rather extravagantly. Not only using the sacred common sustenance of life to keep myself from contracting disease, but also of enjoyment to cause pleasure, relaxation, surcease of pain!

Should one choose to bathe in gratitude, as water to filth, and inevitably disease, so will be washed away the film of the illusion of what one lacks, from the lens of one’s life. Gratitude will clean any of discontent who wish to have a clean, fresh-feeling heart with which to overcome any obstacle in one’s path.

Mahalo!

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Nearheed turned to Anhai and asked, “Anhai, will this battle never end?”

Anhai responded, “Nearheed, do you still wrestle with this question?”

Nearheed’s mind instantly became clear. He turned to watch the waves of the ocean wash over the sands of the shore.

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Peace

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OK, enough technical stuff, and no politics! I just got my license for the first time in nearly three decades of existence, and that being the freshest thing on my mind, a short tale of the happenings of the past week, and why it is that I call my perceptions of what I lived a perception of God in action . . .

It was an otherwise mundane Wednesday when I went to practice driving with my neighbor and friend. An hour to do a little more parallel parking, and confirm once and for all that I can apparently parallel park better than I can drive my car straight into a parking position. And my friend tells me that I look just about as ready as can be to take the test and get my license. And I agreed, which immediately frustrated me because the test I was probably already prepared for was scheduled for three weeks away. And then God, or at least what I call God, came in.

And my belief is that for God to work in action, one must allow for God to work; one must be open to be guided by the divine, make themself usable by the divine. Which is to say, not be adversarial to some possible “higher” guidance.

And so, when it occurred to me to check to see if there was an appointment the next day what I didn’t think to myself was, “Never mind trying; I already know all the appointments are taken, that’s why my test is so far from now to begin with.” What I said was, “Couldn’t hurt to try.” And lo an behold, there was an appointment open for 2:40 the next day. . . which was too late for anybody to ride down with me. . .

So, I checked again, even though I just checked not ten minutes prior and the computer said that that was the earliest time available. And, lo and behold, there was an 11:40 slot open for me to grab. So, I did.

And I consulted with my neighbor, who made arrangements to be able to go with me. And then as I was walking down to meet another friend, he calls and tells me that he had a prior engagement he had forgotten about, and can’t ride down with me. And just as I end the call, I see just a few steps away another friend who happens to be free the next day!

And the next day is storming. A scary day to drive on the highway. The kind of day when a tester might test just a little less rigorously . . . And nearly three decades of being without the legal ability to drive comes to an end. I mean, three weeks from now may have been bright and sunny, and that may have wound up being a day I hit the curb whilst parallel parking for the tester, and then I’d be waiting even longer for the legal privilege of driving.

Epilogue:

I made a deal with myself that I’d surprise my younger brother by stopping in at his house in San Mateo once I finally got my license. And so, on the way back from Redwood City, I did. And, lo and behold, he happened to be in a play that night I wasn’t aware of; and, that was the one night I had work off, and thus could attend. And so I dropped off the person riding with me, and made my first solo drive through rain and night on the California highway to see my little brother in a beautiful performance of “The Grapes of Wrath” in which the opening of the play discusses how we all may be part of the same soul. As in, we don’t so much have our own souls as that we are all a part of the same soul.

And that to me is God in action. And that’s my story!

TTFN

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I must apologize for something that neccesitates I dwell on this topic for just a touch longer. You see, last week, when I was putting the final touches on the posting, I was in a bit of a rush to post in a timely manner, and thus left out something rather important that I had intended on cutting and pasting into the posting. Which is to say, as a result of hurrying myself, on the one hand, to post upon an otherwise infinite span of time, on the other, the result was the posting that was published; something more the result of the rush than I would have liked it to have been than if my focus had been more in alignment with the fact that the time I could have used was just about any time at all. And to be clear, what I mean to say is, if instead my mindset had been that I had all the time in the world, rather than that it must be posted by a particular deadline, the results of the posting presumably would have come out different accordingly.

That being said, this is the segment I had wanted to include in my last posting:

“And in regard to the second primordial fundamental cosmic law, and, namely, the Sacred-Triamazikamno, common-cosmic objective science also formulates with the words:

“‘A new arising from the previously arisen through the “Harnel-miaznel,” the process of which is actualized thus: the higher blends with the lower in order to actualize the middle and thus becomes either higher for the preceding lower, or lower for the succeeding higher; and as I already told you, this Sacred-Triamazikamno consists of three independent forces, which are called:

the first, ‘Surp-Otheos’;
the second, ‘Surp-Skiros’;
the third, ‘Surp-Athanotos’;

which three holy forces of the sacred Triamazikamno the said science calls as follows:
the first, the Affirming-force’ or the ‘Pushing-force’ or simply the ‘Force-plus’;
the second, the ‘Denying-force’ or the ‘Resisting-force’ or simply the ‘Force-minus’;
and the third, the ‘Reconciling-force’ or the ‘Equilibrating-force’ or the ‘Neutralizing-force.”

-G.I. Gurdjieff

And so, my explanations in my last posting should make more sense in light of this newer one.

Simply put, when you stick two polarized forces together, they harmonize, and always slightly more in the direction of the one that has more sway. And that’s how a universe is made: Something, Nothing, and all that can be therefrom.

Enjoy!

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A little off topic, but I figure truth is probably derived from something like Justice and Liberty coming together . . .

First, the long-winded preamble (The important part, the question, is in bold):

Having come to Friday, not particularly feeling like aggravating myself or any other consciousness who is gracious enough to read my words with politics, this week, and not yet having a particular topic in mind, I asked a co-worker what a good question to explore might be for this week’s posting. My, I do love my run-on sentences don’t I? Anyway, to my request for his thoughts on a topic he thought for a moment. And his answer was, “What is truth?”

So, before giving what I believe to be as close to an answer as I can put into words, I feel it necessary to answer a question I often put to myself when writing out one of these topics, “What does this have to do with God?”

The cop-out answer is, everything without exception is God, and thus everything has everything to do with God. But, while accurate, that reminds me way too much of a Lady Gaga song. So, to reach just a little bit farther, at least in this instance, I figure the relevance is that if every definition of the divine cannot hold its own in the light of truth, then a better definition of the divine is needed. And thus whatever definition of truth is given must, in part, be an attribute of the divine since, by my thinking, the divine is the only measure by which the divine can be defined. Some trick for something which at its very essence cannot be spoken since its truth is that big. But, teachings tell us attributes can be described, and so . . .

The not-quite short enough response (The answer is in bold):

Truth is that which is experienced the same, no matter from what perspective it is perceived. If any two perspectives have a divergent impression of what they just experienced, that was not the truth being experienced. And in this lies the problem of easily understanding what is truth: impression is different than word-thought, and even different than image-thought. And the answer lies in a leap of faith to those whom have never experienced in such a way: for such a thing as truth to exist objectively, one perspective must be capable of being shared between more than one person. And to any who know exactly what I mean, I say to you, you at least have a hunch of what the truth of the existence of the living God entails. And to the rest I say, seek sincerely, and you will have no choice but to find, but leave belief at the door as you make it a point to experience whatever teaching you happen to be following up with at the moment.

I could probably write a lot more about truth and perceiving it, but why? So, I leave you with the words I studied that were the first that made any blessed sense to me when I was first seeking genuinely some sense of realizing the truth, indivisible, of the divine:

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

And a little music that, for me, sealed the deal:

TTFN

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I guess the theme of the week is whether or not evil sews the seeds of its own destruction. My own logical conclusion, as well as observations, is inevitably, yes! However, that being said, I don’t believe in evil. . .

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe in horrendously awful. I do believe that certain things are in no manner whatsoever helpful aside from being a perfect example of what never ever to do because it obviously sucks for all existence involved. I do believe that there are people who are apparently incapable of making positive decisions because they have been formed into being that severely damaged. But, evil itself is a concept I flatly reject.

How is it that I refuse to believe in evil? Two reasons: 1) If there is some ephemeral force of pure negativity that wants only destruction and wants us to do what is worst for ourselves, by virtue of the concept I’m always harping on “it shall be done unto you as you believe,” by not believing in it I can turn my focus toward actions more helpful, not giving it the slightest bit of energy to be able to work around me because I live life as though it doesn’t exist and the work required to make what I want to exist does. Of course, I believe in no such entity; that would be superstitious and akin to believing in monsters under my bed and a bogey man in my closet. So, 2) What I have seen of what people call “evil” manifesting in other people, I see as something other than “evil.”

Think back as far as you can. Can you ever remember a time in which there wasn’t some kind of war happening on this planet? I mean, can you conceive of a moment in time in which some government wasn’t actively engaging in the use of death for either monetary gains, or to defend themselves from somebody, interested in either power or money, for even one brief second? And do you think your parents can remember such a time? Or there’s? Now consider this, have you ever heard the term “post traumatic stress disorder?” And do you think that such a condition is isolated to only our time?

So the world as I know it has been fighting itself for a very long time. I contend not only is this not helpful to those people dying, but also not good for the families of those dead, and also not good for the families of those who live and can’t stop replaying the war they just lived through in their heads. And if they’re really lucky, they won’t try to kill the pain with alcohol, or beating their children, or succumbing to whatever genetic form of mental illness that tends to get passed down in their family . . .

So I guess what I’m saying is that if this were a world in which people weren’t constantly being made into the mentally ill by “power possessing” individuals who decide it’s a good idea to murder and disrupt the lives of other individuals, that have nothing whatsoever to do with them, because of their desire for money, or power, or to fulfill a point of pride because inside they’re nothing more than a broken little child, or whatever, maybe we could see objectively if there is such a thing as “evil.” But, the fact is that since the causes of “evil” perpetually abound, while I do believe that it is rather easy for people to find themselves in such a set of circumstance in which mental illness is the natural result, and that the effects of those mental illnesses can certainly look a lot like this strange misnomer “evil,” I can not with a clean conscience believe that “evil” exists. I mean, even that “president” that is nothing more than a scared little child inside, and thus taking that fact out on others in a really lousy way, like invading sovereign nations, killing its inhabitants, and thus spurning on civil wars and economic corruption, even he isn’t evil. He just should have been given an outlet to discuss his sister dying when he was young, and later not been paid by multi-million dollar organizations to sit behind the trigger of half the world’s nuclear bombs.

What does my psychoanalysis of the state of why people look like they’re acting “evil” have to do with God? Because there is no “evil” in God. And God is everything without exception. And in acting, two wrongs do not make a right. Slaughter to prevent slaughter merely causes slaughter. And if you’re concerned about a particular dictator I say to you, check out Egypt’s possibilities when its own people decided they’d had enough of something. They didn’t use slaughter. They acted together as God. Let’s see the psychosis/evil toll there as juxtaposed to if their land had been ripped asunder by “do-gooders” looking to make a buck by “freeing” people.

While this strange nothingness of a word “evil” has certainly been used enough to manipulate people into acting in the image of something other than the divine, it is the belief in the implications of said word that tend to bring about what people are talking about when they use it. So, I don’t believe in evil, though I do believe in cases of severe mental illness. And I don’t believe that violence helps anything, ever; at best its like pushing the food around your plate to make it look like you’ve eaten more than you have. And I do believe in compassion for those around us who need it, I do believe that Love is more helpful even if that means we merely have to turn away from someone who we wish could live in such a way that they wouldn’t need to harm us, and I do believe that in extreme cases of serious physiological brain damage, our jails become a viable option. But in that last case resort, I also believe in having pity on a person who has committed their crimes because their brain is broken. And I have pity on that person because I personally cannot imagine any greater Hell than not having the option whatsoever of claiming and using freely and with full heart one’s own sanity no matter what one does. I can imagine no greater horror than being locked so deeply into one’s mind that they cannot make claim to being the sort of animal they were born as, because they have no choice of acting like a different kind of beast entirely.

“Without Love deity, insanity’s king.” -Robert Hunter

Peace

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