The History of Mysticism

Well, like I said, it's no wonder this kinda stuff is so gosh-darn popular. Now, if we could only get

a blind man to see,
a deaf man to hear,
a lame man to walk,
and everyone else "up-a-thinking"

why, we might really be on to something!

 A man wrote to the I'll Try Not To Be Too Discouraging If You'll Enclose A Little Something "Extra" For Me In Your Letter Doctor and asked:

     "Dear Doctor,

               Will knowing the secret keep you from getting sick?"

 But the doctor had to ask the man whether he meant physically or otherwise.

The visible history of mysticism
is the invisible history of genes made visible.

 A man wrote The Now You See Him, Now You Don't Doctor and asked:

     "Dear Doctor,
          If someone becomes conscious enough, do they disappear?"

And the doctor had to ask if the writer meant physically or otherwise.

J.

A Tip Regarding the Clothing of the Neural

From the Old Mailbag:

"Who can I write to at your News to tell you that I'm not going to read you any more?"

               A Tip Regarding the Clothing of the Neural:

               If indeed you are "coming apart”—
it will be "at the seams."

 Note:
This is not merely a warning for the routinely "fashion conscious," or your everyday seamstress, but rather potentially useful information for those engaged in (shall we say) other kinds of construction activities, in that it points specifically where to look when things appear intent on decomposing and disintegrating.

Everyone has a weak spot:

regarding the body, it's in the genes;
regarding the mind...well, no one really wants to get into this.

Another from the Old Mailbag:

"Okay then, if fake mystics take illness as a metaphor for life, what would real ones use?”

J.

Superheroes

Surveying the literature and realm of the childish mind, one young lad one day paused to ponder: "Are all our dreams of superheroes but reflections of the future potential of everyday man himself?" And after a bit more rumination, returned with, "And is this also the basis of history making past everyday men larger-than-life, heroic figures?" He then turned himself to pursuing this whole subject as regards how, more specifically, his own thinking dreamed of him.

As when any particular physical exercise begins to hurt, you alter the way you're doing it, so too, when your mental activity is not bothering you, alter it to do so.

Just released statistics reveal that:

     "Well over 90% of all mystics who persevere in their efforts past middle age do so on their yet held belief that something most spooky and mysterious still lies ahead." And a man, upon hearing this, pondered it for a moment, then said, "I was tempted to comment that if this be correct then it would account for certain temporal anomalies visible in the lives of those who pressed on with motivation other than the one noted...but, I guess, to what end?”

According to a certain tale, there are intellectually active beings on one world whose conscious sense of self is not confined to their head....And a nearby star nudged itself in the ribs and said, "Did you hear that?"

First guy says, "It sure is disheartening to be ordinary!"

Second guy says, "Yeah, but not half as much as being ordinary and accepting it."

J.

Quick Word to the Wise

One entity used to sing to itself while it worked,
but since it never worked it never sang.
Another one used to work to itself when it sang,
but since it never sang, it put an ad in the paper. 

     Subliminal Message To Replace Moral: 
     Don't count your sentences before…

                         P.S.  Don't EVER let the gods have the first word.

Over in the Third Ward, a neighborhood ole-sorehead, in a fit of metaphorical melancholy, stated quite plainly that,
"Many people with indoor plumbing D-O-N-'T D-E-S-E-R-V-E IT!"

  Yeah -- okay, I know, time's short, we're all in a hurry-o, so,
"Quick Words to the Wise": 
If everybody else considers it important -- don't waste your time.

            (When you're from out-of-town, sometimes your opinions feel clammy.)

J.

Job Done

This one chap who sometimes visits the City heard the proverb, "He with nothing to lose lives soundly," and he wondered, "Could this be any way applied to thinking?"

 (Some news items are longer than other ones are short.)

Those whose feelings come to no end,
will surely live to feel again.
If how you feel you cannot say,
you'll live to feel another day.

     ("Push 'em back, push 'em back, Rah-Rah-Roo; We got a winner in Episodic U.")

                What a man sees is what he “needs” to see...ordinarily.

In the City, if you think about something hard enough, your brain will point in the opposite direction.

"In the correct execution of my duties as your ole man, I hereby tell you, kid, that it's to your advantage to lie and tell the truth.  ...Job done."

 (All local laws lead to death.)

J.

Most of the Time

One of the best laughs one god had over in his part of his universe was one of his "famous creatures" having forty-seven thousand of his fellow creatures showing up to see him and him believing that they came to see him.

                       Polarized criticism always puts the laugh in the wrong place.

One fellow, thoroughly convinced he'd "done his best," shouted to the unappreciative, "I've done my best!" and their masked manager climbed up on the ring apron and replied, "You shouldn't have told us that."

If a thought's not original,
it's not a thought.

"Most of the time"
is ALL of the time.

J.

Maps To Mystics

Maps:

For thinking creatures,
maps have an inherent danger: 
they are alive!
and once used, are almost impossible to kill.

Traffic:

When the traffic passing your house becomes of decreasing interest, you're living
in a better neighborhood.
(Taken a bit further, you might realize why mystics never have a home address.)

According to one legend:

Each man is born with a single sun in the middle of his head,
but as the mind develops, it splinters into many smaller ones.
(This particular legend concludes with the words: “Dig It!”)

Another Of Reticence's Demands:

Mental disinterest,
once expressed,
strikes ordinary ears
as disingenuous.

Limits:

Without experiencing the limits of a thing,
you'll never understand the limits of the thing.

Mystics:                               

Those with the potential of becoming a mystic
don't need to be sold on the idea of becoming a mystic
...They were born presold.

J.

The Political Landscape

  The Political Landscape: An Aerial View:

Were it not for the "warring factions,”
there would be no conceivable whole
which would be made up of the factions
were they to cease hostilities.

And as obvious and simple as this may be,
it is even more so when applied
to the normal state of man's mind.

And a fan writes: "Did I miss something regarding your comment, 'as obvious and simple as this may be'? Please tell me I did!"

A Report on Reticence:

The silence that speaks so forcefully to the alert is both external and public,
internal and personal.

"Good intentions" should not be knocked: in man's unique world, that's all that's possible, e.g., a beer company advertises that they support "reasonable consumption of their product," but if that were truly one of their concerns they would limit the number of bottles that could be sold to any one individual within a given period of time -- would they not? But they don't -- they can't -- good intentions are all that is possible.

Man's world -- Gotta Love It!

J.

The Doctor Will See You Now

While poets and philosophers have searched for the "perfect metaphor," the alert have realized that it is right before us: Things-As-They-Are.

The symbol of a serpent swallowing its own tail does not represent the culmination of life -- but life as it forever is.

Once man left the peace and quiet of paradise and became a thinking creature, he took on a kind of illness, and to help compensate, life provided a form of self-treatment: constant mental agitation.

"The doctor will see you now."
"Hello, Doc, you've got to help me!"
"Certainly -- just look over there...now over here...now back over there."
"My God! good Doctor -- I'm cured!"
"I know, my boy, I know.  Next."

No matter where,
no matter when,
no matter the language, the customs, the culture,
no matter the people's simplicity or sophistication,
what one attribute do all of man's many religions ascribe to god?
that he is "unchanging."

...Quite a coincidence, huh?  Next.

J.

Be Prepared to Travel

You are not as weak and helpless as the regular inhabitants of Babel.  It is true that you cannot seem to facilitate any long period of excursion from this fitful city, but you are no longer within the ranks of its regular, full time inhabitants, and you must recognize the responsibility that comes with this.

Sleep is no longer your natural state and you must consider this at every moment of every hour of every day of every circumstance and move forward accordingly.  You are still a fool but you are not an ordinary fool, and you must resist the mind’s constant habit of telling you otherwise as its excuse for keeping you emersed in feelings helplessness.

You now have the ability to move from the state of sleep into the condition of change and strength.  You have the ability, but do you continue to have the need, the hunger, the Aim?  When will you begin to see that you can now move whenever you Remember.

The more you Remember, the greater grows your need for additional movement.  The greater becomes the hunger, and the greater becomes the effort. 

Your condition, your condition…see it now, and you will for that moment and the next and the next and the next, be stretching yourself from the dream slums of Babel.  Be prepared to travel!

J.

Leaving Babel Redux

Dream all you want, but in Babel you are and in Babel you will remain if you await instant salvation and immediate transportation to the state of Awake.  It will never arrive without your own continual commitment, remembrance, and effort.

You must see to your own condition.  This can always be done under all circumstances, and for now this alone gives you the experience of what real, unencumbered travel would be like, and offers the sure knowledge that such effort is real and offers escape from one’s homeland-of-madness.

Condition is very impermanent.  External forces lay heavy on your condition and personality stands always ready to accept external forces and impressions and translate them in its own devilish way.  You find now that whatever the true state of being Awake may be, that you are not capable of instantly producing it.  ut if you leave it at that, you bring on peculiar burdens and waste everything that is possible. 

What is possible is to constantly inspect, be aware of and observe, struggle with your ever-present condition.  You must be able to see-to-now.  If you can do this you can see-to-tomorrow and even yesterday.  All of your small-time, ever-passing “problems” still exist only because you are not forcing yourself to meet each moment head-on as it arises.

You find every little instance to be a bewildering source of confusion, and you keep hoping for instant Awakening and a solution from me, or someone.  Things could be improved, but for now you must find your own unrecognized ability to affect your own condition.

J.

Leaving Babel

Your current condition, to which I refer, is not permanent, in that at times, you may have struggled against imaginary hostility, for instance, and found yourself internally in a new place.  It was a new experience; free from a feeling of ordinary time, without the weight of identification, a breath of freedom from illusionary suffering and concern.

In itself that was enough to personally convince you of the propriety of your involvement in the struggle.  And yet a short time later you discovered yourself right back in the bustle and madness of Babel; back at home again in spite of the wonders of your excursion from home. Your leg was stretched by the new, unnatural knowledge and by your own effort; you made steps beyond the limits of Babel-city, but your foot, secured to old personality’s floor, eventually yanked you back to your old state. This is simply the nature of this forced march from here to there. 

It is the journey that all before you have taken.  They were yanked, freed, then pulled back time and time again, but the continued effort stretched the leg-of-personality finally to the breaking point, and off they went. You must not become submerged in dreams of the ultimate or even your present “state.”  Rather, it is your continuing “condition” that must be of concern. 

As long as you are Remembering yourself and your Aim, and as long as you are using the many methods I have described to constantly struggle against ordinary existence, then you are not simply in the ordinary state of Babel-sleep. This is all that is important; this is all any man or woman can deal with, the internal Now.  Only a fool, only the ordinariest-of-the-ordinary sits in Babel and dreams of our Destination.  That is useless and tormenting; it is deluding and self-defeating. 

Ask yourself the secret, silent question, “What am I doing this very moment, and this moment and this moment about my own condition? 

Are you involved again in the same old dreams that have filled your head since you were a child? 
Are you continuing to dream about fantastic future plots which self-study would show are of no real interest to your soul? 
Are you mentally rehashing yesterday’s and yesteryear’s arguments with family and friends? 
Are you again engaged in human suffering over what some neighboring fool in Babel said about you? 
Are your apparent emotions being brought to boil again by these sorry, unchecked nightmares of the mind? 

If so, the homeliness and habit of Babel has you entrapped and you are asleep, you are ordinary and you are doomed and re-doomed fool.  You are a true native of Babel.

J.

The Cities of Babel and Awake

Abandon all intellectual thinking about what being awake may or may not be.  This can lead to very dangerous dreams and entice you from your proper path.

Once you have sufficiently had times of objective escape from the confines of sleep, then you will understand for yourself such is unnecessary.  Until then, turn your consideration to what you do know and what you have experienced, beyond the limits of ordinary thought and life. 

Tell me your present
and I will reveal your future.

Your present is your condition and it’s relation to the states I have mentioned could be pictured thusly.  Picture the extreme states of sleep and awakening as two cities on opposite sides of the globe.  The state of ordinary sleep we shall name as the City of Babel and the opposite city of Awake as our destination.

Now further picture that your own effort is to leave Babel, wherein all are born and raised, and travel to our destination, which the Few believe is man’s proper homeland. Although many speak of such a trip, and many even imagine they are one such a journey, very, very few ever take even one step outside the city limits of sleeping-Babel.

For those who do, and even the weakest among you have taken a few steps, picture that even as they hesitatingly move away from town a bit, their left foot stays nailed to the floor back in Babel.  Their leg stretches to accommodate this peculiarity, so even if they move a bit away from Babel, the ordinary state-of-sleep part of them remains still affixed back where they began.  Can you picture this?

J.

The Middle Ground

Let me first establish our own private definitions:
When I speak of “states” this will indicate a generally permanent internal position, such as an ordinary man’s state of sleep, which is constructively permanent and unchanging throughout his lifetime. 
The state of Awakening is one which a man has acquired on his own understanding and cannot simply be taken away from him by the ordinary flow of life. But, to refer to another place somewhere between the two, I will label it not a “state,” but a “condition,” which is not permanent and stable in the way I described the first two states.

In the many imagination-based pseudo-systems, you will find no mention of this nebulous middle ground, they will only speak of two extremes: of somehow, immediately going from one’s present state into the glorious final one…the ole’ immediate-salvation and instant-Christianity-dream.

This is all fine-for-the-mind and easy for the would-be leaders of such imaginary endeavors.  It always remains an either/or situation wherein the followers, finding in themselves no immediate, miraculous change, can simply be told that they obviously aren’t faithfully following the rules of the system, not reading the designated books continually, not donating sufficient monies, or abiding by the exotic, impotent regulations of the sect.

Of course, upon hearing this, the would-be followers should instantly experience sufficient, subjective guilt to hold them fast to the illusionary rules of their imaginary game.  They may then mentally be satisfied to continue, having their mind assure them that they will reach the ultimate, promised state anytime they choose to faithfully follow all of the rules and conditions.  Hence, they stay just as they are, while dreaming otherwise.

It is partially for this reason that I want you to consider this middle-ground which I am not calling a true state, but a condition that is promoted and produced by one’s own objective efforts. The middle-ground is the necessary basis for shaking oneself from sleep, and ultimately being able to hold fast until the condition becomes your natural state.

J.

Where Are We?

Where should a person be, in themselves, who has been making effort consistently?  In imaginary systems you always find much talk about specific states or experiences which are described in laboriously, if not clearly, by the pseudo-system.

Thus far I have, when pertinent, simply used historically based terms from several systems to indicate the ultimate Aim…such verbal reflections as, to be Awake, or Enlightened.

No such terms, of course, have any practical validity save for those who have tasted them and know the reality behind the reflection.  But nonetheless, such terms have a necessary use in that we must be able to have some intellectual communication regarding the purpose of undertaking this effort.

I have used words to indicate a man’s usual mortal state such as “being asleep,” or my own simply referring to the “ordinary” condition, which is in fact a proper, direct statement of man’s condition, without a personal undertaking of a directed effort.  Thus, to an uninitiated spectator it might appear to be a clear-cut matter of extremes; that a man or woman is either “asleep” or “Awake”; “ordinary” or Enlightened.”

As you people well know, it is not so simple as the mind would dictate.  It is not a question of any of you being continually asleep and identified or Awake and Enlightened.  You may not be Awake, but you are certainly not ordinarily sleeping, as you were when I first found you.  You are in another place entirely.

J.

Abandon the Past

A man who begins to understand the ultimate necessity for abandoning the past will begin to strip himself of all identifying garb. 

He will refuse to seriously identify himself as a native of any particular family, street, block or section in the mad City of Babel, and will continue to re-occur with or without his agreement or preference.

He would be immune to flattery
and safe from seeking recognition.

He would stand objectively amidst apparent disaster and laugh as soon as possible.  Whatever, whatever happened in life, he would secretly disagree with, because he is a member of a holy rebellion, one that never agrees with the enemy.  (What are you, a traitor?)

You will re-read this, if anyone so desires, for it is indeed sincere and profitable to those properly prepared.  I say many things indirectly that you can never hear directly, and some things no one would ever speak of…(but, fuck it, we’re all friends here.)

J.

Agreement-Without-Commitment

Ordinary maps direct one to a final destination, while real maps point to an infinitely continuing journey.  Thus, in this basic aspect, real maps are beyond the realm of maps entirely. 

Even while I say that my most recent comments draw intellectually closer to an Ultimate-map, they too do not lead you to a final resting place, but rather throw you constantly to a new, uncertain place just beyond the lastly perceived point of the map…the forever Future/Now.

One possible description of the general basis from which one might act in regards to the attempt to abandon all of the past and push forever into the Future/Now would be to say that one might become engaged in “agreement-without-commitment.”

Another aspect of this is that ordinary men spend their lives attempting to come to grips with their induced maps.  The Few spend their lives spending their lives:  they willfully agree to the necessary flow of all forces, while secretly committed only to their own Awakening.

J.

The Method-of-Methods

The method-of-methods is in willfully becoming an active spark of the Future/Now.  “The Future/Now,” more words indeed, but the reality there behind is beyond all past methods, all previous tricks, and all known theories of would-be-Work systems.  It lies not in the mind’s concept of tomorrow; it is the future and yet it is not.

This method comes from the total destruction and complete abandonment of the past and always depends on the past.  It is holy Rebellion from the passive, orderly influence of the force of the routine present.

For those whom I have properly helped in self-destruction, it is a willful throwing-of-oneself into that unidentifiable, unknown point just beyond, just minutely beyond, the vertical-line-of-now.  It is a constant, joyful hurling of oneself just beyond the normal point of now.  It is the most dangerous reality of true Liberation, a cutting free from all that is dead, useless and rotting in the past, forever running just ahead of the frustrating, choking hold of “I’s now,” which is forever tied to the destruction of the past.  It is the ultimate danger, the ultimate joy, but one available only to those who have faithfully followed the course thus far.

No need for childishly inspiring poetry. 
No cause for misdirected faith in the past. 
No use for guilt-for-the-unavoidable,
nor nightmares-of tomorrow,
but a forever forcing of tomorrow
into the crack just beyond the present.

This is the reward and responsibility for those who can destroy the useless, abandon dreams and now undertake the continuing work of real creation by Awakening to the psychological future, by becoming the actual future of man, by truly becoming that of which man has so long dreamed, a real, living person who understands the responsibility of the chosen who knows the ridiculous joy of the Few.

J.

A Trick-for-the-Serious

You have listened to me speak, hint and point, but until now it has been a secretive form of induced, willful destruction.  I have attempted to lead you into destroying yourselves and hence your past; your imagined concepts of now.  (We did not speak of such matters, but reality is always beyond the grasp of maps anyway…eh, what.)

I did appear to speak of such things as your place of birth, the particular section of the city of Babel from when you arose to play your destined position in this astounding game.  I did sing, curse and promote the consideration of your past, your fathers, their culture, their religion; but it was a trick-for-the-Serious.

I did lead you in certain methods that seemingly were involved in bringing your consciousness into the unnatural focus of the present.  This, too, was chicanery and after all, I begin to ask you what you had discovered from all my comments and your efforts.

Have you uncovered a “real I”?   Have you found one active in the past?  Can you live in one at every moment of now?  Or, have you been left with a concept of you-as-a-process, a happening, an occurrence; a mortal carrier and relay station for a never ending flow of forces that seem to be beyond you and outside the ordinary sense of individual existence?

All these tricks were all misdirected encouragement to discover the extraordinary.  And now, you must consider what lies beyond a period of destruction.

J.

The Something Else

That which I point you to is a something else.  It is a continuing present-sense-struggle to willfully abandon all things that rest on the past, and see that such ordinarily control your sense of now and paint all pictures of tomorrow.

That to which I attempt to draw your consideration is something else indeed.  It is linked not with any ideas, notions or routine remembrances of the past, and the resulting mechanical manifestations that seem to be your now.

What I speak of has no historical lineage, no ancient background.  It is rootless, unconceived and totally unknown.  It comes not from the mechanical necessities of past pressures or pleasures.  It has no ordinary authority arising from those things revered and called “holy.”  It does not fit into any acceptable religious plan, or theoretical scheme of progress.  No matter what it may be called, it is not the past, nor the progeny of the past.

If this can be seen, all ordinary fears and useless concerns over the present activities of man and his possible future, as a whole, will disappear in the deep, playful bowels of understanding.  But this is still the level below that of which I speak.

I speak of the mechanical, non-material, unpredictable and holy-disorderly.  I speak of the secret spark of the Work, the Creative Force of man’s higher responsibility and ultimate potential.  I speak of the struggle for man’s psychological evolution, his Awakening.

J.