The summary

I think the best way to enter a summary of all I've said so far is to use a basic idea from the Holy Bible's creation story. While I'm neither a Christian nor a Hebrew, I was raised as a Christian and after joining the U.S. Navy at age 18 and trying out a variety of exciting "wrong roads" (as charactized by Christianity) I tried a couple of different times to return to the fold only to discover that I no longer could believe what I was supposed to be able to believe in order to back up the beliefs of the other church members. For me, a goodly part of the worth of the church is a fellowship of acceptance. Where acceptance of one's beliefs is denied, there is no fellowship. The other church members seemed completely able to continue to believe -for me - truly outrageous ideas (when coupled to the truth which had been unfolded to human understanding across the past 2000 years). My thinking was a threat to their complacency. Since I couldn't believe what I couldn't believe, the mandate, "have faith," simply didn't work.


If it took 200 years for the Catholic Church to apologize to Galileo, how much longer will it take for religious leaders to admit to the same knowledge Bishop John Shelby Spong was taught in seminary and apologize to their membership for loading up the heads of innocent children with guilt and shame for no other reason than to maintain a position of power over them and/or, hang on to their lucrative societal positions. Forgive them almighty Blessed Truth, for they know not what they do . . . I hope.


So no, I am not a Christian. But wisdom is wisdom, and to forgo wisdom simply because it is written in the Holy Books of some other faith than one's own is to lose the opportunity to gain in wisdom oneself. So, in the Garden of Eden there were trees for humans to eat from. Yet, as soon as we hear that these trees include a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we know that we are not talking about natural trees. There obviously is no tree of nature which could provide food of this type. Thus perhaps we could agree that this is not a physical garden being spoken of, but rather a spiritual garden. When understood as a spiritual garden, then we might consider that within this garden would be trees of knowledge of various types. Perhaps a tree of knowledge of physics law and math law, and astronomy trees and biology and botany trees, perhaps also philosphy and psychology trees, all of course, providing food for the added wisdom of this new creature, the human. Yet this special spiritual tree we are told of, is not a tree which holds physical poison, for we are not talking about physical matters here. This is a tree whose fruit will kill one spiritually. The admonition from the Garden's owner is, don't eat from the tree 0f the knowledge of good and evil or you will become spiritually dead. That, it seems obvious to me, is the crux of this story. The spiritually dead cannot possibly walk in the Garden with the powers of Love, Truth, Wisdom, and Understanding, because their knowledge of good and evil needs to divide the spiritual dimensions of existence into an evil god and and a good god. And, of course, the spiritual garden cannot be divided by any within it. Acceptance is the key to the garden. And Thy will, not my will be done, is the proper spiritual attitude to hold, regardless of what name is given to the "Thy." Only when I stay in the realm of not being able to understand, rather than thinking I know how things ought to be, can I accept that somehow Love, Truth, Wisdom, and Understanding really are backing up this business of living, and all seeming evidence to a contrary idea must surely be necessary for the continued growth of those four powers.

Bertrand Russell called the, "Thy" the empire of fate. He was saying thereby, until one can accept life on life's terms on a daily basis, one cannot learn how to feel really good all day every day. J. Krishnamirti, a spiritual philosopher of the recent past, once said to his audience, "Do you want to know my secret? (the audience listened for some great profound statement breathlessly) "I don't care what happens," He replied. Most of them never realized they had heard the only profound statement they needed in order to understand Mr. Krishnamirti.

So the summary is this: if I'm hurting inside, I'm thinking wrong concerning what is important in being alive, and my job is to unlearn all that I have been taught in order to be able to learn what really is important in being alive. When I am willing to do this, then I will come to the conclusion, ultimately, that the only possible thing that is important in being alive is that humanity, as it is moved from egoism towards humility, is providing added wisdom, truth, understanding, and most importantly love to that amount of those qualitiews which have thus far existed within the spiritual dimensions of existence. And this, of course, makes my personal job nothing more than learning how to feel really, really good about being alive, and the humbling truths necessary for learning are always available to me, every time I hurt inside and am willing to internalize them.

So a proper prayer, to whatever I wish to call the spiritual dimensions of existence (i. e. those dimensions wherein are housed the very real powers of Love, Truth, Wisdom, and Understanding we humans have to deal with - or with the absence of within us - on a daily basis) would be something along the lines of what follows.

Thank you, Blessed Truth (my personal choice) that you have shown me the way to let you lead me from egoism with its nil capacity to love, towards humility with its infinite capacity to love. I now see that you provide me daily with the humbling truths I require to keep on growing along spiritual lines, that you instantly grant me forgiveness for my trespasses so long as I grant that same instant forgiveness to those who trespass against me, and that, since all I am being asked to do is learn how to feel really good inside in order to be moved from egoism with its eternal neediness towards humility with its final end to that ego-neediness, then you are moving me from the need to flee down wrong roads to fulfill my need for elation in a way that gives me nothing at all to be tempted to feel proud about. It is your Power that changes me, and any glory for that change most assured belongs to you, not to me. Amen! Love and Blessings - Chuck

What do you think is important in being alive?

So you're taking a lengthy airplane trip and the person sitting next to you turns to you and asks, "So what do you think is important in being alive." Are you all set to answer that question? If not why not? Could there be any other question which would better allow you to really introduce yourself to another? And there would be no reason to hold anything back because you wouldn't be pushing your views concerning what is important in being alive onto anyone who hadn't asked to hear them, Right? Meditate on this question. Go really deep within yourself, and after trying a number of logic strings, go back to my first post here and see if there could possibly be anything more important than learning how to have daily peace of mind, serenity of spirit, and sense of being at home in your own skin (i.e. having the knowledge that you are in good company when you are all by yourself).

Isn't it obvious that that foregoing state of being is precisely what your brain and body are asking you to dwell in at all times? "Then whence cometh your resistance to being willing to go to any lengths to work towards the accomplishment of that which will allow you to feel really, really good inside every day for the rest of your life? Meditate on that question, also. Love & Blessings - Chuck

Toward a summary of first idea

Okay, I don't want to get lost in explanations of AA's Twelve Steps. If you haven't ever been addicted to gambling, food, booze, or drugs and are not married to someone who is, you probably haven't had much to do with any twelve step program. The point is that since a Twelve Step program is where I first learned how to let myself be moved from a scared, lonely, self hating, booze needing individual towards what I am today, i.e., happy, well adjusted, part of a solution to the world's problems rather than part of the problem, and walking through life with a daily sense of being at home within whatever situation I might find myself, then it is the Twelve Step way that I know the most about. But as I have pointed out, those steps are just one of many ways of stumbling upon a way to freedom from both mental anguish and the ego neediness which maintains within us a constant itch which can never be successfully scratched.



There has been a lot of discussion concerning whether Bertrand Russell was an atheist or an agnostic. But neither school can dispute the fact that he wrote something indicating that he had found "the way" in a paper entitled, A Free Man's Worship, which found its way into a collection of his writings and talks entitled, Mysticism and Logic, and much later into a beautiful collection of quotes and essays entitled, The Choice is Always Ours, which called itself, "The Classic Anthology On The Spiritual Way" Edited by Dorothy Berkley Phillips, Elizabeth Boyden Howes and Lucille M. Nixon (and very recently reprinted once again). Here is what Bertrand wrote



"Except for those rare spirits that are born without sin, there is a cavern of darkness to be traversed before that temple can be entered. The gate of the cavern is despair, and its floor is paved with the gravestones of abandoned hopes. There Self must die; there the eagerness, the greed of untamed desire must be slain, for only so can the soul be freed from the empire of Fate. But out of the cavern the Gate of Renunciation leads again to the daylight of wisdom, by whose radiance a new insight, a new joy, a new tenderness, shine forth to gladden the pilgrim's heart."



"Those words seem to echo the words of an earlier teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, whose message never would have gotten so screwed up had his followers not seen the need to turn him into a god. Jesus showed he had found "the way" when he stated, "except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."



Now, of course, most people think of heaven as a place separate from earth, yet I see it clearly as a state of awareness, and believe Jesus saw it as the same. I have been living in heaven for the past 34 years, as much of the time as I desire to spend in that state, so I know what I'm talking about. No brag (since I had nothing to do with my transition other than to become honest, open-minded, and willing to grow along spiritual lines), just fact.

As I've 'hinted at' throughout these writings, self honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness to grow along spiritual lines (i.e. letting oneself be moved by humbling truths from egoism towards humility), are the elements available within each individual human which must be called upon to overcome an ego-defense system which currently manifests its power of imprisonment over most members of the human family. Why this should be so, can be easily explained. The ego is tied to the fact that all humans are animals, even if animals far advanced in their abilities for cognitive thinking (many atheists say of that advance that it is a result of their evolving with voice boxes - which would give new meaning to, "In the beginning was the word"). Egoism is the driving force within the male of the species to become the top male, thereby having first choice in the areas of sex partners and available food. Within the females, it exerts itself as a similar desire to be coupled with the strongest and most intelligent male so that her offspring will be superior to those of others.

Of course, that is a very generalized look at the probable evolving of egoism within animals, but it serves the purpose of seeing that we are talking about something to be dealt with on an individual basis, and not something sinful that needs to be overcome. The near proof that something deeper than a mere animal evolution of natural selection is going on within us humans is the very fact that to secure true happiness egoism must be seen through and personally labelled as a detriment to further human progress rather than as a given unchangable element of a human life.

The difference between an egoistic attitude towards one's existence and one which promises either eternal happiness or at least an ever increasing happiness during the remaining years of this present life will be thoroughly brought to the fore in future writings here. For now, in a short summary, the secret to happy living will be seen to be quite simple (as it must be to include the variance in human intelligence quotients thereby making the choice of change available to all). While I'm on my two mile walk today I'll be meditating on how to lay it out in one more way. While I'm gone, (humor here) you can meditate on how much faster break-throughs in scientific knowledge would have occurred had egoism (the desire for fame, fortune, wealth, and recognition) both group-wise and individual, been absent and all work towards similar goals been willingly and readily shared between all scientific communities. Love and Blessings, Chuck