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