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Word Gems
What is a man but the sum of his thoughts?

September 26, 2009

Make Peace With The Unknown, For It Shall Always Be With You

• Sharon Bailey: "I've noticed, many times on my journey, that for all I learn or discover, I'm merely enlightened as to how much there is yet to learn."

On New Years Day, I had spoken with Della (P.S. #9) by phone and had promised to visit her later in the year.

It is a Toronto spring day in May.

• Editor's note: A long time ago, we used to joke about the ancient Indian meaning of the word toronto; which signifies, of course, "you can't park here!" - a phrase, no doubt, derived from the nearby Don Valley Parkway, a rush-hour nightmare, known to locals as the Don Valley Parking Lot. And this farmboy is suddenly remembering why he doesn't miss Toronto overly much. I recall, just now, an incident in 1976 on The Parkway... this lumbering semi-truck, in stop-and-go traffic, as if I didn't exist, like a slow-moving elephant, simply moves over into my lane and scrapes the side of my Toyota... oblivious, or not caring, he just kept creeping ahead...

I have accompanied Anita on a visit to see 92 year-old Mom Wickham in Leisure World (what a terrible euphemism), a nursing home, just off of Victoria Park.

Della has been invited to lunch with Mom and us, and I'm on my way to her apartment to pick her up. I'm cruising eastward, on Eglinton Avenue, as I've done hundreds of times, and as I pass the various commercial establishments, certain memories, associated with some of them, come rushing in. I see the small office building now near Brimley Road, and I remember the summer of 1975... in the midst of a severe recession, I, a new college grad, took a temporary job on an asphalt paving crew...

asphalt crew devises innovative new methods of spreading

Editor's note: You see this photo? It wasn't anything like this. I tried to find a photo of what it was like, but all I could find were ones where everyone is smiling... the boss is smiling... the workers are smiling... the drivers are smiling... the young trophy-wives delivering the paychecks are smiling... even the truck is smiling... and they're all wearing regulation hard-hats and safety gear, with safety flags all around... very safe... so safe... well, I never quite found that crew. The one I found was more like a football team from a reform school. And on this crew I learned how to speak. No, it's true, I did. You know... it was a very rich cultural experience as I celebrated our diversities. They had their own quaint language; and I learned, among some peoples, in some rich cultures, that it's not possible to speak without using the f-word every third utterance; sometimes, second. And they had their ties to organized crime, and that added to the richness, too. And the guys would talk about their buddies who'd enlisted in the mob... you know, just like going to work for IBM, dark suits and all; the starting pay, they said, was somewhere around 20K... you know, as a man of the world, given my contacts now, economic times being what they are, maybe I could arrange an interview for you, if you know what I mean... Anyway, on this paving crew, there was no lazy-man's spreading machine, as the one you see pictured here, no cheating like that allowed... it was all done by hand, shovelling; and if you tripped and fell into the burning oil, your flesh would melt, like the county-fair's cotton-candy in your mouth. I saw this happen. Well, you just need to learn how to take a joke... These guys were quite a trip. There was some guffawing in the group about a recent excellent adventure of one particular stud, a superhero, among them - an extremely good-looking young broncin' buck - who, while the crew was busy spreading asphalt in a residential neighborhood, had seduced an admiring housewife and had provided new meaning to the concept of spreading... I recall a peripheral event, too, one worth  mentioning. We were repairing a driveway. It was a very hot day, so humid, maybe over 100 degrees. Next door, this young woman, about age 30, suddenly bursts from her house with an armful of crystal punchbowl. With purpose, she marches to the middle of her own driveway and, with great religious ceremony, raises the punchbowl to effect maximum kinetic energy, and then drives it all into the pavement... SMASH!! ... diligently, so busy, she reenters her house... returns with an armload of her best china... SMASH!! ... and, once more, with a very nice collection of expensive crystal goblets... SMASH!! ...

yours, for a mere $6,000 ... but, do take care on the driveway, would you

... ahem, need we ask of whom these fine objects reminded her? and what he had done? he probably worked on this paving crew... Well, about this time, a cruiser, with flashing lights, pays a little cordial visit. Two Mounties, Toronto's finest, now stride by us, and, as they do, with British understatement, in the day's torrid heat, quip, "Lovely day to go crazy, isn't it!" This paving business was owned by an old man and his 30-something son. The former took a liking to me. He would look after small jobs, finishing-up work, and, everyday, would select for himself two or three elite storm-trooper grunts, that he could depend on, and wouldn't give him trouble. Yes, a lot of glory, I know, but the work was very hard. And I remember one day, all afternoon, swinging a sledgehammer, in the hot sun, and feeling somewhat delirious in the heat. The old man caused me some trouble, though. I was not one to frequent the arriving snack-truck, with its blaring carnival music, endearing as it was. And the old man, noticing my frugality, and Spartan disposition in general, remarked to the group-at-large, chiding them, "Now just look at Wayne there, he never spends a dime, he saves every penny!" Well, they had to hate me after that cute little speech, didn't they? It was difficult, but I managed to avoid the cement-galoshes... errr... asphalt-galoshes... I would remain on this crew for only two months, as I was merely saving money to accept a job in Europe (which did not pan out). But when I left, just in time, the old man paid me the highest compliment. He said that I was "the only Anglo who had ever lasted more than a day or two on the crew!" Well... that was very nice, wasn't it... but, then, he didn't know where I came from...

Fanaticism... one step away from barbarism

I arrive at Della's place, St. David's Apartments. Mom and Dad Wickham lived here for awhile before moving to the nursing home.

Della uses a walker to get around these days, and I help her into the car. And now we're heading back to Victoria Park.

She and I have had some very good conversations over the years. But, by her own admission, Della, on bad days, suffers somewhat from dementia. She used to be quite reasonable, able to discuss new ideas readily - that's the way she was when I visited with her in 2003. But she's different in recent times.

She wants to argue about religion. And the repressed religious fears of a lifetime seem to be percolating upward in her psyche, tormenting her, demanding to be expressed. She seems desperate to find validation as being "right'! ... so fearful, is she, about not measuring up, not being enough, not pleasing God...

I can feel this in her spirit.

And now she begins to goad me. "Well, you believe in this don't you?! And surely you still believe in  that don't you?! Are you an atheist now?!"

I try to say nothing, but she keeps on poking at me with that stick... her fears are demanding that I should tell her that she is "right"!

• Editor's note: Della serves us here as she reminds us regarding that to which we are all headed. None should delude oneself and think that repressed fears will be forever denied. It is best to address them now, while we still have a semblance of equanimity of mind. Because unless we choose to manage them, on our terms, the day will come when they will manage us! The murky, dank, root-cellar existences of the lower levels of the Next World could be viewed as that interdimensional place where fear manages its inhabitants! See my forthcoming article on the nature of Judgment in the Next World. 

I try to agree where I can and attempt to ignore the rabid parts. She senses my insincerity, my well-intentioned manipulation, immediately sees through the artifice, and is now even more determined.

She begins to attack me personally... "You college-educated know-it-all! That's your problem, you think too much! Where's your faith? I'll bet you don't pray anymore, do you! I can tell you don't pray."

Mercury rising

You know... in my wise old age, I've long since sworn off arguing religion... I used to do a lot of that, was good at it, like Rocky in the ring, would always win.

But, to what end? Was anyone ever helped by this?

• I learned that people cannot be rationally argued out of their fears because their fears were not originally accepted based on rational argument. Reasoned argument is effective only after fears have been set aside.

And she keeps poking me... insulting me... goading me...

I don't know why... but, for the first time, in a very long time, this little old half-demented lady is starting to really get under my skin. And I am getting madder than I've been in I don't know how long.

Maybe it's because we had such good conversations in the past...maybe I expected more from her... maybe part of me is imagining her attacking me as that reasonable person she once was, maybe that's why it hurts so much...

I don't know, but I reach the point where I begin to answer back... in a loud voice... and I start to take apart her arguments... trash and shred them... and make clear the folly of her position...

The tarnished image

Della becomes very silent.

She knows that she has overstepped.

But I suddenly realize what I have done. And, I am horrified at my conduct. How could I have shouted at her...

In a quiet voice, Della begins...

"I never thought that you would treat me that way!"

In silence, I mortify myself, and think, "That makes two of us, my dear."

• "Christ never verbally abused those who verbally abused him. When he suffered, he didn't make any threats, but left everything to the One who judges fairly." I Peter 2: 23

Lovers are not the only ones who say I am you ...

Eckhart Tolle, in his New Earth, speaks of the strange concept of ownership. It happens, he says, when

• the thought-form I merges with another thought form, for example, farmland, and suddenly we now speak of my land... we speak of ownership!

Mental identification with external things... things of the world... is a common pastime of the Ego.

I think of some of the farmers in my home community; one in particular. No matter how you might attempt to steer the conversation, in a few moments, he will turn it back to "did I ever tell you about the killing I made on this-or-that land deal?" (yes, I do think I remember that one) ... "well, let me tell you. I paid $75 an acre for this section in 1966, and today it's worth $1300!" ... "there's an auction I'm going to tomorrow - 3000 acres will be sold - I want to see what it goes for" ... on and on...

And if you were to suggest to this white-haired man that maybe he should begin to think of some other things in life, especially, since he is already very wealthy, and, especially, since he is now quite an old man... he would be offended... and he would defend the importance of thinking about land, as if he were defending his own life... in his mind, he sees no difference.

This is a good man. I am not unduly singling him out. He is no different from most people that we know; maybe, no different than ourselves.

Why does the Ego insist on thoughts of ownership?

Tolle points out that the word identify indicates making oneself equal with something else; in fact, in this term, we see another common word, identity.

Tolle says that this is why people spend $150 for designer jeans, with a certain label, when a pair for $20 might look about as nice. The outrageously-priced pair lends an element of exclusivity to the process, which is important to the Ego, makes it feel special, and superior... and all this adds to the sick little sense of Ego-worth, as the Ego identifies with, and seeks identity from, this object in the external world.

If allowed, the Ego will hunt for bigger game. When the Ego marries the thought-form of I to the thought-form of farmland, the Ego makes itself equal to the permanency of land! it seeks for itself an identity in the solidity of land! Through this identification, the Ego attempts to create a kind of immortality for itself! And if you come along and disparage the notion of such materialism, the Ego will fight you, not to protect materialism, per se, but to promote its own sense of survival through identification with an object in the external world!

But the Ego likes more than material objects

Most of us do not buy $150 jeans; and most of us are not wealthy real estate moguls. But this matters nothing to the Ego, as there is plenty, for those on a beer-budget, in which to seek identity.

In fact, the Ego loves to identify with pure thought-forms... mere ideas... especially, religious ideas. We talked about this in P.S. #19 A Case Of Mistaken Identity. And there is something that the Ego perceives to be even more substantive than real estate... it is the eternal things of God!

And the Ego derives maximum sense of permanence, power, and security from this Ultimate Icon. This insight gives us the reason for Art Mokarow's warning... "People get mixed up, screwed up, in their heads by a lot of things in this troubled world. But if you get screwed up because of religion, you will hurt yourself... more deeply... and to a greater degree... than is possible in any other area of life!"

The Tarnished Image:

The Good Little Boy Strikes Back

So, I'm asking myself, why did I raise my voice to 90 year-old Della? Why did I become so heated, for several moments, almost a raving lunatic? Why did my "inner Kuhn" come out snarling, as it did?

(1958) The Good Little Boy (upper left), ever on duty; a blindness, keeping him from other duties

• Editor's note: My psychic friends at my Wednesday night discussion group have a way of surprising me. Sometimes, one of them will receive a message for me that she deems to be too personal to relay in a mixed group. This means that conversations in the parking lot can be memorable. "Lovey," a sweet Black lady, called for me to wait as she wanted to tell me something. I had told her nothing of my background, but she begins with, "They want you to know that you analyze too much with your head, and are not listening to your soul enough! You are afraid to listen to your soul, that's why you are so heavy into intellectualism ... You are like a good priest, and have that spirit, devoted to God... You have been at odds with corrupt religion since you were a little boy, and they never understood or accepted you!" ... this was my first conversation with Lovey... well, aren't these the things that you say to a stranger after the first hello [smile]. This incident reminds me of stories in the Old Testament where a Prophet, the psychics of their day, out of the blue, would march up to the King and deliver an unpleasant message... "O, King, live forever..." but, he didn't [smile].

Eva Cassidy, Time After Time After your picture fades... I'm wondering if you're ok, Secrets stolen from deep inside... Flashbacks... lying in my bed, I hear the clock tick, I think of you, circles of  confusion, nothing new... Sometimes I picture you, You're walking too far ahead, I'm calling to you, you can't hear, then I say, go slow, I've fallen behind... The drum beats out of time... If you fall I will catch you...    If you're lost you can look, and you will find me... I will be waiting... I will be waiting...

That's not very nice, is it?

But then, as we all need to come to see, the Ego isn't such a nice part of ourselves.

I'm no longer religious. I no longer identify with any particular doctrinal belief. In fact, as I've stated in writing, I hold my tentative conclusions loosely in my hands, "pending further light," as I like to put it.

So, if there was no particular rule or belief for me to defend, why was I threatened by her? What concept of self-identity found itself under attack by this frail little old lady?

an army of one, a yankee invades Canada

"You're an aggressive son-of-a-bitch!" charged Ian, as if meeting me for the first time, after months of working on the same office-team. These blue-glass office giants, The Consillium Towers, on McCowan Road, were my home for some years, during my time as as stock broker for a major Canadian bank. The branch manager complained that our facilities were much too small for our needs. We would be moving into larger accommodations in the coming year when a new wing to the Towers would be completed; in the meantime, we enjoyed no conference room, no place to privately converse with clients, no place to offer a mini-seminar or a video. I was the newest member of the team, having just earned my license by completing the Canadian Securities Course, which I passed with sufficient standing to cause the test-administrators to offer me a job in teaching the course. I declined. I needed to make some real money for my young family to survive in this high-cost-of-living city. I needed to find a way to bring in new clients, and I surveyed the resources at my disposal. The weekly community paper, The Scarborough Mirror, offered free advertising to those providing free public educational seminars. I could do that. But where would I hold these seminars? While we had no conference room, we did have a large storage room. I convinced the manager that I could show a video in there to two clients at a time! He went with this. The ads started the phones ringing. I instructed my assistant to book these "seminars" in lots of two only. I have to smile when I recall the looks on people's faces when they came into our plush, albeit cramped, offices, as they were directed to the mini "seminar room"! I started to make sales. I contacted The Toronto Star, and it, too, agreed to run my little ad. Now I had people from all over the city coming to see me! I did not like speaking with clients at my desk, as there was no privacy, so I led clients outside of our offices and we sat around the marble fountain in the foyer! discussing their finances! My sales were mounting, and I would win top awards for production among those in my years-of-service category; and sometimes, I was ranked #1 among all 500 brokers across Canada! Using my growing success as leverage, I met with officials at major Canadian mutual funds and convinced them to foot the bill for fancy hotel seminars. We would "drop" thousands of invitations in selected upper-middle-class neighborhoods, all of which cost $5000 a pop! I did all of this for nearly 3 years, a heavy speaking schedule, bringing in hundreds of new clients, and gathering assets to the firm of many millions of dollars. My public speaking and teaching abilities reinvented me as a force in the Toronto financial community...

Cicero Denounces Catiline, fresco (1888) by Cesare Maccari

I had begun in the office as "the quiet new guy" ... but my success, for certain Egos in the group, would alter perceptions. Some began to hate me for my success. The branch manager would joke to the group about what I was doing with meager resources... reminded them that they, too, had the same opportunities... this did not go down well. Things came to the point where, one day, the manager was accosted by "reports" of how I had been unfair, or some such, to various team members. I was brought into the manager's office. He said to me, "Wayne, I know you haven't done anything wrong. These guys are just envious of you. But, to keep the peace in the office, maybe you could help me with this!" I agreed to do so, and, as a sop, gave away certain items of my marketing program to some, certain upcoming speaking engagements. By this time, I had seen the handwriting on the wall for myself and knew that I could not stay much longer; also, as I learned more about the brokerage industry, I began to see that clients could not be well served from a large brokerage firm, and that if I were to continue in the industry, in good conscience, to do the best for those who looked to me for advice for their life savings, I would need to work as an independent registered investment advisor. Before I left, however, I was paid a compliment by one of my colleagues, Rick, a very cool guy and former floor trader. He had taken to calling me "The Professor" around the office. One day I asked him, "Why do you call me this?" And he said, and I remember his very words, "Because you don't make a move without researching it first!" I was surprised that he knew this; and I was also surprised, in my naivete, as I thought, "Doesn't everyone do that?" Well... the group, I guess, was glad to see me go... I should think so... they'd had enough of what, in their own words, they called "yankee ingenuity" and grit. Well... I suppose... but, actually... there was a little more to it than that...

Dr. Carl Jung and the only real threat in the universe:"Man is the great danger!"

There is a youtube interview with Carl Jung as a very old man. He is very wise and warns us, almost like an Old Testament prophet ...

"All seek their own existence, and to assure their own existence."

This is pure Egoic Philosophy, of course. The Ego will seek its own existence... if necessary, to the detriment, and exclusion, of others. That's what an Ego does for a living. It thinks only of its own survival, advantage, and perpetuation.

"We need more understanding of human nature because the only real danger that exists is Man himself! He is the great danger. And we are pitifully unaware. We know nothing of Man, far too little. We are the origin of the coming evil!"

His words are devastating... and ring with the weight and cadence of the King James Bible...

"We are the origin of the coming evil!"

Well, we definitely need a new House Wilson-rule for him, too.

We are the origin of the coming evil.

How ominous. Yet, as I think about this... yes, of course... it is true.

Can I point to anything... anything in the entire universe... and say, this is evil... I think not... all things are neutral, neither good nor bad... they simply are... they simply exist... leaving to us the proper response of "pecking philosophically by the side of the road" (P.S. #30)... leaving to us to ascribe significance. 

It is only Man who has the power to turn any neutral thing into an expression of either good or evil. As Shakespeare, through Hamlet, said,  "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

The Pathological Need To Be Right

If you take from the Ego one crutch, it will quickly seek for another. We sometimes fancy ourselves to be sophisticated, enlightened, above... unmoved by hidden forces... in control, in charge... are we? ... or have we merely rearranged the furniture in our prison cell? ... rearranged it in the dark...

I told you... told myself first... that I am no longer religious... no longer identifying with anything external, even the ideas of dogmatism.

As Bugs would say... is dat a fact?

Because unless we cleanse our hearts of the Ego's domination, it will dupe us into switching one form of external prop for another.

• Editor's note: I will soon be bringing to you the teachings of the original Christians, before the Church became corrupted by the money and power of the Roman State. This issue of internal cleansing, symbolized by baptism, a ritual of cleansing... it is interesting to see how the literalist-wolves turned this into an autocratic rite, merely an initiation of membership into their particular Ecclesiastical Group; turned this into mindless dogmatism; a ritual, for its own sake, that one needed to undergo, a 5-minute process, they said, and that's all there is to it, now you're saved, magic! ... suggesting the fantastic notion that the Cosmic God, The One who inhabits all dimensions and all universes, would somehow be so impressed if your flesh had water sprinkled on it!! ... how tawdry, how insulting, how low-level, how cult-like, how primitive... how religious! ... the early Christians saw baptism as merely a symbolic event... with no intrinsic magic or power attached to it... baptism, the shadow, merely pointed to the true process of inner soul-cleansing that every human being needed to submit to... what the saints refer to as "the long dark night of the soul" ... that life-long journey of purging and cleansing of the Inner Person, which would wash away The Ego, The Great False Self... allowing the True Self, The Soul, to shine through... didn't the nice young man teach you of these things...

And almost before I had finished ranting to Della, a small whispering voice was already rising within my consciousness... first, graciously, to calm me... but, then... to lead and direct me... as it gently offered to me the course-corrective insight that I was not so spiritual as I thought... and that Della had been sent... as a gift to me... from heaven itself, from those who look after me... a gift to prompt a certain insight within my own soul... as it encouraged me to go deeper... deeper, beyond the ancient illusions of "the good little boy" ... deeper, to a realization of the clever machinations of the Ego still insidiously at work within me.

It's true, I had no longer put faith in an infallible book, an infallible set of doctrines, an infallible church, an infallible dear leader...

I had gone the system one better... I had installed myself in that august seat of pontification...

My Ego had identified, not with a religious doctrine, but with a vision of itself as being Right ! as the person of final authority who knows, and, like Mighty Odin, cannot bear the thought of challenge! as one playing Infallible Guru to one's own self... a most terrible self-deception!

I will tell you honestly, I think this is a more serious neurosis than that of traditional religious deception; because it speaks of a special arrogance issuing, not from an organization, but the heady proposition that one person, alone, might stand against all!

Well... I thought that's what they told me inner-Kuhns were for... [smile] ... I think my Uncle John likes this one!

The new Dear Leader... inside my own head

The very concept of ... the insistence upon... being right! ... becomes a mental idol demanding worship.

• So... what's so bad about being right? you might ask. Don't I want to be right? Don't you? We surely don't want to be wrong, do we? so, what's the problem here?

The insight here ... the difference between light and darkness ... is subtle ... and will trap most ... let's see if we can sort this out.

adventures among wolves, my classmate-friends

In 1985, in need of an employment opportunity, we moved from Spokane back to Toronto. It was at this point that I prepared to become a stock broker. During this interim time, we lived in the Scarborough basement apartment of someone I knew and liked, a member and official of the church to which we belonged. But my relationship with my landlord-friend would end on a sour note. A few years later, he would join our brokerage team, and, while I was temporarily off work with a severe stomach ailment, he contacted my largest clients, lied and told them I wasn't coming back, and, essentially, stole them from me. He later professed mistake in all this... but made no move toward making me whole. The investment business was not my first love, as I had wanted to be more active in serving the church. But, my growing ability as an effective public speaker, and as a knowledgeable person in biblical studies, made me a target of those who saw me as a threat to their autocratic empires. One day, just after we'd moved into town and into the apartment, I was paid a visit by the local pastors. I knew these men well. They, actually, had been college friends of mine in England. But this was no sweet social call. They knew who I was, and they just wanted to let me know where my place was; that I should expect no promotion on their watch. And they subtly, and not so subtly, ridiculed me, taunted me, suggested that I was uppity, and that I thought I was so perfect... I remember the phrase they used - meant to be a pejorative one - that, for me, there was "not a hair out of place." These men, especially one of them; and colleagues like them; caused me significant financial damage; any damage they could get away with. I had sold my house, my car, and my businesses in Spokane, and these so-called ministers told the church members to whom I had sold these things, that they did not need to pay me, because I was unfair; that I had taken advantage of people simply by employing them; and, in any case, that is was patently unfair for me to have things that they did not. On another occasion, one of these "pastors," my college buddy, would slander me, lie about me, to a good friend in the Toronto church; after this "warning," my friend would no longer associate with me. I think one of the most disturbing and greatest shock-lessons of my life was to see former classmates, former good buddies, turn into Brownshirts when they received a little bit of ecclesiastical power over others. I recall one incident, a very good college friend from the past, a newly ordained deacon, a position of recognition that he sorely coveted, whom I caught in a series of lies, and confronted him with this. His excuse was that he was just serving the pastor, and "doing God's work," and that this absolved him of any wrongdoing. He also stole money from me; and, for a time, worked for me, and told me that work had been completed when it had not. Unfortunately, this machiavellian sentiment of "the end justifies the means," in its various guises, so often, rules the modern Church today. And, regarding this malfeasance, I will simply say, if you play games like that in your head, you have no idea what kind of damage you are doing to yourself... as Art Mokarow once warned his theology students... "People get mixed up, screwed up, in their heads by a lot of things in this troubled world. But if you get screwed up because of religion, you will hurt yourself... more deeply... and to a greater degree... than is possible in any other area of life!" The lead-pastor of the apartment visit - a man I liked, and still do - as if to absolve himself, knowing he had been party to an inequity, would later, in more lucid times, comment to me that I was his "intellectual friend"; that, no matter what happened, I seemed to have a way of "always rising to the top"; that I was a "survivor"...

• Erich Fromm: "Historically...those who told the truth about a particular regime have been exiled, jailed, or killed by those in power whose fury has been aroused. To be sure, the obvious explanation is that they were dangerous to their respective establishments, and that killing them seemed the best way to protect the status quo. This is true enough, but it does not explain the fact that the truth-sayers are so deeply hated even when they do not constitute a real threat to the established order. The reason lies, I believe, in that by speaking the truth they mobilize the [psychological] resistance of those who repress it. To the latter, the truth is dangerous not only because it can threaten their power but because it shakes their whole conscious system of orientation, deprives them of their rationalizations, and might even force them to act differently. Only those who have experienced the process of becoming aware of important impulses that were repressed know the earthquake-like sense of bewilderment and confusion that occurs as a result. Not all people are willing to risk this adventure, least of all those people who profit, at least for the moment, from being blind."

Grains of sand in the Universe 

A long time ago, I heard someone say...

• If the sum of all knowledge were to be represented by all the grains of sand, on all the beaches, in the entire universe, the smartest person in the world might possess one grain!

And yet, we, from our limited perspective, with our limited information, often are certain, sure, and believe ourselves... to be right!

There is something called M-Theory. See the youtube 1-hour BBC documentary. It suggests to us the existence of not only many dimensions beyond our paltry three, but an infinite number of universes! This theory was not adopted because of its sensationalism; in fact, it was reluctantly accepted only because the mathematics demanded this view.

This means that we are not dealing with merely the grains of sand in our own universe, but an infinite number of others... knowledge of which we know nothing... civilizations, intelligent entities, totally unlike ourselves, of which we have no concept...

And yet, we, from our limited perspective, with our limited information, often are certain, sure, and believe ourselves... to be right!

Dr. Michael Newton (P.S. #3) tells us that soul-persons on the Other Side sometimes visit, and receive visitors from, many different dimensions, most of which harbor life forms, cultures, vast oceans of knowledge, of which we know nothing...

And yet, we, from our limited perspective, with our limited information, often are certain, sure, and believe ourselves... to be right!

Hey, I'm just getting warmed up here. Sometime, do a google book search for the key words "grain," "sand," "universe" ... and you will be surprised at the analogies of the infinite array of what we do not know...

And yet, we, from our limited perspective, with our limited information, often are certain, sure, and believe ourselves... to be right!

• There's nothing wrong with attempting to be right. But there is something very naive, very shortsighted, even, wrongheaded, to imagine oneself ever actually arriving at, or even remotely approaching, that far shore.

Consider the words of the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 13, 14:

"We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete ... When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist... To be perfectly frank, I'm getting exasperated with your infantile thinking." (The Message)

Paul also speaks here of a coming time when we shall know more; but, right now, we are almost walking in the dark! Paul expresses his profound doubts of knowing much, especially, in this life.

Notice the contextual definition of being a child, an "infant." It is - don't you see his argument? - one who thinks he or she knows! one who believes that our knowledge of God is not incomplete; and, sometimes, infallible! How childish, says Paul! The "infant," this immature one, is sure! is certain!

Paul says, when he grew up, he put away this misguided sense of how the universe works. Why is it childish? Because it is fear-based!

The insistence upon having achieved Certainty is like a child's favorite "blankey" in the night, an attempt to generate feelings of security in a world of many choices and possibilities. The child is frightened by these many options. The essence of cult religion is to look for a Strong Dear Leader who can tell us what to do... remove uncertainty... reduce life to predictable formulas and familiar rituals... how childish! says Paul.

We need to acknowledge, with the apostle...

• "When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good." We need to admit that "what we say about God is always incomplete." We need to understand that "we don't see things clearly," that "we're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist"!

And I can tell you, based on thousands of testimonies from the AfterLife, our Guides and Advisors on the Other Side  claim no omniscience; in fact, they debate the great Universal Questions of Life, as we do here!

And yet, we, from our limited perspective, with our limited information, often are certain, sure, and believe ourselves... to be right!

How childish.

We shall be gathering knowledge for the next million years... and if we are very diligent... if we work very hard... we might gain two or three grains by that time.

Am I beginning to make myself clear.

The True Life, that Grand Life, of which I spoke last time, is not about planting the flag and proclaiming that one has arrived! not about immature and grandiose ideas of infallibility! not about achieving some misguided sense of certainty that one has learned all that might be learned in any subject!

• Let us, along with the apostle Paul, become "exasperated" with our own "infantile thinking," as "only mature and well-exercised intelligence can save you from falling into gullibility" (ch. 14).

The True Life, that Grand Life, is Journey not Destination; not about Arriving, not about catching the elusive butterfly of being right. It is about Living In The Mystery! an acknowledgement that growth and development is Eternal; that knowledge will always be incomplete; that we shall never possess Absolute Certitude and the Fullness of Truth; that, maybe, in ten million years, we shall have earned for ourselves ten grains of sand!

My disservice to Della... and her gift to me

I let her down. Yes, I am frail humanity, but, as a friend once graciously encouraged me, I am allowed more than one mistake in life; several, actually, she said; as many as I need. I am still learning, and, therefore, was allowed to let Della down; and I shall let others down, too, in even more creative ways, before I'm done.

Since that day in May, I have already had another trip to Toronto, and we replayed the entire sequence of my going to her apartment and the drive back to Mom's.

And, not missing an opportunity, Della goaded me once again... "Well, you believe in this don't you?! And surely you still believe in  that don't you?! Are you an atheist now?!"

But, this time, I just smiled at her; this time, there was no anger.

It is true. She had been a gift to me, prompting me to go deeper, to peel back another layer of self-deception in my Egoic heart. I think there are more layers. I know there are; but, for the moment, I don't care, and I just enjoy my present victory.

Make Peace With The Unknown, For It Shall Always Be With You

• Sharon Bailey: "I've noticed, many times on my journey, that for all I learn or discover, I'm merely enlightened as to how much there is yet to learn."

to be continued...

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