Objectives:  the following 45 allegories, parables and metaphor are intended to create a symbolic frame of reference for the interpretation that follows each. The interpretations provide a conceptual foundation for the topic at hand to be further developed in the seven major dialogues.  NOTE: an allegory is a story in which metaphor is used to describe or or present a spiritual law or principle.  A parable is an allegory that presents a moral position.

The first series of stories are related to the OT/MP paradigm of C/consciousness.  They are intended to have you reflect on your fundamental nature.  All subsequent concepts in OT/MP depend on this fundamental awareness of C/consciousness.  The Master Site Index and Table below will show the relationships of the allegories, parables, and metaphor to the seven major dialogues and the Epilogue they support.

 Reflect on the challenge question that precedes each story.  Then take a few moments to contemplate and reflect after each story before continuing with the interpretation, or going on to the next story.
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Once upon a time there was a large house built of only three rooms, one upon the other. The first room on the ground floor had no useful windows because they were opaque. Evil men and their women and children occupied this room.  Because they could not see outside of the house, they were constantly afraid of what might lie there.  So they obsessively designed and played with weapons of war and the protective tools and toys of power, mastery and control. They knew there were two other rooms with occupants of some kind, because the nature of their habitat required that they provide these unknown dwellers with subsistence and basic materials.

The first floor dwellers sought to learn about their house and the other creatures who seemed to occupy it. They discovered that the second floor room dwellers fashioned their provisions into an unfathomable technology.  The first room dwellers held whoever they were in contempt, but had coveted the benefits of the technology their spies had found there. They constantly tried to intimidate the second room dwellers to force them to apply the technology to fully serve their first floor  needs.  Then they became determined to acquire the technology themselves.  Further, the first room dwellers had the only exit to the outside world.  Except for passing their waste material into the outside world through a special portal, they were unwilling to go out into that fearful unknown.  Perversely, they  would not permit any of the upper level inhabitants to leave the house.

The second room,  had only translucent window that let in some light through which the outer world could only be seen as dim and vague shapes. In this room there were groups of men, women and children who were not evil, but who occupied themselves with argument and debate as they created a sophisticated helping technology. They had a vague awareness of the inhabitants of the top level Third Room, but were unable to enter there. They feared the evil they recognized in the first room, and were constantly debating the problem.  But by the terms of the lease they had accepted, they could not remove them and so they felt constantly intimidated and helpless. They adjusted by denying the evil's relevance to their future.  They either tried to pacify their fears by persuasive arguments, or by generously indulging the inhabitants of the first room hoping to keep them at bay.  Some occupants of the second room tried to remain entirely aloof from them, and even deny the relevance of the first room altogether. While they strenuously debated the issue, they took no serious action.

The dwellers in the second room, being afraid of those in the first room, compensated by harassing the apparently even more helpless Third Room dwellers. Their lease required that they pass the basic subsistence items, such as food and water, into the Third Room which they did, sometimes in an abusive manner. They occasionally tried to enter the Third Room to intellectually tease and torment its dwellers, but failed. This became a kind of sport, but they could never figure out how to fully pass the door's locks. Thus, only the meager supplies and their taunting words could enter. They could not figure out whether the Third Room dwellers were able to leave their room, since they seemed to need so little resources, and no one could leave by the door in the first room even if they could sneak past their middle room.  In accordance with their own values and reasoned frame of reference, the Middle Room dwellers claimed that the occupants of the Third Room led pointless lives and were also helpless to the evil in the first room.  But the occupants of the Third Room did not oppose them and even ignored them. They did not even seem to care.

The men and women in the Third Room were aware of but indifferent to the inhabitants of the first two rooms. They were not interested in what they had found there. They were not concerned about the evil they had witnessed in the first room, nor in the technology, diversions and intellectual preoccupation they had found in the second room. These had no substance for them. So they ignored the intimidation coming from the first room and tolerated the occasional verbal contempt and harassment that came from the middle room. Because their windows were fully open to the light and information from the larger world in which their house existed, they had no need to address the concerns which occupied the dwellers of the other two rooms. Thus they lived their own lives peacefully and simply. They acquired and mastered only those resources, technology, and subsistence they needed to live comfortably. They occupied their time in Mystical discourse with the Intelligence evident in the larger world, which intelligence they realized had created their house in the first place. They had no need to care about the other occupants nor their unenlightened activities.

Then one night in the darkness, the evil men and women suddenly rushed from the first room into the second room and smashed all of its intellectual substance they could not use (e.g. books, records, culture) during which they attacked its helpless dwellers. They killed many and enslaved the remainder to do their bidding. Then they brought in their own children and reveled in the benefits of the technical and material largess they had taken. They ruthlessly used and abused the intellectual slaves they now forced to serve them.

As they prepared to enter the Third Room to attack and kill whoever its its inhabitants were in order to acquire and exploit even its modest material resources, they all suddenly and mysteriously fell fatally ill.  To the last man, woman and child, they all died, both the evil masters and their intellectual slaves. None ever set even one foot in the Third Room.

By dawn of the next day, the tenants of the Third Room were no longer trapped in their House of Three Rooms. They were peaceful, absent the evil threat of the first room, and without the torment of the occupants of the second room.  Since they were no longer trapped by the tenants of the two lower rooms, they freely left the house in which they had been held prisoner and lived happily ever after in the realms of light with which they had maintained discourse while trapped in their House of Three Rooms. Herein lies the key to "The Mystical Paradigm." Herein is the key to interpreting the significance of personal and world events. Herein is the key to the path of survival and personal peace and fulfillment. Herein is the key to creating social stability and harmony within our nation and among all nations of the earth. This is an old story.

Always take a few moments to contemplate (meditate on) each story before proceeding.  Then:

OPTION 1: IMMEDIATELY GO TO THE INTERPRETATION THAT FOLLOWS EACH STORY (Strongly Recommended).
Click here to go to the interpretation of The House of Three Rooms.

 NOTE:  if you arrive at a parable from one of the dialogues, then go to and read the interpretation.  At the end of each interpretation, there will be a link that will take you back to the jump point in the dialogue that brought you to the story.

OPTION 2:  WAIT UNTIL YOU ARE DIRECTED TO SUBSEQUENT STORIES FROM ONE OF THE SEVEN MAJOR DIALOGUES. Begin reading the major dialogues first.

OPTION 3:  READ ALL OF THE STORIES AT ONCE AND COME BACK TO READ THE INTERPRETATIONS LATER.   Least recommended to those who want to gain an effective understanding of the major concepts and ideas of the MP.  Full comprehension  requires developing your  knowledge base in the  systematic manner that results from choosing Options 1 or 2.  

You can go to the top of this page and link to any of the allegories, parables or metaphor displayed in the table, or continue by moving the slider button on the right to immediately read the next story in sequence.    See if you can figure out the point of OT/MP just from the stories.  All 45 allegories, parables and metaphor are on this page.  There is space between each story.

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Do you remember the following dream, or one very much like it?
 

Once upon a time as an infant child emerged from her fetal sleep during birth, she had the following dream. An Angel came to her appearing as a profound radiance. He/she stood before a large shimmering gate beyond which appeared even more radiant splendor. He spoke to her in language that was explicitly clear, yet without words. She felt his most profound emanation of LOVE. "Behold I now reveal to you TRUTH, which if you remember, you will directly experience the GRACE that is accessible to all."

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Immediately there appeared before the infant in place of the gate, a kind of screen that extended from horizon to horizon and above and below.. The Angel said, "Observe these patterns, and KNOW." Instantly, the Angel dissolved into what appeared to be millions of tiny boiling "dots," all diffuse and unorganized.  Yet the glowing presence of the angel's form seemed to persist within this chaos as a subtle Presence.  He appeared as ONE with a variety of passing shapes. The dots first seemed to  organize as waves, dynamic patterns, circles and other structural shapes, and then divide and multiply. Then they transformed, appearing amoeba like, then as tiny blobs of plant like creatures. Then they changed so as to appear as insects, reptiles, and bird like creatures as well as other small animals. There were continuous combinations of shapes and forms of increasingly larger and more complex animals, birds, and beasts. From within the midst of them, a form appeared independent of the others, appearing angel like, but not evolving from any of the ape like creatures she saw.  This unique creature was shaped, as she was to become, as human.  Then there were many more, becoming many beyond counting. Suddenly all of the living forms disintegrated, all dissolving into the roiling ocean of "dots,"--all of this a stunning display.

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And the Angel's awesome voice said gently, "KNOW also this pattern, and hear..." The child listened intently and heard a tone, pure and plain, F above middle C on the piano but ringing with a Cosmic depth. Then it became rich with harmonics, more and more beautiful beyond description. Then there was a second tone, and third. First with dissonance, then they resounded in magnificent harmony. Within this incredible harmony, she noticed a gentle pulsing beat, subtle, and then, anchored to this steady rhythm, there came an amazing variety of changing harmonics. All of this continued until these changes had demonstrated numerous variations of related harmonic possibilities.

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Suddenly, there was profound silence. It was stunning in its absoluteness, but was quickly followed this time by a simple melody, a combination of single harmonic tones and the steady rhythmic beat, and the boiling ocean of dots with their multiplicity of forms reappeared. As though chasing the first,  a second melody was heard, and then a third melody, and even a fourth, all chasing each other while the persistent beat within it remained subtle but increasing in energy, complexity, and tempo. Like the beating heart, then many hearts, the patterns developed into a giant cosmic fugue, profoundly complex yet amazing in its coherence. Then, abruptly-- this extraordinary harmony became so still that the silence itself literally rang with its emptiness.

Then to the transfixed infant's continuing amazement, this musical energy then transfigured itself into a strange new sound, a kind of babel that evolved from the music beginning as crude, bestial, grunts, whistles and screams, and then primitive "shaped" sounds coming from the boiling dots of various animals and human shapes. Then the bestial sounds receded and the human babbling becoming ever more diverse and elegant finally culminating in a vast vocal fugue. The complexity of these human sights and sounds were attached to the growing complexity of the dancing human forms. Dancing individuals were then progressively transformed into villages, towns, cites, and nations of cities--an infinite multitude, a joyous anthem of energy. All were observed as becoming ONE within an earth like orbit, within and behind which the glowing form of the Angel still faintly persisted as once again the forms dissolved into their cauldron of boiling dots.

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Then the Angel said in a voice of all embracing LOVE, "KNOW also this pattern, beloved, and KNOW yourself as ONE with it all" And yet again,  but in the Presence of the continuing Cosmic fugue, the seething "dots" created one person, then two undefined naked persons who emerged and then their hands and feet and bodies took on strange modifications becoming clothing of wondrous variety and elegance. To the infant's astonishment, their hands and feet changed into tools of increasing variety, complexity, subtlety, power and elegance. Their eyes and ears became instruments of strange and wondrous technology. The infant could see through and into the heads of the dancing images, into and beyond their brains which somehow remained connected to the larger patterns of boiling dots. They became transformed into a multitude of strange and marvelous computing technology. These somehow continued to manifest as the dancing persons became united with all combinations of the various technological extensions of their bodies. This amazing scene of constant "becoming" was staggering in its scope and complexity. Yet the Angel remained, a vague but calm and constant form, the ONE SOURCE of coherence, a constant PRESENCE  resonating within and among these dancing shapes and awesome sounds.  Within this spectacle of transforming energy, the Angel was the core of absolute order, peace and harmony. It was the PRESENCE of absolute joy and LOVE.

Then the Angel said to the enthralled infant, "KNOW that all these are ONE!" The ONENESS of it all appeared to be an extension of the Angel's underlying coherence that somehow created, managed and transformed each tiny dot and elemental sound into the progression of stunning displays that amazed the infant. But then... just as this demonstration was reaching the pinnacle of its awesome complexity and joy... to the transfixed infant's dismay, it abruptly began to fade.

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It all faded back into the gleaming presence of the Angel. The clear and ringing voice was fading.  The Angel now seemed to speak from within her as the most overwhelming living Presence of LOVE, "Remember your SOURCE!" it said.  "Never betray your sacred SELF.  KNOW and remember these patterns. Always KNOW and remember the SECRET. The SECRET is that you are of LOVE which IS the ONE with GOD, TRUTH, and the sacred WHOLE.  You are of LOVE, you ARE LOVE and you are to do the works of LOVE."

But the Angel was steadily disappearing.   The music was fading, and the glorious dance was disappearing behind the closing, narrowing gate. Now distraught with growing fear, the infant child cried out to the fading vision in desperation. From her deepest anguish, in a voice without words, pleading, she cried,  "How can I remember all of these things? Help me!"

And then came the first feelings of hunger, hurt, and fear. The infant was lost in an absolute silence, darkness and coma.  It was caught in an overpowering cloak of infinite desperate aloneness. Now there was only a final echo, a final faint reminder, a small, steady, distant, rhythmic beat. These were all that remained of the glorious spectacle--now only an unknown marvelous something. The dear infant child, having already lost the SECRET, then cried out with her first earthly breath, her primal wail of abandonment.

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The "Treasure" being spoken of in this story is central to your happiness, if you know where (how) to look.

Once upon a time a God, (a Lessor God of the GOD of all Gods) and His/Her still lessor gods were discussing plans to create the realms of humankind. Then they could incarnate among them from time to time as a means for further development and purification of their Souls, and for further Spiritual growth and testing of their Divinity. They had agreed that they would need to fashion these earthlings after themselves. But this goal required that humankind eventually be given the key to the sacred Gate. This Gate admits the possessor of the key to all the power and privilege of the intermediate Spiritual realm where the lesser Gods lived and moved and had their Being. To more fully empower their insight, the GOD of Gods, being a perfect teacher, had instructed his lessor Gods to define for themselves how and by what means this Sacred Key could be safely hidden from humankind, those aggressive and disobedient children of their mother, GAIA. This precaution was necessary because if humankind acquired the Key before they had sufficient Spiritual Wisdom, their misuse of that power could quickly destroy their world.

The lessor gods debated at great length how this sacred treasure could be most protected from premature discovery by the races of humankind. They knew its presence would be sensed and sought after. In human terms, they were protecting the ultimate Pearl of Great Price.

One god had suggested the highest mountain, but that was quickly discarded for they knew that humankind would quickly reach there. Likewise, the deepest ocean and even the center of the earth were rejected. Even the moon and stars they knew would eventually yield to human exploration, courage and determination. They came up with many ploys, locks and keys, devices, and locations. But after deep meditation all agreed that none of these would be a certain protector of an audacious humanity's deadly discovery. They all came to their GOD of gods and presented their dilemma. The GOD of gods contemplated and said, "Your struggle has validated my PLAN, behold the solution!"

And so humankind was born into the cosmos through the earthly womb of GAIA, the Soul of the earth. The Sacred Key to the KINGDOM OF TRUTH AND LIGHT was placed within the heart of each person born of GAIA.  There, it could only be discovered through the advance practices of Spiritual devotion where that devotion would have Spiritual dominion over the person's carnal human ego.

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Are you aware of your shadow?  and what it covers?

Once upon of time there lived in the Realms of Light a man who took for granted its ethereal beauty. It fell everywhere in beams of radiant splendor. It was more resplendent than the reflections of gold and silver, more sparkling than the flash of emerald, sapphires, diamond, more ubiquitous than the entire spectrum of the earthly metals and crystal. In the dazzling play of this infinite radiance, there was an accompaniment the Music of the Spheres, perfect harmonies beyond the furthest reach of the human ear, an ultimate perfection of sound. And so in this consummate perfection of SPIRITUAL TRUTH, the man existed.

Attending to his duties was as effortless and perfect as the realm he inhabited. His work provided a profound fulfillment of ultimate joy and satisfaction. But then a strange and terrible thing happened. To his dismay, as he beheld the work of which he was about, he found it had became covered by a shadow, a darkness. He did not recognize the source of this darkness.  The darkness obscured the purpose of his work upon which he had been so joyfully fixed.

The man attempted to move away from the darkness, but it followed him. The more he moved, the more he became fixated on it. He altered his work to make in thrive in the darkness. But the darkness changed to cover it more deeply. He changed his goals but the darkness confused his path. He ran but the darkness raced ahead of him. Though he cursed the darkness, it persisted. At last it, became an impenetrable barrier separating him from his work. He could not find a Soul to explain it to him. Others who were moving within it did not seem aware of it or did not care. They appeared confused by his questions and then ignored him. Now the darkness grew such that it consumed his entire consciousness with frustration, fear, and anger. His work had now become meaningless, but he pursed it more aggressively to recover that lost sense of accomplishment.

Finally the impasse became intolerable, and he was confronted with a choice.  He could accept the darkness and the new rules it enforced, and transfigure his consciousness to understand its significance to his goals. Or he could destroy himself with his hopeless struggle to avoid or overcome it.  At length, the helpless frustration, bitterness and the injustice of it all overcame him. He had tried everything he could think of to eliminate the darkness which had ruined his beautiful realms of Light and the joy of his work he accomplished there. Then the man became totally full of rage. At the peak of his rage, he tried to stomp that shadow that had become his darkness.

But the darkness remained impervious and unresponsive. His mind gone, he kicked and stomped . In the process of his self destruction, while the shadow persisted unchanged, his magnificent work which was the subsistence of his life was smashed beneath his beating fists and crashing feet. At last the man's heart gave out, and his physical strength failed. His anger was overcome with helpless grief, exhaustion, and bitterness, and he fell into a coma. As he fell, his body turned and he saw again the LIGHT, and in a flash there came to him THE KNOWING. He realized that the darkness was his own shadow, his literal self (ego) which had obscured the light of his Spiritual Truth. Because he had been born to earth, he had deluded and entrapped himself in believing that the darkness, an artifact of his senses and ego judgment, was real.   He had altered his goals (work) to accommodate it.

He was stunned at last to KNOW as his earthly consciousness faded, how fully he had accepted the illusion of the shadow and not the TRUTH of the light. His persistence in obsessing on the illusion had brought him torment and cost him the earthly success of his Spiritual work. The diversions he pursued were exactly that. They had finally seduced him to totally substitute material goals at the cost of the joy of Spiritual accomplishment.  As he discovered too late, all he needed to have done at any time  was to accept the shadow as the mere illusion it was, and turn to the LIGHT that was still accessible within him.  The Spiritual work that was his assignment, even though diminished by worldly limits, would have been a blessing to humanity.  Maintaining contact with the light would have preserved his Spiritual perception of his work!  Then he could have Known in TRUTH his actual relationship to the shadow.

Alas! Too late for his enlightenment in this cycle of life. He passed away into the emptiness, and was returned again into the Realms of Light. There, he was cleansed of his illusion, and restored to his sacred work.  Since he had not sufficiently advanced Spiritually during the challenges of his earthly birth, he was returned to the same level of Spiritual unfoldment from which he had been born.  Now restored to the realms of Spirit, he returned to his former Spiritual tasks while he waited to receive yet another precious trial in the material part of the cycle of Spiritual unfoldment.

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Is this story relevant to your ambition, and the journey it has placed you on?

Once upon a time there was a magnificent oak tree that grew upon a lofty mountain top. The view was splendid in all directions, and from hottest summer through bitterest winter. For more than 400 years the tree had grown and thrived. It was looked upon by all the other plants on the mountain as a marvel, for none of them could have survived in such a vulnerable place. They were somewhat envious because, while they could not go to experience it themselves, they had heard as members of the network of life, that the oak had the premier location on the entire mountain. They did not relate to the special challenges and stress that went with the position.

In the last decade of its life, the tree produced an acorn that was very ambitious compared to its brothers and sisters. For as it ripened it listened through its psychic ear that vibrated within the network of life energy.  It heard rumors of even more lush environs where it believed that it could surpass the clearly evident glory of its parent. From its birth place high in the tree, far below and far beyond the place of its birth, it saw an enormous distance spread out, vast, and receding into perpetual mist.  It took no notice of its wild and joyful swinging in the constant winds and storms of the mountain. Instead, as it ripened, it fixed its yearning upon a distant and alien plain, a distant mystery.

The season progressed and the time of its parting came. The little acorn was determined not to be caught and trapped in the familiar soil culture of its parent. At its moment of truth the acorn was released, and as it fell, the ambitious acorn summoned all of its Spiritual power, and directed itself to strike a rock. It took a great bounce which propelled it over the edge of the cliff where it fell a great distance. Then it rolled down the mountainside until it fell into a stream and continued downward, being carried toward the mysterious valley

At one point it became logged in a niche at the side of the book where it might have rotted in the water, but a fierce storm came up and flooded the stream, dislodging the acorn and sending it on its way again within an even greater torrent. Eventually, it reached a far valley and passed into a great marshy plain. Finally, the flood waters which had brought it off the mountain receded, depositing the acorn on top of a marshy hammock.

The little acorn knew its journey was over and quickly took root. But the conditions there were not favorable for oak trees. The tall marshy grass kept it in constant shade. The hot soil and air were always too wet, and the marsh chemistry lacked the special ingredients of its parent earth. But the acorn was hardy, and possessed of tremendous will. It began to grow. In a few years, even in its stunted form, it became a little tree that reached well above the tallest grass and shrubs. Now the oppressive sun scorched it in the boiling dampness. The essential relentless mountain wind which was needed to bend and warp its little trunk to stimulate the movement of the precious nourishing fluids that rise from the earth through its roots were instead little more than insipid swamp zephyrs. They never once reached the fury of a typical mountain storm.

The young little oak knew it was doomed. In this hostile place, even its very success created its early death. Although there were insufficient winds to stimulate its growth beyond that of a small distorted shrub, there was the rare hurricane with its fierce monsoon winds. The tree knew its growing bulk soon could not be sustained in the wet and mucky soil of the swamp. The internal truth of the tree knew it would crash to certain death even before the fulfillment of its youth.

On a rare day when a brisk cold breeze that rarely blew was felt, the misty skies were briefly cleared. In its reaching for the sky, the little tree beheld a far off mountain top that clouds and mist usually hid.  In the spiritual eye of knowing that serves all living things, the tree dimly saw a withered and blasted oak upon the highest escarpment of the distant mountain. There it was, a familiar mighty oak, its dead bulk still commanding the premier spot leaning over the valley from its special point of masterful dominance. Now, too late, the little tree knew.

"I have erred." lamented the little tree. "I have betrayed my appointed place. Would I could be back growing beside my parent. Alas, my misplaced will and the illusion of my self-serving ambition took me away. Now I shall die, unfulfilled, away from the earth that was to be my promise. Instead I will rot in this relentless swamp whose earth is alien to my roots."

But this misplaced life was not a wasted life. In interfering with and betraying its original promise, in the tribulation that followed that wrong choice, the little acorn achieved a higher consciousness and learned about a vast world of potential and threat. Especially, it learned more about its own true nature. It reached a greater appreciation of the benefits of natural harmony than could have been the case in the orthodox and mundane pattern in the life of an acorn  growing beside its parent.  Such was the little acorn's painful lesson in the cosmic nature and purpose of tribulation. Thus, when the cycle of eternal life returned the fallen tree to the swamp in which it had taken root, its expanded plant soul was raised again to a reformed destiny. A higher expression of its Spiritual manifestation was now prepared to be fulfilled as a new and higher order life.

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Is this story more relevant to you than "The Tree That Forgot Its Roots?"

Once upon a time, there was a little tree that began to grow deep in a dismal swamp. It was a cypress tree, and its destiny was to rise to be the most dominant of all the variety of vegetation creatures that lived in the swamp. Its nature was such that it was especially designed to grow and thrive in the hot steamy ecology of the marsh in which it was born. As is a characteristic of all creatures born to their place in the Cosmos, this little tree was born to thrive in what  would be a fatally hostile place for most vegetation. Its roots grew directly from its parent tree, and both were deeply interwoven in the muck of the ever soaked soil. No normal challenge of any extreme of wind could bring it down. Its thickening bark was oblivious to the raging grass fires during the occasional drought while its deepest roots were always nourished by the ever present underground water. Its leaves rejoiced in being alternately bathed in the heat of fierce sunshine and warm embalming rains. As with all living creatures, its Spiritual Truth lay waiting for a something, it knew not what. What else was there but the reality of the swamp? Something.  Even the multitude of animal life that swamp, crawled and flew amongst its roots and branches had no obvious meaning. Yet its central self was restless. It seemed its Spiritual eyes and ears were ever seeking that eternal something.

Then one day, in the peak of its full maturity, it barely survived the tribulation of a rare and terrible hurricane.  Many of its branches had been shorn off and most of its leaves ripped away.  But it had survived a storm that had completely destroyed much of the plant life all around it.  Now the air was unusually cool and crystal clear, as though an apology from nature herself.  For the first time, before it was once again closed from view by the relentless mists of the steaming swamp, the Spiritual eye of the tree beheld a distant mountain top. Upon that peak was a strange plant form, clearly visible in spite of the vast distance that separated them. Recognized the form through its Spiritual Truth, the giant cypress beheld a mighty oak tree. It was lodged strong and steady upon the highest crag of the distant mountain.  Then it slowly vanished behind the enclosing mists.

Within the tree a sacred spark was instantly ignited. Here in its primal consciousness appeared a plant form which seemed to be entirely unlike itself yet similar. Although far removed, vague of form, inaccessible, and wispy, as an ineffable mystery, the evidence of that literal reality was striking. But as the dominant mists of its own natural ecology quickly hid this first glimpse of a larger reality.  The Spiritual truth of the tree stirred, and for the first time it questioned and strove to understand. For the first time, the tree whose material and temporal future appeared forever linked with the swamp, comprehended the possibility of a larger reality. It thus entered upon a restless and relentless path which would eventually lead it recover its own infant soul from the confining realms of material life.

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Are you aware of what you have "forgotten?" How can you remember?"

Socrates has been discussing with Meno, the question whether or not virtue can be innately known, or whether it must be taught.  In the discussion, Plato describes Socrates dialogue with a slave boy of Meno's, who has had no training in mathematics other than the most rudimentary numbering skills. But the boy has been guided by Socrates asking questions so the slave boy accomplished a complex problem in geometry. In the course of this guidance, the slave boy responded with intuitive answers to questions requiring complex geometric reasoning which he could not have known from any prior training. The dialogue with Meno continues with reference to the slave boy's demonstration.

Socrates: And at present these notions have just been stirred up in him as in a dream; but if he were frequently asked the same questions in different form, he would know as well as any one at last?

Meno: I dare say.

Socrates: Without anyone teaching him, he will recover this knowledge for himself if he is only asked questions?

Meno: Yes.

Socrates: And this spontaneous recovery of knowledge within him is recollection?

Meno: True.

Socrates: And this knowledge which he now has must he not either have acquired or always possessed?

Meno: Yes.

Socrates: But if he always possessed this knowledge he would always have known; or if he acquired the knowledge he could not have acquired it in this life, unless he has been taught geometry; for he may be made to do the same with all geometry and every other branch of knowledge. Now has anyone ever taught him all this? You must know about him, if as you say, he was born and bred in your house.

Meno: And I am certain that no one ever did teach him.

Socrates: And yet he has the knowledge?

Meno: The fact, Socrates, is undeniable.

Socrates: But if he did not acquire the knowledge in this life then he must had and learned it at some other time?

Meno: Clearly he must.

Socrates: Which must have been a time when he was not a man [i.e. alive as human]?

Meno: Yes.

Socrates: And if there have always been true thoughts in him, both at the time when he was and was not a man which only needed to be awakened into knowledge by putting questions to him, his soul must have already possessed this knowledge? For he always was or was not a man?

Meno: Obviously.

Socrates: And if the truth of all things always existed in the soul then the soul is immortal. Wherefore, be of good cheer and try to recollect what you do not know, or rather, what you do not remember.

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Have you refused any beggars recently?  Why?

Once upon a time during the darkest period of the middle ages, a man dressed like a beggar attempted to visit the king. He was carrying a precious Jewel and in order to protect the Jewel from the evil ones of the world, he carried it in a special treasure chest, a small, ugly wooden crate that was rough, junky looking, and unassuming in its appearance. The guards noted the beggar's filthy appearance, stopped him, and ask what reason he could possibly have to see the king. He told them that the box he was carrying contained a priceless jewel and that the king would take great and sublime pleasure in having.

But the appearance of the box was even rougher than that of the beggar. The guards mocked him, laughed, and bodily threw him and the chest out into the gutter where he fell heavily into the muck and filth. A young noblewoman, in fine clothing who was riding by at that moment  was spattered by the filth as the baggier crashed into the gutter. But she nevertheless had compassion on the plight of the hapless beggar and resented the treatment he had received from the guards. She ordered her attendants to carry him, clutching his precious ugly treasure chest, to her quarters, and there to bath and feed him. After had been so cleansed, fed, and rested, he asked to see the noblewoman in order to thank her. She agreed and when in her presence, he thanked her and offered her his precious gift, the ugly chest.

She asked, "What could possibly be of value in such an ugly chest?" He said, "It is a precious jewel which when worn opens the eyes of the wearer to perceive the Truths of Reality where all things shall pass for what they are, and not as the sense driven illusions of your mind." But you must accept the gift as offered, for only its owner can wear this priceless Jewel. She looked into the beggars eyes and saw in them a special light.  Unlike the guards, she let her highly developed intuitive sense guide her response. She accepted the gift and wore the Jewel that no other person without an equally developed Spiritual intuition could perceive.

When the King died, then fate seemed to conspire in miraculous ways to bear her to be ruler of her realm.  She identified her key advisors and prince by their ability to recognize and respond to her special Jewel. She was beloved as a  wise and kindly ruler for many decades until, along with the Jewel, she safely departed from the earth plane and all of  its treacheries.

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Yang, the baboon alpha, was at the center of his troop. He was enjoying the largess of his position, the best food and water, and the most desirable females. The most desirable female was Yin who personified all the best in the females of the troop. Yat was his most likely beta challenger, but with the other young males he had been denied access to the largess of the troop and was punished by Yang when he attempted to approach his preferred female. He and all the other contenders had been driven by Yang to the periphery of the troop with the other more dominant but immature males. They spent their time competing with each other and testing themselves to become the challenger to Yang.

Because they lived at the edge of the troop, the Betas were the first to spot the danger. When the leopard came, Yat was the first to detect it, and immediately screamed the alarm and made threatening gestures to attack the leopard. But Yang, true to his status and his duty, quickly rose and raced to the location where Yat was giving the alarm. He ignored Yat and confronted the leopard, challenging it, and delaying its advance. Yat, with the others, only too gratefully took the opportunity to escape the dangerous area. Yang, by his courage, strength, and audacity, managed to delay the leopard until all of his troop were safe, then he too escaped. But he was badly injured in the process.

When the leopard was gone and the area once again safe, Yat realized that Yang had been injured and was in weakened condition. Seizing his opportunity, he attacked Yang and killed him.  The uninvolved omega baboons jumped around screaming, and observed the killing with great excitement. In the brief fights that followed, Yat also defeated the other young males who would dare challenge him to be the new alpha. Thus did Yat become the new established leader of the troop.

As his very first act as the established new alpha, he sought out all the young offspring of Yang who were not large and strong enough to defend themselves or escape, and he killed them. At last he entered as "king" of the sacred ring of power. First he viciously mounted (as in sexually mount) several of the mature but subordinate omega males, and by thus humiliating them, publicly demonstrated and validated his dominance. Then he yielded to lust and indulged himself, using Yin, his long denied female of choice, one whose infant, sired by Yang, he had just killed. In this manner life express itself when it is without the benefit of Spiritual Consciousness. For those with ears to hear, let them hear

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Do you remember experiencing any incident like this?

Once there was a toddler whose entire world was defined by his home and playpen. He was very happy there most of the time because he was regularly fed and cleansed by friendly, loving, god like parents. In between this care there were many toys and baubles in the playpen which he enjoyed.

But then one day, a terrible thing happened to his convenient and happy little world. Another toddler was introduced and the adults left for a nearby room. This intruder, sat briefly surveying the happy world of his "host."  He observing all of the baubles and toys. He immediately decided on the one he wanted. It was the one that was already in the hands of his host. He quickly rose himself up, toddled past all the other intervening toys and baubles, and promptly seized the one in his host's hands.

The host, cried out in outrage over this assault, and a serious struggle ensued. But alas, the newcomer was not only bigger and stronger, he was meaner.  He soon wrenched the coveted bauble from the clutching but weaker hands of his host. Then, fondling the bauble, he plopped down with a smug smile on his satisfied face.

The outraged victim child screamed for the divine intervention of his god parents. They had magically never before failed to protect him and attend to all of his needs. But they had left the room and were not to be seen. The host child then dissolved into rage and tears of heartbreak. His entire happy world had just been violently betrayed. Everything of importance had been lost, there was nothing left of merit in his conscious world, even hope itself was gone. The game was over, and he had lost.

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Do you remember experiencing any incident like this?

One day there were a group of third grade students wonderfully occupied, playing their games on the school playground. One student in particular was leading the group in their favorite game of "pretend." Today they were pretending to be "buffalo" and were running around bellowing as though they were a herd.

Suddenly, as they rounded a corner of the school building, there standing directly in their path was the largest and meanest kid in school, the bully. He stood defiant and literally knocked down their buffalo leader. The bully reached down and grabbed the leader by his shirt and lifted him up practically off the ground.

"I thought I told you to stop these stupid games?" he bellowed. "You're screaming and yelling makes me sick." he continued hatefully. Then he threw the leader up against the building, hurting him. Some of the girls in the group were yelling at the bully. "Stop it! You piece of shit!" one shouted.  Others added a variety of epithets.

But the bully just laughed, because he knew the ritual very well. The girls would cry, some of the boys would complain or threaten in a weak and sniveling way.  But the leader would do and say nothing and accept humiliation.  The bully knew that everyone hated his guts, but he also knew that none of the others would dare to take him on.  At the conscious level he didn't care. He didn't dare to care. He thoroughly enjoyed this temporary moment of torment for his school mates. He turned his words into bullets of hate. He would get the most out of it.

Suddenly the bully heard his name called out sharply by an adult voice. This too was a predictable part of the scenario. One of the girls had run into the school as soon as the confrontation began and got a teacher. The teacher marched the bully off to the office where he knew that he would get a new batch of threats, possible detention, and a note sent home to his mother whom he knew had no real power over him either. She was helpless, as his father had long since chosen to pay child support for the publicly condoned convenience (aided and abetted by "the law") that permitted him to otherwise desert his children and deny them his nurturing presence, influence, and love. This ritual of confrontation was such a consistent way of life that the bully gave it no further thought. He hated the kids in this class for those of his age were already three grades beyond. He enjoyed hurting his classmates and making their lives miserable. Why should he suffer alone?

The students likewise completed their ritual. They cursed the bully, and in empty words rich with contempt they promised each other what they would do the next time he confronted them. Some of the boys then condemned and ridiculed their leader, who was defended by others, and some offered to take over for their leader who "has no guts" to take on the bully. But upon reflection they decided that they would support their leader and give him "one more chance." By the time they had gone through their ritual, the incident was over, so was recess and they were on their way back into school.

The teacher and principle, likewise, completed their part in the ritual. They condemned the Bully, but could not punish him physically on advice of the school's lawyer, so they gave him detention for the rest of the month beginning next day. The Principal wrote a note for the Bully to immediately take home to his mother. As soon as the lecture was over, the teacher went back to join the children in his classroom, the Principal went back to her work, and the Bully, having been sent home, tore up the note and scattering it across the playground as he sauntered off to the local mall.

Now the bully was silent, his face blank, and eyes empty, his guts he dissolved in suppressed screams of rage. He shed dry tears of heartbreak. His entire yearning was for restoration to the faint memory of a long lost happy world of belonging that was once again betrayed. He had no words to express this inner torment.  Everything of importance, his unconscious need for legitimacy and affirmation, remained lost and denied. There was nothing left of merit in his world, even hope itself was gone. The game was over.

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Do you remember experiencing any incident like this?

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a high tech corporation and his principal vice presidents, five men, and two woman, were huddled around a long executive conference table in an elegantly appointed board room. They were earnestly reviewing documents that had urgent implications for them.  As happened to be the case, their corporation had been made subject to a hostile takeover under procedures allowed and even protected under the civil "law."  The papers were the final opinions of their lawyers and financial managers.  The message was blunt. A hostile takeover would be legally successful.

Anger, rage, and despair consumed the board as the implications became clear. There was blame and recriminations among them as to how this could have happened to their company which they had built on their own creativity, courage, skills, and energy. Now they would lose their Corporation and even lose their jobs. The successful raiders were known for such takeovers in order to exploit the cash reserves of successful companies  like theirs. Then they would reap fiscal windfalls as replacement to cover other losses and the costs of corporate warfare. These appropriated funds were devoted to achieve dominance over the wilderness societies in the third world with their emergent but vulnerable capitalist democracies. They thus could apply their plunder to replace other less productive, costly, or failing corporate interests.  They could then write these losses off to obtain additional benefits under the corporate tax laws conveniently contrived for their benefit. While they fueled their aggressive expansionist strategies, they could apply their "paper" losses as massaged by their books to obtain further tax benefits by using such manipulations as are conveniently provided by their corporate owned and controlled government. By such means the raiders were successful in overpowering their competitors in their world wide predatory operations.

The board thus knew that they would immediately be fired and replaced by agents of the predatory winner.  Their beloved company would gradually have its cash removed, its assets sold, its committed, loyal, and talented staff ruthlessly fired to save salary resources, and at last, their corporation would then be placed in receivership, its remaining assets to be sold by the banks who near always gain by such practices.  This is the script that has nothing to do with the myths of free competition in the market place, but which orchestrates legitimized "corporate murder."  By such means the successful raider could exploit the loss.  All of this was legal under the civil law. Even their long time external management consultants who, like corporate physicians, had never failed in the past to assist in restoring them to full functioning, were of no avail. No remedy could be found.

Each member at last accepted the inevitable. They sat in sullen silence.  Their inner worlds dissolved in suppressed screams of rage and invisible tears of heartbreak. Their entire happy world had just been violently betrayed. Everything of importance had been lost. There was nothing left of merit in their world, even hope itself was gone. The game was over.

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Are you free of bigotry, prejudice and systematic bias?

One day an esteemed professor lectured his students about ethical principles for guiding behavior. He noted that not all cultures are as advanced in terms of fairness as are those of us fortunate to be born into civilized America. He takes an example of an aboriginal tribe, and a quaint custom they have for resolving what to do when a hunting band comes on a stranger in the outback (western desert.) There is a dialogue between the stranger and the group in which there is an effort to identify a common ancestor. In this exercise, the group and the stranger may go back as many as 40 generations seeking the common link. When memory runs out, and no common linking ancestor is found, the group kills the stranger on the spot. This the Professor categorizes as primal behavior.

Having finished the lecture, the Professor rushes to a meeting of colleagues who are assembled to referee articles (i.e., select based on objective merit) that are competing for publication in a scholarly journal of which he is a member of the editorial board. Of the stack of candidate articles, all of the offerings were quickly accounted for by acceptance or rejection based on their agreed upon merits, save one. The Professor and his colleagues cannot agree on the merits of one particular article.

Although there are a proper number of scholarly references to accepted authorities present in the work, some colleagues say that the article is incompetent and should be rejected. Others say that the author is creatively putting forward a new paradigm and ought be given a hearing by publishing the work in order for the entire scholarly community to assess its merits. After many hours of heated and evenly divided debate, no decision can be reached. Then the Professor gets out the author's CV (resume.)

The review panel carefully scrutinizes the author's credentials looking for the names of his teachers. They want to see if there is a recognized scholar among his teachers they accept as credible in their field.  After failing to find such a link, the article is promptly rejected.

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Do words carry meaning from one person to the next?

"There was a man born blind. He had never seen the sun and asked about it of people who could see. Someone told him: "The sun's shape is like a brass tray." The blind man struck the brass tray and heard its sound. Later when he heard the sound of a bell, he thought it was the sun. Again someone told him, "The sunlight is like that of a candle," and the blind man felt the candle and thought that was the sun's shape. Later he felt a big key, and thought it was the sun... The [TRUTH] Tao [pronounced, 'Dauww, as in ouch] is harder to see than the sun, and when people do not know it, they are exactly like the blind man...In this way one gets further and further away from the truth. Those who speak about Tao sometimes give it a name in accordance with what they happen to see, or imagine what it is like without seeing it. These are mistakes in the effort to understand Tao."

 In: Su Tungp'o, in "Parables of Ancient Philosophers", The Wisdom of China and India, 1942, Ed & Trans. by Lin Yutang, NY: Random House, Modern Library, P 1067.

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Do you relate to the following experience?

Once upon a long time ago, there was a primitive humanoid creature. Call him "brute" because of his crude and primal behavior. Brute-like behavior is that which is constrained to focus only on the lower order physical needs and capacities. Therefore, this creature was a brute indeed, for he crawled around on his four legs, occasionally running upright, and gathered in a variety of foods for his survival. Serving the survival need was almost his sole preoccupation from the beginning to the end of his short and nasty life which seldom lasted longer than 25 years.

One day, he had found some clams in the shallow water by the ocean where he was rummaging. His hands ached from the effort to pry open the shells and eat the delicious meat. As he rested from his weary task, the brute watched a gull fly over with what appeared to be a clam in its beak. The gull dropped the clam causing it to strike the rocks below, whereupon the clam shells parted and the gull flew down and devoured the meat. In a flash of expanded consciousness, the brute experienced an Ah! Ha!, his first "idea."

Following his burst of "insight" the brute grabbed a nearby rock, and pounded the resistant clam he had been struggling with. Lo and behold, the shell parted. With a roar of joy, the brute swallowed the meat. Then as fast as he could, with joyful bellowing, the brute raced around, smashing clams and eating the meat until his belly was full. Then, in creating a precedent followed to this day, he remembered his mate.

Racing around some more, he crushed more clams, extracted the meat and scrambled off to present as many of them as he could carry to his mate who was picking berries in the nearby woods. He jumped in front of her, imitated the sight and sound of the gull flying overhead, the rock smashing the clam, the sound of his eating, and then he presented her the clam meat. She gratefully ate the meat, and she presented her mate a handful of her berries.

For many weeks, the brute enjoyed his improved fare derived from the more easily extracted clam meat. Now his mate was no conceptual slouch herself. In gathering her fruit, she happened to notice that some berries had fallen from the bush, and gathered into a bowl shaped piece of bark that had fallen from a near-by tree. She had her first "idea." Searching around, she found a more perfect bowl shaped piece of bark, and more effectively gathered a larger contribution of her share of the next meal.

Now one day weeks later, in the early morning, they were sitting in the woods near the beach preparing for the day's activity. Then the she-mate, who was very hungry, had her second idea. In a moment of inspiration, she repeated her mates demonstration of the sound of the gull flying over head, and the sounds of the clam striking the rock, and the he-brute eating. The male experienced a shock of comprehension.  He leaped up and raced off for the beach where he proceeded to smash clams and indulge himself in a full breakfast.

Now the she-mate, expecting her mate's immanent return, did not run off to gather berry's. But she waited a long time before the he-brute had indulged himself and finally remembered her. At last he came back with the clams. The she-brute, somewhat huffily accepted his tardy offering. She began to hungrily devour the proffered clam meat. The he-brute looked around, but to his confusion, could find no berries. He looked at his mate peacefully slurping clam meat. However, berry gathering behavior is considerably more subtle than clam smashing behavior.

He sat in deep concentration, trying to make bush "rustling" and berry "picking" sounds with his primitive voice. His mate, deep into the sensual enjoyment of her long awaited breakfast, did not understand the confused sounds coming from her mate which sounded to her as though he were passing gas from his clams. Alas, the poor he-brute. In the midst of his berry deprivation, he was experiencing our race's first communication problem. In spite of his berry hunger and frustration, he found himself wholly at a loss for words.

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After 10 years, looking back, where did this marriage go wrong?

Recently, in a large community a little girl grows up and is raised mostly by her mother who happens to be the kind of person who gives her daughter all the basic necessities: a comfortable place to live, nice clothes and regular meals. But in her communications, from her daughter's birth, she is very cold, rejecting, manipulative, critical, hostile and makes her attention and what affection there is conditional on the little girl's compliance. This little girl grows up to have a definition of "mother" for whom the referent can only be her experience with her own mother. This "mother" is not just a physical person (denotative referent), but the girl incorporates into her meaning for the word "mother" her stressful, angry feelings (connotative referent) derived from the pattern of rejection she had endured.  In the presence of the symbol "mother," she relives those defensive, angry frightened, helpless and negative feelings that her mother created for her during the years she grew up. That is, the whole referent "mother" must also include the feelings or connotative meaning as well as the denotative "object or thing in the world" meaning.

Now suppose in another part of the community, a little boy grows up and is mostly raised by his mother. Unlike the little girl's mother, his mother is warm, nurturing, supportive, affirming, kind, and caring, and gives unconditional love to her son. His denotative image of "mother" has a connotative meaning that incorporates all the positive affirming and empowering feelings he had toward his mother as he grew up.

Now suppose both the little girl and boy, grow up, meet, date, and then seem to be falling in love.  In the presence of their powerful chemistry for each other, the little boy, now a young man, wants to propose marriage. He wants to pay her the highest compliment he can think of. So he says to the little girl, now a young woman: "I want to be married with you, because I want you to be the mother of my children!" Although he paid her the highest compliment he could think of based on his experience with his referent for the word "mother," what did the young woman hear? What feelings coursed through her nervous system given her connotative experience with her referent for the word "mother?"

"This man wants me to be a mother!?"

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Have you seen this story in the headlines recently?

Once upon a long time ago, a young man came out of Egypt into a far distant mid eastern country. His education had taught him much about his cultural legacy, one aspect of which was the history of the beautiful Queen Nefertiti. Her slender image, and noble history had obsessed him from childhood. It remained with him into his young manhood as the essence of a  most beautiful, cultured, and alluring female being he could ever possibly find or hope to even imagine.

One day after arriving in the far country with its strange language and customs, he stayed with a family helping them with a trade. He felt fortunate as they were among the most powerful families in the land. It happened that a client, also one of the more powerful and well known families in the land, came by with his entourage including his daughter, a beautiful young woman. The young man stared at her in abject disbelief.  He said to himself, "Here is my Nefertiti! I cannot believe my eyes!" and he was profoundly joyful.

Not being able to speak the language very well, he said nothing, but as the guests began to leave he could not restrain himself any longer and cried out with his best use of their language: "You are my Nefertiti!" The woman gasped and screamed, and the men of her family instantly began to shout and yell. They pulled their swords and knives and fell on the hapless foreigner and his company. In the fight that followed, many from both sides were injured or killed.  As the young man lay mortally wounded, a survivor of his host family crawled to him, cursing him.

As he died he learned that what the guests had heard in their own language was an epithet, "Nefertiti" meaning--"the disease infected genitals of a whore." Many generations of killings were to pass until the families were at last decimated and none were left to carry forward the vengeance. The blood feud was finally stilled.

NOTE: Demonstration of a proof that "Words have No meaning" will be found in found in Dialogue 3.

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Is there an intellectual solution to the communication problem posed in the following story?

Suppose there were a cave inhabited by unusual humans who were forced to sit so that they could only look at the wall of the cave and not even move their head to look anywhere else.  Then suppose that there was a light from a fire which was placed behind them so they could not see what it was, but that it cast their shadows upon the wall of their cave.

Then consider what would happen if other creatures were to pass between the fire and trapped humans who could only see the wall. These chained persons could only relate to the creature's shadows they could see, and hear the distorted sounds of the creatures moving behind them carrying their various objects.  The could only hear whatever sound was made, other than their own voices, after it was reflected off the walls of their cave.  Think of the kind of "reality" this would create for these poor trapped humans.

The Plato proposed what would happen if one person were to break away from his bonds in order to turn his head, stand up, and see what was creating the shadows on the wall of the cave.  Plato describes the discomfort of the new "reality," how the fire would hurt the eyes, and blind the escapee who had only seen dim shadows.  He considers how difficult it must be for the escapee to describe to his still imprisoned friends what the new and larger reality "is" -what words could he use that they could relate to?

Then Plato proposes the profound dilemma of what would them happen if the released prisoner could escape the cave altogether.  Imagine the blinding light of the sun, and the real look of objects and creatures only faintly seen in the dim firelight of the cave.  How would he explain that to his still trapped associates?

But with the most profound insight of all, Plato addresses the results should this escapee make an effort to bring this discovery and marvelous insight into TRUTH to his still entrapped friends and insist that they comprehend and relate to it:

Plato says: "Coming suddenly out of the sunlight, his eyes would be filled with darkness. He might be required once more to deliver his opinion on the shadows, in competition with the prisoners who had never been released, while his eyesight was still dim and unsteady; and it might take some time to again become used to the darkness. They would laugh at him and say that he had gone up and come back only to have his eyesight ruined; it was worth no one's while even to attempt the assent. If they could lay hands on the man who was trying to set them free, they would kill him. ...Yes they would."

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Have you noticed this story playing in the world today? in families? in business? in societies?

Once upon a time there was a gentle tribal nation.  Their society was a civilized achievement that was abruptly overrun by hordes of nomadic warriors that appeared from parts unknown. A large number of this highly civilized tribe managed to escape death or the certain oblivion of slavery. They transfigured themselves into a nomadic tribe and fled to find permanent safety. They soon became lost in a vast dessert. They survived their early days in that wilderness because of the strength of their character and their creativity. In this struggle they learned to support each other in loving trust and confidence. They had managed to combine the best of collective support with respect for individual achievement and accomplishment. Thus the tribe had created a mythology and and set of rituals to serve them as constant reminders of this Truth. All of their successes derived from their alignment with the Sacred LAW. They accepted that, as individuals, they were linked as ONE Spiritual TRUTH.  The limits of language frustrated their ability to speak of this in technical terms. They simply Knew.  They intuitively treated each other with the respect and care that was required to live by such Principle.

At one point, they saw two rivers coming together. They decided that since they could not return to their former homes in safety, they would split and explore which of the two forks might restore them to more productive lands. After they had followed the rivers to their respective sources, they would return.  They agreed to return and meet at the time of the second winter solstice.

The first element of the now divided tribe followed the north fork of the river. They quickly found themselves moving upward toward a plateau above which was an imposing range of mountains. Soon they crossed the first range of mountains, and found themselves among vast meadow lands surrounded by precipitous cliffs and tumbling mountain streams. The area was rich in fruit and game. They recognized the possibility of approximating their former life on the high ground by emphasizing shepherding and hunting rather then depending entirely on the agriculture they were used to.

The second element followed the south fork. They eventually found themselves in a long meandering valley that was filled with treacherous swamps, marshes and bogs. But beyond this maze of water, there were large areas of drier ground.  Although still basically swamp, the soil, vegetation and game were still suitable for elements of the kind of life they had been forced to leave.

As the second winter solstice approached, both tribes remembered the commitment to each other which they had made at the fork in the river. While neither had found an environment as comfortable as their former territory, each had found a suitable alternative. Each alternative had the advantage of a natural defense (mountains or swamp) such that they did not have to be so concerned with the nomadic warriors that had driven them out of their ancestral territory.

Both elements of the original tribe approached the fork in the river near the appointed time. But they were distressed to find that the nomadic warriors had already arrived there. Since it would be fatal to continue, both returned to their newly found and developed territories. Each of the two now had separate tribal counsels. Each independently decided that they could not achieve a reunion in safety, and their new geography's permitted excellent defense in event of any further encroachment by the hostile warriors.

After many centuries, time reduced the memories of their original tribe to vague and different versions of the original myths and rituals. These had become altered over time since the split. Eventually, the significance of their common roots, and even the memories of the other tribal element were forgotten by both groups. Finally, the official memory of their common source was lost to even the wisest elders.

Then one day, when a hunting party of the swamp tribe was roaming at the furthest point from their base villages, a terrible cataclysm occurred, and their was an earthquake so profound that even the channels of the rivers and swamp were altered. The adjacent mountains shattered and crumbled. Rivers were diverted,. Old swamps were drained and new ones formed. Then followed many years of extraordinary rains and severe winters.

As it happened, a swamp tribe hunting band mostly survived the first onslaught of the cataclysm. But insurmountable obstacles had been created that denied them their familiar route homeward. At last, because of one mishap or another, only a single survivor found himself following the north fork of the ancient river, the route that the other half of his ancestral tribe had chosen to follow. Soon he was lost among the unfamiliar crevices and precipitous, cliff hanging trails. Nearing death in the cold wind, he was found by a member of the mountain tribe. Since he was alone and harmless, the finders brought him to the elders. In addition to erasing the tribal memories of their common roots, time had also changed and lost their common language. Each of their respective versions had become warped and distorted so that its original expression was unrecognizable. Therefore, there were no common language or symbols that could serve as a platform for communication.  He was viewed as a total alien to their culture.

The swamp man earnestly tried to explain the tribal roots he knew, the vast swamp wilderness, its glorious richness of life, and stable warmth of its climate, and the other advantages that he longed to return to. But the mountain people had no symbolic references for such images and claims. Further, the swamp man recoiled at the common things of the mountains. He hated the eternal winds, the precipitous storms, was fearful of the heights, vulnerable to the elements, and thus quickly became an object of some contempt. Then because he was also vulnerable to their illnesses,  their contempt for him slowly grew.

But eventually, one of mountain women expressed an interest in the stranger. Suddenly among the elders, fear and contempt prevailed over compassion. Their consciousness had become closed to their common origins. The mountain tribe resented the alien's apparent contempt for the sacred elements of their mountain life that had spared them from the invasion of the ancient warriors. So said their mythology to whose literal interpretation they were all slavishly devoted. Eventually the leader of the elders, in view of the facts that were in their limited consciousness, at last condemned the lost soul to death. No alternative explanations or coping actions were accessible in their consciousness.  He was given a small amount of food, thrown into a deep mountain crevice, and abandoned to die.

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Are you "free?"  If "Yes", how do you know?  If "No," why not?

A contemporary student of Buddhism was walking with his Master when he suddenly proclaimed, "I have been patient, but now I insist on having my freedom."

"You cannot be free and be my disciple," insisted the Master

They walked a while reflecting on their exchange, and then the Master said, "But you already have freedom. You can have freedom in various degrees. When  the temperature which gets warmer or colder, you have more or less freedom to remove or add clothing.  So already you have freedom, you are walking, and you are certainly talking."

"But you determine everything I do. I want more freedom, freedom to act on my terms. How can I choose to be more free when you are always telling me what to do?"

The master thought for a while, and then told his student the following story:

Once upon a long time ago, there was a living system beyond the rising sun, a creature that was quite unlike what we are used to here on earth. This life form had no head, arms or legs such as we are accustomed to. In fact, its form most closely resembled what we would call a blot.

However, this "Blot" had the power of thought, and as a matter of fact, what the Blot thought--it got. But it could not think of much. So as it happened one day the Blot was existing in a space, and it saw in the distance what it knew was a food form. Being hungry, it wanted to go there. But it had not enough consciousness to simply think itself there. It had to think how to travel there. Having no arms or legs it thought itself to be a train on a railroad track leading directly to the food form. Indeed, it traveled straight-away on its track and ate the food form--and was happy-- for awhile. Furthermore, it then had "fun" running back and forth on its track which it had thought and which gave it "freedom" to easily move backward and forward, but in no other direction. (So we can say it had one degree of freedom.) Now the blot was doing very well with its one degree of freedom, but it soon became bored in just going backward and forward. Worse, it learned it always found that if a food form or anything else of interest were not right on the track, it was constrained, that is, it could not turn right or left to directly reach it. The Blot had to rethink itself to be "not a train on a track," and then rethink itself again to be a "new train on a new track" leading to the new food form or whatever. That was a lot of work!

The frustration in only having one degree of freedom caused the Blot to think an entirely new thought. (It expanded its consciousness.) The next time it found a food form, it thought itself to be an automobile. Now it could not only move backward and forward, but it could also turn left and right. (So we say it now had two degrees of freedom.) Now the Blot was very happy because no matter where the food form appeared, the Blot could go backward or forward and swerve left or right to get to its object of interest. Now the Blot was having even more fun because it had more freedom and less constraint, and was joyfully driving around on its turf.

But soon the Blot came to understand that there were still many obstacles on its turf. These obstacles (constraints) that it discovered hid many of its food forms and other objects of interest, and made them tough to get to, even with two degrees of freedom. The blot had to achieve a higher consciousness to improve its degrees of freedom. The Blot, being a specialist in thought, soon realized that if it could get up in the air, it could have even more freedom to pursue what interested it. So the next time it got hungry, or bored, and could not find or reach a food form or something of interest, it expanded its consciousness to three degrees of freedom. It thought itself to be a machine like bird, and it lifted itself into the air. Now it could choose to go backward or forward, left or right, or up or down. (That is why we can say that it has three degrees of freedom.) And the Blot was very happy indeed, for awhile.

But now having as much food and fun as it wanted with its three degrees of freedom, it wanted something more...something it could not specify and could not have a thought for.  So it became much like a student of Buddhism who would try to learn that to get more than than freedom to think, one had to surrender to achieve "no thought." The blot wanted the power to achieve ultimate Consciousness. But constant with the paradox inherent in the challenge of being free to enter into Spiritual Illumination,  one cannot reach for enlightenment. Rather, to achieve this ultimate Consciousness, the student must learn not to think."

"Now," said the master, " You see, you have all the freedom you need to choose from within THE LAW. But we can never violate this LAW. So! If you really want to be truly free, stop thinking about it!"

Suddenly the student, who had been concentrating in frustrated contemplation of his master's advice, shouted out.

Look! "I'll show you that I am free!! See! I can choose!!  And before his Master could react, the student leaped into the abyss. But having thus surrendered himself to the laws of gravity, he was quickly smashed to death on the rocks below.

The Master grieved, "Alas!  We were both correct."

...
Are you playing cards with half a deck?  To state it another way, are you trying to cope and prevail over a complex situation you are not intellectually equal to?

Some scientists at a well known advanced engineering design and development company became bored with the routine one day near the middle of the 20th Century, and they decided that it would be fun, informative, and perhaps even useful to build a robot. So they set about their task, and after a many long months, they had a prototype ready to test in their lab.

Being of a practical mind, they had designed the robot to pick up trash that regularly fell on the floor of the lab, and carry it to a trash container. Then came the day of the test, and with great excitement everyone stood around waiting, with "Robie" plugged into its automatic charger, ready to go. The chief scientist threw down some paper. Instantly Robie became "alert" and showing signs of "concern" whirred into action. He disengaged himself from his charger, went beeping around the room, searching for the fallen object. Upon finding it, it swept it "skillfully" into its tray, moved gracefully to the waste container and dumped the paper in it. Then he returned to his charger, plugged himself in, and shut down with a "satisfied" click. The scientists were jubilant. One after another they threw down paper, cups, old glass, and a variety of trash.

Into the midst of this scene a female colleague, knowing of the scheduled test, came to inquire how it was going. "Come in, sit down and we will surely show you!" exclaimed a happy scientist. And so she did, sitting down and placing her purse on the floor beside her chair.

Before the scientists could trash their floor again, to their dismay, Robie began showing signs of "concern." Immediately he whirred into action, beeping and wheeling around the room, he quickly zeroed in on the purse, scooped it into its tray, and to the astonishment of the female associate, accurately deposited it in the trash, went back to his charger and shut down again with another "satisfied" click. The scientists went back to their drawing boards.

...
Are you caught in a similar trap at home, at work, or socially?

A little girl was watching her daddy prepare a roast for dinner since the mother was late from work. He cut of the end of the roast and placed it beside th