.OUTRAGEOUS
TRUTH: A MYSTICAL PARADIGM MASTER
PARABLES, ALLEGORIES
AND METAPHOR
DIALOGUES ONE
THROUGH SEVEN: THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS,
THE
THREE TRAPS OF MIND, AND THE
COMPENSATING DYNAMICS OF KARMA,
REINCARNATION, AND THE WAYS AND
POWER OF LOVE
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. ....
TABLE OF CONTENTS ALLEGORIES,
PARABLES AND METAPHOR WITHIN THE
TOPICAL DIALOGUES
STORIES
RELATED TO THE TOPIC OF CONSCIOUSNESS, THE FOUNDATION CONCEPT
FOR OT/MP
What does the
following story describe?
The
House of Three Rooms
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?
The
Primal Dream of the Infant
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!"
In the twilight of the amazing vision, only an echo of the
Angel's stunning
commands could be heard. The infant who had no thoughts that came as
words,
listened desperately with all of her sacred KNOWING.
The Angel's spoken words had become only a still, small voice that
seemed
to be a part of her tiny body. It said, "You
must
rediscover the pattern that is the key. KNOW that you are
LOVE. Don't
look
for the key, You are the key. I am ever within you
on your PATH."
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.
Allegory of The
Hidden Treasure
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.
Adapted and paraphrased from an ancient Hindu myth as summarized in:
Butterworth,
Eric, 1968, Discover the Power Within You: A Guide to the
Unexplored
Depths Within, Based on the Actual Teachings of Jesus, NT:
Harper and
Row, p-xiii]
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Are you aware of your
shadow? and what it covers?
Parable
The Man Who Stomped His
Shadow
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.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... Is
this story relevant to your
ambition, and the journey it has placed you on?
Parable
of The Tree That Forgot its Roots
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?"
Parable
The Tree of Awakened
Consciousness
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?"
Allegory,
The Meno
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?
Parable: The
Beggar, the Jewel and the
Treasure Chest
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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...
PART II; THE NATURE OF THE
CORRUPTIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS THE FIRST OF THE THREE
TRAPS OF CONSCIOUSNESS: AGENDAS ...
Recognize anyone you know? Anyone
in the news?
Allegory
of The Baboon Society
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
...
Do
you remember experiencing
any incident like this?
Allegory: The
Playpen
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.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .
...
Do
you remember experiencing
any incident like this?
Parable
The Playground
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?
Parable
The Board Room
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?
Allegory:
The Aborigine and the
Professor
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.
ALLEGORIES, PARABLES, AND METAPHOR
RELATED TO
THE SECOND OF THE THREE TRAPS OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
COMMUNICATION
... Do words carry
meaning from one person to the next?
Allegory:
The Blind Man's Idea of
the Sun
"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.
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?
Allegory:
Fatal Attraction
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?
The
Nefertiti Incident
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.
...
Is
there an intellectual solution
to the communication problem posed in the following story?
Plato's Allegory of the Cave
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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. . . . . . .. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ALLEGORIES, PARABLES, AND METAPHOR RELATED TO THE THIRD TRAP OF
CONSCIOUSNESS: HUMAN
INFORMATION PROCESSING
(HIP)
...
Have
you noticed this story
playing in the world today?
in families? in business? in societies?
Allegory:
The Lost Soul
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.
... Are you "free?" If "Yes", how do you
know? If "No,"
why not?
Parable:
Dialogue of
the Master and Student on Freedom
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:
Metaphor of the Blot that Thought
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!"
The Master and student continued on their path for many hours,
in silence.
At dusk, they finally came to a steep precipice. They stood
gazing
down into an abyss where a stream could be heard splashing down the
rocks
that were lost from sight in the fog far below. Night was
falling.
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.
...
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?
Metaphor:
"Robie" the
Robot
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.
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...
Are you caught in a similar
trap at home, at work,
or socially?
Parable:
The Roast End
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 the main portion in the cooking pan.
"Why did you do that, Daddy?" said the little girl. "The pan
is big enough
for the whole roast."
"Mommy always does that," said Daddy, "And I want the roast
to be as good
as when she fixes it."
When mother came home, the question was asked of her.
"Because my mother
always did that." she said confidently.
In the discussion that followed, curiosity led the mother to
call her mother,
only to get the same answer. Her own mother had always done
that.
It happened that great grandmother, though very old and frail, was
still
alive, and the question was at last brought to her. "Why did you always
cut the end off the roast and place it in the pan with the rest of the
roast?"
For posterity she answered- "Because the roaster pan
was always too
small."
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... Have you played out
this scene in trying to solve
a personal or professional problem for yourself? for others?
Parable:
The Drunk and
the Lost Keys
Late one night when the Reverend Parson was walking home, he
saw in the
distance a lurching figure groveling around on the ground beneath a
street
light. Seeing that the person appeared in need of assistance, the good
Parson offered help.
"What is your problem my good man?" said the Parson looking
down on the
somewhat scruffy and disheveled figure.
Looking up from on all fours with bleary eyes, the figure
slurred, "Ah'av
seem to 'av losht my house keys!" and he continued to rummage around in
the tall grass by the curb under the light.
"Here, let me help you," offered Rev. Parson. Though the
drunk said nothing,
the Parson hunkered down and began to search through the tall grass and
weeds. Time passed, the search progressed in ever widening circles and
the Rev. Parson was now sweating along with the drunk. His back was
beginning
to protest the stooping. Rev. Parson at last stood, stretched his
aching
back in exasperation and said, "Look, just where exactly were you
standing
when you dropped your keys?"
"There," said the drunk, lurching awkwardly to his feet, and
pointing down
the street into the darkness where distant tail lights of a parked car
reflected faintly off of the street light. "There, by my car, in front
of my house."
"What!" exploded Rev. Parson, you mean you have me up here
looking for
your keys when you lost them down there in the middle of the block?"
"Of course," said the drunk incredulously, weaving backward
wiping sweat
from his forehead. "Its obvious that its dark down there and the light
is better here."
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.... How would you react
if you were a visitor to this
site? Have you already participated in such a story?
The
Wright Brothers' Secret
Visitors
The Century had just turned, it was December 17,
1900. The Wright
brothers, Orville and Wilber, had left their work in the Dayton, Ohio,
bicycle shop and had gone to Washington D.C. They
were attempting
to get support from the government for their plan to fly a heavier than
air machine to which they had devoted all their heart, energy, and
resources.
As sunset was just beginning, they were passing through a
place about 15
miles north east of Middleberg, Virginia, and about eight miles
south-east
of Leesberg, Virginia, and about five miles north-west of the small
village
of Falls Church. Falls Church was itself was only about two
miles
from Washington, DC. The darkening evening was enveloping them, when
suddenly
they were confronted by strange luminescent individuals wearing
garments
of silver. While the sight was astonishing, they felt no fear, nor did
they need to ask any questions. They were taken to an expansive field
nearby
and were shown another amazing sight. Although it had no resemblance to
the airplane they were then designing, the sight was fantastic
nevertheless.
They were effortlessly given complete understanding of the implications
of the amazing sight, and they were stunned. They were told to enter
Washington
the next day and assemble on this field as many bankers, investors,
government
officials, and members of the Congress as they could acquire. They
could
then explain the fantastic sight to them in human terms. Two days
latter,
about 50 grumbling but curious representatives of various Washington
interests
followed the Wright brothers to the amazing pasture.
For some time they walked
around in complete confusion and examined
what
they saw. There, sitting neatly on the ground, row by row, nine abreast
almost 20 feet in width, were about 400 elegantly upholstered carriage
seats, of a finer than leather substance they knew not what. There were
12 giant donut like objects, larger by far than any carriage let alone
its wheel, indeed almost as tall as the tallest men present. These were
made of a substance similar to that called rubber which was being used
covered the new automobile machine wheels.
There were great stacks of various thicknesses of a dull gray
metal. Each
sheet many times the area of largest government building's doors, and
each
stack of these sheets stood towering at twice the height of the tallest
man. Also taller than the average man could stretch, were four giant
sets
of fan like blades, each an incredible work of art, a product beyond
the
skill of any known machinist. It was made of hundreds of
vanes forged
from the peculiar metal. Each fan was affixed to a strange assembly
that
they estimated must weigh 8,000 pounds (four tons) apiece; and there
were
twin giant steel like tapered "I" beams more than 50 feet long, and
another
four almost 200 feet long such that it took two dozen of the strongest
to lift. These too were made of the a gleaming silver like steel.
Then there were hundreds of barrels of metal rivets, bolts,
screws and
fasteners of extraordinary variety, each barrel being such that even
the
strongest man could barely lift one alone. Then there were reel upon
reel
of the finest and strangest looking wire similar to the new fangled
electric
wires that were being strung from city to city. The number of feet
indicated
on each of these reels combined to indicate that there was enough total
wire of various sizes and length as to be capable of being extended
more
than 135 miles from the site.
Then there were dozens of huge vat like barrels, each of
which was brimming
with kerosene such as were still used in the rural farm homes, in an
amount
totaling an estimated 40,000 gallons, a total weight of 320,000 pounds
or 160 tons.
Then there were box upon box of strange and incomprehensible
instruments
and gages and miles of flexible tubing made of rubber like material,
and
enough gallons of paint to cover two city blocks. There were
panels
with
dozens of strangely numbered and labeled knobs switches and lights.
There
were rolls of fine carpet of unknown fabric, and dozens of cupboard
doors
of the strange smooth material. There were even a half dozen closets
that
appeared to be elegant outhouses--and on and on. The gazed
incredulously
at the array of materials and unknown devices such that they covered
the
space the size of an entire field where the new sport of football was
played.
All if it was now completely covered by this array of unfathomable
products.
Then the Wright brothers
directed them to about a dozen strange metal
cupboards.
They opened the metal doors, proceeded to provide for each a hot picnic
lunch with chilled dessert, and from yet another strange container
provided
all with fresh coffee, tea and milk, a strange tasting punch, and tiny
bottles of expensive liquor. They were further amazed that the milk and
punch were cool while the coffee and tea were at the same time hot.
Even
fresh ice was provided for the cold drinks. Then Orville Wright began
to
speak.
"My friends," he said confidently, "You have had the
opportunity to wander
around this quiet field for the last several hours, exploring the
products
you see lying in various stages of assembly. My brother Wilber and I
have
come here from Ohio to ask your support for our project to fly a
heavier
than air machine just two years from this date at a place we are
arranging
near Kittyhawk, North Carolina. We are asking you as members of our
community
of esteemed bankers, investors, Congress and government officials to
support
us in this task. The future of your investment is lying here around you
as clues to our nation's future in the air. It has been our
most
provident blessing to have this material explained to us. Please
continue
Wilber."
"The material that you see in
this field, will in the space of the
lifetime
of your oldest children, and even some of you, be assembled by the
technology
that will begin with our simple machine. This technology will
cause
this diverse array of parts to be assembled into a single flying
machine
weighing a total of 400 tons. Then this machine, to be known by the
name
of "Boeing 747, will begin to move on a concrete road on this very
field,
extending from where we are to a point two miles to the south. From the
time it begins to roll, it will carry the full weight of these
assembled
parts, including the fuel in these barrels for its four engines which
will
each be sucking air like a horse, but at the astounding rate of one
half
ton every second. The oxygen in that blast of air is to be burned by
the
kerosene stored in those rubber-like bags which are designed to fit
into
the wings and body of the machine. This airplane machine will have a
crew
of twelve persons. You will sit on rows of these seats that
will
have room for each of you, and five of your friends. Together, these
chairs
can accommodate a total of almost 400 souls. Further,
everyone's
most precious luggage in an amount almost equal to their weight will
all
safely placed on board this incredible machine.
Then this machine, before it has progressed even one mile of
the distance
down this special roadway, will have accelerated to a speed approaching
more than 160 miles an hour. It will then lift itself into the air at
any
time of the day or night, and regardless of weather or storm. Then and
within less time than the fastest horse could return you the five miles
to Falls Church, it will climb to an altitude almost twice that same
distance
above the earth. From there it will progress westward, racing the sun,
at a speed of 550 miles per hour with only the most inconsequential
rumble
of the engines whose raging sound is lagging well behind the aeroplane
itself, and with only the slightest whisper of the wind to be heard
inside.
During this period with the outside air temperature a constant 60
degrees
below zero, you will sit in shirt sleeve comfort, watching special
entertainment,
or reading by your own private electric light, or listening to world
class
performers, or talking quietly with your friend or loved one and being
served delicious food and beverages such as these you now enjoy.
Then after the space of only four and one half hours, such
that by leaving
here at 9:00 in the morning, this aeroplane will touch these wheels
down
on a similar roadway in Los Angeles at a speed of 150 miles per hour
before
their clocks strike the hour at 12:00 noon, and coming to a halt within
a mile, will drive slowly to a special gate, where you and your luggage
will disembark to continue, fully rested, with your business or
pleasure."
He smiled happily and nodded to Orville
"Therefore, my good friends,"
said Orville matter-of-factly, "What you
have seen and heard here ought be more than ample justification for the
modest amount of funds we are requesting in order to initiate the
development
of this admirable objective. One that will begin with our simple flying
machine. And so I ask, what say you to this proposition?"
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... Have you been
getting secondary clues about a situation
that can affect your well being?
Parable:
Metaphor of Misplaced
Trust- The Man From Tech
Once upon a time ago, in the early part of the 20th century,
an advanced
race of creatures was exploring the universe and discovered earth. They
were very excited, because they saw in their discovery an opportunity
to
learn something about the origin of their own advanced species. Because
of their technological sophistication, they were able to modify one of
their own to resemble the human form in every way.
They were also able to install such advanced features as
perfect memory,
perfect language ability for all the earth's languages, and flawless
techniques
for integrating incoming data, no matter how complex. Thus equipped,
their
human specimen was installed with all of the earth's knowledge gleaned
from captured members of the human species. Then he was placed in the
United
States of America which the Techs recognized to be the most technically
advanced of the earth's cultures and societies. He was to live and work
among the earthlings and at regular intervals, communicate his findings
to the mother ship.
For a year, the man from Tech performed his mission
flawlessly, learning
much and reporting faithfully to his creators. Unfortunately,
unbeknownst
to the Man from Tech and his designers, a single flaw had been left
unrecognized
and uncorrected in this otherwise perfect human specimen. This flaw was
located in the creatures perceptual (detecting) system. The nature of
this
flaw was such that the man from Tech was unable to perceive an object
when
it was moving directly at him at high speed. The object was quite
simply
invisible. This flaw had no other impact on his functioning until one
day
he was standing in the middle of a pair of railroad tracks in the great
American plains observing farmers harvesting their wheat.
The tracks on which he stood disappeared into a vast
distance. As the man
from Tech stood there observing the farmers using their primitive
machinery,
an express train appeared and bore down on him. The farmers noticed the
man from Tech, but knowing nothing of him other than his human
appearance,
they immediately perceived his peril as he stood complacently on the
tracks
with the train thundering down upon him.
The farmers began to yell and point in the direction of the
train. The
man from Tech, who felt vaguely uneasy in his innocent self confidence,
smiled weakly at the suddenly bazaar antics of the farmers whose words
were lost in the distance, but whose wild gesticulations were obvious.
"How strange," he mused, "That I have not seen such antics before.
Perhaps
they are perturbed by that horrible noise which seems to be emanating
from
their machinery." He uneasily glanced around in all directions, but
perceived
nothing of the train which was closing directly in on him at
tremendous
speed.
Now the Man from Tech is in a
precarious position. His primary
detecting
capacity is failing him, and he has only the secondary data in the
farmers'
"Bizarre" behavior on which to depend. What will he do? Will the man
from
Tech be smug in his self confidence and year of unfailing successful
experience,
or will he respect the inconsistencies in his secondary data and make
the
checks essential for saving his life. If he steps away from the tracks,
he achieves two outcomes. First, he obviously saves his life. But
second,
he learns something important about his fatal flaw that will continue
to
save his life and make him more effective in the future.
Alas, the Man from Tech was made all too human after all.
Smug in his innocent self-confidence, rather than acknowledge the
possibility of a flaw within himself and take the steps he needed to
check it out, he ignored the inner distress of anxiety telling him that
something terribly discrepant was affecting his system. So he
stood his ground. In order to dismiss his anxiety, he allowed
his human ego to attribute the dissonance in his situation to the
externals, to the noise of farmers' machinery. He dismissed the
secondary warnings of the farmers as "bizarre" behavior
because they did not square with his paradigm
of reality. He dismissed the relevance of his contradictory
secondary perceptions, and ignored his intuitive concerns for his own
safety. He "stayed the course," remained standing in the
tracks, and was destroyed.
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... The following is an
important clue why we have
violent crime.
Synopsis
The Ambush, Version 1
Chaim Shatan (a psychiatrist specializing in Vietnam veteran
disorders
associated with PTSD--Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)
observed that,
"Combat brutalization and attendant emotional anesthesia are encouraged
by humiliation and maltreatment in basic combat training... leads to
unquestioning
obedience and dehumanization of victims, buddies, civilians, and
combatants
alike. The GI's [soldiers] acquired a Ph.D. in 'advanced fear.'
...Alienation
and detachment from feelings and people are a natural outcome from the
repression of compassion and the inhibition of sensitivity...
[survivors
report] an 'emotional death,' feeling frozen into stone like gargoyles."
He notes, "In extreme situations, active warfare, death
camps- grief threatens
the morale necessary for effectiveness in combat and survival. Grief
and
intimacy are intensely discouraged... trainees are cautioned against
closeness...
they are prevented by brutalization and 'antigrief' from consummating a
normal psychological response to bereavement..."
"When the 'induction phase' of counter-guerrilla training
succeeds, the
soldier patterns himself after his persecutor [his officers and/or the
drill instructor] ...and undergoes a psychological regression during
which
his character is restructured into a combat personality... surrenders
his
personal identity to the corporate identity... adopts the paranormal
stance
of combat as his mode of being-in-the-world... [his]... new 'reality
principle.'"
"... The military transfiguration of the personality is
completed during
the combat phase, a phase of universal terror and counter-terror. All
that
is needed, according to Orwell's 1984 definition of
'doublethink'
is 'an unending series of victories over your own memory,' and 'reality
control' is achieved."
"The sensory impressions of an ambush constitute the best way
to 'tell
it like it is.' ...An ambush often lasts only 15 seconds. 15 seconds
during
which the darkness and silence are annihilated--in the wink of an
eye--by
foreboding bursts and flashes of light, explosions, floods of startled
and startling sensations and feverish sweating while shivering and cold
to the bone. Something with heavy pulsating strokes is banging out a
deafening
rhythm. You don't have a chance to recognize that it is the beating of
your own heart against the walls of your chest. While the frogs and
crickets
chirp on, you know only a spasm of fear and feel that 'time is
compacted'
and refuses to move on. There is no past, no future. Each second is
like
a separate parcel of time. Now you are unable to 'focus' on anything...
Old reality is but a line, a tissue, which has been torn asunder
leaving
no boundaries, no guideposts. Now it is you who feels unreal..."
Then Shatan identifies the ultimate combat terror by
associating the feelings
of ambush with death. Death everywhere in which the victim is required
to cope, to: "embrace the everpresentness of death by wrapping it in
yourself...
poisoning your sense of self with a reservoir of evil and
destructiveness.
Only then can inner and outer reality feel real again. Otherwise your
perceptual
universe is maladapted to your environment, to the vast web of
suffering
in which you are enmeshed, and you will succumb to sensory dislocation.
All that in 15 seconds."
When the "grief and fear impacted" veteran takes the "freedom
bird"
and tries to go "back into the world," they carry with them that kernel
of impacted fear and terror. They can never again live in
their former
world with the same trust and abandon from which they departed to enter
into combat training. Nor can they, without help, ever
disassociate
the invisible motivating terror that now corrupts their humanity and
their
efforts to survive and thrive as a normal person.
Quoted and
paraphrased from: Shatan, Chaim,1974, "Through
the membrane of reality: 'Impacted grief' and perceptual dissonance in
Vietnam combat veterans." Psychiatric Opinion, 11(6), pp
615.
Think of the infant child, its Soul descended from the higher
realms of
Spiritual energy and information, ready for the work of the earth,
passing
beyond the end of its first six months of life. Think of its happy
little
face, its look of wonderment as it first tries to focus and define its
strange new world. Consider its engaging smiles of recognition. See it
reaching for the newness of its now limited conscious universe. Think
of
its connection with the "magic energy" of SPIRIT being steadily
replaced
by its ever growing sense driven attachment to the feelings and things
of its ego's world.
Think of this precious little being, a congealing of the
universal and
cosmic forces, presumably the creation of human Love, trust, and
commitment,
formed in accordance with the cosmic rules of genetics, a gift to the
world
with all of its potential, yet wholly vulnerable in its frail but
elegant
and exquisite physical-mental Temple of Spiritual Promise. Think how it
adores and needs its parents, all powerful and provident, the only
remaining
link to vague memories of its perfect Conscious Unity with the Cosmic
GOD.
Now it receives with joy these earthly Gods to whose good presence and
care it KNOWS it is entirely vulnerable.
Imagine then this infant, as it lies in its crib in the
silent darkness
in its dream of awakening. The night is hot, the air stifling. Its
diapers
have not been changed, and a rash is burning in stinging sweat. Though
having just been fed, the infant reaches for sleep that does not come.
Its whimpers are ignored, and it is becoming desperate for attention.
Finally
it cries the desperate cry of an ignored infant, its only means of
proclaiming
its needs and its identity, its only tool for control of its parents.
And
so the cutting and compelling cry of angry abandonment reaches out into
the darkness for its Gods.
Suddenly there is flash of light that floods its senses.
There is a beast
like screaming, a deep male bellow, or screaming female shriek, with
cursing,
it matters not... the beast sound is all consuming and terrifying. The
shocked infant is pummeled, jerked into the air defined and dominated
by
the cursing voice, and with a vicious stroke, it is hurled back into
its
mattress, its muscle, bone, organs and sinew bent and tortured to the
full
limit of toleration. A hand or fist again smashing its little chest,
crushing
it into its tiny little body. The knife like and crushing pain is all
consuming,
a total universe of pain. Its scream shatters the air, exhausting every
atom of oxygen from its punished lungs. Its scream echoes beyond any
hellish
cry of the damned.
Now it's newly emergent consciousness, like the delicate
shell of the egg,
its only source of meaning for being-in-the-world, is shattered into
fragments
of its former coherence. Its virgin earthly promise is now and forever
defiled by the permanent imprint of the cost of its helplessness. This
dear child is now a permanent hostage to exquisite, all prevailing,
pain
and fear. Its primal scream echoes in the night, mixing and blending
into
the eternal ether, mixing and reverberating among the never ending and
never dying screams of every battered child. Each scream echoes forever
in the fearful unknown, crying for Justice.
For the punishing beast responsible, there is now a newly
forged and certain
lurking Karma, ripening, waiting for the certain time of perfect
Justice.
This Perfectly Patient,
Perfect Cosmic Justice
waits to descend upon that ignorant, spiritually debased, and abusing
beast
parent. Each such child is instantly transformed into a little kernel
of
hate and rage, waiting for its own adult license that will empower it
to
act out its own unique brand of vengeance on the world of adult
authority
that betrayed it. In a single incident on any given night,
helpless
children across the world are thus tortured in various degrees and
ruined
for life while their indifferent society sleeps on.
"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
[Mark 23:34]
... ALLEGORIES, PARABLES, AND METAPHOR RELATED TO
THE
NATURE OF POWER AND ITS CORRUPTIONS
THE EVIL FRUITS OF THE
THREE TRAPS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The following parables in this section can be related to
today's headlines.
Just by reading what follows, and by relaxing your mind in the context
of all prior parables, allegories and metaphors, you should be able to
connect many of today's current events to the principles that underlay
these stories. ... Have you ever had
any part of the following fantasy?
A
Parable: The Man who Freed His
Brain
Once upon a time there was an athlete who was a fierce
competitor in
things physical. He loved to dominate in the ways of the
world.
Although he was quite successful by most measures of athletes, he was
not
satisfied with his success and he wanted more. He looked around and he
noticed what he had been taught and accepted without question. He
noticed
that competition was rampant in all nature, and in human group,
organizational
and social behavior. He noticed that only the fittest survived and
thrived
and that they did so by means of winning at ruthless competition.
Suddenly a brilliant thought flashed into his
rational mind. He thought
that if he could only free his brain from its automatic processes that
controlled his body's organs, he could set the elements of his own body
in competition with each other. Then each organ system would compete so
as to amplify all his physical capacities. Thus his latent prowess
could
all become amplified. By this means, he thought, he could enter at the
highest levels of competition and easily prevail over all challengers.
Headlines, the triumph of surpassed records, and public glory danced in
his mind.
But alas, his brain was connected to all of
his bodily organs disciplining
them as a carefully regulated set of systems each of which was limited
to carry out its assigned tasks in a coordinated manner. He grew to
resent
and despise this regulation. There was no way he could think
of to
free his brain so these organs could compete with each other. He
yearned
for each to excel as individual achievers and thus promote the goal of
ever more wins for his total bodily system, and thus acquire an
ultimate
glory for his ego.
He ruefully mused on the unlikelihood of
such capability ever becoming
his. Then a sorcerer happened to come along. "What seems to be
troubling
you my good man?" said the sorcerer, who already knew the athlete's
mind.
After all, that is the business of Sorcerers.
"Alas!" said the athlete," I was just
thinking how much greater feats
I could perform if I could use the natural laws of competition within
my
own body. By freeing each part from the oppressive regulatory dominance
of my brain, I could inspire all of my organs and limbs to perform to
their
maximum capacity. Then I can set them in competition against each
other.
By this means each will be challenged by each other. Each will be
driven
to perform for the literal survival of the fittest. Then I will benefit
by performing with greater success than imaginable because of the
amplified
combination of their individual efforts."
"It happens that I have in my power the
ability to grant you a single
wish. Whatever you ask shall be yours." said the sorcerer.
"Yes?!" exclaimed the athlete in hopeful
disbelief, "You mean you
can grant me that wish? Do so at once!"
"First I must ask you--are you conscious of
all of the adverse consequences
and possibilities that this new condition might involve? I must tell
you
that once granted, I cannot take back your wish nor offer you another."
The athlete paused, but the fantastic thoughts of achievement, honor,
glory
and conquest were all that flooded his mind.
"Yes! Yes! I am certain. Please! Free my
body from the oppressive
regulation imposed by my brain . Let my body's organs compete with each
other. I thrive on competition for success and achievement."
"Very well." said the sorcerer. Instantly,
all of the athlete's bodily
organs and physical systems were at once disconnected from each other
and
free to compete with each other for the resources of the body. The
sorcerer
likewise instantly disappeared, and the athlete was left confused an
dazed
for he did not notice anything different immediately. But now
his
brain could individually command each organ and body system at the
direction
of the athlete's ego intellect. It was no longer required to
give
coordinated commands to each of his organ systems as there was now no
way
to have them integrate their efforts with any other system in his body.
Suddenly he noticed strange and
overpowering urges for each bodily
system was now free to act on its own abilities. As a test, he
commanded
his muscles to run and to his amazement and joy he surely did run
faster.
He commanded his lungs to increase their cycles of breathing, his heart
to pump furiously as it rushed his healthy, energy full blood to the
his
powerful athletic arms and legs. But all of the other organs,
having
been disconnected from the brain, and therefore from each other, were
likewise
working furiously to compete for the body's limited energy
supply.
Because these activities were so complex, his conscious intellect was
no
longer able to coordinate their efforts effectively. For a
few days
he amazed his supporters, ran like the wind, lifted unbelievable
weights,
and easily leaped higher than his own height.
But the athlete quickly became exhausted
after each exertion.
He even fell down in a near faint. Further, he began to experience
enormous
hunger and thirst. His kidneys drained copious amounts of liquid from
his
body, he sweat profusely and his bladder filled quickly demanding more
frequent relief. He went quickly to obtain additional food and liquid
as
nourishment. For a few weeks, the athlete rejoiced in his improved
athletic
prowess. He dismissed as a mere annoyance his ravening hunger and
thirst,
and the additional nuisance of profuse sweating and frequent stops at
the
toilet. But soon the athlete began to feel unusually sick in spite of
his
instant awesome success at successfully achieving feats well beyond
Olympic
level difficulty. His friends and supporters had watched in amazement,
not comprehending what had happened.
Unknown to him at first, the bodily organs
were not only performing
at their peak in consuming the limited energy resources of the body
which
served the muscles. But they were also acting as required in the
"survival
of the fittest" mode. This mode is dictated by the laws of
unregulated
competition. The rule is "grow or perish." Accordingly without the
coordinating
presence of his brain acting through his autonomic nervous
system,
each body system was now taking in ever increasing amounts of energy,
but
using it to expand their own organic system.
In the absence of any connection to a
larger regulating ecology as
had been the role of his brain and nervous system, their own little
mini-brains
told them that in order to survive the fierce competition they had
detected,
they each had to grow larger and stronger themselves. Only then did
they
feel that the could sustain the competition and survive. The man's
heart
was now expanding to take more of his limited chest cavity, as it tried
to expand the lungs were already competing to dominate and acquire the
same space. The liver, kidneys, pancreas, and digestive systems were
likewise
trying to grow themselves to become more competitive and thus acquire
more
of the body's energy.
Soon the athlete was mostly feeling
exhausted and reduced to eating
and drinking simply to fuel the growth of the ravening organs of his
body.
He quickly gained weight as the each of the organ systems grew larger.
Although he was used to physical discomfort as a competitive athlete,
the
man's initial feelings of discomfort were quickly growing to became
unendurable
pain. In a few weeks he was bedridden, though still requiring and able
to consume food and liquid in enormous quantities.
His friends and supporters who had believed
in him and who had supported
him in his quest for athletic greatness became confused because they
did
not know what had happened. While at first they were amazed at his
unexplainable
successes, now they wondered why they were reduced to bringing him ever
increasing quantities of liquid and nourishment. Now they watched in
horror
as he steadily became grotesquely deformed and obviously in great pain,
for while his organs were growing profusely, his slower growing
skeletal
structure was still limited to nearly its original dimensions.
Each organ was oblivious to the needs of
each other. Each one ever
more ruthlessly conspired to expand. Each demanded more and more of the
body's nourishment, all of which was now applied to growth and
expansion.
Some organs, no longer being limited by their own natural boundaries
began
to cross boundaries to consume the adjacent organ system. Soon one
critical
organ after the other could no longer sustain themselves as there was
insufficient
nourishment, and they began to fail. Crushed together in the corpulent
and now immobile body, the athlete was a picture of ruin. Barely able
to
breath, grotesquely swollen with tumors pushing out all over his body,
he lay writhing in agony during his final hours of life. Finally a
critical
system failed entirely and the athlete died, not even having survived
to
enter the next competition, never having run one real race or competed
in a single athletic event.
The sorcerer had watched, and smirked. "Too
bad, but it happens every
time. How stupid they all are. They constantly watch each other die
from
one kind of cancer after another, whether physical, organizational, or
national. They do not know that as a nation, they are all
suffering
the early stages of the same malady that has killed this
athlete.
They are oblivious to the larger reality in which all that appears good
as a result of competition is only a limited and temporary effect. They
cannot understand that what is happening everywhere in the Cosmos is
the
working out of a vast conspiracy of collaboration and cooperation among
all the living systems of the Universe, and therefore earth, and
therefor
humanity.
"Each of the living systems of the earth
must by THE LAW collaborate
to adjust, to harmoniously serve each other to fulfill the HOLY PLAN
for
ecological balance and harmony. Growth must be constrained
and balanced
within the limits prescribed by THE LAW. Cancer eventually
kills every
living
system it infects should they,
like this ignorant athlete, betray the integrity of themselves as
mutual
participants in those coherent living systems called Gaia and the
Cosmos.
How clear it ought to be that the price of unchained greed and ambition
is death. But, here comes yet another customer!"
....
Are you able to find these
elements in the current
media headlines and stories? Who are the principal actors?
Allegory: The Four
Outlaws and the Champion
Once upon a time, there was a little world in which four
outlaws were born
to rule all those who succumbed to fear. The first, a warrior outlaw
named
"Force" was big, strong, and mean. He bullied and intimidated others to
get what he wanted. When he didn't get what he wanted, he hurt or
killed
those who opposed them. Soon all feared him, but accepted him as a
solution
to even more appalling uncontrollable fear.
But soon there came another outlaw of a different kind, the
evil priest,
named "Cunning." He was not as big and strong as the warrior but he
skillfully
invoked the name of a god, a mysterious higher power that he taught
most
people to believe in and fear. He pronounced himself as god's
functionary
and thus seduced the people and caused them to greatly fear his magical
powers. By means of his ability to create this terrible intimidation,
enough
of the people groveled at his feet, such that even the warrior
hesitated
and often accommodated his bidding. Then the evil priest intimidated
and
used the warrior as his instrument to hurt or murder those few who did
not succumb to his intimidation.
Then came a third outlaw named "Greed." Greed was very
clever. He seduced
the people in a different way, and promised them every sensual delight,
and ego gratification, much of which he delivered. In pursuit of ever
more
of these promises, even nobel warriors and priests could occasionally
be
bought. Reveling in their sensual benefits, most residents of that
little
world were able to overcome their fears and ignore the dominance of the
evil warrior and evil priest.
Then came yet another outlaw, the "Entrepreneur," a child of
the lineage
of Force, Cunning, and Greed. He disguised himself in many
vestments
accepted by the society, and which defined him as the answer to their
fears.
He was the most clever of all. He created a mythology that seduced even
those who feared the other outlaws. He designed fear management goals
by
offering the citizens a path to absolute power and control.
He promised
to place them at the top of the power pyramid. He taught them
a mythology
such that they could acquire absolute power. He appealed to universal
fear
and greed.
He promised all that they could have access to all the
visible trappings
of power his myths had created. By appealing to his supporting
mythology
he had created, he neutralized the evil priest by saying that it was
God's
will that men should prosper by competing in his market place. They
could
actually court God's favor which could be verified as evident in the
visible
trappings of power and success, a power they could accumulate. Then he
conspired to use the evil priest to validate his laws, the warrior to
enforce
his laws, and greed to perpetuate the myth and enlist others to exploit
his victims. Thus did he capture and maintain the people of this little
world as his slaves.
Now these four evils continued to competed in this world. The
warrior still
struggled to rise again. The evil priest looked for any weakness to
revitalize
his claims. The power of greed amplified the various predatory excesses
legitimized as competition. Soon the world became a pit of evil, hurt,
fear, and distrust such that for each generations, the cycles of
conflict
escalated until it seemed that the little world was doomed.
Finally, a champion arose whose name was "Love."
Love had been present
throughout, but possessed a nature that would not permit participation
in such competition. But Love knew that the solution lie in altering
the
Consciousness of each of those who chose to serve the illusions that
made
them a warrior, a priest, purely greedy, or an aggressive entrepreneur.
As more and more of the populace recognized and benefited from the
power
of this Source, they used Love as an inoculation that strengthened them
to resist the various forms of evil.
They came to realize that they no longer needed to compete
with the outlaws
on the evil terms they had set for them to find self validation in the
"world." By appealing to the inner Truth of the parents and children of
every class, the power of Love slowly but steadily reached to more and
more of the little world's population. Over time this
influence of
Love diluted or eliminated any desire for them to rise as a warrior, or
to exploit the trust given the priest to control and exploit others.
The
no longer submitted to the threats and appeals of the warriors and
priests.
They defused and reversed the competitive obsessions of the
Entrepreneur.
When the inoculations of Love was finally given very early in
each child's
life, and modeled every day by their devoted parents and teachers, the
power of Love steadily replaced the influence of the evil outlaws with
the joy of cooperation, coordination, accommodation, and learning and
serving
others. Through the faith and determination of the Love infused
Spiritual
Healers and Teachers, at the 11th hour and 59th minute of Cosmic time,
a sufficient number of humanity of the little world had embraced Love
as
their sole Path. Thus did they cooperate to save their world.
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... The following is a
snap-shot of predatory capitalism.
Parable
of The Entrepreneurial
Liver
Once upon a time, a man took a daily walk which caused him to
pass a news
stand where he bought his daily paper. Over a period of about two
years,
he noticed the following sequence of headlines in the business and
commerce
section of the newspaper:
.... Have you recognized
any green dressed puppet masters
and their ushers lately? There's a bunch of them around.
Parable:
The Evil Puppet Master
Once upon a time there was an evil puppet master who toured
the world stealing
from the innocent children who came to see his magic shows. So great
was
his carefully manufactured and massaged reputation, that the children
of
the villages became determined to see this wonderful show long before
the
evil Puppet Master's arrival. In order to afford the costly
admittance
they would do anything to get into the theater. They would even steal
from
the village storekeepers, and the few coins that comprised their own
parent's
meager monthly income.
But when the children came to the show with their precious
admittance money,
they were surprised to find out from the ushers, who were cleverly
dressed
in costumes like the puppets, that they could be seated without paying,
and that the ushers would pass through after the show to collect what
ever
each child thought the show was worth as influenced by what they could
afford. The children were delighted for they were surprised to hear of
such fair and reasonable treatment. For some the possibility
of a
"free" show danced in their mind sweetened by thoughts of the deserts
the
coins would then make possible.
Then the show began. As the story evolved the puppet master
gave clues
that taught the rapt children the secret of the story, namely that the
puppets who were dressed in blue were clearly evil and would steal
their
money. But the puppets who were dressed in green were clearly good. The
story promised them that the more wealth they could give, the more
goodies
would come to them later. When the story ended, the children
cheered.
The puppet master told them that the ushers, dressed like the puppets
would
now pass through the audience. A few ushers were in green, but were
actually
assistants of the puppet master. Most were dressed in blue and were
people
recruited from the town. The town people had arranged special
gifts
and accommodations for the needs of the children from the money they
were
to collect. The children were told to contribute whatever
they could
afford. Said, the puppet master laughing, "Remember, the more money you
give, the more goodies you will get, but be sure to watch out for the
evil
ones."
And indeed, the children remembered what they had
learned. Grateful
for such fair treatment, many generously gave most of their precious
coins
to the green dressed ushers who also deftly picked the pockets of those
children who were withholding their coins. They suspiciously,
mockingly
and carefully watched and avoided all the blue dressed ushers even
though
they were recognized as good and respectable town
people. Then
the children waited for goodies that were promised. None
came.
They finally discovered that the puppet master and his green dressed
ushers
had left town.
After a long wait, they finally left the theater and returned
home chagrined.
Then they discovered their loss. They discovered that the green dressed
ushers, expert pick pockets every one, had stolen every remaining coin
that they had not already contributed. Then they knew there
would
have none of the promised goodies from their parents and the
townspeople.
They suddenly became painfully aware of what failing to give their
resources
to the genuinely good, blue dressed ushers had cost them. But
by
then the Puppet Master and his assistants had long departed and were
unreachable
Because they had been innocent children, they had never suspected until
too late that while they were overtly cheating and demonstrating their
contempt for their own reliable townspeople, it was the puppet master
and
his green clothed lackeys who were the evil ones.
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.... Is there anything
you covet now, that you would
rather be?
Parable:
The Tree Who Would be
Human
Once there was an unusual tree that lived in the midst of a
forest by a
path and little brook. The spot was frequently visited by human beings
with their various technical artifacts, fishing poles, radios,
clothing,
and so forth. The little tree was healthy and vibrant, growing lush
there
in its appointed place. But it was not satisfied and yearned to have
the
intelligence that the human visitors seemed to have, so it could create
its own magical technology. One day a wizard came by and granted the
little
tree its wish. The tree was jubilant and its leaves began to think of
ways
to have more fun and excitement as they began to create their own
technology.
The leaves soon figured out how to process a different
chemical, one that
created the illusion of being human and having all the technological
things
that the humans were bringing to that quiet spot. Life was suddenly
wonderful.
But unknown to the leaves, their chemical that brought them so much joy
produced as a by-product, a poisonous enzyme. Each time it rained, this
poison washed down from the leaves into the soil, and into the roots
that
nourished the tree. Unfortunately, the tree had wished for human
intelligence. Therefore, the leaves that were zealously making the
liberating
chemical were oblivious to the nature of the poison and even the
existence
of their own life sustaining roots. These hidden conditions were beyond
their human type consciousness. Therefore they were not aware how their
roots served to nourish and empower the leaves as part of the complex
whole
called a tree.
This ignorance was convenient in terms of their objectives.
They were not
bothered by knowing the worrisome impact of their products. The
possibility
of their being connected to the nourishing earth by "roots" was not
pursued.
The trunk, limbs, and twigs of the tree deferred to the leaves because
what the leaves were doing was not their business. They "stayed the
course,"
even though many rumors persisted amongst the leaves that these roots
existed
as a link to some mysterious nourishing source, and that this source
was
somehow being damaged, and consequently, the whole tree was being
damaged.
They laughed. The sun and rain were all they thought they
needed.
These they could see.
Soon the leaves began to whither under the cumulative effects
of the poison.
The leaves, still oblivious to the connection between their poisonous
activities
and the cause of their distress, naturally adopted the human "this too
shall pass" mentality. Then they expected that the trunk, limbs, and
twigs
would take action, after all, they were closer to the alleged root
cause
of their problems. But soon there was a divisive blaming
among all
the various visible parts of the tree as to which part was the cause of
their growing distress. Others zealously followed the dictum: "Eat
drink
and be merry for tomorrow we die." They produced their liberating
chemical
in even greater abundance in order to mask the distress of their
growing
sickness. And so, Life being R.A.W., each part of the little tree
remained
consumed with exploiting the benefits of the power that they had
coveted.
At last, the little tree with its poisoned roots soon perished along
with
all of its parts.
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.... Which of the
following victims are you?
Parable:
The Master Power Broker
and His Victims in Four Scenes
Once there were four victims to fate, each of whom
was given a bag of
gold as a legacy at birth, Though it had practical uses, it was a
burden
to carry and protect, but could be used to empower them with the stuff
of the earth that they deemed important.
Scene 1: We find the first victim in the desert
lying near death from
thirst only a few hundred yards short of his goal, an oasis flowing
with
life saving water and nourishment. But he has become too weak even to
crawl
there. He still has on his possession his bag of gold and his weapon
such
that no one could touch the gold without his permission, or he could
kill
them. Paradoxically, without these burdens he could have easily managed
to reach the oasis. A power broker comes, assesses the situation and
asks
of the victim how much gold his life is worth. Although the victim
pleads,
when the victim does not proffer the full amount of gold, the power
broker
refuses to negotiate and starts to leave. Both the power broker and the
victim recognize that the victim must yield up all his gold to live,
and
he finally puts down his weapon. The power broker takes his gold, and
empowers
the Victim to reach the life-saving oasis, but he remains otherwise
impoverished.
Scene 2: A second victim is served by fate to be
born adjacent to the
oasis. Thus he has potential access to sufficient water and food
subsistence
to meet all his survival needs. He too has his bag of gold which is
useless
for subsistence for there is not one additional subsistence item worth
the loss of any of the gold. But because he only lives on subsistence
he
has no respect among the leaders of his tribe. The power broker,
sensitive
to this, comes by and makes available to the victim abundant amounts of
ego gratification, belonging, affirmation and credibility.
With these
assets, leaders would immediately recognize, accept and so give honor
and
respect to the victim. But the power broker wants gold for the
empowerment
of belonging, affirmation, and credibility. When the victim refuses to
offer more than half, the power broker realistically assess the
situation.
He concludes that he can do no better with this victim. He accepts the
gold and empowers the victim with the ego gratification of belonging,
affirmation
and credibility . Thus the victim's peers immediately revise their
opinions
of him and welcome him into their upper society.
Scene 3: A third victim is been doing well
with complete sufficiency
in the stuff of subsistence. Being born directly to the oasis of this
wealth,
he also has adequate amounts of belonging, affirmation and credibility.
But even with these resources under control, life becomes boring after
a while and he becomes restive. The master power broker, who senses
these
things as well comes by and offers additional stimulation and
diversion.
They negotiate on the bag of gold. The power broker realizes that even
with only a quarter of the bag of gold that this victim is willing to
yield,
that sufficient diversions can be had to overcome the victim with
debauchery,
excess and overindulgence. So the power broker realistically accepts
the
quarter bag of gold from the third victim and empowers him with an
unlimited
abundance of diversions and recreations on which he then wastes the
rest
of his gold. Now this third victim indulges himself into a level of
debauchery
such that he barely escapes the loss of his affiliation, affirmation,
credibility
and even subsistence. Upon reflection he admits that his life is empty,
pointless and sad. Not knowing what else he can do, he completes the
rest
of his life as an emotional and Spiritual derelict. He remains
confused,
unhappy and eventually dies bitter and resentful. He never discovered
the
Spiritual nature of his mental and emotional distress.
Scene 4: The fourth victim is born to best part of
the oasis. He finds
himself fully surfeited with subsistence, belonging, affirmation,
credibility
and a bountiful supply of diversions and recreation. Soon he finds that
he is nevertheless bored and mysteriously empty and uneasy. The power
broker
appears and asks the victim what his needs are. But the victim is
confused,
and his mind cannot grasp the missing element. Then the wily power
broker
makes him two offers.
The
first offer requires an exchange of half the bag of gold for complete
intellectual
insight into the affairs of the world in order to completely dominate
all
others. But the power broker added the condition of demanding that the
victim endure work and discomfiting discipline, and the application of
intense studious commitment for the remainder of his life in order to
attain
the promised objective.
"I do not like your conditions," says the victim,
"Why should I yield
up my gold for discomfort? Who cares about giving up what has already
been
given me. I like what I've got. What is your other offer?"
The power broker says,
"For
the entire bag of gold, I will give you Spiritual
Illumination so that all things of the earth will pass for
what
they are and your true nature will be revealed to you."
The Victim is silent, and then asks, "Well that
seems intriguing, but
are there any other conditions?"
"You must give up not only your entire bag of gold,
but also your concerns
for subsistence, affirmation, belonging, credibility, and the entire
array
of diversions and recreation in which you now revel."
Said the Victim, "You must think I am the fool to
make me such an offer.
I reject it. Also, the conditions of the first offer are too burdensome
and I think I will reject that offer as well.
And so the disappointed fourth
victim pondered what to
do. He
could purse the acquisition of personal power and control and zealously
devote himself to a conquest of the world, or he could pursue the path
of diversions. Since he feared the anxiety, distress, and danger
required
to pursue the golden ring of earthly power to which he would have
invested
his wealth, he at least avoided for himself the resentment, enmity and
hatred of those he would have had to exploit and destroy. He also
spared
himself the worry, anxiety and stress of retaining his status that such
burdens require once acquired.
By avoiding all that stress, however, he chose
instead to return even
more zealously to trying to overcome his mysterious emptiness by
aggressively
pursuing his diversions, wasting his entire bag of gold on
them.
He thus wasted himself and soon painfully died, prematurely, lonely and
embittered, from his various excesses of debauchery and dissipation.
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.... Where is the PBPMSPS
located in the world today?
Allegory
The PBPMSPS Specialty
Pawn Shop
A number of men and women had arrived to do business at the
Power Broker
and Power Monger Specialty Pawn Shop (PBPMSPS). Ego,
who was the proprietor, was well known all over the Cosmos and was
courted
by all. He owned the gateways to the cosmic "pie" of secular
power.
He was its long standing gatekeeper and had been in business for a long
time. The clients were there because they had heard that the shop had
acquired
some kind of an ultimate "power chip."
There
was also a rumor that Ego was at last to retire. Each of his long-
standing
customers yearned to take over the shop to run its business on their
own
terms. So they had all arrived to check it out.
Power "Chips"
were the medium of exchange
that had been used since the beginning of the shop. But their nature
had
evolved over the years. Each customer brought as a bargaining position,
that chip which he thought could be traded in for the most current form
of marker chips. These chips, or power
markers
[definition]
were important
because they could be traded in to the appropriate gatekeeper to unlock
access to that which resolved their every need. The clients
were
there and were well known to the shop keeper. They all
arrived to
bargain with their respective chips and were prepared to travel to
wherever
they could do business in the Cosmos.
The pawn broker announced, "I will sell my business to the
one of you who
can offer the skill required to insure that the power of this secret
chip
will be maximized now that we have entered the 21st earth century which
is the beginning of the "Age of Aquarius." The bidders rose one at a
time
and each made their offer in order of their arrival at the shop over
the
long history of its existence:
1. Rambo the Warrior (NOTE: descriptive figures
are presented in the interpretation.): "I am the oldest
and longest
standing customer at this place of business. I offer myself, for I can
conquer any and all by the fierce discipline of my indomitable will,
strength,
and courage. This is the power of last resort. I have noticed that when
all else fails, then your pretenders to power always come to me, for I
am the ultimate resolver of issues when all your weak, spineless, and
manipulative
ways fall apart." Everyone laughed which enraged Rambo, but there was
nothing
more he could offer.
2. Alexandria the Great: "Well that is all
very well and optimistic,
and you surely were much more organized than the traditional warrior or
witch doctor, but we all know what happens to those of your ilk. The
lynch
mobs control the real power in such cases. But I control vast forces.
Look
at what I offer, and note that I have already proved my ability to
manipulate,
dominate, and control the occupants of my vast territories. That is
what
is needed because I rule all who dwell there. I
offer the effectiveness
of my power through the scale and scope of conquest in the known world
of my time. Think what I could do today. If that is not
enough, than
I can arrange to have any government overthrown and have my soldiers
conquer
as much land as you want, and then you will also control all of its
people
and goods."
3. Tomás Torquemada:
"Enough. The brutal Rambo and
his more cunning warrior versions, and people like you Alexandria have
long tried to suppress my kind. I too have flourished, but I use the
likes
of you as my instruments. I offer directly the power of fear and
intimidation
as I so effectively used during the Spanish inquisition which reached
its
ultimate expression under my direction. Its use is low cost and very
efficient.
No expensive and unstable armies. Surely you
understand," he
said, gloating. His eyes gleamed with pleasure, "I can assure you that
once you have a human being held hostage in fear of his screaming
nerves,
then his heart, mind, body, and loyalty will surely follow. Then all
things
are possible. Then ask what you will of such a person. What greater
power
can you ask than that?"
4. Marco Polo: "That is ridiculous
nonsense. Populations despise
the like of you and wait for the chance to kill you. I have
learned
that by controlling commerce and trade, that national boundaries and
even
their peoples are of no consequence by themselves. You need only offer
anyone a product or service they need or want, then you can get them to
fall in line very quickly. Dead people don't serve, wounded ones serve
ineffectually, and the intimidated are constantly distracted. There is
no need to torture people when you can provide them the goodies they
want
under terms such as I control. With craftsmen and service providers
everywhere,
land is of no consequence once it serves up its food and riches. My
record
speaks for itself." Accept my chip in exchange for the new
one, and
allow me to take over this shop which after all provides specialty
products
consistent with my experience in commerce.
5. George Rommel: "Bah! And who controls
these lands and their instruments
of its production for the taking of all those goodies? My friend Rambo
has it right in principle, Alexandria the Great is archaic, but I have
modern armies of Rambos. What is more, I have the machinery and
production
to make either weapons of defense or conquest, and the tools and
products
that Don Polo would never dare to think of. I don't worry about trading
when I can simply take what I want. Give me the new chip and
lets
be about it."
6. Andrew Carnegie: "Herr Rommel, that is
all very interesting but
who actually orchestrates the instruments of your production, even the
manufacturing of your weapons? Its a very tidy arrangement I offer.
Only
a few of my trusted associates are allowed to play the real game of
permitting
those to succeed who serve us. You will note that we control you
through
controlling the government and its laws. Without the influence and
permission
of my personal power networks in the economic machinery of any society,
your weapons rust to oblivion, and you have nothing to fight for that
is
worth your blood. My lawyers, politicians, and banks determine who wins
and loses, both in the market place and in the factory, both nationally
and internationally. The process is wonderfully complex, and fueled by
my well orchestrated myths no matter how outrageous and indefensible
they
are to truth. The greedy public is seduced. It remains too stupid to
even
notice let alone care. I only need to have my economic witch doctors
trot
out pages of arcane numbers, esoteric and contrived theories, and the
public
and its governments fall down trembling. Then they can be seduced to go
about their Super Bowls and other diversions hoping for the best. Now
just
look around you and see how it I have achieved this by the end of the
20th
Century. You want to assess power? I already have it. So give me my
chip."
7. Elec Tron: "Ah yes, excuse me but I
have only been here once
before using the alias Info Mation. My computers are very new, but I
have
observed, Mr. Carnegie, the manner by which all the decisions are made
by you and your associates. I call them lackeys.
Your decisions
are vulnerable and can not be made except through what I control. I own
your processed data that becomes the information you require and use to
preserve or create and fulfill your arcane "myths," as you call them.
It
is my power to influence and dissemble, confuse distort and manipulate
the awareness of the driveling public that will count profits for you
in
the future. I also oversee the health of all the production and
services
business, and all the research that produces the decisions about what
and
how much of what kind of product is to be made and and sold to whom. I
also keep files on your enemies, and--you! Did you know? In fact I know
all about all of you! This knowledge and ability I own to manipulate
and
apply this information solely to suit my whim is the root of my power.
It seems to me all of you are passé when it comes to the
technological
extensions of my information driven personal power."
Then they all started arguing. "Soon you will be crawling
back to me."
shouted Rambo in a rage, "You always have. You are always forced call
in
the enforcer to preserve your miserable game whatever it be." But the
Pawn
Broker said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute! I notice there is someone
here
who I have not heard from, and she has not been here before. "Little
girl,"
he mocked, "Just what do you dare to put forward as your claim upon
this
extraordinary new power chip?"
8. Joan Dunne: "Well, you will please
excuse me, I am here for the
first time having come more out of curiosity, and since I am new to all
this, I think I would do better to first reflect and meditate
on
what I have learned here today. I will pass on this round of bidding. I
have found that I have never had need of any of the artifacts of power
about which you men boast. Since I am still a child compared to the
rest
of you, I will take time to grow to refine and test my Power. I am
already
given to KNOW and feel that my Power of Consciousness and LOVE is the
only
real Power. It will define and create the only future that counts, or
there
will be no future for any of you or your friends. Then you
will all
gratefully become my obedient servants.
All the competing Mongers and Brokers were momentarily
stunned. Then they
exploded into laughter and obscenities. They slapped their thighs and
each
other's backs, bellowed uproariously, jabbed at each other with loud
guffaws,
and spilled their drinks."
...
PART IV ALLEGORIES, PARABLES, AND METAPHOR RELATED TO THE SPIRITUAL FOUNDATIONS
FOR
OVERCOMING THE TRAPS OF CONSCIOUSNESS ETHICS, KARMA, AND REINCARNATION....
Do you have an ethical
"gyroscope?" To what frame
of reference is is set? Is it working? Do you use
it?!
Metaphor
of "The Pilot" and the
Gyroscope
A characteristic shared among those who fly, and survive, is
their uniformly
profound respect for that part of THE
LAW
called the physics of flight. Every successful pilot knows that
airplanes
and their gyroscopic instruments must be designed to be faithful to THE
LAW that relates to flight. For this reason, the thrill derived from
the
successful exercise of the techniques of flying is due to the psychic
and
Spiritual reinforcement produced by the experience, not just from the
physical
and mental exercises which are required.
A pilot lives or dies based on his/her faith
in, knowledge of, respect for, and adherence to THE LAW that affects
flight.
The pilot knows that instant retribution is delivered for any critical
violation of THE LAW which acts with implacable certainty. For example,
during an approach to landing, the airplane must be properly
positioned,
configured and adjusted to meet the conditions that the Laws of flight
require to land safely. Whether the airplane is landed by visual
references
or on instruments makes no difference. THE LAW of flight must
be
respected and followed. Failure to meet this test results in
instant
death or maiming.
There are no exceptions. There may be reasons, but there can
be no excuses.
There is no appeal, no second chance. There is no carefully
contrived
out. There are no postponements. It makes no
difference that
the pilot who violates THE LAW is a good person, is a religious or
Spiritual
person of impeccable character and faith, or has never made that
important
mistake before, will never make that mistake again, or is on a noble
mission,
or is wholly depended on by multitudes of innocent vulnerable parties,
or that the pilot is a loved and loving person. Neither does
it matter
that the pilot is connected to political power, whether he/she owns or
has stolen the airplane, or owns the airline who owns the airplane, or
that his/her father is a priest, rabbi, or imam, or that the pilot is a
most powerful person, a dominant power broker and controller of vast
estates
on the human scale of worldly things. There
is neither punishment nor forgiveness for any action within THE LAW.
There is only accountability as every effect
follows relentlessly
from its cause.
A negligent pilot is implacably
and instantly served up the
fruits of his error within THE LAW, and it is finished.
Life
is R.A.W. There
is always a perfect, patient, and implacable justice in THE
LAW.
THEREFORE, A PILOT WHO CRASHES HAS NOT SUFFERED "THE
WRATH OF GRAVITY"
BUT HAS REAPED THE NATURAL CONSEQUENCES (KARMA) OF HIS/HER OWN ACTION
WITHIN
THE LAWS OF FLIGHT. AND SO IT IS WITH EVERY EXPRESSION OF
HUMANITY'S
BEHAVIOR WITHIN "THE LAW"
OF GOD.
HUMANITY IS ACCOUNTABLE FOR EVERY DIMENSION AND ACTION THAT IS A PART
OF
HUMAN THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOR. PERFECT
JUSTIC WILL BE PATIENTLY
AND PERFECTLY SERVED.
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... Which of the
following stages of C/Consciousness
unfoldment are you presently at? members of your family? friends?
members
of your profession? leaders at work? our politicians and other leaders
of our society?
Parable
of Job, The Man with
Seven Lives:
An Exercise in the Path of a Soul--A Case of Expanding C/consciousness
Life #1- Mountain Job.
Once there was a crude
and bestial man who was an early occupant of the American frontier
during
the period when settlers first advanced into the western mountains.
"Mountain
Job" was a hunter and trapper who survived by trading his hides at
trading
posts as they were established on the very edge of the wilderness. He
was
a rough and tumble illiterate, living on simple subsistence.
He was
fearless of anything and anyone. So when he came to town he was feared
because of his brute strength and bully determination. He
always
had his own way, unless there was someone else there who was stronger
and
more determined, which wasn't very often. But when in the presence of
the
stronger constraint, Mountain Job was as nice as he could be. Then one
day a stranger was in town when Job began to act out his "Bully" will
in
his usual abusive way. But this stranger was not only bigger and more
determined.
He was also crueler. He shot and killed big Mountain Job who, on that
very
day, had only achieved his 30th birthday.
Life #2- Trader Job,
was born only five years later.
The trading Post which had been established on the edge of the
wilderness
had grown with the west so that now it was in the midst of the frontier
life. Stories were told of legends like a famous trapper called
Mountain
Job who had been killed in that very store. Trader Job, the new owner
of
the trading post, always liked to tell that story for some
reason.
Life in general was now fairly stable. Trader Job was basically a law
abiding
man, but was known to be a hard and ruthless bargainer who liked to
cheat
the careless in the name of free competition. Sometimes
settlers
would be down on their luck, and while he sometimes helped them out, he
exercised his price and his caveat emptor policy.
Therefore, the
only real friends he had were those who needed him for what they
wanted.
One day, a customer decided that Trader Job had been unfair, and that
Job
had abused his power as owner of the Trading Post, and this time was
once
too often. At that time, law enforcement was uneven in the frontier, so
the offended customer took matters into his own hands. Since he was
angry
at Job, he decided he would simply appear at the post and take what he
thought was his as the fair recompense for having been cheated, and he
was prepared to take it by force. But Trader Job tried to stop him.
Then
the irate customer applied "frontier justice" and shot and
killed
Trader Job who died before he had reached his 40th birthday.
Life #3-: Job Manners,
was born. Having been twice
shot and thus learned his lesson on the risks of force, treachery, and
manipulation, Job was guided to be born as a person who was devoted to
promoting social harmony. In view of his violent Karma, he was
something
of a worry wart, and tried to arrange to have himself and everyone else
do everything just right, to be everything to everyone. So while he was
desperate to avoid confrontation, he constantly worried and wrung his
hands
over doing the right thing. But this tactic created a terrible problem
for him. Different groups that affected his life seemed to have
different
expectations. He became very tense trying to do the right thing for
everyone.
For example, as owner of a comfortable business in the little village
that
had once been only a trading post, he would try to do the right thing
to
help his customers who had little money. But then he got in a financial
jamb when customers defaulted on their payments. The bank finally got
to
him and threatened to take over his business when he missed some of his
own payments about which he had always been excruciatingly punctual. In
all this, his wife constantly raised regular hell about his being a
helpless
and spineless wimp. Finally Job Manners developed a bleeding ulcer and
to everyone's surprise, suddenly died of an undetected hemorrhage at
the
age of only 48.
Life #4- Sheriff Job,
was born. The former trading
post was now a thriving town. Job was fed up from his last experience
of
being worked over by everyone else and he decided that if he didn't get
to make the rules or profit from them, he surely would enforce them. So
he chose to be born and was drawn to become a sheriff. He valued "law
and
order" and he loved the rules once he understood them. He cheerily and
effectively saw to it that they were enforced. He didn't care to modify
the rules or make exceptions. One rule fits all, was his motto, and he
was very effective. That is, until a new city council came to town and
told Job to stop enforcing laws that, while they were on the books,
didn't
make any sense the way he enforced them. Now Job was in a constant
fight
with the council about what the law should be and how he should act.
Since
he was an elected official, they couldn't fire him, but they began a
campaign
to have him voted out of office. Job became very angry and bitter. Then
one night just a week before the election, when Job was furiously
confronting
an opposing crowd of voters who were advocating for his competition, he
suddenly had a fatal heart attack. He died of rage at the age of 60.
Life #5: Lawyer Job,
was born. If the law wouldn't
support him, he would take it over in order to manipulate it, and so he
became a lawyer. He studied for years, and learned all the intricacies
of the civil and criminal "law." He especially enjoyed the study of
case
histories of turn-of-the-century law enforcement, he loved the law of
the
old time courthouse and the country sheriffs who had enforced it. Times
were simpler then. Now he had to learn about all the exceptions of "the
law," which to him seemed time consuming and wasteful. But he also
realized
the benefits of flexibility. In fact, he made a lot of money, and many
more enemies, by being flexible. That is, by exploiting and
fitting
the law to the needs of his clients. Regardless of any objective
justice,
regardless of the cost to others whom he clearly made victims to his
clients,
he fit the law to serve the needs of his clients. Although often
ethically
questionable, the legality of his lawyering was unassailable. He
thrived
in the adversarial cauldron of the courtroom. He had mastered all the
techniques
for manipulation, domination, and for destroying the arguments of his
intellectually
weaker adversaries. Whether his arguments or facts were true or false
made
no difference. The relevance of this to real justice was
inconsequential
to the thrill of victory. In this, he was wholly indifferent to any
larger
standard or frame of reference for human justice. One day, after many
years
of successful practice, with great public boasting of his regular
victories,
he used a technicality in the law to keep a man who had abused and
murdered
a young child from being punished. Lawyer Job was found dead
by stabbing
three weeks later, only one week before he was to retire at the age of
65.
Life #6: Job Peacemaker,
was born. For some reason
he was attracted to "The Law" and became a successful lawyer very
quickly
and without any real effort. But he was immediately uncomfortable when
he saw that he often had to advocate for injustce and to harm others in
order to earn his living. He soon became disgusted with the workings of
"The Law" and how it was actually used as vicious game that more
frequently
abused the rights of victims than convict the criminal. All of this was
making him uncomfortably rich. For some reason he decided that he
simply
couldn't play the game. His passion for reason and fairness made him
ineffectual
as a lawyer. Therefore, he soon gave up his practice and became a
mediator,
a role in which he found he thrived creating win-win outcomes for his
clients
and their adversaries. He successfully entered political life as a
legal
reformer. After many years, he was able to help make major changes in
the
law so as to require adherence to fairness, to evaluate lawyers on
their
record of win-win outcomes, to enforce the ethical behavior of lawyers,
and to eliminate the adversarial process of win-lose. He rejoiced in
the
realm of the healing principles of mediation which had the potential
for
producing a win-win for all conflicted parties. He earned many awards
for
his skill and courage in changing the law and inspiring his colleagues
toward ethical reforms. He lived to enjoy a full and peaceful
retirement
where for some reason, he entered deeply into the study of philosophy,
theology, and metaphysics until he died of natural causes at the age of
80.
Life #7: Guru Job.
In this life, which was his
last life on earth, he was born to circumstances that nurtured his
entry
as a child into the Mystic
Way. He
practiced discipline, patience, Spiritual surrender and acts of Agapic
Love as a total life style. He and became a
teacher of Principles
of fairness, justice and Love. He was beloved by all whose
life he
touched until he died peacefully without illness at age 100.
He had
become a fully developed Spiritual Adept. Having passed his
torch
to his disciples, he passed forever into the Mystical Realms of eternal
LOVE where the "peace that passeth understanding" dwells.
From that
time, he had no need to be born again into the suffering realms of
earth.
But as an Avatar, he could choose to be reborn into circumstances where
he could function directly as a powerful Spiritual force, as a Builder,
to stimulate and guide the Spiritual awakening of all humankind, as so
many have done before.
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Are your
waiting for
your "train?" How are
you prepared to recognize it? Do you know that you are
waiting
for a "train?"
Parable:
The Train that
Left the Station
Once upon a time ago, there was a little boy whose father
took him to town
to show him the train station and the trains that regularly stopped
there
at the dirty factory town where they lived. He wanted to show his son
the
vehicle that had brought the family from a distant city of many
benefits.
The little boy was very frightened as they stood on the very edge of
the
platform as the first train he ever saw close-up roared into the
station.
It was so close he could almost touch it, its whistle blasting into the
very marrow of his bones. He stood in fearful awe because his father
had
already told him of the train's invincible power and majesty, and it
was
surely true. He also feared because his father had told him how
dangerous
a train could be. If he were not careful, a train could even take him
away
before he was ready to go, and worse, take him to a place of
evil.
In the powerful presence of the train, he remembered that warning very
well, and he shrank back in fear.
But then his father also told him that the right train
provided many benefits.
He told his son that there would come a time when he would have to buy
a ticket and take a train to return from whence the family had come. He
spoke of the wonderful benefits in that big city, a place where there
was
no suffering, unlike this small town. Instead there were many rewards.
But his father emphasized that this was only going to happen provided
he
took the right train. Worst of all it seemed, there was only one
"right"
train.
The threat that had dominated his first experience with
trains made the
evil outcome seem far more likely than any possible benefits that any
train
could bring. Suddenly his parents were gone, and his relatives told him
they had taken their train to the city of desire. How cruelly betrayed
he felt to be so abandoned. Now he was even more fearful of all trains
because of their potential to suddenly snatch him to the evil place
called
"The City of Suffering." He wondered which train went to which City, if
the train only went to the one city or both, and which city it arrived
at first, and how he would know what ticket to buy? Was there really
such
a thing as a "right" train or a "wrong" train. He worried that even if
he got
the right train, how would he know when to get off?
Those whom he asked gave him conflicting information.
Sometimes they just
smiled or gave him silliness. His quest was like a nightmare. So he
devoted
his life to a study of trains and cities. He tried to find out which
train
went to which City with what qualities and how to recognize it. He
became
determined to know all that there was to know about trains. The result
was that he became fearfully obsessed, ignoring other important
dimensions
of his life. Though he sought the information desperately, many alleged
facts were inconsistent. He truly wanted to arrange to buy the right
ticket.
Thus he progressively gave up his useful life in his little town to
worry
instead over his father's admonishments, trying to do all the right
things
that would insure that the train he chose would at least not hurt him.
He was determined to reach the desired "City of Salvation."
One day after he had become an old man, without his expecting
it, he suddenly
realized that the train intended to take him to the desirable city his
father had always told him about had already arrived in the station and
left. In spite of his obsession over his doubts, in his ignorance, he
had
put off buying the required ticket. Because the old man had
not taken
the correct steps to prepare, he had not expected the train to the City
of Desire's sudden arrival. It turned out that the train's
appearance
was no more remarkable than any of the other trains that came and went.
He had not learned what to look for because he had not learned how to
look.
Thus he did not recognize the train when it had come. So the old man
was
left alone in the place of his birth. Abandoned and fearing to die
there,
he bought a ticket for the very next train that entered the station.
Then
in fulfillment of his worst fears, he found himself being taken to yet
another suffering little town with a whole new set of impoverished and
frustrating experiences.
As the train carried him to this unhappy new city, in the
midst of his
disappointment and emptiness, the friendly conductor helped him
recognize
how his life had been wasted in acts of futility. He showed him how he
had deprived himself of the happy journey he had so earnestly sought.
He
now knew that it was only the quality of the journey as
defined within
himself, and not the destination that was of actual
importance. He
learned that the quality of one's life buys the "ticket" that
determines
the location. His devotion to tasks in service to others in the little
town were the price of getting the right ticket. He had been sent to
serve
the duties fate had placed before him.
In his obsession over finding the right train, he had failed
to serve his
community effectively, compassionately, and lovingly, and to so act to
improve the quality of life for others in the imperfect community where
he found himself placed. Too late he had now discovered that
offering
acts of devotion was the fee hat bought him the right ticket.
Alas!
He had learned too late that in the certain Truth of time, he would
always
earn a ticket on the train of his desire, the one he chose through his
actions. He learned that right actions began with his thoughts that
would
bring him to the station at the right time and place to receive the
only
available ticket for him, the one he had earned and
deserved by
his acts of unconditional Love, or negligence, selfless service, or
outright
evil.
He remembered suddenly that he had received this same
guidance before somewhere,
but had forgotten. He thanked the conductor and promised himself that
he
would never forget what he had so painfully learned. But as his train
was
approaching his new town of opportunity. As had happened many times
before,
he found himself falling asleep in the dream time, dreaming of
impossible
possibilities and reawakening in his new city, and into a familiar
distressing
and depressing confusion.
...
PART V ALLEGORIES, PARABLES, AND METAPHOR RELATED TO THE NATURE OF SPIRITUAL
CONSCIOUSNESS THE
PRESENCE AND POWER OF LOVE
...
To which these brothers do
you most relate?
Parable:
The "L/love" Brothers
Once there were three brothers, Lust, Eros and Agape [pronounced
ah 'gah pay.] They were the last three men on a
planet that
was about to die. They were alone on the planet when they came upon the
one remaining woman named Tranquility. They followed the pattern of
their
respective way of life on their dying planet. Agape saw in Tranquility
the hope of their kind, her perfection, her soul being the nurturer of
all that had been good, the generative source of Love and life, and he
adored her. He yearned simply for her acknowledgment, and he sent her
his
message as to who he was and what he needed to share with her. This was
nothing more than the acknowledgment that he and she were ONE in Spirit.
But Eros and Lust also had seen her, and they ignored the
peaceful Agape
and struggled with each other as to who would possess Tranquility. Eros
sought to turn her from the others, and poured out of his soul a
torrent
of passionate poetry, plying her with wine and delicious meats and
fruits,
exalting her beauty, extolling the purity of his desire. He
portrayed
the depth of his anguish for her and offering his body, mind and yes,
even
his Soul--he offered his entire life for her affection that they might
bring children into their world while it remained.
Lust laughed at all this, for his genitals demanded immediate
satisfaction
and he was driven to act. First, he solved the competition problem and
promptly murdered his two bothers. Then he took Tranquility and
sexually
assaulted her on the spot. He filled her with his sperm in one quick
orgasm
of total animal fulfillment. But soon, Tranquility died, without child.
Then the planet died, and with it so did Lust and all forms of animal
passion.
Then in the higher realms beyond bestial life, where the
shades of former
lives find their ultimate destinies, Eros and Lust were found to be
outside
the realm of Spiritual contact with Tranquility. They were forced to
only
observe her from a distance and know that she and Agape would forever
serve
each other in Unity as beloveds. Eros took comfort from his suffering
in
the unrequited purity of his erotic love for her. He thus elevated his
Spiritual potential for releasing that torment and was placed on a more
favorable planet for the continuation of his Spiritual
journey. But
Lust suffered the pains of hell for there was no relief for his urgent
needs. He then sought by the exercise of his primal will to restore
himself
to life on another earth like plane, there to further indulge his
bestial
desires until a persistent pattern of carnal reverses would at last
shock
him into his own Spiritual awakening.
.... Is anything you're
"wearing" causing you discomfort?
Parable
The Shoes
Once upon a time there was a young woman named Blanche. She
was given the
gift of a pair of shoes by a respected, indeed feared, relative of the
family. Although the gift was not wanted by Blanche, there were certain
norms or expectations about gifts among the relatives. They believed
that
the wishes of the family should always be followed. Any opportunity to
please the family was itself a gift. Wearing the shoes would certainly
please this family.
Now these particular shoes were not very attractive. When
worn, they did
not quite fit. But the rules of the family were very strong. It was
more
important that the family see the shoes worn than that they fit or
appeal
to Blanche. They certainly weren't concerned whether the shoes were
wanted
by her. So Blanche wore the shoes even if they didn't look very good,
and
even though they didn't fit. That is the kind of rules this family
enforced.
But soon the shoes began to hurt, and Blanche wanted to take
them off even
if the looks of the shoes, which were actually very ugly, could be
tolerated.
Blanche was so anxious to please the relative that a sense of pride was
actually created in enduring the discomfort for the sake of the
family's
customs. But after a while, there were blisters on Blanche's feet which
soon become swollen. She started to limp. She was now forced to see the
shoes for their true ugliness. But instead of accepting the reality of
the ugly shoes which did not fit, and which she knew were harming her,
she instead cried out more loudly to the family for encouragement and
relief.
She wanted their permission to remove the offending shoes.
"Look
at my loyalty! " she cried, "See how I do what you want! even though it
hurts." Although the family heard her words, they had inadequate
Spiritual
Consciousness to relate to the meaning behind the words, to the visible
pain Blanche was feeling.
The family nodded and smiled with approval as she wore the
shoes because
the family could not feel the pain. They could not mention the ugliness
because they did not see the ugliness. Because the shoes had been given
by another member of the family, and it was not their own feet that
suffered,
none of the relatives cared about Blanche's feelings. It was of no
consequence
to them that she was a member of the family too. The relatives lacked
the
character defined by Spiritual Consciousness to understand the higher
Laws.
Therefore, they blindly followed the family's rules and customs. These
were more important than the possibility that higher Rules might exist,
ones that served an honorable purpose. So Blanche continued to wear the
evil shoes..
Finally, Blanche got so that her feet had become badly
infected, and walking
became impossible. Now she cried out more loudly to the family. "Look!
I am become crippled, but see how good I am, what I tolerate..." hoping
she would then be released from her burden. She had been raised to be a
person who had no thoughts of her own to think with, outside of what
the
family would permit or give its approval for. While Blanche's now
obvious
distress finally made the relatives uncomfortable, the family, being of
low consciousness, did not connect these cries with its own perverse
rules.
In fact, there were some relatives who even called her a "whiner" and a
"cry baby." They could not see the ugliness nor feel the pain. That's
the
kind of family they had become. Then Blanch at length became very sick
until her feet, already black with gangrene, began to stink with the
stench
of rotting flesh. Worse, the infection had now spread
everywhere
inside her otherwise still lovely body.
At last she became so sick that even outsiders could see how
bad the mess
was and they intervened. Being of Spiritual Consciousness, they pitied
those who could permit such a terrible thing to happen. They saw
nothing
honorable in the cruelty Blanch willfully suffered as an act of love
and
devotion to her family . After all, who would let their own feet rot
off
their body when they could have easily done the right thing to stop it.
But their interventions came too late. At the hospital, the doctors had
to cut off Blanch's feet and legs which could no longer be saved.
But, alas, help had even come too late even to save Blanch's
life because
the infection had by then spread so far that her kidneys, liver and
other
internal organs were ruined beyond repair. They could no longer serve
her
body. How terribly she suffered. But in her moment of dying, suddenly
TRUTH
came to Blanch, although, as is so often the case, it came too late in
this life for her to benefit from her insight:
Life
is RAW
REALITY
ALWAYS WINS! and
therefore, so it is when you
live a lie!
The Law" of any family will often oppose THE LAW
of TRUTH when it is absent of Love, compassion,
acceptance and
nurturing. So is one's fate when you oppose THE LAW to honor a cause
that
is not honorable and anchored in TRUTH. But~
HOW
MUCH LESS THE PAIN OF ROTTING
FLESH,
COMPARED TO THE CORRUPTION OF A ROTTING SOUL.
Blanch had been given pain by her relatives, and had died in
pain the relatives
did not feel. Yet they all cried pitifully at her funeral. But they
cried
for their own selfish selves because their beloved Blanche had gone
away.
Entrapped by their impoverished Spiritual development, they could not
understand
how they, the family, its rules, and their Spiritual blindness had
killed
Blanch, their own dear relative they claimed they loved. They did not
understand
that
.... Is this famous poem
about erotic love? If
yes, how? If not, why not?
Sonnets
from the Portuguese
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the
ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old grief's, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--
I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears of all my life! --
and, if God choose,
I shall love thee better after death.
The little boy, a toddler, had no language or
concepts to speak of
his Spiritual feelings. He had no word for the concept, but
his parents
noted that he loved flowers and animals. He did not pick the
flowers,
but only bent to enjoy their smell and examine them closely.
Alas,
his machismo father despised this characteristic as weakness.
One day the Buddha Child arrived home from
kindergarten 45 minutes
late. To his worried mother's furious dismay, he was
encumbered with
an armful of trash he had collected along the route home from school,
discarded
paper, wrappers and bottles. When he had seen that discarded trash, he
had experienced a great Love and compassion for them. They
had done
such a kind and helpful service to people in various ways that they
should
not be discarded in such an insensitive way. How much more he
adored
life. But his mother, herself a gentle and loving
person, in
her distress at his lateness, did not quite share those sentiments
about
the trash, and he was punished and the trash discarded again.
When the father killed rabbits in their
yard, as a preschool child,
the little Buddha cried and tearfully pleaded with him to
stop. Father
was made furious because it did not matter to his son that they were
"destroying"
his garden." The Buddha child insisted that there was enough
for
the rabbits too. More punishment.
The Buddha Child refused to go hunting, and
even when fishing, preferred
to sit on the bank and contemplate the living things that made up his
surroundings.
His father hated this tendency in him that he pejoratively labeled
feminine
and he constantly ridiculed and punished it. From the child's
earliest
recollections, he felt chronic rejection and condemnation from the
father
he loved. For reasons of the sacred PLAN which were beyond
his memory,
his could not comprehend why his father devoted his relationship with
him
to mostly sending such hurtful rejecting messages.
Because violence was a hateful thing, the
Buddha Child refused to
fight the local bully, and refused to fight even in the face of his
father's
punishment for his "cowardice." His father never understood, nor did
the
Buddha Child at that moment, that it took more courage to stand up to
his
father and take his punishment on principle than to fight the bully
with
whom he at least had a more equal chance of prevailing. The
Buddha
Child quickly learned to suffer in silence in the presence of his
father's
scorn with his mother's overcompensating efforts failing to mediate the
distress.
In spite of the Buddha Child's constant
childish efforts to earn
his fathers approbation and love, he served his dominating and abusive
father's will until he was a man. But his father's rejection
continued
until the day he died. For years the Buddha Child was
embarrassed
and ashamed because he could not live up to his father's definition of
a "man," a definition his father had lived by a life of aggression as a
predatory businessman, forcing submission and compliance on those
helpless
to him, and holding in overt contempt those he defined as being weak or
stupid.
In his Spiritual sleep, in the face of
chronic abuse, the child nevertheless
instinctively reached out in abject Love to all disadvantaged living
things.
But over the years, without his being aware, the constant frustration
of
his innate Spiritual Truth caused him to slowly become withdrawn and
angry.
Without an awakened Spiritual Consciousness of his place in the scheme
of things, his helpless frustration was steadily translated into a
sullen,
unrequited anger, a seething internal rage and depression.
While
his Spiritual Truth prevailed to the extent that he was never violent
against
others, and was socially cooperative in every expected way, his
Spiritual
Truth, like a seed in the midst of winter, slept. But his
repressed
anger often flashed, and was always evident beneath the facade of
social
compliance. This conflict created an unspoken discomfort for others who
instinctively sought to distance themselves from his incipient anger,
and
this felt rejection further distressed him. So the Buddha
Child grew
up in helpless isolation from any real emotional or Spiritual contact
with
any other human. But he successfully passed in every other way
appearing
as a normal adjusted adult. He did not understand the source
and
depth of his chronic ache and that these rejections were unfolding
tests
of Karma.
The Buddha Child never understood his
profound gift of Spiritual
potential until by the accident of a personal tragedy as an aged man,
his
own Spiritual Consciousness suddenly awakened. Like the seed
released
into the sun, moisture and warmth of a spring time fertile soil, his
Consciousness
of his Spiritual Power burst into bloom. Then he saw from
that illuminated
perspective that all of these Buddha tendencies were not weakness to be
ashamed of, but evidence of his deep unawakened Spiritual
potential.
He did not understand in his childhood, that these Buddha tendencies
are
a Spiritual gift of GOD. They are the reverberations of lives
past
in which he had risen to develop those qualities, and because he was
sent
here to Spiritually serve and more fully mature in a cauldron of
childhood
emotional abuse. He became aware that in past lives he had
released
his anger to harm others. In this life, although he showed
his anger
to others, he controlled his anger such that no harm was caused to
others.
As an aging adult, he was at last blessed
to see the full spectrum
of his Spiritual potential in the context of his childhood
debasement.
His Spiritual Truth had survived in a realm of limiting
carnal intellect,
bestial emotions and values, and still was released by the ultimate
liberating
power of its natural resurrection. These Spiritual values of a Buddha
Child,
an "ugly duckling" in the face of secular and materialist
values,
were in fact the latent "swan." These are the highest
qualities to
which one can Spiritually aspire, the power of unconditional
Love.
Then comes the illuminating experience of transformation.
Now I ask you, were you, are you, also a
Buddha child?
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....
Have
you met one of these lately?
Parable
of the Nullbenign
A Guide for Estimating the Future as the Past Becomes the Present
Many, many years ago,
there lived in a particular
nondescript city, a rare type of person we will call a
"Nullbenign."
On the surface, he was quite indistinguishable from any other of the
town's
citizens. He lived near the town center in a dwelling that
was key
to much of the town's important activities. Visibly, the man
was
an ordinary craftsperson who lovingly made and retailed his specialized
products and services. His appearance to others was unremarkable for he
was as nondescript as his town. As a personality, he was a
"null,"
like a cipher, a zero. He was neither especially good looking so as to
excite any unusual admiration by others, nor was he particularly ugly,
plain or deformed so as to be rejected by others. He simply
minded
his own successful business while he skillfully and faithfully provided
his services for those who could benefit. Thus he was both
accepted
by others because they felt comfortable with him and attracted to him
in
a mysterious way, but at the same time he was largely ignored by the
greater
community, especially its power oriented members. He made no
effort
to participate in the politics or even the social activities
of the
town. He preferred to remain by himself with his art and crafts.
There
was, however, a most
interesting and unusual
quality to this man, this Nullbenign. Such a person has
unique qualities
that are Spiritually deep and profoundly Mystical in nature.
That
means they are not visible to any normal observer. No one in the
community
knew that he was a Nullbenign. They did not even have a concept for
such
a being. Because these qualities could not be directly detected, there
was no symbol or label for anyone with his kind of special
mystical
power. His closest neighbors and friends were entirely
unaware of
his special qualities. Even more interesting, the man himself had no
awareness
of his own nature as a Nullbenign. He only saw himself as a
member
of his community, with uniquely developed talent, skills, and a love
for
others, and for his capacity to offer service. In short, he simply saw
himself as an ordinary person.
His town, though
unremarkable, enjoyed a harmonious
way of life through which all the important needs of its citizens were
reliably and continuously met. But as time passed, the authorities who
dominated the community's politics, in response to perceived external
threats
coming from competing communities, developed a restless ambition to
grow
their town and have it transcend its image they thought to be
mundane.
For the first time, they paid attention to the Nullbenign, not because
of his special gifts of which they remained oblivious, but because of
where
he lived. When they checked out the Nullbenign they found him
too
nondescript, too obscure. They did not relate to his services. They had
decided, based only on the available surface information, that his
skills
were not useful to their expansive plans. They did not notice that he
had
a large and faithful clientele such that he lived quite comfortably.
Because
they saw no special quality in his work, they thus saw no need for his
services.
But they decided that they
wanted the place he called
home to be used for one of their new programs. They wanted to place
someone
else there to do business in accordance with their idea of what should
be happening in that dwelling. But the town's norms frowned on any
approach
that involved direct confrontation or even negotiation. Frankly, the
town's
authorities did not want to appear responsible for any overt attack on
the quiet Nullbenign which might publicize their embarrassing agenda.
That
they did not want to reveal their ambition testified to their
considerable
guilt. So they contrived a plan to force him out by surreptitious
means.
Then his place could be filled by an acceptable person, one made in
their
image.
Thus they began a
relentless and escalating campaign
to discourage the Nullbenign from staying, and force him to
leave.
As their town's new program's advanced along with related endeavors,
the
pressure became even more urgent for them to get rid of the offending
Nullbenign
in order to use his site for their new agenda. Their selfish
expansionist
activities and actions had by then acquired an appeal with the
otherwise
politically apathetic public who began to fall in line to get their
due.
They too began to impose their own pressures on the Nullbenign without
even understanding what they were doing or why.
For
several years the town's
father's steadily escalated
their abusive attacks on the Nullbenign. They kept up a variety of
political,
social and economic pressures too shameful to mention. The Nullbenign
became
progressively confused and distressed. His efforts to understand and to
try to deal with the abuse he was experiencing failed. He
could identify
nothing so offensive about himself to justify this treatment so that he
could correct it. He became more and more frustrated and at
last
he became ineffectual even in using his basic talents. Finally his
health
was challenged by the constant stress. He became depressed
and impotent
to practice his skills. For the first time in his life, his business
was
in a serious downward spiral, and his technical and artistic skills
were
becoming less accessible to him. His friends, having observed the
hostility
of the authorities toward the Nullbenign, did not want to find
themselves
out of favor with these town leaders. So even his friends
slowly
became more distant, and even hostile. The Nullbenign saw no
explanation
let alone a solution to his problems. None of his many good
faith
efforts to solve them was rewarded or even responded to.
Finally, he could take it
no more. He had looked
around and found another town a great distance away. It had
none
of the familiar features of the town he had loved and served.
But
it had turned on him, was abusing him, and was even destroying his
livelihood
as well as his health and peace of mind. So at last he capitulated. He
accepted his losses and relinquished his once happy home, business, and
expectations. Full of uncertainty and fear, he went to the
distant
town to try to began his life all over again. Of course he
also unknowingly
took his special Nullbenign qualities with him, along with his
practical
crafts and practices.
The
authorities and their followers
were jubilant.
They seized the Nullbenign's establishment, tore it down, rebuilt it in
their image, and installed their chosen craftsperson. Having thus
converted
it to their purposes they continued with their plans. They now looked
forward
to having an unqualified success. But then some unexpected
events
began to happen. First, some of the agreements and contracts
they
had made with others to accomplish essential goals were, without
evident
cause, repudiated, ignored, or not fulfilled in good faith.
The community
support for their events unexplainably began to fall off. The
town
father's who had been so unanimous and cooperative with each other in
creating
and advancing their plans began to fault each other and turn on each
other.
External threats became more ominous. Their town was in
distress.
The distress was such that
while there was no great
disaster, no remarkable crisis, no unusual loss of life, no special
destructive
event, conditions were steadily becoming sour. Most of their
promising
ventures continued to languish or decline without apparent
cause.
Life in the town was becoming dysfunctional and empty. Prior
satisfactions
and joys of accomplishment seemed to drain away from the citizens.
Worse,
it was replaced by growing uncertainly, distrust, and overt
hostility.
Finally the authorities were forced to give up their expansionist
plans.
Without success they then tried to find their way back to the beginning
when it was pleasant and everything seemed so promising. After a great
while they were forced to admit, and accept, that they were
irrecoverably
lost. Their town spun in a relentless downward spiral of
decline
and impoverishment.
During
all of this, they never
thought about the
Nullbenign whose crafts they had dismissed since they only knew him as
an impediment to their agendas and the activities that had replaced
him.
Meanwhile, in his new town, being the creature of discipline that he
was,
he slowly recovered his skills and loving capacity to relate to
others.
He reconstructed his business and having found acceptance from the
town's
authorities, began to live his unremarkable life just as before. He had
found his new town fragmented, in disrepair, and demoralized.
Its
citizens were either apathetic to each other or competing at cross
purposes.
But after a while, for reasons that were obscure, they had slowly begun
to harmonize and discover their complimentary strengths. As
time
passed, imperceptibly, the dynamic of his new community became more and
more like the promising circumstances the Nullbenign had
recalled
in his old community before the persecutions began. He was pleased and
gave thanks. He continued to live out his simple life,
unremarkably,
as an unremarkable man. All parties to this story remained
oblivious
to its underlying Truth. "Those with ears, let them hear."
... Can you recognize
what this story is really about?
Tibet's
Great Yogi Milarepa*
"Buddhists themselves, even of Milarepa's School, recognize
as we must,
that Milarepa's path being a short cut to transcendence over the
limitations
of human existence, will be trodden only by the exceptional
devotee.
Their evolutionary growth must be adequate to the mighty effort to
reach
the Spiritual goal far in advance of slowly evolving humanity as a
whole.
Though very few will have the spiritual fitness and physical hardihood
and the willingness to emulate his discovery that the goal is not a
mirage,
but is attainable... there will be found in Milarepa's Biography the
necessary
courage to prepare for the first steps upon the path, no matter how
long
and arduous the path may be, nor how many lifetimes may be required to
attain the goal which Milarepa attained in one lifetime because of his
superior preparedness." (Page ix, commentary by Carl Jung)
Milarepa, having completed the first ordeal of his
meritorious acts, and
was thus qualified to select his Guru (teacher), had chosen for his
Guru
the greatest Lama named Marpa the Translator, a Disciple himself of the
great Indian Saint, Naropa. Milarepa approached Marpa to plead for him
to teach him the Mystic Truths. Milarepa, had already achieved
competence
as a black sorcerer, one who commands destructive forces. So, as his
first
assignment, his Guru had commanded him to destroy a certain village for
its evil, after which Marpa had promised to give him the
teachings.
Milarepa thus came to serve as an "avenging" specialist in destroying
all
manner of things with hail storms summoned at his will. The target
Village
was dominated by offending thieves and robbers whose residents had
cheated
others of their goods. But after Milarepa had done what he had been
told,
he was then bitterly criticized by his Guru, and told to go heal the
damage
he had done, causing Milarepa to later bemoan: "I bitterly repented the
fate that had put such accursed power into my hands, making me the
means
of wrecking vengeance by doing hurt to life and property."
But after having again presented himself to his Guru upon
completion of
his deed, and accepted his criticism, Milarepa was then assigned to
build
a house for his Guru's son. Marpa then took Milarepa to a mountain
place,
defined the spot for the house, and told him to build it "with an
eastern
aspect [principal side facing east.]" When Milarepa had the house half
built, Marpa came and said without apology or explanation, that
Milarepa
should demolish the building and take the stones and earth back to the
place where he had found them. Milarepa, being a good disciple and
devoutly
yearning to know the Sacred Truths did as he was bid without complaint.
Then Marpa showed Milarepa a different location and told him
to build the
house on a ridge with a western aspect with a crescent shaped ground
plan.
Some time later, Marpa returned and seeing the nearly completed house,
proclaimed that it would not do, and again asked Milarepa to return the
heavy stones and earth to their original places. Then he found a site
and
commanded Milarepa to build a house with a northern aspect in a
triangular
shape. Some time later Marpa returned and asked Milarepa why he dared
to
build a house in such a manner. When Milarepa told Marpa it was his own
instructions, Marpa denied having so commanded. He again, offering
various
conflicts with religious principle that made the house unacceptable,
ordered
it be torn down again, and the stones and earth once again restored to
their original place.
Several days later, Marpa again took Milarepa to a spot. But
this place
was a location where certain local relatives and elders of the Lama had
and had insisted he not build on that spot and made Marpa promise that
he would not do so. Nevertheless Marpa said, "Thou art now to build on
this spot an ordinary quadrangular house, nine stories high, with an
ornamental
upper part forming a tenth story. This house will not be demolished;
and
upon its completion I will bestow on thee the Truths for which thou art
pining, and maintain thee while thou art in retreat performing Sadhana
(Meditation), providing thee with all needed food and clothing."
But this time Milarepa had brought Marpa's wife, The Reverend
Mother Damena,
who had provided comfort and consolation to Milarepa over his
frustrations
with the prior reversals of his work. As the Guru was marking out the
lines
for the foundation, Milarepa loudly recounted the past misfortunes, and
that Marpa had denied giving orders, and said, "...Now once more he is
giving me the order to begin building another house, so I pray thou my
Reverend Mother, mayest be pleased to act as witness to this present
order."
However, Marpa simply ignored the demonstration and told his wife to
attend
to her business while he attended to his.
Now Milarepa was proceeding with the construction, and had
used a huge
stone brought to him by Marpa's other disciples in jest. But it was of
special quality, and he had made it the cornerstone of the house, and
was
then working up past the second story when Marpa came by. "Great
Sorcerer,
whence didst thou procure that stone?" Marpa asked. When Milarepa
explained,
Marpa said, "Well thou hast no business to use for thy building
purposes
a stone brought by them. See that it is taken out and returned to the
place
from which it was taken." When Milarepa reminded him of his promise
about
not tearing down the building, Marpa said, "But I did not promise to
let
thee employ, as thy workmen, my chief disciples... besides I am [only
ordering
you] to take out that stone brought by my chief disciples..."
Of course, being the cornerstone, two entire walls of the
house had to
be brought down which Milarepa dutifully did and restored the stone,
which
had been found perfect for its place in the wall, to its original
resting
place. Then Marpa returned and said, "Now thou mayest go and bring back
that same stone thyself and set it in the same place."...and so
Milarepa
obeyed.
Now the relatives of the Lama had been nervously watching the
activities
at the site, and they became more concerned if Marpa were serious about
building there. When they were considering among themselves whether to
raise their objection, one of them said, "Marpa is beside himself. He
hath
got hold of a strong young novice from the highlands, and being
possessed
with a mania for building, he keepeth the poor young man busy all the
time
building houses of unapproved patterns on every ridge, knoll and spur
round
about. Then, when the building is half finished, he getteth the same
young
man to pull it all down again and carry the materials back where they
came
from. He will surely do the same in this case too. But if not, there
will
be ample time to stop him. Let us wait and see."
By the time that Milarepa had reached the seventh story, his
body had began
to develop ugly sores. Then, when the relatives finally dared to oppose
the construction, Marpa mysteriously summoned a body of troops which
covered
the house and protected it. The relatives were dismayed because they
could
not determine the origin of the troops, and not only did they decline
to
oppose the house thereafter, but by that means, they were also
sufficiently
impressed to become followers themselves of Marpa.
But then when the house was nearly complete, and the time
came for sacred
initiations, Marpa had said nothing. Milarepa thought, "...since I had
succeeded in erecting such an edifice single handed, without so much as
receiving a piece of stone the size of a goat's head, a basket full of
earth, a jug of water, or a spade full of clay from anyone else, I must
surely deserve some consideration."
But when he entered the temple, bowed and placed himself for
the initiation
his Guru the Lama Marpa, asked, "Great Sorcerer, what hast thou as the
offering?" When Marpa mentioned his dutiful work on the nearly
completed
house, Marpa said, "What presumption! What impertinence!" and he
scathingly
humiliated Milarepa, struck him, and dragged him by the hair and threw
him outside the temple shouting, "...If thou can pay the initiation
fees,
well and good; pay them! If thou can not, out thou walkest from this
Mystic
Circle."
Damena, the Lama's wife consoled Milarepa as best she could,
soothed his
blistering and running sores, and berated her husband for his cruelty.
Then the Lama came to Milarepa the next day and said, "Great Sorcerer,
thou hadst better cease work on this house thou hast under
construction,
and begin on another dwelling-house of twelve pillars, having a
hall-chamber
and a chapel to serve as an annex to the main edifice. When thou hast
finished
both buildings, I will surely give thee instructions."
Well, Milarepa did has he was bid in completing the annex,
but the ten
story building remained unfinished, and his back was by then, a single
bleeding sore when the time came again for the initiation. Once again
he
appeared within the temple, a supplicant to receive the Sacred Truths.
This time, the Lama's wife, realizing that he still had not had time to
procure a fee for the rites, gave Milarepa some offerings to provide
the
Lama. So when Marpa asked Milarepa what he had brought, Milarepa
proffered
the gifts provided by Marpa's own wife. Marpa angrily said that these
were
not Milarepa's gift, but things already brought by others. Once again
Milarepa
was driven from the Mystic Circle in abject humiliation.
Then follows Milarepa's anguish over what he felt certain was
a profound
betrayal, and he agonized over the possible reasons. He thought that it
was his Karma for the hurtful works upon others that he did as a
Sorcerer,
or that he had some fatal flaw which the Lama had detected and knew he
could never bear the responsibility of a Lama, or that the Lama simply
did not personally like him. Overcome with despair he thought to kill
himself.
Now Milarepa became certain he was defeated, and he undertook
to flee the
temple of his Lama. Once again, Damena, who had continued to be a
source
of comfort and encouragement to Milarepa, being a mystic of her own
accomplishments
and respecting his commitment, took it upon herself to teach him the
secret
of meditation, for which Milarepa was profoundly grateful, for it
showed
him the way to conquer and dilute his profound yearnings. But at
length,
he could not tolerate the frustration and perceived betrayals of his
Guru,
and when the wife could not change his mind, nor turn the Lama from his
cruel path, she kindly assisted him with his arrangements to leave.
Accordingly, Milarepa at last left the area, found teachings
from others,
but basically isolated himself in a cave and entered into the profound
Meditations. Later, after some time, he was summoned by the Lama's wife
to come and receive the initiation. But that too became frustrated due
the introduction of error in approaching Marpa. To his frustrated
astonishment,
yet again because of the improper manner by which Milarepa approached
the
Mystic Truths, he remained denied. Thus ended the second phase of
Milarepa's
meritorious acts in his quest for the Sacred Truths.
* [Paraphrased with quotes from: Evans-Wentz, W.V.
(Ed), 1928, (2nd
Edition, 1951,)
Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa: A Biography from the Tibetan,
London, Oxford University Press]
... Which of the
parables most fits you? In what
part of the parable do you identify yourself?
The Twin
Parables
(1) The Incubator
Once there was an unusual kind of incubator which was created
solely for
the hatching of unique little creatures. The little creatures were kept
warm and snug within their shells within their incubator. All their
needs
were attended to.
But as they grew and became ready for hatching, their cozy
little egg become
less comfortable. Furthermore they could hear the sounds of other
creatures
already hatching outside and speaking with each other.
The creatures that hatched from their eggs discovered a
passageway, and
found they could exit into a wonderful bright light. Their reward for
escaping
from their shells was for them to also escape the dark confines of the
incubator and enter into the larger mysterious world of light.
Back inside the warm and cozy incubator, there were many
creatures that
did not want to hatch. Some were ignorant and fearful of what lay
beyond
the confines of their shell. Some were too dull and lazy to undertake
the
demanding effort. Others believed, because they could hear the sounds
of
other creatures outside their egg, they did not have to suffer the
painful
difficulty of hatching. They waited to be let out.
Then one day someone came and turned off the incubator. For
the creatures
that had already hatched and had escaped into the light--they endured.
But those unhatched creatures perished into oblivion. This is another
old
story.
(2) The Little Bird
Once there were two parent eagles who were mates, and their
offspring,
only one surviving chick remained in their nest. The parent birds
doubled
their efforts to insure the survival of their chick. For weeks they
brought
a steady diet of food, drove off predators, and sheltered the little
one
from fierce mountain storms.
The little bird grew stronger and stronger. As it grew
stronger, it grew
more and more demanding. Soon it would beat its little wings furiously
and screech demanding ever more food as the exhausted parent brought
back
their treasures.
Then one day, as the youngster stood squawking and beating
its wings, the
exasperated parents returned for the first time without food. The
confused
chick was upset, angry and hurt. It again furiously beat its wings and
screeched as loud as it could in fruitless frustration.
The tired parents contemplated their youngster and its
thankless display.
They discerned within their chick a certain TRUTH.
They then abruptly turned and flew away, never to return. The amazed
chick
waited, and waited, and waited.
Distraught, confused, angry and increasingly hungry, the
little chick screeched
and beat its wings--but to no avail. Then in desperate frustration, and
quaking with fear, it stood at last, balancing upon the precarious
ledge
that had been its happy home. In a burst of courage summoned from deep
within itself, it stretched its desperate wings, and hurled itself into
the fearful abyss that it did not know was its natural home.
To its astonishment, the little eagle made an amazing and
joyful discovery.
It was created to fly--and it did. For the first time, and forever, it
experienced the FREEDOM that was its ordained place in the Cosmos.
PART VI
EPILOGUE Special
Allegory of
THE
INFERNAL CATECHISM OF THE SECRET
SOCIETY OF POWER
BROKERS AND POWER MONGERS (SSPBPM) This extended summary allegory
is accessible as part of the Epilogue and Concluding Dialogue.
...END
OF PHASE 1 PARABLES, ALLEGORIES, AND METAPHOR
PART VI: IN PHASE 2 USING SPIRITUAL
CONSCIOUSNESS TO HEAL THE WORLD [Now
under development ]