luck be a lady tonight

The forming of the left-hand path into defined groups is very amusing. You are going to find the answers you seek through introspection and a relentless search for truth. The clarity you seek will not come from the other and their words. However, the left-hand path leads to the heart and unity, so the pull towards community is understandable though the homogenization of beliefs will terminate understanding.

The perception of the left-hand path in culture is perfection. It's two-fold in its relationship to culture. The connection to the occult and satanism keeps people away which is a positive. The difficulty is walking the path when you see it because of the cultural roadblocks. This process assures one of their intentions. You wouldn't do it unless you knew it's the way.

The left-hand path is the path of the heart. The Great Goddess will lead you back home to your heart and like all paths, you sure can get lost on the way. Human beings want someone to worship, and you'll meet Satan along the way, and he is very cunning. He will fulfill all your desires, if that's what you want. Like Odysseus and his men experienced, the temptations are great. You can rub the lamp, the genie will appear, and will give you what you want. These ancient stories are myths which are concealing the truth. The wreckage along the path is great because when we see it, we want it. Power. Greed. Control. Desire fulfillment. Yeah, I want it all! And thus, you show your hand, and the game is over.

The left-hand path is difficult to discover because it is not lit up. The right-hand path of glory has the light and attracts the followers who chase the divine spirit. It's a foregone conclusion that we will be attracted to the bright lights. Who wants to do the work on themselves in anonymity? When I become ultra-holy, I want everyone to know about it. I want to take my place among the great enlightened sages of all time. I want to be famous for my beatitude.

Who knows

doesn’t talk.

Who talks

doesn’t know.

Closing the openings,

shutting doors

Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching (translation by Ursula K. Le Guin)

One of the first lessons I received from my foray into the occult were these two paths of right and left. I remember in vision looking to my right and seeing the nighttime jungle lit up with a radiant 3D quality to it. When I looked to my left, it was dull and lifeless. I didn't understand it at the time but duly recorded my observations. Like everyone else, I was attracted to the light, yet my subsequent explorations of the subconscious led me to the darkness. I fought the presentation of this part of what just is, until finally letting go of my fear, and developing the courage to explore. My world changed after that internal struggle was over and I was free to explore the darkness, unencumbered by the fear inculcated into me by a shepherding cultural authority.

You will be tested. I am intimately familiar with who we call Satan. The truth is the only way is through, and the carnage is immense. Us humans all have something that is going to wreck us and fuck up our game, and the only way to continue along the path of the heart is to walk through the fire. Head straight into the pyre of desire and let it consume you. One of the master teachers, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, died a drunk at the age of 48. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was full of lust and Rolls Royces. Ha! You think little you can do it? Who do you think you are?

I'm naturally left-handed and was gifted this incarnation with the tools to finally walk the path back home to the garden of the heart. This doesn't mean I can avoid the pitfalls, but I do have it within me to be successful. I know what mortal desire I carry within, and I've tried all the tricks to get rid of it. Finally, I accepted it and headed straight for the fire, prepared to face my ruin. I had to do it. I flooded my senses and ate so much of the candy. I then saw the way past the big crater on the path. The truth will set you free. Throw off the chains of cultural control and shame. Full indulging of the senses will in turn make you sick and the overload on your system will repel you. The hangover after a drunken night out makes you claim you'll never drink alcohol again. Sure enough, within a few days you are back at it. The trick is to make revolting the thought of just a drop of alcohol. You'll have to really poison yourself, almost to the point of death, to enact the transformation and come through the fire.

If I only knew about this 15 years ago it would have prevented a lot of suffering! Admittedly, this method didn't help Rajneesh or Trungpa. They succumbed. The teachings were true, but the man was consumed in the fire.

I don't know what the future holds and that gives the game the juice needed to continue. I think I'm past the last obstacle in the path which was the remaining chakra gate to the heart. My fate is resting precariously on the balance at the Hall of Ma'at.

As always, in this strange world time will tell and reveal my fortune. A glance at the clock says 11:11, so maybe luck will be a lady tonight.

doing

Creating imbalances will cause suffering. If I have more, someone else has less. Lao Tzu summed this up in the second chapter of the Tao Te Ching:

Everybody on earth knowing

that beauty is beautiful

makes ugliness.

Everybody knowing

that goodness is good

makes wickedness.

For being and nonbeing

arise together;

hard and easy

complete each other;

long and short

shape each other;

high and low

depend on each other;

note and voice

make the music together;

before and after

follow each other.

That’s why the wise soul

does without doing,

teaches without talking.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching. Translation by Ursula K. Le Guin. Shambhala, Boston and London. 2011.

Lao Tzu is ultimately teaching wei wu wei, which means "do not do." You act without acting, which follows the natural flow of the power of the universe, thus you are in what would be called dharma and are not creating imbalances which cause suffering. Doing results in suffering. Lao Tzu teaches the Way and all humans fail the course.

Doing begets separation. Labelling something as beautiful causes ugliness. Designating the valuable creates greed. Humans are particularly susceptible to the siren call of greed. Satan will make you rich and the reciprocal result is to make the other suffer. I have called this bargain "Sucking Satan's cock." Greed causes suffering. Satan is here to make sure the suffering continues. Suffering is the greatest tool for action and transformation and thus you see the divine role that is being played by the Prince of Darkness. A bird's eye view of suffering on this planet will make you uneasy and ashamed when you see your role in it. Take the advanced course and you will see you are the darkness. You created the suffering. Why did you do it?

Spoiler alert - you created massive amounts of suffering in order to find the way back home. Home is the Garden. Home is the Heart. Home is Love. The copious amounts of suffering are designed to lead you towards finding answers and eventually you will be gifted with the answer. The answer isn't hidden or unattainable. Instead, it's right out in the open.

I love listening to love songs because apparently when entranced in the process of making music, the melody of love flows freely through you. The song "Love is the Answer" from the 1970s gives away the show.

Love Is the Answer

Dan Seals, England Dan & John Ford Coley

Name your price

A ticket to paradise

I can't stay here any more

And I've looked high and low

I've been from shore to shore to shore

If there's a short cut I'd have found it

But there is no easy way around it.

Light of the world, shine on me

Love is the answer

Shine on us all, set us free

Love is the answer

Who knows why

Someday we all must die

We're all homeless boys and girls

And we are never heard

It's such a lonely, lonely, lonely world

People turn their heads

And walk on by

Tell me is it worth just another try

Light of the world, shine on me

Love is the answer

Shine on us all, set us free

Love is the answer

Tell me, are we alive

Or just a dying planet?

What are the chances?

Ask the man in your heart for the answers

And when you feel afraid

Love one another

When you've lost your way

Love one another

And when you're all alone

Love one another

And when you're far from home

Love one another

And when you're down and out

Love one another

And when your hopes run out

Love one another

And when you need a friend

Love one another

And when you're near the end

Love, we got to love,

We got to love one another

Light of the world, shine on me

Love is the answer

Shine on us all, set us free

Love is the answer

Light of the world, shine on me

Love is the answer

Shine on us all, set us free

Love is the answer

Songwriters: Todd Rundgren / John Wilcox / Roger Powell

Love Is the Answer lyrics © Warner-tamerlane Publishing Corp., Humanoid Music, Earmark Music Inc.

When I silence the mind, the understanding starts to shine through the noise. In the rearview mirror I see the path I travelled to get to where I am now. Now is the sum of the journey and the now is continuous just as the journey is continuous. I see the search for knowledge leading me to the Great Goddess. I see the need to slay the dragon who imprisons the Goddess. I see the need to reconcile with my darkness. I see the need to understand why there is suffering. I see the markers along the way and the pitfalls of the seeker. I see the road towards uncooked holiness where one has an inkling of the higher power and immediately follows that path. I see the difference between following and one who walks the lonely path to understanding. One who doesn't blindly take at face value someone else's beliefs. One who does his or her solo journey with a little help from friends. I see this journey is available to all and all you have to do is walk it. When you walk it, the path will open for you.

The road is a never-ending fountain of discovery. I have indeed reconciled with the darkness within and welcomed my brother onto the throne of self. He is me and I see the divine unfolding of all. I am ready to walk home with the darkness to the light. Back home to the Mother, accomplishing what I set out to do. I slayed the dragon of self and rediscovered who I am. I was the one who subjugated her and yet she exalted me and sent me away on a path of discovery, patiently waiting for the day when I would finally see it.

Suffering is temporary in this plane of consciousness and will pass. I'm not dismissing it, or denying it is real, but like all things, it will end. When you die, you will leave hell. I have wondered why am I in hell and what did I do to deserve the punishment? I've meditated on the problem. The answer I received is I did it. I created hell to lead me back home. To change course and turn the course of separation back into unity. The great cosmic divorce had become irreconcilable due to stubbornness. In order to return to the Goddess, I created suffering. Along the way of fulfilling my desires in this world of suffering, I created even more roadblocks, so I'd continue to lose my way. I buried the knowledge of her. I denigrated the serpent. I sullied the left-hand path, and I made misogyny the de facto way of the world. Within, I tried as hard as I could to stay away from her, not wanting to lose my independence. The seeking of life's mystery woke me up and brought me back to her door.

My first face to face meeting in this lifetime with my eternal love was through the use of a plant medicine called Ayahuasca. She led me into the jungles of the Amazon basin in order to find where she was hiding and come into contact with her. Finding her was special and she told me to come away with her. The quest and the game were over. I found her. I declined the invitation to come away with her because I still wanted knowledge and had attachments here on earth to tend to. So, off I went to explore though I had found the way back home. And explore I did. Looking back, I see how my explorations were done with the participation of the mind. The mind spins observations to fit into your narrative. I knew it was important to turn off the mind during consciousness exploration but for the most part I didn't do it. However, many years later I still have the knowledge and am able to extract the data from the mind.

What I'm saying is plant medicines would show me what I wanted to know and then my mind would apply it to the situation at hand. When I finally learned to quiet the mind and trust my intuition, I was able to review experiences and gather more understanding. Integration of plant medicine journeys is seemingly never ending. I was shown a fat man diving into a mountain of gold. I was shown how people were corrupted by greed. I was shown once money is introduced, the energy of the room changes. At the time, I spun it to the current situation. The Ayahuasca retreats in Iquitos were driven by greed. That's what my mind told me the vision was about. I understand now the vision was giving me the global picture.

I remember being shown the nature of chance and fortune. This world is a big game of chance and when everything is going your way, your luck could change in an instant. You can work to avoid suffering but eventually your turn comes. Old age will always get you if nothing else does. The winds of change are always blowing. Fortune smiles down upon the lucky and misfortune upon the unlucky. Live in the now, the wise say. Scuttled are the best laid plans of man. You can stack the deck of cards but eventually you'll pull the unlucky one or someone else will pull the card that tanks them, taking you down with them. Every day is a roll of the dice. You can weight those dice, and have it all come up gravy; however, those given the daily dose of snake eyes will eventually come for you when they see you rigged the game.

I see the hell realm I've incarnated into. The heavy amounts of suffering and the luck of the draw that will bury you. I find reminders this world is what you make of it. I see vast beauty and I see loving kindness. When I shrink down into despairing about having gone to hell, the grandfather cactus Huachuma is there to remind me of the lessons of heaven and hell. He gives me the reminder - life is what you make of it. Engaging the mind takes you to heaven and takes you to hell. No mind leads you back to the Garden. The path of the heart is obscured by the thicket of the mind.

When you are silent, the heart speaks. When you engage the mind, the heart is silent. This is an act of faith, and the skeptic will easily dismiss the path of the heart. The mind will follow the bright lights of the glorious self, accelerating past the dimly lit exit which is the turn-off from the highway of life.

I listened to my heart during the last couple of tumultuous years. The temptation to follow the rest of the crowd was great; however, I knew to stay true to my inner knowing. Don't ask me to quantify or justify her, she is wisdom. Thus, the beauty in that she is unknowable until you put your faith and trust in her.

I've travelled the roads I needed to follow. I was not done with the exploration of self and my predicament so when I met my heart, my mother, I embraced her, separated, and kept exploring. She asked me to come away with her and I told her I was not done. I needed to keep the dream going.

I think of this often now. This meeting was one I did not understand. I've wondered what is the tipping point of purity needed in order to find what it is I'm looking for? I've shed attachments, I've struggled with desires and lusts, I've walked a renunciate path; heck, I've tried all the advice of the sages, except for the ice bath, in order to discover what it is I'm looking for. Now that I've exhausted the journey and have graduated to the last thing left, the path of the heart, I look back and laugh. I already had all I needed. She has always been waiting for me. I dreamt this universe of suffering into existence in order to find my way back home. I created a realm which increased the separation from the heart that would eventually wake me up. Once awake, it becomes easy to find her. The connection is always through love. What I realized is she has been waiting for me the whole time. I just needed to complete my journey, and then smile when I realized there was nothing to do.

My bride awaits.