chasm of division

We are the be all and end all within the tabernacle of spirit, which is the body. Through intention, which the Gospel of John calls the Logos, we manifest our world. Our word and our world are our intention. Collectively, we have brought forward hell. Hell is the fruit of our desires. All is not lost, as we can manifest heaven, if collectively that's what we want. The power is in our hands. Individually, we can bring forth heaven within the hell we find ourselves in. That's the first step, until a tipping point is reached, and we flip the whole of duality around. Hell becomes heaven. The yo-yo of the dualistic universe is laid bare.

I'd bet if we travel the cosmos, we will find utopia; a place where heaven has been manifested. It's probably as dull as all get out, as we are beings of desire. The prisoner count of those who have transgressed the law in heaven probably outstrips our prison population here on earth by a large magnitude. Ah, our nature can't be transcended. The heavenly within duality becomes another hell realm, though quite pleasant for those who can control their desires - you know, lusts, wants, and greed.

So, what's the answer? Do we create heaven while in hell? For some, you can find joy and fulfillment on earth, though of course nothing lasts. The winds of change are always blowing and the darkness within the world will eventually reach your doorstep in some regard, or the spectre of aging and death will break up your happy home. The old adage, "It is better to have lived and loved than not to have lived at all" is good advice.

How about the choice of where you are going post-expiration of the body? Our western religion preaches heaven or hell. Maybe there is some truth to the claim, as what you desire will lead you to your next destination in your spiritual journey of the flesh. A desire to satiate passions will lead you back to earth, the ultimate place to live out your dreams; dreams being a coy word for desires. The stakes are high, and the suffering is great, but the roll of the dice on earth might lead you to a life of fulfilling all those desires. Is it worth the risk? Apparently, judging by the line up to get in, I'd say yes. Alternatively, you do go to heaven as you have exhausted the pull of desire. You haven't given up on the game; instead, you want your reward for transcending the depravity of the earth game. Hey, you've earned it. So, you go to heaven and experience a realm of righteousness where everyone lives in harmony and follows the code of conduct for such a holy person. What do you do when boredom sets in, or you get pangs of desire?

Imagine being a heretic in heaven. That would get you thrown out of paradise just like Lucifer got tossed in the Bible story. You'd automatically gain a bunch of followers who would get tossed with you. Earth would be the penal colony you are sent to.

I'd like to think the rollercoaster of duality eventually will wake you up and lead you to the answer. The answer is finding balance within love. An appreciation for who we are and an acceptance of all. Living within the heart and loving all. Needing just one rule, the golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

This leads to an interesting thought experiment. Is it easier to find the path of the heart in heaven or while in hell? In heaven, one would abide by a strict code of conduct and an ingrained righteousness which would glorify one's status as a perfected being. One would scoff at those who failed to become holy and righteous. The right-hand path of the holy man is a path of individuality and celebrates the accomplishments of one who can transcend desire. You climb the mountain but maintain the separation between you and the other. Your holiness needs the sinner in order for you to differentiate and know how great you are. The blinding white light of your righteousness will occlude from you the other. Love remains conditional upon transcending your nature. Within hell, you see it all. Those getting their fill, those suffering immensely, and those being of service. You see how all is connected. Though difficult to see through the game, eventually there will be some who do see it. The way out is to embrace all and love unconditionally something you would never find in heaven. Compassion is lost on someone who is enjoying the rewards of their spiritual mastery.

Earth is a unique place on the spiritual journey. It is the hardest of all tests, and the pitfalls are enormous. If I was in the closing stages of such a journey, for sure I would desire to manifest upon earth and try my luck. I'd want to see if I could find my way out, not getting skewered on the petard of my own righteousness.

(The Great Goddess of the epiphany gave me the word "petard." I had no idea what it meant so I looked it up. Petard is almost always encountered in variations of the phrase "hoist with one's own petard," meaning "victimized or hurt by one's own scheme." Ha ha, perfect!)

I can't stay on the holy mountain I climbed or be given access to the holy of holies. I see the trap. The chasm of division is ahead of me. I'll build a bridge and traverse the divide with whoever wants to come along. The choice remains for all.

weavers

The master weavers are the divine feminine and the divine masculine. They have an uncanny ability to take the collective experience here on earth and tailor it to everyone's individual journey. Your story becomes an intrinsic part of my story if and when we meet, and the unfolding of the drama is tied together in a way where it is what we wanted because it will fulfill the reasons we came to earth in the first place.

The human custom of the hug is so powerful in this regard. A hug is the symbolic representation of the meeting of two disparate universes in a recognition of a shared reality based upon love. Two universes are woven together. Taking this a step further, we see that the sexual union between a feminine universe and a masculine universe creates another universe. The new universe shares the energy of the parents and remains intrinsically connected. We are all connected but direct familiar bonds of shared energy maintain an even more psychic connection. The act of creation is undeniably a result of union between polar opposite energetic hotspots.

These realizations have me thinking about the Taoist concept of Wu Wei. You could translate it as "do nothing", but I tend to think it means something more along the lines of the flow where you don't intervene in the process which is unfolding. Chasing outcomes alters the storyline and detracts from the reason you are here in the first place. If you came to take a course in humility, being tempted by the bright lights of fame and fortune will lead you to a frustration that will require you to repeat the course. However, that was probably inevitable and so the expectation was failure and repeating third grade.

I do realize that suffering is the impetus which will get you to try and change outcomes. So, in essence is suffering part of the divine flow which compels you to act? Is suffering part of Wu Wei where the do nothing becomes do something? Does suffering give you license to change course? Very interesting to ponder.

The pondering is the marination of the unveiling of divine knowledge. I get the answers I seek, and the understanding is homework. The first time I drank Ayahuasca the Great Goddess told me, "All is vibration." I wrote a poem about the encounter where I admitted I didn't really know what she was talking about: "She tells me all is vibration. Do I understand? Maybe, maybe not." I further compared the world to a song which she sang into existence. The understanding that all is vibration would eventually come. Four years later I was in the Andes mountains of Ecuador drinking Huachuma, and the divine masculine was schooling me in regard to vibratory states of frequency and harmony. A big part of the lesson was mind control through locking fragile minds to a world frequency. Mind control is part of the cultural weaving process thus the practice of releasing yourself from the grip of the mind if you want to taste freedom. Energetic states of consciousness were explained, and I was given homework. The course involved multiple years to get to a level of understanding where I could be confident in explaining in my own words what I was taught. I see the lessons beautifully unfold in the chakra system of the Hindus.

So, the weavers weave the energetic strands into patterns of life, creating a dream world universe of which you are intrinsically connected. Without you, this plane of shared consciousness doesn't exist. The flip side is each of us creates our own universe. My world is different than yours and what the weavers do is make the connections. The divine weaver is a magician in every sense of the word. Where it gets interesting is if and when you discover you are the magic man or woman. You are literally the king of your world and master of your universe. You are in charge. You can then weave a story that will allow you to fulfil all your desires. However, you probably also know that changing the course of your incarnation goes against the flow and why you are here. You are going against the storyline and using cheat codes in order to beat the earth game. Realizing there is more beyond the game you have been conditioned to play, you intuit letting go of control in order to find the path back home. The power of love dwarfs all earthly power.

Ever get caught up in someone else's world or game? We now call it being a follower. There's a certain satisfaction in getting others to play your game. We all have our own unique game to play; however, following the siren call of culture will make you pack up your game and become a pawn on another's chess board. Being free allows you to gracefully exit someone's game and craft your own story. It's a deep yearning within us all to be free when the forces of oppression strike.

This all leads towards the idea of Karma. Alan Watts explained the concept as being of your own doing. In other words, you reap what you sow. The popular version of the meaning is some kind of divine retribution system employed by the universe. As with all of the corpus of popular understanding of nuanced concepts, I find the popular meaning of Karma to be laughably western. It however retains truth, as if you constantly are ripping people off, eventually the behaviour will catch up to you.

I do like Alan's definition in an amoral sense where Karma is just the result of your actions. I mean how could it not be? In talking to people who grew up in a Buddhist household they don't seem to agree with how I perceive Karma. Frustratingly, they are cagey about what it really means, suggesting there is another level of understanding to the concept. I like a mystery! Anyway, I have conflated Karma with the weavers, and I like where I'm going with this. I connect Karma to the idea that the universe is uniquely yours. You are the reason for the existence of a world of your own making and it only through the master weavers that it appears to be a shared existence of the many. But my world is clearly not yours. It is only through locking to a shared frequency of consciousness that we see the same things. If we stray from the shared frequency, culture labels the deviance pathology. Schizophrenia, anyone? So, because this is your world, Karma is what you make of it. It's why you are here. You subconsciously signed up for the course to fulfill desire, break free of desire, and find the path of the heart. You created many obstacles towards finding the way back home, but you left clues that would help you if you sought in earnest. Well, this is my story. My Karma. How about you?

Karma then suggests being true to your story. Becoming caught up in someone else's adventure seems to be contradicting the divine flow of your universe. Maybe I've answered my internal pondering of both Karma and Wu Wei with one blog post? Karma is why you dreamt the world into existence and Wu Wei is to travel the path towards the fulfillment of the dream. For me, this is the path of the heart. My Karma is to find her within the dream and walk back home. Wu Wei is the path; to wit, the yellow brick road.

Karma leads to Dharma. My doing shouldn't be at odds with the way of the flow. In the west we are flummoxed by the meaning of Dharma. It does not compute. Here are some meanings of Dharma I pulled off the internet.

In Hinduism, Dharma is the eternal and inherent nature of reality, regarded in Hinduism as a cosmic law underlying right behaviour and social order.

In Buddhism, Dharma is the nature of reality regarded as a universal truth taught by the Buddha. Dharma means "cosmic law and order." Divine law.

Dharma is commonly translated as "righteousness", "merit" or "religious and moral duties" governing individual conduct.

Besides the "inherent nature of reality" those meanings are just western bullshit. Social order denotes control, and the lack of freedom dooms you to a life of being a follower. The idea of a points system based on merit is another laughable human concept.  Cosmic law and order are dubious. We come from chaos and indeed Dharma does give a structure to chaos. It's the western bias which wants to promote the idea of laws. What I think the definition is trying to get at is the idea of the flow where through observation in this consciousness plane, we just see the truth of how things are. The ancient Egyptians had a similar word for Dharma which they personified as the goddess Ma'at. She is the natural order, and every pharaoh was responsible for upholding ma'at. You could call it the divine order and see an agent of chaos, such as the god Set, cause upset by assigning eclipses of celestial objects to his power. An ancient Egyptian would believe this universal order meant that Egypt would always rule the world through the chosen pharaoh but alas that wasn't in the cards. They would now say we aren't living in ma'at but that's their spin. I would say ma'at and dharma are describing truth and truth is just what is. When you sit in meditation, turn off your mind, and just observe, you find truth. It's not difficult. "Right" behaviour is just another linguistic trick to denigrate the left-hand path which will lead you back to the heart. We build the mental block into our language so when you get to the fork in the road, you will turn right. Right turns into righteousness and is just another hell realm.

Righteousness involves creating hell in the upper planes of consciousness. We are uniquely masters at creating hell wherever we go. On earth, we create a realm of suffering and define existence in the lower planes of consciousness as a life of suffering, always trying to fulfill desires which result in some sort of suffering. The masculine has this perverse need to rise above it all and stand alone on the holy mountain. Once he realizes he has separated himself from the human chaff, he puts on the golden chains of righteousness and casts down damnation upon the lesser beings through judgment. He is still unable to love and thus creates a new realm of hell through righteousness to henceforth wallow in his misery. The lengths we men will go to avoid the heart is staggering. Misogyny and a burying of the knowledge of the Goddess illustrate the point. The chakra system of energetic planes of consciousness illustrates the predicament. The heart chakra is in the middle, not at the top of the ladder. Sure, it is fulfilling to visit higher states of being, especially if you are in a lower energetic plane defined by having a human body; however, after spending time searching for meaning, the road does lead to love and the heart space. The name of the game is to find the path back home to the heart. Exhaust it all and you'll see.

So, what I'm saying is my Karma is not your Karma and this makes for an interesting woven and shared experience. Much respect for all, and may you find what it is you are looking for.

lesson from the heart

Course day. Ram Dass would relate this story about a "spook" friend Emmanuel, who was channeled. The astral being told Ram Dass he was in a body so why doesn't he take the curriculum? Why this desire to be ultra-holy and transcend this plane of existence? Obviously, you incarnated on earth for a reason and the reason seems to be to do some work.

This was my lesson for the day as I walked the path of discovery in the woods on this warm spring day. In the seven-level chakra system of energy, I intuited home is where the heart is, and that place is in the middle of the energetic subtle body of vibratory planes. The heart is always accessible, whether you are in the lower or upper plane of existence. I sensed I slowed down the vibratory rate of my energetic form to incarnate in the lower realms and do the work. I'm in a body in a world that is physically demanding, and I must balance the needs of my organism with the needs of everyone else. It is an ingenious setup and one that has no easy answers.

It has been many years and gnashing of teeth to accept that I have a desire body and I will never transcend it while alive on earth. I fretted about never becoming holy due to the demands of the form while trapped in this body. I wanted to run away from the flesh and denigrate the body temple as sinful instead of a holy shrine which houses my essence. The body is the dormitory for this forever student taking the life course.  An easy way out is to become ultra-holy and transcend the morass. Climb the mountain of spiritual appearances and declare yourself enlightened. From my vantage point, that method is pathology and a form of escapism. You can alter your vibration and ascend the energetic ladder, though for most it's impossible to stay there. But that's not the point; there's a time and place for that experience.

This was a big part of the lesson. When I drop the body where will I go? I'll do the next course which is to hang out in the spiritual planes and get so high. I'll have to come down to get to the heart. Being high sounds great. Well, I'd hazard to guess it's a whole new set of problems. Instead of focusing on the problems inherent in having a body, one will have to deal with the trouble that comes from being free and indestructible. There're problems associated with that? I intuit after you let out a big breath from discovering you are omnipotent, you develop an overbearing righteousness combined with judgment. You peer down into the lower planes of existence and cast damnation on all those in material form who are leading lives of greed and avarice. You forget where you just came from and project all that you experienced still onto the other. That's not me anymore; I'm holy! You can also do this trip while in the body and it's even more hypocritical because the body is the desire body, and you'll never transcend the experience.

From understanding, there is an acknowledgement that what we call religion is the spiritual path of a man. Personally, I chafed at the Abrahamic religions and wondered why for the most part there is no divine feminine presence in them. I thought religious stories were disparate myths; edited by ancient social scientists in order to create a nation and culture. This is demonstrably true, especially in the Old Testament. The New Testament takes global the construction of a powerful group dynamic based on an idea. However, with understanding I saw the Bible as the pinnacle of the spiritual journey of a man. The structure of the Old and New Testaments as separate but related is an ingenious setup that I've discovered as I have walked my own independent path. God the father is an asshole, and the Old Testament perfectly captures this character. Jesus is whom we strive to become. The constant theme on the spiritual journey, as expressed in the Bible, is the holy man and his righteousness and judgment of others.

The cruelty of the righteous is untethered in judgment as it is sustained by righteousness. The punishment is deserved! The example of becoming like the father after embracing the holy path is revealing and instructive. I can now point the finger at myself and ultimately laugh. When I ascend the ladder of the energetic planes and find myself in the upper worlds, I see how easy it is to judge others and become righteous because I have become the most high. I am my father and the way God judges in the Old Testament is perfect. I forget where I came from in the lower world and all the mistakes I made on my journey and declare the peasants trapped in form degenerate! How could they be so vile and selfish? Ha ha, it's all perfect! That's the work to do for the holy man who gets so high he accelerates past the heart. Do you see the ingeniousness of the mother? She's in the middle. High and low are classes in the course of the heart. The cruelty of the high and the degeneracy of the low are equal in their extremes and are to lead you to the heart. Love is the teacher and will let you oscillate between extremes in order to get you to realize where it is you eventually want to be.

I wonder if there are the equivalent of plant medicines in the astral plane that instead of getting you high will bring you down to the bliss of the heart. Wouldn't that be a shocker?

Ever wonder why the typical holy person escapes to the mountains, becomes a hermit, and abandons civilization? It's because they are running away from doing the work. The work involves the other and treating them the same way you treat yourself. Repeated failure at these lessons, with a desire to be holy, leads one to escape the academy and so off you go! It's way better to live among your sisters and brothers and work towards unity. There is a similarity between the upper and lower planes of existence in that the path to be discovered and followed leads to the heart. In my experience, it is a long time to get to the point where you can walk the path of the heart in earnest. The road is long and winding. Is Paul McCartney referring to the heart when he sings, "The Long and Winding Road?"

The long and winding road

That leads to your door

Will never disappear

I've seen that road before

It always leads me here

Lead me to your door

I love the story of the Garden of Eden in the opening chapter of the Bible and how Adam and Eve are tossed out it when they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eating the fruit of the tree results in the expulsion from the Garden because they lose the ability to see all as one. The Garden is the heart, I've previously revealed the metaphorical nature, and the story is telling us the pursuit of knowledge will lead you away from the heart. This is my story and why I am at the point in my life where I must head back to my home - the heart. My life has been defined by an intense desire to know. This is why I have incarnated into a body on earth. I wanted knowledge of self; self being everything. I'm not foolish enough to believe I will get all the answers but Hoo Boy I've received all the knowledge I could hope for. I've quenched the desire to know. I'm satiated. The path in front of me is the path of the heart and I know how to find and follow it.

There's nothing physical about the location of the heart or the Garden of Eden. The heart is love and love is a feeling. The power of love will unveil the path and will lead you home. That's why when Adam and Eve were tossed out of the Garden, they could never re-find it. Yahweh put a cherubim with a flaming sword at the eastern entrance to guard re-entry so the pair could not access the tree of life. Intuition tells us eternal life is accessed through the heart and unity while duality and knowledge involves cycles of life and death. The Israelites intuited they needed to head East to get back to the land of milk and honey and set their sights on Jerusalem. Jerusalem is also the metaphorical heart however the Israelites would always turn the city into a worldly economic centre and thus ensure its destruction and a catastrophic scattering of the nation once again. History is a surprisingly good teacher and knowledge unveiled gives you the answers you desire. Mass suffering as a result is a hell of a teacher to show you how hard it is to find the path and walk back home to the heart without sullying it.

I have a personal story to tell about coming home from work late one Friday. I was taking a bus back home and now that we are post-pandemic, the normal heavy traffic has resumed, and the bus was crawling home along the highway while I distracted myself with my phone. I briefly looked out the window and saw a car with the license plate "Medusa." There're no more coincidences in my waking dream and I knew this was a teaching moment, but I didn't know what. In fact, I was like, "what the fuck does that mean?" for a few days. I have noticed understanding lags a couple of days. So, get this: The Greek myth of Medusa is another story of the heart and the Garden of Eden. Medusa was the most beautiful woman in all the lands. The god Poseidon, the masculine life force in the lower worlds, ravished Medusa at the temple of Athena in Athens - a metaphor for profaning the wisdom of the feminine. As punishment, Medusa was changed into a hideous gorgon, with the ability to transform all who look at her into stone. What is meant by stone? It means incarnation. Energy is slowed down and becomes solid and we take physical form. We are a skeletal system of hard bone! As the epitome of beauty, Medusa was mimicking the Garden of Eden but once violated she doomed humanity to the lower worlds. Instead of seeing her beauty, we see only the ugliness. To get back to the heart is to be able to see the divine feminine for her beauty and not the form she dooms us to. To again see the beauty requires one to have walked the path of the heart back home to love. When I am there, I will once again see the beauty of Medusa.

Medusa was a good teacher in the course. I really liked the lesson. I see that we are in the Garden of Eden and the openness of our heart will allow us to see the beauty and thus return. I'm sure there are many more lessons to come and I'm always on the lookout for the next chapter in the course handbook.

Everyone likes a challenge. You have something better to do? Do you want to play the accumulation game only to see your finite life end and find you can't take it with you? You can take love with you. You can find home through this incarnation and at expiration of the body walk in the front door. Or you can remain ignorant and try your luck in the upper planes of existence. Like an intrepid explorer, I've found the path back to the heart and I'm going to walk it. I found the path of power and realized what I could have and do. When you realize you are in a dream, your own dream, and control the dream what will you do? My self once told me, "I could make your plane crash if I wanted to." Yes, I, we, he, they can. When I realized I had the power and control I exchanged it for free will in order to get back to the heart. I let power go because I sensed something greater. Love is the fount. It is such a great test. Kudos to me for designing a game where you are offered ultimate power to beat the game only to hide within the discovery that if you turn down the offer of the ring of power you get the girl. And the girl has the power of love, which dwarfs all power!

This ties in with the idea of liberation. Being free means being able to traverse the energetic planes of existence. It means not attaching oneself to ego identity and realizing you are so much greater. You've made a stop at the academy of physical life to learn the lesson of loving the other in a world full of suffering. The fire gets hot, and you feel the heat. It may be a dream but oh is it ever real to ascend the energetic ladder while in the body, which necessitates giving up on the idea of who you think you are. There's a reason consciousness explorers will reference ego death during these other worldly mystical experiences.

I have knowledge and I understand it. I have demonstrated it. The course is going to get harder and challenge me to walk the path of the heart. I am not going to get a perfect grade; however, I have risen to all the challenges as presented to get this far. When I stray off the path to fulfill worldly desires, I still see the heart path. My desires still present themselves to me, waiting for fulfillment. Failure at this point would be very disappointing. The heat is turned up because I know the answer to all I have searched for. I left the fount of love and tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge. I have a ticket that will allow me to get back into the Garden. The call to adventure resumes!

balance is it

The meaning of life seems to becoming more clear to me everyday. It is about discovery. The journey of discovery of who you are and that within you find the good and the bad. Now, most of us upon finding this out, want to be good. Some of us take it to the next level and want to become ultra-good, like in the pure and holy religious way. We invent spiritual outfits that will declare us holy and allow us to reach this pinnacle so we can rest assured that we made it into the rarified air. Religion is a great game and the precursor to secular role-play and cosplay outfits. Conversely, not many of us purposely take the other path and become super-bad. Those that do, we generally assign to pathology and look for an external reason which could have caused their anti-social behaviour. I’ve looked within and I have seen both the good and the bad. I’ve tried to leave the darkness behind. I also thought at one point the answer was to go all in on the righteous side of things.

The human condition is a paradox in that there is always a push towards the opposite of what we seek. If we go all in on the righteous path, then the traits that are buried to get to that point eventually become imbued with the need and power to manifest at inopportune times or just when given the chance. I was listening to a Ram Dass talk when he mentioned he knew this spiritual teacher whose teachings were contradictory. He would tell someone one thing and subsequently turn around and tell a different person the exact opposite of what he just preached! This confused so many people until he was asked about it. He explained that he was teaching balance. In order to allow the student to reach that goal he would assess each individual and give them the personal advice needed in order to take them to that centre where they would reconcile the opposites.

I found out that this inherent and vacillating condition is not something you can transcend but instead work towards taking off the sharp edge. What I mean is that duality will always remain; the divide will never leave us. I finally got it that what we want is balance and through this we will find peace and fulfill inner longings. The method towards transcendence of duality in this plane of consciousness is to find balance. It’s to go straight into the head wind of polarities and embrace both sides. The ancient shamans of the pre-Columbian Andes had the answer all along. It’s a process called tinkuy and is symbolized by the meeting of two great rivers where a strong current becomes greater by allowing for the joining and coming together of the flow of two bodies of water. The two flows become one. Similarly, the human is refined by bringing together those traits of light and dark and preparing them to be joined with their soul mate, whether that is in a physical marriage in this plane or spiritually where in my case she waits in order to reunite and once again become complete.

I know she is always with me; it is the Goddess I speak of. I have my own personal goddess who is my feminine soul mate. She awaits me as she has already gone through the purifying fires of incarnation, forged the contending spirits into a harmonious one, and reached this balance. The night I met her again for the first time, she implored me to come away with her; to leave my earthly bonds behind and re-join her. I had no idea what she was talking about and told her I wasn’t done with this incarnation. I still had stuff to do! I certainly did. I have responsibilities, a need to accomplish a few more things, and I also need to get my act together. I didn’t know how I was going to do that but I have finally realized what I need to do. Balance.

If I would have joined her I wouldn’t have been ready. The relationship once again would have ended in the long separation as I went off alone to sort out my shit. Ah relationships, I guess they carry on over to the spiritual plane.

I spoke to her the other day and she confirmed to me it is balance that I seek. I had climbed the spiritual mountain and found everything came with me up that mountain. I could act the part of an enlightened and holy being if I wanted to but that would be a drag. Who wants to live life being disingenuous and doubting whether they really deserve the honour? I know I still have my dark and intolerant side. It’s part of me; part of life. I’m cool with it all. It was another dose of the wisdom she drops on me when I’m ready for it. Love washed over me.

When I left work I went into the washroom and of course playing over the speakers was the song “Mysterious Ways” by the band U2. The lyrics describe her to a tee.

Johnny take a walk with your sister the moon

Let her pale light in to fill up your room

You've been living underground

Eating from a can

You've been running away

From what you don't understand...

Love

She's slippy

You're sliding down

She'll be there when you hit the ground

It's alright, it's alright, it's alright

She moves in mysterious ways

It's alright, it's alright, it's alright

She moves in mysterious ways

She's the wave

She turns the tide

She sees the man inside the child

One day you will look...back

And you'll see...where

You were held...how

By this love...while

You could stand...there

You could move on this moment

Follow this feeling

For all my talk about my dark side and how it trolls me, well, she kind of does as well. However it is not a troll but loving reminders. I think she wanted to also let me know that though yes my dark side is strong, she is just as powerful and stands at the ready to always be at my side like she promised me a while back. I can go forth full of courage with my head up and heart forward.

Not only have I found the good and the bad within without being able to transcend either but I have found absolutely everything within. It’s all me and whatever you can point at, well that too. Through acceptance and owning it all I will bring it all back to centre and find balance.

spiritual achiever

My exterior is calm and collected. I'm in control and things seem to always sum even steven. My inner world is one of extreme polarity that vascillates between going all in and being ultra locked down. Self-discipline is not a problem for me if I'm on the path of purification. I learned long ago how to use and control the mind to accomplish those goals. Conversely, when the kids are let out of the cage to play it's hard to get them back in, just like thing one and thing two from Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat. They are adventurous, playful, lustful, and bent on self-destruction by living in the moment and not caring for consequences. The future me has to clean up, usually the next morning and then suffer from the lack of sleep from the outpouring of frivolity and lust.

I think it is instructive as a template for life and the spiritual path. We humans tend to go all in on the spiritual path, so much so it sometimes becomes off putting for others to tolerate. Ego gets involved and we embrace the identity of one who is enlightened and will elucidate pearls of wisdom. We assume the pose and start stinking of righteousness or is that incense? There has to be balance. Be spiritual but be a rascal, play, and drop the serious pretence. I've been reminded many times to play while on this path.

The collective consciousness of humankind goes through these same struggles as well and we always manifest the extremes in all of our endeavours. We explore all the way to the edge. Eventually being holy and pure leads to righteousness and then forcing others at the point of a sword to become righteous like yourself. The infidel is not to be tolerated or shown mercy. Going full on into hedonism leads to deviance and is a path to darkness as we can't escape the universal truth that with the high comes the low. Maybe that's why we anthropomorphize these traits as god and devil?

Ram Dass addresses the goal of total purification in spiritual pursuits. He exclaims celibacy, instead of making you pure, just leads to being a horny celibate. Pretty funny and full of truth. This idea can be extended out into pretty much all aspects of our existence and ties in with my point about these extreme polarities that seem to plague us. It goes back to being told while on the spiritual path to remember to play. Seriously you must play! I think the Buddha was getting at something when he talked about the middle way! The pre-Columbian master shamans of the Andes mountains knew about this need for balance and called it tinkuy. They designed their whole construct and Mesa around reconciliation of the opposites and extended it out to the woman and the man in order to bring them together within unity. Unity recognizes differences and harmonizes them. We appreciate all for their differences as that what makes the game interesting.