Further. . . .

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.
- J. Krishnamurti

So I have gotten quite a few e-mails wondering when I would finally update this BLOG again. And the thing is, life had other plans. I've been diligently working on my tan, my surfing ability, and my quality time with everyone I love. But I have also been reading. In particular, 'Awake in the Heartland' by Joan Tollifson, 'The Mystics' by Aubrey Menen, and from a political bend, the works of a Christian writer named Bill McKibben, who recently had a fantastic article in Harpers magazine about the relationship between popular Christianity and American politics. Lots of good stuff. . .and my thoughts on all the above kind of blend in together below. I will throw it out there, and see how it comes together in the end. . .in some sort of cohesive theme. . . . . . .consider it an experiment in writing.


Are we really a 'Christian Nation'?

I know that the modern conservatives like to drive home their belief that this Country, the USA, was founded on Biblical Christian ethics. And since my family has been in this Country since signing the declaration of independence, and prior to that if you count my children's native American heritage, I was curious about the validity of this claim. And although I may not agree with them on many points, their view was pretty clear.

Here is what our Founding Fathers wrote about Bible-based Christianity:

Thomas Jefferson:

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."

SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS,
by John E. Remsburg, letter to William Short


* * *
I recently read a very interesting article in Harper's magazine that was written by Bill McKibben. The article is called the Christian paradox.

Depending on which poll you look at, close to 85% of Americans call themselves Christians. By way of comparison Israel is 77% Jewish.

However, only about 20% can cite any of the four gospels.
Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.
And three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that:

"God helps those that help themselves."

This statement was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin. And it appears nowhere in the scriptures.

18% of American children live in poverty. We come in nearly last amongst the wealthy developed Nations in childhood nutrition, infant mortality, and access to pre-school.

However, we have a murder rate that is five times higher then that of Europe. We have prison population greater by a factor of six, or seven. We are the only western democracy left that executes its citizens, mostly in States where Christianity is theoretically strongest.

Teenage pregnancy? We're at the top of the charts.

Something seems backwards here?


* * *
More Jefferson:

"The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ."

* * *

House majority leader Tom DeLay sat at a church one day listening to the pastor, urging his flock to support the administration, declared that "the war between America and Iraq is the gateway to the Apocalypse." DeLay rose to speak, not only to the congregation but to 225 Christian TV and radio stations. "Ladies and gentleman," he said, "what has been spoken here tonight is the truth of God."

"The Antichrist is probably a Jew alive in Israel today."
-Pat Robertson


"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."
-Pat Robertson, 1993 interview

* * *

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Love your neighbor as yourself: although its rhetorical power has been dimmed by repetition, that is a radical notion, perhaps the most radical notion possible.

The last shall be made first; turn the other cheek; a rich person aiming for heaven is like a camel trying to walk through the eye of a needle. On and on and on. . .a call for nothing less then a radical, voluntary, and effective reordering of power relationships, based on the principle of Love.

There is no disputing the central message, nor is there any disputing how easy it is to ignore that message. Because it is counterintuitive.

To ignore it, or leave it to the bullies and the salesmen, and the televangelist sects, means to walk away from a central battle over American identity.


* * *

"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." -George Bush to a AA reporter Robert I. Sherman in August 27,1987

Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are Atheists?

Bush: I guess I'm pretty weak in the Atheist community. Faith in god is important to me.

Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are Atheists?

Bush: No, I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens,nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

Sherman: (somewhat taken aback): Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?

Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on Atheists.


From John Adams:
"Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?"

Also Adams:
"The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 states:
The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.

Here's Thomas Paine:
The Christian church has set up a religion of pomp and revenue in pretended imitation of a person (Jesus) who lived a life of poverty.

Finally, let's hear from James Madison:
"What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy."

Madison objected to state-supported chaplains in Congress and to the exemption of churches from taxation. He wrote:

Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.


* * *
For the whole of the law is summed up in a single commandment, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Alabama as an example:
The richest Alabamans paid 3% of their income in taxes, and the poorest paid upwards of 12%; income taxes kicked in if a family of four made $4,600. a Year. Alabama was 48th in total State taxes, and the largest portion of that comes from a sales tax.

When a small tax hike was proposed to get the State out of a financial crises, and help the States school system. . .which again, is routinely ranked the worst in the Nation (and that is saying a lot!), it was voted down by a margin of over two to one. The opposition was led, not by the States wealthiest citizens, but by the Christian coalition of Alabama.

"You'll find most Alabamans have a charitable heart", Said John Giles, the groups president. They just don't want it coming out of their pockets.


A rich man came to Jesus one day and asked what he should do to get into heaven.

Jesus said, invest, spend, and let the benefits trickle down.

Just kidding. . .

A rich man came to Jesus one day and asked what he should do to get into heaven.

Jesus said, sell what you have, give the money to the poor, and follow me.

Slightly different message isn't it.

"I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good...Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism."

-Randall Terry, Founder of Operation Rescue, The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 8-16-93


"Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals--the two things seem to go together."
-Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," 1/21/93

Suffice to say, it is a historical fact that the Nazis killed homosexuals as ruthlessly as they did Jews.

"The power of the "Christian" right rests largely in the fact that they boldly claim religious authority, and by their very boldness convince the rest of the population that they must know what they are talking about. They're like the guy who gives you directions with such loud confidence that you drive on even though the road appears to be turning into a faint, rutted track.

It coincides with what people WANT to believe.

How nice it would be if Jesus had declared that instead of sharing, our income was ours to keep. How satisfying it would be if we where told to hate our enemies. . .and maybe, bomb them?


Religious conservatives will always have a fairly easy sell.

It's hard to image a con much more audacious then making Christ the front man for a program of tax cuts for the rich, or war in Iraq. If some modest part of the 85% of Americans who call themselves "Christian" awoke to that fact, then the world might change in a very dramatic way.

For Christians the message of the Gospels is clear enough. If you have any doubts, read the Sermon on the Mount.

But it is most likely that the moneychangers and power brokers will remain ascendant in our "spiritual" life. Since the days of Constantine, emperors and rich men have sought to co-op the teachings of Jesus. As in so many areas of our increasingly market-tested lives, the co-opters, the TV men, the politicians, the "Christian" interest groups. . .have found a way to make each of us complicit in this travesty as well. With their help, we have made golden calves of ourselves."

- Bill Mckibben

Here are some quotes:

"Aids is not just God's punishment for homosexuality; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuality."
- Jerry Falwell

*(note: Approximately 14,000 new HIV infections occur daily around the world and over 90% of these are in developing countries. One thousand are in children less than 15 years of age.)

"Evolution is a bankrupt speculative philosophy, not a scientific fact. Only a spiritually bankrupt society could ever believe it. ... Only atheists could accept this Satanic theory."
- Rev. Jimmy Swaggart


The price of Liberty is constant vigilance. Religious fundamentalism and zealous patriotism have always been the forces which require the greatest attention.

* * *

I is what I is.

* * *

"I am walking through the park one morning and two Jehovah's Witnesses come toward me, both dressed in suits and carrying Bibles. The older one does all the talking.

Have you read the Bible? he asks me.

Yes, I reply.

Do you know what it says about the Kingdom of God? he asks.

It says the Kingdom of God is within, I reply.

No it says a new age is coming, the handicapped will be healed, there will be peace on earth, abundance for all. God's Kingdom is coming.

It's here, I say.

The younger man smiles.

You don't believe in the future? the old man asks me.

This is it, I reply.

And then I wish them a good day and walk on. The young man is still smiling.

- Joan Tollifson


Thanks Joan ; )

The earth is flat, and anyone who disputes this claim is an atheist who deserves to be punished."
- Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz, Supreme religious authority, Saudi Arabia, 1993

* * *

Is there anything else, but everything?

Astonishment, wondering, is, according to Aristotle, the birthplace of philosophy because it means that we have become aware of the miracle of "to be", of the astonishing fact that reality here and now is what we call existent. And in that, the mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, it is a reality to be experienced.


The Upanishads:

About 2000 Years before the bith of Christ a tribe living near the Aral sea in Russia migrated south. At some point the tribe broke into two parts. One turned west, and there is much evidence to suggest they may have been the ancestors of the Greeks. Another turned East to India. The invaders called themselves the Aryans, which means "noble", and the original inhabitants who where there previous to the arrival of the Aryans called themselves by many names, but most historians now give them the term of "Dravidians."

The native peoples had darker skin, and hair. They also had established cities, could build with bricks, and had created large fortresses. The Aryans were so far removed from having those them they did not even have a word to describe them. So they borrowed the terms of the original inhabitants.

The conquering Aryans took the darker skin native people as slaves, and felt that they should be kept on the lowest social scale possible. And it was in this environment of racism that the Upanishads took form.


The Aryans worshiped a nature God called Indra. They sang songs, prayed, and drank an intoxicant called Soma. It is genenerally assumed now that Soma was a Ethogen. . but we don't really know for sure.

The Dravidians also had their own Gods, but we are not quite sure what they were. We do know however that they practiced various forms of Yoga.

The Hymns, prayers, and mantras of the Aryans were later gathered together, long afterward, and put into a book called the Rig-Veda. And later they became a larger work know as the Vedas.

* * *

When in the 6th century AD the Emperor Wu asked Bodhidharma about the holy truth, Bodhidharma answered:

"That principle exists in everything - There is nothing holy."

Emperor Wu: "Where can the essential meaning of Holy Truth be found?"

Bodhidharma: "In the immediate presence of boundless Unholiness."


Descriptions. . .or Prescriptions. . . .

"All descriptions of reality are inevitably incomplete and cannot capture actuality. The mind turns these inevitably inadequate descriptions into beliefs, and then into prescriptions for how to live a spiritually correct life.

Yet they are all just descriptions, not prescriptions, and we have as much "choice" in the matter as we do over the weather.

The impulse or thought to open your hand (or your mind) comes from beyond the person, as does the neuromuscular apparatus and functioning that carries it out. You as "Jane Doe" cannot choose something that is arising in consciousness. You as Jane Doe cannot "choose" to go off in a direction contrary to and independent from the totality, because you are not a separate piece. That separation is an illusion. But the totality functions through every Jane Doe. Our apparent capacity for discernment, our apparent ability to move our body, to direct our attention, and to apparently choose or intend, this or that is all part of the functioning.

The illusion is that we think that we as an independent entity are the source of it.
- Joan Tollifson


* * *

The Aryans developed a whole tribe of ruling class males. These where know as twice born, or born again, The first birth being when they left the womb. The second being when they where given a thread which hung across the shoulder and over the body. Hindu priests wear it to this day.

No one could join this new ruling class, you had to be born a Brahmin. According to this paradigm, a King ruled with the permission of the gods; but the Gods were permissive only at the request of the Brahmin. So the Brahmin became King makers, and King disposers.

To keep this immense power the Brahmins set up an elaborate social system, which is unique in history. They divided the subjects into four categories. At the top they of course put themselves. Next came Kings, and warriors. After them, and well downward in importance were the farmers, merchants, and tradesman. Below them, and last, were the laborers.

Below these four divisions was a group, which was left completely outside of society, slaves, scavengers, and workers in "unclean" professions, etc. These were called the untouchables.


* * *

For the person who really understands, the choice between free will and determinism is resolved. He realizes that for the ordinary person, when he thinks he is acting freely, his actions are determined by causes which are obscure to him, because he is not aware of them: in other words, when he thinks he is acting he is merely re-acting to exterior contacts. As long as there is an individual I, the phrase free will is a contradiction in terms, for will can never be free, being simply another word for volition, or desire, which is always based on an idea. The point is that as long as the decision is based on an idea, then the action is bound to the past, and therefore determined. The illusion of choice occurred because we made the mistake of considering the mind, which looks upon these things as standing outside the process of cause and effect. In actual fact, the mind is memory at any level, and as such entirely a product of the past, of conditioning. . .and therefore wholly determined.

People who do not understand this issue often mistake this idea for fatalism. But it should be clear from the foregoing that what has been described is the very opposite of fatalism.

-Robert Powell


* * *

The Brahmin controlled these five groups ruthlessly, and you could not move upward in the status of your caste. But you could fall downwards if you failed to obey specific rules.

Interestingly enough, Mahatma Gandhi renamed the untouchables The people of God. . .as he was one of the few who actually saw things right side up.

There are resemblances to this is Plato's awful "Republic", but that, fortunately, remained imaginary. For the Indians it was, and to some degree still is, very-very real. The authors of the Upanishads came from all castes, and universally considered the caste system itself to be absolute nonsense.

The Brahmins went after anyone that threatened the idea of their theocratic State with a pathological ferocity. And like all fundamentalists, they remained repressed, and intensely fearful of all things feminine. And of women in general. The "Laws of Manu" point to women as the root of all evil. No matter what the status of her husband was, women always remained at the lowest level of the four castes. Killing a member of a lower caste was a light crime. Killing a woman was no more serious. Legally it amounted to the same fine that being intoxicated in public would get you.


"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."
- Pat Robertson, fundraising letter, 1992

Many of the dialogues, teachers, pupils, and heros of the Upanishads were women. In fact, often times the writing takes the form of a reclusive sage speaking to a female friend who has followed him into the wilderness.

The authors of the Upanishads were real rebels, with a capitol R. And their ideas are so revolutionary that they can still make people incredibly uncomfortable, even to this day.


They were preceded by another group of rebels that paved the way for their work. And these rebels were called the "Nastikas".

Brihaspati was one such man. He lived aprox 500bc and we don't know much about him as his works were burned. However he was so irritating to the orthodoxy that they could not help but attempt to refute him, and in doing so they found it required to quote him. And it is from these fragments that we get an idea as to what he taught. He called the Vedas "claptrap", cooked up by a bunch of rogues. He described the Brahmin as lazy, and soft bellied. He was astonished that a people could be stupid as to have their lives regulated by a book of 'verses' (the Vedas).

The Brahmin replied that he was obviously the work of the Devil.


* * *

"She's a damn lesbian. I am not going to put a lesbian in a position like that. If you want to call me a bigot, fine."
- Senator Jesse Helms, explaining why he was opposing the appointment of a woman for a cabinet post.

"The notion of choicelessness is deeply upsetting to most people. It suggests that I'm nothing but a kind of robot. But when all sense of separation becomes transparent, there is nobody left to be a robot, or to care about being a robot. There is simply what is. Action can happen freely, without being bogged down in any kind of conceptual mirage. Truth can't be put into words.

Concepts can never catch the paradoxical Aliveness of the mystery.

They can only point to it.

- Joan Tollifson

* * *

Another critic was Charvaka, who maintained the same idea that the Scottish philosopher Hume did Centuries later. . . For Hume this was more of a philosophical musing, but for Charvaka it was ammunition against the idea that the Brahmin held some special power, which allowed them to control future outcomes.

The Brahmin said that a man should look upon touching a woman as though he were touching vermin. Charvaka said this was backwards, the "vermin" he said, were the priests themselves.


And women were sacred.

The abstinent run away from what they desire
But carry their desires with them:
When a man enters Reality,
He leaves his desires behind him.
- The Gita

Brihaspati, Charvaka and others could rightfully be called skeptics, agnostics, or even atheists, in ever sense of that word. And they started to gather a great following. But when the people asked them for advice on how to live, their answer was more or less eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you will die. And there is nothing beyond that.

And although that seems sensible at first, it has never served. It always leaves a feeling that the issue has somehow been dodged. There is something more then hedonism.

So they summed it up as this: The priests are preposterous, religion is nonsense, and obedience to these laws is foolishness. Yet still, there is something to be discovered.

And this is what the sages of the Upanishads set out to do.


"What I see now is that no one has any special authority to teach. It's made up. The Pope, the Zen roshi, the pastor, the abbot, the rabbi, the guru, the wizard behind the curtain, the doctrines, the lineages, the cosmologies. . . .it is all made up. Jesus and Buddha weren't sanctioned by anyone. They spoke from their own experience, from the heart. They weren't in anybodys lineage.

I'm not opposed to religious systems for those who want and enjoy them. But what has most deeply interested and drawn me is the Truth, the bare Truth. And that's simply what is. . .presence itself. . .the Aliveness here and now.

- Joan Tollifson

* * *

I do feel it is really valuable to know what mood the authors of the Upanishads were in when they set out, because I think it was very much like our own. They too where skeptics, and they did not believe in the way of life set up by the priests that came before them, or the ruling class which created the rules for the Social game. They wanted something more, something real.

The Brahmins who arranged everything fixed the stages of a mans life into phases. The first was that of a schoolboy. . .learn the rules, obey the rules, memorize things, and repeat them back. . . .it was here that he learned from the Vedas, and was taught scripture. This stage lasted 12 Years. Then came the stage of a householder, a married man, and a father. Obeying the rules laid down by the education, being a good citizen, and paying the Brahmin. When he became a grandfather he was ready for the third stage. . .retirement. This stage in mans life was called the staging place, or Ashram, and it was more or less a retirement community.


"If the protests of children were heard in kindergarten, if their questions were attended to, it would be enough to explode the entire educational system."
-Gilles Deleuze

Finally, for those who reached a ripe, old age, came the fourth stage. In this stage the old man gave up all his worldly possessions, took up a robe and a staff, and lived the remaining Years as a holy mendicant.

We still hold to three out of the four stages, even in the West.

The Sages of Upanishads turned this whole program upside down.
They didn't wait until they were old men. They retired NOW. And instead of memorizing scriptures, they looked inside themselves for answers, and what came about as a result of that was revolutionary. . .to say the least.

I personally find it somewhat ironic that some of the greatest changes this culture ever confronted came as a result of men who tuned in, turned on, and dropped out of the system. . . .and not those who stayed with the usual "program".

I also find it somewhat telling.


"Children start to believe that brands communicate their personal qualities, for example that they're cool, or strong, or smart. . . .Upon arrival at the schoolhouse steps, the typical first grader can evoke 200 brands."
- Juliet Schor

* * *

I think all of us have at some point experienced some form of existential crisis. And if we haven't yet, then we most likely will in the future. The only people who seem to avoid this fate, are those who lead terribly shallow lives. And to my sense of reasoning that is clearly a fate worse then death itself.

Consider this scenario. . .a girl is born. . .her parents tell her what is expected of her, her schooling, society, and culture does the same. She will have whole sets of ideas dropped into her head, and this education will serve as the programming she uses to evaluate potential success, failure, and meaning. As she ages she begins to dress, talk and arrange herself in such a way as to attract a lover. She may marry and have children. Accumulate, and lose, friends. Pass through various hobbies and interests, and eventually have her kids move out into their own life. . . . .her kids grown up, her husband losing his figure, and hairline, she decides to take a vacation. . . . . .

One evening she finds herself starring up at the nights sky and she realizes that she has never actually led a life of her own. Schoolteachers, parents, father, lovers, husbands, kids, they all ran her life for her. . . . and then she meets another person who specializes in understanding people who approach these topics. . .and they offer the usual advise. . . . .'To thine own self be true'. . . the immortal words of Shakespeare. . .she realizes she cannot be true to herself because, as she has now come to see, she really has no idea who her own-self actually is?


Who am I? How did I come here? Where am I going?

By concentrating on the first question the authors of the Upanishads realized they answered the rest.

This starts the whole affair, and the Upanishads call this the razors edge . . .a state of affairs were every step needs to be taken carefully, as the path is as narrow and slippery as a razors edge.

"The real job of any teacher is to make themselves irrelevant."
- Nirmala

A simple model for this offered by the author Aubrey Menan is as follows:

Imagine you are in a theater. You are on a stage, and you are the principle actor. There are others in the plot, but you take notice of them only when they come in on cue.

This is what most people would consider "normal".

After some time you may grow tired of playing the same role. This is the same as when an actor gets tired of playing the same part, no matter how successful, for too long a period of time.

And reality tells us that you may go over a scene over and over until you become completely bored with it. And this is good.

So you call your understudy, and step down into the auditorium to watch them play the role. They are so good that they might be yourself; but you are now in the stalls.


As you watch yourself from this perspective you grow somewhat detached. You may leap out of your seat in disgust, or anger, or delight at yourself. And for a time their may be considerable entertainment in this for you. You realize that in addition to being the principle actor, and the audience, you are also the playwright. It is, after all, your life you are observing.

Or are you the playwright?


The more and more you observe clearly, the more you recognize the reality that it is the other characters building the plot, dictating your movements as you are not acting, but re-acting. The lines are there to speak, but you recognize they are not yours.

We sit absorbed. . . . .the plot is more ingenious. . .all those people, relatives, friends, enemies, instructors, priests, politicians, conspiring so cleverly to make something you have thoughtlessly called "ME" for so long.

"Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer thereof"
- The Buddha

It was a blank screen. . . .as the Years from infancy, childhood, and youth pass, innumerable people scribble on it, some writing names, slogans, advertisements, dogma, and manifestos. Others write abuse, slander, or insults. In the end, the blank white screen is covered in a mass of graffiti. . . one upon the other. . .scribbles on scribbles.

"Believe me, unless you change your whole outlook and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
- Jesus (Matthew 18:3)

The Sages of the Upanishads invite you to stand back and survey that wall. And if you actually do, then you can see how comic it is to observe some new person step up to it with the desire to leave his mark upon the others. What to do, what to think, who to make love to, who to like, who to hate, who to help, who to harm, the moralists, the politicians, the comics, the priests. . .it's all the same.

The authors of the Upanishads regarded them all with a smile, and they taught their disciples to do the same.

Awareness has no agenda. . . .

Now we might think that the answer is to wash this blank screen clean. . .but the sages were not naive in that sense. They say it cannot be done. It is a key point to understand, and understanding it is what allows one to discern the true from the false.

The Brahmins said that of course you could wash the screen clean. . .in a limited way. . .all you need is faith, belief, ideas, enough "will", or just the right spells. . . . .and should you be willing to pay them, they will gladly offer to help relieve you of such a burden. And these hucksters are still with us today in the form of modern self-help Gurus, charlatans, and pop psychology advocates.


The sages of the Upanishads dismissed this view as priestly trickery. Instead they substituted a doctrine of their own. It was profoundly original; it has no parallel anywhere else in the history of thought, and it was the heart of their teaching.

There is no reaching the Self. If the Self were to be reached, it would mean that the Self is not here and now, but that it has yet to be obtained. What is got afresh will also be lost. . . . You are the Self: you are already That.

- Ramana Maharshi


When we have taken the time to examine the stages of our lives. . .none of them can we call our own true selves.

The sages used the example of an onion. The various stages of our lives are the leaves, and since we are looking for our true selves we must peel them away one by one, in order to observe for ourselves what is inside. When you do this with a real onion you will be left with one single leaf left between your fingers. And the realization occurs that this too must be thrown away. Then. . . . you have nothing at all.

Excellent the Sages say, that is the answer.

And this answer has dismayed and repelled people for well over 2500 Years.

Some people puzzle over it, return to it, and finally understand it. But they have always been the minority, and that has been predicted as well.

From the mundane level of hedonists we step onto a platform of thin air.

I recognize that for people born in the west, and fixed with the accessory of this programming, an escape seems to be implied. And at first sight, that seems like what is being offered.

But that is backward, and upside down.

It does not bear examination.

The sages of the Upanishads have a message that is extremely alarming. So much so that great efforts have been made over the centuries to camouflage what they were actually saying.

In the classical age of Greece, the philosopher Democritus, merely by thinking about it, decided the world was made of atoms. This theory was considered extremely far fetched at the time. With the fall of Greece and its successor, Rome, it was replaced, after a long interval, by the theory that the universe was the creation of a beneficent God the father.

There were some doubters who considered this theory of the universe even more far fetched, but the Church burned a few of these trouble makers, and things settled down quite a bit. The Swamis and gurus, woops I mean Popes and priests, came up with the idea that the only way to understand this theory was to swallow it hook line and sinker. . .and they called it faith.

But that was what was actually backwards.


Just as Democritus, by thinking, discovered the atom, so the sages of the Upanishads discovered that picture of the self, which I have just described. It was a fact of their own experience. When they stripped away their worldly personalities and entered that natural state of consciousness, or Self, they discovered that had a sense of identity with everything around them. And they found that difficult to describe. Not this, they say repeatedly.

THIS they explained is THAT.

Or otherwise stated, I AM THAT I AM.

"In Him we live and move and have our being."
- Acts 17:28

The Catholic Church, and many other ill informed entities, will often label this idea as 'pantheism'. However, people who have thought deeply about these matters, the saints, sages, and Buddhas, have always viewed pantheists as off the mark.

As an example St Francis of Assisi had a genuine love for the beautiful things of creation. But when he sang about the sun and the moon, he did not call them "God". He called them his brother and his sister.

Like most philosophers, the Upanishadic sages dismissed pantheism. They saw it as a return to the old Vedic worship of the powers of nature. They took the word 'Brahma', and gave it an entirely new meaning. They argue that since, in the ultimate analysis, you could not distinguish your real self from the rest of Creation, then you were that Creation. You, as they put it, were Brahma.

They would have nothing to do with 'twos'. . .you and God. . .you and nature. . .you and Brahma. . .there is only one single thing at the end of it all. . . . ."I"


I IS what IS.

It is a simple doctrine and it was that simplicity that caused many of the issues. No sooner had it spread among the intelligent than a series of attempts were made to explain it away. Some of these attempts were dishonest. And sincere people, some with powerful intellects, who saw the potential consequences of the Upanishadic teaching, made some. And they could not believe that the sages could be so bold, so rash, and so potentially destructive. The possible dangers of this doctrine to those who believe in law, order, morality, and taking serious things seriously, are plain.

By the times the pandits (scholars) began putting the Vedas into Sanskrit, the texts had acquired all sorts of appendices. Among these were the Upanishads. Of which there are over a hundred.

And they are all available to you now.



If we think that emptiness means things cannot function, then, with an improper understanding of the view of emptiness, one will have fallen into nihilism. So, because one has failed to reconcile emptiness and the fact that things work, this view is incorrect. That is why it is said that the meaning of emptiness is to be understood in terms of Dependent arising.

It is necessary to come to an understanding of emptiness by eliminating the two extremes of eternalism and nihilism, and there are two separate means to do this. The extreme of eternalism, the misapprehended self, is eliminated by reasoning. And it is chiefly one's own experience which eliminates the extreme of nihilism. So when we are about to meditate on emptiness, be prepared to pinch your hand. If when you think you have understood emptiness, you come to believe nothing exists, then give yourself a good pinch. It will be that experience which will eliminate the nihilistic view.

- The Dalai Lama


Question: How can the world be an imagination or a thought? Thought is a function of the mind. The mind is located in the brain. The brain is within the skull of a human being, who is only an infinitesimal part of the universe. How then can the universe be contained in the cells of the brain?

Ramana: So long as the mind is considered to be an entity of the kind described, the doubt will persist.

But what is mind? Let us consider.

The world is seen when the man wakes up from sleep. It comes after the "I" thought. The head rises up. So the mind has become active.

What is the world?

It is the objects spread out in space. Who comprehends it? The mind.

Is not the mind, which comprehends space itself space?


So that's the story. . .and with that I will leave this keyboard, and head out into some sunshine, surf, and travel to Ancient lands. And remember, these are just ideas. Don't let them scare you.

Enjoy the Summer.

"I and this mystery here we stand."
-Walt Whitman