Shouts out to Bill Griffith for many years of such copyrighted comic art.

More shouts out to Bill Griffith for many years of such copyrighted comic art.

Here, we're limning meaning with shades of feeling, drawing our color from the boiling, roiling cauldron of random cultural input, hoping thereby, as the Z-Man and Mr. Griff teach us, to forge new paradigms through the juxtaposition of seemingly irreconcilable elements.

Anyway.

Mr. Manson said:

"So, actually, bad experiences are really good experiences sometimes. You learn things from bad experiences [...] Imagine the Crucifixion. Be willing to go that far with life. And that's the best, the peak of, that's how you get in touch with God, that's how you become God, because your pain just opens up all the senses of your body to complete ecstasy [...] The best experience I ever had was when my head was on fire. You think that would be the worst, but actually it just turned me on, just turned me completely on."

And I think of George Gurdjieff, the heart of whose method for spiritual growth -- "crystallizing" the personality in a proper direction for yet further, yet higher attainments to come -- was conscious labor and voluntary suffering.

Remember that: the heart of his teaching was for his students to undertake voluntary sufferings of all kinds, and always to do it with full consciousness, bodily, emotional, and mental, always remembering it is done for the nurturing of the nascent soul.

As he said to a student who he'd made cry with an honest assessment of her state of development, "I wish you be not like merde. So first I make you feel like merde. Only from there can one begin."

He continues:

"After roses, roses come thorns. Only then with thorns can man have possibility for happiness. After thorns comes the branching of the river, the two rivers. If not get on river which continues, you go on other, which goes down, down -- and into the watercloset, moreover public watercloset."

Which is to say, those who wish to forswear the "worldly" way of life, which is like a river flowing into a wasteland, and to follow a "religious" path, which is like a river flowing into the sea, must live a life of constant conscience and consciousness.

The fruit of this ceaseless vigilance and the taking up of one's cross, so to speak, is thorns in the inner world.

But, again, as Gurdjieff said: “With thorns in the inner world there will always be roses in the outer world, in law-able compensation.”

Did I just contradict myself?

I don't think so.

Elsewhere -- I can't seem to find the full quotation at the moment, unfortunately -- Gurdjieff said further that, you've really gotten somewhere in your training when it's thorns, thorns in BOTH your outer and your inner world.

That's what I'm talking about.

And, I think of Qigong Master Jim Nance, who said something to the effect that, If you really want time to slow down, try a long meditation sitting in full lotus; then, every second seems to last a lifetime.

So.

What I'm saying is, as always, I've been following my heart, it's been thorns, thorns, the clock seems to have stopped in my own personal Groundhog Day, but -- cold, wet, lost, and pricked as I am by many barbs... I wouldn't have it any other way.

I lie down grateful every night, and wake up happy every morning.

When I ride my bicycle on a beautiful fall afternoon, listening to the rustling of dry leaves, breathing the crisp air, soaking the sun deeply into my eyes, moving as one with the bike beneath me -- I don't know how to describe the feeling, but the image or phrase comes to me that -- I feel like a king.

My question for you, and for me, is -- if it's thorns, thorns both inside and outside -- where, then, do the roses blossom?

...

...

...

All that is to say, too, that -- while perhaps I haven't been writing much, or writing here, I haven't been totally silent.

I started browsing some web-forums -- you name the topic, and they've got a million people, or bots, online chatting about it.

Honestly, there's a lot of ... vile, borderline psychopathic energy to be found in those fora, but -- also, occasionally, some really thoughtful, beautiful expressions of people's inner worlds.

I thought I'd share a couple of my responses to people's thoughts -- mostly, in the context of discussions of Tolkien's writing. I figured -- they may be of use to someone, or at least enjoyable to read.

I'll add some explanation as we proceed.

12 October 2022

Someone posted a question about the character Tom Bombadil from Lord of the Rings.

He seemed young and earnest, intelligent, but -- a bit stuck in his head.

I don't know if I should post his writing here without permission, so, in summary...

There's a scene where Tom's piercing insight turns to an uneasy Frodo. He asks him, "Who are you, yourself, alone and nameless?"

The person posing the question went off on a philosophical digression to the tune of, "Well, one answer is that you're mere matter, the sum of your composite elements. But then, we know their atoms are mostly empty space, so -- what does that mean?"

Then he concludes: "Well, if we're nothing but empty space with floating consciousness in it, the only thing we can grab onto is our NAME. So, we're our name. I mean, we might be our soul, but we can never know that, can we?"

He seemed to preclude the possibility of ever really "knowing" ourselves any deeper.

To that someone replied, "Well, you can take things like LSD, peyote, ayahuasca, etc. and experience the silence of your inner voice and ego death. In that state, with no thoughts or content in the mind, you see you are that ever-present awareness."

I kind of took both writers as one person in my reply, and below is what I wrote.

(First, to Mr. You Might Could Take Drugs to Know)

Yeah, I hear you.

As Gurdjieff would say, those substances can temporarily "open a window" that one can later, and more permanently, open by means of "conscious labor and voluntary suffering."

Tom Bombadil always struck me as "enlightened" -- pure awareness with no desire -- delighting in what is with no thought of yesterday or tomorrow.

In that sense, he has resonance with Ramana Maharshi for me -- the silent sage whose method of "enlightenment" was unremitting self-inquiry -- keep turning the attention inward, asking "Who am I," rejecting by understanding all answers until only quiescence remains.

(To which he replied something like, "Yeah, later in the process it's possible to reach an approximate state of self-awareness via meditation, but you can never completely disconnect from the body." So, I wrote what's below.)

Are you sure? ;)

I wonder if, maybe, we've trodden some of the same paths!

The thing is... what do these words "mean"? Meditation, self-awareness? Maybe we each mean something different.

I was thinking about this thread a little while I ran some errands, and this came to mind, even if it's a bit off the path.

I saw mention of "ego-death" in this thread -- I was obsessed with that for a long time, not really understanding its meaning -- meaning, again.

Anyway, what I thought -- and have found the last few years...

Whereas before I thought "extraordinary means" were necessary to "kill the ego," that whole approach reeks of violence, and if you attempt it with plant- or fungus-technology, unfortunately, you're probably gonna get bedazzled and confused and more deeply entwined in illusion.

Wanna see giant egos? Spend some time in the psychedelic community.

Coincidentally, I was thinking the other day about a girl I dated, who introduced me to the "scene" years and years ago.

At that time, I was reading how psychedelics were "enlightening"; yet, everyone I met who did a lot of them was -- and I don't mean this with hate -- a wasteoid or shithead! I had trouble reconciling those two impressions, and never really could till I was a bit wiser in the ways of the world.

Meaning, later, I realized -- well, there's a lot of social engineering at play with that "scene," and its grand import is: not benevolent.

Whereas, when I started a daily Qigong practice (with a focus on healing) and then worked at a healing center with real healers for several years, I realized -- if you want to diminish your ego and really grow inwardly, focus on service to others.

There's some real conscious labor and voluntary suffering -- pledge, say, for 30 days to be unconditionally kind, unconditionally forgiving, and unconditionally loving to every person and every situation you encounter; watch every thought, feeling, and sensation like a gardener, trying always to uproot everything that is unkind and ungracious and unloving. Just as an experiment.

That will take you way, WAY deeper and further along your spiritual path than any plant, and everything you "gain" along that way will always be yours, while what the plants teach you... tends to slip through your fingers.

Much easier said than done, but -- it gets easier with practice, and it becomes like breathing -- half-unconscious most of the time.

This, too, seems to me in harmony with the Tolkien-universe: the way of the Good is self-sacrifice, self-restraint, and devotion to a higher ideal.

By making the "magnetic center" of your focus something high and pure, your lower nature is drawn up, purified, and sanctified in the process.

Make the magnetic center something lower, and your entire nature is debased, muddied, and thrown into chaos. Witness Melkor, whose fall began with "I will"; better would have been, "Thy will be done."

(I thought a while, then wrote the following in reply to the original post.)

And, you know, as a last side-thought, since I've written too much already...

Now that I've read your post more fully and more slowly, I guess all I'd add as an "old man," is -- how do you know it's not within your ability to fully know yourself?

And -- are you sure you're your name? I'm not sure.

Returning to what I wrote below, I guess I'd say -- for what it's worth -- if you make the focus of your life to be unconditionally kind, loving, and forgiving, trying to be of service to others, even if it's only in the sense of not being overtly destructive (if you can't be creative or constructive), little by little your sense of "you" and "yours," of your assertive, dominating will, gradually fades and recedes.

If you have a practice of Qi-cultivation, you can start to calm your emotions, thoughts, and body-sensations.

What is left?

Simple awareness, simple being, and out of that, an overflowing joy and love.

With that, there is endless play and creativity and delight, and, to my mind, that's what we "are" and "are here for" -- to delight in the experience we've been given.

Indeed, there's no end to the exploration, and one can only ever dive deeper; in that sense, one never "truly" knows who one is. But, again as Ramana Maharshi's "way of negation" shows by inference, thus saying what can't be said -- by seeing what you're not, you can see what you are.

I think Tom Bombadil expresses that very well, even if that's not how Tolkien would have said it.

And that's why Tom is the "master." It's not that he's a master of "things" -- he's master of his lower nature, desiring nothing, desiring to control nothing.

I think of Tao Te Ching; speaking of the sages, the enlightened:

"Not seeing themselves,

they are therefore clear.

Not asserting themselves,

they are therefore outstanding.

Not congratulating themselves,

they are therefore meritorious.

Not taking pride in themselves,

they last long.

It is just because they do not contend

that no one in the world can contend with them."

In another thread, someone wrote a... half-unreadable post about "the music of the Ainur," the creation-myth of Tolkien's legendarium, in which the demiurgic spirits that are the offspring of God's thoughts create the universe through song. Notably, the young man posting began by saying he'd recently begun feeling emotions again, continuing to say, with that, he felt the incredible power of music now, and could understand how it really could be the ultimate source of creation.

Based on the feeling the person's post gave me and reading into it a bit, I got the sense he had been abused somehow, was dissociated from himself, and was struggling to become whole again. I couldn't shake the impression his writing gave me -- of someone lost and vulnerable trying to find wholeness, -- so I thought I'd write something in reply.

As Bob Marley said, "One good thing about music -- when it hits, you feel no pain."

And as Funkadelic said, "You really shouldn't ought to fight it -- the music is designed to do no harm."

Of course, there's music and then there's music, just as there's food, and then there's food; in either case, you are what you eat!

Music is the art and science of manipulating vibration to shift energy -- in my view, and in the view of "higher" traditions of music that exist to this day.

In this sense, and for this reason, it's a divine art and science, the king of arts and sciences; it points, explicitly and implicitly, to an understanding of the universe, and creation, as a conscious act of creation as speech -- that is, of intentional vibration as an expression of the divine Self.

I do believe Tolkien understood this, as have all peoples of the world (though sometimes they forget it, or this is hidden from them); the understanding (and its expression in one formalized system or another) is universal, because it is an expression of universal Truth, of ultimate reality.

Again, there's music and then there's music.

Consciously or unconsciously, a musician expresses and creates a certain quality of vibration through his art -- not just through the notes and chords he plays (which correspond to, or reliably evoke, a specific emotion or shade of feeling), but through his spirit, his emotions, his intention, and his thoughts and themes.

So, a musician full of anger, hate, rage, lust, and greed, expressing themes of death, despair, destruction, and hopelessness, playing discordant notes in a loud, aggressive way on a distorted, electrified, metallic instrument with no natural components -- is creating a vibration that is poison for your mind, body, spirit, and emotions.

If you study the nature of emotions and energy in a practical way, you will see this is literal poison; this, too, sages of all cultures have understood.

Or, you can have a musician who, constantly refining his spirit, denying and transforming his "lower" nature (greed, lust, anger, hatred, despair) through devotion to God and Master and faithful study of an authentic musical tradition whose explicit and implicit purpose is to heal, edify, and to take both performer and listener deeper into himself and into communion with God through the evoking of sacred or "higher" feeling... this musician is creating a vibration, too, and its effect is much, much different from that of the other music.

You don't have to believe it -- you just have to experience it.

Sometimes you need to heal first, to be able to "hear" this music; other times, listening to this music itself heals you, to be able to "hear" it; often, both things are happening at the same time, while the more you listen, the more you heal.

I know this from experience.

Here are a few examples of that latter kind of music, all of which have helped me, and which I share with the hope they help you to heal even more. Healing begins with the heart. Evoking emotions can help, or it can hinder.

This music will not hurt you or take advantage of your mind or spirit, but you do need to let your guard down to let it help you, and it may have sour or bitter notes for you. Those are intentional -- let yourself feel how you feel and see where the music takes you. 

These masters speak to you in the language of feeling, so listen with your feelings. This kind of music uses what is bitter and sour to take you beyond bitterness and sourness.

If you can close your eyes, just relax, and let the music carry your mind and feelings in its flow -- that's best.

Something to set the mood...

Something to take you deeper...

And a series of improvised sketches in various shades of feeling to take you "there and back again"...