Knowledge & Individuality- 26th January 2008

In catacombs of florid decay,

Where the dust of the ages,

Has now blown away;

Through caverns and channels,

And hallways of old,

Spiraling upward and onward,

And leading to God;

From the times that there were,

To the life that is now,

From the puke of the past,

And the suckling anew;

Groping through chapters -

Heaving in, out and through,

With a dilemma's mobility,

From breast unto death,

Into flight, 

Into life,

Through channels slight,

Yet defined;

There is but one hunger,

And one determination.

Knowledge comes to us in parcels, and not in wafers, as is commonly thought. We rarely think in logical progression to obtain an idea, because there is no logic in itself that can get further than itself. One needs the entire package beforehand, in order to grasp and grapple with the new.

Equally we do not ever arrive at a concept or an idea all by ourselves. Independent thinking simply does not exist - nor does original thinking. 

Thoughts are exterior to a man and preexist the experience of being 'thought' - added to which, it is impossible to contemplate something unknown and unrecognized. We find the thought and then see it for what it is. Searching of course, often requires a sequence or formula, but the actual finding and assimilation is something else.

Individuality is a misleading term - it is accurate in relation to their being separate units, however the units themselves are not entirely unique, they are just with difference and all quite interconnected apart from those differentiating differences. Individuality implies a grander, vaster identity and often becomes a badge of honor, when in fact there is little there at all that is markedly unique.

Music & Thinking- 22nd December 2007

IF we come to think of jazz we can find a certain anarchy. In very slow music there can be a sadness, or even the deathliness of a dirge. If the tempo is fast, then the effect upon us and within us can inspire a rapidity also.

If the chords are discordant or the beat light and flippant, playfulness and joviality spring to mind. With loudness, softness, cymbal crashing, bell tinkling, wire pulling, harmonic lilting - each and all refrains bring to our minds and our senses, a meaning of sorts which is universally shared.

More than this alone we can add, that the above notes relating to the characteristics of music and to that which is inspired thereby, are key to certain thinking patterns within us all. In point of fact, the two perfectly translate.

If you could hear a man's thinking, you could hear the very type of rhythm and intermittent loudness of it also. The very music that it commands, and that you could quite perceptibly discern - if it be jazz or a concerto, thumping rock and rolling thought, or the notes of a lullaby... that this concordance of the two is not just in allegory but in actuality.

Further to this, the playing of music, the hearing of music, can change the rhythms in the thinking of the listeners and is almost automatic for most.

If a man has a favorite tune that he hums or sings to himself it can often be as a means to getting his thinking back into a desirable and definite speed/tempo that he is used to working with - regaining his equilibrium when perhaps another has invaded his attention.

For some, music itself can introduce an order into their thinking, that otherwise would not be self-sorted within.

The frantic thinker, the chaotic thinker, who is a tune just gone crazy - too fast and too discordant - can find a reprieve from their own rhythms by the playing of even just a simple tune that is contained with a gentle beat and pleasant chord.

When groups of folksingers or chanters get together, it brings their minds also together into a frame that is desired, receptive to the whole. Hymns and chants have this express purpose. They are performed to set the mind at a particular rhythm - not to merely be romantically inspirational, they are eminently practical.

You can really best understand the character of a man by the music he best chooses for himself.

Folk who cannot enjoy music at all, who do not wish it to be even in the background around them, who cannot hear it, but hear only the one rhythm of their own thinking, tend to be exceptionally fixed in their thinking and have lost a valuable tool of change when it is most needed for them.

When young girls fall in love with musicians it can easily be because they have entertained that person's music so much as to set their thinking so, and thereby they can feel a kinship believing that this person in turn understands and knows them well.

The musicians themselves can often sense the thinking of a crowd, becoming in sync with their performance, and it can lead to an indulgent desire to control the responses in the people around them overall. There can be a sinister pleasure in taking over an audience, so to speak.

If you are preparing to study you can experiment with hearing different types of music just beforehand, and determine which of the pieces has most helped your mind be in character with the work you are mulling.

You can be aware of the music that is around you, and if you feel instinctively that some is disturbing, by recognizing that it can have a real effect upon you, you can decide whether or not to remove yourself or use some ear plugs (or another player of music) to avoid the piece that is so disrupting to your mind.

The forming of thinking patterns and subsequent behavior in a small child and beyond becomes a huge consideration here. The best education for a small child is one of music. If you wish for that child to learn well, comprehensively with an inquiring intellect, then the right music will be succinct to their achievements.

They do not have to play the music themselves to benefit. In point of fact it can be a hindrance to solely provide your own playing because the learner's tempo will inevitably stagger. Regardless of the learning of an instrument, it is extremely beneficial to have played the music during the day at various times, and that it be both organized and playful, all at once.

Subliminal messages hidden beneath calming contemplative music are effective and suggestive because of the music itself. Whether hearing the words or not consciously does not make a real difference, but rather the speed and tone of the music itself.

In this way also the singing of the Mass has a completely different outcome to that which goes unsung.

All Weathers- 1st December 2007

IF you stood outside and the breeze brushed past you, and you felt on your face the swipe of its presence, you might not think anything of it or consciously realize its touch. But if you were inside your house for example, and the breeze breathed on you, it would be unsettling to feel it there.

If you stood outside and admired the morning sunrise - in blooms of crimson and golds shot into a many hued blue - you might think it pretty; and the majesty might inspire you. But if you were in your bed and the event, color and light of the sunrise was in your own bedroom to awaken you, you might become startled.

If you stood outside and it began to rain, you would think to yourself that the clouds were breaking up, and their drops were falling to earth. But if the rain came down upon you within your home, and no roof would save you from it, you might feel horribly exposed.

So when we are usually under a roof within our house, there is no sudden storm, bright light, or wind that afflicts us - we feel less distracted and more contained.

The walls of any house, even that of a palace, are not so big when compared to the vault of the sky, or the breadth of the wind or the reach of the light. The walls of a house do not need to be equal in might or strength or reach, to exclude them from our sensibility under normal conditions. Of course it goes without saying that extreme fire or storm could take down a wall.

But whilst the walls and roof are there, they are blocking the immediate weathers without. And you are free to venture outdoors and back in again as you wish. You might say "Oh now it is sunny and I will go out" or when it is rainy you might just go in - day time out, night time in, and so forth.

As a human being with thoughts and desires, with selfhood and building selfhood, within choosing and experience, within both our egoic life and soul as well, within all that comprises us and that which protects us, there is the same process as described above - of the house and the shelter from the weather.

In our being, in our egos, in our selfhood, in our souls and in our Spirit, we are sheltered and protected from the massive and mighty influences without our beings. They are there as a body of many forces, countless individual rays, infinite streams of consciousness, lights of magnificent and awesome power; with majesty, multitude and might, they are there - just outside our little doors, outside our small but sturdy house.

And were it not for this what would stop one from dissolving into another?- if not for the perimeters of being, that not only define that being, but arrest all others at their own periphery.

Interestingly 'love' in both effect and causality does not change these peripheries. It can move in and out with a free license, but it never weakens the being or definition of another. Dissolution of self is not love - in relation to divinity or another being or to the Cosmos in general - because it is just dissolution.

Day by day we all do one of two things: we either strengthen our general beings or we weaken them. It is clearly one or the other.

There are certain thoughts and behaviors that can affect the strength of the 'walls' of our own house, so to speak. And there are those that reinforce them and make them stronger.

It is a little like the story of the three little pigs - only that the wolf character in the story is that within ourselves which simply derides the good work and standing that we have.

It is the selfish and the liars that are the true homeless of this world, for they have no quiet and protected place in self to go to. 

With a lie or a selfish act we have literally blown our own walls down - and what does it mean, to have this exposure? Too hot, too cold, too changeable. They become like the influences that they perceive now too readily amongst their disquiet.

If you have not the quiet home of self, the peace is disturbed as well, and making the right decisions becomes almost impossible. The world is perceived as harsh and unkind, the elements are difficult to bear; and either the man quickly changes his ways and becomes more self contained into proper behavior and thought, or he gets worse.

To be too hot, for example, is where the passions are inflamed and stimulation becomes the theme of his being. Over excited, overly sexual, overly aggressive, these can be symptoms of over exposure. It can be over activity of any kind where excitement is a constant invigoration. And terribly, it is not just metaphorically that this is implied. It can also be a symptom of literally being outdoors to excess.

When this occurs a good man will not become an immoral man, but he can still be influenced by being too hot, too cold or too changeable. Equally also, is an overexposure to the night and its forces - something to be considered. 

You can see from this why hats and coats are of such importance to try to minimize the infiltration of the outer influences when being outdoors. This is not to say that there is ever a problem with a small part of the day, every day, being outside, or even at night, but if it were to be all day, day after day, the effect does become dramatic in overwhelming influence.

There are animals and insects that live in homes - dens, holes with doors, dams etc., and they are more considered than the ones that live and sleep outdoors. The domestic dog that lives indoors will be less aggressive and more placid than the one that sleeps outdoors. A key to taming horses is to sleep them in a stable. 

Merely confining an immoral man will not however change his nature into a peaceful one. And confining without the light, the wind or the water of the rain (as in Kaspar Hauser) bred a nature that was very fixed and without passion (he was not cold, either, to things, ever). But he had no tolerance of those things within and without at first. Putting his name into the grass was to say "Here is Kaspar now outdoors", and slowly he began to experience those forces.

Plants grown in houses will have different natures to those that take in the sun directly etc. Narcotic plants grown indoors cause (when ingested), severe and damaging introspection - moreso than those grown within the blessing of the light and the water. 

Vegetables grown under the mantle of the earth [underground] provoke more thoughtfulness in a man because once again, they have been contained and are more introspective in themselves. They are as an organized force within themselves, stable and focused, and their nutrition promotes the same.

Outdoor plants and fruits can bring into us properties of the sun however, quite safely, and more resonantly than we can even achieve for ourselves at times. An ill person confined to indoors at all times, needs the sun forces that he cannot take in for himself ordinarily.

An indoor plant will be more conscious in this world than an outdoor plant. 

Hives contain very organized and focused insects that usually display great cooperation.

Living in Grace- 31st October 2007

IT was not merely a turn of phrase to say that Christ came to save us all - with an emphasis on save and an emphasis on all.

Every morning the birds are excited to see the Sunrise. It is as though they simply had not really been expecting it. If you listen to their chatter you cannot miss the excitement and cheer in the revelry of this morning event. It is not just a celebration but the celebration. Even if you cannot hear all of it or speak the bird's language, you can hear their intensity and fervent joy when first light begins to brighten.

Birds have a very good memory. One should wonder why it is that the event of the Sunrise has not been predicted by them and therefore an experience like any other. You do not hear such excitement from them when it is exceedingly sunny, or rainy, or windy. No, this happy chatter is at the Sun's dawning - and if you listen hard you will find, that they are surprised if anything, that the new day has come.

Of course it is one thing to have memory and another to have expectation because of it. Birds do have the faculty of expectation and assumption, but it is not upon them when it comes to taking the rising of the Sun for granted.

And it is that they have very long memories indeed - their collective memory goes back to a time when the Sun was in darkness for three days long. And it was so dark and so grim that it might not have ever come back. This is something they relive nightly.

The soul of the World had become very tired at the time of Christ's Incarnation. The whole project and plan was beginning to fall away. From Heaven's perspective it was a matter of the sickness of Sin being so strong upon Man that the only healthy thing to do was to shut it all down. Not so much a judgment for the sake of disciplining the corruption, but more for the caring of the souls being fouled and marred a'further.

Outcomes could have been very different, and the Sun's rays may not have been felt upon our Earth, but rather a void of perpetual dimness could have seen out the final dying days.

The birds do not exactly think in this way - they simply marvel that the light is returning. There is a true relief and talk about this occasion; for what we take for granted, they do not.

Angels perform routine tasks so well, but their expectations are not pre-considered. There is the anomaly. Men may be habitual in minor ways, but not with the exactness an Angel will have; not even close. They are somewhat haphazard, unpredictable and of course, can be imaginatively creative. Yet the man fundamentally has expectations which are reoccurring, and his core behaviors come from that. 

Angels are very good at expecting the unexpected. In the ever changing Spiritual Worlds you need to understand fluid change in order to navigate what is around you. Whilst they are set to a particular and adherent to the rhythm of the particular, they are also 'aware' in ways that we have not come to, in the mindset of Humanity. An Angel can be on the ready for an event - say an accident for example - because they are not in the routine mind, but outside of it.

We as men simply do not see things coming and it is a shock when change of any kind occurs. We may adapt but it takes time. We may be able to be creative and new, but not really equipped to use it. We may believe that we are more self conscious than any other being in the Universe, but this is because we are routinely thinking and not realizing that which is beyond our immediate knowledge.

So if one is to commute and commune with the angelic beings around them, it can be that this principle of change is gifted to our understanding - at least a degree of it.

One of the keys to being in sync with the day, and placing your being and consciousness within a perfect time throughout the day, is also in this understanding of being prepared for the unexpected. How can one live in the present moment, if they are living also in expectation of the ones to come?

How can you hear what another man is saying, if you are preempting his words or even thoughts before he has given them? And also, can we ourselves function at best, if we are but living the day before, rather than the one before us now? It is from the Angelic realm that we can learn the beginnings of fearlessness in the present moment, and change. And from there we can appreciate the elements of that which does change around us, and begin to see the merit of it where it lies.

This is not to say that we are to go against our own nature. Our own nature lives for the main part in the Spiritual Realms, and although it is not developed at present in perceiving or expecting change, it is still something intrinsic to our own beings, as much as it is to the friends that we have that live the consciousness well.

Not all beings-without-bodies (as in fleshly bodies) are adept at considering change. The elemental world - gnomes for example - do not like change and are ill prepared for it. In this Mankind is more like the Gnome than the Angel at present! At the far end of the extreme, you will find that demonic beings who create much havoc where they can, are completely resistant to change and therein lies their problem and incompatibility with the rest of the score.

Evil likes to force its own measure and uniformity because it itself cannot adapt. Evil by its own nature becomes but a shrinking consciousness that eventually expires on its own.

At the Sunrise it is the best of times to contemplate new possibilities, change and readiness. We hear you comment that they are all different each morning - some vivid, some pale, some grey, some astounding - and this comment about the Sunrise itself being different really echoes the false notion that the Sunrise itself should ever be the same, or a repeat of another.

It is good to be able to reasonably predict certain events of course - but only as a tool, and not a compass to the mind itself. Good thinking requires more than the learning of habitual repetition. Good thinking is alive to the moment, and without the fear of the unknown. And it will come, it will come.