KARMA

If you have been clearing your In-tray, you are ready to take advantage of the New Project.  If you haven’t been clearing your In-tray, the New Project is waiting to take advantage of you!

New Project: KARMA 

(probably the most important project we have ever had...)

Project Comment:

If you have made good use of this project, you are in a position to take advantage of the follow-up project.
You can take advantage of the Causal aspect of Karma instead of being eternally (yes eternally) shunted along by the Effect aspect.

If you haven’t, if another project has just slid across the face of your computer, then you have slipped further back down the Snakes and Ladders board which is Life, through the intestines of another short snake.
The lower rows of the Snakes and Ladders board (from which you have emerged) are not places to linger in. They are generally engulfed in Thīna-Middha, Sloth and Torpor, and are very difficult to get out of.

If you make it a genuine new start, you get the best of the past as a bonus. A win/win opportunity.

New Project: EXEMPLARY BEHAVIOUR

WHAT IS CONSCIENCE? CONSCIENCE IS UNFINISHED BUSINESS

CONSCIENCE = UNFINISHED BUSINESS

PROJECT COMMENT

CONSCIENCE: Con = together, in common.  SCIENCE = knowing, knowledge. Therefore, Knowledge in Common, COMMON KNOWLEDGE. From deep down inside. Not superficial individual or group knowledge. Compare Common-sense.

Most knowledge is concerned with My/Our best interests. I /WE WANT IT.

Real COMMON KNOWLEDGE is concerned with RIGHT and WRONG.   IT’S NOT YOURS.

So where does the UNFINISHED BUSINESS come in?

KNOW is a SENSE. Just as SEE is a sense. Senses are activated when there is a relevant OBJECT.

What do you see? I see a tree. If there were no tree, you wouldn’t see it.

What do you know? What are you conscious of? Unfinished business. If there were no unfinished business, you wouldn't know/be conscious of it.

Unfinished business?

What you have started and not finished.

Uncompleted cycles.

What others have started, which it is your responsibility to finish.

Things you have done, which you shouldn’t have done (started), and not put right (finished).

Things you have not done, which you should have done and not put right (by doing them).

If you see a tree and close your eyes, you will say you don’t see it. But don’t say it isn’t there. With your eyes closed, you are likely to walk into it.

If there is unfinished business (an acorn that you planted?) and you close your inner seeing eye, you can say you don’t see it. But don’t say it isn’t there. 

       It is easier to chop down

an acorn

than an oak. 

The branch you bang

your head on

is an acorn

that you missed.   

(Don’t put it off too long or the tree might become old enough and big enough to fall on top of you!) 

Unfinished business from the Past creates the Future and leaves no room for the Present.  Hören Sie gut zu, Mr. Eckhart?

NEW PROJECT:  UPDATE!

POSTSCRIPT TO THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

EGO’s been on his perch

in the old Knowledge Tree

for more than a million years

and, through the power of its corrupted fruit,

has eased his way into millions of human minds,

filling them and their bodies

and everything else

with millions and millions

of tears.

After this long and fruitless search

for something that doesn’t exist

push him off his perch.

 Deprived of the drunken separatism,

 that keeps him in his place,

 he simply evaporates.

 Is it good to discover and feel

 old Ego has never

 been for real?

 My task

 (and yours)

  is

 (and always has been)

  to get rid of you and me

  to get rid of us and them

  to get rid of was and will be

  to get rid of should and should not

  to get rid of might and mightn’t

  is

 (and always has been)

  to wake up

  from the dreams of our identities

  and find ourselves

  Here

  where we are always seen

  Now

  where we have always been. 


NEW PROJECT:

WHAT  IS  CONSCIENCE?  CONSCIENCE  IS  UNFINISHED BUSINESS

THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

Using the diagrams of the Universal Octopus in the first chapters of CENTRE we can see where the Project leads.

When the first nodules appear on the circumference of the One and develop an eye to see the apparent outside of itself, the possibility of duality and separatism is there.

Not inevitable. You could develop an eye on your fingers in order to inspect your back without them feeling separate from each other and the rest of your body.

But that is what happened.

Identification with apparently separate forms. Perception of space which places oneself here and others in a place called “there”. The slipping in of an illusory ego (“ego” literally means “one”) which extends an identification with body to include identification with mind….. And humans are on the way to cultivate the Tree of Knowledge (and get drunk on its fruit) for most of the span of human consciousness. Possibly until their extinction. If we can’t find a solution.

But you can’t cure drunkenness with more alcohol. And this is exactly what we are still trying to do.

Wise men have offered a solution. But there is no money in it. No enhancement of Ego.

Unless, of course, what the wise men say can be modified to allow for churches (and church leaders posing as powerful nobles) and educational establishments (and teachers posing as sources of what you must pay to learn).

In these establishments, the fruits of the known and all our “yesterdays” can be garnered and used to indoctrinate those who haven’t been on the planet long enough to know them (i.e. the children). The children have mostly come already possessing (in common with the rest of creation) the fruit of the Tree of Life. Livingness. And in the Present. This is why it is such a joy to watch most very young humans (and not only young humans) playing freely and happily together before they are rounded up for the mental treadmill.

One of the wise men actually indicated this as a way out for humanity after so many million years of going astray.

“Except ye become as little children,
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven”

But this did not find favour with those in power (of Ego). They confiscated the fruits of the Tree of Life (Innocence) and killed the man.

All contemporary attempts to solve the problems of humans and the wreckage they have worked on our planet are flawed. Because they are based on knowledge = separatism. You do not try to solve a problem with the problem itself. Unless, that is, there is money to be made in just trying. Irrespective of success. Which there is, in this case, especially if there is no success.

On the other hand, we cannot set all the innocents free and trust Providence to provide for them. Because it won’t.

But there is a Solution.

Dislodge the Ego from its grasp on the Tree of Knowledge
and leave the tree to fulfil its allotted span. Without the foothold of false identification, Ego will evaporate away.

A human who is not in the control of the illusory Ego is innocent. Innocent means harmless. An innocent does not intentionally harm any other living being.

This has nothing to do with laws, commandments, resolutions. Moses scratched THOU SHALT NOT KILL on a stone. He and Joshua went off and destroyed sixty cities in Canaan, massacring the inhabitants as they went.  Canaan was the name of a large and prosperous country, which corresponds roughly to present-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel.

Replace the Ego’s proprietorship of the Tree itself with that of Awakened Innocence. This is the natural, unlearned state of human consciousness.

Gradually, all the evils resulting from knowledge will be filtered out.

What are these evils? Man’s inhumanity to man and all other living beings; the way big business and big money have gobbled up the natural resources of Nature, especially in the poor Third World; the persistent ill treatment of all other living beings; endless wars…

Replace all ethical systems which take the form of resolutions, or laws, or commandments or precepts which require knowledge or educational systems (and money) to administer (enforce) them. Replace them with a simple ethic which corresponds exactly to the natural and original state of innocence.

"I do not do to other living beings what I do not want done to me."

At a stroke, this places the Tree of Knowledge within the jurisdiction of non-dualistic universal friendliness.

The One and the Many rediscover their eternal Oneness. Unless Ego creeps back in, that’s the end of the problem. You can have a version of separatism without senseless self-destruction. Your fingers can use their eyes to explore your back without fighting each other for possession and causing damage to your (and their) skin!

Love thy neighbour as thyself.
But don’t restrict love to human neighbours.
(Think of the Sun. It shines on everyone.)

There are two kinds of knowledge:

•  I see and then know my feet. I don’t see/know them as separate and try and leave them outside with my shoes.

• I know and then see another. I see him from a separatist point of view. I know him as separate; enemy, friend, competitor, rival, food, opportunity. I fit him into my world.

In the present, you see what is here now. If you bring in knowledge before you see, it comes from the past. You superimpose it upon your present. You are lost. And you will try and superimpose it upon everyone else’s present. Just as someone may have imposed it on you.

KNOWLEDGE

        ANCIENT UNSOLVED PROBLEM

        MANFRED:
        But grief should be the instructor of the wise;

        Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most

        Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth,

        The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.

                                                               Byron

       Science is much too important

        to be left to Mathematicians.

        E = MC2

        Einstein the Pacifist. Explosion. Hiroshima.

        M = E

                C2

       God the Creator. Implosion. The Universe.

                                                                   -Gnome

ROLES & REALITIES

Comment:

Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich man, Poor man, Beggar man, Thief.

A role is anything  you identify with, which has a beginning and an end. It becomes the past and moves into the future. It squeezes out the present in between. It is anything that can be put after “I am....” or “I was...” or I will be...” It is the dwelling place of the Ego.

You are not born playing a role, unless the karmic pressure is enormous.

Being born is being part of the continuous flow of reality in present time.

Reality lasts forever as a variable continuum and is always there underneath the roles (you can have cancer while acting Hamlet or stockbroker) or between roles (you can have a real broken nose if, between sitting waiting for a bus and jumping on the bus, you trip and fall on your face).

Roles have beginnings and ends. Reality is forever...

So what is Reality?. Buddhists call it Suffering. Some call it “fun”, some a “drag”, a “veil of tears”, an “accident”, “a wondrous miracle”..  

First of all, it is Not its Name.  It is whatever is truly here and now at all times. Call it what you like...

Roles can be projected onto others (so that they will conform to a role you yourself are playing).  An excuse is a role. “That is the enemy! Therefore I can  (have to) kill him.”

Postscript: 

While you are playing a role, you draw in memories, “facts”, environment, and especially people that will support it. Or, if all else fails, will OPPOSE it.

Even if your role is a monologue (in the centre of) an empty stage, the least you can get by with is one member of audience.

Otherwise, the caretaker will come in and turn off the lights.

Curtains.

New Project: THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

THE TENDENCY OF THE MIND TO DRIFT

If you keep drifting off on your way home on the motorway, it may take longer than you expected. (You may even end up at an unexpected destination sooner.)

'The Tendency of the Mind to Drift '- Project picture comment.

Forks in the road are presenting themselves all the time, big and small, and each one has its consequences for ourselves and others. Driving on motorways and byways (and no-go-ways) gives a clear visual image of the mechanics of this. Our movement through Life (Life is always moving) demands a response, even if it is only a frustrated attempt to stop moving.

There are three levels of location on which these forks in the road appear:

The physical, where our bodies are: longitude and latitide, in a town, a house, an aeroplane, a workplace, a school...
The mental, where our mind is: thoughts, mental images, points of view, a job, beliefs, memories, plans, emotions, relationships...
The spiritual, our ethics (or non-ethics).

They interact with each other, often are in conflict.

Our ethics (or non-ethics) is a (semi) invisible component in almost every single choice of direction we make. And its consequences. If it is non-ethics, i.e. incorrect ethics, our choices will be contaminated from the start and will always lead us astray, and, ultimately to disaster.

Check your past, present and future life and those of other beings and see if this is true...

EGO, EGO, GOD OF THE JUNGLE

WHAT IS TENNIS?

 

Tennis is a game. A game is for enjoyment and recreation.

 

Knocking up WITH someone, you stop just as soon as you’ve had enough in the Present. Then you go off and enjoy yourself doing something else.

 

Playing tennis AGAINST someone is not playing for enjoyment and recreation. It is not “playing tennis” at all. It is competing to WIN. Purely for EGO. Once the stakes get higher (i.e. for money), it is fighting to win. The language used to report it reveals this: “Murray fought back from two sets down” and the behaviour and language of the players on court emphasises it. 

 

Instead of enjoyment, you get Egoic victory and excitement if you win and Egoic defeat and despair if you lose. You don’t know which it will be until it finishes and you can’t  “stop just as soon as you’ve had enough in the Present”. You have to wait until it’s over. The “game” might last hours and all the time victory or defeat lie in the Future, i.e. thoughts in the mind.

 

Even the spectators get contaminated by this, especially when the stakes are high. They experience excitement or despair since they tend to identify (ego again) with one or other of the players.

 

Why do we waste our time on all this? We don’t. EGO wastes OUR TIME

 

Then he stores it in our memories to fashion his CV.

~~~

                    My task
            (and yours)
             is
            (and always has been)
             to get rid of you and me
             to get rid of us and them
             to get rid of was and will be
             to get rid of should and should not
             to get rid of might and mightn’t
             is
            (and always has been)
             to wake up
             from the dreams of our identities
             and find ourselves
             Here
             where we have always been
             Now
             where we have always been.

~~~

Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452, and there was no Holland and Barrett in those days, but he was far in advance of most people today and refused all animal food because of his deep compassion for animals. He fully realised the implications of the barbaric carnivorous diet for every other creature on earth.  In his Notebooks (published by Oxford University Press) he describes the human carnivore as follows:

“'King of Animals', as thou has been described. I should rather say, ‘King of Beasts’, thou being the greatest, because thou dost only help them in order that they may give thee thy children for the benefit of thy gullet of which thou hast tried to make a sepulchre for all animals.---Now does not Nature produce enough simple vegetarian food for thee to satisfy thyself? And if thou art not content with such, canst thou not by the mixture of them make infinite compounds as Platina describes, and other writers on food.”
 

Leonardo accurately predicted the present day destruction of the environment and the abuse of all living creatures - In a section of his Notebooks, entitled Prophesies, he states:

“Of the cruelty of men---Creatures shall be seen on earth who will always be fighting one with another, with the greatest losses and frequent deaths on either side. There will be no bounds to their malice; by their strong limbs a great portion of the trees in the vast forests of the world shall be laid low, and when they are filled with food the gratification of their desire shall be to deal out death, affliction, labour, terror and banishment to every living thing; and from their boundless pride they will desire to rise towards heaven, but their excessive weight of their limbs shall hold them down, Nothing shall remain on the earth or under the earth or in the waters that shall not be pursued, disturbed,  or spoiled, and that which is in one country removed into another. And their bodies shall be made a tomb and the means of transit of all the living bodies which they have slain. O earth. Why dost thou not open up and hurl them into the deep fissures of thy vast abysses and caverns, and no longer display in the sight of heaven so cruel and vile a monster?”  

Leonardo’s Notebooks (published by Oxford University Press)