In re THE UNDERSTANDING: 
 

                        The key is poverty.
     Only the stupid own anything;
those who-know are cleaned-out, 
                                      stripped-bare, 
                                      fresh-out-of-everything.
 
 

Ownership is the purview of the ordinary:
the dull hold views;
the torpid possess opinions;
the inane keep preferences;
the stagnant sit on facts;
the oafish carry anger;
the listless clutch fear, 
and the stupid have their precious knowledge.
 

The Tree Of Knowing is stripped clean;
not a leaf in sight --  not a single distraction.
 
 

When jacks set off for the lights-of-the-city
they take along beans, (a supine man says):
”I cannot go about in life with empty pockets;
a man must be adequately armed in the 
human adventure.”
Jacks are slumberous, and internally live in dreams;
their potential for day-light-sight  has become inescapably encumbered by their possessions --
--  ownership in the inner world --   blinds them.
 

When adams are driven away, 
and an individualistic comprehension of life 
momentarily becomes a real possibility --
they blow the opportunity by 
taking the fig leaf with them;
men apparently feel embarrassed when they recognize the extraordinary potential that 
internal nakedness offers, (after all:
who’s really up to giving god’s understanding 
a run for its money?!)

 
                   Bare, we’re babies born, 
                      but ownership makes The Man;
                      it takes an inner richness, 
                      a normal life to lead.
 
 

Cows arriving empty-hoofed are shunned by The City;
in the cultured world the lingua franca is -- 
--  knowing things.
Just to reach the outskirts of town
cattle must be fittingly oriented in the physical realm,
but to gain entry to society they must bring with them the ability to recount some of its history, 
(and moo with an insider’s accent).
 

You must be wealthy to be taken in by harvard;
possess much to sit with the-trilateral-commission,
or get your call aired on a radio talk show,
and be flush with inner goods to be welcomed by, 
the-great-mystical-brotherhood-that runs-everything.
Poor men need not apply for anything worthwhile 
in The City;
      Only the rich thrive.
 

The City is the natural intellectual home for man;
a place busy and complex -- 
a place forever changing.
A place of great neural entertainment,
many flashing lights, and a multitude of sounds;
the richness of the place perfectly reflects 
the inner wealth of its citizens.
 
 
 

In re THE UNDERSTANDING:
            The key is --  poverty.

To be able to even hear about the understanding
a man must grow from being a child floating serenely 
on the river-of-egypt, to becoming an adult, 
enslaved by the riches of its cities,
then embark on a search for a promised-land-of-freedom, 
but what routine moseses never realize is that the
dreamed of goal is freedom from mental possessions.
 

A growing calf needs enough sense to safely walk a path, and be conscious enough to learn from 
the words of cows who’ve walked that way before,
but eventually some could become sufficiently intelligent to distinguish between walking and talking. 
 

The wealthy cannot tell the difference between 
words, and walking;
those with many possessions accept,
talking-about-walking
to be basically the same thing as walking.
In city cows’ search for their standard notion of 
an elysian field, 
this failure-to-distinguish presents no problem, in that:  how can anything go wrong in an 
imaginary undertaking?!
When you live in the city,
and have plenty of possessions  --  you have no problems.
(Sure, you and every other cow can say that you do,
but being able to believe that is simply one of 
your mighty-fine possessions.)
 
 
 

Poverty is the key;
willful poverty;
fought-for poverty;
consciously embraced & protected --  poverty.
 
 

Those who think they know-what-they-know
are rich men;
they are full of meaningless city certainty;
they are filled to the bursting point with the 
neural, verbal-based sense-of-a-self;
they possess all that is needed to be mentally normal;
to have opinions, beliefs, and preferences, 
and to hold dear, a multitude of 
defensive, embarrassing personal views of life.
 

The rich are normal;
the gods approve of the wealthy --
you're supposed to be out there among them! --
--  what went wrong?! 

You’re not rich enough to be satisfied,
or quite poor enough to see through it all;
you’re kind of stuck in a no-cow’s-land:
somewhere between being alert enough to
smell that things are not as they seem to the mind,
but without a nose capable of leading you through
the distracting aroma
to the promised land of  --  poverty-stricken-reality.
(Which by the way, is the only real reality.)
The dream reality is wealthy;
the inner realm of illusionary reality is rich indeed,
but the reality that comes to a man through 
the understanding
is poverty stricken; stripped clean --
     --naked and speaking for itself.
 
 

Poverty is the key;
to believe that you are rich in knowledge is idiocy;
if you believe that you know what is going on all around you  --  you are indeed wealthy; 
you possess all of the ignorance one man can bear.

Take off all of your mental pretense, and -- 
--  there you have it:
                 The understanding of everything.
 

                                         J
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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