August
6, 2001.
In speciem, deeply involved
in their Monday morning ritual,
(which the father would, at
odd times throughout their life,
suddenly conjure up and declare,
if not: culturally, de rigueur,
at least: comfortably,
se
dèranged),
and as they huffingly went through
the ridiculous -- yet
medicinal motions, the first
in line began talking to the second.
”Son, there is a something which
is ultimately of no consequence,
(like, what is?!), but which
initially can be quite profitable to consider:
the matter of what, from some
conventional verbal view,
our family’s private tradition
& secret activity might be named.”
The father did some extra pretended
huffing & chuckling,
wiped imaginary sweet, deliciously
from his apparent brow & continued.
“In one instance, what a thing
is called is patently irrelevant,
that is, when the thing
is something found physically here on this planet: everyone realizes that
it is of no significance whatsoever whether you call violent storms: hurricanes,
or typhoons,
or fiery eruptions: volcanoes,
or candy mountains, and man’s heart will perform the same no matter what
name it is given.
The irrelevancy of what the physical
features of life are called
is clear to everyone,
but what is blinding mud-in-the-eyes
to ordinary men is that
when it comes to matters that
were not found in the ground:
which are solely the creations
of men’s thoughts,
and which have no physical reality
--
what they are called is an integral
and highly significant part of
the purpose they serve in the
collective life of man.
This obviously has nothing to
do with the intrinsic nature of the ‘thing’ being talked about,
since mentally-sourced matters
have
no inherent nature --
-- only an invented one
--
thus, in this non material realm,
what a thing is named, and what
the name implies
is as much a part of its, ‘nature’
as heat is to fire in the physical.”
The father sat down on a wait
(but not-too-long) bench,
& scrutinized his feat (but
not his most outstanding) & further noted.
“Those throughout history, born
part of our family’s anomalous bloodline, are carriers of a mutant hunger-gene
that triggers in us
an aspiration that the thinking
function of our brain be radically altered, for reasons; by means, and
in an ultimate manner, unknown to us;
the weaker branches of our family
tree are always pretending that they know the answers to these unknowns
-- but they fool only themselves, (and even in that --
not very well).
The hungers of the body speak
distinctly & are clearly understood;
and when a man needs water,
the voice of thirst is plainly heard,
and ‘t would matter not if thirst
were called, ‘exhaustion’ --
a man would still go to a stream.
But the hungers spawned by the
various creations of man’s thoughts have no comparably clear voice;
let us say that a man comes
to believe that he needs a religion,
but there is no intrinsic, tongue-of-certainty
to direct him to
the assuredly correct one, as
will physical thirst, him to a water.
Or, ponder such a question as
this:
Which is the, proper
field of study: Anthropology, or English Lit?
In matters strictly of the human
realm,
there are no objective, or even
anything resembling, ‘right,’ answers
to such questions,
as exists in the earth-sourced
physical realms of Geology & Chemistry. It is not a case of one
of them being the, correct
world,
and the other, foolish;
they are both demonstratively
required for normal human existence
as we know it --
as life has herein, us placed.”
The father stood, went into a
boxer’s stance & began to bounce about as he puffed out his cheeks
in his best john birks imitation,
and continued his solo.
“Thus does it matter nada whether
a man claims-to-be,
and believes-himself-to-be a
Christian or a Muslim -- in whatever case:
his thoughts have found an acceptable
religious nesting place,
but amongst our minor flock
-- it does matter -- in that
the very feature in us that
wants things to be named,
is also what stands between
us and the door.
At this very moment, throughout
the world,
many of those remotely related
to us & ostensibly following the
family tradition say they are
trying to, Wake up:
to, awaken-their-mind-from-a-dream’,
(others call it by a different
name, but it makes no difference),
a man has learned of this ancient-of-ancient
ideas,
and has adopted a name that
describes its goal & purpose,
and though necessary in the
beginning, it later will become an
albatross-carrying-a-millhouse
draped around his neck;
strapped around his head; wrapped
around his eyes,
dropped into his drawers,
and he will be hard, hard pressed
to ever realize it --
and without easily being able
to realize why it is so difficult;
for, (as I already noted): in
the intangible realm,
the name of a thing is an integral
part of the thing,
and in this case, the thing
we are talking about is the
Aim of a person’s effort, (that
is: to, Wake up),
but in this singular, human
circumstance,
having the name of a thing be
even the smallest PART OF
the thing itself -- fatally
flaws it.
If you believe that you are trying
to, Wake up,
and do not fully understand
what that term means –
you will never succeed.”
The elder stopped speaking as
he did several squats,
then some jumping jills --
then some more talk.
”Everyone who is trying to,
Wake
up believes that they
do understand what the
words mean;
the alternative seems preposterous
beyond possibility.”
The father walked to the water
fount; partook liberally thereof;
picked up a towel, turned back
to the boy and added:
”If you are trying to, Wake
up, and do not finally realize that
the term MEANS nothing --
you will never succeed.
The one-&-only; the only-&-one
reality of, ‘Being asleep’
is in
going along with the natural
inner scam that says you
understand things that you do
not.
Do you appreciate the symmetrical
beauty,
and hurricane force winds of
this?
Believing that you understand
that you are, ‘Asleep’
will alone -- keep you
from ever, ‘Waking up.’
(It’s enough, I’ll bet, to make
p.t. barnstorm envious.)”
As the elder stepped through
the door of their imaginary gym,
he had these final sweaty, but
muscular words for his
less developed progeny:
”At this stage of your workout,
the very best thing you could
do for yourself would be to
come up with your own original
& purely personal description of what,
’Being-asleep,’
and, ‘Wanting-to-wake-up’
are.
This is by no measure easy,
for I do not mean for you to simply swap one set of words for another,
but rather through your own,
inner-directed-entirely
study of your thoughts &
physical sensation
to begin having one epiphany
after another that reveals to you increasingly revealing & direct views
of the physiological reality
that is obviously behind the
desire to (as commonly called) – Wake up.
As deep and sincerely felt be
this hunger in you,
it will finally be a bar to
its own fulfillment if you do not realize the
terminal need for you to understand
what it is
TOTALLY apart from any other
human’s words on the subject.
Oh, It is super fun to think
to yourself:
‘I am on the way to, Enlightenment
-- on the path to, Awakening'
--
but until, from your own
efforts & understanding-from-experience,
you can get off of these,
or any other known terms,
you are ultimately on the way
to nowhere new.
Believe me, son of mine:
you never truly get started
in the process of
waking up from everyone else’s
dream
until you have loosed yourself
from anyone else’s telling of the tale.
You must concoct your own mythology
of it;
you must invent from scratch,
your own private,
School
Of Enlightenment,
your own personal, Method
To Awaken -- and remember the central theme of my talk to
you this fine morning:
what you (to yourself) CALL
this thing you are doing --
has a staggering influence on
what it is -- TO you --
to your,
thinking-about-it
-- which, for a long time -- is all that it is.
What you call things you cannot
touch -- is irrelevant --
except in the instance whereby
you believe that you
understand a certain extraordinary
thing because
it has an extraordinary name
-- that you can say.
So, for those standing in the
shade of our family tree & tradition:
words mean nothing --
yet everything,
with the comprehension of the
one, leading to the liberation of the other.
Neuralize this, (that is: think
on it without coming to any conclusion,
other than the realization that
what words represent,
has no conclusion),
so: neuralize this:
were it not for words you could
never awaken,
and if it were not for words
you would have never been asleep -- and,
were it not for words I could not point out to you
this most liberating distinction.
Shower when you’re done.”
J
If
you are dissatisfied with your struggle to awaken -- you are
not doing it correctly;
if
you are satisfied -- you aren't doing anything.
|