The One Place,

The One Place,

 

One question I must ask you is: Must it be a physical place, or can we start with the mind? In other words, I’d like to pose the idea that many of the major issues we are facing in today’s civilization begin inwardly, and not the other way around. This is not to deny many of the physical world problems; disasters, weather, disease, poverty, famine, etc. It’s only to acknowledge that perhaps humanity would be more prone to assisting the areas of the world that are in need of great help, if on the “inside” we were more prone to do so. It seems to me that there lacks a certain capacity for compassion. We are not sure of ourselves, and the world we live in is already so terrifying, that so many of us seem to be more interested in our own psychological security before anything else. There are varying degrees of this, from your neighbor buying a Hummer to military dictators slaughtering the innocent in the name of power and control. Although the gap between these two examples is great, inwardly – it might seem that they both stand in common ground.

 

We are terribly afraid. And let me propose this common phrase as the reason behind that fear: “We are afraid of the unknown.” If you really look at this phrase, you will see it is impossible to be true. Who can fear the unknown? If we don’t know what it is, how is it that we are afraid of it? It would seem that we do not fear what may lie in the darkness, but rather we conjure our imagination to create monsters in the darkness – and we mask the darkness with a boogey-man so that we at least have something labeled, known, squared away. Concepts help us, at a psychological level, control our reality. And control is safety. Fence by fence, wall by wall, we build fortresses of ideology in order to transform the world into a place we can feel secure. If our inward sphere of reality somehow became physical, we would see vast castles around individuals, cultures and people, all attempting to round everything up into the realm of the known. Come to think of it, if we look at our civilization today, this may not be so abstract after all.

 

But that just goes to show what I am trying to convey here – We crave and act upon anything and everything that allows us to feel secure with ourselves. And this, it seems, has been the driving force of civilization. The security of power, the security of ideology – war and politics, conquer and divide – these things have been churning the gears of our societal juggernaut for ages, and it seems there is no stopping it until it destroys itself.

 

What can we as individuals do, then, to help? Do we start at the grassroots, and work our way up? Do we help the poor, the needy, the hungry? Or do we engage the realm of ideologies and attempt to settle disputes and transcend idea-wars? I would argue that both are necessary, but must stem from one authentic part of ourselves – our compassion for the world, for all life. We must have it in us to lay down our own burden of issues, to face our own issues with compassion and boldness. There is no other way to bring about change that is lasting and ageless. This compassion itself invokes a higher state of consciousness, or level if you will. One in which the human being is no longer merely concerned with both physical and psychological subsistence. The capacity to connect with others, to open up, to listen, to understand human nature because they understand themselves. If we could only do this, we may begin to see major shifts in the way civilization handles its problems.

 

As much as we would like to say, the majority of the world is not doing this. Embracing this fact and accepting its reality is as vital as carrying out a mission to help the world – otherwise we are simply following yet another ideal, i.e. everyone is compassionate. Instead, we have to recognize everyone has the potential within them for compassion and wisdom. What we must do then, is to discover it in ourselves, and help others discover it too. We can do nothing more, nothing less than this. No change can be forced, and no revolution in its truest sense is done by any measure of aggression. In the end, it is the human being who must awaken, and it is a realization only he can achieve. We can merely point the way, help guide them as we guide ourselves to recognizing our true nature, our innermost potential. Ultimately it is not what we must do, but how we must be.

 

The action will flow naturally from the being. So many of us are trying to “become” greater or achieve something at an end point somewhere – but it is in the living, the being, between the end points that true life and vitality is. We must learn this playful awareness of the present, for by doing so a great psychological burden is dropped. We do not need to live in fortresses of security, in memories and ideals – for they will take us away from this ever-living and organic state of being. Instead, we must learn to slowly, surely let the castles crumble, and embrace the present.

On the State of Awareness

It is perhaps at first very arrogant to assume that there is a "state" in which one has primordial awareness. This may be so. Just as likely, however, is to assume that there isn't - and so we are faced with a false dilemna. To believe? To not to believe? What would happen if someone approached you, or even me - and stated that there was no believing or unbelieving. There simply "is." All at once, we may find ourselves questioning rational thought. Not to believe or unbelieve - then is it simply apathy? To this, the imposter would simply reply, "No, that is itself another term and condition of reality - I offer you none but reality itself."

Logic has constructed for us a rather perfect world of order. Where there is disorder? A sufficient understanding simply hasn't been discovered yet. Yet, the strange questionaire might ask us this: What happens when the mind is silent? There is no room for logic then. What is there when silence pervades? And perhaps, as a means to deepen our understanding of what it means to be quiet, we should attempt this. What is it to be utterly and profoundly quiet, as deeply so as the silence after the first snow of winter, of the ice cold plains of the arctic, or the deep quiet of a forest untouched by humanity except by your own breath?

Indeed, what good would such a quiet mind do?

Unfortunately, I must end this masquerade and reveal myself as the madman, the imposter. What this book will attempt to do, and hopefully is doing as you read these pages, is to openly play with your own concepts of reality. To lightly push and pull, untie the knots of preconceived notion so that you may also explore what it is to be human, what is to be without labels and conditions - what it is to roam freely in a land where the only fences are the ones we have built nail by driven nail. I invite you to explore further, with me, with all other readers who are intrigued by this notion. We are all too often caught in the humdrum of everyday life, of distractions, interests, falling in and out of our own awareness. What I propose with this book is absolutely nothing special, elitist, arrogant or idealistic in any way. I simply ask the reader to join me in self-awareness - to attempt to "just be," and see what may or may not come out of it. I write with this in mind, and this only. That being said, let us begin.

Kosmic Chefs

We hereby declare, that all sentient beings with the capacity to awaken others should do so. We are others, and they are us. When seeing this clearly, all other reasons fall like imaginative speculations, elaborate ethical codes flutter like butterfly wings carried harmlessly in the wind. These transpersonal domains, we hold, are of non-rational nature, as they are transrational; that being, beyond reason. Man has stepped up from the primordial soup and will gain no trophy, but be asked to give of himself, and that giving is compassion. Our evolutionary tool? Love.

So what is the meaning of all this? Why are we here? What depth, if any, is out there, in here? Who? What? Where? Why? What is my nature, and what is yours? Are there links that bind us, and are we truly separated from the elements, locked in grids of stone, granite and metal? Or, can we, and should we, facilitate new structures? Curved lines where there are straight, straight where they are curved- should we act now to encourage the collective consciousness of a society malnourished, to evolve? We hereby declare that consciousness, as is, is set back by the collective shadow; our fears, our escapes, our masks and fleeting satisfactions that only acquire a moment of pleasure before returning us to the abyss of "the unknown."

We seek to provide a platform for evolutionary consciousness. With the eye of both mind and spirit, we will open ourselves to divine knowledge, explore the nature of subtle, causal and gross energy systems in order to define and embrace a truly, "integral," system of health.

We hereby declare that the narrow lense of empirical analysis is not fit to hold its own. In fact, taken alone it only works to limit the scope of human potential. Thus it will be integrated, embraced and transcended as we attempt to discover inclusive systems of transformation.

What we are missing is good Kosmic food. "Kosmic," necessitating all aspects of "what is." Matter, life, mind, spirit and shadow. Interior and exterior. So from hence forth, we will be labeled Kosmic Chefs, using our ingredients to help all sentient beings evolve up the spiral of development, at the same time eating the fruit of the divine to dissolve ourselves into that same spirit.

Kosmic Chefs, at your service! Involution, evolution - What's on your plate?