So an Indian friend asked, “How did you even get to know about the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad… and what is your Indian connection?”

There is a whole story to that answer complete with background and figures and illustrations and a full description of the cultural context explaining the why and how… but the short answer is: “The Ten Principal Upanishads: Put into English by Shree Purohit Swami and W. B. Yeats” (1937) that I purchased at the Vedanta Hindu Temple Bookstore in Montecito, CA in the early 1980’s (I have the 1981 edition). I’m sure this must have been some glorious spring day. But then most days seem like a glorious spring days in Montecito, so it could have been any day, but it was probably a Sunday, that’s when I attended their services, unless it was one of those week days that I could not bear to stay away, for there were those days as well. So this is the long version, and that’s why we have blogs.

So I was always primarily attracted to spiritual matters (even though I did not really ever recognize it as such back then). I got this from my father who was a teacher of agriculture and earth science. This actually in a way was my salvation because religion as taught in my culture could not possibly work for me (and believe me, I am not the only “Westerner” with this dilemma although at times it has felt that way). Now I could have explained in great detail exactly why this is the case, but to have gone ahead and done so, in a blog like this, did not seem… productive. So the essential idea here is that science shaped my way of looking at the world. As a child I dreamed of being a scientist.

When I was in my mid-twenties (as was fated to happen) I met through a string of associates a woman who had studied with a realized guru for 13 years. Fortunately this did not require any leap of faith on my part because whether or not this man was a guru in the mystical sense was not at all important, in fact it was actually completely irrelevant and barely discussed at all. The only thing that mattered was the information she offered, which at a profound level affirmed what I already knew and had been struggling to see for some time, but had each time rejected because I did not believe that any thought I had about such things could really be valid. Simply put I was choosing to remain ignorant because I had accepted the idea that I could not be anything else.

Understand that at this time I really had only the most passing and embarrassingly superficial knowledge of Hindu culture (the saffron, the incense and meditation, the cows, the Godhead pamphlet that Hari Krishna followers were handing out on the street corners) so if the word Upanishads ever was mentioned I would have barely known it because I was young and had no idea what any of that was. But what this woman taught was a process of actualization that was based upon the core principles of the Vedas and Upanishads, all tucked within the context of a kind of loose representation of the scientific method. I don’t know if the people who taught this knew this, but that is exactly what it was.

In a matter of a few weeks I was completely transformed, engaged. Friends and family barely recognized me; it even affected the way I walked. By the summer I was experiencing the joy of Self and seeing it all around me, even in trees. Cows became very special to me, but it was possibly not the same way you think of them in India, it was that they were so peaceful, and when they mooed it pulled this depth of pain and longing out of me like they were expressing all the depth and sorrow of humanity and every person that had ever lived. And from there it went to people. I saw the people the way that I saw the cows and played with focusing on the sounds and tones that came out of their mouths and less and less on their words. The cows and the people were one and the same.

Now a few months before this all transpired, I had hit a very low point in my life, and… I enrolled at a Christian Evangelical school. This is highly ironic because even as a child I was uncomfortable with the idea of church because of the things they taught and their sole, exclusive reliance upon belief… and now I was committing to going to chapel three times a week and praying at the start of every class and exam? Now in actuality this was without a doubt the best school I ever attended, and it exposed me in depth to religion and theology which I was finally ready to see with open eyes (the only way one should ever encounter religion and theology).

Eventually I returned to the west coast and worked as an engineering tech manufacturing read/write heads for disk drives, which was perhaps the most satisfying work I have ever had, but also it put me within walking distance of the UCSB library that boasted the largest religion library in the University of California system. From there I discovered Arthur Schopenhauer (the World as Will and Re-presentation [my hyphen]) who raved about those wonderful ancient teachings from India called the Upanishads. From there I went to the Vedanta Temple a few miles away, where I had my first real, meaningful, spiritual experiences within a religious environment, and yes, they had a bookstore…

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I quite by chance caught a lecture by V. S. Ramachandran on cable from the University of California, perhaps 5 or 6 years ago (maybe more) and was absolutely transfixed. The next day at work I was nearly as hard pressed to think of anything else as I was to find anyone interested in discussing it.

The lecture provided one of those exceptionally rare opportunities in which you get to watch someone who can really explain with a passion the essence of their work, one of those instances where you end up walking away from the experience feeling completely transformed having had presented to you a number of theretofore apparently diverse and unrelated subjects with such eloquence that it becomes immediately apparent (as in gestalt) the degree to which all the subject areas were completely and inextricably interrelated, that being that at the deepest levels of our neurology we are (by a matter of common neural functioning if nothing else) completely and intimately related to species that we normally would consider utterly and completely alien to us (as in avians and reptilians), and that what we consider to be art (or our attraction to it), is in fact no different in essence to a baby chick’s attraction to its mother’s beak (or a representation of its mother’s beak, the commonality being that both phenomena are neurologically driven by embedded predispositions to particular sets of visual cues specific to the species).

Anyone familiar with Ramachandran is undoubtedly familiar with this particular lecture. The man is brilliant. I’ve since downloaded everything I could get my hands on by this guy. His work with phantom limbs is stunning as is his work with synesthesia (the blending of visual, auditory, tactile cues through neural cross-talk). This stuff is amazing.

(You can find this lecture in the sidebar to the left where you can watch it in the sidebar, or as with all these presentations, you can double click to open full size in a separate window)

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Welcome back (my first entry with Quick Blogcast).

One really should avoid blogging in one’s sleep. The dog has long since given up on me and headed off to his bed. What can I possibly hope to accomplish pecking away at this keyboard that could possibly compare with getting under the covers and falling asleep? I’m grinning ear to ear just at the thought of it. It reminds me of that Hindu AUM symbol that represents the connection between wakefulness, dreams and sleep. Sleep, like Om Parvat. Sleep like the earth. Have you ever seen a picture of Om Parvat?

Well here you are then.

Now that’s cool. Very cool.

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Saturday, February 28, 2009; mid-afternoon; d 12338 – It’s a warm spring like day, temperatures near 80° F with traffic outside rumbling so incessantly that it has somehow ceased to even be noticed. My wife and my mother are out getting their hair done and will be picking up our granddaughter on their return so I have the place to myself. I’ve been listening to music I recorded off the Internet last October (10-21-08Midnight).

I let one of those little lizards out. I hate to see them get trapped in the house, and they are so hard to catch. They do not do well in the house, and they are awfully fast, always darting off to some dark hiding place before you can shoo them outside. I got this one partially corralled in the kitchen with a newspaper and was coaxing him toward the door when he took off, legs outstretched, head and tail held high like he was running over hot coals, right on under the dining room table.

I figured him to be just another lost cause but then I noticed him hanging on to one of the table chair legs, so I quietly lifted both he and the chair out the back door to deposit him far enough away from the back door so that for him to actually run back through the door would have indicated a determination and intentionality I would not suspect an anole to ever possess. It was so neat seeing the little brown fellow there, alert, standing watch on the edge of his paving stone.

“OK little guy… or girl… you’re free now. Go play.”

I returned the chair to the house and then went back outside. Still there. Exactly the same position I left him as though he were waiting for a proper goodbye from me. Humoring this silly notion I bent down to reach out to him, and he leapt into my hand, in the next instant bounding onto my pajama leg (Saturday afternoon and I was still in my pajamas!).

What happened next was very strange. Feeling him clinging there I was overtaken with a tremendous sense of empathy for this delightful little creature, and just as suddenly, everything else surrounding us in the yard. It all struck me so profoundly. Looking at the trees, creatures tucked away out of sight, the plants, the connectedness, the evolution, the way everything was connected in evolution through genes and chromosomes, he and I were connected by evolution, a common ancestry to the point were our ancestors diverged to go their separate ways, each way leading to us, the lizard and I, the trees and I, but we were all together, family none the less, the way you are with cousins, very literally cousins in this world of shared ancestry. We were all descendants to common ancestors across the expanse of time, all the same here on this little planet, and on this day, all together, like cousins, like family.

This hit me in waves of emotion, this great empathy, waves that felt like grief washing over me so powerfully that it nearly doubled me over each time it hit. Again and again it washed over me, its waves convulsing me to my core every time I contemplated our shared condition, for we were all only here for the briefest of time yet still part of something that went on and on, just as it always had, day after day, year after year, century after century, millennia after millennia, eon after eon. Even the palmetto along the fence and I were connected, sharing a common ancestry, a common past, a common fate, and the trees, so quiet, so perfect, even the tree with its bitter orange fruit and its thorns, the butterfly fluttering along the fence, the mocking bird in the yard beyond looking for something to eat (perhaps my friend), but we were all here, we were all together, and I wept.

The more I understood, the more I wept. I didn’t want to loose them. I didn’t want to see them go. We were all so temporary, so fragile, all made of the same stuff, shared atoms, shared elements, everything one from another, all connected, all temporary, but all from the same place, the same garden, all reincarnations of our predecessors coexisting so many millions of years, each one of them now… gone… gone.

And inside too, like the lizard that had leapt off me out into the immense world of our little backyard, the microbes circulating through my body, living in me, inside, the way they had in everything all this time, each their own little world, each living their own minute existence. And I could not help but think how deeply already I would miss them.

I understand that I should be happy, thinking of my friends, my family… but all I can do is weep at the thought of how we must, each of us, separate. I don’t want to let them go. My family, my cousins, are all about me, under my feet, in the sky, in these dreaming plants and waking creatures, shimmering on this sleeping earth, and I weep at how we live on and on in our ignorance at our separation from each other from birth to death, never once grasping how we are all together, all the same, all alive for a brief moment, before we are all, each gone, again, exactly as all the others that came before us, our dear, dear predecessors, so beautiful, so precious, so unlikely.

I have never seen like this on any day before, not like this, not even those high, toasty, chemical days now many lost decades ago. But what did I know? What could I know all lost in my separation? I cried then as well… but I did not understand. Not like today.

It seems so odd that I weep this way, that I finally see it in this way, emptying out from my center this catharsis of grief of loss and separation, like a drunk wailing for a long lost love that could never be possessed. Today I reveled in it like a carnival ride, thinking perhaps that before today it was only that I was not ready. And it made me wonder, if this is how it is, how could any of us possibly contain it? Knowing all this in this way. Seeing this. Being this. So strange. So beautiful.

I could not help but to be amazed at the wonder that had come into this place. And as close to a prayer as I could ever come, I prayed to my Self. “Come out into my face, into my steps, into my hands. I am not afraid, for soon I will be gone.”

Duality remains, held tight like a prize in a monkey trap. Releasing this, letting go of the desire to stay, feeling the grief connected to the idea of separation, seeing this desire to control that manifests this loss and grief, one lets it go, and laughing, delights in the all.

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Sunday, November 23, 2008; 12 noon; d 12241 – Another cool clear day. Up since about 9 am updating Thomas’ website and doing some work for the office. Finally got Thomas’ site moved over to GoDaddy Tuesday night (sitting it up temporarily on paradatx.net). That was a genuine all-nighter with me not getting under the covers until shortly after 6:30 the next morning, having started a little after dinner the night before. I really dreaded starting that one after trying and failing to do the same thing about a year ago. I just couldn’t get the cgi to work even with technical support. Now this time it worked fine once I got the file permissions worked out. I wonder if that was the problem last time? Just three little check boxes on a properties screen. A google search got me looking in that direction. Just love the internet. Fortunately I still had administrative access to Thomas’s domain so I was able to redirect it to one of mine. It’s working identically to the original except one of the admin screens I still need to work the bugs out of, and it is much, much faster.

Heather and Ashley got back from Kentucky the other day safe and sound. Ashley got to see a little snow. Heather was glad to be back. Apparently the visit was difficult. Have not seen either of them yet.

Mom is doing a little better but has been down emotionally and irritated. We had to go back to the dermatologist late Friday morning because her wound was oozing puss and blood and had gotten enflamed (whereas it had been showing improvement earlier in the week). We change the dressing every morning and she is on antibiotics now. They put off removing the stitches a day (next Tuesday) so the doctor can look at it.

I did a little post over on one of the Internet forums. Hope I didn’t piss anyone off. Sometimes the written word doesn’t seem to communicate as well as it should.

I spent some time with Evangelical Christians many years ago and it was a pretty positive experience. There is a good deal of authoritarianism and sizing up by some so you can’t get too far along in the play before someone springs the, “When were you saved?” bit on you. It’s really nobody’s business but someone is bound to ask if they see you all happy and full of light as it were, and you know what they mean, and you see that they are going at it in their own way, and it’s kind of working for them for the most part, but when people meet they always seem to size the other up to bring the one up, or the other down, and that’s why they are asking. So Rev is right, they want to help the other share the high, or help themselves share your high (a.k.a., communion in the Spirit).

The trick, and I believe this is the only way it can work, is to do your self first. This is like meditating and knowing what you are feeling and how you feel about what you are feeling, and if you can do this while walking through a room full of people, then you are ready to play, and it’s not like you are required to say anything. Sometimes it’s all you can do to keep up with your own issues and feelings, but when you do respond you try to do the best you can to tell the absolute truth. You aren’t required to correct their misconceptions or convert them to your way of seeing things, and if you suddenly feel you are, then you just fell off the train and need to go back to why it is that you seem to feel the need to correct them. So you tell the truth without feeling the need to correct… It should be easy… and fun

Sat, Nov 22 2008 9:01 PM http://www.community.us.mensa.org/forums/p/10015/193480.aspx#193480

May has gone out to pick up some cheese and things for some meatball subs she has planned for dinner. The tomato sauce is really good and doesn’t seem to have a killer amount of sugar in it so I can eat these without falling out of my chair We got these at Sam’s yesterday. Mom, Graham, May and I went and made an afternoon of it. It was fun.

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Monday, November 17, 2008; 1 am; d 12235 – This (Sunday) has been a good day. Cold, clear, sweater wearing weather. Did some house cleaning. Made some real progress on this website, securing it, starting on the section on blocking feelings. I’ve not been “out” all weekend. May has been out and about both Saturday and Sunday. This is normal for our weekends. I stay in, May goes out running errands, shopping, visiting. Mom is recovering from a large squamous cell carcinoma she had removed Friday morning. She has been resting all weekend and seems kind of spun and dazed. I’m keeping her medicated as needed with pain pills as she is in pain and uncomfortable having had that large, half dollar sized tumor removed from her chest. The skin is very thin there. The doctor did a great job. The procedure had to have taken at least 40 minutes. Lots of stitches.

Ashley and Heather have driven to an aunt’s funeral in Kentucky. Thomas said they left this morning and just arrived a few hours ago. Had a nice visit with Thomas this evening. He got here at what, 8 or 9 pm? Talked about politics, the economy, the green revolution, energy and the environment, and some of the things he went through as a child as it relates to today (thought processes, self analysis, conclusions, stopping self analysis, and dealing with death). May finally found a way to make really great sugar free White Russians. Wow. I haven’t felt free to consume those for years. We used to drink them all the time back in the 70’s? 1978? Wow. Thirty years ago. River Ranch lounge. People used to line them up for us on our table. Wow. They really liked us. I remember when we left they took up a collection. That was a really nice gesture and completely unexpected. I mean, who does that?

Thomas and Heather got a 2007 jeep. Pretty maroon. Thomas says its not as fast has his Jag (not surprising). Heather and Ashley are traveling in the Jag (after he just thoroughly cleaned it in and out). Everyone seems to be doing well and happy.

Heather and Ashley have been going to the Catholic Church, which has been making their weekends interesting and from what Thomas tells us, rewarding in a warm family kind of way.

‘Wow, they do a lot of kneeling!’
‘We weren’t sure what to do with that little piece of bread.’
‘Everyone drinks from the same cup, do you think that’s ok?’
‘At least the priest wipes it off before he passes it to you.’
‘Did you know they have wine in that cup?’
‘It didn’t taste very good.’
‘It didn’t seem like very good wine; at least they served it chilled!’

A person could certainly do worse than going to Catholic services. At least Catholics are not hypocritical about their pro-life beliefs the way other Christian denominations are. Pro-life means pro-life to Catholics. No ambiguity. No confusion. No mixed messages. No agenda. Of course I didn’t get into any of this with Thomas. Not today. Not this time. I’m sure he knows my position anyway.

Well its 1 AM, tomorrow’s a work day (Monday), and I think I have time to meditate. Namaste.

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Saturday, November 15, 2008; d 12233 – I have not posted in many months, nor have I done anything particularly constructive. This blog has been in need of some maintenance (server side) but it would be misleading to suggest that as an excuse. There seems to be some interest in this site from someone residing in the Hebei Province of China as someone from there has visited now every day since the 10th. I wonder if they speak English?

I have been completely preoccupied with the political process these last several months and have passed up a great many opportunities for freedom. That is an area that shows great promise even with the elections going exactly the way I wanted. I have no fear that these personal issues will continue to offer themselves no matter what.

What a wonderful time this has been for the world. I have great optimism for the future even as we fall into these dark financial times. It is unlikely that this new administration would ever have been elected with out the dismal failures of the current administration, and the current administration would never have been put into power with out the scandals of the administration prior to that allowing it to so negatively impact the subsequent election (2000) in a such a divisive manner so as to make the results so close that as to make their counting vulnerable to compromise by the forces of darkness that had long been at work to undo the will of the majority and ultimately place in office perhaps the most incompetent and least intellectually and spiritually qualified individual ever to hold that office. So much for my opportunities for freedom. I’m certain there will be no shortage as these are generated by internal events and not external.

I have had some interesting things happening at work. The store is shut down. There was not enough interest to warrant keeping it open. But at the office I have noticed in some of the repetitive aspects of the job that my mind consistently flashes my back to the San Marcus Pass or Albion, but more often the San Marcus Pass. This always happens at a particular point in completing a form for ordering supplies and always at exactly the same area of the form. It is always when I am filling in the NPI information, that long 10 digit number that is unique to each individual physician. There are several fields in the immediate vicinity where I write in the physician’s office phone number, fax number, zip code, name, address, city, state, but it seems always to happen while I am writing in the NPI number that I find my memories transported back to California and I have not been able to determine why. It strikes me that it has something to do with the numbers themselves, yet they are always different other than that they always begin with the number one, are always ten numbers long, and never pertain to a physician any further west than the central time zone. I’m determined to figure this out, but it seems the most likely avenue to success will ultimately be to identify the feeling at the time it occurs and trace it down.

Now on a positive note, I have been meditating this week in the evenings after work with positive results, and as you can see I have managed to resurrect this blog and shake the bugs out of a few of the pages, particularly the Upanishad and Method pages which were in need of some clean up. I guess I don’t need to go into how many hours I’ve spent the last several months playing Ms PacMan, Flight Simulator, or just listening to FM radio (there is just so much wonderful music out there just waiting to be enjoyed, all free for the listening and recording) and it was mostly just a way to escape from the incessant television coverage of the 2008 election and I knew it at the time but went on escaping anyway. I would get so angry, and everyone around me would look at me like I was out of my mind as I would go off onto these long convoluted rants as everything, just everything connected in front of me and played out in a long succession of ignorance, lies, corruption and hypocrisy as the forces of evil cloaked piety and patriotism went about their vile work of destroying lives and property, instilling hatred in the minds of millions around the planet, what these leaders cynically call winning the hearts and minds, and engendering a fantasies of self-annihilation and apocalypse in the minds of the delusional and mentally unstable clinging to their guns and religion. Never having occurred to any of them in any significant depth that their days are already numbered as it is without any of this silliness and that ultimately their only recourse, having no way to alter that fact of their own mortality being simply to live more fuller and more meaningful lives.

Of course I was aware of what I needed to do. I needed to use the Method. I have always known that I needed to use the Method, all these years, all these decades, more than three of those now, some 12,000 days, one day turning into the next, punctuated by sleep, each day seeming to pass ever more quickly than the last, and my mother, soon to be 95, still aggravating me with her little half thought out quips and dusty observations (whether that be Carter giving away the Panama Canal, Clinton lying about not having sex with that woman, or Reagan telling Gorbachev to tear down that wall). So we do what we do, and see what we see, and feel what we fell, but then what? Do we seize our opportunities and take it to the next step? Its a wonderful life with so many opportunities for freedom and happiness permeating every second of every minute of every day, but yes, these days are numbered, making them all the more precious as a result, each moment’s opportunities slipping away as we slumber in our own personal dreams of dilemmas and fantasies, our own personal worlds with their incessant thoughts, plans and regrets, our lofty intents that we never quite manage to initiate, all simply because we do not simply pause to ask our selves, “What am I feeling?”, “What am I wanting?”, “Do I really want this or would I rather be free?” and then releasing it and being free. Being here, now, in the moments we have left.

There was a rich man who had much money. He said, ‘I shall put my money to use so that I may sow, reap, plant, and fill my storehouse with produce, with the result that I shall lack nothing.’ Such were his intentions, but that same night he died. Let him who has ears hear. Thomas 63

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The headline reads: Study suggests genetically, conservatives more fearful than liberals

But I guess we knew that all along, despite all the rough and tough posturing…

The researchers, whose findings were published today in the journal Science, looked at 46 people who fell into two camps — liberals who supported foreign aid, immigration, pacifism and gun control; and conservatives who advocated defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism and the Iraq war.

46 people, that’s a pretty small group, but intuitively it seems correct that fearful people would be more inclined to want to own guns and follow “strong” authoritarian types… and then drive around with No Fear stickers on their vehicles LOL.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-politics19-2008sep19,0,514047.story

Never frighten a little man. He’ll kill you. – Lazarus Long

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My first reaction to the New Yorker cover was giddiness over the complete inappropriateness of it all (flag in the fireplace LOL). But then it didn’t quite ring true did it? I mean Obama isn’t exactly a kid of the 60’s now is he? If this was Hoffman or Ruben (both in yippie heaven now?) it would have been perfect, but those types of patriots aren’t about to get elected in this sad culture of sleeping wombats LOL.
But Obama strikes me as a pretty straight kid. Top of his class. Serious (seriously political LOL). He certainly kicked Hillary’s but, and I like Hillary, but we’re old. Hillary is old guard. Obama is new. Us oldsters have a bit of a rough time figuring that generation out. Thank god for the kids. We all may have a future yet if we can just manage to not get in the way. Yes we can (stay out of the way LOL).

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Friday, April 11, 2008; d 12016 – Today was difficult in the sense that there were a number of things I wanted to do, but had the sensation of being blocked throughout. First there was the customer that I promised to meet at the store at 9 AM, the date and time arrived at by the customer which I agreed to it despite the fact that I’ve never been at the store that early before and it takes about 25 minutes to get there so I was up at 7:30 AM so as to have enough time. Of course what the customer did not know was that this was to be our grand opening and we had radio ads running all week, and May wanted to have coffee and doughnuts ready for the customers plus still had to do her regular Friday business at the office which is always hectic in its own way. So not enough sleep, not being able to get out the door before 9:40 AM despite being up at 7:30 AM, then having to detour past Dunkin Donuts and being told we would have at least a 15 minute wait to purchase a large container of coffee… clearly the store would not be open by 9 AM and if my customer arrived on time she would just have to wait. I imagined her getting angrier by the minute. I did my best to release my desire to control since my wanting to get there on time obviously was not going to happen. I realized at this point that I was wanting the approval of two women, my wife who seemed particularly agitated for some reason, perhaps at her sister who said she would be at the house by 8 AM to watch my mom, that and the fact that we could not lock the house with her sister having no key and our conflict with leaving mom alone in an unlocked house. Well that was one set of concerns, and my customer was the other, neither of which I could control. But I was clearly wanting approval from both of them I suppose. I get a mild release thinking about it now. At the time I did not so much release the feeling but was more in a state of coping, trying to be philosophical as they used to say. When it came right down to it I was not wanting to be yelled at, disapproved of… you get the idea. The feeling is worry and anticipation. Are those really feelings? No I don’t think so. But it wasn’t really fear. There was some anger. I was still overly tired at being up so early. My wife is certain I was angry at her. I know she was upset with her sister. She clearly stated her aggravation toward her sister for running late and putting us in a somewhat untenable situation. My wife was probably also concerned that I was upset with her, that her sister was making us both late and that I was upset. Now if I had the other car out of the shop this whole situation would have been resolved. I would have been out the door no later than 8:35 AM. Then there was the issue of having commitments to help Thomas update his web site. The computer at the store is not properly equipped to handle that task and when I tried to do this I ended up corrupting the pages sent to the site because the software can to correctly process those pages with substituting certain characters that affect the site’s ability to perform searches. Of course I discovered this after I had allowed the damage to happen, and I knew full well that I would not be able to correct those three key pages until I got back to my home computer, and that would not happen for several hours. So another area I felt I needed to control, this web site was essentially down until I could get away from the store, then the office, and finally get back to my house. Then there was the approval aspect. If Thomas knew about this he would certainly become concerned, and for good reason. Now if I had a car I would have had the problem fixed and the site back on line in less than an hour, more like 40 minutes, but as it was I could only sit and wait for other people to finish doing what they believed to be important. Added to this my commitment to pickup my car in the afternoon, and that the prospects of managing that diminishing with each passing hour, and that this had out of necessity to be coordinated with May along with Ashley’s desire and commitment to make it on time to her Tai Kuan Do class at 4 PM, and I had the perfect storm of conflicted commitments.

Now as it turned out my customer arrived about three hours late. That all worked out and the sale was completed and everyone was happy all the way around. Also the customer changed her mind about the scooter she wanted to buy and ended up purchasing one that I wanted to get rid of anyway as the children had damaged its basket and I didn’t care to listen to Dan complain (Dan provided the scooters). So that worked out very nicely, and the customer was quite pleased with the bargain she received (the scooter was sold to her at half price and was better suited to her build and physical requirements). So there I was wanting (through anticipated fear of Dan’s disapproval) Dan’s approval and it resolved by itself. Did I miss an opportunity for increased freedom by not tracing this down while it was still “hot”? Perhaps. But also I had worked on this to some extent earlier in the week when I had been angry with the children. I did release some of this desire to control as well as some desire for Dan’s approval. Well it is better this way. There are always opportunities for freedom.

Then I finally received an email back from Frances. Frances is still interested in some younger men (Swami Vishwananda and Swami Nithyananda) whom she regards as reincarnated masters and who have blessed her and she has decided to use to further her own growth. I still have no clue about reincarnation. It’s one of those things that seems just a bit too convenient to be true. As my wife says, who in their right mind would ever want to come back to all this? I suppose one could argue that some enlightened being would do that to have more opportunities to teach, but yes, I am skeptical. First of all, a perfected being would know that the “world” does not really need them in the first place, and second, to say, as Vishwananda has told Frances, that the world is not ready for Lester’s verities, seems off point. The world is always ready, the people in it simply don’t know that at any given moment in time. And it’s not the world that has to be ready, it’s people, and people live and die all the time. The time is always right. If this were not the case, then why or what was the matter of the timing in terms of the world being ready when Lester give us the verities 40 years ago? Secondly, if Lester was a totally realized being, and Vishwananda is as well, then aren’t they speaking the same language and talking about the same things? So how is it that what Vishwananda has to say is correct for the times while what Lester has said is not, if as fully realized beings they must necessarily have both been speaking from the same place (Self) ant thereby giving the same message.

According to Frances, Lester had the following to say about masters.

No One Can Give You Realization

You have to dismiss everyone you are looking to for help—except your Self. All your joy has to come from your Self. What chance do you have of being whole, completely the Self, if you need someone other than you to do it? And the answer is none! So long as you look to a Master for help, you will never be realized. You should be advanced enough to know that that doesn’t go for lower understanding. In lower understanding, you must have a Master to show you the way.

No Master can give you Realization. None ever has, none ever will. Only you can do it for you. You get support in what you are doing from a Master, that’s all.

The unlimited Being that we are, we are here and now. The object is to get to see It. The way you can see It is by quieting the mind, because just behind the mind is that Infinity. By turning the mind inward you quiet the mind; you let go of all the external distractions, and the more you quiet the mind, the more you will see this Infinity that you are. The more you see the Infinite that you are, the more you will scorch the limitations. The more you do away with the limitations, the more you will see the infinite Being that you are, and you keep doing this until there is no more limitation left. But the method is: Go within! Turn your mind back upon the mind.

And obviously, Lester is 100% correct on this.

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