Febuary 10, 2003
Austin, Texas, USA
12:01pm. I'm reading from Unknown Man - The Mysterious birth of a new species by Yatri. It is my favorite book of the moment. With each page I think "yeah"... this is what we need to know... or at least... this is the state of mind we need for an honest analysis of ourselves. The below is from the book:
The conventional ego, the false passport, is built up from an edited picture album of our past. The version often seems more real than we are in the present moment. That is because here/now we are in constant flux and flow, but what we have been is nicely and securely fixed.
The false identity is frozen throughout time, a final static noun. And just because it is unchanging we become more clearly identified with that identity card than we do with the real living, moment-to-moment entity.
In order to support the new false self we have to become more and more identified with the past, with old knowledge and fixed belief system which continue to bolster up our historical selves. And we forget there was ever anything else.
Man becomes a historical animal preoccupied with the past and the future, and here we encounter the strangest of paradoxes. The historical idea of self , the ego, requires a constant re-living of memories in order to sustain a continuity of its own. It is only aware of itself as a repeatedly up-dated autobiography. The ego does not actually exist - it is an illusion of continuity.
Contemplating Earth from a hundred thousand miles away comes this new consciousness. "You become startlingly aware how artificial are the thousands of boundaries we've created to separate and define. And for the first time in your life you feel in your gut the precious unity of earth and of all the living things it supports. The dissonance between this unity you see and the separateness of human groupings that you know exist is starkly apparent." - Russell Schweichart
The priest's program is simply belief; for example, "belief in God." The 'true believer' identifies with a set of mythic stories which were invariably created in the distant past. Each belief system tend to exclude all others from the right path to truth. The beliefs of the popular religions require little more of anyone than to dutifully purchase the "product." "To actually use the "product" is not demanded in any profound sense. Just buy it praise it, believe it and glamorize yourself by association with it." (Da Free John)
Seriousness, control and life negation are unaccountably the bedrock of most expressions of a religious life. One common theme shared by the popular world religions is that of Paradise, the Promise Land. Heaven can only be enjoyed after this life of suffering and misery. It would seem almost that to believe in Heaven is, by definition, to live in Hell.
"Your religion was written on tablets of stone by the iron finger of an angry God...
"Our religion is the tradition of our ancestors-- the dreams of our old men , given to them in the solemn hours of the night by the great spirit -- and it is written in the hearts of our people."(Chief Seattle)
Finally Bush tells the truth...
Now I'm on my way to Enchanted Rock with Paul and Seed.
