Song Of The Day: Dead Man's Party / Oingo Boingo
Word Of The Day: Sciamachy / Fighting with a shadow or an imaginary opponent

Why do I meditate? For that matter, why do I bother doing yoga, working on my diet, interpersonal dynamics, relationship, finances, calligraphy, music, or any of the dozens of basic modules in an "integral practice."

There's lots of obvious reasons, including the improvements to my body, creative capacity, simple appreciation of life. Probably live longer, live better, be a little bit less of an asshole, and have more to offer the World. But frankly, none of those reasons alone would be enough for me to stick with a practice at any real depth. To me, an integral practice is the Bodhisattva's tool box, and its not just useful, it's indispensible in being of USE in the play-work of the Mystery.

What we experience as human beings is a very compelling, hypnotizing combination of phenomena. From the moment of birth (or before), we're conditioned by an all-pervading array of emotions, physical sensations, thoughts in a deeply entrancing consensus hallucination known as "reality". That reality -a knotted bundle of filters and assumptions, some inherited through culture, some of it the morphological groove imprinted through physical evolution (triune brain, muscles, nervous system, etc), some of it our personal invention + configuration of typology- that reality is basically a total fucking HOAX.

Its primary use is to serve as a massive collective alibi, a way to avert the incessant invitations issued for our Essential Self to abide even one God damn moment authentically Present to Love. In submitting to the cloaking, occluding LIE that is euphemistically given many names (culture, society, politics, psychotherapy, fox hunting, auto-asphyxiation, whatever your pleasure) we fortify and thicken the veil between us and ~?~!~?~ AKA, Reality "As It IS". Not reality as we wish it to be, not reality we imagine it to be, not reality as it might be some day, but Reality As It fucking IS. Anything but THAT, thank you very much.

And that's understandable.

Reality As It IS is not pallatable, much less digestable, to a cerebral cortex (or even a soul, for that matter). Reality is a deadly threat to the frail phantom known as human identity. So the first thing a human identity does with Reality is parse it into a billion pieces, bite-sized bits, managable fragments. And so ensues the life-long game of "this goes here, that goes there."

When that game is engaged by a Berzerker, a sleep-walking human, it is Disintegration. Dis-integration merely seperates, fractures, divides, multiplies, complexifies, and distorts.

When the same Puzzle is engaged by an Agent of the Mystery -a Bodhisattva- it is the sacred operation of transformation and inclusion: Integration. Integration includes and develops all Reality through the infinite paradox of increasing differentiation-unity, it is literally, experientially a super-nova of omni-directional Love.

Once we drop over that event horizon -an integral awakening of What Is- our lot is set. We have an incredibly precious, rare opportunity in this miracle of human form, and that is to inhabit the Absolute in the vehicle of Relative Being. We are the stewerds of an optimum chance to serve Love and participate in Mystery play, because we are both Absolute Divinity and Relative Cacophany.

DO NOT BE MISTAKEN. Angels and high guides of every order envy and pine for the miraculous uniqueness we take fore-granted every day as human beings. We say "Youth is wasted on the young." Angels say "Homo-homo sapien incarnation is wasted on the somnambulant."

The reason to practice, the reason to develop mind, body, and spirit, in self, culture and nature is that each occlusion, every retardation we willingly permit in ourselves is literally, directly- a liability to all our brothers and sisters, to each and every sentient being in all manifest and unmanifest Reality as they strive to awaken to Reality As It Is. And THAT is what everybody, everywhere is trying to do: Wake up. Every behavior, impulse, each clumsy groping for some murky un-identifiable "it" is just another Kosmic Decoy. There is only one directive in the canon of Being, and that is Awaken. You'll decapitate your self with laughter once you directly experience the simple, absurd fact: You can't wake up.

You are awake. End of story.

Literally, the End of your story, the End of All stories. But not the ending that issues from conclusion, resolution, or finality. This is the Ending that springs from the sudden, ineffable transparancy of all decoys and their insubstantial narratives. The hand comes out of every puppet, and -oh, holy shit, look at that- it's Your hand. End of every story, every where. Stories are for characters, in time, experiencing a sequence of events, which alter and modify their qualities.

You have no qualities. You are at the point of all places. There is no such thing as two places, no such thing as two "times".

You are awake. But remember what You said about paradox? Yeah, that was You, speaking as me. Now We, the free, are free to remember that

the other parts of Us, the other bits of "I" are still in the story, and they do not know they are dreaming. That hilarious,ridiculous HOAX we just released our Self from is still incredibly fucking REAL to them, and this realization about Reality You have been gifted is a supreme luxury that I's like Us can luxuriate in. But it is complete fucking nonsense to them. They are stuck, assaulted by an endless, punishing barrage of the conditioned, programmed SLUDGE that is culture, convention, expectation, loss, hope, ache, confusion, and taxes. Just look at Stuart Davis.

That's right, the sacred, secret society of Self, the I's that is US has to go BACK INTO the story. Back into all the stories. We have to go back and get our friends, we have to save those parts of our Self. We need to re-enter the dream as operants of Love, serving any who have need. We need to develop the skills and tools to work with them in their conditions, in their circumstances, in their dream-scape, so we can remind them of What already is, what has always been, the beautiful fact that they are already Awake, they are God.

But how do we do that? What do we need to know? How must we train ourselves in preparation for this immeasurably important work?

It's integral, baby.

If we don't have access to and facility with the human mind, body, and spirit, if we do not have access and facility with culture, nature, politics, socio economics, art, religion -in short the development and function of all that dynamically arises in Reality- we are fucked.

We're just not going to be effective Bodhisattvas in the service of Love unless we have a very extensive tool box. Each domain we avoid or allow to atrophy in this fleeting opportunity that is human form, each one of those forfeitures is a big "FUCK YOU" to our Holy Family, every human being, every animal, every blessed creature in the world of form, spirit, and others too exotic to render with language. That doesn't mean perfecting each capacity, it doesn't mean actualizing the highest reaches of potential in every human function. It means ENGAGE, that's all. Engage your mind, heart, body, soul, your voice, your legs, your eyes, your ears. Engage your family, friends, enemies, city, country, culture, secrets, puzzles, maps, and mysteries. Just engage what's there, and play with it, work with it, for the sake of Love.

So, what do we do? We do the best we can with what we have available. There is a LOT available.

One example that's important to consider is death. Do we know how to die? Not just die every day, die in this moment, or die the innumerable deaths of surrender into relationship and personal evolution, but do we literally have any fucking clue what is actually going to happen when the vehicle of the human body drops away, and we are rocketed into the Transit states of an Essential Being stripped of its corporeal casing? Most of us don't, and we had better get cracking.

Meditation practice -DAILY meditation practice- is critical and primary, but by itself is not enough. That's where we start. And then we go get a copy of Ken Wilber's latest tome, and then a copy of the American Book Of The Dead, and begin to work our contemplative practice, and our Dream Yoga, and gently expand the radius of practice outward to include all interior and exterior locations on the limitless grid of "I".

The first thing we have to realize -and by "realize" I mean permanently register as a stable perception of our very own Being- is that what most people consider "reality" is a transfixing Theater Of Decoys. It is ALL You. The demons, the angels, the lights, the shadows, and every conceviable variation of seen and unseen phenomena- it is ALL You. You, You, You. You before the big bang. You at Universal implosion. You, every figure in the Spanish Inquisition. You, the trans-temporal IS. You, the slow-motion taffy of a trillion light years. All apparitions at birth, death, and bardo- You, You, You.

And so, we have to undertake our death training. Even if we have awakened a little bit, it's the first place we're going to fucking BLACK OUT (that, or internet pornagraphy. Six of one,...). Forget reading, cognitive understanding, even intuitive apprehension. If we have not PRACTICED in life, when the Essential Self departs from its physical form, the astonishing attack of ultra-vivid sounds, lights, and phenomena in the bardo is instantly going to cause the soul to pass out. Yes, I mean PASS OUT, as in "faint". And then we are not worth two shits to any one. We will be unable to perform even the simple assignments of Love, not able to dissolve into the Absolute, or attain a useful, conscious rebirth into human (or other) form, where all the action is. Let us not fuck around, friends.

You've been gently warned, by your Self. This is the lifetime of your awakening and participation in Reality, Mystery, and Love. If it wasn't, why in the hell would you still be reading this?

In the words of the American Book Of The Dead;

"And holy men of the world of matter who give lectures and discourse on dying and being reborn when they die, if they have remained unpracticed in the art of death no matter how strongly they held to their beliefs and no matter how clever they were in scholarly research, they will be cast down and be reborn in the worlds of matter.

And this is becaue when they lived in the human world they never held the Teaching in their hearts. But they held the Teaching with their voices only. And they had not allowed themselves to be initiated in the practice of the Teaching.

And so when the guides appear they do not recognize them in Reality. And they have become ignorant in their knowledge. And they are cast down because they have not recognized them.

And the least of the students who have practiced in their lieftimes will be lifted up. And those who have developed great proficiency in the practice and who have learned the visualizations and complete Method in the practice of the Teaching shall not come this far nor will they be cast down again.

And the moment that their breath shall cease they shall be led into the Luminous Void by the manifest Host of Guides. And the Holders of Knowledge shall come to them and lead them into the kingdom.

And to those Mystics who have failed in their vows and to all ordinary human beings this Teaching is indispensible. But those who have absolute faith and who can recognize the Clear Light of Reality within themselves at the moment of death they will not need the reading of the Teaching.

And by recognizing the Clear Light at the moment of death, they will also recognize the visions of the peaceful and the violent guides during the second stage of transit. And taking birth on the higher worlds will meet with the Teaching in the next birth. And thus they shall enjoy an unbroken line of the Teaching."