The Fall of the New Roman Empire

"Oh, we don't care if the sun don't shine
'long as you've got yours and I've got mine!"

IN CASE IT ISN'T totally obvious to everyone, the original "me" generation has unfortunately morphed, under cover of extreme darkness, into an army of well-heeled half-wits in expensive suits whose mission in life is to own everything, control everything, consume everything there is, at any cost—even if they have to destroy the planet's life support system (and kill half the population) in the process. Perhaps some karmic cataclysm lost in the dim reaches of their tortured, antediluvian past accounts for their inhuman disregard for everything not immediately related to the satisfaction of their inane and insatiable desires. Perhaps they simply weren't breast-fed long enough.

Meanwhile, the older generation is finally beginning to show signs of becoming a kinder, gentler version of itself as the clock winds down on their hit parade. "But alas, it was all for naught!" they cry as the emperor-drones of the New Me Generation march on, devouring everything in their path, oblivious even to the sound of their own children's bones crunching underfoot as New Romes all over the civilized world burst into flame under blood-red skies choked with the swirling fumes of terminal excess.

It is a sad reflection on the state of the world today that the older generation has practically no value in the eyes of the younger. Throughout history, and even long before recorded history, has it not always been the elders who became the shamans and seers in every human society, the keepers of tradition and the embodiments of wisdom? The U.S. Constitution was, afterall, written by a bunch of old men. And yet today, the young presume to chart their own way into the future unaided by the lessons of the past. If this profoundly arrogant, and ignorant, attitude is allowed to proliferate further, the younger generation will, regrettably, be making a mistake of monumental proportions.

And how can it be that now, in this time of growing global crisis, the wisdom of our fathers means nothing at all, especially to those who stubbornly and heedlessly maintain their death grip on the reins of power even as the Chariot of State so unwisely entrusted to their care lurches headlong toward Oblivion? Only a society hell-bent on its own destruction would choose, or accept, such a wreckless course of action.

Over and out.

The Seeking Mind

Enlightenment is not an object and therefore cannot be grasped
by any strategy of the goal-seeking mind.

LET US AGREE for a moment, just for the sake of discussion, that thinking is like the mind in motion and enlightenment is like the mind at rest. It will then be easy to see that the very thought of stopping the mind is a movement of the mind and therefore an obstacle to enlightenment, the opposite of enlightenment. The act of visualizing the goal creates the conditions that separate the seeker from the goal. It's like a mirage in the desert or a carrot on a stick: the objective is always right there is front of you, yet somehow you can never reach it.

At the end of the day, even the most devout spiritual practice, to the extent that it involves any goal-seeking strategy of the mind, can be of value to the seeker of enlightenment only insofar as it frustrates his every effort so completely that finally, in utter despair of ever reaching the goal, he surrenders even the desire to reach it. At that moment, when all strategies finally crumble and the so-called ego is forced to admit defeat, the goal itself disappears since it means nothing to the seeker without the desire to reach it.

Now, if the spiritual journey is like a path from point A to point B, it is easy to see that all three components (point A, point B and the path connecting them) disappear when point B disappears. Without an end point, there is no starting point and no journey from one to the other. Without a goal, there is just now—nothing and nobody silently humming in empty space.

The whole point of seeking, one could say, is simply to exhaust the urge to seek. There is no goal to reach, no answer to find—only the possibility of no further questions.

Peace.

The Yoga of Getting In Your Face

BE A MONK if you want to; but if nothing is real, what is to be gained by accepting or rejecting anything? The outcome of each moment is simply the resultant of all possibilities converging at that particular time and place; that is all. The final result is what it is, regardless of what anybody thinks about it. Right and wrong do not enter into the equation.

On the other hand, nothing really happens without the participation of an observer. People will tell you, quite correctly, that you must accept the moment as it is, yet its very existence is dependent upon your perception of it. Thus life becomes a kind of Rorschach test that reveals you to yourself as reflected in the mirror of the world as you see it.

Perhaps, somewhere, there is a place where tender souls who always turn the other cheek are justly rewarded for their compassionate forbearance; but I doubt it. Life on the street is like life in the jungle. Sometimes the best spiritual practice is the one that is keeping you alive.

The wheel turns and whatever is beneath it is ground to dust. Each moment, and the next, is indelibly stamped on the face of Eternity; and that, as they say, is that. The sun rises, the lion roars. Are these things
any less sacred than a monk's humble prayers?

Peace.