What you feel is life, what you live is another story.

Author: tomgrasso (Page 33 of 38)

The Essence of Privacy

It has been asked where my priorities are, so maybe it is only fair to answer.

I believe more in the individual than in the collective. The individual can surmount more adversity, solve more problems, address more issues than can any collective mind ever created. Our nation was not made great by its collective, but by extraordinary individuals who worked on behalf of the collective. Whether it was the handful of individuals who founded this nation, or each individual at Valley Forge who endured great hardship on behalf of a collective, or the individuals who rose above the collective to repel tyranny during World War II, it has always been the individual who has made this nation great…not the other way around.

We ceased to think as individuals in the early part of the 20th century. Many writers reflecting the times wrote about this loss of the individual, and they predicted a troubling time in America as a result. They were, unfortunately, correct.

The counter-culture of the 1960’s sought to bring back the individual, but it too was ruined by a sense of the collective. Today, we can’t think for ourselves without first running our thoughts through the collective mindset in ourselves, Republicans must think like Republicans, Democrats like Democrats, union rank and file must think alike, police officers who see wrongdoing in their collective cannot speak out against it, and as a nation you either agree with the collective or you are not part of the collective. You can no longer be American while disagreeing with it.

In other words, you cannot be an individual anymore. You cannot think thoughts based on something beyond collective thought. You cannot act in opposition with the collective. You must live like a drone on an island of drones if you want to survive.

Or else the ATF will burn your building down and kill you all. Maybe the FBI is listening in to your phone calls. Maybe Google and even this forum report your every move to some super-secret agency posing as an internet service provider.

The issue of privacy is an individual one. Privacy is simply the act of one acting as in individual away from the collective. It is one of the last bastions of individuality left in our nation, and it is under attack. It is under attack by big business interested in tracking your every move. It is under attack by a government using fear to make you feel as if this attack somehow serves you well. Collectives like religions have a long history of attacking the individual, at some points killing a person rather than let them not be like the collective. It is even under attack within yourself as some struggle with how they feel versus how they are supposed to feel.

It is simply up to you as individuals to determine how much of yourself you are willing to give away. Either you can stay tied to the binds of materialism which is the essence of such loss, or you can reject it all and move forward as yourself. You can either identify with a collective or you can choose not to. Ultimately in that decision comes an air of responsibility, one that you cannot pass off.

Now

Light and dismal, this thread that binds
Us all to all things that matter so much,
That the endless noise of those insane minds
Have taken the place of the simple touch.

It is now odd to love as it is the norm,
To seek out more the more we seek,
For the form of love is now the love of form,
and the less we know the more we speak.

We look to tomorrow in the hope we find,
That which is touching us so presently,
For in this conversation of the mind,
It is the ego that speaks so obnoxiously.

Do not rush to feel the hope that’s passed,
Nor seek to see that which may never come,
Just love the love in the Now so vast,
And worry not about what shall Now become.

A New Earth…One

The change is happening, the news brings alive the reaper.
To whom shall taste his scythe; the unconscious shall fall,
To take with them all that shall slowly seep into the abyss,
The darkness to which only the Dead shall call.

Need not that to which escapes your grasp,
Seek not that which you are not to find,
yet allow in each of us the cause of suffering,
To escape such insanity and pleadings of the mind.

Fear not, for you suffer this day,
Not for eternity, but so that you suffer no more,
the Horsemen come, the drum bangs slowly,
Keeping time in this crime of time’s detour.

See that! new life is arisen,
Be part of it, it is part of you.

Daily mantra…

I will not be a terrorist in this world.

I will not be a murderer in this world.

I will not suffer the indignity of not accepting the awareness so easily given to me by my Creator.

I will not treat the definition of honor as if it were my socks, to be changed when I don’t like how it smells anymore.

I will honor the teachings of Jesus, Buddha, and Lao-tzu not just when it suits me, but more so when it doesn’t.

I will accept suffering into my world as a means to the end of it.

I will search for the unity in all things, for that is where truth resides.

I will give up what I AM in order to find out what I AM.

I will end the insanity of the mind simply by not identifying with it.

I will be love in whatever form the present allows it to take.

I will serve man in whatever capacity the present allows.

I need not search for the Source (God) for I am part of it and it is part of me.

Untitled IV

I do not strive to be unlike,
Any other that God has made,
Yet to be untrue to the least of you,
Will surely see me fade.

Presence in nature – One

To be within nature, that which spawned us all into this existence we know as “human”, that which gave life to this world, that IS life in this world, now that is to find Heaven on Earth as surely as it is to find stars in the universe. To see the nature man has since forgotten, that vestige of life he once called his “Mother”, to feel the offering of such on my skin, the coolness of it all on my being, to be present in nature is to be in the midst of God itself.

To walk among these things is to realize that nature honors us much more than we honor it. It provides for us, sees to our sanity, provides us entertainment, and gives us that unique understanding of the I before the things of form cloud the self. We attempt to harness its power, to control its might, and pretend so arrogantly that we are in some kind of control, yet more often than not nature can end our arrogance with but a shrug of itself. We are truly but a flea on nature, an obscure parasite that is here at its behest, and can leave much the same. We cannot and are not in control of our destiny, and the sooner we end our arrogance that somehow we are the dominant in this relationship the sooner we will be at peace with all that is.

We would end the life of a natural thing without pause, as if somehow it is less than us. This is because we fail to see that what makes that living being what it is is the same that makes us what we are. It is not in the intellect of the being that offers its superiority, nor is it in strength of form, nor can it be found in cause or purpose; for nothing in nature is superior to another, all things serve a purpose united in the moment it exists that cannot be altered except by unconsciousness. It can even be said that things altered in unconsciousness serve a purpose, either to awake that which is unconscious or to offer a step toward that purpose. Still, man seems to be the only being in nature who is not aware of its purpose.

In proof of purpose, I offer you a bird I observed this afternoon. Some might say a bird’s purpose is to have offspring, to continue its species. Others might say that the bird’s purpose is to live and die. I, however, observed this golden finch’s purpose as it was singing. It was quite obvious that that bird’s purpose was to sing. It gave no thought to nest building at that moment. It gave no thought to laying an egg, or hatching a chick; no – its only thought was of singing. It seemed to give all of its energy and commitment to the song. What a beautiful song it was, for the finch gave itself completely to the song without a moment’s concern of what was to happen or what was to be, all things at that moment was as it must be..

I heard a story once about a dog understanding purpose and presence better than any man. If you walk into a room, a dog reacts with love and affection galore. Leave and walk back in five minutes later, the dog reacts the same. Why? Because it cares little for the past and nothing of the future, it just knows what is at the present moment. The second part of the dog metaphor has to do with reaction and the past. If you beat a dog, really abuse it, and 10 years later walk into a room with the dog, it very likely will bite you. The difference between man in his unawareness (lack of presence) and the dog is that the dog didn’t spend those 10 years thinking about biting you. He went about his life being a dog, until that very moment when he saw you again. That dog also probably didn’t react afterward either.

Yet as humans we carry around a bunch of excess baggage. We hold grudges, struggle with the insanity of our lives, and often suffer mightily because of it. We listen repetitively to the noise of thought in our head, choosing the insanity of thought over the sanity of presence. We fear that which we cannot understand, even personifying our Creator as if it were a man so that we could understand it better. We look outwardly for a savior, a man who will give us salvation because we cannot understand that in our making we have salvation inwardly – inside us all.

We have lost our individuality, our ability to work things out ourselves. We strive to interfere. We must save each of us from ourselves, passing laws that serve a purpose of futility. Seat belt laws are a great example. We have to interfere so much that we make it unlawful NOT to wear a seat belt while driving! This lack of awareness does not take into consideration that all things will be as they must be, whether or not the seat belt is worn! Nothing that is to happen can be stopped, no matter what law we pass in another arrogant attempt to enforce our will over that which will be.

“I do not stive to be unlike,
Any other that God has made,
Yet to be untrue to the least of you,
Will surely see me fade.”

When we are no longer in tune with nature, or understand that all things happen as they must, then we are doomed to fail as a human experiment. Since in can be readily assured that we are not human beings seeking a spiritual existence but rather are spiritual beings enjoying a human experience, we must surely find ourselves in tune with that which binds us to our Source. Otherwise, we cease to be relevant in that existence, and when we come to be so out of tune with our purpose as to no longer matter, we will cease to exist on this plane. To use a modern NFL metaphor, it would be like seeing 150-pound offensive lineman and 350-pound wide receivers on the field, all wearing ballet slippers. It just doesn’t fit. Since we are spiritual beings enjoying a uniquely human experience, once we cease to behave in line with spiritual beings we cease to exist in the manner we no longer have a relevancy necessary to exist. We cease to be who we are, so we cease to be.Presence acts like a capacitor on a circuit board (assuming I remember electronics at all). It (presence) gates down the ego so that we perform in purpose. Once that capacitor blows, and the current (ego) flows unchecked, the power is too great and the board destroys itself. We are in the midst of a capacitor who is about to fail, so either we can fix it and move peacefully in purpose or it will fail at the result will be catastrophic.

This does not serve as a threat, or even a warning, as I am ready for whatever each moment has in store for me. As indicated in the Book of Revelations, a “new earth” will arise along with a “new heaven”, showing that after the failure of the capacitor the new board will be created. In this new “board”, the new Earth will share with a new heaven a state of peace; the new “heaven being spirituality and awareness, with the “new” earth being the purpose of all who are alive to share in the awareness.

Sister

Do you remember how it felt?
The stinging sound of that angry belt?
The force of hatred so easily,
Born down on us such treachery?

Perhaps this life has seen you pause,
You need for which such evil caused,
You submit that for what mine own eyes saw,
The sounds of footsteps spur such recall.

Or change in you have forgiven such,
Or act as if you have done as much?
Do you forgive so fast such a past as well
Or is it fear you have in what such past will tell?

Such dismay in such forgot,
You honor those who honor not,
Close your eyes as not to be forced to see,
The light of such honor’s misery.

Turn your back on he who won’t,
Silence time for he who don’t,
It won’t change that for which you cannot run,
You seek respite for that which there is simply none.

The burden, girl and little boy,
The man who loved you did destroy,
The blame you passed from one to next,
The pain found in such context.

A sister is a sister not,
As evil lives in honor’s slot,
A brother who is dead to thee,
Shall not silence each day’s misery.

Anger

It is the sorry soul of the angry man,
Who is destined to repeat that for which he may never apologize,
And who is destined to have such anger repeated onto himself,
That is the hell for which he strives.

To wallow in such disgrace is the angry man,
Yet to never admit the pit in which he swims,
He will never understand the stench that remains upon his very being,
It is true he shall walk in such mud forever.

Release all that eats of you,
Understand that this moment is not that which created the beast,
And understand that the past is the food that feeds it.
Let go, and let God, the Being who is the Source of you without such pause.

You – control the moment, and do not let the past control that which is,
Rather seek the moment for itself, allow it to be as it should,
Feel the peace of such awareness as it washes over you,
Clearing the mud and stench and renewing your life eternal.

Seek and ask for such forgiveness,
but do not hold on such forgiveness to move beyond,
Relate to what is now, not to what was,
Seek that which is, not that which could have been.

And soon the beast will disappear,
A faint dot of darkness over a renewed landscape,
And you will be free,
Secure as the Observer, not the thinker, secure as the Being, not the human.

I am Man Part One

Alone on a tiny spec in the middle of a vast unending sea,
A spec on that spec am I,
Complete in my arrogance of all that’s me,
Unaware of the smallness of the spec on a spec
No one notices as I slowly pass by.

Unyielding in my sureness that I am all that is,
Surely standing firm that I am master of all I see,
I reach out to that which I cannot see,
As I need to master it as well,
And end the fear of that which I know not.

But behold that surely that which I know,
I do not have an inkling of,
I know little of the spec that holds me,
I know nothing of the sea that guides me,
Yet I stand firm that I know it all.

Within me is a rage, inbred fear that I am all too small,
And a fantasy that somehow I am all too big,
I make that which I know not into me,
And me into that of which I know nothing,
Yet remain sure that there is little I can be taught.

I invest my time in that which can end all of me,
And ignore that which can truly make all of me,
I turn my beautiful spec into a wasteland of sorts,
And in the spec’s reply I blame it for my transgressions,
I am not to blame as I find a way to end my own existence.

The Kingdom of Being is in the midst of us all,
Yet I cannot see it, I cannot fathom what it is I can’t see,
But I will tell you I own it, it is mine and you must join to enter the realm,
That which I own I cause to destroy all that I do not,
I choose to see only that which I can control and call my own.

I refuse to see that which bind this spec to the sea,
I refuse to see that which binds me to this spec,
And the sea to me, and me to that which owns the sea,
Yet somehow I own those things, those things are me,
In ego’s mastery I am all that needs to be.

I am Man, king of all that is, king of all that was
King of all that will be as surely as I own this tiny little spec of nothingness.
I am Man, and in the instant I was born is the instant I shall die,
For that which cannot see beyond itself will surely end.

Trees

It is said that men do hold a burden thus,
‘Tis great not to bear the weight of these,
For me, I wish to share the life of trees.

« Older posts Newer posts »