… Old Dad talking with his Daughter who asked for advice about a long friendship gone sideways…

You come here for the experience. All four corners… the Good, the Bad, the Ugly and the Beautiful.. You chose to superficially remember very little about the script you planned for the show. Makes for a much better and engaging experience  at the bottom rungs.

So, don’t look back. There is nothing there except your ego’s point of view while looking in the duality mirror. You are not separate from anything. But  to fully experience requires the contrast that duality offers as the background and foreground for the set. So the Bad and the Ugly offer that contrast to the Good and Beautiful. This is how you make your way back home. Picking  and choosing, choices in contrast, always now, always again and again until you mark the game as set and match ..

Omar Khayyám said it perfectly:

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”

-the old man  <3-d

– the old man

A great poem to live by.

You can take this to the bank.

–By Rose Milligan

-the old man

I come to the garden alone

As an old soul, knowing full well it’s my bonus round and that I’m lucky enough to still be able to work in our garden while trimming one of the oldest rose bushes, this wonderful essential carbon based example of living things (which we really know very little about outside of our self proclaimed superficial know-it-all arrogance) presented itself.

To be sure, I’ve seen these stick moth pupae before, but was always too absorbed by some trumped up self important life cause to really see that the DNA from which we all have evolved in infinite ways over millions of years branches effortlessly on with or without input from our egotistical hand wringing.

Behold, just one example of the 2017 twig impersonator. It must be good, because our yard is full of a variety of birds that are very diligent hunters looking for just such delicacies.

The garden this year is the best it has been in 30 years, and is in perfect balance with the show – a rich snapshot of the history of all that was, is now and will unfold in the dynamic cauldron of all our backyard carbon based DNA lifeforms in perfect non linear balance for each iterative step as it unfolds with or without our inputs.

Meanwhile, somewhere in big city, a bunch of pasty faced suited logicians, legislators and lawmakers try desperately to contain, direct and infill it all outside the infinite physical reality via some virtual rule based set of petty superficial logic, not realising that they are simply skipping the tops of the waves in an ocean that is ten thousand feet deeper than their made up cause and effect assumptions.

They are out of their depth, hopelessly lost at sea while straining at the oar locks using an assembly of broken compasses. Clearly, they don’t have a real sense of direction. That’s the price they pay for ego certainty, and the sad part is that they can’t even see it.

-the old man

This fits the “What’s it all about” Category nicely.

Alan Watts shares his profound wisdom on the nature of the mind.

“You’re really nothing, but this is the most incredible nothing.”

There is nothing else to add. Have a listen:

Alan Watts Discusses Nothing

-the old man

Beyond Desire

It comes uninvited as the stillness of a lake under a full moon might.

All of that weighty space-time baggage fades away to an immense and singular perspective. There are no thoughts, no reactions, no you.

It’s the essence of pure mind, as it was before self-awareness claimed your throne; pristine and uncluttered, free to observe to the very depths without the anchor of time.

In that awareness, there is no response, no judgement, no call to arms; simply the profound truth of what is.

Some might call it the peace that passes all understanding, but those are just words      – the old man

The Problem with Continuity

Ego, that creator of your space-time constructs, endlessly builds an illusion of continuity and perpetual self-awareness while you walk this earth. The underlying truth is that there is only ‘being’ in the unfolding and perpetual ‘now’.

Everything else is make-believe, manufactured by your ego and the judgmental reaction that rises as vapor from the process you know intimately as ‘Me’. All your biases, reacting to what is ‘now’, are a measure of how far removed ‘now’ is from where your abstract biases ‘think’ it should be.

That manufactured separation is the Yin/Yang seat of all your joy, sorrow, love, hate, craving or aversion when compared to what is ‘now’.

Top athletes understand this, and refer to it as ‘unconscious’ (not so much boxing, tho), meaning there is no thought between the ball and the hoop /bat/club/stick to mess up timing.

The unwashed might call it ‘In the moment’.  Either way works – take your pick and stop thinking about it. Your lifetime scores will improve greatly out of the gate.

-the old man

Loneliness and The Urge to Possess

The urge to possess or to be possessed is a profound human trait that comes from deep within. That source is the center of loneliness. Each of us will try to fill that void in different ways: a belief system, an organized cause or some other form of activity. All such efforts are escapes and the deep loneliness still remains to be filled.

To commit yourself to some organization, to some belief or action is to be possessed by them negatively. The other side of that same coin is to possess. Positive possessiveness is the doing good, changing the world, what is to what should be under the guise of love.

To control or direct another in the name of love or otherwise is really the urge to possess. This binary system of possess/possessed is held together by the urge to find security, safety and comfort from loneliness. Yet it’s from this very attachment that conflict and frustration will arise.

So know this: There is no escape from loneliness. It is simply a fact, and when you try to escape facts you can only leave a trail that breeds confusion and sorrow.

Once you directly see this fact beyond thought and logic, the rest will fade away.

-the old man

For the Sake of Doing

To wander thru life always bent on doing things for the sake of something else is at the core of all dissatisfaction; a perpetual series of escapes and avoidance from your real self and what really is.

Western Society’s Values are based on this purposeful theme; – I do this for you, and you do that or give me something else. The ‘this for that’, ‘tit for tat’ motivational system has been refined and promoted by the concept of money as the universal exchange agent to cut those deals.  Modern Society abstraction is a long way from the shoreline of our hunter/gather days and ways, even though our DNA never left the dock.

Those who loudly practice their Virtuosity in order to gain approval of the respectable component of society are not exempt for their particular variation on the above theme. Really, it’s always the same empty field that’s been ploughed over and over by the many, but never actually sown.

You’d think that compared to our ancestors, we have it made. We live longer; better healthcare and such.  We have tons more free time thanks to technology as well as instant global communications.

In spite of the timeline freedom that modern society affords us, doing something simply for the sake of doing it is harshly judged. The end result of all that backdraft is to perpetuate the eternal emptiness of unending desire for more or different whatever, wherever.

Because of the above processes, we miss the singularity of true beauty beyond thought, feeling and desire. It’s a beauty that has no opposite, and is outside the reach of the busy Yin/Yang of Space-Time apparatus.

If you’re feeling there’s a lot missing in your cluttered up life, just quiet your mind and do something simply for the sake of doing it, without intent or motive for anyone or anything. You might get to directly understand (beyond thought) that’s really why you came here.

–          the old man

A Word on Enlightenment

Anyone who tells you they are enlightened is not even close. The first part of the problem is that to attempt do so requires the DNA of language; – A Subject acting on a separate Object linked with a Verb.  Language exists in, and can only be understood in, the separation it defines and reinforces. In that sense, Enlightened as a described idea is not of the moment, nor can it be.

Enlightenment (remember that is just a word pointer trying to describe <“”>), is outside language and description, and can never be translated as a concept or place in our physical separation.

<“”> is of the infinite undifferentiated whole, unreachable to the I/Me/Self longing to go there as a place of inner peace. If you think you have been there, you haven’t. There is nothing to remember or bring back from the undifferentiated whole, nor could it ever make sense to anything remotely connected to the separate You/I/Me stuck in our space-time machinery.

<“”> will never show up if you desire it, meditate for it, or demand it. In fact, any emotion will bolt you down to Space-Time and keep you on this side of the curtain.

<“”> comes uninvited when you least expect it. You won’t know it in the moment, but when you drift back to thought, language and the daily grind, you will inwardly carry a profound  calm and direct understanding about the connected universe that is always unfolding as it should .

Regardless of why and where you have left to travel on this earth you will know this:

Nothing is wrong; – nothing ever can be wrong. 

It’s the singular truth that passes through the filters of our earthly understanding – Live your life to the fullest without fear or regret, with the wind beneath your wings.  That’s why you are here.

-the old man and one of his young man toys

Down Memory Lane

You may have clicked on this post thinking yet another Old Man was about to reminisce about the “Good Old Days”.  But you’d be wrong. Hang on to that thought as you read this.

Memory + Thinking team up as Ego to create separation from the unfolding ‘Now’ so that you can practically function, navigate and compare notes in the Physical Space-Time Universe that you and Einstein see as real. Without that module, you can’t effectively operate here. And, as it is said, you can’t get there from here. ‘Here’ is all about separation; ‘There’ is undivided all beyond thought.

So, you start earth-life at the umbilical cord connected to the blissful Now, but quickly build up enough memory and processing power to become self-aware. You fortify the concept of ‘Me and Mine’ by continuously creating custom distances between everything that Ego catalogues under the Action- Reaction Library Banner Module. (I made that up.. don’t Google it).

From this process emanates your Reality. Could be Success, Failure, Love, Hate, Banker, Bank Robber, Bank Teller, and so on. To the undivided universe it’s just the ever unfolding Now. To you,  it all depends on how it’s catalogued. The separation / pain / anxiety / joy / judgement that you continuously feel is rooted in your manufactured reality; – Not even close to the actual connected universe of ‘What Is’.

On the down side, Memory Lane is one of the major filters that can keep you locked into a specific life frequency, for good or bad, in a ditch or a castle.  For example, if someone did wrong or right to you and you carry that into the meet and greet for every new individual you run across, you don’t actually see the truth or potential of any new experience as it could evolve, but rather thru the filter of your memory .

There are a million other subtle biases that you bring to the table when you try to carry your past into the ‘Now’ with the associated memory baggage.  You keep circling the same old drain as long as you choose to stay tied to that particular leash. It’s why you sometimes make very bad decisions by ignoring “What Is” and depend on the sketchy Memory Module to be your guide.

So what to do, what to do . . . .

• Actually, it’s pretty simple. To summarize, we live in a world that we understand in physical separation, always moving forward in time, creating our Space-Time Continuum. You can revisit the place where you were born, but you can never go back because that damn time part has moved on. The Smart Physics Guys put this way: The entropy of the Physical Universe is always increasing.. (Google that). Now get over it.
• Space-Time is a complex construct of your mind that is the sum of your filtered sequential memory from the time the umbilical cord was cut to the trees you walked around, cities you lived in, loves and hates you shared up to this screen you are reading now.  The creator of that “Reality” is called  Me, I or your Ego, but it is just your life memory strung together,  carefully stitched and filtered across your own timeline biases to make up the virtual idea of the self you love or hate.  It doesn’t and can’t  exist in the moment.
• Try as you might meditate, your Ego can never quite get to “Now”.  It’s explicitly excluded from the holistic connected dance of the Universe that knows no such separation as that created by looking down memory lane.

What to do, you ask? …. Let go.

-the old man

The takeaway from 70+ years of wear and tear in wandering around the planet distills into three words: Less is more.  The kids say that it’s easy for me to say that now, having had a pretty good ride, all in all. Perhaps they have a point, but maybe not. It doesn’t matter for the purpose of this note.

From 20 on into the 40’s it was all about the money dream.  When that didn’t quench the fire and bring on Nirvana, it was about upping the game which included chasing power in its varied forms ranging from respect to influence to being the top dog in the penthouse suite.

Chasing the dream is one of those things that are guaranteed to keep your finely tuned earth-ego separated from what is. “What is” is never right or wrong, good or bad, yin or yang, or in fact, anything you can comprehend with your earth mind. It can never be part of your familiarity with Einstein’s Space-Time physics limited by the speed of light.  It’s simply Now, totally connected and unfolding without you or your thoughts on the matter.

In fact, every thought that arises as a “Me/Them/It-thing” is the very act that separates your world of disparate ideas from the holistic Now. The distance between your desire/regret for/of a particular outcome and “What is” will always be a measure of your emotional pain or joy. As long as there is a ‘You’ at the scene, there will be that pain, joy or separation which can be measured as the gulf between your desire and the “What is”. You can never know “What is” in your busy life of separation; all you know is always looking back with joy or regret, and forward with expectation, anxiety or fear.  So the takeaway tip for this navigation-free note is simply :

• If you are fearful or anxious, desire something or other at this moment, you are ahead of the Now.
• If you feel joy, regret or depression at this moment, you are behind the Now.
• If you are lost in a beautiful sunset or in the middle of a perfect golf swing – there is no you…. Congrats! You have touched the hem of Now … that is,  until you remember how great it was/is and feel the need to tweet. The trick is not thinking at all… in which case you have arrived then evaporated into the experience and are free to go… priceless!

-the old man