My art is the best part of me, the gold-plating on a cast of lead.
Bodies orbit the sun, souls orbit the abyss.
I am grateful for my broken heart, and for this love which suffers, and refuses to die when unrequited. Without them, I could never understand the heart and love of God.
Christ is seemingly the most current and, to my mind, most perfectly developed example of a crucified god; the most human and the most divine. Whether these avatars emerged from the virginal wombs of our ancestor's imaginations, or incarnated in a more corporeal sense, it is clear they have collectively occupied a position of the highest importance for the development of souls through time. So numerous are the prototypes, we cannot doubt that this symbol is something more than a symbol; that, even more closely than a son reflects his father, this symbol reflects an imprint on the deepest part of the soul of a man, and on the history of mankind. We may call it an archetype, but the word is academic enough to lack the significance and potency which is due. For my part, I have chosen to call it God, since that is precisely what it is to me; the surest, deepest imprint of my soul, and the great abyss around which I am sustained in constant orbit.
Exponentially increasing complexity is seemingly built into the system. Our institutions abhor simplicity. It was never true efficiency they sought, but to preserve themselves at our expense, by keeping us perpetually busy. To occupy a vast number of people for the majority of their time is the true aim of industry. It is inefficiency which keeps us employed.
If what persons of genius assure us is true, -- that their understanding is so far above the heads of most, that it is hard for others to see and, consequently, faces formidable opposition and doubt, -- then it must equally be true that the greatest persons of genius are of an understanding so far exalted beyond our own, that it is entirely impossible for us to see. We would instantly pronounce them unworthy of our time, and pause only to decide whether they were imbeciles, invalids, criminals, or lunatics. Then the greatest minds of all time are among those lost to obscurity, so broad was their vision that it could find no setting within the scope of the age. If they are, as we might expect them to be, maladapted in other ways, despite their inestimable gifts, and though far ahead of their times, they will hardly have survived the world as it has been.
Every genius knows that genius is nothing, and sanctity is all.
Without impeccable goodwill, cleverness is less of a blessing than a curse, and may become a great power for destruction. With impeccable goodwill, cleverness becomes unnecessary, even extraneous, like an odd, unusable appendage, which only exists to get in the way.
It is our nature to court rules, but Nature herself is fond of exceptions.
Without intuition, the words of the wise would ensnare and befuddle us even more than the words of fools. Where we expect to find clarity, we are shocked to discover confusion, for the limits of words do not become apparent, nor do they significantly hinder us, until we attempt to go beyond them. Only intuition reads between the lines and circumferences the unspoken. This is why Moses first perceived God in the light, then later, as he progressed, came to see Him in a cloud, and, finally, "face to face" in darkness. For the Infinite cannot be perceived in the well-lit world of appearances. The mind is first illumined, but rises into a higher confusion, until the soul lets go of it altogether and comes to dwell in the silent places of the heart. There, where the knowledge of finite things is lacking, the knowledge of infinity takes its place.
Words are magical items, yet we use them so capriciously, so carelessly. Like the sorcerer's apprentice, we create a great mess of words, all sounding at once, as if to clarify matters, but only creating more waste and disarray.
If God waits for us in darkness, and if our most pressing work is in darkness, then we do little more than dally in appearances, and this well-lit, external world really is as nothing.
The residue of a sinful life crusts and clouds over the lens of the heart, so that we cannot see beyond ourselves, to love more than ourselves. Only by abstaining from those things which distract us, and giving prayerful attention to whatever leads us back into the Holy Presence, can the heart-lens be cleansed; that we might see as He sees.
God's love is poured out over the world, but there is far too much for any one soul to contain, so, whenever a man feels his soul filling up with this love, he rushes to gather as many souls together as he can, in order that all may share in the infinite abundance.
The entire search for wisdom is, in fact, an excavation of the psyche; a process of expression.
Applause is a sauce to be sparingly poured. Careers have crumbled, talents turned soggy, under a swelling crowd. The approval of an audience can produce an opiate effect; believing he has expressed himself masterfully, and more than accomplished his task, the artist does not strive for something more. He dissolves into complacency. His work suffers. No doubt, he could easily discover all the flaws in his work, if he really wanted to find them, and only took his time. It is because he flatters himself that he needs a teacher, to provoke him into seeing what he only half-sees, not wanting to see. The nature of patrons is to flatter us, but of a teachers, to keep us humble.
Charles Fort was right. There is more anomalous than accepted evidence. Our paradigms are local constructs, while the universe looms, and everywhere seeks an in. Even our most objective scientists have agendas, ideological or economic, conscious or unconscious, which undermine their fidelity to science, preventing us from discovering wherein we are mistaken. More than anything else, their assumptions determine the parameters of investigation and experimentation, as well as what data is to be discarded or retained. The institutions we erect to serve us (and end up serving) are staunchly and constitutionally opposed to any kind of progress which advances at faster than a snail's pace. Everywhere, the new and inexplicable is ridiculed, passed over, or damned violently to the dustbin before it has a chance to see the light of day. And only because it is new, or seems new; nobody having reported or dared to make much of its previous appearances. Truly, more has been kept from us than has ever been shown.
It's true that aphoristic thinking is lazy, but what does this prove, after all? One easily grows lazy by performing what is beneath one's strength. Contemplation itself ranges far beneath aphoristic insight, and the aphorist walks, as Nietzsche's Zarathustra says, on peaks, for which one must have long legs. How lazy do giants become, with the world always beneath them? We hear of them sleeping. They must nap often, and take pleasure lying close to the earth, with nothing much to do up there in the clouds. Nothing but walk, and take mountains in their stride. And carry themselves to distant regions before they know what's what.
As far back as the deepest shadows of history, when man emerged from the forest, he emerged in symbiotic relationship with the vegetable kingdom; at any rate, with that part of it which he ingested, mostly through eating, but much of it through inhalation, external application, and other means. Man could not live without ingesting at least some of these plants, nor could he prevent his neurochemistry, and his consciousness, from being affected by the compounds, and spirits, contained in all of them. Sometimes, the changes in consciousness were so rapid as to be striking, evoking potent insights occasioned by the abrupt juxtaposition of the two states of consciousness; one preceding, the other following, ingestion of the plant. Others plants were more subtle in their actions, and while their effects might ultimately be no less profound, they took place so gradually as to go unnoticed, or, at least, unaccounted for. Each plant established its relation to mankind by providing him with certain nutritional requirements, evolutional advantages, and/or pleasure incentives. The chemical processes, biological and neurological, set into motion by the various compounds contained in these plants were of considerable variety. The processes to which they corresponded, the benefits and deficits they conferred on man, were many. Some processes, it seems, were more overtly spiritual than others, and the psychedelic experience certainly appears to have been one of them. Indeed, religion, in its deepest origins, and wherever it still flourishes today, seems to be nothing more nor less than humanity's attempt to preserve and institute the overwhelming insight, ecstasy, empathy, mystery, awe, love, and inspiration which are all common aspects of the psychedelic experience; extreme states of consciousness which may be accessed or approximated without the plant, but, which we might never have uncovered or bothered to attain without the initial assistance of the plant. The aim of religion, then, is not to turn our backs on the natural world, and on the substances, or spiritual allies, which first evoked the spiritual experience within us, but, rather, to learn their lessons so completely as to become independent of them. If the teacher is never abandoned, the lesson is never completed. Man must take what he has learned and put it to use in his life. Religion is simply man's effort to carry water from the sacred well, and, though much has been spilled, much more has been preserved and put to good use. Men who had never heard of plants with psychedelic properties nevertheless heard about religion, and while many of them were misled by false interpretations, many of them understood and made no mockery of the instruction they found. The biographies of mystics testify to the success which devoted people have had, in every century, making use of religious language and symbolism for the purpose of anchoring the spiritual experience in their own hearts.
Have you ever noticed that when you are calm, grounded, and relaxed you don't tend to offer up the usual easy answers to people's problems. You aren't so impatient, in such a hurry to offer the first solution that comes to mind, or so likely to cry "excuses!" when your first bit of hasty advice isn't received. You don't blame others, but realize that, if you took yourself down a notch, and did your own spiritual work, you would be in a much better position to help. You begin to acknowledge the complexities. You don't expect them to "snap out of it". You realize that what may come easy to you in this life may be another person's greatest challenge. You realize that people have formidable defenses and vulnerabilities around these sore spots of theirs, so that you must speak to them with great tact if you don't want them to shut down and become more isolated and hopeless. You become attentive, listening more than speaking. You become a different person; kinder, gentler, humbler, less self-absorbed and ready to respond to the needs of others. It's amazing. All our restlessness, the thoughts we can't put down, the search for some kind of release, -- these things preoccupy us to the point where we can't see anybody else clearly. We really need to be still and breathe. Let our mad selves go. Let them go on ahead with their drama. We can always catch up later. Now we need to sit here and allow ourselves to be calm, so that we can actually respond in a rational and supportive way.
We killed God and he didn't flinch. He agonized and sweat blood, but he didn't flinch. Not him. Not his spirit. Not his love for us. God's is the love that does not flinch, even in the mouth of hatred; even in her very bowels; in Hell. So that there is no more hell, -- for love in hell is no hell. We broke his body, we even broke his heart, still, he goes on loving us with his broken heart. Offering this gift we shattered. Many diamonds that were One.
What we want is a spill of insights, a continuous flood of waves, each following so closely upon the other as to share some part of itself, while yet preserving its own sharp crest.
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