Dog Poet Transmitting.......
By this time in the New Year, the desire for personal change has come up against the force of routine and habit and some... some are probably holding strong, in their commitment to positive change. Many have fallen back upon the guttering leaves, caught in the potholes of memory and are seeing how hard it is to burn wet, compacted leaves. The last several days... I've been in a mild, Proustian melancholia, remembering snatches of things past/passed. It seems that my pun about 2020, being the year of perfect hindsight, might not have been a pun after all. We don't remember well, usually. Over time we editorialize and try to shape it all, to be more in keeping with the heart's desire. The rigorous and ruthless honesty that is required of everyone, who is sincere on the spiritual path, is never more difficult than it is in times of material excess.
Most of the tools and teachings of what we call New Age, are an amalgam of strategies and techniques that cater to the spiritually lazy. I remember a fellow telling me about an event he attended where Eckhart Tolle-Booth spoke. He said there was VIP seating at the front of the room for the TMZ, D-List celebrities and the wealthy and the rate was in the hundreds of dollars. I knew something was off about the fellow when I saw him being promoted by Offal Winfrey. For me, that usually means, “the fix is in”; whether it be some newly minted celebrity, or a just released book. Because I have/had some acquaintances who were fans of the New Age sector, I was compelled, through peer pressure to give Tolle a fair hearing.
I went to youtube, where he has some amount of videos and I spent about 5 minutes, listening to him discourse in a hypnotic drone; the kind of thing where you feel compelled to lean forward, lest you miss anything. His head was slouched forward and the whole presentation hit me as very calculated to a particular end, especially the hypnotic, droning monotone. The fellow telling me about Tolle-Booth seating at the speaking engagement, went on to tell me that he was around after the event and he saw Eckhart shoveling tens of thousands of dollars- cash, into a briefcase, after which he speedily exited the venue. A lot depends on whether I believed the tale I was being told, but the fellow telling me was a man of integrity and he had no reason to lie. He sought me out following a posting (like this) that I devoted to Herr Tolle, in which Tolle-Booth figured in the title. I remember the post well... because it garnered well over 200 comments. It was evenly divided between those agreeing with me and those who were in different degree of outrage, over my temerity to dissect this sacred cow. I stand by what I said, then... and now.
I remain puzzled at the man's celebrity. There is not much dynamic or animating about him. He doesn't seem to be one to rouse the masses into an intensity of spiritual fervor. Tony Robbins I can understand. I do not understand Tolle. It seems everyone has a copy of The Power of Now, except me. I did manage to look through some of his books and I saw NOTHING that I had not read elsewhere, previously. The same thing happened when I first began reading Bhagwan Rajneesh (later to the known as Osho). His work was clear and measured but all of it I had read elsewhere before, sometimes it was word for word what I had read elsewhere and that was consistent in both cases.
As I have reflected on Tolle and heard the odd anecdotal tales of his comings and goings over the years, he's remained true to form, concerning my initial impression. It hit me... I don't know when, that he... and a slew of others were programmed for the roles they play and the wheels greased for their material success. Some of these people are networking facilitators, like this lady whom I mentioned before. Wait till you get a look at her credentials! Then there is a whole list of them when you scroll down. These are what I run into, with near zero exception, whenever 'new age' is in the picture AND ALWAYS... ALWAYS IT IS ABOUT THE MONEY!
This distresses me because... REAL SPIRITUAL TRUTH IS PRICELESS. You can't put a price on it and that means that just about all of it is bunk. It's just one more Walmart. It's just another mall, be it virtual, or manifest. Yes... I understand that it takes money to print books and make CDs and DVDs (and to mail these items) but I also understand that there are ways around it too and whenever someone can't afford one of my books, I give them a PDF for free and when they can't afford a musical album, I give it to them in digital form. Meanwhile, everything else, the blogs and the videos are free. Yes... people can donate but I have NEVER... EVER... asked for donations and I NEVER WILL. If God won't come out of the invisible and help me whenever I need it, then either God does not exist or I do not deserve it. Thankfully... so far... neither of those have proven to be true.
I DO NOT MONETIZE. I am not signed up to Google or anywhere else. I could not live on what I garner from the occasional gift from the kindness of strangers (grin) but it keeps me in beer money and cigarettes, most especially since I don't drink or smoke cigarettes. God takes care of me and he takes care of everyone else too, whether they know it or not and whether you see God as The Father or The Divine Mother, he/she are both and The Son also and WILL RESPOND TO YOUR PROJECTION!
Far too many people, with far too few exceptions, are trying to build empires that are composed of philosophies they pirated from ancient sources, without accreditation. I have read all of the major spiritual texts, more than once, except for the ones I quickly found no use for and I can tell when someone took something that was not the fruit of divine inspiration.
It has been an ongoing disappointment to me how few they are that walk the talk. Authenticity is a rare bird with distinctive plumage. I don't know what color integrity is but it accounts for more than a few of the feathers. There is a reason that all of the authentic spiritual texts and authentic spiritual masters agree on the rigors of The Narrow Path and there is a reason they say that there are so few upon that path. The guardians of the way are merciless in their testing of every candidate. You are purposely made to feel as if you are all alone, often. Faith is not conferred. It is built. It is built from trauma and tears. It is built out of the woven darkness of the howling unknown, through which the pilgrim must pass through on his/her way to the light AND as ever... THERE MUST BE AN EASIER WAY. There is NO EASIER WAY.
What makes the way hard, what makes the way difficult, is our resistance. It is our inability to surrender that accounts for all of the hardship. From the moment we let go of our rebellious certainty of knowing, when we do not know and never can know, there is no further distress or trouble. Whether it takes a million years or a brief reach of time; FREEDOM AND SALVATION... march right alongside us the whole way. At any moment, one could step off of the hard highway and on to the moving escalator of light. It all depends on how long it takes us to wake up and once again, as God once stated, “Success is speedy for the energetic.”
Lucky us!!! We are in an APOCALYPSE!!! We are actually IN A TIME OF AWAKENING. How much more fortunate could we be... potentially... than we are this very minute? The driving force of the cosmos in this moment is... AWAKENING. Too many of us, with irons in the fire and agendas in the process, are confined by the fear of loss, in a world where nothing material is worth keeping. Yes... Lady Nature is aroused. Yes... there is turmoil everywhere and a growing army of the marching insane. Yes... there is the specter of chaos and confusion on all sides but... IT IS ALL TAKING PLACE IN A TIME OF AWAKENING. I assure you the glass is neither half empty or half full, it is overflowing. For those with the eyes to see, greater spiritual opportunity is more to be had... than at any time in a long, long, long time previously.
We have only to awaken. One of the first things you notice is that YOU ARE NOT ALONE! Your guidance system announces itself. The indwelling begins to hum with intuitional force. The screen of your interior GPS lights up and the little arrow points to what the map clearly shows, “you are here!” Now there is no 'further on', there is no 'later'. There is no 'tomorrow'. There is no past record of false personal history. There is nothing but you, standing under an endless waterfall of light. It was there all the time but when you awaken, when you eyes open, now you can see and feel it. Now you see that the only danger there ever was, was the danger you carried within you, in search of the condition or combatant, who needed to be materialized to bring satisfaction to your fears.
Hallelujah!!!
End Transmission.......
Today's Song is-
Up around the corner, up around the bend, if you haven't found it yet, it might be hid at Pocketnet.
