The first gibberish

Once I go, where will I be? I will still be herebecause we don't go anywhere. You'll see me if youknow how to look. We are part of the seasons, thecycle of life and death. Like the leaves on the trees,they go, and they come back. Look at them; seethem in their journey, their cycle. We are, like theleaves, the leaves on our tree of life.

But we don't know how to look. We have notgone into what death is. We would rather sweepit under the rug, so when it comes, we are notprepared. In order to find out what death is, youhave to find out what living is. Out of that simple yetcomplicated inquiry, you will know what love is. Wehave not gone into any of the different facets of life.

Rather, we are totally involved with the things themind has created in its search for security—myth,tradition, and belief—which have prevented us fromseeing clearly.

We don't know how to look! We do come back,provided we understand myth, tradition, and belief.If not, you will be stuck in limbo, never to reappear.

Everything is related, so no matter what we talkabout, it will always lead us back to this point—now!Life happens now, not tomorrow or yesterday, notthe future or the past—illusions of the mind thathave prevented us from seeing what actually is.

Love is knowing who you are, what you are,where you are, and how to act at that moment intime. Love is knowing whom your actions areaffecting and realizing that at some point, youractions will come back to haunt you. You will getbitten in the butt! You can only take that leap offaith and wait it out. And then, well, go make somefried chicken! If someone is looking, they will see it.

We are going to talk about love, but it will involveeverything. Everything is related to the whole. Youcannot separate the different facets of a diamond;you cannot separate the onion from the sauce or thebay leaf from the soup. The beauty of gumbo is allthe ingredients that make up the finished product.You cannot separate the individual from the whole.The root of that word, individual, is indivisible. Theindividual is part of the whole, an idea or realitywidely misunderstood. Love is not only part of thewhole; it is arguably the glue that holds everythingtogether. So where do we begin?

Before we embark on this venture, you have tounderstand where you came from and what wentinto making who you are. When I started out, I wasperfect, like a fresh loaf of bread out of the oven.Then everybody proceeded to hide that wonderfulfresh, hot loaf just out of the oven with butter, jam,jelly, and what have you. (Should have just usedWonder Bread!)

I started out perfect and became what I amin the well-intentioned meanings of my parents,peers, friends, and conventions. In short, they alldumped on me! They dumped their experiences,failures, and fears until I was no longer that perfectloaf of bread out of the oven. I was carrying allthat extra baggage. Someone once said that truthis understanding what is from moment to momentwithout the burden, the baggage, of the pastmoment.

In order to go on a journey, we must know andunderstand who we are so that we know why weact as we do. If you are presented with a dangeroussituation, you act out of instinct to prevent harm.But in other situations, instead of seeing the problemclearly, we start spinning on it according to ourconditioning, our prejudice, thereby never seeing theproblem. So in making this inquiry into what loveis, we must understand where we are coming from.Fair enough? If we go to it wearing shades, we arenot going to see clearly. A journey has to start infreedom, not end in freedom, for it to be worthy topursue.

Most people, when asked a question, start talkingright off the tops of their heads without evenlooking to see if the question is properly placed.How do you know someone's intentions whenasking a question?

How do you know that someone is sincere inasking or if someone is trying to rope you into ortrap you into a wrong answer? You must first lookat the question to see that it is correct in order tocontinue. Forget "Time is money." Look at thequestion. Invariably, in the question, you will findthe simple answer. Look! Just look!

Understanding who I was and how I got herewas a tremendous source of enlightenment. Yes,I had lots of book learning, but I had never beentruly educated. I was swimming in the stream, beingcarried along with everyone else, until one day, I gotout of the stream, sat on the bank, and realized that

I had never been truly educated in the ways of themind—how the mind works in its sharp, almost-connivingway to be secure. You see, for the mind tobe sane, it must be secure. If it is not secure, it willbecome neurotic, and it will search for ways to attainsecurity. It will invent things and work toward thosethings in its search, not realizing that it is playing agame of its own making.

Breathe. Breathe deeply! Let the mind breathe.Let it wander where it will. Don't try to control it.Just let it go in freedom and just observe.

A Moment of Levity(Before I Lose Everyone!)

All this Is heavy! I need a drink! A little levity ofsorts! I must keep this light, or I'll risk losing all ofyou!

(I wrote this book once. I wasn't satisfied. Istarted to rewrite it, and because I'm computerilliterate, I accidentally erased eight chapters that Ihad written. It's like losing a baby! What botheredme was that I had forgotten something hilarious thatI had written. After racking my brains [assuming Ihave one], I finally remembered the funny stuff. Theother stuff, the long-haired crap, well, I can alwaysmake that up again.

(So I began again, and wouldn't you know it, theother day, I erased something else! It's like that jokethat goes nowhere. I wonder, can I start at my feet,use an eraser, and erase myself like that old cartoon?Man, my mind is weird! I do need a drink! I know Ican do this, but it's going to take my favorite drink.This book is going to be a nough tut to crack!)

My favorite drink is the infamous negroni oflegend—definitely an acquired taste. I had fourteenof those one night and slept like a baby for two days.I didn't even need a diaper change. This drink ismade from equal parts of gin, Campari, and a splashof sweet vermouth with crushed ice that is shaken,not stirred, and strained into a martini glass. Finally,the pièce de résistance—an orange peel rubbed onthe rim of the glass before slipping it in. Now, letyourself be transported to faraway lands—maybeeven New Jersey!

I was sort of caught in the moment—what withwriting about love and watching one of my favoritelove stories, Brigadoon—that I decided to do it right!

So before attacking the bar, I went into the otherroom and got into my favorite Scottish tartan, aclaret turtleneck, my favorite Scottish plaid BlackWatch jacket, white knee-highs, and no pants, ofcourse, and proceeded to the bar to fix a batch ofnegronis of legend, of course!

I sat comfortably on the sofa, crossed my legs as itwas a bit drafty, and proceeded to enjoy. The negronistarted to work its magic. I had been sitting there solong my bottom had gone to sleep. I know! I heardit snore twice! A warm feeling came over me, andas I started to drift off into the foggy highlands ofScotland, the heather on the hill must have tickledmy bottom 'cause my ass suddenly broke wind. Afart jarred me awake! As I ran into the other roomto fix another batch of negronis, I suddenly realizedthe deeper meaning of the word love. Thank whoeverthey don't show Brigadoon too often!

Ah, Brigadoon and the infamous negroni. One isfoggy; the other makes you foggy!

On Love!

What Is Love?

..............?

(That shOuld wIn me the Pulitzer Prize for finallyclearing up that often-asked question!)

Was there love in the universe before manarrived? If the universe were compared to a twentyfour-hourday, man made his appearance at roughlytwo minutes before midnight. Did one of those bagshe arrived with contain love, which he could justnow dispense here and there as he saw fit, maybegiving more to some than others according to whatclub they belonged to? What was there before? Wasthere a god in the universe before man arrived? Wasthere love?

See, when man arrived, he created many things.He didn't look to see what was there. Out of hisshallow mind, man created all you see today. And,God forbid, anyone speaking against the establishedpattern would have been put to the stake, as we haveseen! But what was there before we arrived? Whatwas the universe doing?

The function of the brain is to record. The brainrecords every experience that we have and stores itas knowledge. Many of the things that we experiencewe don't understand because they are beyond ourlimited capacity. All we do is measure; we live inmeasurement and comparison, and if somethingis beyond that, we are at a loss. We simply turn itover to someone else to figure out. Invariably, thatsomeone else might be the wrong person. It mightbe someone that actually compounds the veryproblem. So instead of going into the problem, thequestion at hand, we simply just build on top of ourconditioning and prejudice, and well, we invariablydon't come up with the right answer. So beforeanswering a question, we really need to understandourselves, our conditioning, where we came from,and what influences shaped our lives. Who knows,we may just come up with the correct answer! "Wasthere God in the universe before we arrived?" Whois asking that question? Thought is asking thatquestion. And what is thought? Thought is the past,our experiences, and our knowledge—everythingstored in that file cabinet that is the mind. Sothought is asking of itself to answer a question thatit knows nothing about because we don't know theuniverse. Rather, what we should ask is "What isGod?" We are taking God as a given. It has beenpounded into our minds for millennia since timebegan. Instead of being skeptical of everything, wejust accept everything that has been said, and weproceed from there. See, we are very impressed withauthority and teachers and people in the know, andwe just accept!

What Is God?

Maybe we'll gO IntO that later. What is love? That'sthe ticket! Was there love in the universe before us?What is love to us? What does love mean to us?

Thoughts come so fast; this is the reason that weshould be preoccupied with the speed of thoughtinstead of the speed of light. The speed of light is aridiculous concept or idea to ponder. It is ridiculousto think about going to another star, to explore theuniverse, when in reality, we have not even probedthe very depths of our own oceans. We want tohelp people around the world, people who haveno respect for us, and yet we have people starvingin our own country. We never seem to finish a jobproperly. We always leave it hanging and go on tosomething else. Go figure!

But with this thing about thought, I seem to bewalking around all day long with pen and paper pad,making notes; thoughts just come so fast. I have somuch material I really don't know where to start.

I'll tell you at the onset: Love is the absence ofthe ego—the "me" or the "I." Simple!

To almost all people, love has become synonymouswith sex. Love is sex! Love is lust! How many timeshave you heard someone say, "Let's go make love!"?And then after eight hours—if you are good enough,if you can get it up and keep it up for eight hours—and you finish, does love end? No, love does notend. So why not just say, "Let's have sex!"? It makesmore sense to me. Love is not sex. So what is it?

Love is a state of being where the ego is notpresent. It is a naive sense that you easily fall intowhen the "you" is not present, very much like joy.

It is not of time, not of measurement, and not ofcomparison. It is not an opposite! It is not theopposite of hate. If it was, it would possess the veryseeds of hate in it. Then it would be an oppositein the field of measurement, which is all ourlimited minds are capable of understanding. To dosomething for others and be recognized for it is notlove. It is pleasure. It is the ego at work.

Everything that man does seems to be involvedwith the ego: pleasure, achievement, pain,competition, measurement (when it applies toourselves, hence comparison), title, and nationality,which separates us from one another and invariablyleads to war. We are a sick bunch! Religion, whichis something that you would think would bring ustogether, is responsible for more wars than anythingelse. So many religions! And so much fighting! "Myreligion is right, and yours is wrong. It's bullshit!"Religion is one of the worst habits we have takenpleasure in since time began.

Do you know the true meaning of that word,religion? It means to gather all attention or toattend. How can you attend? How can you gatherall attention if you are living in the world of fear,control, belief, tradition, and myth? You must befree; you must start in freedom to understand thisawareness, and you must be totally free from anyform of control.

Love, joy, kindness, passion, and compassion. Joyis when you are totally absorbed in something; it isa state of being. When you come out of that stateof being and you realize joy and you want it back,it is no longer joy. It is now pleasure, where the egodwells.

The spirit of giving is joy, when nothing is askedand no one knows. Taking is pleasure! Receiving isjoy!

You give love. Someone will give you love inreturn, and in the absence of the "me," you willreceive joy. You are, at that point, the very essence ofjoy, that wonderful state of being when you are likea child totally absorbed in a toy! If at that momentyou snap out of it and see that joy and you try toget it back, it is no longer joy. It is now pleasure,something you want again. Joy and pleasure—thetwo states of mind are totally different.

Two different worlds—which do you belong to?

A Rose by Any Other Name ...

(Is That Love I See in the Universe,or Is That ...?)

There Is thIs basIc structure to the universe thatis carrying on quite independently from whatthe primitive forms of life on this third rocksurrounding a minor star think about what love is!Whether we like it or not and no matter what wethink, there are forces acting upon us that we are notaware of. Hundreds of years ago, in our ignorance,we thought, or I should use the word believed, thatthe world was flat and that we were the center of theuniverse. Most could not read or write and tendedthe fields or flocks. Ah, but a few who could readand write seized the opportunity, while no one elsecould find their way out of a paper bag, and came upwith the idea that there must be something biggerthan us at work here and invented God! Out of fear,everyone went along with the idea, and thus beganthe rule of religion. Notwithstanding science, westill go along with this bullshit, and we still findourselves totally under the control of God, religion,the Spanish Inquisition, and those wonderful mendressed in black. Every religion has them in variousforms of dress, with beards and funny hats, andwith much real estate holdings, pews, and plasterstatues that we eagerly pray to before watchingSunday football! You know, we've gone to the moon,Orville Redenbacher invented nuclear popcorn,and I am free to choose my candidate. I am free!So with respect to religion and God, we say, "Youfigure it out and let me know what you come upwith!" We could have just sat back and enjoyedthe bus ride. You know, watch the trees and birdsand the gorgeous blonde with the big melons, butno, we had to go the extra step. Some schmuckdecided to invent the ego—you know, the "I" orthe "me"—and love, hate, opposites, measurement,and comparison. And it hit him: "We can actuallyfind out who's better: me or you." So he inventedthe Olympics, complete with gold medals and losermedals! Armed with religion and God, he inventedwar, Stratego, risk, and Playboy magazine (pleasure).Ah, this is living! But out there in space, away fromthe warp that is the third rock from the sun, themagnificent universe revolves like a big carousel intotal harmony. It is not traveling through time; it isexpanding, not going from here to there. It is justin a state of being. Man invented time for practicalreasons. But if you just spend time quietly withouta clock (you know, time!), after a while, you realizeyou are still here in the same place. You haven't goneanywhere; you are still here.

Do you ever wonder what is behind themovement of the galaxies as they move on theirway around this carousel called the universe? Doyou ever wonder what is behind the movement ofman as he strives to destroy himself in meaninglesswar? Get two guys together and they'll fight over abaseball bat or train set or some idiotic girlfriend.Get a bunch of people together and they will goto war! Yet in that beautiful universe, galaxies willcrash into one another, either forming super galaxiesor totally disfiguring themselves into irregular oneswith not one star ever crashing into another! Whatwould you call that? Would that harmony be love?