This world, and often this blog, is often full of the terrible side of life – the things people should know about, [...]]]> There is a quiet place, within yourself, away from the storm. In the center of the whipping winds and stinging rain, there is sunlight, peace and tranquility.

This world, and often this blog, is often full of the terrible side of life – the things people should know about, don’t really want to know about, might want to think about and could benefit from being aware of…but also could suffer from, might be anguished by, become fearful of, or worry about.

In the center of all that, I want to remind myself and others, is a place of serenity. Of Knowing. Of a warm, all-encompassing and comforting love. It is there. At the center of all our atoms is the vacuum, that which binds and connects all things. But we must all participate in the act of finding it. At the very least we must recognize it is there and still the mind, to prepare our awareness. To create a place within ourselves for that quiet feather to land.

This can be very difficult, or it can be amazingly simple. We alone control our bodies, and our reactions towards the outer world. If we don’t – well, go back and read some of the things from my second paragraph. Yes, there are agendas, energies and devices being set against our peace of mind. But they are not our god. Our spirits have much, much greater powers than these.

Awareness is the first step. Then there are things we can do to foil them, to fight that battle. The armor is there. Find it and put it on. Go back and read the old masters. They knew this enemy. This type of struggle is exactly what they were referring to.

Enlightenment can come in a day; even in a minute, a second. Or it can come long and painfully, after much suffering. Just ask Buddha.

The Way can be lined with annoyances and unscrupulous people. But it is always there, ready to receive, ready to heal, ready to teach. Just ask Lao Tzu.

Love is our ultimate weapon. The energy we radiate back out into the world, even as we are bombarded with unimaginable atrocities and negativity, is what will change our reality. Just ask Jesus.

It’s only as hard as we think it is. We only have as much power as we allow ourselves to have. For that matter, the dark side only has as much power as we allow it to have.  Just ask Yoda.

We are all bubbles of energy that radiate far outside our physical bodies, and interact with our reality; a feedback loop of information going in and out. Which information will we choose to receive, which shall influence us? And which shall we choose to release back out into the world?

Follow your heart, not the programmed knee-jerk reactions of your world gone mad. Take back what is rightfully yours. Peace of mind. Harmony. Start with yourself. Many will follow; meanwhile, just stay strong. Stay fiercely focused. We are poised for the most incredible journey we can imagine. Yes, – amidst the chaos of these days, is a bright and wonderful future, hiding there in the center of it all. Waiting for us to see it.

These are not pipe dreams. It can and indeed will happen. The question only remains, who will join me on this Great Journey? Who will be there to guide me when I fall down?

Lawrence Hagerty wrote in The Spirit of the Internet,“…the Internet is not the noosphere. It is merely an infrastructure that is now available for the [...]]]> “I believe that the World Wide Web is, as a matter of fact, the noogenesis of the noosphere.” – Ralph Abraham, The Evolutionary Mind (1988)

Lawrence Hagerty wrote in The Spirit of the Internet,“…the Internet is not the noosphere. It is merely an infrastructure that is now available for the noosphere to use.” Hagerty goes on to profess, “I believe that the Internet is serving as just such an attractor, or basin of attraction, drawing the Earth’s most creative minds into a synergistic union out of which a new form of human consciousness can arise from the wells of chaos.“

The noosphere is a term created by Jesuit priest/radical thinker Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose ideas were frankly force-fed to me in college in the eighties (I happened to attend a Jesuit university where he was practically worshiped as a god). For that reason perhaps I wrongly assumed his teachings were more widespread than they actually were at the time. But I find no uncertain irony that his ideas continue to haunt my own delightfully synchronous journey towards Singularity.

Not the technological singularity of Ray Kurzweil; I’m talking more about what’s happening over at Reality Sandwich, and other important, alternative think tanks and blogs of our time. “New science” is termed thusly because, reminiscent of Capra’s intuitions of decades past, scientific discoveries are merged with new (and perhaps very old) interpretations of consciousness. This is how it should be; the Newtonian universe must ultimately be discarded in favor of the quantum discoveries that tickle our brains, easing us into new frontiers of existence, consciousness and human evolution. The homo cyber I find mentioned here and there, if left alone in the wilderness of pure artificial or mechanistic intelligence, would be the unfortunate result of not taking the final step of this process. Like refusing to take the red pill, our psyches would be left to rot inside the prison Matrix of third dimensional space-time. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” reminds Shakespeare.

The Internet may be Noosphere 1.0, a precursor to an enlightened state of consciousness; or perhaps, Noosphere for Beginners, or Noosphere for Dummies. Though arguably a creation of Big Brother’s sinister and eavesdropping omnipresence, the Internet is also being used, perfectly a la Tao, as a vehicle to transmit thoughts and ideas in preparation for a purely telepathic noosphere. The next several years its role will be vastly influential in terms of the global progression of consciousness, and I urge all to participate as they can until then (or until the government curtails this freedom, much as it has done with suppressing entheogens); but at some point, perhaps soon, the circuits and transistors will go the way of the covered wagon. Many of us will leave our electronic devices abandoned on the beach as we eventually look up and realize the great sea of enlightenment and oneness is before us, and go in for a dip – never to return. The key to ridding ourselves of the shackles of this reality is love, pure and simple. Love is the thing no machine can transmit; love is the unique trait, or ability, that will catapult our transformation from homo sapiens not to homo cyber, but to homo luminus.

The minds at work on the great consciousness project at this moment are alive during this time not by accident. They are all Surfing the Tao though they may not be aware of it. We are all giving what we have, and taking what we need, in some kind of post-modern, spirit-driven, psychedelic communistic mind trip, hastened by our collective visions of 2012 and beyond. Hagerty calles it entheospace; I might describe the sensation as a sort of dreamstate, finding oneself floating down a river of consciousness, gently colliding with others riding down the same stream in a kind of synchronistic, fractal pattern of atunement, as we all slip closer to the great sea.

Daniel Pinchbeck’s first book was entitled, Breaking Open the Head – which I mention here not for its particular content, which is a mind-expanding examination of the entheogenic experience, but because it so aptly illustrates my own particular state of being.

My own head cracked in college, during several misguided entheogenic experiences. I discovered Terence McKenna, but as far as spirituality goes, I was definitely a seeker who didn’t really want to spend any time looking.

This all changed in 1999. The previous fracture, which had begun to scar over, was rent asunder, and a torrent of new knowledge and higher frequencies began to stream in. I will only say: the true masters are truly hidden. And it is meant to stay that way, for now, perhaps because actual participants can often teach each other more in the beginning. But I was urged to continue meditating, and before long I had what Neil Kramer over at The Cleaver might call a fourth dimensional experience.

Without any entheogenic aid, I crossed over into the void. Suddenly, I Knew.

There are no further words for what I experienced. The language simply doesn’t exist. But it changed everything I knew, all that I was. What followed was years of reading, researching, listening, loving, meditating and change. Many of the books that appeared as if by magic I have listed here. My intellectual side was frustrated, but my spirit was at peace for the first time I can remember in my adult life. The end result of that was, I wrote a book, which was really just a cathartic expression of my overwhelmed psyche.

My own path is still guided by amazing synchronicity and coincidence. I find it startling how often I find articles written about the very subject I had been ruminating about. How I discover brilliant minds have already found answers to the questions I have been asking. How so many of our paths are beginning to converge on the Great Path. Spirituality, Taoism, 2012, eschatology, Planet X, the Matrix, conspiracy, sinister agendas, alien technology, symbology, synchromysticism, mind control, electromagnetism, alternative energy, quantum physics, plasma physics, torsion physics, entheogenic-inspired thought and conscious enlightenment, ecocentric living, — the puzzle pieces are coming together rapidly. I cannot explain how I know what I Know, yet I will say; the quickening is upon us. The noosphere is coalescing. The Puzzle of Being, and the question of consciousness, is in the process of being realized by a vast cadre of psycho-cryptographers.

The great irony is, I sense, that this enlightened, super-charged, noospheric state of being is and has always has been, here and now. This ancient Way that has been lost during our fall, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, is now being quickly rediscovered, picked up and dusted off as some kind of primordial reflex to protect ourselves from what we subconsciously know is coming. We are remembering, so that we will survive.

I remember Y2K. Regarding expectations for 2012, the intensity of thought, intellect, spirit, and energy now in 2008 is somewhat on par with what happened the months previous to Y2K. And we have nearly five years left. What incredible postulations, theories, discoveries, transitions, realizations, opportunities, manifestations, creations and expectations will surface between now and then?

And what will happen on December 21, 2012 at 11:11 universal time? That remains to be seen; but to prepare for either global catastrophe, psychedelic wormholes or simply more life as we know it – the only answer is, and always will be: love, peace and harmony.

Sometimes I wonder how I find what I do here online – and when I do, I wonder what else I’m missing. I’m only one person. Only one computer. Only so many hours in the day.

If you’ve made it this far, please consider leaving a comment here regarding what author, what religion, what spiritual path, what thinker, what scientist, what discovery, what issue, what website, what experience – what ANYTHING that has made a difference for you on your journey.

Give what you have. Take what you need.

As it acts in the world, the Tao

is like the bending of a bow.

The top if bent downward;

the bottom is bent up.

It adjusts excess and deficiency

so that there is perfect balance.

It takes from what is too much

and gives to what isn’t enough.

– Tao Te Ching #77

The Theosophical Society (“TS”) was established in 1875 by Helena P. Blavatsky and others interested in the study and explanation of ‘mediumistic phenomena’. Blavatsky claimed to have [...]]]> “I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect…” – Krishnamurti

The Theosophical Society (“TS”) was established in 1875 by Helena P. Blavatsky and others interested in the study and explanation of ‘mediumistic phenomena’. Blavatsky claimed to have studied with the ‘Ascended Masters’ in Tibet, and upon her return to New York City she supposedly engaged in various psychic feats such as channeling, levitation and clairvoyance. Many consider this to have been the first instance of the “New Age” spiritual movement, and its teachings, rituals and symbolism has been linked to the occult. Indeed Blavatsky equated Lucifer with Jesus Christ, writing “Lucifer is divine and terrestrial light…”, and was instrumental in forming the Lucifer Trust in 1920, now called the Lucis Trust, which still works today to carry out a Luciferian “master plan” for establishing a one world government under their “Lord of the World”. The Lucis Trust still has ‘consultative status’ with the United Nations, and carries influence with the world’s most powerful political and business leaders.

As a child, Krishnamurti was ‘discovered’ by leaders of the TS, as they believed he was to be the next ‘World Teacher” or Master of their system. According to Krishnamurti himself, he did indeed experience visions of the “Ascended Masters” and for a time accepted what he was taught in terms of the rituals and system of the Theosophists, as well as his future position as their next “World Teacher”.

However Krishnamurti took his own revelations to a higher level one day when he experienced a powerful vision of the truth, and soon after he left the TS against the wishes of its other members. He began to teach that, “No one can give you liberation, you have to find it within…” He no longer wanted to be part of any structured system, explaining instead that his “Beloved” could be found “in every animal, in every blade of grass, in every person who is suffering, in every individual.”

This caused great upheaval within the TS, as they were used to having someone tell them their Path, and had looked forward to being high-ranking disciples of this Teacher and the rituals that went along with it. Instead, Krishnamurti told them that “all ceremonies are unnecessary for spiritual growth,” and that it is better not to have mediators or gurus who could someday betray the Truth to them. From then on, Krishnamurti refused to be a part of any spiritual organization, recommending instead that people discover the Truth from within themselves.

In other words, Krishnamurti had learned to Surf the Tao. He realized that the ultimate Truths were not to be found in any outer organization, but within the hearts of people themselves, and that it was up to each person to discover this. We can indeed find truth of this “Beloved” in many books, but they are not necessary to our own paths towards enlightenment. Those with ulterior motives of power and control still try to use such truths for their own agendas, creating and maintaining strict ritualistic and ceremonial societies in an attempt to misguide and betray. But the true masters know that the real truths can only be found from within, as we learn to Surf the Tao.

As Krishnamurti told his former followers, “…You can form other organizations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set me absolutely, unconditionally free.”

Quotes from Krishnamurti: The Years of Fulfillment by Mary Lutyens, Avon Books 1983.

Most are stranded on this side.

On the riverbank they run up and down.

But the wise person, following the way,

Crosses over, beyond the reach of death…”

-Teachings of the Buddha (from the Dhammapada, trans. Thomas Byrom)

The Buddha was born a prince in ancient [...]]]> “Few cross over the river.

Most are stranded on this side.

On the riverbank they run up and down.

But the wise person, following the way,

Crosses over, beyond the reach of death…”

-Teachings of the Buddha (from the Dhammapada, trans. Thomas Byrom)

The Buddha was born a prince in ancient India, and raised in wealthy seclusion. He began to see the misery of much of the rest of the world as he grew older. He left home as a young man to seek the truth of what he found, hoping to find an end to the sorrows of human existence. He lived for awhile as an ascetic in the forests, but soon realized he had found no further wisdom in such a life. He one day realized that peace of mind and freedom of spirit could be found in a simple life of balance. He called his teachings the Dharma, or “Way”. (Remember that “Tao” is Chinese for “Way”.)

The word ‘Buddha’ means ‘one who is awake’. The Buddhist tradition attempts to teach the experience of ‘awakening to the truth of life’. They seek to liberate the body and the mind from the materialism of the world, offering instead a Middle Path of peace and balance.

Buddha’s words are in fact strikingly similar in spirit to those of Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching. Of course the religious practices that have developed down the ages took different angles. However, if we consider the original words passed down by these two sages, it begins to seem as if they were both talking about the same realizations – and indeed much the same Way to live.

Buddha said, “Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate.” (Dhammapada) Lao Tzu taught, “The master…is good to people who are good. She is also good to people who aren’t good. This is true goodness.” (Tao Te Ching)

Buddha taught, “Look within. Be still. Free from fear and attachment, Know the sweet joy of the way.” Lao Tzu may have had a different tone and spoke a completely different language, and yet the spirit of his words is familiar: “Since before time and space were, the Tao is. It is beyond ‘is’ and ‘is not’. How do I know this is true? I look inside myself and see…if you want to be given everything, give everything up.”

“The Master keeps her mind always at one with the Tao, that is what gives her her radiance…she doesn’t cling to ideas,” wrote Lao Tzu. “A mind unshaken when touched by the worldly states, sorrowless, stainless, and secure, this is the blessing supreme,” taught the Buddha.

Both also recognized the futility in the very act of trying to put the great truths into words. Lao Tzu commented, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” In turn Buddha lamented, “Words! The Way is beyond language, for in it there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today.” (trans. Richard B. Clarke)

One cannot but help notice that the teachings are similar in tone to other great teachers of note, including some I have mentioned previously such as Ueshiba and Tagore. Once a student begins to truly internalize this higher awareness, they become aware of a ‘Way’ to live or to be, a simple, loving, unselfish and calm state of mind. They see the divine in the mundane, and allow the Way to spread before them, “If you want to accord with the Tao, just do your job, then let go,” wrote Lao Tzu. Or, as Buddha put it so beautifully, “To live in the Great Way is neither easy not difficult…Just let things be in their own way.”

Before the universe was born.

It is serene. Empty.

Solitary. Unchanging.

Infinite. Eternally present.

It is the mother of the universe.

For lack of a better name,

I call it the Tao.

- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching #25

What is the “Tao”? It is a Chinese [...]]]> There was something formless and perfect

Before the universe was born.

It is serene. Empty.

Solitary. Unchanging.

Infinite. Eternally present.

It is the mother of the universe.

For lack of a better name,

I call it the Tao.

- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching #25

What is the “Tao”? It is a Chinese word which means “Way”. Buddha also spoke of this One Way, and even Jesus said, “I am the Way…” I believe they were all referring to the Void, this great Everything; God, in the universal sense. Finding words to describe this Force is difficult. I recommend quantum physics as another avenue towards understanding (check out The Tao of Physics by Frijof Capra). I call this Way of Life “Surfing the Tao”, and I use the wisdom from various sources to further the message.

“All things, material and spiritual, originate from one source and are related as if they were one family. The past, present, and future are all contained in the life force. The universe emerged and developed from one source, and we evolved through the optimal process of unification and harmonization.” -Ueshiba, The Art of Peace.

Simple realization of this Tao, or Way, can change ones perspective radically. Introspection and meditation can lead one to higher levels of awareness and understanding. One eventually realizes that it is the pursuit of the impersonal wherein realization of the Self arises: when one understands that All is One, and there is no Self – that is, that we are rather part of the Great Self – then our daily sufferings become perceptively smaller.

Emptiness here, Emptiness there,

But the infinite universe stands

Always before your eyes.

Infinitely large and infinitely small;

No difference, for definitions have vanished

And no boundaries are seen…

One thing, all things:

Move among and intermingling,

Without distinction.

To live in this realization

Is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.

-Buddha

Sounds like Lao Tzu, doesn’t it? Buddha, like Lao Tzu, also suggests not to dislike the world of senses and ideas, but just to realize, with enlightenment there is no liking or disliking. Lao Tzu said, “the Master observes the world but trusts his inner vision. He allows things to come and go. His heart is open as the sky.”

These masters taught us, that even though reality as we see it is an illusion, that to be a good and loving person within it is important. They teach compassion, harmony, peace, generosity and serenity. Buddha said, “To live in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult, but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute; the faster they hurry, the slower they go, and attachment cannot be limited: even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray. Just let things be in their own way and there will be neither coming nor going.”