(6/2/08)

Sister S


If your (my) mother was the sweet-nice mother she would've happily cooked the magic beans and put an end to all possible bean stalks, and if no bean stalk then no Giant treasure.

And pal you are obviously not new to this realization stuff just new to the language of it, and that was just a moment already past. You are so obviously a fish in water that the otherwise would now be funny.

Brilliant observation about the "graphic meditations!" Big thanks for that title! That was what we call a cognition! I cringe to be called a Graphic Novel I usually embrace Comic as honest humble proletariat, though I am rarely funny. I've yet to see an actual graphic novel. I have seen hundreds of possible light graphic novellas, if any, more like graphic-partial-chapters-of-unfinished-novellas. And the level of skill (care) of most of those should make the word "graphic" cringe.

From your words I know this will sound a bit hard but I am not a believer in reincarnation. Anything that requires belief is suspect - "the truth is an experience," says Agnes. Tolle is very sweet and gentle, he allows words, like the word God. He allows this idea (God) to his listener as a kind of pacifier to the ultimate and final fear that is mortality. As if death is not the end to this hoard of personality that sums up my life. Tolle never goes so far as to make God personal but he allows the word and its historical ramification to influence the ambiance of his conversations - sweetly - he is very kind. That is why Nisargadatta is not for everyone, he is a scalpel whose thinness is Absolute. The old Vedantic metaphor is that the Gods wait at the door of perfection and prays day and night. They wait, but can not enter, only a human can experience perfection. (You see the subtle truth of this metaphor? God and the gods are not of the absolute, they are like the first or final concept at the door, in or out - the alpha/omega - but they are of the relative none the less.)

Anyway, when Nis speaks about reincarnation, to me, he does so in the same way that Tolle allows the word God to float by. But what Nis says about reincarnation is that it is the essence of desire that returns into life. And in its essence desire is not personal either. The metaphor says the world is Maya - the dream of matter. Desire, when the personal has burned off in death, is a kind of instinctual hunger of consciousness to be conscious of its self by way of matter. All of matter desires that self realization. And that residue of desire is only a drop in the ocean, but to consider that essence of desire as maintaining some continuous personality is not very realistic and to me it has the oddly familiar shape of a pacifier. In my beloved friend Arebear's argument he proposes that in the infinity of time that drop that enters the ocean must reform as the same drop, in some probability time line, to continue its evolution . This is an acceptable, but somewhat hopeful, argument in my mind. The word hopeful - hoping for - implies time, and that is where the argument dies for me. It is hoping for a pacifier. Now, going back to pacifying "the-ultimate-and-final-fear-that-is-mortality," I know you see the inherent problem of this and that is; to placate fear is to stop at the door. "Resist nothing," were the final words of Tolle's heart as he entered the void and self-realization. Pacifiers are like touching base in tag - a place to catch your breath between runs, but you just can't help but notice that the bravest kids always stay off base (to push the metaphor beyond it limits, we could say that the enlightened can fly and no longer be touched or tagged).

I think most dialogue about reincarnation is a sweet desire to soften this harsh experience that is LIFE. But the harsh experience forces us into either hiding from truth or realizing it fully as who we are. Since the truth remains and does not change, hiding is futile, it will just be waiting for you. And if you realize the mechanics of realization then you welcome harsh truth knowing that it is harsh only because of your own resistance to it. Which then makes harsh truths into guide posts towards your VerySelf. And then it is therefore always the question, "Can I love this too?"
Spooky huh?

In a very insanely funny way, those that survive harsh experiences are lucky, and have been privileged to learn such depths of love for LIFE.

I had Cancer once upon a time and it scared my immortality right out of me, it was the best and most harsh experience of my life, and from it I was born again.

That was a brilliant observation about our mutual mothers teaching us what love is by teaching us what it is not! Brilliant!


Your Brother
with love
Toc