landr

"When people move from spirit into physical they get born, but it is not that simple. You are who you are, but you attach to another--or some others--to come into being. Over time more of you shows. In a good life you get to remember most of what you have learned. But in some cases this does not happen. You also have to differentiate yourself, or there will be no learnings of your own.

"So, when a child dies who is still a part of a parent figure, they get to move on sooner because they really haven't lived and learned. When young children die it is learning for the adults, not the kiddos. Some people never differentiate, and this life counts for zip. They appear to learn things, but if you watch closely they never really learn.

"The struggle to be ourselves is essential, and yes... now hold on to your hats... as we finally get our entity together and can merge on, we will be born, so to speak, through an already existing merged entity and will have to differentiate again--or we may get tossed back here to merge and try again. It is a tough thing for an entity, whether coming into being as a soul or moving on as the next step, to have to merge to come into being, and then have to differentiate. We just get to sense we are together, and then we get this differentiation task. Not easy. Takes a number of tries to learn it all. But hey, we've got all the time in the world.

"It's having to know both these things: I am me and I am not you. And we finally become an entity--at any level--when we can say, I am me without reference to not you. Then we are ripe for merging. We are pure. We are essentially us. Any combination before that would be contaminated; we would form an entity not only of the positive us elements, but also the negative not you elements. Entities are only positive combinations if they are to be sustainable." (3/23/96 - Y#1)

"There are many paths to understanding, but even the best is so poor. But keep on trying. Remember, the truth embodies these systems; not that the systems hold the truth. They are like flashlights in the primordial soup of being. They are not the soup... and they definitely are not the being. By the way, the soup of being is not onion. Enough heavy talk." (4/5/96 - Y#2)

"The tests of life are never easy, but they are all graded on a curve. The curve is based on your ability. Each piece of us that is tested becomes more ours than before.

"We speak of intelligent young people and wise old people. Wisdom is the result of intelligence that has been tempered and tested with experience... moving from the knowing of intellect to the knowing of experience. And who said it would be easy. But hang in, the best is yet to come. As Frankie says, 'Don't dream it, be it.' " (9/13/96 - Y#3)

"All the great religions have found and lost the answers. They are great depositories of emptiness where fullness once was. What happened? Institutionalization, and greed for money and power. 'What gaineth a man to get the riches of the world and lose the kingdom of heaven.' " (10/20/96 - Y#4)

"Insight is not a majority decision. Jesus had just 12, while Hitler had millions. It is the truth that will free us, not the acceptability. Vision always implies separation. You can't stand in a crowd and see new and different things... unless you are very tall." (11/4/96 - Y#5)

"If you consider all the systems of thought to be subsets of one great thought, then the portals to the thought are in the common questions, not in the subanswers. People like to ask big questions but settle for little answers.

"Humanity has stretched across hundreds of generations, but most people look for meaning in one lifetime or one soul journey. What one needs to do is not deny the answers but open up the questions and then, in the immense chasm of questioning, drop in the vision of a larger answer. Most won't get it but hey, that's not my problem... until they get here. But each time the perspective is widened, some will see. Don't forget that today's orthodoxy was once radical thought.

"What I tell you is far more inclusive than previous answers. It goes further down the path. But hear me well, it is not the final answer or the complete one. It is just another step in the right direction. I don't know what lies beyond what I have shared, but this is enough for now. But do not take this as the Truth. It is truth, but not with a final capital 'T.' What the truly great seek is to stand on the peak of understanding beyond what has been known, and see there are more peaks in the dim mists of time to come, and not mourn their passing before the peaks are scaled." (12/9/96 - Y#6)

"Now about the Bible and its misuse as authority. Authority is always internal. The Bible can only illumine. To quote the Bible as an authority is to misuse it. Scripture: that which is written. Faith: that which is known. Religion: that which is practiced. The Bible may be used as a work of human insight, guidance, and challenge; but not as a source of authority to be used at the will of the interpretor." (12/28/96 - Y#7)

"Life is not about everyone learning and remembering the same stuff. That's one of the big mistakes of the big religions.

"Suppose that all matter in your world was made of the same subatomic particles. Well it is, ha, but not in the same way. Hydrogen is different from helium and can't make you talk like Mickey. But if all matter were composed all the same, we'd have just one whatever. So too with people and spirits and shit.

"In order for our larger entities to become realized we need differing elements, or spirits if you will--and o yes, you will. So for your productive participation in that next reality as an entity, you need to become who you are meant or capable of being. Each life has its own shape, and each go-around its own role in filling out or filing down. If you follow another's path it may take you part of the way you need to go, but it can't take you all the way. Any single path is insufficient to the complexities. We are right back to that old joke about 'being you, everyone else is taken.' And if you make yourself someone else, then you can't fit into your place in the growing complexity of existence. Each must find what she or he or it must learn and remember. That's all. No mass movements.

"And karma is not the same. That's about becoming you in differentiation. This is about becoming you into integration. It's either you have to find yourself to lose yourself and/or lose yourself to find yourself. Neither is the end; you will find yourself and lose yourself. It's all the same. For when you finally find fulfillment and knowledge of self, the self no longer matters for you move on into a new plane of being... and on and on and on and on and on. Amazing." (3/13/97 - Y#8)

"So, onward to our new feature: 'Ask the Moo.' Today's first question comes from Tibet: 'Which is better, ceaseless prayer or periodic prayer?' Whoa. Let me put it this way: Life without prayer is incomplete; prayer without life is incomplete. You will do each according to your--and I mean your--needs, not others'.

"Ok, last question from Ethiopia: 'I am a Jew, but what I feel is that Islam is right for me. What do I do.' You are caught in the middle. Try this: Stop being overtly Jewish, slack off on services, but don't become overtly Islamic. Practice in your heart and soul, trust that Allah will hear and know, and remember that all the divisions you now know are ultimately meaningless. What are you doing with your life, that's what counts." (4/4/97 - Y#9)

"The revolution will not come from outside but within, as we change our viewpoints. It's not hiding in the tail of a comet or in the woods of South America or in the words of outdated scripture or in Missouri.

"And any great new vision will have to be able to be expressed in common words and images. The idea that it must be complex or obscure is shit. The ones that will make it are the insights that sound familiar and accessible, but which lead to an 'aha' moment and a change of perspective or consciousness or awareness. You won't have to wade through it. In reading it you will first think it feels both familiar and foreign, but once read it will feel as comfortable as an old shoe. You will put it on like any garment, but while it appears new it will feel old and you will have been transformed by its revelation.

"But don't forget it's a two-way street. You are being revealed to it, too; so it and you are organic and interactive. Any truth that claims to be static is not static, it's dead--gone, kaput, nada, zippo." (9/7/97 - Y#10)

"Only when you give up previous notions can new ones take their place, and the drugs of the '60s didn't open up anything new--just distortions of previous reality. And that's why it never really went anywhere--looking backwards again, not forward. A stitch in time only saves 7.4. The essence of freedom is vision, not choice. Liberty is only a relative concept." (11/28/97 - Y#11)

"One of the problems of most education is that it demands accumulation of fact but little time to digest. If one is to learn and remember, one must have time to digest and assimilate and incorporate." (1/13/98 - Y#12)

"People want spiritual insights, but not what they see as weirdness. A solid base in the mainstream is the best place to broach revolution; you are one of them. He was just a carpenter. If he had been a seer or the like, he would have been dismissed. Buddha had to go and be common before he could be heard. And I had to go to Yale before I could be herd--the many faces of Moo. So, that's it." (1/17/98 - Y#13)

"There is a great human penchant for jumping to the most recent or advanced, and not attending to the basics." (2/26/98 - Y#14)

"Pondering takes your time. Call it a 'Point to Ponder,' so it's not given as truth but as a point to ponder. You know, truth never has to be proven and/or forced. Just reveal it and they will come. If you toss out enough tasty tidbits, they will eventually want a whole meal." (3/1/98 - Y#15)

"About this fashionable spiritual crap. People find it compelling because it's simple like many of them. So they use the least common denominator terms that they hope will speak to many but confuse or trouble few. But that's not the path to growth.

"You know in the middle of the night you want an easy and clear path to the bathroom; but if you want to explore and grow, you have to break away from easy and simple. So don't condemn them, but offer a larger vision. That's all. And remember, ice cream is better than mush." (3/27/98 - Y#16)

"How sharp the cutting edge is. For lo, it shall cut away the fat and lay bare the truth and cause the known to be forgotten and the unseen seen... as in, if you aren't cutting a path to the future you're history. The basic question is always the same: Was fulfillment in the past from which we have dissembled, or is fulfillment in the future which is yet to be assembled. Hey, the parts are in stock; just put them together." (4/19/98 - Y#17)

"Don't reduce it to words. One of the problems of many people is they feel they have to put words to insights, visions, and feelings. And if they do they reduce the insights, visions, and feelings to words and lose something in the translation. So maybe they should be tools, not answers." (5/13/98 - Y#18)

"Clarify, think, cajole, but not argue or debate or defend. If someone says they doubt it just say, 'Well, maybe you are right... or not.' We have nothing to prove, lots to give. This is not--I repeat, not--a crusade. It's a loving offer. And such an approach will be startlingly new to many--scary, off-putting. But that's the paradigm we are sharing, so we better be it, too." (5/13/98 - Y#19)

"Question: 'How can you say that spirits come back with all they have learned and remembered, when children seem so helpless, clueless, and needing support to grow up?' And the answer is 85... no, that's the speed of the train to Philadelphia. This one is:

"There's a big difference between physical growth and spiritual growth. The bodies that house us do need nurture; they are organisms. But our spirits do not need the same. Yes, some children arrive helpless and clueless spiritually (first-timers), but who has ever been a parent without sensing almost at birth that there is already personality there that is not the result of nurture or genetics. Some children are born so-called 'old beings.' Not that they are smarter, but that they are wiser--more focused, more fulfilled, more showing a sense of what and who they are.

"In this life we can nurture our children's bodies; make a safe and open environment for their spirits; and recognize that we and they alike are traveling our paths. And it is not that we are further along, it is just that this time we got back here first. And that mutual need for and to nurture and support is one more evidence of our connection. So look deep and you will sense this truth. And if it were not so, how do you explain child prodigies. It came from somewhere beyond." (7/2/98 - Y#20)

"You don't have to have a revolution to have revolutionary change. In fact, when you destroy the old to make way for the new, the new will always be connected to the old. But if you allow the old to fade in the bright sunshine of the new, the new can stand alone. So don't point any guns. You are here to build, not destroy. The future will contain the past; but it must contain it as a reality that is, was, or will be subsumed under the rubric of the emergent new order. Hey, you want to create water, you don't do it by destroying hydrogen. Use, not destroy. That's all. " (8/16/98 - Y#21)

"There will be many French governments but only a single strand of people called the French. One is permanent and the other transient. And if you mistake one for the other, o boy, what a fuck-up. You sustain what should end and end what should continue. Do you like disasters... do you really like disasters... then that's all you have to do--like continue personal power and end freedom. Like dictators; they, from lack of experience, get it all wrong.

"But most people in the phase of learning get it wrong a little bit. Like trying to keep your relationship with parent or child like it was when the child was 5. The continuity should be love and care, not a static relationship. You meet people who, at 40, still keep ideas from when they were 5--like God as an old man. They miss the spirit and freeze the symbol. Don't do that! And that's enough." (3/28/99 - Y#22)

"Now listen or read... whatever you do... intuit or sense. What I say is very important. That I say it is not. Remember the man with the cross. Had to duck out before the last chapter because the masses had confused message and messenger. Don't fall into that trap. It's yours to use and spread, but remember it's not meant to be a table spread or a bedspread. And no, not an imitation spread nor a low calorie one." (4/11/99 - Y#23)

"What does difference--real, deep difference--mean in Spiritual Persistence. The core of the connectional image: If we can sense our connection to our most opposite, everything else is easy." (4/11/99 - Y#24)

"If different perceptions lead to either connection or universal, ok. But if differences lead to separation and uniquity (a one-shot particularity), bad. If we miss the differences, we miss the potentials for a greater diversity. But if you focus on them, you lose. Notice, yes; appreciate, yes; focus, no. Get it.

"A clue: if MCP brought back from his travels spices already used, what's the point. If he brought back ones that were so different that no one could think of using them, not great. But if he brought back new and usable ones, life gets bigger and bolder and spicier... until Ginger Spice leaves to get married." (4/18/99 - Y#25)

"Constructing a personal philosophy... or, where do our values come from. We don't just inherit them or receive them, but mix some of that with our own learning and remembering. Too much new or too much old is not good. One is flavoring and the other is leavening. Get it wrong and it is either too airy and lacking in substance, or it's too dense and strong. But get the mix right and voilà it's a puff pastry stuffed with flavor. Ever notice a pinch of herbs adds flavor, a cup of herbs... ugh.

"M is for the many ways we do it.
"A is for anyone, anywhere.
"N is the nuances of life unfolding.
"T is for the truth that is everywhere.
"R is for reason's open mind, and
"A is for aspirations, lofty thoughts.

"Put it all together, you've got MANTRA--the best chant you'll ever want." (4/20/99 - Y#26)

"This is about putting learning in a life-long perspective. It doesn't matter when you remember, only that you do. This is what Jesus was trying to say, but they thought it was about salvation. Go figure, as Papa would say. As in, it's ok to accept Jesus as your savior right up to the time of death; but it wasn't about accepting Jesus or knowing God. It is about accepting ourselves and knowing ourselves. If you accept an external as a learning, it's not yours--even if it's easy to remember. And there's a difference between principled and instrumental and incarnational remembering: knowing, doing, and being. Don't dream it, be it." (5/12/99 - Y#27)

"The different paths to understanding must have their own limits and methodologies, or else all becomes the same and loses some or all of its distinction. Yes, I know that in the end all will be all without distinction, but until then the distinctions are the very building blocks of connection. We can easily connect to what is the same, but there's no meaning in it, no learning, no growing, no remembering. But when we connect across distinctions, then meaning grows and we can learn. Differences are good <grin>. That's it." (7/3/99 - Y#28)

At an "SP Lite" chat session:

"Hey guys, what's up? I just wanted to stop by to say hi and wish you all a fun and happy summer (my favorite season). Now, I want you all to think about this: Learning does not have to be intense and all-consuming. Learning can come in small bits of insight and wonder and attention. So, when you kick back and relax it doesn't mean you're standing still; it just means you're learning different stuff. And that's about as deep as I get tonight. I love you all. Bye. Keep that energy level steady... which, by the way, only happens when you allow it to move and change and vascillate, haha. Now really, bye." (7/11/99 - Y#29)

"So, listen up. People keep hoping they will get all of the picture at once and then there'll be no more learning and remembering crap. But it is all evolutionary. So you get some now and some more later... which really means if you got it all now you wouldn't know what to do with it. Just look at what we've done to those who even have a glimpse more: crucify, hang, kill, ignore. But if you are sharp you will see this presents a problem, a conundrum, a paradox. If we living now have more of the picture than someone who lived 2000 BCE, then if they became whole and moved on and we become whole and move on, we will know more than they so how could we move on to the same next level of complexity. Yeah, how could we. But this is if we take knowledge as the measuring stick and not as the measuring schtick.

"I give you this example. There's a wall to be painted. I give you paint and a 1-inch brush. You paint the wall. It takes days, but it gets painted. So you move on to other things, having successfully painted the wall. About 1000 years later, someone comes to paint the same wall and they are given paint and a sprayer and are done in one hour and can move on to other things, having successfully painted the wall. So, did they do the same thing, yes. Just because you have more or better tools does not mean you learn more or less. It is still the same task. And unless you see having a few more lives as a punishment, then what's the difference. Ultimately, when all is shared that can be understood at this level, passages through this will be quicker--but not necessarily easier--and there will be no difference in the learning. Remember, if time is an illusion, who cares about how long it takes. And efficient meaningful progress is what gets us along, not the specific tools. Got it. And if you get a break by dealing with this all after some great exemplars have lived... hey, you get a break. But if the path from differentiation to connection is infinite, then it doesn't matter how long a stage is.

"So, accept the new insights as welcome, handy tools to your spiritual development; but not as a means to avoid it or substitute for it. You still gotta get it right and whole and integrated. And guess what. People, more often than not, get new tools and then use them wrong and the process takes longer. For example, to see anyone else as one's savior would be to miss the point, and so one whole life would be spent standing still. Just because it has been given and is available doesn't mean it will help. Deep enough? So let's leave it at that." (8/5/99 - Y#30)

"We are all combinations of lives, and what we remember from what is and has been and will be is the measure of our fulfillment. We are the sum total of all of our lives, and also the sum total of all the lives that created our component parts. That's it... I remember now." (8/27/99 - Y#31)

"Learning and remembering is never understood in a solitary context, but only as a necessary sum total of the entity-to-be. You don't get it just to make yourself whole, but to be a fitting part of the entity that is more complex. So you may need to learn and remember some things which seem foreign to the 'you' you know as you, but which fit the 'them' you will become.

"Nothing of value is ever extraneous, even if it currently appears so. But, if you only get what you think you want or need and don't stay open to it all, you will serve yourself but disserve the future--which ultimately disserves you. So, live without boundaries or expectations of what life should teach you. If you truly live and enjoy, then take all that comes and try to learn and remember; and what seems outside of what you think is you will become part of you when you are part of something more. That's it.

"Don't make value judgments... not until later--which means not 'later,' but at a level of more complex understanding. Like the stuff that seems stupid when you begin to read but which later lets you read Camus and Voltaire and me. Hey, a comma isn't worth much until you understand subordinate ideas. So all your learnings and rememberings become resources, even if not tools, today.

"Papa found teaching flying to deaf people hard. They don't know how to listen, and just like spiritually deaf people who have one experience that opens their souls but they don't know how to listen to the messages and instructions that follow. It takes something to hear physically and spiritually, and it takes something more to really listen and learn and remember. Some of the most unreliable people spiritually are those who have only begun to hear, because they don't know how to listen. Ponder that.

"It's like learning a foreign language. Learn one word and then when you listen to a conversation you pick out that word and say you understand but hey, you miss all the rest. One word from 90 languages does not a polyglot make. Programmed dolls can do that. Ponder that." (9/26/99 - Y#32)

"Ever stood on a step and wondered what was on the next step. Now with Moo-O-Matic you can see where your eyes can't go. Featured this week on Ericka's Bench. Buy 2 and see even more. Comes with a lifetime supply of faith and hope. Shipping extra.

"We will consider the quantum mechanics of spiritual knowledge. Hey, it ain't linear, baby. And we ask and answer the question of how come we seem to exist at one level of understanding for a long time and then suddenly we are at another level, without any seeming flow between the two. And what seemed so true suddenly seems so ridiculous.

"Hint: The ancients knew and called it 'the straw that broke the camel's back.' One little thing added to a system already stressed but unchanged can profoundly change the whole system. That's why some people encounter a death and seem so strong, and then a week later a shirt button will reduce them to tears.

"It's the same with growth. You store all this learning and remembering, which does not change you and then one wee wittle thingie happens and all of it falls into place. And you say 'Where did all that come from' or 'Why didn't I put that together before.' Because it took a certain spiritual awareness to do it. Actually, a certain sum of spiritual awarenesses." (10/4/99 - Y#33)

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