Follow The Leader

Can you play follow the leader?

It is an essential skill. Can you act without having been the one who issued the command?
Yes this is a useful ability when working with a group, but let’s not confuse it with drinking the Kool-Aid. One of the uses of a group is to help develop the ability to move without being the brains of the operation.

It is useful to our Work to move without waiting for the animal mind to issue its permits. Because the animal is not the one we want running the show. If the animal is running the show, the deity can’t.

Deity can move the body. It can move the body more efficiently than the animal can.

The animal brain should be playing a supporting role and let the deity be the main character.
If you can play follow the leader you will be able to do things that you normally would be unable to do. You will do things that you would not ordinarily be inclined to do because they do not fit in with the animal agenda.

You don’t try to stop the animal agenda.
You just move faster than it.
You play follow the leader.

Experiment: Tune in

Sit in a quiet place where you will not be disturbed.
Place your attention on your hands.
Slowly bring your index finger and your thumb together on each hand. Hold this mudra for a few minutes. Notice how you feel emotionally and physically.
Gently release the position from your right hand and maintain it with the left. Hold it for a minute then switch hand.
Hold the mudra with your right hand only for a minute then gently move your left hand back into the posture.
Slowly change the position so that it is now your middle finger that touches the thumb on both hands. Be as present as possible. Notice any differences or slight shifts in your mental, emotional, or physical state. Hold the mudra for a few moments.
Release the right hand maintaining the posture with the left and hold it.
After a minute switch hands. Keep the movement super slow and fluid. Focus your attention on the simple physical movements and subtle sensations they produce.
End with both hands holding the mudra.

Repeat the entire cycle twice.

If you do not register any subtle differences from change to change, don’t worry about it and try again later when you’re higher.

Down In The Box

It’s not just where you go… it’s who you know.
Progress. I am really going somewhere.
Where are you going?
You are like a TV set. You don’t actually go anywhere.
Instead you pick up signals.

What channel am I on? Can I change channels?
Certainly.
Click. Click. Click. Click.

Where are you going?
You are watching yourself on TV. You notice that the TV is not plugged in.
Suddenly your television persona breaks character and looks directly at you.

That’s it! Establish a link. That is progress in a vacuum. Work for that.
Do I want out of this TV set? Or do I want in?
Or do I want what is outside to touch what is inside? Yes complete the circuit.
That is movement.

I want what is inside to touch what is outside.
I want what is outside to get down inside without becoming part of the regularly scheduled programming.
Be in the TV, but not of the TV.
O ye Gods, this is an interactive theater piece.
Audience participation is encouraged.
Without your help it is no longer theater… it is life in a box.

Experiment: 5 Minutes of Love

Set a timer for 15 min.
Begin to watch your favorite movie at home.
Settle into it. Enjoy it as much as you always do or more. Keep the remote control in hand.
When the timer sounds stop the movie immediately.
Do not continue to watch it, even for a few seconds.

The following day do the same thing, watching the movie from the point you left off. Once again turn it off when the timer sounds.

On the third day fast forward the movie to go beyond the point you left it at the previous day. Set the timer and watch the movie for only 5 minutes.
When the five minutes is up turn off the movie.

Who or What is the Teacher?

It has taken a million shapes within a million dreams.

You have recognized it and you have rejected it

time and time again, otherwise you would not find it here.
It will not cease its approach, but it will take new forms.

Who or What is the teacher?
Where does it come from?
What does it teach?

Nothing Nothing Nothing

The teacher is an Awakener,

emissary of the great Dreamer,

traveler of countless dreams,

the redeemer that must be redeemed.

Who is the dreamer? Who is the Dreamer? Who is the Dreamer?

WHO IS THE AWAKENER?

The one who sleeps awakens to find that it continues to dream…
I am dreaming, I must be asleep.

I awaken to find that I AM… dreaming… I must be asleep.
I awaken… I AM dreaming… I must be A SLEEP…

To be A WAKE is to keep vigil over the sleeper…

to be the course of something that preceded it.

I AM AWAKE I AM ASLEEP
Who?

Who then will be the redeemer?
Take turns, share the work, turn it on its head.
He’s not heavy, he’s my reflection.

Experiment: This Blog is Heretical

You will need three bowls.
Fill the first bowl with hot water, the second with very cold water, and the third with water of a medium temperature.
(The hot water should be quite hot, but not scalding as you will be submerging your hand in it.) Place your right hand in the bowl of hot water and your left hand in the bowl of cold water.
Count to twelve. Then place both hands in the final medium temperature bowl of water.

Pay close attention to what each hand seems to be experiencing. Each hand will register a different sensation, however they are both subject to the same environment.

Consider that you may not always rely on your highly sophisticated data processor to objectively determine what is what.

If you failed to register an oddity within the triangle above, take a second look.
How much of what is objectively real is being edited out by your human operating system?

My Body

There are some things you can tell no one else.
You will face the greatest challenges on your own.
Death is the great cutter of ties.

All of the lines you have drawn connecting this dot to that will be severed. You will free fall in every direction simultaneously, feeling your insides as out and outsides as in and all of it burning dully no matter which way it flips.

To whom will you whisper all of your sweetness?
Who will share in the bitterness of returning to or running from the same empty house?

As you walk home you will find that you have always been the only one that has ever lived here. The agony, the loss of all of your frail dreams will wrap itself around you like an authentic mink stole.

At last you have the Real and now you remember that it is hideous and lonely. It is like looking into a humanoid face and discovering it has no eyes, no mouth or nose.
So familiar and yet so wrong.
But which aspect is the mutation? The alien, or the familiar?
Is it primordial to be lost, or at home?
What strange gravity is familiarity?
Who is left to ask questions when your lovely reptilian mind has been buried, wrenched from you as you drifted out of a far away dream?
If you jump trains before the last stop what will become of you?
As you wander in the twilight between the nowhere you know and the nowhere you fear, what are you?
If instead you allow the last ties to be cut without retreat there will be no more questions.
What is will be, what was shall be forgotten.
If you are present as you gestate in the stillness what will be born?

Work with what Is

Looking at yourself as you look out into the great illusion around you, it will become apparent that two images are being superimposed onto each other.

One is an amalgamation of all your wishes, your fears, your desires, your repultions... all your habits projected out into the Universe around and fooling you into blind belief.

The other is what is.

As you wade through the great veil of illusion that is before you, you will get glimpses of the Real just behind it.

When you see it, don't reject it.
Don't step away in fear.

It's not what you're used to.
It can't be.

Simply watch it and respond delicately but firmly.
The more delicate you are, the more subtle you are, the more you will slowly develop a taste for the Real.

Don't allow sentimentality to steal you away from the Real.

Transform the Illusion.

Work with What Is.

Experiment: Dreams and the Crown

Visit the following web page shortly before going to bed:

http://www.viasinistrae.com/crownof.htm

Journal about all of the dreams you can remember as usual.

In addition if any thoughts ideas or impressions that seem related in any way come to you at any point throughout the day keep a record of these as well.

Follow through with the experiment as prescribed for three nights in a row.

Mountaineer

You must climb mountains to find other mountain climbers.

Milling around the village square gazing at the mountain is not the same as climbing it.
Philosophizing about whether or not the mountain is real only keeps you off of the mountain.
If you wish to climb the mountain you must make the effort.
Approach it and begin climbing, even if you have no gear or guide.

It is when you are already climbing that you will find a good mountain guide.
The real mountain climbers will not be looking for you in the village square. They will be off climbing. If you meet one on the way up they may help you.
If you find yourself in a precarious position out of daring and willingness, a guide is likely to help. Good guides don’t want to see other climbers fall off the mountain.

You need to get up there. Embarking on the journey will bring those things needed to complete the journey out of necessity.

Don’t wait until you are ready.

You will never be ready.

You will either be able to hang in there until you find the help to develop the skills you need to progress or you’ll fall screaming to your death.

If the later is the case at least they will say, "He died climbing the mountain."
Rather than "He was talking about the mountain over a large plate of spaghetti and choked on a meatball."

Experiment: Slow, Slower, Still

Set a timer for five minutes.
Begin to move very, very slowly.
Move so slowly that it would be hard for an observer to track the motion.
After an excruciating minute has passed allow yourself to move at what would be an ordinarily lingering pace.
This will flow observably faster than the initial motion while remaining basically slow.
After a few moments freeze. Begin to melt back into motion. Move as slow and deliberate as humanly possible.
Freeze.
Then break back into an easy pace.
Alternate between slow, slower, and still until the timer sounds.
Keep your attention in/on your body.
Imbue every moment with presence. Imagine that you are a sculpture just coming to life.
The tiniest movement is a terrific feat. It takes all of your will to stir and every relocation of mass, however miniscule, holds you in complete awe.

Take a little music wherever you go and nothing can ever go wrong.

Feeling over identified? Unsure of how or when it started?

A good technique has been presented by one of the greatest magicians of all time, Miss Betty Boop. To see her demonstrate, find her in the cartoon: Old man of the mountain.
In this demonstration we find Betty faced with a very large, overbearing, and old problem: the old man of the mountain. If we see the old man as our own personality we can follow in Betty’s footsteps to out do him.

The old man keeps making his demands:

"You’ve got to hi di hi, you’ve got to ho de ho to get along with me."

Betty keeps dancing just out of his reach.

Please note that she doesn’t oppose him head on, she sings and dances and very cutely insist she’s gonna do him wrong.
In other words, side step whatever your personality throws at you, don’t try to stop it, work around it.
Like dancing it’ll take some practice to get the steps right.
If you land on your ass you’ll just have to brush yourself off and try again, which is hard.
To do it you’ve gotta have pep.

(Betty and her Pal Pudgy can demonstrate pep, look for their instructional cartoon.)

True Will

True will originates from the Being, from the silent fire of presence in the machine.
It should not be confused with the ambitions of the machine, our apparent/organic self.
The machine has its own desires, its own preferences, its own wishes. These are called "will" in normal human language. But this is not what we mean by the word Will.
Cultivating presence cultivates the true Will.

Be in your skin.
This is being awake.
This is a real choice.
Its not your destiny.
Its not fate.
Its not predetermined.
It is a real choice.
True will.
It blooms in the silence.
Cultivate silence.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
Love is the law, love under will.

Being to Being

Being to Being contact flows from person to person in seemingly ordinary conversations. Our most essential nature is Being communicated through every detail of our apparent self. The Being can be imagined as a sun, or central point of light. Our apparent self is shaped by the various ways we are filtering and converting that intense radiation. The apparent self is like a protective shroud around the essential self. The interaction between apparent selves act like couriers bringing packets of life from one Being to another, through the sounds we make, even our appearance. This happens whether all of those present are aware of it or not. This is Invocation.
Being to Being contact also occurs across great distances, and even time. Contact of this nature may flow between individuals who have never met in person or even in theory. It flows between Beings with apparent forms and Beings who are without apparent forms (like those who are apparently dead.) Consider that you are having Being to Being contact with the author of this text, no matter how much time has passed since its writing.
In many cases a person becomes drowsy when the contact flows. Shifting into an altered state of consciousness is not unusual. Alpha and theta states are usually experienced during sleep. Shifting into these states during an invocational interaction can cause the apparent self to believe it should be asleep. In some cases people may be allowed to sleep. In other invocational settings it may be inappropriate. Be aware that we are very receptive to the subtle flow of energies while we sleep, but we can enter dreamlike brain states without actually snoozing. It is a matter of forming a new and unconventional habit of changing states and remaining awake.

Experiment: The Jellybeans

You will need a bag of jellybeans and two cups or bowls.
Wash and thoroughly dry your hands. Sit at a table with your supplies.
Take a moment to become hyper aware of your body. Wrap yourself in your attention, be aware of your body as a whole.
Let your perception of "body" expand to extend two inches above your skin.
Now moving very slowly and maintaining this hyper awareness begin to sort the jellybeans.
Remove the black jellybeans from the bag and place them in one cup, and remove all of the white jellybeans, placing them in the other.
Grasp only one jellybean at a time. Keep your attention on the physical act of moving the jellybean.
Watch your hand move with the jellybean as if that were the whole point, to see just one jelly bean in your hand passing through the air.
Try not to anticipate the cup.
Move in its direction without imagining the final outcome.
You should move ridiculously slowly.
Move as if you are a parody of a person moving slowly.
When you have finished separating the jellybeans, return them to the bag to be eaten/ used again. Store the bag of jellybeans to maintain their freshness.
Finally, wash and thoroughly dry your hands.
Repeat this experiment 3 days in a row.

Who has Choices Need Not Choose

"Who has choices need not choose.
We must who have none.
We can love but what we lose-
What is gone is gone."

Read the above poem.

The first time you will read it silently to yourself.

The second time read it aloud as you would read it to another person.

The third time read it aloud very, very, slowly placing your full attention on each word and each space between words. Allow excruciating silence.

The fourth time read it aloud quickly and mechanically.

The fifth time, read it aloud in a jumbled order and repeat some words as if there were an echo.

The sixth time sings it passionately.

The seventh time read it aloud with ferocity.

The eighth time read it aloud with gentleness.

The ninth time read it aloud as if it were the last thing you will ever say. Pour yourself into the words without restraint, utilizing any combination of the methods you just experimented with to keep each word tantalizing and alive.

The Art of Falling

"Everything existing in the world falls to the bottom. And the bottom for any part of the universe is it’s nearest stability, and this said "stability" is the place or the point upon which all the lines of force arriving from all directions converge." -Saint Venoma

Our natural locomotion is governed by gravity and we will therefore be drawn towards density.
Anyone wishing to travel purposefully through the cosmos must acquire the art of falling. Such a traveler will master the use of electromagnetic energy to defy gravity.
It takes incredible concentration to fall to an intended destination rather than into the first stability that crosses your path.
You must be capable of high functioning in the unstable spaces between stabilities.
The voyager of all space and time must not be attracted or repelled by stabilities. It must be at home in the uncertain. The secret to successful travel is stillness. The being is going nowhere and nothing is coming to it.

You must maintain a state of objectivity, be still, and be able to truthfully say, "I meant to do that", when you come hurtling over the handlebars.

Experiment: The Star Part 2

When you have gained some proficiency in drawing the yellow star with presence you will add another series of steps.
Just as before, you will place your attention on your body and facing east draw the yellow star. This time, however, when you have completed the star, draw a dot in its center.
Still using your thumb, draw a line in the air starting from the dot.
Move clockwise drawing the line until you are facing south.
Now you will draw a red star applying the same degree of presence and attention as in the first experiment.
Again place a dot in the center and continue drawing the line from this point moving clockwise until you face west.
Here repeat the process, this time making the star blue.
Continue the line from the western star clockwise and draw a black star in the North.
Finally finish the line, connecting the northern dot to the eastern dot within the yellow star.
You will have encased yourself in a circle having gone from dot to dot.
This outlines the steps necessary to carry out the experiment.

Now for the real instruction; make a special effort to remain present in the spaces between the stars.
Do not rush from star to star.
Keep the movements slow and deliberate.

This is crucial.

Repeat this experiment until you can do it in your sleep without loosing concentration between stars.
Be in every step as if you have no destination nor point of origin, this motion being the only real motion.

Pop Weed

You’ll never know what bit you until it’s too late.
Do you really decide what infects you?
What has crept into your consciousness unbidden?

There is no stopping it, something will get inside of you,
something will change you,
make you its host,
attempt to bend you to its purpose.

Things crawl in, things crawl out.

The burning question is: who or what is running your show?

If you sleep through this so called "life", you are a breeding ground for whatever crosses your path, the culture blooming in you is "pop", a weed that will rule you like ice plant devouring the Californian coast.

Where the ice plant grows it is impossible for any other plant to take root. It dominates, pushes other deeper rooted growths out of its way and destroys the cliffsides it inhabits. The cliffs simply crumble without deep rooted plants running beneath their surface.
It eliminates the possibility for life. It occupies space until it slips into the sea, dragging its wasted host down with it into oblivion.

So wonder, are you a carrier of the culture of death?

You cannot accidentally be a carrier of the culture of life for long.
It takes tending.
There are people whose daily work involves removing ice plant and protecting the lupine and sticky monkey flower. It takes attention and an awareness of life to cultivate it.
The little seeds of life may find their way into your soil, but if neglected or merely unnoticed, the grosser, surface dwelling life forms will prevent those seeds from taking root.

Experiment: The Star

Put all of your attention into your body.
If your thoughts wander, direct them gently back to simply perceiving the body.
Feel it as a new and erotic skin.
Place the thumb of your right hand between the index and middle finger of the same hand.
Use this thumb to draw a large five-pointed star in the air in front of you.
Face east as you do so and "see" the star as yellow. Feel the yellow left behind by your passing finger.
Every movement should feel electrifying. The passing of your hand is leaving the space it occupied charged.
Keep your attention on the physicality of drawing the star.
Draw it slowly and deliberately.
Take note of how many times your mind wanders as you draw the star.
Repeat this experiment once a day until you are able to do this without the mind engaging in other trains of thought.

Lucid Mercenary

The pull of the monster dream side is equivocal to the perfectionist tug of the natural life "do right" side.
Is there a third party that can walk between these warring nations?
That is the only hope.
If the monsters and the saints are the only active forces, they are ultimately one rocking motion, one perpetual motion machine.
They are an inner wheel of time, lulling that inner universe into a steady "to and fro" forever oscillation of sleep.
Where is the lucid mercenary?
The warrior who hails from neither camp, who does his own bidding?
He must be carefully nursed into being, this walker between worlds, fed on stillness.
He sprouts in the center of the battlefield, an alien voyager presently marooned in a violent universe.
If he can survive in the harsh environment he will be the redeemer.
As he feeds on the stillness he will grow and eventually develop a strange gravity of his own, throwing off the equilibrium of the surrounding universe; disrupting the lulling grind of the wheel of time.
Invest in the alien voyager, the future is in space travel rather than wheel running.
The next question?
How do you go about making that investment?
There are practical techniques utilized by other universes that have undergone or are presently experiencing just such a transformation.
There is an "intergalactic" culture afoot, making practical teachings available for universes in transition.

Experiment: Fistfull of Joystick

For this experiment you will need $20 dollars in quarters and somewhere to play Mrs.Pac Man, preferably on a sit down table.
Your objective in playing the game will be to first clear the game board edges of pellets, avoiding the large pellets in the corners.
Then clear the center of the board.
Finally get the ghosts to chase you to the big pellets then eat them.
The optimum way is for them to be lined up on top of each other so that you can devour all four ghosts with the least amount of movement.
Do all of this with your first man.
If your first man is killed before completing the board let the subsequent Mrs. Pac’s be killed and start the whole game over.
If you successfully complete the first board with one man, let yourself be killed immediately in the second level so that you can start the game over and play the first board again.
Play the first board, and only the first board, over and over again until you have exhausted your supply of quarters (that’s 80 games). Enjoy!
On the following day play only one game as far as you can get before you see the telltale flash of "Game Over".

Self-knowledge and self-development

It is not enough to "know thy self".
That is only the beginning.
Once you are acquainted with the equipment you must then ask :
"What the hell can I do with it?"
Then having asked that question and settled on some idea of what to do with yourself, you must develop the ability to do that.
What is this?
What can I do with it?
Now I will experiment with doing something.
Let us be clear that we are not proposing a method for self improvement.
If the question of importance is:
"What can I do with this human machinery?"
and the answer is creative, it is unlikely that one of a particular unpopular culture will settle with: "I can make it better at consuming and procreating prior to an inevitable death.", as the final answer.
Those of a particular unpopular culture will be driven to do something otherwise.
Asking great questions and coming to great conclusions without putting them to the test is a pass time for a weak intellectual breed grown in the popular culture.
If you are of this breed, you will no doubt have some arguments about how full of crap we are.
If you are of the other culture you will find it difficult to go on living without trying to do something with your self.
If you are trying to do something with your self, you may want some practical assistance.
Look for someone else who is making the effort to use the equipment, someone who is doing something. Beware of the regurgitators of undigested teachings and their very loose jaws.

What is a Choice?

Choose a day at random.
Perhaps assign a number to every day of the week and role a die to make the final determination.
On this day do nothing that you are “supposed” to do, nothing that you don’t want to do.
Deny all responsibility for a day.
(Be reasonable, don’t let your kids play on the interstate, get someone else to watch them.)
Watch the opportunity to do what you “should” pass you by. Each time say to yourself:

“I choose not to (insert activity here)”

Pay close attention to the way you feel.
Keep a journal of your thoughts, feelings, and the results of your inaction.

On the following day resume your usual duties.
This time each time you engage in an activity say to yourself:

“I choose to (insert activity here)”.

Complete your daily tasks as though you really, really want to do them.
Be enthusiastic and participate fully in each step.

Journal about the thoughts, sensations, and results that arise.
At the end of the day objectively consider your various choices.

Which rites simply must be observed to ensure the survival of the human organism?
Which rites are inherited from the surrounding culture, which are habitual?

Where do the choices come from?
Who is running the show?

Begin in the Skin

Don’t deny the mortal creation.
The immortal lives within it.
What we hold with active attention becomes energized.
If you want to touch the immortal you start from the ground up.
Touch the mortal creation first, with your attention.

Be in your skin.

If you are not here in your body, where are you?
You are nowhere.
If you want to do anything at all you need to be present within the mortal creation, then you can use it.
You must have a vessel to invoke into.
Be the cup first, then be the wine that flows into it.
If you are not a cup first, the wine spills to the floor.

TOUCH YOUR MORTAL CREATION… THANK YOU.
TOUCH YOUR MORTAL CREATION…THANK YOU.
TOUCH YOUR MORTAL CREATION…. THANK YOU.

Dream bounce

This is a long term experiment for partners.
You will select a scene from your dreams.
It must be a scene, not an entire dream sequence.
You will translate the scene into writing.
Include as much detail as possible and do what you can to convey the mood as well as the circumstance.
It should only fill two paragraphs, don’t write more than that.
You will then give the text to your partner.
Your partner will create a visual accompaniment to your scene in the form of an illustration, collage, graphic, etc.
Your partner will then write a scene from their own dreams and give it to you.
You in turn will create an accompanying visual.
You will continue to bounce back and forth this way for a period of at least 3 months.

We are the Sleepy Time Resistance Front

If you are not awake you cannot make a real choice, you will be responding mechanically to whatever crosses your path.
That is why the first step is to cultivate presence; wakefulness.
A work wish cannot become the will to work until some time has been spent in such a state.

AWAKE NOW.

To be awake is to be open, naked in a world swarming with Beings tucked away within heavy mechanized armor.
It will always be socially inappropriate to bare your Being in a society of Beings tucked within heavy mechanized armor.
You must tread against the tide.

BE HERE.

If you are not here, you are nowhere being carried on the tide.
It is our work to resist the force of entropy.
It is our work to defy nature.
It is our work to respond creatively.
You can only respond creatively if you are able to make a real choice.

You can only make a real choice if you are AWAKE NOW.

Not just reading and allowing your advanced mechanic data processor to apply this to its own mode of operations, or discard it due to its uselessness to that mode of operation.

IF YOU DO NOT EAT THE MACHINE, IT WILL EAT YOU.

Who’s processing who?

I am not this, I am not that, I am the breath within the breath.
Lucidity within a dream sets the dreamer free.

Experiment: The God That Won't Deliver

This is an experiment to be conducted with a partner.
You will write a poem together.
The first line of the poem should be, “the god that won’t deliver is indeed rising”.
One person will write, but both individuals will determine each line after the first.
Person A will suggest a line. Person B will then either say “Yes” or offer a counter proposal.
There should be no excess discussion.
You must imagine your selves as two voices within one mind.
Let the ideas flow between you unimpeded by social niceties.
You should both be open to the process and unattached to the outcome.
Make quick choices and avoid over censoring and over editing.

Example 1-

Person A- “Under my bed tonight…”
Person B- “Yes.”
Person A- “Yes.

Example 2-

Person A- “Under my bed tonight…”
Person B- “Under my head this night…”
Person A- “Yes.”
Person B- “Yes.”

Example 3-

Person A- “Under my bed tonight…”
Person B- “Yes.”
Person A- “Over my bed tonight…”
Person B- “Yes.”
Person A- “Yes.

Example 4-

Person A- “Under my bed tonight…”
Person B- Under my window tonight..”
Peron A- “In my window tonight…”
Person B- “Yes.”
Person A- “Yes

The experiment ends when you have added eleven lines to produce a poem with a total of twelve lines.