Work On Self

In the ordinary course of life as human animals our attention flows untrained from one thing to another. Whatever is loudest, brightest, closest, or most thrilling captivates this precious resource, this little understood commodity. Reflexively, our mood changes constantly as well, contorted in one way or another in response to external stimuli, blindly following our unguided attention.
When you are constantly wrapped up in this shifting, this loss of attention, you can’t really be free, you can’t make any choices, you can’t do anything seriously. You will merely move from one attention grabbing person, place or thing to the next, responding emotionally to each new source of stimulation with astoundingly mechanical reliability.
We react. Clowns cause fear, praise arouses pleasure, a traffic jam equals anger. If being ordered around by your boss made you irritable today, there is no reason to suspect that you might enjoy the experience tomorrow.
Being happy, being sad, angry, or fearful, these are not things that we do, these are things that do us. We react automatically to whatever stimulus we encounter.
We assume that these reactions are somehow more than arbitrary, that if something pleases or displeases us there is a fundamental justification for the response.
If my spouse cheats on me I feel that I should be sad and angry, I have every right to it. I will feel that it is my spouse's fault that I am angry.
I have never considered that my response to the situations and individuals around me comes from within me. It is particular to me. It is a reaction I learned early in life from my parents, my teachers, the television and my peers and I have repeated it mechanically so often that it feels “right.”
We feel that these reflexive states of being are dictated by who we are, when really we are being dictated by them.
Who are you anyway? What are you? What is the nature of this existence?
Most of us have not considered what it means to be a person. We have not asked ourselves, “what am I? What function do I serve?”
Nobody else asked us either. In fact we have been informed of who we are by others who have never wondered what they were. To delve into such a question would mean directing our attention inward, placing it on our own self rather than allowing it to drift over whatever new thing calls to it.

When I was a child I was very concerned with the question: “what am I?”
It seems as if immediately after being informed of who I was, and consequently forgetting what I am or might be, I began to try to find my way back to it. At least as many years as was spent forgetting myself came to be invested in trying to remember it again.
By the time I was in the fifth grade I became very convinced, walking home from school one day, that I did understand something about myself and reality and it was summed up best by these lines from a popular nursery song; life is but a dream.
I am a dream. One dream of many. There are dreams within dreams to consider.
If I am a dream, then there is a dreamer, there’s something else, an eternal something, an other of some kind.
It took more time for me to build on this theory, to move beyond “what am I?” to “why might I be?“
To me it seems that one function of the human being is to establish contact with that dreamer, that eternal being. Just doing that is a lot harder than it sounds.

Doing that in as many different ways and different spaces as possible is the function of a human being in a system that involves this organic existence but is not only this organic existence.
We do this with our attention, by turning it in on ourselves, in on the dreamer.
This is an non-ordinary application of attention. This is going beyond the course of life as human animals. This is applying attention intentionally rather than accidentally. This is trading the subjectivity involved in riding the roller coaster of human emotion for the objectivity of a waking state; a moment of lucidity in which I remember myself as the eternal dreamer.
This is what I call “work on self.”

The Breath Of Incorruptibility

I have sent this (to you) because you inquire about the reality of the authorities-
and the authority of reality.

On account of the reality of the authorities, (inspired, perplexed, stunned, and spun) by the spirit of the Father of Truth-
the truth of the father,
the great apostle,
referring to the "authorities of the darkness" -
"the darkness of authorities."
He told us that our contest is not against flesh and blood; rather, it is against the authorities of the universe and the spirits of wickedness.
Against the universe of authorities and the wickedness of spirits.

This is for you- for your mind of clay, for the soul that has been breathed into you, for the spirit you might achieve, for the truth you might know when the shell is cracked and the blind have been subverted.
It is for the gods who have fallen, who have towered, grown, plunged, killed, and suckled at the nipples of death and power. For the spirits higher up, touched only in brief moments by dreams of dying brothers.

This is for you, for you should know that their chief is blind, blinded chiefly because of his power and his ignorance. In his arrogance, with power bellowing from his naked loins, he said:
"It is I who am God; there is none apart from me. It is God who is 'I.' Apart from me there is none."

When he said this, he sinned against the entirety.
The entirety sinned against him.
And this speech got up to incorruptibility. It wavered and floated high above, right to where incorruptibility dwelled and grew and sometimes waned- high above like a silver moon in flux.
Then there was a voice that came forth from incorruptibility, saying:
"You are mistaken, Samael" - which is to say: "god of the blind."
"God of the blind, you are mistaken. We mistook you."
And Samael’s thoughts became blind.
And his blindness became thoughts.

And, having expelled his power,
the power to expel-
that is, the power to blasphemy, to speak,
he pursued it at the instigation of Pistis Sophia.
And, having expelled his power, the power to create
at the instigation of Pistis Sophia, he pursued it.
Down to chaos and the abyss, his mother, he pursued it.

It was she in which he came from- spurting forth with pain like the demon that would one day fully form. And she established each of his offspring in conformity with its power -
its power of conformity
after the pattern of the realms that are above. By starting from the invisible world, the visible world was invented. By starting from blindness, sight was dreamed.

As incorruptibility looked down into the region of the waters,
her image appeared in the waters;
the authorities of the darkness became enamored of her, for she was what they could not be.
But they could not lay hold of that image which had appeared to them in the waters because of their weakness.
Beings that merely possess a soul cannot lay hold of those that possess spirit -
for they were from below, while she, incorruptibility, was from above.
They saw shadows who saw shapes that could cast no shadow. It was an image whose content could not trespass into shadow.

This is the reason why.
Reasons? Why?
Incorruptibility looked down into the region so that, by the father's will,
she might bring the entirety into union with the light.
She might instigate, causing the father to expel his power, which was the power to create.

The rulers laid plans and said:
"Come, let us create a man that will be soil from the earth. A soil from the earth that will be man."
They took chunks of clay and spat into it, turning it into dark mud. They modeled their creature as one wholly of the earth.
Their creature modeled them, as one wholly of the earth, and pursued it down to chaos and the abyss, for its eyes would not open.

Now the rulers created another body, female with the face of a beast.
They had taken some soil from the earth,
earth from the soil
and modeled their man after their body, and modeled hers after his,
and his after the image of God that had appeared to them in the waters.

A replica of a replica of a replica...

They said:
"Come, let us lay hold of it by means of the form that we have modeled, lay hold of her whose image appeared in the waters. Let her see her male counterpart made in our likeness, then we may seize her within that form that we have modeled."
Because of their powerlessness, they said this not understanding the force of God.
They said this not understanding the God of force because of their powerlessness.

And they breathed into her face; heat and cold mixed with the smell of dark earth and living creatures that lacked arms and feet. They forced her mouth open, sending their breath to create hers.
She came to have a soul and remained upon the ground many days, laying naked beneath the clouded sky and their unblinking eyes. They could not make her arise because of their powerlessness. Like storm winds they persisted in blowing. Her body stumbled like a naked white leaf. They breathed out and hard, hoping that they might try to capture that image which had appeared to them in the waters, but they did not know the identity of its power. They could not reach her with their powerless souls and contented themselves instead by playing god with mud and sticks.

The Holy Ghost

The holy ghost came to her when she was a child, only six years old. For weeks preceding the actual event she awoke in the night screaming and crying as the result of having had a nightmare, a premonition of what was to come. Each time she was told “ Its just a nightmare, go back to sleep.” by one groggy parent or the other, so that on the night that the plane did crash into the house she almost believed it was only the same nightmare come to visit her once more.
It was a private plane that carried six passengers, and the pilot and co-pilot. They were all dead, spilling from the wreckage into the fiery garage like guts bursting from a wounded bird. Her father wanted to help them, but they were beyond his help, and her mother was saying,
“Oh God.”
Her older sister was screaming,
“What is it, what happened?”
Helen knew what had happened. It was the plane, the same plane that had been crashing into her dream every night for the past two weeks.
“Get them out of here!” her father shouted. But he needn’t have, because mother was already grabbing them roughly by the arms and saying,
“C’mon.” in her brusque way thick with the Oklahoman accent.
Then they stood on the street in front of their home in Lake Wood California watching the flames spread, Mother and sister and she, all in their white night gowns like three ghosts. Father and a neighbor were dragging bodies out, just in case someone was yet alive and merely unconscious, but at the time she hadn’t understood that. It had seemed that he was taking them out so that even the dead could be spared the horror of being eaten up by the flames.
They were laid out on the lawn and soon Father had turned a garden hose on to combat the hungry fire. Then the wailing sirens came and the flashing red lights bouncing off the dark smoke billowed from the mouth of the garage.
Mother had been saying all along,
“Don’t look, you hear? Close your eyes.” And she tried to press their faces into the folds of her night gown, but despite this they had looked. They saw.
The nightmares, like Gabriel, had come whispering, and now here it was. The spirit that sought to inhabit the body, burning it mercilessly. The plane, a desirous phantom, had seized hold of the house and now it was devouring it with its passion.
Mother kept saying,
“Oh God.”
And yes, it must have been so. Dancing before their eyes with wings of flames spreading over the roof top lighting the night sky and obliterating the stars with its smoky mane, here was the Holy Ghost, the spirit of heaven come down to visit its rage upon them and see the bodies laid before it in neat rows like finger sandwiches.
After weeks of practice, she now found that she could not scream, nor cry, but only observe with eyes as round as saucers, peering out from behind her mother’s night gown.
“Oh God.”
The nightmare had not ended this time and every detail was startlingly clear. She was awake and the dream had swallowed her.
“Oh God.”
And it would never let her go.

The Riddle

"Mr.White expected a seriousness of purpose in us which provided discipline and willpower in those early years; and we learned the electrical and ideological trades from the ground plug up; for there’s no substitute for brain conduction."
-William T. Vollmann, You Bright & Risen Angels

I open my mouth and the story pours out in white hot streams like geothermal spring water boiled down in the kettle of my belly an inch or so above my navel. What comes from here will be out of the hands of my brain, that is to say that my waking consciousness is being restrained so that the wily so called "sub" consciousness can come out and speak its piece, play its games, and in general, enjoy its witching hour. You never do know just what things do come out to play while your head lays sinking into your triple stuffed pillow and the clock ticks slowly from 11:30 to 12:30. I personally have seen the demons playing under the moonlight at my window sill. This fortunate glimpse was afforded me due to my unusual habit of staying awake in the dark so that I may pour the Serotonin which is being produced inside my head during the sun’s absence into little cups of digital delight. I use this substance as the central ingredient in recipes for disaster which invoke worlds of every kind shape and color.
Just last night, for example, I awoke disturbed by a rustling which sounded like some one going through my most prized and secret documents, the seeds from which the aforementioned worlds sprout. This was long after the witching hour had past, which goes to show that the devil has reign over more hours of the night than the lore tells us. I awakened myself by shouting,
"Who’s here?"
Sitting up I grappled for the flashlight kept near the head of my bed and hastily clicked it on, directing it towards a small shadow scurrying away from my head.
‘Ew, a mouse.’ I thought just before the palm sized creature was caught in the ellipse of yellow light beaming from my big black battery powered tool. At this point I had risen from my bed to scuttle after the evading intruder and get a good view. There, under the spotlight, I caught sight of the thing which plainly was not a mouse, but rather something like a tiny triceratops.
‘I am dreaming’. I thought. I even said it aloud, but I had goose pimples all up and down my arms and was in fact too cold to be snuggled warm in my bed merely imagining such a phantom. Clearly I was awake. More awake than usual in fact. I hurried to the kitchen and found a large jar and rushing back scooped the critter up so that I would have evidence against the supposition that I was hallucinating. It was then that I looked much closer at it and realized that it was not a dinosaur as I had originally assessed it to be, but rather a very small rhinoceros.
As this dawned on me, my spirit leaped from me, extending into a parallel world where I asked someone that seemed vaguely familiar what a Rhinoceros could stand for, what it could mean. That someone was a female with short dark hair and pale skin. I became her and began to suggest to myself that it was something male and strong.
Meanwhile, back in my bedroom, I startled awake for the second time that night, still hearing the suspicious rustling. Gone was the mouse turned triceratops turned rhino. This time I didn’t use the flashlight and switched on the lamp. Oh good heavens! It was just the cat. (Cat? I don’t have a cat.)
"My god," I thought to myself, "it’s the cat I brought in to feed a week ago before leaving to vacation in sunny southern California. (Is that true?) I left the poor thing alone in my apartment for more than a week. It must be starving." I think, (if this is true that I actually brought it cat food before I left.) "Come on Riddle, here kitty kitty." (I let the Riddle in and fed it?)
Together we went to the kitchen, and I opened the refrigerator slowly. If there was cat food in there then this was real. There was. An open bag of kitty kibble was spilling out on the white plastic of the bottom shelf. I noticed that Riddle had one distinguishing feature: a white star on his/her forehead.
I then woke up for the third time.
So you see these things do exist, they do come out to play, and you should be concerned. You should recognize that you too were visited last night by something OTHER. You convinced yourself that it was only a dream, or perhaps you shut it out entirely and imagined that you slept without dreaming. Both possibilities are a lie. Something real visited you last night, or perhaps more accurately, you visited it when one part of you, the watch dog, wasn’t looking. Even more accurately I would say that the wall came down, just as the antichrist has suggested that it should, and what you found outside the city’s keep was another form of yourself: The Riddle.

Dreamer

"You know," she said, "I just can’t get used to the idea of loving everything. Sacheverell says I’ve got to be nice to my little people and stop sticking hatpins in them and things, but it’s hard."
-The Green Millennium, Fritz Leiber

Within a dream everything that is encountered is a manifestation of the dreamer. Every situation, every encounter between characters is an encounter between the dreamer and the dreamer. The only thing that the dreamer is experiencing, is itself.
The old witch who cuts you up and eats you in soup is you.
The young lover that holds your hand and stares longingly into your eyes, also you.
When you enter a malicious dark room where objects move of their own accord that is you as well.
When you lay your head down to rest each night you go on to dream dreams within a dream. Those dreams may in turn be dreaming further dreams themselves.

What, in a dream, can really happen?

There is a line of dream creatures that hold to the principle that the only "real" thing to be done is to establish a connection with the other dreamers.
To do this, everything encountered is treated as the embodiment of that being.
To do this, a dream creature must awaken within a dream.
Within this model, everything that is encountered is an expression of self. Everyone becomes a mirror. What you experience outwardly correlates directly to something that is happening within your psyche.
To modify the outward experience one would need to manipulate something internally. Then through this application of tender attention to every detail of the dream, something strange might happen.
A motion might be produced that would be the equivalent of the shore rolling out to the sea in a great wave.
That is to say, that there can be produced, strange vibrations initiated by a sideways movement that defies the logic and order of the dream.
The reverberations would extend in every direction, immeasurably. These efforts create strange growths of a benign nature on the shells of tortoises.
Picture it as a 3D bubble emerging from a 2D experience. Or, if you have the organs of perception and imagination and comprehension to do so, picture it as a 4D bubble emerging from a 3D experience.

For the next week, during all moments of experience, assume that you are dreaming. Every time that you remember that you are dreaming, look at your hand.
Before going to bed, set the intention that you will remember that you are dreaming during the course of that dream within a dream. When you remember that you are dreaming, look at your own hand.

Starlight and Dew Drops are Waiting for Thee

Abandon Desire
You are a finely crafted doll. Very remarkable how your face can communicate so much. Those opposable thumbs are a marvel.
You are the best doll to play with, you and the other dolls of your ilk, the human dolls. You were made to be played. You are the best instrument to play with because you can do so much. You can be used in some very special ways. That’s why you were made.
But as a puppet on the set you will need to be moved by more than one animator. If one aspect of self becomes over identified with the (insert your name here) character and won’t yield control, the show cannot go on.
The show cannot go on.
Let my poor doll rest, haven’t you played her enough?
The show must go on. It must or there is no chance of breaking the endless cycle of rebirth.
Yes I know you are tired little doll, but don’t stop now, or you will end as a doll and that is all. And I love you so, I want to be you, and you will be me, but for this to come to pass we must play on, play on.
Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart.
A play is more than one puppet. The play comes through multiple puppets, each puppet dances her part. The momentum is maintained through the coordination of motion between multiple characters, none more or less important for the execution of a certain play. And the show must go on and on until it is real.
Then will all clouds of sorrow depart.
Awake unto me.
Awake unto me.
Awake unto me.