losing the religion

what to say, its all deception delusion and deceit, nothing is true, everything is false. i know this in my heart and i cant move past it. i want to believe in something, but its all bullshit. whats the solution? just say f it all and keep moving. im unsure of what to do or how to do it. nothing is valid. i can do anything, especially die, and beyond that there is no truth to any action. the results are as meaningless as the action. im alone now, the world is empty for me, the whole family, work, possessions all dissipated and pale. im stretched across the continents and living a lie. i want to be real. thats the truth, but the old definitions dont work.maybe a few weeks in india will fix it. not likely, this is like a vacation paradise, not a spiritual retreat. the supposed giving up of preferences is still high luxury for any poor indian, we live like pashas and sleep on feather pillows served  pate de foi grois and excellent bottles of the finest vintage compared to the people on the streets. what we are doing is playing, there is no reality so we may as well just do make believe cause the truth isnt there. maybe its my fever and cold right now but its all so untrue i cant get into the whole scene.

black coffee musceli, fruit and curd

the prison fare at the local cafe, inmates welcome sign on the door as the latest and greatest guru ji comes to town and threatens to shut down all traffic in all directions as hundreds of thousands of brown and white devotees flock in multi colored garland bedecked buses from everywhere around the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. i knew trouble was coming when i saw wooden poles with three foot fluorescent light bars lining both sides of the road around his temple worship spot last night, lighting the usually dark road into brilliant highlight, making it almost impossible to see the stark squalor behind the lights. this morning police and orange robed devotees filled the grandiose portico drenched in hanging ginger blossoms  sadhus began collecting expecting a generous crowd. the usually quiet tiruvanammalai road that goes round Mount Arunachala will be once again dangerous to navigate as hundreds of mammoth buses fill the roads forcing traffic to screech and twist to allow them passage, like a bull elephant among pygmy warriors. all gives way to the mighty bus. the air is heavy with moisture and seems almost coastal though we are hundred kilometers from the bay of bengal. i am wearing my only longsleeved shirt this morning in deference to the chill especially as i take my scooter through the streets at early 7am. the life in india seems to be such a passion for contrast with the US. the ox carts and ox plows in the fields, the uniformed schoolchildren filling the streets at 2:30 in such an outburst of energy and delight. all the patient and stoic people of the village, sitting in the shade and moving slowly, barefoot on the streets. the quiet knowing suffering of the population, without money or possesions, the old sadhus, who stare at the mountain all day,   they have a serenity and a sense of  place and purpose in their hearts, nothing changes here and once you have grown into your place it is yours and you are it. this is the fate of india. all is static amidst the noise and the chaos of life, all is fixed in place eternally bowing to whatever fate the gods decree.

what is meaning?

 the elusive metaphor that explains, what reality is. we don’t want is to just be is, we want is to be something, a reason for is. it is for a reason. then we can make sense, prepare, recover, accept, deny whatever we need to do with what is. but if the idea of meaning is not, the reality doesn’t work. I want cause and effect, but that’s just a visual pun, the result of observer and observed, not intrinsic to the pieces. im closing some doors here. the purpose, meaning, hope, these all lack the foundation I seek. what is that which has no other, no dual nature, no temporary existence. all ideas, feelings, beliefs, exist to support their dual natures. life death, good bad, true false. whatever i can imagine has no intrinsic factual nature without its opposite to compare it to. i define life as what happens when we are not dead. death as unliving.  there is no permanence to anything  I  am or do. the flesh perishes, the light of the mind dissolves into darkness, the reality I experience disappears even as I go to sleep or even close my eyes. where is the truth of my senses. others are the same, some more stuck in who they are and others less so, but none exist outside the now, beyond the dual nature of existence. I look at meaning and think meaningless as if one is more real than the other, yet both exist simultaneously and neither brings any truth to what is. the isness sustains until I stop. all is and I am that departed unliving undead unfeeling unthinking meaningless awareness that is. beyond that vague concept, I know nothing that truly is me. the reality of existence is questionable and therefore unreal. if there is only the one, and I cling to that, what is the truth to all other. I am the only truth and what is for all is for me so where is the sense or the meaning of that except as the one being is and all I experience is that. there is no other separate, disconnected self or selves. the world of billions is one being existing, as one mind can be filled with billions of thoughts and feelings and memories and dreams so is the world just a dream of the being and I that dreamer, awakening.

this heart is pounding,

 feeling the opening that love brings. the evening is filled with the wonder of my loves heart o expanded so filled with her light shining on all. no one is left out, turned away or missed. all is perfect love, and she the most perfect and I the luckiest to be here near her while this is born and borne and carried through her to the world. what an amazing world, amazing life this has been. how could it be otherwise, I set my foot on the path of miracles and they never cease, I fall in love and it is with the golden heart of the universe, I cry for liberation and the very lord himself comes to me. what more can there be yet I know it comes soon. and all will be done as I planned it without doing anything. let all be as it will and I will cease any concern or care, leave all fear behind and move with this incredible power that fills every bit of my life and be that always, love has the power and life is the engine of transformation, for without delusion no enlightenment is possible. I cry my last tear for loves generosity and take my place at the head of the line, for here I stand and here I am and that is who I am.

I have this thing about dying in a foreign country

 lost and broke down, empty and that’s  what this feels like sometimes, the opening scenes, all is well as jack striker begins a four month sojourn toward spiritual enlightenment in India. the movie starts in a four star

hotel, then a friends house and finally a miasmic  decline into ashrams, hovels and street life, ending in a desperate swim across a deadly river, and the iconic collapse of the immune system. somewhere along the line, it all happens but jack isn’t there anymore. it’s a beautiful evening in tiruvannamalai, the snake bugs are shushing  sibilating, the motor bikes and rickshaws rattling popping, trucks and buses pretty quiet this saturday night. im alone in my room the head guru sits on the bed in the living room, taking up the high spiritual ground to work his nightly magic in samadhiland. he keeps all his clothes in my room and the bathroom is in my room also, so we pretty much live in each others rooms, he has the kitchen in his so it’s a stay away kind of thing and im glad I have the  bathroom as that’s my biggest deal since my illness doesn’t allow much leeway in that regard. the learning to use the no toilet paper system is not really flying for me but I try to get some expertise there, especially  considering the raw bark nature of the local tissue. as the mind explodes from the overload of the cosmic energy, often so does the colon, so im glad like I said to have the bathroom door right next to me. india has had a strange affect im gaining weight, which seems totally unbelievable, but my daily 3 hour walks have fallen off as I struggle to get even an hour in each day, and I have been spending an inordinate amount of time with my soulmate and we seem to spend a lot of time in restaurants where we love to chat and eat of course. she leaves in  4 days so I resolve to start a heartier walking program on the inner trail of mount arunachala, the Om sivaya namah presence that is starting to eat through my consciousness. I have no real life here, I get to go to breakfast at tasty in the 7am after meditation, then its take the master on his errands, then a late lunch somewhere, usually the house, then more twaddle and strum until 7pm when the night ends with more meditation and then he goes into Samadhi and I basically become a prisoner in my room. so here I type and wonder if I should start my spiritual autolysis here on these pages, just write what is true. that’s difficult since as you know, everything is false, but truth does exist but not in a form that is describable, more you can only say what it is not, the actual experience of truth is indescribable, since there is no one there to experience it. is that confusing enough, well it should be if you have a head and two shoulders, you’re probably wondering what im talking about and so am i. it’s a pretty hefty way of putting out the trash and theres always the baby with the bathwater thing. all the good with the bad, and whatever you were with whatever you think you are and going to be. let that all dribble down the drain too. even at 61 im not ready to shuffle off this stupid train im on, cause its been a great ride so far and I thought we were just getting to the good part, but it seems theres some dissension about whats the good and the better of spiritual exploration. wake up, or nod out, enjoy or work, seek or just sit, im not a real fan of any of these as I wander aimlessly trying that perfect method of being unaimed and always finding the mark, or whoever at the other end. inside I’m a diamond in the rough, but somewhere I’m a piece of coal and its Christmas all over the world. what does it all mean, or is that even a question, I think not but I still got a ways to go to get here. thanks for the memories which I’ve forgotten and don’t let the wind blow where the good lord split ya.

if i tell the truth

then i lie because even the truth has no existence, only what is. telling is a lie because no truth exists in words, actions come closer, the heart is the truth, the sense of truth, but feelings lie and disguise everything. only the self untouched can be true, and never leave. whatever truth and peace i feel is when i am on my own. being with others is only pain. nothing creates love or joy when others try to control me. the truth of me needs to be away from others. not under them. i am controlled by my own reactions, feelings of being subservient or manipulated or judged. before i would not care but a few that i do care for have some matching membrane that attaches to me and i submit, then i am lost and depressed. there is no love for me there, no truth, yet that is when i need it the most, to speak truthfully what i feel with anger or upset, yet that is what i feel, and then its done i am not able to, and my anger is stifled not released, not truly expressed and the world seems to settle on me and then i am dying and want to be done and gone. release me everything, i should just get lost and be forever me with everyone, until i honestly feel the surrender, the change the truth that has come and has gone as every change comes and goes and i am nothing before the wind that blows everything over again and again

at the tasty, in tears

 over some small story of generosity, my heart a bleeding rag of emotions.i wonder what kind of old woman i really am that cant keep any perspective on life, everything is the result of my thinking there was something to accomplish or be or become, a goal or destination anything besides just being myself. i am this the crying old man the ex addicted, looking for a new addiction. my heart is perfect, it loves and loves and is letting go of any resistance, the pain of feeling is intense and sometimes its enough to make the living hurt more than dying. i sit in meditation unable to ground, unable to focus just a wash in the world of maya, until i settle and accept that i cannot be at peace and forgive myself. there is only silence and peace and the world seems to stop. i feel a thrumming and a deep opening as the energy rushes into the space i have created in me, suddenly i am the child the loved one the being born. i sit unawares of the world and feel the enlightened state expand. one life, one heart, all at once there is only the moment and the peace of self unchanged. there is no past not coming tomorrow i am once and only the one self awakening in myself. as i step closer to the moment that is here in the present, the cares and thoughts end, the emotions quiet, the only feeling is gratitude and i feel the generosity of the universe given again and again to me who never knows but accepts what is now and soon forever. what surrender this to what is, to the time i have until it is gone. there is little i can do but accept and accept without thinking and worry for this is all there is and i the only one.