A couple of new poems to work on - see humans.htm
World Puja has an event with Deepak Chopra - on his new book " How To Know God"
Email from Al Siebert - he must have read my psychosis poem already from that poetry site. He said his experience was similar in 1965! And it fundamentally altered his life forever too. Survivor Story Archives
Literatus - resource for writers - directory of Internet sites too. I will be too busy to do justice to all these ideas??
Much could be transcribed into this Journal - may actually do it one day. Newsletter taking up a lotta time and may be online soon. Hopefully the poems about psychosis will get in but you never know. I should say I won't be editor if i can't put what i want to put in!
@
February 15/16, 2000
&
Anniversary of Acacia ward 1999 & something inside me tried to recreate the relapse. This is too weird. More details when I have the energy ... days on end of heat don't help either ...
{Then I look back on what I wrote and even the act of labeling it a "relapse" is an act of judgement. As in any event/experience which is labelled a "mistake". It is only from a certain point-of-view that it appears this way. (pun intended) Surprising what a little reflection will do.}
1st Person - poetry & mental illness as reported from the INSIDE - links to a site called "successful schizophrenia"
onthe8thday - eerily similar journey chronicled. This is too much! Like the various religions, the words & images are different but the essence is the same - if you can SEE it ...
Bal Natu - from Chopra Forum ...
&
www.sheriarfoundation.org
Interesting book in library on "Schizophrenia" by Dr John Cutting & Anne Chorlich - mentions Karl Jaspers and many case histories ... and mentions poet Holderlin.
I. Me, Mine helped pull me out of the spiral. I was half hoping I wouldn't ... gave Di a sheet which OUGHT to put me right back in ...
Long, long day - I will really have to watch for burn-out. There are only so many WORDS I can listen to before they all become meaningless. I am so attuned to the silence this will be a big issue. Even casual conversation has become a distraction of sorts. Does depend on the content & the connection. Maybe when the whole world is connected on a level similar to my Unity Consciousness experience in Acacia ward in Feb 1999 it will be different. Maybe I'm just off-with-the-fairies again. Maybe I am also becoming totally unattuned to lnear thought. it has its place but if I'm not into it ...
Still FLYING but in a more sublime way than a manic state - again words fail past a certain point.
http://www.enchanted.co.uk/ - Enchanted Wood
More added to inspir.htm & fewer Forum traffic, so I may be able to catch up with some of what I haven't replied to. Gee, that's good English Geoff.
http://ramdasstapes.org/messageboard.htm
Again the forecast 39 celsius thankfully never eventuates. Some hope for power restrictions to be lifted - See The Melbourne Age
Interesting article on imagination & consciousness etc. Many links. Found from a search for John Lennon. Interesting what a search will toss up. Like www.neemkarolibaba.com - "Miracle saint of Northern India"
Six-monthly visit to the "schizophrenia research project". Is it really a year since Acacia ward last year? Actually expected a fairly routine quetion-and-answer session but some of the questions gave me scope to try and convey some sense of what schizophrenia is like from the INSIDE. I'm conducting research 24 hours a day! YOU start to realise even the questions people ask are founded on a certain picture of reality (pun intended). Mine has become so open-ended I do tend to sound "crazy" when i try to briefly explain how I see/experience things. Must remember to email and send them a link to my home page. Don't know what they would make of my perspective but it can't hurt. It does rather challenge the existing paradigm in fundamental ways.
On the way there, with no pen on hand ... the following stream-of-consciousness ...
Hold onto your hats, folks, I'm in one of "those" moods again. There is a voice in my head. Soft and gentle. Gently persuading. Growing imperceptibly louder each day. "Whay are you SO amazed? Why are you surprised? Why are you 'blown away'? This IS your true nature. Go with it. Live in the present. LIVE in the present. Live IN the present. Live in the PRESENT. Start to see the present as a present. A gift. An act of love from above.
Okay, Geoff, simmer down. Don't get too carried away. You know where you'll end up. You can't go around exhibiting such unrestrained enthusiasm. It just isn't normal.
Ah! that is how to describe it - It was as if there was no longer "me" and "everything else". I felt connected to every living creature. It is called Unity Consciousness and if you're not ready for the experience it can literally drive you crazy. Yet, I now hold the view that there are no "accidents" even if it appears to us that there are a lotta unfortunate situations which seeem random & accidental. It is a profound paradox. One of many.
Yesterday we were talking about sensitivity and that is one way to look at psychosis - some individuals as so sensitive to everything that is going on around them that they literally lose their minds.
That which WE label as "psychotic" would most likely be seen as a religious or sacred experience in a more connected culture! I just have a sense that is right and I am now finding i'm not alone. (no pun intended)
Another question also has layers of asssumptions behind it - do you think you posess special powers or abilities. In a sense, NO. Because every human has the same boundless potential. It's only the environment we grow up into that teaches us to put lids on things. In theory, we ALL have the capacity to read minds, levitate objects, astral travel, perform miracles. But like any "skill" it needs development to be able to manifest.
Added even more lines to "My favourite psychosis" -
Yes, maybe in my last life i was a psychiatrist and like Richard Burton in Equus I was jealous enuf to think "That looks interesting. I might try that next time!" Who knows ...
"It's not easy being crazy but somebody has to do it!"
Yes, I do want to contribute to society but what I'd most like to contribute is some inspiration and a change of the existing paradigm. It is far too linear and materialistic to truly engage many of the souls on this planet at the moment. I realised it is not just me. We'rre all exploring the same questions in an infinite variety of ways. We all face the "why am I here" question.It's literally unavoidable. It is the reason we are here. How's that for circular logic?
To top off a HUGE day, The preimere episode of "The Universe" on ABC. Wow! It is gorgeous and stimulating and inspiring and the TV program aint bad either!
Oh, I am on something today! "People said they know and that and then they know and when they know and that when they know that is what they know." (Repeat three or more times with a hand full of sand). One of those indescribale, unexplainable experiences where the content is gibberish or nonsense but that is irrelevant. it carries with it the sublime ecstasy of another reality. Yes, since I started writing poetry, I realised a feew lines of inspired nonsense can have a greater impact than ten pages of rationally constructed analysis and observation.
The universe is a travelling three dimensional hologram
A Manifestation of matter and energy just as I am
It vibrates and pulsates to some exquisite design
These thoughts may be yours or they may be mine
http://home1.gte.net/sjuliano/index.html - Strawberry Fields Forever - tribute site for John Lennon.
More material posted at Chopra Forum and the link I started yesterday. Woke at 4 AM after maybe 2 hours sleep and feeling AMAZING. Sometimes that can be the precursor to a bad CRASH but I'll take the risk. Push the envelope. Stare into the abyss. Okay, Geoff, we get the point.
Been re-reading CWG a bit more lately. Sometimes I wonder why I bother writing at all. It's a little hard to compete with God for inspiration. That book regularly gives me goose-bumps when reading it. Then again, the mood I'm currently in ... I could read the words on a tube of toothpaste and ahave a transcendental experience.
A few more thoughts/observations on that word "should" - posted some at Forum andsome in the link above.
The heat is back but the power restrictions are also back. Could be a cranky couple of days for many people.
Just switched on Oprah - again it is wow time! (Would not normally have been home except for heatwave!) "Tuesdays with Morrie" - Jack Lemmon is brilliant! Is it an old Oprah? How old is the movie?
yes, as I have observed a FEW times - some days I FIND inspiration everywhere I look. Other days it takes a holiday!
No "crash" just yet but I am running on fumes as I type!
Actually I am FLYING once again. These poems and things seem to ignite an altered state of consciousness at imes - a couple more lines for the growing poem:
I used to collect onions for my porridge
I used to seek the absolute and ultimate knowledge
I soon realised all truth is relative
And even the concept itself is uninformative
They sounded a lot better in my head ... oh well, can't be helped ...
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/3761/kryon2.htm - the kryon paintings
Interesting article "The Game" - try this link
Saw a rerun of Christams Eve Oprah "Remembering your spirit" Very inspiring stories - esp the six year old writiing poetry and making such satatements as "To judge another is to judge God." Wow! That's no ordinary 6YO !!!
http://www.lightworker.com/beacons/index.htm
Added a few lines to recent poems - even "apathy" is growing and evolving.
How do we get from the present situation to my "vision" of the "Ideal Day Program"? -
(i) Maybe if we all just sit down together and wish hard enough it will just happen.
(ii) Take some magic mushrooms and we'll all think we are living in the village already. Reality is your current experience.
Well, a short lived cool-change! 39 Celsius forecast for today. And more heat forecast next week. Now, the power situation has necessitated restrictions - no air-conditioning from 1 to 7 PM. People will be crankier than they would normally be in a heatwave! Hmmm ...
More terence? -
http://www.talkcity.com/religions/bodyandsoul/mckenna0916.html
http://www.dancinghummingbird.com/joyw/terence.html
Carl Sagan - article about the movie "Contact" made from his book.
National geographic article " Unveiling the Universe"
Terence McKenna: Live in New York - brilliant article if I can find the address again ... (Was it lycaeum.org ?)
This link is not it but an interesting collection of links about him. Also checkout Mavericks of the mind.
I love the line about LSD (interesting tie-in with borrowing biography of one of Beatles yesterday)- "LSD is a psychedelic drug which occasionally cases psychotic behavior in people who have not taken it."
Ah! found the address after using a few search engines: Terence Mckenna - Live in New York
Newsletter group resumes in middle of heat wave so my inspiration and motivation may be somewhat diminshed. Along with my conviction that my involvement is worth the effort? And I don't even go in the end as the world famous accuracy of the weather bureau shines through again. They said a cooler day - well it is like a blast furnace at 9 AM! and the house cooled down all the way to 28 degrees celsius overnight. Prolonged heat does tend to suck the life right out of me. So, I wrote a poem called apathy! Then went to the library and found a book called "The Visionary Human" - I mainly went to the library cos it has air-conditioning! yet even that is in doub t with power shortages. What a fun place to live in. Fortunately a cooler change comes by 5 PM and I feel a million percent better. That book has an interview with Bob Monroe which speaks about New Paradigms & describes the universe as holographic. Quite some coincidence - or is it?
I also happened into a bookshop and picked up Conversations with God III and flicked through it. One section describes marriage (in modern society) as an institution - either an institutuion of higher learning or a mental institution. Who said god doesn't have a sense of humour. It also spoke about highly-evolved societies and how sharing is universal. Nobody goes without. Looks like we aint living in a highly-evolved civilisation after all. Funny how we can clearly imagine various utopias but haven't worked out a way to create them in our reality as yet. Hilarious.
The book also speaks about religions and reinforces the ideas form books I & II that God makes no judgements at all, only observations and experiences. Which kind of would be the end of most "organised" religions which presume to catalog what God's preferences are.
I was still feeling a bit wiped out by the heat as I walked around so my thoughts were not exactly buoyant. I thought to myself, "Yes. That's wonderful advice but will it make any real difference to the global situation. I mean Do unto others was written over 2000 years ago and if we all STUCK to that one adage it would transform the world. But so far it hasn't."
http://www.biomednet.com/hmsbeagle
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hall/1101/
- More Big Questions
Also a search for "The Big Questions" took me to a site which deals with investigating the sun and solar phenomena - http://wwwssl.msfc.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/quests.htm ??
Just happened to be channel surfing and switched to SBS and there was Leonard Cohen singing the "Stranger Song". I had seen it before and found him to be mesmerising. Managed to tape just a portion of it. Then found the lyrics on the web - here is the section I recorded: Please understand, I never had a secret chart to get me to the heart of this or any other matter When he talks like this you don't know what he's after When he speaks like this, you don't know what he's after. Let's meet tomorrow if you choose upon the shore, beneath the bridge that they are building on some endless river Then he leaves the platform for the sleeping car that's warm You realize, he's only advertising one more shelter ...
Unless you hear (and preferably see) it performed you'll probly think "yeah, so ..." A bit like some of the stuff I write when i'm psychotic - maybe you have to be psychotic to really "get into it". Who knows ...
There's a webpage with more lyrics - I love "How to speak poetry". - Leonard Cohen - click on "Leonard Cohen" icon then on "Misc. Poetry". That site also has photos of Canada & some other good stuff.
Reworked My Favourite Psychosis yet again - it is going to be one of those poems I'm always working on and never really finish. An evolving piece. I'm not entirely happy with the way it flows but then that is a terrific analogy for what it describes anyway. Ideally, I wish nobody had to resort to psychosis to escape or transcend the stifling and suffocating conformity of a secular culture which has become barren, diluted and joyless. But it is a mind-bending trip. If you are fortunate enough to survive the interventions of other people trying to "cure" you.
Try to see every negative thought as a form of suicide. Do it long enough and often enough and you create your own disease, literally.
Borrowed I, Me Mine form the library. it is george Harrison's biography which should be good reading if I ever get around to it. I always related more to him as the somewhat darker and brooding presence behind the two front men. Loved the lyrics of "Within You Without You".
Further reflecting on yesterday - you do have more potential for open & honest (and inspired) exchanges with "lunatics" (and I use that term with enormous affection, esp when you look at what the "normal" folk are doing to themselves and each other). The ego and personality structures are not such a rigid, entrenched obstacle. Yes, i rrealise this is a generalisation and as such
Oh yes, we also covered the plot of "The Matrix" yesterday and how it describes the human race as a virus at one stage. I'm sure the endangered species and the rain forest would agree with that description!
Plus the idea of labels and "Us & Them" - the Pink Floyd song was a lament as to what happens when we use any label to see "Them" when there is in fact only "Us".
Lyrics to Dark Side of the Moon
More ideas - "From your point of view I am crazy. From my point of view you are unevolved. It all depends on which labels you wish to attach to people. You are reaching enlightenment when you no longer place ANY labels on ANY body."
Found this affirmation at the Monroe Institute: I am more than my physical body. Because I am more than physical matter, I can perceive that which is greater than the physical world. Therefore, I deeply desire to Expand, to Experience; to Know, to Understand; to Control, to Use such greater energies and energy systems as may be beneficial and constructive to me and to those who follow me. Also, I deeply desire the help and cooperation, the assistance, the understanding of those individuals whose wisdom, development and experience are equal or greater than my own. I ask their guidance and protection from any influence or any source that might provide me with less than my stated desires.
Briefly, off the top of my head, here's an overview of the subjects covered ... Paul Davies - the big bang & cosmology - Hubble - black holes - reincarnation - where is the mind - and soul - what is time - "You can do that in your next life" - creation - Darwin - Freud - the human family - formal education versus life-experience - what people did in their wild youth - Copernicus - the ancient Greeks - Chaos theory - the unpredictability of the universe (and people) - Karl Marx - and the other Marx brothers - Galileo - the Inquisition - Quantum Mechanics - "Anyone who isn't shocked by the implications of Quantum Physics has not understood it" - Einstein and the Uncertainty principle - and how his beautiful Theory of relativity paved the way for nuclear bombs - Alice in Wonderland - John Gribbin - Bookworms - earthworms - love of nature - man's place in nature - the environment - how to define wisdom - the difference between knowledge, wisdom & intelligence - the composition of the atmosphere - how the solar system evolved - Genesis - Adam & Steve - who did cain marry? - instinct & survival - the big bang created time & space - the different levels of understanding in people - how you can learn from everybody - if your mind is open - mine is - I believe in angels & aliens & alternative universes & psychic powers & ghosts & every imaginable being - Carl Sagan - Do unto others before they do unto you - Aristotle - Pythagoras - walking off the beaten path - the act of worrying and how it changes nothing but your own mental & emotional state - what is schizophrenia? - ask ten psychiatrists and you get 11 different answers - was I a psychiatrist in a previous life? - I must have decided that looks interesting - I'll give that a go - Bill Gates - Inherit the Wind - dinosaur fossils - what kind of pems would monkeys write - the social lives of dolphins - the discovery of the double helix - chromosomes - it's all in your genes - and let's make sure it stays there - someone said they were agnostic - you can't prove God does exist & you can't prove he does NOT exist conclusively - yes - okay but when he starts talking to you then you better decide if it is God or whether you are out of your cotton-pickin mind - you don't want to become too rigidly attached to any single point-of-view -
I just cannot imagine too many conversations in the mainstream of society that would cover that much territory in 3 years let alone 3 hours. I doubt if we discussed one single "practical" issue at all. My kind of crowd.
Added plenty of new material to the My Psychosis poem and renamed it to My Favourite Psychosis - may not go down awfully well when one of the guidelines at a psychosocial rehab service is NOT to glorify or romanticise "madness". This is an unrealistic rule because the reality is that a LOT of people journeying through psychosis are having literally mind bending trips of the sort which other people are prepared to take narcotics to experience. That is why I have been writing for 15 years - to attempt to convey some sense of experiences which most people may not even be aware of. Psychotic ecstasy is an incredibly intoxicating and addictive experience. I was at one stage prepared to go to ANY lengths in order to acccess it more often and more completely. I still hold the view that it CLOSELY resembles the kinds of religious ecstasy exprienced in some cultures and rituals. I have found that i am not entirely alone in this view.
Some more reflections on the content of most people's conversations in a secular environment - a lot of it can be spent bemoaning the state of the world and how "careful" you have to be "these days". yes, but WHO creates such an environment? Every single one of us does it by being mistrustful, suspicious and fearful of others. I suppose once you stop really trusting in God or something higher than us then we are left ot our own devices and human history is proof that left to its own devices the human race reallly doesn't have a clue. That theme could be rewoked and developed further but you know me ...
Non-judgement is a very tricky business. Old habits can be hard to change. It may take several lifetimes to really get the hang of it.
"I don't necessarily believe the same thing from one moment to the next." (Consistency is highly overated)
It continues to boggle my mind trying to imagine what the world will be like when everyone practises non-judgement on an ongoing basis. We sure as Hell aren't spending a lot of time thinking about each other as being made in the image and likeness of God. That may take some time. But I can wait.
So, overall, I'm in an enormously improved mood compared with last week. Episodes like that seem to catapult me back into the stratosphear. One of my favourite albums (Tangerine dream fans will know what i'm talking about."
Picture yourself in a boat on a river with Tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Yes, non-judgement has become my theme of the week. I suppose I am the one who did write that it is possible to learn from everyone who crosses your path. I'm finding it a BIG challenge to practise non-judgement while surrounded by people who are routinely judgemental. It is a fascinating exercise for even my imagination to picture just how differently MOST conversations would flow if everyone was practising non-judgement. I think there would be a whole lot more silence! That would be nice.
Trouble is you can't really criticise people for being judgemental because that very act is an act of judgement. You're saying in effect "You shouldn't be doing that." Yet it is hard to sit back and wathch people and realise all they are doing is filling themselves with toxic emotions. Oh well, I suppose it's all part of their journey.
Non-judgement is the first step to seeing things As They Really Are. The full implications are literally mind bending. Some days I find it effortless and yet other days it is a constant struggle to remind myself not to place a judgement on any particular situation or individual.
More ideas for Fragments of a conversation:
"My psychiatrist told me I was Jesus Christ."
"I was walking towards my own lifetime when I saw a nice little butterfly in the nightime."
"I'm trying to reintegrate myself with what you people loosely refer to as reality."
"I was born inside my own lifetime."
Interesting discussion on lifestyles and parenting. Everyone thinks what they are doing is the right way to do it. Their is no way to tell who'll be a good parent until they become one. I was tempted to say at one stage, "I have enough wisdom to relaise their is no simplistic answer to any of this. I also have enough insight to know that being judgemental of the way others live their lives doesn't help anyone."
I do seem to recall (or was that in a previous lifetime? I didn't believe in reincarnation in my last life either) someone hitting the nail on the head once with a comment along these lines - "Why worry about the way other people are living their lives. They're not likely to change just because you disapprove so it's a complete and utter waste of energy." Or words to that effect. Yes, when you think of ALL the things you could be doing with your thoughts and mental energy, why not at least try to put them towards something vaguely positive.
The mischievious part of me feels like saying (not TOTALLY in jest!) "Don't worry about it. Things happen for a reason." And leave it at that.
Interesting article in the Sunday Sun. I may transcribe some of it later - by Dr Richard Carlson. Ties in beautifully with the theme of non-judgement. He says:
Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? When we take our opinions so seriously that they bring us discontent, they are not worth defending. It's possible to maintain valid, strong beliefs and feel positive - what's more, people always respect our beliefs more that way.
(I don't know about the last sentence but I agree with the first. Many times I would say the perfect state of mind/being is one where you no longer cling to any particular "belief" or point-of-view because they are all relative and incomplete. Be vague. Be very vague. Opinions are like anchors. You can't expect your mind to soar if you anchor it too tightly to reality-as-we-know-it)
Even the words we habitually use to describe things are judgements. The act of labelling a person or situation or behaviour as "weird" is an act of judgement. That's why I describe my current focus as "practising non-judgement". Practise makes perfect. In theory anyway.
Reworked Reflections on the Mental health System a little more. I don't imagine too many articles on this subject would include reincarnation, Jesus on the Cross, the evolution of human consciousness and make mention of nuclear weaponry and man walking on the moon. If you're going to write, you may as well push the envelope a little.
Interesting list of books on all aspects of "Mental Health" - Myself - Yourself - Mental Self -- Is this Mental Health thing for Real? Is it all in my head or is it in yours? Big Stuff - Small Stuff -- Important Stuff -- or just Stuff it?
Sydney Voice Dialogue Centre - found this site while searching for "Michael Domeyko Rowland" in a search engine. Along with some nice artwork at a site called "Elfwood". Worth a visit or two.
www.lifeact.com
It's almost as if I need to "go psychotic" for a few days to ignite something within me. I am ambivalent aboout all of this. part of me sees it as venturing into uncharted territory. Yet, I'd obviously prefer to be living in a time where psychiatrists have a REAL clue as to what is going on with psychosis. I have given this a LOT of thought over these past few days and my "Reflections on the Mental Health System" have to include reflections on my own experiences. I have placed these reflections into a separate file:
Reflections
I must have an immense sense of humour to embark on such a journey. To be psychotic in an era where it is completely misunderstood and treated abysmally out of fear and ignorance. I suppose it is just one part of our overall misunderstanding of ourselves, our universe and our reality.
Agassi-Sampras match turned out to be a near-classic. I suppose a 6-1 fifth set makes it not quite in that category. Like many times, you watch and wonder how sampras managed to lose it. Take nothing away from Agassi but sampras had huge chances in 1st & 4th sets. May have hurt himself and that may account for the somewhat easy loss of fifth set.
And like waking from a nightmare, it vanishes as if it never happened. I think I said that to someone last week when discussing time and memory and reality. How can you be absolutely sure that anything you "remember" actually happened to YOU personally? Whether it be a good or a horrific memory. The only thing you can be absolutely sure of is your present experience and even that is open to doubt. Yes, I have recovered from that short bout of negativity and am back to my usual vague self. Like that zen saying about the man dreaming he was a butterfly - "Today, am I a butterfly dreaming I'm a human?"
I'm also reminded of a book I once found in the library, which I have been unable to locate since. I did copy a few brief sections from The Troubled Mind . I have included in this file some quotes from Orwell, Szasz, Van Gogh, R. D. Laing and other good stuff on the endlessly puzzling phenomenon which psychiatrists call "schizophrenia" and asks whether the schizophrenic experience might not be closer to "ultimate reality" than the experience of "everyday normality".
Found another interesting personal homepage with poetry and a bit of homegrown "philosophy". Also found a few others reflecting the current mood and attitude of the world which can be somewhat short on compassion, tolerance and understanding. Depends where you look, I suppose.
Aussies celebrated "Australia Day" in a big way at the Adelaide Oval - 5/329 is a huge score. Even if the day/night matches are somewhat artificial and I have always felt it is a monumental advantage to bat in "natural" light as opposed to man-made light. (Plenty of symbolism in there) Especially when the current cricket balls discolour with the grass stains and become very hard to see in the final overs which is when a lot of collapses seem to occur. For more scores, see Score Card or www.khel.com which is a Huge CRICKET site. I have to say that Adam Gilchrist is one of the cleanest strikers of the ball I have seen for a long time.
Pictures of Lunar Eclipse Jan 20th, 2000
Found Brahma Kumaris Website at : www.bkwsuau.com
They have some interesting courses and retreats coming up. If I was in a better mood, i'd be quite interested ...
Also The Meeting Place briefly
Freedom from anger?
Freedom from jealousy?
Freedom from sexual blocks?
Freedom from depression?
Freedom from fear and anxiety?
Freedom from low self esteem?
Freedom from hurt, shyness or loss?
Freedom from stress or addictions?
Freedom from illness and disease?
Freedom to be your true self?
Freedom to experience boundless joy?
Freedom to manifest abundance in your life?
Freedom to achieve your highest potential?
OTOH, the sarcastic side of me would say "Don't worry. If you read Conversations with God then there are no accidents and everything that happens is part of a glorious Divine Plan that cannot possibly go wrong." I don't know if that statement would be a HUGE comfort to people currently enduring major psychiatric trauma or the horrors of all the present world conflicts or the struggle to feed their families on a daily basis. Or the parents of drug addicts or someone who's just been the victim of rape or violence.
A couple of dark days. A bit of a shock after I had assumed they were behind me. Oh well, as we discussed last week, sometimes you CAN learn most from your darkest hour. Sounds great but while you're experiencing that darkest hour you'd rather NOT be going through it. Maybe I should NOT be at all surprised. In an environment which doesn't recognise let alone reinforce your views to any significant extent, it is a constant struggle to avoid being sucked down into the maelstrom of negativity and apathy and cynicism that currently exists in the world. Optimism can evaporate in a depressingly quick span of time. Stangely, this makes it a lot easier to "fit in" with the prevailing mood of humanity. You walk around and there are not a LOT of smiling, radiant, joyous faces. If our true nature is as described in CWG, you gotta wonder why so many of us are currently manifesting the opposite.
Curiously, I log onto the web and go to World Puja and had a listen to last week's broadcast of James Twyman. He spoke of his peace project called "Cloth of many Colors". That helped lift my mood substantially. He mentioned a website devoted to this project. It tells how the "ordinary" person can make a contribution. See www.clothofmanycolors.com
The mystics have always said it requires only 1/10 of 1 percent of the world's population to create world peace. I would once have laughed at such a suggestion.
Went along to our yearly tennis day at the Australian Open. See this site for more detail:
www.ausopen.org
The Agassi-Phillipoussis clash is potentially one of best contests we will have seen for a few years. Nothing could top that McEnroe-Sanchez epic in 1991 and since then we've seen fairly routine contests apart from the odd "upset" and that one where Sampras did a "Lazarus" from 2 sets down. However, sport rarely goes according to what you'd expect. I supppose that is its main appeal.
More glorious summer weather - hail and thunder and quite cold. Ah Melbourne!
SPECIAL
CHARACTERS
HAVING
INCREASED
ZEST
OFTEN
PERFORMING
HEROIC
RESCUES
ENTERING
NEW
IMAGINARY
ARENAS
I'm reminded of the scene from "Equus" where the psychiatrist (Richard Burton) talks about his work ...
"And now, for me, it never ends ... the voice of equus out of the cave ... saying 'Why me. First account for me.' How can I? In an ultimate sense I cannot know what I do in this place. And yet i do ultimate things ... irreversible things. I stand in the dark with a blade in my hand striking at heads. I need, more desperately than my children need, a way of seeing in the dark. What way is this? What dark is this? I cannot call it ordained of God. I cannot go so far. I will however pay it so much homage. There is now in my mouth this sharp chain ... and it never comes out." Plus an earlier scene where he speaks of psychosis as a desperate attempt to "ignite one flame of original ecstasy in this spiritless wasteland around him" ... and that he was jealous of this young boy who he was required to treat for "insanity". Jealous of his eyes which told the psychiatrist that this young boy had been to places most people can hardly dream about. (Even if he had to go to extremes to visit such places)
A few more thoughts from yesterday's talkfest -
Self-esteem was mentioned several times. I do remember what it is like to experience despair and hopelessness, so the following statement may seem a tad uncompassionate ... Nobody can "make you feel a failure" without your permission. Of course, once you get rid of God, self-esteem becomes a tricky issue. It becomes a competitive issue. I think that is what is behind that quote about building your house on shifting sands. If your self-image or self-esteem is determined and defined in solely worldly terms it is a good analogy. When you evaluate yourself and others in terms of bodily apppearance, social "status", personality and behaviour then your focus is on the tangible and the observable. These things are notorious for their transient and changing nature. In fact these things are the mere tip of a measureless iceberg but if they are what you exclusively focus on then they are all you will see and all you will take into account. (There's a good idea in there somewhere - I may rewrite that section at some stage)
With a Creator, you are made in the image and likeness of God and can never be a "failure". It is a diametrically opposite way of vieing people and events. It is a view I lived without for a LONG time and thought I would continue to the grave without ever seeing things this way. One more illustration of the transient and changing nature of things we come to regard as "fixed" or having reached some "final state".
Sometimes you learn the MOST from your DARKEST hour. Yet service providers and families generally agonise and bend over backwards to avoid anything which might conceivably trigger a "major psychotic episode". Maybe not enough people have experienced them. As with any other human experience, it's near impossible to relate to it unless you have first hand experience of it. Maybe when reincarnation has recycled enough people through enough of the entire spectrum of the human experience this will no longer be such a mystery or source of fear. I mean it might take a few thousand years but who's counting.
Yes, one group did discuss the rather vexed question of "How do you go about changing community attitudes towards those with mental illness?" One suggestioon was to put LSD in the coffee to simulate a psychotic episode, especially during a period where someone was supposed to be focussed or serious or pay close attention to some task or proceeding. This was one suggestion of how we could give someone a "taste" of what psychosis is like when they have had no personal experience of it. Sounds like an episode of Get Smart where Kaos drugs the water supply and everyone "trips out". At the end, Max says, "Now millions of people can wake up tomorrow and get dressed and go off to their jobs just like they always do ... I wonder if we did the right thing." (or words to that effect)
You can never know the reason another soul is manifesting in this dimension. It's quite possible that a person's entire "mission" in life is to go around annoying the Hell out of others in order to wake them up. Or at least create a situation where the opportunity to wake up exists. I mean you can't force someone to wake up - there is always free will. (Then again those seven days in Acacia ward last year didn't seem like I had a lotta "choice". But I'm glad I woke up.)
New dish: Onions+chillies+herbs+capsicum+mushrooms+corn+broccoli&spinach+beans+tomato+garlic
Interesting group in Melbourne
Fractal gallery - has some stunning images!
Reworked the Schizophrenia poem a little bit. It's a work-in-progress like the phenomenon it describes.
One site had a memorable quote from him:
"And I feel a sense of the collective soul too, connected to the whole of life, but all this seems to be denied by the achievements of our time. The success of our political and corporate life has been at the expense and neglect of the soul. As a result, very sick souls are making important decisions. That is why I decided that finding and nurturing one's soul is a social and political act as well as a personal one. " - Michael Leunig, The Good Weekend, June 13, 1998
The curious way my mind works at times - hey THAT could be a book title - here are a few "random" thoughts that popped into my head over a long day devoted to the monumental (and SOME would say impossibly difficult and overwhelming) task of reforming the Mental Health System so that it actually does what it's supposed to be doing ...
- WHAT would we be doing if we weren't putting ALL this energy (& focus & attention & thought & effort) into making things the way we think they "should be"???
(Note: this is analagous to a thought I often used to have about Heaven and the fact that some people will be completely and utterly lost because their entire focus here on earth has either been on complaining about the way things are or in helping those "less fortunate". In Heaven, there'd be nobody worse off and there would be nothing to complain about. Yes, I used to be a real cynical bastard!)
- Along similar lines, you look at the mountain of paperwork and notes and information ... I am reminded of that quote from Walden where he talks about being lost in the detail. Our entire society is becoming lost in all the detail ... the quote is:
"Our life
is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count
more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten
toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say,
let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a
thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your
accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of
civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and
thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if
he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at
all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who
succeeds. Simplify, simplify."
---
Walden
/i>
by Henry David Thoreau
- The dark, mischievious side of me also feels like saying "Show some guts! Go OFF and cure yourselves! It's DEAD obvious the psychiatrists haven't the beginnings of a clue. So you either trust yourself or trust them it's as simple as that!" Maybe one day I will say that - and it may very well be the best thing I can say. Depending on how ya look at it (literally). Deep down I am the ultimate anarchist! Most people who think they "know" me would be surprised at that statement.
- Then again, I have always found the mentality that presumes to know "what is best" for another human being to be utterly incomprehensible to me. How can you know with any certainty at all. You can't. It is a delusion. A guess. A hunch. Each human being's emotional, psychological, intellectual and spiritual development proceeeds along its own unique path. To presume that some paths are "better" or more "worthy" than others or to presume to know which path any particular individual "should" be taking at any given moment is preposterous. People may agree with that. They may even point out that all anyone does is make the best guess they know how. This principle applies to many situations - a psychiatrist and his "patient", a parent and their "child", one person giving ANY advice to another. This thought seemed to be going somewhere then it just stopped of its own accord. That's cool. I can live with that.
- It's an intriguing exercise for the imagination to envisage a world where everyone else has joined my "cult of vagueness". I have always found people with certainty to be a complete puzzle. They fascinate me. Although I used to conclude their "certainty" was another excuse to avoid thinking about things too deeply. I used to wonder if they were simply blessed to have a complete lack of imagination. In theory, an absolute absence of imagination would lead to total contentment because you'd be incapable of imagining how any situation could be improved, so it wouldn't bother you. On the other hand, if we are all born with an imagination, there must be some heavy forces at work to manage to subdue it so effectively in such a large percentage of the population.
* There is ONE reply that can be given to anyone expressing unrealistic certainty or a dogmatic point of view - "Not necessarily". Or, "Well, that's one way of looking at it" (One out of a total of infinity)
- I hesitate to comment on the tennis "controversies" too much. Like every storm-in-a-teacup it seems awfully important one day and forgotten the next. Is anyone REALLY surprised that by giving people obscene amounts of money and adulation at a very young age for something as monumentally unimportant as "who can hit a soft yellow ball the best" you might just be distorting their perspective on life a tiny bit? The same question applies to any area of the "celebrity" culture. I suppose once you throw out religion, people tend to seek a substitute. It does foster an entire spectrum of unhealthy emotions - egotism, jealousy, inferiority complexes, superiority complexes ... gee, I shoulda been a psychiatrist!
- That opens up an entire subject on its own - superficiality. Our focus and ways we evaluate events and people are based (overwhelmingly) on surface phenomena like appearance, behaviour, opinions, personality etc. I could write volumes on this topic alone. Or with someone else.
- Really, I am the LAST person on earth who should be attending a "strategic planning" session. I never plan anything. I wake up each day and think "Okay, what do we feel like doing today." This is a legacy of 15 years where my sole aim was to get through each day without going completely around the twist. It does give one a rather different perspective on things. And I'm far from convinced that planning is a great concept anyway. Another exercise for the imagination - A whole world based on never planning a thing.
- One bizarre thought I left unspoken: "We're getting caught up in the western way of thinking - focusing on the result. The destination. Maybe this is precisely the way the universe is supposed to be at this point in human history. By imposing our concept of the way things "should be", we may be interrupting the natural flow of the universe."
- "I am human and I have unconditional worth." - sounds vaguely familiar.
- If you talk about people "fulfilling their potential", that opens up a can of worms because one could argue that each human being has the potential to reach a sate where they have unconditional love for all their fellow beings and make no judgements of any kind. Now, nobody i have ever met is within light-years of that. So, you could argue we're all failing to reach our potential and any comparisons are pointless. If THAT is our true nature, it's a rather obvious question to ask why so few of us are manifesting it to ANY significant extent. Even the people who see themselves as "loving" generally make it VERY conditional and restrict it to a small circle of individuals around them. Then again, as with the whole planning day, if you have no concept of what is possible you'll just accept things as the are. You might notice some apparent contradictions between a few of these thoughts. That's okay, I never cling to any concept or idea or picture of reality for longer than I need to. The words themsleves are a barrier to true understanding.
- When you think about it, it is extraordinary that anyone who's been through the Mental health system over the past 10, 20, 30 years hasn't had the optimism crushed right out of them. I myself up until a year ago would have said "You have got to be kidding! Reform the mental health system? Why not try something easier like creating world peace or getting the earth to spin the other way on its axis. It is far easier to control and sedate people than try to actually work out how to heal them. You lot must be off-with-the-fairies!"
- Oh yes, I remembered that quote which I think is from Caroline Myss? - "How do you know I am not living a spiritual life? My purpose in life may be to piss you off." Or something along those lines. Yes, to stir you up with a view to transcending or purifying those negative emotions/reactions. Maybe that is why the Bible says "Love your enemies".
- Quite a few others I may write down later (Just as I may one day actually finish writing the book I've been working on for 16 years. I'm in no hurry.) ...
Another interesting site - Touched with fire. I love the quote from Jim Morrison about families and expectations and smiles on their faces. The font is rather tiny! Maybe that's delibrately done to see who's interested enough to strain their eyes.
Also The Alchemist & funnies from the Faine program
Oh, yes, almost forgot to include that quote from Socrates I stumbled across:
"If a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses,
believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane
compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances
of the inspired madman"
- Socrates
Well, that's SOME day. I was a bit drained by it all. I still do tend toward the view that if something is a huge effort then it is not what you're supposed to be doing. Then again, in this society, many people rarely if ever experience something being effortless so they just assume "This is the way things are."
