The Secret Book of Apperception

Started reading Doors-of-Perception and realized Huxley’s mescaline experience is essentially the everyday without the buzz—when attentive.

Huxley describes experiencing objects as pure being and as being one with the being of his own being.

Huxley refers to objects & himself being one Not-Self, although in actuality, if he went further, he’d see his self is not a self at all.

As an aside, Huxley was not unversed in Zen or Vedanta so his mescaline experiences were somewhat confirmations of his intellectual studies.

When attentive, it is obvious what the mind interprets as separate objects are not, for it and me are one I that is.

All are appearances arising within the absolute reality of naked awareness. Call me consciousness; then I am awareness.

Nisargadatta speaks to this dual aspect of nonduality. Actually he refers to a trinity: being, breath, and universal consciousness.

Nisargadatta's triumvirate compares with that of sat-cit-ananda where breath is seen as the energetic quality of bliss.

But words cannot describe the actual experience. (Huxley also speaks to this early on.) Only is is is.

No words for Tao—all words exist as mind. Mind only interprets experience. At best, it will recognize there is an intuitive grasp of isness.

As another side, Atma Vichara is experienced energetically and intuitively when it becomes clear the question, Who-am-I? cannot be answered.

Thus, this actuality of a picture frame before me is not a mental experience. It is an insightful one, what Nisargadatta calls apperception.

I cannot explain with words this experience nor how it came to be, except see it always is and “I” was conditioned not to see it.

When one begins to see through the conceptual self, the doors of apperception are unlocked, the gateless gate is opened, and reality enters…

…but reality enters where reality has always been. Here and now. (and this has been just more words) Jai Guru Deva Om.

aumdadaGospel18: a season of listening

Rock & roll was our bible and the garage beneath Joey’s cottage was, for one summer, our church. It was unusual for a lake cottage to have a foundation; it was a summer cottage after all. But a garage was just strange. The Tylers never used it for their car, and although there was a couch and a coffee table, they never were down there to use those either. So we did. Joey had a portable record player and we played whatever albums were popular amongst us. That’s how I discovered Surrealistic Pillow.

It was Diana’s choice; she had turned a little hippie-wannabe the previous winter, discovering bell-bottoms, tie-dye, pot, and some fascinating musical selections, including Al Kooper, Steve Miller Band, and Jefferson Airplane. They all grew on me as we played them over and over and over again that June, July, and August. But there was something about Surrealistic Pillow.

I had heard of the Airplane, and actually owned the 45 of White Rabbit, but I thought of them as nothing more than a one or two-hit wonder. And on first hearing, that rest of the record appeared sluggish and unexciting for the most part. Maybe it was the pot that changed my mind. A garage with an open door was the perfect place to share a joint. It provided the welcome secrecy of someplace inside while guaranteeing the outside air needed to filter the sweet aroma. Throw in a couch and record player and there’s the textbook setting for our summer of love—one year late.

3/5 of a mile in 10 seconds! It started the second side, and we always started that record with the second side. It provided the initial jolt for conversation and cleared the mental space for profound revelations. Like: “It was like there,” Diana patiently explained. “Wow,” David looked and saw. “Where?” I asked. “If you can’t see it, I can’t say,” she answered, emphasizing each and every single word. “Oh, there!” I too saw it now. “But where is it?” Joey giggled nervously, still unable to see it. I was silent for a minute, and Joey repeated his question. I looked at him and finally responded, “I think I lost it.” And then everyone would break out in that crazy high incurable laughter.

When both the laughter and the record ended, and most of the time it was curiously simultaneously, we would flip it to the other side. About ten minutes later, “Today” began to play, and we were slipping into private universes of otherworldly introspection. If you weren’t careful, this was where paranoia could appear; people are undeniably strange and who really knows the other? Otherwise, if one went further, one could really see some stuff. But no words can be spoken to this point.

the apocryphon of aum dada

The whole world is the creation of I-Am. Mind has always been its tool although mind ran way with that world.

Within the context of mind and its egoic self, there is no point to that world. Fear appears to be king and runs randomly rampant.

But in the context of I-Am, there is absolutely one point in that world and that is to break out of that world.

In the context of egoic self, the world appears to be real yet pointless and meaningless.

In the context of I-Am, the world appears to be a dream with a single point and meaning: waking up from that dreamstate.

Pulling back and looking at the physical realm of consciousness, in the context of egoic self, it appears violent and random.

In the light of consciousness, the physical world is one of light descending into matter and ascending back to light—one point.

In the unconscious ways of consciousness, the body appears to be involved within this reflexive drive of the universe in space-time.

In the conscious workings of consciousness, the mind appears to be involved within this reflexive drive of the dreamstate in human time.

Natural disasters as experienced within the dreamstate are meaningful on the unconscious level of the reflexive universe.

Human tragedies as experienced within the dreamstate are meaningful on the conscious level of the reflexive dreamstate.

All is expendable and all is sacrificial—consciousness is always ever-changing, ever-renewing, always making more of itself.

But when sitting on the pinnacle of both reflexive universe and reflexive dreamstate, one is truly blessed with double responsibility—svaha!

As the drive of the reflexive universe is pure light, the drive of the reflexive dreamstate is pure love, Satguru, I-Am itself alone and one.

The love of the Satguru is a love that can’t be expressed in terms of egoic self; it is as to compare electric light with sunlight.

But the loving drive of the reflexive dreamstate is just as powerful and single-driven as the nuclear drive of the reflexive universe.

Light, love, call it sunlove, has descended into the dreamstate of egoic self and is now being pulled up into itself by itself—the Satguru.

Each and every dreamstate interaction can be viewed within this so-called serendipitous and meaningful framework of waking up.

Again, it should be remembered that sunlove can be tough love, not completely understood by mind—but the Satguru will always make more.

The closer the egoic self is to dissolving into the pure awareness of I-Am, the more this serendipity will be experienced and understood…

until the only purpose of the dream character is the purpose of the reflexive dreamstate itself—the Bodhisattva drive of the Satguru.

As always, these are merely words used by consciousness to talk to itself understanding reality is available only to itself—Jai Guru Deva Om

aumdadaGospel 17: new moon waters

Next door to my Uncle Charley’s cottage sat the Upton’s summer house. Benjamin Upton owned a wood mill in Bluefield, a small mill town about ten miles south of New Moon Lake. His business was, I had overhead my parents say, a lucrative one. Besides his mill, his fortunate sons and daughters, his white Cadillac Coupe de Ville, his large motor boat with dual inboard engines, his house in town built on a landscaped hill with nothing in view but his property of meadows and woods, and his summer house of varnished golden pine with French doors and louvre windows, he was a political leader of the town, and his wife was deeply involved with the First Baptist Church of Bluefield Parish.

One early July Saturday morning, I was sitting with my aunt and mother on the grassy promontory overlooking the beach and lake. David was inside finishing his Cheerios and I was waiting for him to join me for a morning swim. Suddenly a crowd of people dressed in Sunday best gathered on the Upton beach. A man in black appeared from out of the crowd and walked right into the water, shoes, pants, and all. He held a book in his hands and began reading what was obviously Bible scripture. A heavyset woman dressed in white emerged and joined him in the lake. It was Joanne Upton.

At first her dressed flowered in the shallow waters but then it sunk around her as they walked further and deeper. She was also wearing a large straw hat with a white ribbon securely tied to her chin. Exchanging some words with the minister at first, she held her hand out to someone in the crowd. A woman also dressed in white appeared and joined Mrs. Upton and the minister in the waist-deep water. The Reverend spoke some words and lightly touched the woman’s forehead. Joanne Upton held the small of the woman’s back and then dipped her beneath the surface. I saw the Holy Spirit above the effervescent expanse of outgoing ripples, and small white doves with wings of fire descending in our midst. Our minds dissolved into the depths of New Moon Lake and we were always swimming in the youth of ten thousand summers.

the apocalypse of aum dada

I took a ride this afternoon and was almost hit twice by oncoming cars swerving into the wrong lane.

It appeared to be a message, repeated, and if I didn’t get it, there’d be a third one I wouldn’t be able to get—it would get me.

I knew what it meant almost as soon I realized they were messages—surrender is not a negative movement.

It begins as such, when one begins to realize one’s sense of self, that egoic sense of I, is purely a conceptual one.

It is at this level one uses the thorn to remove the thorn, that is, one uses the mind to remove identification with the mind.

This is the yoga of wisdom, and it is in its nature, negative, a neti-neti approach. Who am I? Not this; not this.

Nisargadatta Maharaj, though, also emphasizes the positive result of such a negative and self-destructive approach.

Once the objects of this self-identification are removed, the I am this or this or this and so on and so on, only the I Am remains.

This pure “I Am” is all there is, pure non-conceptual self-existence; it is the only thing that cannot be denied.

And the whole world is its creation! Mind has always been its tool although the mind ran away with world.

Ultimately then, the surrender of the egoic self is not so much a surrender as it is the unavoidable awakening triumph of I Am.

Since the egoic self is just shifting conceptual identifications entirely mind-created, there is really no one there to surrender.

This is why it is said all one can do is understand. The understanding of the falsehood leads to a natural lessening of self-identification.

One cannot believe in one that doesn’t exist. The power of the false declines gradually until there is a sudden final letting-go.

It is the final letting-go that will appear as something completely negative to the remaining, almost now purely habitual, egoic self.

It is as if it knows it doesn’t exist except in concept, yet still holds on to the habit of that conceptual existence. Maybe dangerously so.

Therefore when faced with some line-in-the-sand kind of action (or non-action), the surrender of the egoic self is a deathlike one.

Alternatively, when vestiges of egoic self are utilized as a finishing tool, it becomes clear the hand that holds the tool isn’t the tool.

Such letting-go then is not a negative movement, but a positive inevitability: the tool surrenders to the hand that’s always held it: I Am!

As always, these concepts are subtle ones, and they are merely words used by consciousness to talk to itself…

in the understanding the ultimate reality of that pointless point of pure awareness is available only to itself—and not its tool of mind.

Jai Guru Deva Om—I Am That.

aumdadaGospel 16: a summer thriller

No season can be spent without trouble being bought, even in the days before sex and drugs and rock & roll. One day, David discovered a spool of party-favor paper, printed with blue balloons and teddy bears all over. It was the leftovers of a birthday party held in the cottage where the New York people lived. We knew them only by sight, exchanging hellos when walking along the shores of their beach while heading for the swamp at the north end of the cove, but nothing more than that. Our parents may have held deeper conversations but never shared any of them with us. The only way we knew they were from New York was the golden Empire State license plates on their automobiles.

Their driveway was almost at the beginning of the Gold Coast Road, which began at the state highway and followed the properties along the waterfront of the cove, past all our cottages, until it reached the county way. The New York people kept their trash cans near it at the end of their driveway, and the roll of paper was lying on the ground there. We had been walking down the road toward the highway when David spied it reflecting the late evening sun. At first, we tore some pieces off and waved them like streamers behind us. Then Joey had an infamous idea. “Follow me!” he shouted running off for the end of the way.

There was a large pine tree with wooden signs of the names of those who lived along the lake. It was at the corner where the dirt road met paved highway beneath a street lamp, and Joey was tying an end of the roll of paper around it when we caught up to him. His evil genius was apprehended by us almost immediately. David grabbed the spool at the finish of the knot. We waited with him as cars rolled past us, speeding north and south to destinations other than this summer country one. When the coast was clear, we bolted across, and David tied the further end of the long span of paper on another tree. We then ran across the highway again and waited from a secure place on the side of our dirt road.

Joey heard a car approaching from the north. “Here comes one!” he howled. There was a short stretch of straight highway in that direction before it passed our road. The paper glowed softly in the twilight, and then flashed as the headlights of the oncoming car picked up the traces of its length about four feet above the black pavement. Suddenly it appeared like a solid silver chain stretching across a mysterious thoroughfare. God knows what the driver thought. But brakes squealed! A white car came to a stop and a man almost flew out its door.

By then we were laughing uncontrollably. “Roadblock!” Joey screamed. “Identify yourselves!” I roared. “Hands-up!” David barked out an almost scripted order. The man looked over at us as something registered in his eyes. He hollered out something and another man got out of the passenger side. They exchanged words and then came running at us. “They’re after us!” Joey screamed out the obvious. “Run!” I echoed. “Follow me!” David cried and went running up the dirt way.

It was nearly dark now but the surface of the road reflected the remaining light that lit the cobalt sky and it glowed before us with high adventure. David turned off at the driveway of the New York people, threading his way in-between several cars towards the shadows of the right side of the cottage. We heard angry voices behind us as we followed him into the darkness and out the other end of beach, free shore, open lake and clear sky.

The New York people were all inside. We ran for the freedom of the water and waited. The two men must have given up the chase, or were knocking on the door of the cottage waiting to ask New York people whatever two irate men who left their car in the middle of a state highway at twilight in late July would ask such strangers from New York. We knew we’d never find out and we laughed about it amongst ourselves as we headed for the safety of our swamp.

aumdadaGospel 15: oberon, what the puck?

I had a dream. It was summer 1968 and King and Kennedy had both been assassinated that spring. My parents were watching the Democratic National Convention on TV, and Senator Ribicoff was speaking out about the violence outside the hall on the streets of Chicago. Mayor Daley rose and had to be restrained from bolting for the podium and biting off the head of the respected Gentleman from Connecticut. “You lousy motherfucker! Go home!” he screamed and called in the riot police instead. They trooped down the corridors pounding any delegate not pledged to Hubert H. Humphrey into bloody submission. It’s true; Dan Rather took this picture.

Clean Gene eyed the bloodshed from the balcony. There was no time to find a phone booth. He ripped off his white shirt and thin black tie, revealing an eye in a pyramid imprinted on a red, white and blue spandex undershirt. “For truth, justice and the American way,” he cried, swooping down into the action on the floor, where Ed Muskie met him with a piece of green kryptonite. It’s true; Norman Mailer wrote this book.

Lyndon Baines Johnson rubbed his forehead asking over and over again what monsters had he let loose. Abbie Hoffman came in through a side door and answered with a left hook. Bobby Seale raised his fist and punched a gaping hole through the convention hall ceiling. The stars poured in. George McGovern looked up and saw the black hole of 1972. Richard Nixon was smiling like a Cheshire cat licking up the Milky Way. Jerry Rubin took the next bus for Wall Street. It’s true; Mia Farrow acted in this movie.

I woke up. The house was quiet. The night light in the kitchen gave out a shadowy glow. Everything was a lie. Walking past the refrigerator, I grabbed a can of Coke, and went into the living room. Embers still glowed in the fireplace; it was a cool August night and I watched their final performance. There was a long road before me, with dead man’s curves and disappearing straight-aways. There were long stretches of falling asleep at the wheel. There was an accident or two. But there was something there is that keeps one going.

aumdadaGospel14: an early ending

The end of summer is not the beginning of the fall. It’s the return of books, pencils and paper, and back to school. That was always the Wednesday after Labor Day, so we would most often leave the lake on the Tuesday in-between, although most everyone else left the afternoon of the holiday. All the docks and rafts and boats would be pulled in to the shore, leaving the lake in its wilderness condition of nothing but a smooth blank mirror.

The Francis family summered on the lot next to my Uncle Charley’s. Actually it was the lot one over from his; there was an empty lot of trees between the two, right across the picture window of our cottage (today there’s a large all-season house sitting there). My father would sit at the table in front of the window and stare through those trees almost every evening he was there, ruminating on the life spans of the congregating moths at the light shining from the table-lamp.

There were nine children in the Francis family, although there were only eight on this particular summer. The oldest had been killed in Viet Nam the previous spring. They had been slow to arrive that summer, but they finally did almost en masse for the Fourth of July, and kept more to themselves than usual, breaking camp early the Sunday of Labor Day weekend.

By Monday late afternoon, everyone else had disappeared but Paula and myself. We walked down to the Francis waterfront and sat on the blue raft now pulled on to the shore. The matching blue docks were stacked behind it. Wooden shutters had been nailed to the windows of the blue cottage. The beach was clean of toys and blue Adirondack chairs. We stared out at the lake and discussed the events of that summer. Jane and I had finally become a thing after two years of flirting with the possibility, but had broken it off after less than two passionate months. Paula had started up something with George and wondered what it was and where in the world it was going.

“He seems serious about us,” she was saying, “but he doesn’t want to have anything to do with anyone else. It’s kind of intense.” She was now matching his intensity with her own natural obsessive nature.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I don’t think I even saw him the entire month of August.” Even after Jane and I had broken it off, we had returned to flirting again with the possibility, so the last couple of weeks of the month had been back and forth ones of dueling obsessions, away, looking for another, and near, longing for the same old same. I really didn’t have a chance to miss George at all.

“I know,” she replied. “We weren’t separated at all this last month. I hardly saw any of you guys either.” I said nothing more but it had occurred to me as well the George and Joey rift had finally cracked us apart.

We continued to look out at the water. Ah, the summer was over. “It’s never going to be the same,” the lake reflected my own sad silent voice back to me.

and the lord said sutra

and the lord said beware those who come carrying gifts of scripture for they would imprison you in their words.

and the lord said an ass will pass through the eye of a needle before a single word turns real.

and the lord said reality is what you are and not within the knowledge of all words.

and the lord said one and one is two but two is just a product of the one.


and the lord said those who love through lies are only lying to themselves about their love.

and the lord said it's gonna be a scorchah out today so be sure to drink plenty of liquids and stay cool.

and the lord said no words are truer spoken.

and the lord said it's funny how a person always wants to accentuate the positive without accepting the negative that fatedly accompanies it.


and the lord said i made the grass green & the scythe that lays it low & the emerald grasshoppers flying to their sanctuary, but you made me.

and the lord said isn't it something else that it's not even nothing.

and the lord said consciousness is the sinner and ego is the sin or something to that effect.

and the lord said love consciousness; slap ego.


and the lord said remember in these sublime matters, consciousness is always talking to consciousness.

aumdadaGospel13: strange love, strange world

Jane and Diana lived just off the point that watched over the cove which formed our developing world each summer. Their cottages neighbored each other on the waterfront facing the open vast expanse of empty lake. A small dirt road ran past their driveways. It left the county road, which bridged the outlet of the lake, at the hillside property of George’s parents and ran along the opposite shore of the cove, past the yawning grounds surrounding the point, continuing on past Jane, past Diana, and towards the entrances of other greater forbidding lakeside properties.

In the day, the road was always in the shadow of trees. At night, it would become exceptionally murky. It was the darkest I had ever experienced, and I appreciated the puddles of moonlight splashing the surrounding atmosphere with shadows of sight on those nights we journeyed upon it. One early evening, David and I walked over to visit with Jane and Diana to watch the movie, Dr. Strangelove, on TV. This was before the advent of pre-recorded video and so the event was considered something awesome and auspicious.

We had waited all week to see it, looking forward to Peter Sellers and his triumvirate of exceptionally diverging roles. So we watched it attentively, laughing at almost every line, and especially the rich pantomime of Strangelove’s uncontrollable extremity—we never even noticed the time passing. After the world had finally ended, and the necessary small talk had come to a close, we said our goodbyes. David and I walked through the light of the driveway to the darkness of the road. It wasn’t long before we realized the stark truth: there was a new moon over New Moon Lake.

I literally could not see my hand before my face. Needless to say, I couldn’t see David at all. It was only the sound of our voices which kept us together. Of course we had no flashlight, and the road was a rambling more-than-a-quarter-mile course running in-between roadsides of brush, bush, tree-stumps, trees, and the occasional stick with sign indicating a driveway leading to an undetectable cottage far below. We bumped many of those things that night.

It was slow going. Step-by-step, we searched out the road like two blind men. I was still a little high from the joint we had smoked outside before the movie. Not that Dr. Strangelove required anything to make it strange, but we thought it might be a good idea to match the consciousness of its particular brand of sanity with something similar ourselves. And now that consciousness was walking in the blackness of a world gone dark. There was nothing there but me, and I was just this bodiless entity stumbling in the emptiness of night. I was free to re-invent the world in any way I saw fit. In fact, there was nothing else I could do.

the w/hole sutra

pointing to the point of nonconceptual existence

like a point of pointless black w/hole being

from which the whole conceptual shebang begins.


from this pointless point the world is seen as inside out

with nothing propping up these tents of flesh and bone

but breathing its belief.


the pointless point is like the pinhole point of light

projecting out an incredible world of bright imagination

that imagines it's imagining.


there are no choices in the matter;

one rests in the pointless point of the mother w/hole

or cries out some conditional version of violence.


being is the opening to the w/hole.


the w/hole erupts from time to time in acts of thoughtless love.

every night, you fall back in your w/hole;

so, in the morning, just rise into it.


om. that is the w/hole. this is the w/hole.

from w/hole, the w/hole is manifest:

the w/hole is gathered from the w/hole…


and the w/hole remains.

aumdadaGospel 12: this and thou

There was a general store a mile north on the state highway where most of our needs during the week were satisfied. Often we would walk that mile just for something to do. By early afternoon, all the attractions of the lake and shore had dimmed, so we would pull on socks and sneakers, ask our parents if they needed any supplies, and even if they didn’t, walk that mile up the highway, looking forward to some snack or drink or whatever worldly itch which required rubbing or scratching.

The general store itself was small but contained a spectrum of provisions from worms to steak, and a cornucopia of packages and cans in-between. There was a soda machine outside, and a rack of candy, cakes, and chips standing by the counter inside. There was also a small newspaper stand with comic books and copies of Mad Magazine. For my purposes, these three regions provided everything I needed—a can of Coke, a bag of chips, and the latest Spiderman. No thou! Or no thou, that is, until Jane appeared in my life.

The summers could be divided into ‘before Jane’ and ‘after Jane.’ And ‘after Jane’ evolved into a crowd of beautiful faces, each one becoming the flavor of the day, week, or month. But Jane was the first, and not in some sexual way, because that was not to be, and not in some kind of childlike crush, because there had been plenty of those before, but in a manner much more mysterious and human. It felt like a dream when I was with Jane.

That dream turned into a summer night on a beach with a bonfire rising to the stars. A circle of friends glowed in the flickering light. Around the flames, a spark of something illicit but delightful was being passed from person to person. Jane was sitting with me on a blanket and we were talking about nothing much, just listening instead to our voices slowly intertwining. That was something enough. The night grew colder, the stars larger, and the bonfire smaller. At first, we found our arms around each other. Then we discovered we were kissing. Before we knew it, we were lying on the blanket in a remarkable embrace, lost within that timeless unbounded expanse of utterly nothing but thou.

the dangerous sutra

this watermelon is making me not thirsty.


pointing is a dangerous pastime.

truth knows no one.

mind is best used to unmind.

truth can only be intuitively known.

disidentify, disidentify, disidentify.

all one can do is be what one is: i am that i am.

being may only know itself, but reality will know being.

when being is lost in misidentification, there is nothing there for reality to know.

but pointing is a dangerous pastime.


there are not enough dead buddhas on the road.

there are many crosses but not enough dead christs either.

even jefferson knew his greatest failure was the us government; he wanted dead usa's every 20 years.

only from the fire does the phoenix rise.

still, green wood doesn't burn; the ripening a religion may give could be necessary. but 20 years on the day shift will suffice as well.

the most dangerous religion is that of one; thus, in the end, the person must go.

but the death of the person is really the beginning.

so this is where some like Nisargadatta begin their teaching.

but pointing is a dangerous pastime.


the ego, person, dream character, name your naming poison, wants something out of spirituality: peace, love, joy, union, oneness, you names it.

but the ego gets nothing.

reality gets it all, and that's the truth.

if you don't want the truth, then find an appropriate religion.

if the end of suffering yourself is not joy enough, then don't go looking for the truth.

true spirituality is not a positive process; it's about the end of suffering your self; it is a via negativa.

but there are many via positivas out there, some that even believe themselves negativa. if such is one's druthers.

but pointing is a dangerous pastime.


truth is a spear of watermelon.

aumdadaGospel 11: elaborating manifestation

Three sisters summered in the woods on New Moon Lake. One was my mother, Gloria. Our cottage stood on a non-waterfront lot across the road from her younger sister, Daphne. Down the road and deeper in the cove lived the third sister, Lillian, the ping pong connoisseur. My cousin David was Daphne’s youngest of three sons. Her husband, my Uncle Charley, worked all day long from the cardinal song of dawn to that batty time of lingering dusk, despite the fact this was his weekend getaway. But he had survived the terrors of Bataan and work was welcome therapy.

He had built the cottage from scratch, using massive unfinished pine logs centered around an immense central fireplace created from enormous field stones. He had also landscaped all the grounds, including a grassy promontory, supported by lofty stone foundations, resting beneath the shade of eastern pine trees overlooking the lake, his dock, the rowboat he had built, and a raft he had also built complete with platform diving board. That’s where the three cousins played today.

Paula was sitting on the side of the raft, her legs kicking up a splash of waves in the revitalizing water. She was Lillian’s daughter. In the more mundane seasons of autumn, winter, and spring, her family lived in the apartment above that of David’s family, in a house both families owned. Our grandmother lived on the third floor, and by then, my family lived less than a quarter-mile down the road on the same street, Oak.

David was on the diving board. Actually he was on the railings of the platform that held the diving board, maybe ten feet above the deep blue water. I was treading water underneath the diving board, studying carefully the process David had perfected, which involved climbing carefully to one railing, then steadying both legs on both railings before lifting one foot off while pushing off with the other sideways, simultaneously raising both hands and clasping them together in a prayer-like salutation to the lowering late afternoon sun and then diving into the empty space of the world, before disappearing into its sparkling reflections.

Aum Dada Gospel 10: the unfinished mountain

From what the previous owner of these properties named the Golden Coast of New Moon Lake, one can see the prominence of Prospect Mountain rising almost directly above the far opposite shores of Hollywood Beach. The locals call it Blueberry Hill, though, and so we do too. As a young child, I saw it as something distant, vague, and unapproachable. But the older I got, the smaller it seemed to become, until one day it was so decided we should climb to its cobalt summit. There were seven of us: George, Paula, me, Jane, David, Diana, and Joey. It was a lucid summer day and that’s about all the plot one needs in the summer for seven souls on a gigantic quest.

The way to the mountain begins as a dirt hill-country road climbing its eastern shoulder. No dwellings line either side. Ramshackle stone walls fence in young rambunctious forests. Some old white pines appear here and there. The seven of us talk continually, sometimes splitting into smaller groups, sometimes forming a single unit. If there’s anything resembling a couple at this point in the story, it’s David and Diana, but they’re still at the flirting stages of a developing relationship, so there’s no real confidentialities being exchanged, except for an occasional push and shove—no holding hands or arm in arms.

This is the first summer the seven of us could be considered a gang, and even that is beginning to appear diffuse and impermanent. George really doesn’t get along with Joey. One is mostly an unassuming country boy and the other is almost a city loudmouth, the opposite ends of the spectrum for this group. The rest of us fall somewhere in the more central bandwidth of the town. So while the conversation appears to blend among the seven of us, it really gets no larger than six, with either George or Joey not participating at the group level.

A gap appears in the stone wall bordering the west side of the road and George hollers, “This is the road up the mountain, gang. My uncle’s blueberry trucks have worn it nice for hiking.” So we turn and begin the steeper ascent through rocky fields of low blueberry shrubs. Some of us pick a few berries after George first stoops down to pick a handful and rises with an uplifted fist, crying out: “What Kent doesn’t know doesn’t hurt him!” Joey replies with something more acidic, “I don’t know if we should trust that silence. He’ll probably own you in a year or so; he owns everything else around here.”

Willingly ignoring that remark, George walks briskly ahead leaving the six of us to follow in his disappearing wake. The hill gets steeper. We grow quieter. Joey is starting to fall behind, his stocky overweight stature beginning to feel the strength of gravity. George looks back. He can’t help himself: “Hey, if you wait until Monday, my uncle Kent can give you a ride up, Joe.” Joey raises his arm in defiance and throws him the bird. George snickers, “Yeah, good idea, Joe. Save your breath. You’re going to need it.” And continues to climb like a man with a plan. The remaining five of us are trying to keep up on the one hand, and delay on the other, but the line is stretching thin.

the drug lord sutra

you can lead a dream to water but you can't make it melt.


mind is the tip of an iceberg and reality is the unseen unknown dark deep ocean in which the universe is melting.

awareness is the dark deep pure eternal nothing-without-nothing which sparks the brilliant impossible impermanent something.

deep sleep is the real me; the universe is just my day job.


this is your experience on the drug of mind; that is a drug-free zone.

thinking that one is a person is the prime hallucinatory effect of the drug of mind.

one is impersonal 'deep sleep awareness' having a personal mind experience; enjoy the trip and don't freak out about the inevitable crash.


just say no to mind; reality is such a beautiful anti-thing to waste.

Aum Dada Gospel 9: the yielding center

Through a culvert flowed the single outlet for all of New Moon Lake, just large enough for a canoe to maneuver through if the person paddling all but disappeared. On one side of the culvert was our cove of cottages and boats, and on the other side was a little country stream. Above the culvert was a road that started at the state highway and ran past George’s grandfather’s great ancestral farm, then past the country estate of George’s uncle (who had sold most of the land on which these summer cottages stood), continuing towards a rural hill country where the paved road quickly turned to dirt and for all I knew turned into the earth itself.

As for the outlet stream, it disappeared into a land of trees towards a missing section of my mental geographic map, although in a few years, it would be dammed a few miles down to create a man-made lake which George’s uncle named after himself in order to make an even larger killing than the one he had made on New Moon Lake. But today it was just a place from where David and I played around the culvert.

The culvert was made of cement, and we were looking through the long chamber, sending our rebounding voices through its length towards the locket-sized appearances of lake and lakeside on the other end. That was fun, until David attempted to scale a rock right through the entire length, and that became even more fun. Every now and then a projectile would make it all the way and we would jump and cheer in utter delight. It was as if we were in exile and our rocks were messages to the world, not to run and rescue us, but to come and join us.

After a couple of hours, we tired of the play and sat by the streamside, watching the water flow towards a paradise of clay banks, willow trees, and sun. This was when David and I were best of friends, cousins who summered at this enchanting lake, and lived less than a mile apart during the other mundane seasons. In time we would drift apart, but today we were together in this fantasy of Eden.

I listened to the occasional vehicle bound either for the busy state highway or the quiet hill country. I touched the gentle trickle of water exiting the large expanse of lake to drop into this secret stream. I luxuriated in the middle of the summer, seemingly far away from the fall of town and school and homework. Through or over this opening of culvert, all the world went off in its varying directions. But here there was absolutely no direction. We had discovered our center of the universe and found there was nothing to it.

the mayafucker sutra

if truth is really understood, all opposition is dropped; if opposition has not been dropped, misunderstanding is revealed. rinse and repeat.

opposition in social and political matters will be seen almost laughable, but last to go will be those spiritual ones closest to the heart.

but all opposition results from social conditioning and is the playground of maya and the prison of truth! tear down the walls mayafucker!

the last opposition is that one with maya. kiss and let her go her way. enjoy!

once the root of the error is seen, truth flowers.


i am not here to argue with your guru; i am here to let mine shine: i am!


drop the body of words; be only what is, that impersonal being, i am; rest in the pure awareness of reality and it will embody all in aught.

it looks like a path but it's really teleportation; the rules of time and space do not apply.

no words, i am, and that moment with reality is an infinity.

reality downloads the truth with unlimited bandwidth.

no words but ‘i am’ without the words.

Aum Dada Gospel 8: isha and the silly birds

A red fluid fills a tall glass bird. It is wearing a little yellow hat. Suddenly it dips its beak into a cup of water. The bar on which it sits is separating two men playing with picture cards. One man throws four cards down and chants, “Fifteen-two, fifteen-four, fifteen-six, and three is nine.” With one hand, he moves a metal peg above a wooden board filled with rows of holes, while lifting a chalice to his lips with the other. The man sitting across from him throws down his four cards next and sings in exaggerated delight, “Nineteen!” The bird dips its beak into the cup of water again.

A boy is watching the glass bird with fascination while listening to the men sing out their mantras. He has had a busy day rowing in a boat and his mind is wandering away from the comic book he was reading. Now his tired body becomes the bird and he wonders what force is regulating this perpetual motion, pumping his beak back and forth into this transparent surface of water. He listens to another mantra. “The kitty isn’t that much better. A pair of eights for two, and the matching jack makes three.” But the dissatisfaction appears practiced.

He flies to the beam that spans the open living space and looks at the dark and empty brick red hearth. Where does the fire go, he wonders. Another mantra floats to his ears and he sees that he is now submerged in the glass of water which has grown to giant Alice-like proportions. Swimming past a scuba diver and a pirate ship, he thinks it odd he’s never noticed all this wonderful ambrosia surrounding him before.

How could he have ever been thirsty? Why has his head been moving up and down seeking what’s so obviously all around him? Nothing is making sense right here and now. Even the mantra that’s breaking through the surface sounds outlandish to his ears. “That is the whole, this is the whole; from the whole, the whole becomes manifest; taking away the whole from the whole, the whole remains.” The sun breaks through the picture window; New Moon Lake is coming through the door.

Aum Dada Gospel 7: splashing in the void

We were tired of the girls in our gang so we decided to look for new ones. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that David was at odds with Diana, I had never been even with Jane, George was off somewhere with my other cousin Paula, and Joey was always looking for a girl to call his own. He had spotted a trio of fine hot chicks, as he called them, on the shore across the point from where Diana and Jane summered. So we clambered into his boat, pulled the black Merc into life, and took off for the territories as all ravenous boys will do.

Three girls about the same age as us were lounging on beach chairs catching the rays of mid-July like sunbathing sirens of New Moon Lake. We crashed upon the shoals of longing. Sinking in awkwardness, we howled inside as the lake began to drown our greatest expectations, when Joey grabbed the lifeline of their dock and cried, “Would any of you girls like to water-ski today?” Smooth as the unruffled waters of that hot and humid afternoon.

The tall lithe blonde object, whom we would soon know as the sharp-tongued subject named Melissa, yelled out, “Sure, do you know someone who has a shipshape boat that can pull a lightweight like me?” Joey grinned while David and I howled out loud. “Oh, I think this tub of fiberglass can do the trick,” he threw the ski rope toward the shore. “And I can always teach you if you don’t know how.” Forever on the ready, that Joey.

She certainly knew how and showed us a few tricks that afternoon. Her friend, Susan, did not though and rode in the boat with us, while the third, Sandy, kept her company, alternating with Melissa as both took turns jumping wakes and riding waves. Joey kept the throttle active, David coolly manned the rope, while I tried to say a word or two to Susan, as she filled my world with memory and desire. I remembered Jane, but wanted her. A boy’s heart is a great dark permanent void easily filled by the nearest luscious evanescent object.

the unripened gurus sutra

an immature egoic self often leads to an immature understanding.

a true sadhana ripens the person before plucking it off the branch.


as the immature person disappears, unripe spots will remain,

and they will have out with no constraint!

the stories of such gurus are legion.


as one begins to fall from the tree, pay attention to these spots.

don't accept them. don't reject them.

place them in the light of awareness.


for you are that pure clear awareness

in which conditioned thoughts arise:

don't deny them; don't resist them; don't indulge them.

just be aware.

Aum Dada Gospel 6: catching light in a bottle

We are looking for old bottles. George collects them, and knows the best place to find them is in the resurrecting wilderness of old cellar holes. There, after the wood frame house has been removed by owner, stranger, or act of god, the remaining wound of foundation and whatever items were left behind are healed over time by the hands of vegetation and the sweet breath of nature’s nurse.

George had stumbled upon this one deep in the woods while wandering alone in his divining ways. Now, we were approaching its ruins so George can continue his search for kismet in a more leisurely and thorough fashion. This was the summer before ‘Lord of the Rings’ so we aren't in any character but for the ones we really think we are: pirates looking for the buried loot.

George is inside the surrounding mound where the remaining foundation has been buried in more than a century’s worth of leaf mould and wind-blown dirt. David is apprenticing, and I am busy rhapsodizing about the lilacs that once in the dooryard bloomed. Already I have visions of poetry dancing in my head. Falling through the leaves, the light of a youthful summer breaks upon our bodies like a waterfall of reverie and splashes back into the air with stained glass wonder.

“Look at this beauty!” George sings out. He is holding a small triangular-shaped green-tinted bottle looking like it once contained a medicinal cure for aging, a decanted fountain of youth. It appears pristine. The cork is still in it. And on closer inspection, a small amount of something fluid washes around its bottom.

“Open it up!” cries David, and George carefully obliges. Twisting the cork off, he brings the bottle up to his nose and smells. And smiles. David takes a whiff and begins laughing uncontrollably. George holds up the bottle to me and I gingerly sniff. I see the house new and varnished. A little girl is playing with a doll on a swing in the front yard, where an apple tree grows, its fruit still green with promise. The woods spread out like the light hair on a young boy’s arm.

Circling the earth, a web of life is reaching to the sky, first flexing down from particle and wave to atom down to molecule and then the reflex up to single-celled life to organic vegetation up to creatures roaming on the surface of the earth to these three boys looking for a message in a bottle that the world is here and now becoming conscious and aware it is a singular light within the all-encompassing light of the light of light. “God!” I proclaim.

the three dreams sutra

you went to sleep last night and dreamt. now you think you have awoken, but you are still dreaming. actually, you are still being dreamt.

the dream just gets more technical with added bells & whistles called senses so things appear solid & other but they’re all you, dreaming.

the mind dreams; you don’t stop dreaming, but you can understand you are dreaming, know what you really aren't, and be what you are.

i think; therefore, i dream.

until you understand you are dreaming, it’s really going to hurt.


there's always a dream.

semantics are part of the dream.

so is this chair.

the dream is mind and mind is in me.


first, there’s dreaming, and not knowing there’s dreaming.

second, there’s dreaming, and knowing there’s dreaming, while still dreaming you’re a character in the dream.

third, there’s dreaming, and knowing there’s dreaming, and knowing you’re not the character in the dream, but all is in you—pure being.

the dream of war; the dream of love; the dream of no dream


there is no fundamentalism in pointing.

the moment one word is spoken (or thought) about 'truth,' it is, in essence, a lie.

true pointers point to the truth while admitting they are lies.

one of the things i appreciate about the lying pointer of three dreams is it clarifies much of the lies out there.

for example, most buddhism including the public dalai lama teach toward the second dream (even if the third dream of no dream is understood).

much of j krishnamurti teaches toward the second dream even if it appears 'he' existed in the third dream: rather than thought, love.

even that radical third dreamer jed mckenna suggests most folks really want the second dream of what he calls human adulthood & not his 3rd.

such is the paradox of three dreams when there's really none.


it helps to know what u thought u were in order to see what u aren’t so what u really are won’t be eclipsed when acting as if it isn’t.


when riding the dream, wear your attention.

do not enter the dream from a previous exit.

upon exiting the dream when in the company of 'others,' use the universally accepted signal of closing both eyes.


buttery english muffins are a pleasing dream; an overflowing septic tank is a displeasing dream; not dreaming, you eat both.

there is more truth in the presence of a newborn, horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy.

reality is the great eternal mother and consciousness her child dreaming there's this world called aum dada!

Gospel of Aum Dada 5: sanctum sanctorum

And then there was the summer when thoughts ran away with themselves, as well as the spoon, the dish, the dog, the moon, the cow, the fiddle, the cat, and I felt as if I were a bystander watching a parade of pesky androids, humanoid engines like swarms of motorized lawn mowers normally so singular and domestic becoming multiple and outlandish, increasing logarithmically as if directed by Alfred Hitchcock himself until they even broke from his control and ran off in all directions randomly and vigorously but without any malice, and there was nothing I could do but watch this larger thought roll in like an unattainable tidal wave emanating from the unconscious depths of New Moon Lake, recognizing its size and shape and chaotic demeanor and knowing it was named panic! And all the other thoughts were swamped. And I, myself, was swamped. Panic was everything and everywhere. Panic was king. Panic was country. Panic was panoramic, pantheistic, a panoptical panoply of pandemonium and pang!

My mother recognized the monster, having been attacked by one called agoraphobia for almost all her life. My father knew it all too well, having lived next to one like it for the entire length of his marriage. Both tried to talk me down as if I were standing on a cliff about to jump. I couldn’t tell them not to worry. There wasn’t any cliff. Panic had destroyed that as well.

But it slowly dawned on me, for after all I still existed, there I was and here I am, that I wasn't who I thought I was, nor were all those submerged thoughts really mine. And I wasn’t even this overwhelming wave of panic. They were something separate from the core of what I was. And so I rested in that sanctuary, almost pleasantly schizophrenic in my comfort as I watched panic roaring like a freight train turning toward tornadic fury with a Kansas concentration, and waited for it to leave for some other state.

Something cracked that summer but it wasn’t me. I emerged for the very first time, popped my head out, looked around, and waited for the time to be right to be. Maybe I even chirped a little tune.

Gospel of Aum Dada 4: Let Love

My thoughts were going back and forth like a ping pong ball. I should tell Jane I love her. The woods were a luminous emerald green today. Of course, she loves me too. A bluebird flew by. Life will be splendiferous! Turning, I watched ten thousand suns swimming in the golden lake. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a crow settled on the beach. What am I thinking? I watched it vomit out an earth-wrenching caw. Of course I shouldn’t tell Jane I love her. A cloud passed under the sun and the world became a territory possessed by shadow. She loathes me. My stomach growled; I obviously had been poisoned at breakfast. Life will be humiliating! “Your serve!”

My aunt interrupted my endless internal volley. She had just defeated my cousin, and it was my turn to take on her latest challenge. The ping pong table was half-way between her cottage and the shore, underneath the shelter of tall pine trees. When not diving off the raft or sitting on the porch playing crazy eights, I could often be found here improving my low fast awesome serve.

But not today. Although I had been sitting on an Adirondack chair ostensibly watching my aunt and cousin volley back and forth, I really was lost in this latest quandary. I absolutely loved Jane. I loved her heaven-sent, earth goddess, lake nymph ways. I loved the timeless tender mystery of her soft ethereal breath becoming tangible laughter in my ears. I loved all the missing meaning in the flirtatious tone of her voice speaking everlasting words that only I would hear. Oh, ye gods of New Moon Lake, take pity on this poor suburban boy, for here this summer in this paradise of earth, wind and water, I have fallen—in love with Jane!

“Sorry,” I replied in visible pain to my aunt. “I’m feeling a little under the weather. I think I’ll go burn for awhile in the sun.” And I thought I did.

Gospel 3: Just Another Electric Acid Dream

“But Legolas, you have the chronology all wrong,” I replied, because I had said I would in the preceding chapter. “Nay, Aragorn, son of Arathorn, not only do you have time all wrong, you have also mistaken space as something more than just an artifact of the mind.” I looked at him as if he were Albert Einstein relating ‘On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies’ while standing on a weedy shoreline, the existence of which I had not yet known. I mean Einstein’s paper and not the weedy shoreline, which I took for granted as existing back then. Now, not so much. “So take this Elven lembas bread and tell me what you see,” Legolas chanted as he faded to green while continuing, “although you may notice I'm not here myself.”

We were walking down the tree-lined dirt road that ran past my parent’s cottage and down the hill toward Joey’s. The smell of raspberries baking naturally in the mid-July heat wafted through my nostrils. Sounds of children playing in a splash of water floated to my ears. My eyes, though, were locked on David’s two hands which cupped a few small dots on wax-like paper. “It’s like Orange Sunshine except ten times better,” he enthused. He then spoke as if in a church, hushed and reverent. “I forget what the real name is but I like to call it Tangerine Truth.”

“Wow!” I responded. In a few hours, I wouldn’t be so loquacious.

“Yeah, wow is definitely the word, cousin. Here, have a hit of some fine fresh air,” he said, as he tore a piece of paper with a tiny speck of a spot of a tangerine dot and handed it to me. It felt like a sacrament, as I gently held it in the fingertips of my two upraised hands. In Nomine Leary, et Kesey, et Owsley Stanley. “Just let it rest on your tongue for a few minutes and then swallow the whole fucking logic and proportion down,” he smiled. “and get ready to watch the grooviest movie, man.”

Which I did. Except I wasn’t really watching the movie, as much as the movie was watching me. Time expanded; space contracted. From the dock down at the public beach, I watched as the universe stared at me with ten thousand eyes that looked a lot like mine. Slowly I moved my mouth and the man on the moon spoke. Slowly I moved my arm and a falling star streaked across the freaking sky, its quicksilver trail refusing to disappear, burning the diamond night with traces of my own eleven fingers. Far out!

“Did you hear the moon?” Joey whispered.

“I think it was a loon,” David spoke in acid awe.

I was silent. No, I thought very slowly to myself, Joey was absolutely right. That moon was definitely speaking to us. Full moon over New Moon Lake. Mead Moon. Buck Moon. Thunder Moon. Hay Moon! Speak a little louder! I pointed to it. Then I tried to repeat what it was saying. I failed. I couldn’t say a single word. It spoke again. Damn! I had nothing. The reflection on the water answered instead. Waves and waves and more waves.

First, it would be many years until I heard those words again and it wouldn’t be the moon speaking them. Second, I’d like to say, for posterity’s sake, I regret that particular trip and the ten or more that followed, until one of them tried to kill me before I was ready to die. But I don’t. Third, maybe you’re a better listener.

Gospel of Aum Dada 2: Lords of the Lake

As a child, I spent all my summers at the lake in New Hampshire. New Moon Lake. It wasn’t so small as to be invaded by algae and it wasn’t so large as to be invaded by monstrous hordes of motor boats. Rather, it was just the right size as to be invaded by a few curious children. We could canoe around its shores in less than half-a-day, and see across the lake in whatever time it takes for light to travel one mile. Of course, the white sands of Hollywood Beach probably sped that light along; such appears to be the nature of this entrancing silver screen of dreams.

Sometimes we would walk around the lake on backcountry roads. And one summer we walked around the lake while playing characters out of ‘Lord of the Rings.’ George was always Gandalf because he was a local country boy familiar with all the unknown paths and secret geographies. He had also whittled himself a striking walking stick with a smoothly carved oaken head of a penis, and that was magic enough for boys our age. My cousin David was always Bilbo. He had begun reading ‘Lord of the Rings’ by beginning at the beginning, which was ‘The Hobbit,’ and he had fallen in love with that primordial world of dragons and dwarves and wargs. I was Aragorn, because sometimes I could be King Elessar Telcontar, and sometimes I could be just good old Strider, the lost sovereign of Gondor.

Although there had been other fantasies played as a child, this one took on larger-than-life qualities. Maybe it was the lake and the stands of white birch trees that hugged the shores like a broken crown. Maybe it was the coming-of-age quality of our uncertain lives. Or maybe it was the book itself, which held a supernatural although vaguely familiar quality. But this Middle Earth dream had more of the tinge of the real than so-called reality itself, and so we loved it. That’s why it wasn’t unexpected when, off on my own one morning waiting for the others to appear, I met Legolas, the great elf of the Woodland Realm. I was chasing darting minnows on the shore when I suddenly saw these tall green leggings rise out of the water. I call them green, but they shimmered like silver birch leaves in a cool silent breeze. “Strider,” he exclaimed. “We cannot tarry any longer in this world. We must make haste for the reality of Rivendell!”

Now, I think he said ‘world’ but he may have said ‘wood,’ and I think he said ‘reality’ but he might have said ‘realty,’ because elves do talk in such strange tongues. And his chronology of the story was all askew, as I would tell him in the following chapter. But I’m afraid I did tarry for the next thirty and some odd years. If I had followed him directly then and there, despite the overwhelming fear I had of doing so, I may have seen through this dream world much earlier, toward that pure truth of Rivendell. But, as I would later ask myself, if not then, then why not now?

The Gospel of Aum Dada 1: Summer Dream

Sometimes I dream. For example, when I was thirteen, I dreamt there was a man walking on the moon, and that man was me. It was a black and white kind of day and I was at the lake, at my Uncle’s cottage. Everyone there was watching this portable plastic television as the events of the day played out on its eleven-inch screen. The rabbit ears had been finely adjusted and the picture was a wonderland of little static and almost invisible ghosts.

It was white hot outside but inside it was dark and cool. Everyone was literally glued to the screen but me. Somehow I had broken the bond, and I was busy watching a silver motor boat on the sparkling blue cove. The boat had a jet-black seventy-five horsepower Merc which cut through the water like a razor’s edge. How I loved that high and mighty engine!

I knew Joey was at the throttle. He swung the boat quickly toward the shore and then swung it back again, as the skier being pulled broke through the wake and let go of the rope, gliding on water like Jesus Christ on slalom, until she pulled one foot out of a boot and then the next and began walking on the shore. Jane was good.

“You’re going to miss it,” my mother said over the static of mission control. I turned to the screen and there I was, one bulky white boot floating onto something shadowy and gigantic. After staring at it for years, I was finally on it. My words would be widely misquoted of course but that’s nothing new. It’s all part of the show. So the first words ever spoken by a man on the moon I hereby report for the very first time: “Sometimes I dream.”

2nd psalm: everything in nothing

once seen, it can’t be unseen.

once unseen, it can’t be seen.

appearances are everything—

in nothing, all appearing.

the only truth is i exist.

there’s nothing but the truth.

the no particular sutra

first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is an appearance in awareness which is called a mountain but is really me.


anyone that can speak of enlightenment on one hand and clients on the other needs to have their head removed.

given a choice between collected works of ken wilber or that so-called new age volume, 'the four agreements' by miguel ruiz, take the latter.

if i could have one teaching, it would be his 2nd agreement: don't take things personally. it begins as a humble directive & ends literally.

just that alone, don't take things personally, sums up about a third of Nisargadatta's teachings; another third being to rest in 'I Am.'


the past is what 'you' think brought 'you' to the present; it's a complete fabrication. not a single memory is true. you are nothing but now.

is the breakfast from this morning on the tongue? how does a story taste? mine was the bread of earth dipped into the honey of the sun. yum!

yesterday i was the empire of the universe but i have abdicated my post for nothing right now. tomorrow i will be the king of superstring!


different yokes for different folks.

don't nickel and paradigm me.

illusion stops being illusion when seen as illusion.


being led by a pet identity.

the potential of thought is violence.

truth is pure poison and not an anti-biotic or recreational drug.


the silence report: right now it's silent, with possibility of heavy silence this evening. tomorrow will be silent with occasional silence.

an epistle to lao tzu

i'm beginning to see more clearly that most if not all translations of the tao have missed the true deep wisdom of lao tzu. #27 is example.

translations speak of perfect locks & sages abandoning no one & cloaking light & teachers respecting students & vice versa & subtle mystery.

but not one translation that i've read ties it all together into some cohesive unity of wisdom but rather it appears to be confusion itself.

but there's a key to the lock of #27 & that's veiled light. this IS the student & the actual resource the teacher uses. it IS the teaching.

that all are veiled light is the subtle mystery. it is why a sage saves all & abandons none. it's why true teaching ends in perfect wisdom.

if a teacher does not see light already there in the student and the student does not see the light in the teacher, there is only confusion.

without understanding all students are already light, but veiled, the teacher is a mere intellectual, a lightweight & his/her teaching useless.

and it is why most, if not all, translations of the tao are unworthy of the master. they fail to see that hidden light in themselves.

in the end, there's no teacher, no student, no teaching, no lao tzu, no translator, no reader, only light, only travelling w/o tracks, Way.

an epistle to j.d. salinger

just finished reading 'catcher in the rye' appears to be a nondual novel; holden is consciousness dreaming all the characters; esp. siblings.

"if you want to know the truth, i don't know what i think about it."

allie is the universal consciousness lost; phoebe is the natural going, & d.b. (de-be) the false arriving

"about all i know is, I sort of miss everybody I told about."

more fun facts: a caul (as in holden CAULfield) is the amniotic membrane that encases the unborn.

"don't ever tell anybody anything. if you do, you start missing everybody."

also interesting brother who appears last is d.b. de-be the shrinks are trying to condition holden back into this character of un-being.

"i mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it? the answer is, you don't. i think i am, but how do i know?"

salinger created many levels to story: coming of age; psychological of universal to ego; reincarnation of soul; dream story of consciousness.

“I didn't know anybody there that was splendid & clear-thinking &all. Maybe two guys. If that many. & they probably came to Pencey that way”

pencey nice play on thinking and story; wanna bet the 2 guys were jc & the buddha?

the only novel of j.d. salinger zen monk: love-infused neti neti / consciousness revealing

the dream state sutra

all actual components of being awake (not the spiritual metaphorical one of spiritual awakening) are only parts of the false reality of mind.

mind dreams it is awake. arising from bed is a dream. eyes open is a dream. the morning sun is a dream. the day (or night) is a dream.

everything about the character of me is a dream. these words are dream words pulling out the dream world stuck inside reality.


reality is the pure awareness of deep sleep. not the thing we call deep sleep. not the idea of deep sleep. but the actual non-experience.


in the dream state, there is only one constitution and law: thought IS the dream state and thought IS inherently divisive; war on!

the original dream state is the state in which one doesn't know one is dreaming and thought is its constitution and law.

the lucid dream state is the state in which one knows one is dreaming and thought is its constitution but awareness (being, love) is its law.


embodiment is just another name for the lucid dream state.


the dream state is a symbiotic relationship based on fear between what the dream state calls haves & have-nots but there really are no haves.

if one is living in the original dream state where thought is the law, it's best to break the law, and love.

if one is living in the lucid dream state where awareness is the law, never mind.


the false only hurts the false.


footnote: there is no dream state.

footnote to footnote: the dream state is in the dream state.

footnote to footnote to footnote: there are no footnotes.

footnote to footnote to footnote to footnote: there are ten thousand footnotes.

footnote 10000: enjoy the play.

the impermanence sutra

play sutra! there are some persons who will think this is not a sutra. that's ok. this sutra will say they are not persons.


sweet words of nothing are not for the mind to know.

when satguru speaks, one listens with the heart and forgets everything heard.


truth has no modifier.

false is not reducible.

the fish jumps for one not fishing.


pure awareness shimmers into impermanence; its memory of impermanence is mind.

mind making impermanence ‘permanent’ is the world; mind making itself ‘permanent’ is the person.

attempting to make the impermanent impossibly permanent is another name for suffering.

the person seeing the falseness of permanence is the end of the person.

the end of the person is also the end of the world.

all that remains at the end of the world is all there ever was: pure awareness. beyond permanence; beyond impermanence; beyond beyond.


something there is about a sea.

you are the vanishing point.

when the outer is seen to be inner, there is no inner either.


all words always and only point to the nonexistence of all words.

every word that you've heard or read or spoken or written or just plain thought is trying to wake you up if you'd only be quiet and listen.


what mind thought a person, awareness knows a plaything. sutra play!

first psalm of aum dada: fireworks snaking

from pure awareness, seed
of absolutely nothing, not
even nothing, unthinkable,
untouched by mind, like dreamless
void of undivided insubstantial
deep dark mother sleep—
the shimmering of consciousness
explodes in light and luminescent
filament, where in its time-space
mind interprets all this superstring
as ordinary brilliant fireworks snaking
through the independence night of beach
sand radiating back toward cooler
level-headed surface temperatures in waves
invisible and never-ending next
to girlfriend, boyfriend mother,
father, husband, wife, or children,
strangers, no one, shadows,
beach grass, scrub pines,
phantom horror stories told beyond
the ring of bonfire, fear,
and yesterday, tomorrow, love and death
and taxes paid on some enchanted
island far away where later one
can just forget it all and think
of absolutely nothing.

the dream tao dada sutra

ah... stirring into this dreamscape of the mind from the refreshingly pure still and natural 'state' of deep sleep: it's always there, that!


the mind doesn't dream; mind is dream.

the visible world is mind within the spaceless point of you: awareness.


thought is dream dreaming; mind is just a chinese dream-box; i am the great mother deep sleeping dark awaking ancient pond of tao: splash!


only mind wishes to attempt to plumb the depths of mind, & thus get lost in the maze of itself. awareness knows it isn't real; why bother.

oh, intellectuals are the least intelligent.

but the Way isn't in the woods.


the Way sees through the woods.

the adulterous dada sutra

you can't handle the truth ~col. jessep


mr. watson, it's all phony!


i'm really not being negative, but there is no positive.

everyone is conditioned to be bipolar.

truth is not positive (nor is it negative).

positive spirituality is just more of the same old false.


awareness is a waveless sea.


three legs of real spirituality: devotion to truth; renewal of energy; knowledge of the false.

the more you know the false, the less you are the false.

only when the false has disappeared will the truth begin to know itself.

one needs devotional energetic sight; the false is imprinted in the size and strength of dna.


one will know the coming of an aeon by the arrival of its wildflower.