PARADISE NOW

robert indiana

It feels a little odd to be wanting to say something from the perspective of advancing age, but it's such a new understanding to me, I want to pass it on, maybe for somebody who might be ready to see it. It kind of feels like the momentum of my life has been toward seeing that the only thing that is important is the other people in our lives. Others. Listening to a taped interview with Polish philosopher, Henryk Skolimowski, in the car on the way to town and back. He was talking about the Ten Commandments, noting what was important then that is not important now, like the first five that are no longer paid attention to. They were specific to another time. The interviewer brought up possibility that Thou Shalt Not Kill could apply to all living things. Skolimowski said the Ten Commandments are anthropocentric, relating to humans. The bell in my head went, Ding. I had taken that for granted without consideration it might be any other way, an uneducated assumption. And it was interesting to note the change in "God's" personality since then. He was talking about how the first five Commandments show a jealous God, who wants us to have no other gods before Him. In that time, a great variety of gods were in the air. This was the beginning of one God, monotheism, when polytheism had been the tradition since the beginning. Traditions take awhile to break, as we in this time know. The new One God was laying down his law that is basic foundation to a good life. Laws like natural laws, like gravity and speed of light, but these the invisible natural laws of our humanity. Jesus personalized God a good  bit more, showing us a loving God, a God that is love and love only, love its very self. Jesus transcended the Ten Commandments advising the practice of love in everyday life.

 

robert indiana

 

 

Skolimowski was talking about living with reverence. He quoted gospel of Thomas saying something to the effect that Jesus said Paradise is here if you have eyes to see it. I was feeling what he was saying. Suddenly I saw that I do, indeed, live reverentially. I value as sacred the life around me. I value my mountain as sacred. I have come to see, in my own way of seeing, that this side of Paradise is Paradise too, when we have the eyes to see it. I don't know if I have the eyes to see it, but I have a sense of it. A couple weeks ago in conversation with some friends I mentioned that I've come to see this side of the veil is the same as the other side of the veil, it's just that on the other side we apparently see this world we are in now is a very important voyage for the soul. Evidently, Earth is the planet of love energy, the planet souls go to for the experience of love. Looking at what we call the news, love isn't to be found anywhere. Yet, in my own everyday life, I live among people who feel a sense of community and some that do not, but the people around me are friendly with each other, offer to help each other, care about each other in what I see is a reverential way. Many are venal minded, too, but even the venal ones have their reasons and their own reverence that is just different from others not so venal. We have a wide range of humanity in a community, in this case, Whitehead Community, where people that know each other get along with each other, unless there's a falling out, which is sometimes unavoidable. As a rule, the people I know have a belief that the people around them are worthy of respect and even reverence for the spirit of life that's in them. I don't mean everybody goes around thinking this or even seeing it. I mean we humans like to get along with each other. In the learning time of school, being popular is so incredibly important as a social expression of love, needing to be loved. Falling in love with pop stars, an image, a product, can be called empty and misguided, but it's love. Love doesn't matter if it's for a cat or imaginary. That, for me, is the cool thing about love as God, it doesn't matter who or what the love is for, love is God, God is love. It doesn't matter if the love is for a rock. The love is in the heart and love is God, and God is with you.

 

robert indiana

 

 

People I see in the course of a day, whatever they're feeling, whatever they're going through, whatever their degree of stress, are operating from love within. I saw the daughter of a friend who had moved away, and in our brief exchange, in just the friendliness between us, it was a love energy between us. I see someone else I know, we speak, shake hands, smile, speak pleasantly, and it's love energy flowing. Each likes the other and wants to be liked. Biting a lip to stop oneself from saying something hurtful is an act of love. Just saying, Hi, How are you? I'm fine, is an act of love. Too much Western society has linked love to sex, made it a four letter word. Then the endless possibilities of love expression are missed. Love is the very spirit in us that keeps us from collapsing like a boneless chicken. I review people I know whose behavior doesn't appear to have much love in it, and it's there. It's there in abundance. Without naming them I can see half a dozen people I know who have a name for low-life behavior, people some believe would just as soon shoot you as look at you, I see motivated by love and operating by love. The need that everyone has to be well thought of is an expression of love. Hunting is an expression of love. A hunter understands that. Just under our skin we're energized by love. We open up right away when we see someone we know as a friend. We keep our armor up for people we don't know, but we're still as friendly as wariness allows. We live in a world of other people. The Dalai Lama I found quoted on this matter, a saying that there are so many of us and we are so close together that we have to get along. And largely we do. When our hearts are beating we are living in love.

 

hh the dalai lama

 

 

What could Paradise be, but love without defensive behavior? Brings to mind William Blake, who said, "Damn  braces. Bless relaxes." That damn braces brought immediately to mind a used-to-be friend, who by this time in his life is "stove-up" with spinal issues, constant pain, stiff back, braces and operations that don't work. This is somebody who blames everything on somebody else. His mind swirls with blame obsessively. And now he's locked down. His back is stiff as a broomstick and he will be in agony the rest of his life. He'll sit in a recliner and watch tv and probably live a long time. Probably has a sucker woman taking care of him, until he puts a gun to her head and calls her every hateful name toward women he'd already called her many times, the last time. Then he goes into puppy-dog eyes mode and finds another sucker looking for a man to take care of. Love energy motivates him, but he's tied up in so many knots of guilt and blame within that the love gets expressed in "twisted" ways, projections of his disgust for himself. Make it difficult for people around us and their love light dims for us. I feel it is an overt act of love to go out in the cold morning and carry hay into the meadow for the donkeys and calves. I talk with them eye to eye, individually, like a parent letting all the babies know they're loved. I see the spirit of God in them the same as I see it in people. I've adopted calling them people. I even think of birds as people, frogs as people, ants as people. They are varying levels of consciousness. All are conscious and all have personalities, as seen by others of the same consciousness level. I feel like we are all people, not just the two-leggeds.

 

robert indiana

 

 

Visiting with Jack the Donkey or Jen the Donkey I see them the same as I see people. I respect them the same. I communicate with them as I do with people, though without the language part, which is a very small part of communication. Much of it is eye-contact, which I do when I talk with the donkeys and the calves. Cows are conscious too. They want to be liked/loved. I like walking among my donkeys and calves with love feeling flowing between us. Feeding them is an act of love and they see it as such. They appreciate it and they let me know. Sometimes when I'm talking with either Jack or Jen, the donkey will make a snorting sound or a flutter of the lips like a horse, letting me know they are aware of what I'm saying. We humans have to look at each other when we're talking to each other, but the equines don't need to be face to face to talk. I do my best to learn from them how they want to communicate with me. I'm loving getting to know Jack and Jenny individually, people from a pre-human culture by millions of years in the past. I'm fascinated by how tuned in to the human mind the donkeys are. It seems like they have a natural affection for humans. Their humility is innate. Like dogs are known for forgiveness, I'd say donkeys are known for humility. I have never regarded Jack or Jen in any way but a loving way. I don't hit them, kick them or yell at them. So they are good to me. I walk around behind Jack without even a thought he might kick me, because I know he wont. Can't say that yet for Jenny, because we don't know each other as well yet as Jack and I know each other. Jenny is very different from Jack. Jenny is pesky. She will bite my shirt tail in play. This morning I was bent over rubbing Jack's front legs and Jenny rested her chin on my back. A case can be made for that one experience a moment in Paradise.   

 

robert Indiana himself

 

 

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OUT OF THIS WORLD

 

 

It's a week of JFK review every time I turn on the radio. I don't listen to it. Fifty years later, we're getting the official mythology. That part is interesting, but it's the samo-samo. It's interesting to see the official version told like in school where we don't question, we take notes toward the test. I found the emphasis on Oswald curious. The temperament of the South in that time was incendiary about Kennedy for the same reasons the republican ku kluxers are openly wanting to pop a cap in Obama. American racism is a powerful force. Then, it was a dynamic force. It is not something you go up against lightly. Obama has corporate cover. Kennedy did not. My sorrow for my country regarding the coup that killed Kennedy is that I mark the date the last day of democracy in America. I see it the beginning point of the corporate police state that rules us now. I've not heard anything about the Warren Report Part 2 that was held in time capsule for fifty years. It's fifty years. We already know it has nothing new. Or if it does, it will go through censorship before it is published in book form for the libraries all over the land and the paperback racks in grocery stores and drug stores. It has about as much chance of spilling the beans as the official 9/11 report. The difference is, then, they didn't know democracy was over. Now, we're well into police state, television the ring in our noses. When propaganda central becomes reality itself after more than half a century, the false becomes true and ignorance becomes knowledge. More and more I hear talk and see articles about the downhill run on greased skis in the dumbing down of America process that is going faster than ever now. I never hear anything about television hypnosis, violent attitudes, intolerance of the other, whoever the other may be, casual attitudes about killing.

 

 

 

This is the America I have seen come about in my lifetime. I got in on the tail end of democracy. I got in on the end of the Old South, and the tail end of mountain culture. Even saw the tail end of the big band era. USA has become something set on self-destruction. It's a skyscraper made of imaginary playing cards and everybody wants to watch it fall on tv. I'm grateful my intuition throughout this lifetime has kept me out of political involvement. The world of politics is every bit as vain, fickle and self-important as Hollywood. Both are about money only. I don't believe anything I hear anymore. Again, I'm reminded that the people near and dear to my heart deserve more attention than the world of lies. It makes me want to go outside and work on the donkey den, enjoy that the donkeys are unaware of the collective mental construct that occupies the human mind with nonsense the humans take for reality. Donkeys are free of that thinking. Right and wrong doesn't concern them. They live in the present moment. No fear of the future, no regret of the past. They have memory, they are conscious, they have mind to think with. I've learned this from dogs and cats I have known. I see the same consciousness in donkeys. I look into an eye when I talk to one of the donkeys and see right away they get what I said. Yesterday, I was talking to Jack. I told him I'd love to have the experience of riding him. He listened like he was in agreement--he'd like me to ride him too. I said, but I don't want to hurt your back with my weight. Jack snorted and bobbed his head. It felt like he was saying, thanks for the consideration.

 

 

 

I feel so much better in the meadow with the donkeys than I do hearing the daily soap opera called the news. Every day updates the collective mental construct. I have a friend who went into a monastery in the 1950s and came out in the late 1980s. He was lost. He left the world in the Age of I Love Lucy and returned in the Age of Beavis and Butthead. He was a long time adjusting. It was a different culture. By the time he understood it enough to be more or less comfortable in it, he went back to the monastery, happy to be back. I have chosen for my path close involvement in what we call the world. The spiritual path is about living in the world of humanity. Like the Dalai Lama said, we live so close together we have to get along. Seems to me the spiritual path is about living at peace among other people who are not necessarily at peace in themselves. We represent every level of consciousness, every level of intelligence, every degree of emotion. Of course it's difficult for us to get along well together considering how radically different from each other we are. Like in a herd of zebras, if they can't get along with each other, they can't function as a herd, their defense, their security. We function in herds, too, for security. There is really no way to live among countless other humans, each of different experiences, different belief systems, different musical tastes, different educational levels, different degrees of compassion, different levels of tolerance. Scriptures from every religion give sound counsel on living in a world of other humans; honesty, humility, forgiving, generosity, unconditional love.

 

 

 

Then the scriptures get hardened into rules and regulations by the human mind. Punishment and killing become justified by scripture. American whiteman genocide of the native Americans was justified by scripture the same as slavery was justified by scripture. I look for the path of being in the world, not of the world. I'm fine with being in it. I know a lot of enjoyable people, have some good friends, good memories, good music, art, good reading. I have friends in the world of the four-leggeds as much of the heart as with two-legged friends. Of the world, I think of as climbing the money and influence ladder, serving self-interest, ego. It leads to an old man in a roadside diner asking people at a nearby table what they think of Obamacare. It leads to a lifetime of acting out a false persona. Of the world takes me down, down, down. In the world takes me up. I read a play by Harold Pinter and feel elevated inside experiencing art in a pure form, not produced by corporate formula for box office. If the world around me is satisfied with television for intellectual and spiritual input, I'm of a mind to be free to regard it what they want for themselves. They allow me what I want for myself. This is how I live in the world, not of it, by allowing others to follow their own light, and allowing myself to follow my own light. Not wanting money has been a great assist for not getting hooked by the world of wanting more. I'm enjoying wanting less in this time of the life. I'm thinking that wanting is the greatest hook of all. Not wanting, I truly feel a degree of peace of mind.

 

 

 

 

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THE DALAI LAMA: ETHICS FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM THE MOVIE

hh the dalai lama

 

 

Lazy day, a good nap, a little nip in the air outside, a gentle nip. The netflix movie of the day was the Dalai Lama's ETHICS FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM. It is an hour-long talk given at the Albert Hall in London, 1999. He speaks English well. My associations with the Albert Hall is Eric Clapton's band CREAM playing there in a concert video (a guy in the front of the audience obviously on acid, jerking his head up and down so fast he surely had neck problems by the time he was 35), and Bob Dylan playing his transition time there, first half of show acoustic, second half electric. The audience went nuts at the Albert Hall, just like at Newport in USA. It really was an in-yer-face gesture. Now, my associations with the Albert Hall include HH the Dalai Lama. I see him talk, hear him talk, read his writing, and I celebrate within that China overran Tibet and chased out the Dalai Lama and the other lamas, sent them out into the world through the funnel of India. Another example of God working in "strange" ways. Brings to mind a little girl who needed to get away from her mother she was living with and live with her daddy who cared about her. Mommy's new boyfriend beat child such that Protective Services turned her over to daddy immediately upon seeing the bruises. That's what it took to help push her through the transition from one home to another in one day. She's a tough little kid. It must have been time for Tibetan knowledge to go out into the world, like it was time for little girl to grow up loved and cared for.

dalai lama

We need an ethics for the new millennium. The last round of ethics that run from Greeks onward through Western philosophy and religion to now has come to nothing. Ethics is not even something people think about, but for a few scholars. By this time, what we call ethics has become so confused from indifference in the market place where the only ethic amounts to: self first--others last. The Dalai Lama's ethic amounts to others first, self last. A reversal. The Asian view. The balance. The decline and fall of Capitalism will make a big opening for a new understanding of ethics. Enlightenment Individualism in America has devolved into hyper narcissism, self-centered with blinders to keep out all but self. The degression has gone to its most absurd extremities ending itself. This has to be the turn-around time where ethical thinking and living is concerned. Could there be a time for collective humanity that might be called darker? This time we're in is so dark, it has to be the dark before the dawn. That a Tibetan holy man can fill the Albert Hall in this time indicates something having to do with a collective inner need. The audience is white middle class educated, likely university associated, mostly Londoners, liberals. It's in the middle class that revolutions have their beginnings. Might have something to do with why the republicans want to do away with the middle class and education. It's too late to stop it, the revolution to put an end to Capitalism has begun. Occupy and Anonymous are serious beginnings.

dalai lama

 

 

One of the many aspects of the Dalai Lama that appeal to me is his perfectly natural behavior. He talks like anybody talking, except what he says is not spoken by many people. The whole story of Tibetan lamas, every one of them, of which he is one, is in his mind. It is believed by people who have tested it for several centuries, that this Dalai Lama's is the same soul as the first Dalai Lama. His soul is devoted to returning in a new body every time to serve the Tibetan form of Buddhism. This incarnation is his fourteenth, XIV. I look at him knowing the Tibetan Book of the Dead is in his head, the life of Milarepa and the entire wealth of Tibetan wisdom. When I was a kid, I asked the fundamentalist Baptist preacher about wise people living in our time. No. There haven't been any wise people since Bible times. I did not believe it. I did not take him for wise, but figured that it had to be that somebody on this earth is wise. I wanted to find someone wise. There were not any in my world of Kansas fundamentalism and school, as far as I could tell. It became a search in the back of my mind for the rest of my life to find someone out here in the world I would call wise. I found quite a lot of people, both men and women, I thought of as incredibly intelligent with a wide range of penetrating knowledge, a few I'd say just a little bit shy of wisdom.

 

vada

"all babies are yogis" --- baba hari das

 

 

Through my 60s I knew a wise man, a hillbilly farmer and bluegrass banjo picker. I believe I was guided to him for the purpose of having a man of wisdom to pay attention to. I can't help but see that I was sent to him for some spiritual upliftment, to be an acolyte, a follower, to help him in his time of leaving the body. I projected it something like Elisha wanting to be with Elijah when he ascended, and Elijah passing his mantle (spiritual power) to Elisha upon his departure. Jr Maxwell, my hillbilly neighbor and friend, passed his car to me. My Toyota pickup burned up two weeks before he left the body. He said to me about finding a replacement, "Don't get in a hurry." Then his twenty year old Buick Century became mine. The heirs unanimously agreed it is my car. Nobody wanted it (but me). It spluttered, didn't have a great deal of power, but I knew it was out of time and probably hadn't had new plugs and wires since it was new, or not many times since then, broken taillight, broken headlight, headlights going everywhere but the road. I had the cooling system and the fuel injection system flushed. The money the insurance corporation gave me for the truck was the amount I needed to bring the Buick v6 3300 up to perfect running condition. It was like I just switched vehicles one day. It has 150 thousand miles, is 20 years old and does not burn oil. From oil change to oil change, I never have to add oil. I keep it running in perfect condition. After 3.5 years of driving it as "mine," I still think of it as Jr's car and my role is to take care of it.

 

 

 

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