The Way-seeking Mind

Our frantic human life is a continuation of one error after another (the time and space parade). The comedy and tragedy of our lives always seeks a position of advantage from a tight corral of self importance and self protection. The life of total understanding is a total revolution, and is absolutely triumphant now, beyond time and space. The engine of total understanding is the reality of emptiness exploding beyond all sorrow and fear. The self knowing mind that comes out of emptiness is sacred unto Itself. Here no movement is possible except peace and joy. Here, do what you will; everything is perfect.

NOTES TO MYSELF

Before you understand the truth of emptiness you think you must make some special effort to achieve something. This is hitting the cart to make the horse go. The harder we hit the cart the madder we get, because we can’t get anywhere.

NOTES TO MYSELF

If one really knows his or her true self they can do what they want and always be in life’s totality of joy. Here, morality is a joke that a lost soul always inflicts upon itself.

BEAUTIFUL MORNING

A beautiful morning; there is an infinite baby-blue sky below the stretched fingers of shadows trying to hold onto the receding night's secrets. This morning is the movement of meditation...intense, clear and without motive. There is just he Vast Mind giving Itself to an outrageous display of color and form. In the distance a Crow caws, a hummingbird is a hyphen upon the taut guitar string of a telephone wire. Everything is dynamically everything else; there is no sorrow, no separation, no possibility of longing. Without the brain's constant content there is the indestructible energy to be with this Vast Mind, as its totality of life now! We live in a time and space continuum of problems. We live with agonizing choices, but the man or woman whose mind is on fire with light and love never has a problem, problems do not exist in actual reality.

It was an exceptional night indeed…the L.A. Visionary Art Party at Club 740, in downtown Los Angeles, July 18^th of this year. I met up with my son, Chet Zar and his two friends, Chris and Federico (we’re fast becoming the Four Musketeers who attend various art shows).

Club 740 is an awesome space; it looks like an old, ornate balcony structured theatre that was maybe constructed in the 30’s or 40’s.

The arriving guests gave me the feeling of participating in a costume ball based on the Arabian Nights. There were young men with muscular arms, young women with beautiful body illustrations, and some of the women serving at the buffet were dressed like belly dancers. I just loved it; it looked as if some of my painting characters had come to life and were visiting me in a festive dream sequence!

Alex Grey and his wife, Allyson, showed up about 9:00 and were busy setting up the stage where the talented guest artists would paint throughout the night against the background throb of delicious recorded music which was amplified throughout the theatre’s inner sanctuary

My son, Chet, introduced me to Alex (who is probably the foremost ambassador of the visionary art movement) along with his beautiful and talented wife Allyson. They are both great painters. Alex is also the author of the book, “The Mission of Art”. While attending the San Francisco Art Institute in the late 60’s I studied art history and I must say with frank sincerity that Alex’s book is the most important investigation into art as the expression of higher consciousness that I have ever read. I found the couple to be warm, down to earth people…in fact everyone there that night seemed aglow with a friendly, fun loving attitude.

My son, Chet, gave a moving talk about his motives for following the passion of his art - I had to laugh to myself, remembering how my wife and I had watched him as a little kid, constructing outrageous inventions, drawing incredible monsters and now here he is a famous visionary artist talking to a huge audience about his work and life. And what a life it is!

As the night wore on and the various guest artists gave talks about their work I found myself joking and talking to a great guy, who it turns out was Adam Jones lead guitarist for Tool. Adam told me he had first met Chet on an FX movie set.

When the talks ended, the artists began their live painting performances (which went on until four in the morning). Wild dancing and painting continued the entire night and it was magical!

Many thanks to all those who made this fun, informative night possible. And as for the great photos, thank you Michele Marlo and Michele Wortman (I hope I’ve spelled the names correctly because they do such outstanding work - including the above photo of Chet, Alex and me).

IT’S TOO MYSTERIOUS, DON’T TAKE IT SERIOUS

Laughter is one of the greatest destroyers of the accumulation of the ego’s prison of problems, addictions, miseries and fear. Laughter is the playful mind that is open to the outrageous abundance of the dance of our spirit in and out of form and color. Here and now the playful mind is always a release into the moment’s cleansing benediction. Laughter is the self telling Itself, “Be happy, don’t worry”.

A River Runs Through Us

It has no point of origin, no destination, no limitation of depth or width!

This enormous quality of one’s life cannot be contained by form, but is always on the

verge of forming that which has never been and will never be again.

This river is the core energy that sustains all life. It does not judge or evaluate, it does not accumulate experience, and therefore it dissolves all problems that time and space create.

Our thinking minds describe life as it if were a tray of ice cubes. Our vast mind flows with limitless power and beauty. This is intelligence, this is love, this is true self knowing.

THE GREAT DILEMMA

The point of impact with one’s total liberation is here and now, not there and when. And herein lies the great dilemma! We are conditioned from birth to be guided by our pasting/ futuring thinking. But how can a self be happy or living when it lives in the constant informational storm of the riptides of opposing desires? Or promises in the future for self denial in the present! The self that sets its liberation up in terms of outside circumstances weather acquisitions, moods, flattery, or criticisms, is set against the ultimate truth of here and now – which is the great fact of life! The self in isolation and the thing in isolation cannot release its position to flow with the totality of life which is here and now, not there and when. Only by watching this dilemma with great attention and not trying to move out of this condition can something happen which changes everything! As one just watches all the aspects, feeling, and images of the great dilemma one becomes pure observation and this movement of clarity brings a profound healing peace that reinstates the self here and now with a sense of freedom that surpasses all reason or logic. Here one can enter into creation which is pure action which is also pure rest. Every time one breaks the Karmic chain of the split-mind’s suffering the whole world changes and will never be as dark as it was before. We are all in this great dilemma together and that is the light that brings a compassion for all living things….that was not there before. Whatever moves in one man or woman’s mind moves in the Vast mind which is everywhere simultaneously. This is the great truth of Pure Identity…..this is love!

Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year

In the impeccable stillness of the vast winter’s mind only emptiness can survive! But out of this flawless womb of emptiness a new child of creation will flash forth – unique and triumphant in its pure movement of love and eternal spring.

“No amount of thinking can help you. Your thoughts must stand before you as free children of God!” - Goethe

NOTICE!

To those of you who are students of higher consciousness and the meditative mind, I want to recommend that go to the blog http://smallanahata.blogspot.com - my friend Jacob’s writings are some of the most insightful and beautiful essays and poems I have ever read. In a world groping for truth and freedom, his work is a beacon of love and light.

The Relative Mind

THE RELATIVE MIND 4\7\08

We live 99% of the time in our relative minds. This is the mechanical measuring, analyzing, judging mind that reacts to memories. This relative mind is created by experiences, pleasure and pain experiences. This mind is the product of space and time assumptions, backed by emotional charges. The accumulation of experiences fortifies an illusional center called “me, not you”. This mind is not really creative, it modifies and rearranges the “me not you”, in positions of puffed up victories or agonizing defeats. This relative mind deducts conclusions and projects them into an image oriented future to re-experience these conclusions which are still mechanical reactions. This is the karma mind that Buddhism points to. To see all the implications of this false mind, if only for an instant, is to be free of its attachments. To be constantly here and now, without choice or gaining ideas is the complete destruction of this karma ridden mind. The ego fears the end of its illus ional life more than anything; in fact, fear is the engine that drives the relative mind to continue its reactive passion plays. To move with the totality of life is the function of our real mind, or spirit. Here everything is new, innovative, abundant, blessed and joyful. This is the flow of creation. Sooner or later our mind must awaken to its Pure Identity. This is the inherent promise of Love that everyone is entitled to. .

Spiritual Tree Huggers

TREES 3\26\ 08

Trees are the cathedrals of the earth. Trees are the outer explosion of life inner glory and joy. Trees give the oxygen we all breathe, they give the shade and shelter and intimacy we crave. Trees cool the surface of the earth, they house the birds that greet each dawn with triumph. Trees are the thoughts and ideas of an inner sound that constructs all physical realty. In the realm of Self Knowing, trees are the extension of the intelligence, power and beauty of our Pure Identity, our greater body. To indiscriminately cut trees down is the ignorance of a human mind bent upon the unconscious destruction of his or her own life.

THE SPEED OF LOVE 3/7/08

The Vast Mind is so fast that the form of its awareness is beyond time and space. The speed of love is simultaneous; this is beyond the faculty of measurement. The speed of love is one complete flashing into the phenomenal world; here we have the blossom of Pure Identity and freedom of being. If self knowing is the dynamic truth of a man or woman’s life, then this society’s agenda has not served its race well. Most people have no idea what their Vast Mind, or Pure Identity is, they seek everything with their measurement minds. This mind has its valuable use in technological areas, but in the area of self knowing it is useless. We talk constantly about love, but in truth we can never really love anything until one loses his or her measurement mind and becomes one complete flashing into the phenomenal world and then another and then another. When there is no one but you, you love everything as your self eternally now.

Febuary 28 2oo8

When the brain’s activity is quieted by a meditative state of just awareness, that awareness of attention (with no motive) produces a pilot flame that if intense enough, will explode into a state where nothing touches, nothing overlaps, nothing causes anything. Here time and space evaporate into an immense knowing that there is nothing but love! This is pure identity. This is freedom of being.

The Eternal Self (2/21/08)

THE ETERNAL SELF

I, so old

To be so young,

To see the what

That sages saw,

And into this stream

With my spinnaker breast

Leading my see,

I was entered upon in an

Ebb and flow,

Emerald and gold,

By a silent song.

Good God a mouth is formed!

That sung of me

In numerous chants,

Squashing my ant,

Splitting my fear,

Emitting one ear

That heard my dawn,

Through vast naked pours

Of rich fallowed nights,

That grew up my race,

To trample out lies.

Thus one eye was born.

To see myself,

To myself,

In one glimpse,

Eternally now.

VENUS RISING

February 22

The dynamic of this painting is a simple one; the female persona of the meditator above is pulling the half-buried self out of our confining beliefs into an ever rising, or expanding, sense of freedom. The innermost desire of us all is to be free! To be in love with all life and to be able to explore limitless possibilities of value fulfillment based upon pure love. Our consciousness carries an aching burden by being only self conscious and separate from its vast source. But this source is always urging us toward that awareness that is free of the brain’s time and space confinements. Something loves us all beyond our comprehensions. IT doesn’t, nor will it ever, judge us. The very nature of our life, all life, is love, power and beauty flashing forth complete and whole. We are all travelers. We are all seeking our true home!

Waves of essence.

February 8 2008

Upstairs in the Vast Room where the tide blows in clean from “ALL THERE IS’ sitting upon a throne of absolute value, one watches the spectacle of all forms dancing and singing in the phenomenal world. Now and then out of the waves of essence strange partners appear.

Febuary 6 2008.

February 6 2008

The complete destruction of every nook and cranny of our reactive, struggling and conditioned mind is the total presence of our original mind. The essence of this vast mind is the awareness of simultaneous creation, not memorized pleasure-pain experiences trying to reform themselves in a limited time-space continuum that argues its case from fictional center. This fictional center cannot save itself or compete with the world, how could it when it is not real. The vast realty of our Pure Identity has no center, is not born is not subject to cause and effect and cannot die. Nothing outside our Real Self can harm us, therefore our Reality is Love.

January 31 2008

Total forgiveness exists before any error, it is indestructible and inviolate. Forgiveness is explosive it clears the channels for complete self forgiveness, and union with one’s Pure Identity. Total forgiveness does not forgive while holding onto the belief that one is right and the other is wrong, but realizes in a flash that everything is actually based in absolute indestructible value or grace. Actually we live and learn by one mistake after another, but only in the grace of explosive forgiveness do we expand in joy or become what we term better people, and are a richer expression of life and its unlimited potential.

January 29, 2008

The brain is the seat of memory; it must operate out of a psychological center of experience. The body records the sensations and sentiments of the brain’s belief and desire systems. In the world of the brain’s thinking process everything appears in time and space, this and that, pleasure and pain, good and evil, win and lose, arrogance and fear. Imagination, intuition, and reason are part of the brains activity. In so far as we live in this world, the brain or the thinking process is necessary for the technological means to our security, food, and shelter, etc. It is wise to train the brain’s positive thinking process for what we think about we bring about. But knowledge is not knowing. The vast mind is beyond time and space or me and you experiences, in this vast mind everything is happening at once, and only in the vast mind is there direct knowing of the whole. Direct knowing allows us to operate with the total absence of fear in time and space. The vast mind is total reality and therefore is love.

January 18 2008

It has been extremely cold at night, but this morning the sky’s mind is clear, empty and colored in tender blue. The suns inner explosiveness is aggressively cutting sever patterns of shimmering light out of the world of dark shadows. The excitation of newness is everywhere. Man, for the most part slumbers in the shadows of problems, his inner moral issues and isolated vanity of winning and loosing, fears and resentments. Even the saint is bored to lethargy with his or her resistances against life’s hearty lustfulness. The Sprit of ALL THERE IS is forever young and is dancing and singing in and out of myriads of worlds seen or unseen. Saint or sinner you cannot flatter or condemn anything in the light of ALL THERE IS. You can only be still and surrender to the sacred absolute value that you and I and everything is and always will be.

January 5 2oo8.

January 5 2008.

After sever rains and wind the morning is calm and the sky is a soft pearl grey. Out of my studio window I can see the harbor and the breakwater where large ships lay anchored and patient. White gulls flicker in and out of view between the dark green wall of trees far off, that fence the town from the vast open sea. Meditation is the last flickering of thoughts in and out of the mind with its sensations and sentiments, pulsing and gathering similar feelings in their gravitational pull. The vast sea is like the quiet mind of meditation, limitless, mysterious and seemingly eternal. Pure Identity flashes across the enormority of the Vast Mind. Enormity of no-thing ness is the essence of meditation.