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.