The Project: Part One

My original project began in 2010 and lasted through most of 2011. It spanned from reading about the formation of the earth from both the scientific and mythical perspectives, the evolution of plants, animals and the hominoid species, the levels of consciousness described by Ken Wilber and others, ancient stone structures, the pyramids, Edgar Cayce readings, Zecharia Sitchin’s books about the creation of the Sumerian culture which he believed was due to a race of extraterrestrials from the planet Nibiru…and much more.

Nothing was beyond the scope of my research. I read and read, took lots of notes, and sat by the lake conversing with herons as I tried to absorb the information. I even started writing chapters for the book.

Then, Jenny and I went to an animal shelter, rescued a Goldendoodle with lots of physical and emotional problems, and named her Sophie. Next, thinking that she needed a companion, we rescued another dog and named him Muttley. Soon I was spending more time walking and playing with dogs as my research fell into the background.

I AM–The Sound of Consciousness

Earlier today I noticed that someone read the following blog entry which I had posted on May 4, 2011. It brought back lots of memories: I was living at Lake Douglas in Dandridge, TN, spending hours meditating, reading, taking notes, and attempting to write a book explaining my theory of the All That Is. The book wasn’t written, but I did spend a lot of time sitting by the lake watching herons catching fish. That was thirteen years ago, and I’m still, in one way or another, working on the same project. Below is the entry as it was written:

Yesterday I had an interesting experience during my Jewel Tree Meditation. In the section “the spirit of enlightenment with wisdom, love and compassion” I came to the third level of wisdom which is meditation. There, using the technique called the Diamond Drill, I pursued the question “Who am I?” Normally I defer to Eckhart Tolle’s answer which is “I am the space or the field in which form appears” but sometimes I answer with Thou Art That or the ground of being or the All That Is.

Part Seventy: An Autobiographical Spiritual Journey through Books

The next book recorded was Melchizedek Truth Principles by Frater Achad. He wrote, “Life offers every happiness, peace of mind, health of body. Man should be enjoying these if he but understood the underlying principle of life. What is it? It is simple. It is but harmony. Man shall learn to live in harmony with himself first.”

Since our lake-house lease in Tennessee was expiring, we looked for and found a house on Rocky Fork Lake in Hillsboro, Ohio and purchased it in June, 2013. Moving our possessions from Tennessee to Ohio and getting settled again consumed time and energy, but we were soon set up and I began taking Sophie and Muttley with me to the house and staying for long periods of time.

Krishnamurti was one of my favorites, and I then read his book Can Humanity Change? J. Krishnamurti in Dialogue with Buddhists. The conversations took place in the 1970s in London and included Walpola Rahula among others. Having studied Buddhism, I especially liked this explanation regarding the term “reincarnation”.

When people question the Buddhist view of reincarnation they often ask if it is the same or a different person that returns. “The traditional and classical Buddhist answer is Na ca so, na ca anno—‘Neither he nor another.’ A child grows up to be a man of fifty—is he the same person as the child or is he another? He is neither the same person as the child, nor is he another. That is the Buddhist attitude to rebirth.”

Next was Daoism Explained: From the Dream of the Butterfly to the Fishnet Allegory by Hans-Georg Moeller. In the introduction I appreciated how Moeller reformed our opinion of Daoism, describing it more as a unique philosophy.

“Earlier ‘Western’ prejudices about Daoism have been removed: the Dao is now rarely described in the ‘Godlike’ fashion of an absolute origin or ultimate principle, but rather as the smooth way of nature, as the ongoing process of fertility and production, of living and dying. Similarly, there is now practically unanimous agreement that the Daoist strategy of nonaction (wu wei) is not merely some fundamental passivity which corresponds to a principle of ‘nonbeing,’ but rather a paradoxical way of allowing the most effective and perfect action to occur.”

Part Sixty-four: An Autobiographical Spiritual Journey through Books

On days I didn’t bother the heron down at the lake I would sit in the house and just think. Sometimes I would type what I was pondering, like the examples below which I recorded on July 16, 2010:

“So, as long as you think you are a mind-stream, a mind continuum, or an ego, you have to attend school. You have to go through process as long as you think there is a process to follow; you have to learn lessons as long as you think there are lessons to learn; you have to ‘become’ something as long as you think you are not enough as you are; you have to learn and grow and strive and produce and ‘do’ until you learn that none of that is necessary.”

“Humans are consciousness in form: sensing-mechanisms with the ability to experience an individual point of view. We are a step in the evolutionary process. We must go to school until we realize it is no longer necessary to go to school. We ‘think’ we are becoming something but that is in error. We are already what we are trying to become.”

“We don’t have to live in the confinement of the ego box. We don’t have to become something, do something, achieve something or anything else. All we are here to do is experience consciousness in form and, in a sense, report back to the information field—the One consciousness.”

“It’s like Dzogchen: there is rigpa or energy which appears in many forms and self-liberates—there is nothing a ‘you’ has to do.”

After those rambling thoughts, life changed. For the remainder of the time at the lake house I stopped journaling, started a writing project, contacted Katherine Rone, and began twice weekly telephone sessions for spiritual counseling and healing. [Katsong.com​​]. Since this is an autobiography through books, suffice it to say that the sessions were extremely helpful and I highly recommend Katherine Rone.

As for the writing project, I began compiling my notes from the following books among others:

The Reflexive Universe by Arthur M. Young

Up From Eden by Ken Wilber

The Atman Project by Ken Wilber

The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The Great Transformation: The Beginning of our Religious Traditions by Karen Armstrong

Why Can’t We Be Good by Jacob Needleman

Ta Hseuh and Chung Yung The Highest Order of Cultivation and On the Practice of the Mean

anonymous author, edited by Andrew Plaks

I spent several months organizing my notes according to chapters and made some progress towards a book that I never completed. Today all the information is in my computer in a Word document folder titled Tennessee Research. Since I wrote many entries for the blog at that time, they are still available by selecting ones from the years 2010 and 2011.

In January, 2011, Frank called and asked if I wanted to go on a trip. Of course! Where?

Part Sixty-three: An Autobiographical Spiritual Journey through Books

After finishing Paramahansa Yogananda’s commentary on The Bhagavad Gita, I took a short break from reading and spent time in the cove at the lake. During the winter the water level on the lake is reduced, and in the spring when the dam is opened, logs and debris fill the cove. Soon I developed a routine: up at 5 a.m., meditate, read and write till noon, lunch, remove logs and debris in the cove until dinner, watch television in the evening.

When I was ready to read again, I selected Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life by Gregg Levoy. I found it uncanny that Levoy used the analogy that when we “dam up our energies” we “cut ourselves off from a vigorous source of calls” rather than “demonstrating our passions in the world”. “Passions,” he continued, “become needs, and if those needs are not met, they become symptoms of one sort or another. ‘Summoned or not, the god will come,’ reads the inscription carved over the stone door of psychologist Carl Jung’s house”.

Levoy suggested we ask questions that “seem obvious but often aren’t,” but for me, I had asked them more times than I could count: “Who am I? What matters? What is my gift? What do I need to hear? What on Earth am I doing?”

“Contemplative nuns and monks, writers, and most artists serve the world best, for instance, in solitude,” he wrote. “They touch the world most intimately when they’re completely alone, conferring their medicine through prayer and painting, through writing books and working the beads. They may seldom see a soul yet be engaged in the deepest soul work, which simultaneously serves the greater community.” As for me living alone at the lake, I hoped that was true.

After Callings I turned to the authorized biography of Joseph Campbell A Fire in the Mind by Stephen and Robin Larsen. Campbell is probably best known for his statement, “Follow your bliss,” so I thought, in order to follow something, one has to be called.

Another connection to my recent reading was Campbell’s reference to The Bhagavad Gita when he considered registering for the WWII draft as a conscientious objector. He thought about Arjuna and Krishna and the explanation that we have to accept reality as it is rather than how we would wish it to be. Campbell said, “The Gita does not bring a message congenial to a pacifist. Ultimately it supports the role of duty, and participation—joyful participation in the sorrows of the world.”

In his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces Campbell wrote, “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” In a way, I hoped that my experience at the lake would be my personal hero’s journey. I had a year to find out.

Part Sixty: An Autobiographical Spiritual Journey through Books

It was May 16, 2010. Spring had finally arrived in Ohio, and Jenny and I were off to Tennessee to look for a winter rental so I could escape Ohio’s cold and snow. We drove to the real estate agency in Dandridge and inquired if any winter rentals had become available. Fortuitously, a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a wraparound deck overlooking Lake Douglas was available beginning June 1. The complication, however, was having to sign a year’s lease.

After seeing the house we sat on a bench in the cove and looked at the lake, pondering our decision. Finally, I said if we rented the house I would move there for the year which would give me time to do research and examine my life. Jenny agreed so we drove back to the realtor’s office, signed the lease and made plans to take possession on June 7.

Everything went according to the plan. On June 6 we drove to Tennessee, I in a U-Haul with my car on the attached trailer, and Jenny in her car so she could return to Yellow Springs after helping me get set up. On Friday, June 11, our 16^th wedding anniversary, Jenny left for home. I waved goodbye and went inside to sit in my recliner with the view of Lake Douglas and post-view my decision (as Alan would say in Motorcycle Enlightenment).

In preparation for my year alone I had read Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening by Mary Lutyens. Krishnamurti had said, “As you well know, I have not been ‘happy’ for many years; everything I touched brought me discontentment; my mental condition as you know, my dearest Brother, has been deplorable. I did not know what I wanted to do nor did I care to do much; everything bored me in a very short time and in fact I did not find myself.”

Later, however, he had this experience: “There I sat crosslegged in the meditation posture. When I had sat thus for some time, I felt myself going out of my body, I saw myself sitting down with the delicate tender leaves of the tree over me. I was facing the east. In front of me was my body and over my head I saw the Star, bright and clear. Then I could feel the vibrations of the Lord Buddha; I beheld Lord Maitreya and Master K. H. I was so happy, calm and at peace. I could still see my body and I was hovering near it. There was such profound calmness both in the air and within myself, the calmness of the bottom of a deep unfathomable lake. Like the lake, I felt my physical body, with its mind and emotions, could be ruffled on the surface but nothing, nay nothing, could disturb the calmness of my soul. The Presence of the mighty Beings was with me for some time and then They were gone. I was supremely happy, for I had seen. Nothing could ever be the same.”

I, of course, hoped to have a similar experience but, in the meantime, I would continue reading about it. Thus, I had brought 40 boxes of books with me. I began reading Anthony Storr’s book Solitude: A Return to the Self which seemed appropriate, He wrote that “The creative person is constantly seeking to discover himself, to remodel his own identity, and to find meaning in the universe through what he creates…His most significant moments are those in which he attains some new insight, or makes some new discovery; and these moments are chiefly, if not invariably, those in which he is alone.”

Good Advice from 400 BCE

The Chinese philosopher Mo Tzu taught the following around 400 BCE. “The human-hearted man whose task it is to procure benefits for the world and eliminate its calamities, must establish all-embracing love as the standard of action both for himself and for all others in the world. When everyone in the world acts according to this standard, ‘then attentive ears and keen eyes will respond to serve one another, limbs will be strengthened to work for one another, and those who know the proper principle will untiringly instruct others. Thus the aged and widowers will have support and nourishment with which to round out their old age, and the young and weak and orphans will have a place of support in which to grow up. When all-embracing love is adopted as the standard, such are the consequent benefits. This, then, is Mo Tzu’s ideal world, which can be created only through the practice of all-embracing love.”

The quotation is from Fung Yu-Lan’s book “A Short History of Chinese Philosophy.”

One has to wonder why humanity has not learned this lesson in over two thousand years.

Evolution of the forms of consciousness

Last night as I lay down in bed I had this sudden realization: consciousness itself doesn’t evolve but the forms of consciousness do. I quickly sat up, turned on the light, and jotted a note to myself. What is so ironic about my research is that I’m discovering everything is process and my wife has always said about me, “You don’t like process!”

Here’s where I am in my understanding: There is a process of involution in which consciousness, energy, light, life force, or whatever name we use, somehow or someway comes into form, and through evolving forms, consciousness returns to itself.

When consciousness infuses human form a miraculous process begins. The human form, as I’ve described in previous entries, begins as an immersion in nature and is unable to differentiate itself. After thousands of years humanity differentiates among mind, body and nature. In this part of the process the ego develops. Confused and not sufficiently developed to cope with all the changes it encounters, it looks for something static and permanent rather than identifying with its seemingly more primitive instincts and natural tendencies. Besides, the mind now realizes that everything in nature, including the body, dies and it wants to be immortal.

I have been absolutely fascinated following the paths the ego takes to find permanence. It flows this way and that. L.L. Whyte in his book “The Next Development of Man” explains how the duality and dissociation of the mind and body develop. He then uses “thinkers” as examples of their age.

First there is Heraclitus who realizes there is strife and confusion but that man is part of it and subject to it. Then come Socrates and Plato with the concept of the ideal, looking for permanence in a world of process. Whyte describes it this way: “the intellectual rejection of the phenomenal world of process on account of its sordid ruthlessness and the emancipation of the spirit within its own realm of permanent intellectual clarity and harmony.”

Next come Paul and Christianity which exemplify dualism in the social context. In ancient man the body with its instinctive desires was natural and harmonious with nature, but with the dissociation of the body and mind, the body and its desires were deemed sinful and humanity needed moral laws to prevent people from submitting to their temptations. Hence Jesus comes to “save us” from our sinful nature and provides a static and permanent future in heaven.

In the intellectual context, in the year 1619, Descartes declares “I think, therefore I am.” Whyte describes Descartes as a “man torn from his roots, over-traveled, over-skeptical, over-lonely, over-conscious of himself”, and further, “The dualistic-static form of thought which marks the European tradition attains its most radical expression in Descartes.”

Tomorrow I begin with Spinoza, Goethe, Marx and Freud. And so the process continues: the involution of consciousness into form and the evolution of form into a unitary being that can realize its true nature of consciousness.

Evolution of Consciousness

I have been quite surprised by the number of “hits” on my blog recently. In fact, with a few more I’ll have 1000. So maybe it’s a good time to explain why I haven’t been been adding entries recently.

After two months of adjusting and acclimating to my surroundings here at the lake house, I finally began my “project” in earnest last week which I mentioned in my previous blog.

So far I have summarized Arthur Young’s book “The Reflexive Universe” and documented the process of evolution from light to particle to atom to molecule to plant to animal and finally to what he calls the “dominion kingdom”.

Each kingdom, as he calls it, has seven substages. Present day humanity is in the 4th substage of the dominion kingdom.

Now I’m using Ken Wilber’s books “The Integral Vision and “Up From Eden” to trace the first four substages from the “Dawn Man” up to our present substage.

The fifth substage, I believe, is connected with information from Edgar Cayce and others on the 5th root race. Indigo children would be a perfect example of Young’s 5th substage.

So that’s the beginning of my project and keeping me occupied. Still, I hope readers will continue checking my blog and I will post updates on my research as I go.

Joseph Campbell “Myths of Light” and Daniel Gilbert “Stumbling on Happiness:

Yesterday I finished reading “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert and then started Joseph Campbell’s “Myths of Light: Eastern Metaphors of the Eternal”, edited by David Kudler.

I especially liked this comment from Campbell: “P 6 The fundamental thought in the Oriental philosophical world is that the mysterious, ultimate truth, that which you seek to know, is absolutely beyond all definition. All categories of thought, all modes of imaging fall short of it…The categories of logic, the forms of sensibilities of time and space—all of these are functions of human thought, and the mystery that you’re seeking lies beyond it. This is taken seriously; the absolute is absolutely transcendent of all thought.”

When I was reading “Stumbling on Happiness” two statements by Gilbert made me think of the mind continuum after death and I believe this is what would happen in a “life review”.

The first: “…in the long run, people of every age and in every walk of life seem to regret not having done things much more than they regret they did…”. It seems, to me, this would be an impetus for future incarnation.

And this: “People spontaneously try to explain events, and studies show that when people do not complete the things they set out to do, they are especially likely to think about and remember their unfinished business.”