Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

I don't care what happens when I die,
and I cannot imagine why it matters.
Here I am, now what? 
Is the only question that concerns me.
What is being asked of me right here, right now?
What am I being called to do?

If I can get that right,
and do what needs me to do it,
when, where and how it needs me to do it,
I'll have it made.
For now.
After that?
More of the same until I die.
And after that?
I do not care.

Knots in a rope.
Waves on the sea.
Clouds in the sky...

Untie the knots, we still have the rope,
Disappear the waves, we still have the sea.
Remove the clouds, the sky remains.

When I'm gone life goes on.
What becomes of me has no impact,
though my absence may have one,
there is nothing I can do about that.
And I am not going to be bothered by it
here and now.

And you?

I play a game with myself
where I invite God to live my life.
I disappear and my projection of God takes over.
I can become absorbed in the role,
and enjoy seeing/doing things 
from the standpoint of my idea of God.
It definitely uplifts my game.

I encourage you to give it a go.
See how your idea of God would do you.

Our present life situation is exactly what we need
to bring us forth to meet the world as the world needs
us to meet it.

This is the magic at work in our lives.

Our need to be who we are meshes perfectly
with the world's deepest need in each here, now
that comes along.

We are precisely the answer the cosmos is looking for
in the present moment of our life.

And this is true in every moment of our life.

It only takes emptying ourselves of all thoughts/emotions/memories/etc.
and sitting quietly in the silence to know that it is so.

We are what the moment needs.

The moment waits for us to realize that 
and stand up and meet the moment.
Doing the thing that is called for,
where, it is called for,
when it is called for,
how it is called for,
moment after moment.

That's all the Buddha did.
That's all Jesus did.
That's all everyone who did it right did.

Why hold back?
We have everything it takes.
Let's go!

Everyone has a different idea of how things ought to be.
People who think they know best and must be pleased 
are a blight upon the rest of humankind.
All voices need to be heard but.
The voices that seem to be listened to
are the voices with money and/or who are insistent, loud, and ever-present, refusing to go away.
They want to make the rules and force them to be observed.
Slighting generally always the poor, the mentally/physically impaired, the marginalized of society, and those who generally
are "on the outside looking in."

The people "on the margins" need people to stand with them there. To see them and help them to feel seen in a way that cares about them and makes them welcome.

Father Greg Boyle has some excellent videos about being with people on the margins. An internet search for his name will bring him into our life in a way that brings people on the margins into our life, making life around the circle of human kind a better life on a lot of levels in a lot of ways.

We could spend our time in worse ways.

The Buddha died,  
nothing changed.

Jesus died,
nothing changed.

Everyone dies.
Nothing changes.

All of the changes 
that have been made--
and there be multitudes,
from the caves to the high rises,
from clubs to nuclear warheads--
have changed nothing.

Everyone who dies
lives in the service of something.
For what?
More people are destitute today
than were destitute on the first day.
More people are homeless.
And what does "hope" mean?
Do we have more reason to be "hopeful" today
than any day?
What do we hope for today
that hasn't been hoped for every day?

All this being said,
In light of what do we live?
I suggest these words as values, aims, intentions
to live by and for, serving with our life always:

Authenticity.
Integrity.
Truth.
Equality.
Justice.
Liberty.
Nobility.
Honor.
Kindness.
Compassion.
Gentle heartedness. 
Trustworthiness.
Sincerity.
Valor.
Devotion.
Allegiance.
Perceptivity.
Balance.
Harmony.
Good humor.
To know what is called for
in each situation as it arises
and do what needs to be done about it
when, where, how it needs to be done,
no matter what all our life long.

I invite you to add to the list
as you see fit
and to live in ways that bring the list
to life in your life all your life long.

I wish experience were easier to come by.
All of my greatest snafus are the result of inexperience.
"If I had only known!" are the "famous last words"
of many of us.
And they certainly apply to me.

Which suggests to me that we would benefit from
reading biographies/auto-biographies
and belonging to discussion/therapy groups
where people were speaking "straight from the heart
about the things that matter most."

Can you imagine speaking straight from the heart
about things that matter most in, say, the 5th grade?
Or as a sophomore in high school or college?
Or anywhere, really, throughout in our life?
We can't trust anyone in this matter 
outside of a 12-Step group--
which is why 12-Step groups are necessary. No?

If we could learn from someone else's experience,
it would save us a lot of grief, pain and sorrow,
but places where that can be done are hard to find
during the times in our life when we need it most.

Making The School of Hard Knocks the source
of our most important lessons on the way to here from there
in knowing what's what and what to do about it.

I wonder if grandparents were more truthful
in the early years of the human race.
But even if they were,
they wouldn't have lived long enough
to be much of a help.
And no one listens to grandparents, anyway. No?

Where would we be without our escapes,
diversions, distractions, denial, retreats...?

The experience of being alive asks too much of us
"late and soon."

Squaring ourselves up with "the way things are"
is an on-going, never-ending task.
"It's always something."
And we all need a break from time to time,
and never seem to catch a break.
It is "more of the same" all the time.

So, here's to courage, and good humor,
and the ability to not take anything
with more seriousness than it deserves!

And the best of luck to us all
all along the way!

If we take the Hindu idea of Brahman as the spiritual 
foundation of the cosmos and understand it to mean that "All 
is Brahman," so that everything is the same essence appearing in different guises--which Einstein encourages us to do using the word, "energy" instead of "Brahman," in his statement, "Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted or transformed," no one would object. "Brahman" brings forth objection. "Energy" does not.

And I have another word for you. I propose that the spiritual--"spiritual" because it has no material/physical properties in that it cannot be weighed, measured, observed and kept in the attic--foundation of the universe be thought of from this time forth as "Psyche."

We all experience Psyche. From Jung and Freud we understand Psyche as the source of our dreams, neurosis, psychosis, and a wide variety of powers, proclivities and phenomena. I propose that Psyche is cosmic-wide and the source of energy and life,
and is readily mistaken for/confused with God, and is "That Which Has Always Been Called God." And, best of all in my book, is completely without theology! Though it probably will not remain so, because it is a human propensity to make up stories and force other humans to believe their stories to be true. No?

There are places that restore our souls.
That restore us to our souls.
That put us back in the company of our souls.
We should spend more time in those places.

Beauty is truth.
Truth beauty.
Even when it is ugly, horrible, terrible, no good.
Truth does not lie or deceive 
and that is the beauty of truth.

We know what's what thanks to truth,
and can gather ourselves for the work that needs to be done.
And do it, when, where, and how it needs to be done.
No matter what.
In each situation as it arises.
And let that be that.

We take our courage from the places of beauty and truth,
and live in the service of beauty and truth,
all our life long.

And all the people said,
"May It Be SO!"

Following up on the previous post, Alan Watts makes Hinduism plain. He says, The Upanishads, the sacred writings of the Hindus, says,“The intangible non-objective ground of everything that exists is identical with the ground of you.”  "And it is fundamental to Vedanta that the supreme Self is neither one nor many, but as they say non-dual. And they express that in this word advaita—a, is a negative word like non, dvaita is from dva, same as the Latin duo, two. So advaita is non-dual.” It is not one and not two, not nothing and not not-nothing. 

Watts says, “The intangible non-objective ground of everything that exists is called Brahman.” And we cannot hold ourselves aloof from it and talk about it because we are it! The Hindus would say, about us and it, "tat tvam asi  Thou Art That! You Are It! We are it!"

I propose that this "intangible non-objective ground of everything that exists" could as easily be called “The Psyche,” rather than "Brahman." We could say "The Psyche is the ground and substance of our existence," which we perceive/experience as “not ourselves” and call it “God.” And are at the point of understanding that "Thou Art That" applies to us!

We are the Psyche! ALL is the Psyche! The Psyche is God. We are God. Just as the Hindus would say, "All is Brahman! We are Brahman!" And theology, theologies, are imagined into existence as projections of our interpretations of reality and are not reality itself. Our theology is us pretending we are not God. But the actual truth is Thou Art That!

It all is Psyche!