The Positive Side of Negative Emotions (Part 2)

This entry being a follow-up and perhaps a reiteration of a previous blog entry, "The Positive Side of Negative Emotions." Consider this version 2.0  💁
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I see more and more new age gurus advocating "the elimination of negative emotions." And while that may look good as a book blurb, the reality is that seeking to eliminate emotions (whether positive or negative) is like attempting to grow a pair of wings or poop rainbow sherbet. Stalkers (in the Toltec/nagualism tradition) understand that it is how we use our emotions that determines their value or their liability.

If we eliminate all fear, for example, there's nothing to keep us from wandering blind and blissful into dangerous situations unnecessarily. Without fear, we might pick up a rattlesnake or leap into shark-infested waters. In fact, many Christian cultists have done such things to prove their faith (and their lack of common sense), and seldom if ever does it end well. Some will argue that reason and intellect can replace fear, and while that may be true to a minor degree, it is fear that has kept the species alive and allowed us to develop background instincts which operate often without our conscious awareness. And, for that matter, who's to say that common sense, reason and even intellect are not simply the evolved manifestations of fear?

If we eliminate anger, for another example, we may lose the ability to protect ourselves or those we love if we come under attack. There are plenty of reasons why martial arts masters teach their students to fight... and then teach them how not to fight, though the foundation of self-defense remains whole and intact in the event it is ever needed.

It is often a very real sense of anger that motivates humans to get off their arses, engage their prehensile tails, and actually do something about whatever it is that's pissing them off. The situation at Standing Rock is just one current example - where enough people got angry enough to take a stand. How it ends, no one knows at this point in time. But it is an example of something positive that can happen when anger becomes manifest through action.

Please know, I'm not advocating using anger to justify outright violence. If you're pissed off at your neighbor because his dog craps on your lawn, diplomacy and negotiation would be the first line of action, but taking the law into your own hands would never be an option. So, yes, common sense and intellect play a role in how we learn to use our emotions to our advantage, and also to insure those same emotions don't become a liability that lands one in the slammer or on the receiving end of a lethal injection.

In another example, the recent travesty of an election has riled up the United States in a way I haven't witnessed since the civil rights movement and, later, the "hippie" movement of the 1960s. At this moment in time, we are faced with a president-elect who defines the wind as "deceitful" (yes, the wind!) and encourages his followers to perpetrate violence and racist segregation against those who are different from themselves (LGBT, Muslims, Mexicans, immigrants of all description, women, and only the sleeping gods know what else). The KKK is marching in the street, and redneck homophobes have perpetrated heinous and even murderous acts against gays. If it isn't his ignorance that kills us all, it will be his arrogance.

 But the thing is... on the other side of that mindless violence and hatred, a significantly large number of the American people have become angry enough ("outraged" would be a better word) to take to the streets in (mostly) peaceful protests, initiate petitions to demand a recount, other petitions to encourage the Electoral College members to reconsider their final vote in December, and a host of other potential "alternatives to Agent Orange" with which I am not familiar.

It wasn't passive acceptance that brought about this cry for change. It was anger - and without it, humans would sit quietly in their Lazy Boys and welcome the zombie apocalypse with open arms and a plate full of vegan cookies and soy milk.

What I've observed is that even our dark emotions are part of our warrior's armor and arsenal. Sure, you can say it's common sense that replaces fear and impeccability that takes the place of anger, but any of those things alone may not be enough. It is the whole being - guided by impeccability and intent - who learns to control and direct her emotions appropriately.

We are yin and yang, dark and light. That isn't going to change. As the old saying goes... "The one who wins is the one you feed."

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Define 'Real.'

In a discussion awhile back, a comment was made by a seeker, "I prefer to believe don Juan was real". My response was... "Define real."  The following is what ensued...

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My reason for asking you to "define real" was to determine where your own thoughts lie with regard to the definition itself. The thing is... it was only when I began wrestling myself free of these confining definitions that I began to achieve what my heart had always desired: contact with the infinite, direct interaction with the nagual, personal Knowledge that the world is nothing like we have been taught to believe. So when you said you chose to believe don Juan was real... it just seemed to me your own parameters may be determining what you are seeing.

"The core of your belief determines the realities you see
and obliterates those you choose to ignore."

This was a statement made by Orlando when I was relatively new to the journey, and it has changed the manner in which I choose to believe, the manner in which I see the world. If I already believe that we live on a flat earth, then I have absolutely no incentive or motivation to move my mind into a round earth mindset. In other words, I remain stuck in my status quo based on what I believe - which often isn't at all true with regard to the bigger picture of what-is.

I see a lot of folks so busily looking for the man behind the curtain - trying to prove that don Juan was "real" or "not real" - that they miss out altogether on the magic the wizard is performing. So I prefer to look at it this way: the magic is quite real even if the magician was only a figment of Carlos Castaneda's imagination. But the magic may be far more significantly real (to myself and others walking a similar path) if it can be perceived that maybe (just maybe...) Carlos-the-Buffoon was really the man behind the curtain all along. In other words - just maybe Carlos figured it out for himself, but projected the Knowledge outside of himself into the manifestation of a Yaqui Indian in Old Mexico, to provide a milieu for his own learning, and simultaneously to provide a teacher with whom he could interact. Without that juxtaposition, it is possible to achieve the same results, though it usually takes a lot longer and has the distinct disadvantage of appearing to work in a vacuum.

In other words, it is altogether likely that don Juan was Carlos Castaneda's double in the truest possible sense of the word:  energetically, intellectually, spiritually, infinitely. Whether Carlos himself ever knew this or not, who's to say? The double is the trickster, leaving it up to the mortal self in the Now to dig deeper into the quantum layers, or simply assign the lowest common denominator explanation and take the world on face value.

Any buffoon wandering through the desert may (or may not) have the good fortune to encounter a don Juan. But what if - what if? - what if any of us can be our own don Juan simply by allowing a shift of the assemblage point that sets us outside of what we already think and believe? Then it's a whole other ballgame. Then it is the Self with the power, and not some chance-fate factor which would determine whether or not we ever "meet the master". The "master" is inside us all along - but only manifests if we summon it. And there is the advantage of free will. It's entirely up to you to be don Juan or to be Carlos.

It seems to me at times that many young or inexperienced seekers tend to base their conclusions on narrow parameters within the ordinary world - i.e., they are accepting on Carlos' word that the double could not be verified with tactile sensation, just for one example. If that was your experience, I might tend to take it a bit more seriously, but it is only your belief based on someone else's experience, which may or may not have been "real", and which may or may not have been accurately recorded as it filtered through his own perceptions.

Why does any of this matter? Only for one reason: for as long as you base what you will accept on the past-tense definitions provided for you by someone else, you are living in an "unreal" world out of fear or habit. For as long as I truly believed I knew what was "real", my experience was limited to my own inner agreement of what I would allow myself to perceive.

We are all like this, for we are all human. The trick is getting past our beliefs and into the realm of actually seeing through the eyes of our own unique experiences.

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You Say You Want A Revolution?

In response to the recent "election" here in the US...

I was having a conversation with a fellow seeker, and made the comment that it would require another Revolution to bring this country back to the Intent once held by its founders. Truth aside, this raised in my own mind the realization that I am not at all interested in starting that revolution, nor leading it, nor even really having much concern about it one way or the other.

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world

You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out...
(The Beatles)

For nagualists and anyone else seeking a true evolution of consciousness, the agenda is freedom. A word much bandied about, but seldom truly understood. Some would argue that freedom can only be obtained through conflict, war, etc., using the logic that "Freedom isn't free." On the other hand, I might argue that freedom from conflict, war, etc is more accurately the definition of freedom. I can't imagine that don Juan would have paraded around waving a flag - for, after all, what flag would he have waved? Mexico? Sonora? Yaqui? I can only imagine don Juan would have taken a look at the situation (whatever it may be), and then broken into a howl of laughter with don Genaro at his side, two old brujos crowing with amusement at the pointless shennanigans of foolish humans.

It's folly. All of it. We may tell ourselves it matters because we perceive some threat to our way of life (and admittedly that can be true in certain circumstances); but the ultimate reality is that it is folly. And the current situation is folly on such a huge stage that trying to fix it is even greater folly. Might as well stick one's finger in a dike to stem the great flood.

Knowing that doesn't necessarily solve the problem. But hopefully it helps to regain a perspective of detachment. I'm reminded of don Juan's conversation with Carlos about living strategically...
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"All I can say to you," don Juan said, "is that a warrior is never available; never is he standing on the road waiting to be clobbered. Thus he cuts to a minimum his chances of the unforeseen. What you call accidents are, most of the time, very easy to avoid, except for fools who are living helter-skelter." 

"It is not possible to live strategically all the time," I said. "Imagine that someone is waiting for you with a powerful rifle with a telescopic sight; he could spot you accurately five hundred yards away. What would you do?" 

Don Juan looked at me with an air of disbelief and then broke into laughter.
"What would you do?" I urged him. 

"If someone is waiting for me with a rifle with a telescopic sight?" he said, obviously mocking me. 

"If someone is hiding out of sight, waiting for you. You won't have a chance. You can't stop a bullet." 

"No. I can't. But I still don't understand your point." 

"My point is that all your strategy cannot be of any help in a situation like that." 

"Oh, but it can. If someone is waiting for me with a powerful rifle with a telescopic sight I simply will not come around."  

Carlos Castaneda - A Separate Reality

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Therefore, my Intent in the aftermath of this "election" is simply this. If the government or its minions come to my door to hang me for daring to exist... I simply will not be there.

Folly. A good word to remember.

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Heart-Tongue (The Art of Non-violent Communication)

In his dealings with myself & others, Orlando relies heavily on a form of communication which he has referred to as “mindspeak” or “heart-tongue” – a method of communicating which has the effect of bypassing our day-to-day resistances and speaking directly to the mind/body/spirit connection. Put another way, it is a form of non-violent communication which enables those who master it to essentially become the problem solver rather than the creator of one’s own negative reality.

While it would be impossible to really teach this method of communicating in a single blog entry, I would at least like to draw attention to a few major points of “mind-speak” at a time when it has become obvious that non-violent communication is really the only tool we have for resolving our differences in any manner that will be lasting, healing, and beneficial to all concerned.

Perhaps the first thing I notice in working with others to resolve conflicts is the method of speaking. If every sentence starts with “You…” chances are the speaker has already made up his/her mind, and the sentence will proceed to describe some action (real or imagined) in the mind of the speaker, which has in some manner wronged or inconvenienced him/her. Example: “You didn’t close the door this morning when you left for work.”

In and of itself, there is no real harm in this, except that if it is one’s habit to communicate in such a manner, it may be perceived by the other party that s/he is constantly coming under attack or criticism. What is heard, therefore, often translates to: “You screwed up again.” And automatically a right/wrong scenario is created which is perceived to require some manner of defense… and the result in the big picture is that a conflict is created where one may not have existed previously. Would it be less accusatory, perhaps, to phrase the question differently: “Did you intend to leave the door open this morning when you left for work?”

At that level of communication, a more level foundation is created – there is no automatic assumption of guilt (you left the door open), nor is there any need for the other person to defend their actions. Instead, a window of opportunity for more impeccable communication opens – and it is that window which is critical to consider in resolving conflicts at deeper levels.

It is also crucial in the art of nonviolent communication for someone who finds him/herself in a conflict to really stop and think before speaking. To speak from an assemblage point of anger is to automatically and unavoidably imbue one’s words with conflict – even if that may not be the intent. And if one cannot avoid speaking in anger (if one is angry and must confront some pre-existing conflict immediately), then it becomes even more imperative for the warrior to remember the first agreement: Always be impeccable with your word.

If you must speak during a time when you are angry, at least employ impeccability and consider your words with some manner of care. Bridges burned today do not magically reconstruct themselves in the light of day, and speaking with a forked tongue is usually a sure way to click off a spark that will ignite that dry kindling underneath the bridge’s foundation. So when I find myself in a position of being forced to respond to a situation at a time when I am perhaps angry, my first responsibility is to remember that my anger does not belong to the person to whom I am speaking – in other words, I do not have the automatic right to direct my anger onto another person anymore than I have the right to intentionally cough on a stranger in public if I know I have the flu.

This is the point where a lot of people have the tendency to close off to the possibility of non-violent communication, because it is recognized that there may be what Orlando has come to call “negative pleasantries” associated with the state of being angry. Put another way – it is entirely possible (and we all know this) to actually enjoy being angry at someone because we feel our anger somehow validates us. It has become an icon of self-righteousness – a banner we may carry around like a soldier waving a flag. “Look at what you have done to me!” we proclaim. “You have made me angry!”

And yet…  No one has the ability to make us one way or the other. Through our interactions with others, we may become angry or frustrated, or we may laugh and fall in love. This is not the other person’s doing, but a movement of our own assemblage point. Can someone else shift your assemblage point? Sure – but the secret is that you yourself have to allow it to be shifted. Seekers may choose to allow their AP to be shifted into all sorts of positions: anger, self-righteousness, love, hate, bliss, ecstasy, jealousy, hurt, fear – but a seeker does so with total awareness the resulting emotions which accompany such a shift are not particularly real. Like stepping into a play, the seeker with awareness realizes that his character may be passionately in love, but the actor himself may go home alone to an empty house.

The risk a seeker runs is when s/he forgets s/he is in a play. When the emotions become real as a result of something you may perceive someone did to you, it is time to go back to basics and remind oneself utterly and ruthlessly that what is real is the Self and not the attachments to which the self may adhere from time to time. In almost every case I have encountered, jealousy is a projection of fear. Anger is an expansion of self-importance. Hatred is a manifestation of greed at some level. And so on. It is human nature to attach to the emotion because it can be easily understood and experienced, whereas to really release that attachment usually requires understanding why one feels such a need to attach to the emotion in the first place. What is missing in one’s life, for example, that may cause one to feel “righteous anger” to such an extent that what would otherwise have been a minor infraction may be elevated into an outright war?

Nonviolent communication. How does it work? First and foremost, it requires at first a somewhat constant monitoring and observation of the manner in which one communicates naturally. We are all programmed to speak and to perceive in a certain manner. But when we can actually stop and hear ourselves – really listen to how our speech comes across – we begin to see ways in which we might improve our communication skills, and in doing so, actually improve the quality of our lives.

I am always suspicious, as mentioned above, of any sentence that begins with “You.” By the same token, it is important to be keenly aware of any sentence that begins with “Why?” To ask someone, “Why did you leave the door open when you left for work this morning?” automatically implies that 1) the other person intended to do it; and 2) at a subliminal level of communication, it is transmitted that this was wrong. Accusation and conflict are automatically created in the words themselves, when it would have been just as easy to stalk one’s method of speaking before speaking, and to simply reword it. “Were you aware the door was open when you left this morning?”

The other side of that rephrased question is being open to really listening to the answer that comes back. Even when/if you learn to communicate in a non-violent manner, there are no guarantees that someone else will do the same – but the chances are much higher that conflicts can be resolved peacefully and less painfully if at least one party stalks the fine art of listening, rather than just automatically launching into the internal dialogue of what you intend to say next.

Nonviolent communication is a two-way street when it works best – and often that is going to require an impeccable warrior to make the first move in that direction, and to truly think about what is meant by projecting his/her words in a non-aggressive manner, and being open to really listening to the responses that are generated by the other party. Too often, until a warrior becomes a master of awareness, s/he may fall into the same old traps that any ordinary human being would: the trap of belief=projection=manifestation. Put another way: if I already believe you have stolen something from me, and I say to you, “Why did you steal that trinket?”, I am going to literally manifest a conflict, particularly if I am not able to listen/hear what the other person is going to say in response. If my mind is already made up, perception is reality, in other words. So no matter what the other person may say, it is entirely up to me to listen and to further the dialogue from there, rather than escalate the argument.

The finest warriors I have ever known are those who are the finest diplomats.

May 13, 2007

From a conversation at
"The Front Porch Gatherings"

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Seizing the Tiller of Creation

For the sake of clarity, it would help to comprehend what is really meant by a shifting of the assemblage point. What you think of as reality is organized and categorized according to the ordinary input of the five senses, yes? But more than that, it goes something like this: a tree is a tree and it is green and leafy because this is the language the dominant species has chosen to identify that construct to the masses. It is an object made of language to which everyone has agreed to agree as to what the words generally mean. Ah, but to someone who has learned to see, the tree is really only an arrangement of energy cast in the shape of the tree. In first attention, the tree is the tree because the word has meaning. In second attention, the tree is an arrangement of energy, clearly seen, resembling what is known to the first attention as "tree". In the third attention, or the seventh sense, the energy comprising the tree is actually the raw matter of true quantum sorcery, and can be called upon to represent whatever the sorcerer might desire to perceive. This is the foundation of creation, the cornerstone of a separate reality.

Ah, but never forget: the act of creation requires extreme energy, so the goal of entering the seventh sense isn't just to begin rearranging all the stray molecules into castles and dragons and faerie creatures of lore. Just as the world with which you are familiar is largely created for you by those who have gone before, so it is here, but the difference is that here the world is will and death is neither landlord nor tenant.

So what does this have to do with a shift of the assemblage point? Simply this: as long as you see only the tree, a tree is all it will ever be. When you learn to perceive the glossy construct of the underlying energy, you have taken a step toward undoing the world of matter and men. And when at last you stand in the seventh sense and can command the energy of the tree to be anything you will it to be, you will have mastered your own creation in ways that should begin to be obvious to you. Shall I give you a hint? It is this: in the seventh sense, the trick to staying is to recreate the self using the tools of perception and the will and intent of the sorcerer's magick. Understand this, for it is the secret to your ultimate evolution: when you can enter the seventh sense and will the raw matter/energy of creation to be the immortal "other," and when you can not only interact with it but exert will and intent to inhabit it, you will have willed your own immortality, yes?

Study this. Lightly and deeply, with delicate vision. Read it in half-light where logic looks over the shoulder of magick, only a background voice in the chorus. Think on it in the alpha shadows of early dreams. Understand it with the body-spirit even if the stubborn program of your humanity tries to brush the words aside. Know that words are reality. When your humanity fights to cling to the words of the world it knows, it is because these otherwords can create otherworlds which threaten the status quo. I am the destroyer of stasis. You are the creators of reality. We are creator and created, dreaming toward one another. When we meet in the middle the dream becomes a separate reality capable of being inhabited. This is how we seize the tiller of creation. This is how we become I Am.

Orlando (November, 2000)
Excerpted from Quantum Shaman (Diary of a Nagual Woman)

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Double, Double

I have come to see that one reason so many of us are drawn to the Toltec path is because we do know - from the intuitive level of silent knowing - that there is a way to retain our awareness and inhabit the totality of ourselves after our physical bodies run out of juice. I am acutely aware of things I believe, and yet I would have to honestly say that my understanding/experience of the double goes well beyond just a belief system. I cannot say that I know the entire process of what happens to us after we die, but the gnosis which comes directly from the double creates a synapse of energy/awareness that is not unlike having one "self" here in this world, and the other "self" already in the infinite - which is probably why THE EAGLE'S GIFT resonated with me on such a profound level. For myself, it's not just something I believe, it's who I am.

Granted, that is purely subjective. 100%. Maybe it will seem like only a belief to some, but I can say with certainty that what I have experienced of the double comes from an aspect of myself that is nowhere near the same as my belief, for example, that the sun will rise tomorrow. The awareness is experienced in a different way, and in an entirely different "part" of the energy body.

People who make a living reading body language say that when a person is telling the truth, they may tend to look up and to the right - they are accessing the actual memory banks of the physical brain, calling down the hard drive, so to speak. OTOH, when the person is creating a fiction, they will look up and to the left, accessing the creative brain/mind. My experience of both "the right way to live" (a concept brought forth by don Juan) and gnosis (silent knowing) come from whatever aspect of the self has Knowledge - the hard drive of experience. My belief that the sun will rise tomorrow, or that the car will start up so I can drive to work... come from the creative/belief aspect.

Again, wholly acknowledged as 100% subjective... but that's okay by me because I know and trust who I am. So...  I know what I believe, I believe what I choose, and I know what I simply and silently know.

SOME FURTHER THOUGHTS

In my experience, the double can remain entirely within the existing humanform, or it can essentially bi-locate anywhere/anywhen in the manifestation of the multi-verse. As an aside, this is how I see so-called "past lives" - not other bodies or other times we have inhabited, but other positions of our own assemblage point, experienced & recorded by the double. At times (such as Dreaming or intense journeys with power plants) one may actually shift the "human" (mortal) awareness into the assemblage point of the double - and there is a sudden influx of awareness/experience/knowledge to which we do not have access in ordinary awareness.

What I've determined is that the whole purpose of this "double" - which is comprised of energy and awareness, but which MAY become manifest if there is sufficient reason (as Genaro's double often did), is that it creates an energetic "mirror" of sorts which MAY serve as a point of reference and/or a point of perception for our awareness following the death of the physical form. The double is the self in eternity/infinity.

What it boils down to is that the mortal self is like the egg in which awareness gestates (and grows, through experience & nurturing), and the double is the infinite and eternal configuration which is not limited by humanform concerns into which our awareness "hatches". The double is the super-position of the assemblage point** - once the double is sufficiently dreamed by the warrior, it is everywhere and nowhere, and all that would be required for it to manifest would be intent and focus.

Because the double is ubiquitous, it has access to the all - knowledge, awareness, information - and it may serve as guide/mentor to the human self in the manner that don Juan referred to as "the double is now dreaming you." The sufficiently developed double becomes the teacher/benefactor, though this may even occur at a level where the mortal/earthly warrior isn't really aware of it until some time later, if ever. I've long felt that Don Juan Matus was Carlos's double, but by the time Carlos figured it out, there was simply no way he could have explained it to the world at large through his books. He gave some hints, I felt, but that's another story for another time. 

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**SUPER-POSITION OF THE SELF or SUPER-POSITION OF THE ASSEMBLAGE POINT – A point of awareness wherein the seeker and the Other (double) have conjoined to embrace the Totality of awareness.  At this point, consciousness becomes ubiquitous, inhabiting all quantum positions simultaneously, thereby allowing for consciousness to take on certain similarities of light.  Particle and wave – particle being what might be experienced should consciousness make the decision to “localize” into a specific point in time and space; wave being the non-local presentation of awareness, wherein it is a ubiquitous field spanning all of space/time simultaneously.

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If you think it matters...

by Mikal Nyght
Author of TEACHINGS OF THE IMMORTALS

If you are caught in the leg trap of politics or the cess pool of religion, then you have not yet overcome the part of you that thinks "It Matters!"

When a seeker tells me, "I like to be informed," what I am really hearing is the prittle prattle of self-importance and the puffing out of the chest which generally indicates that the seeker has become so full of shite that he cannot see the forest for the big brown logs he is producing to obscure his own path.

"Oh my precious lord!" some are certain to exclaim. "Is Mikal saying we shouldn't vote? shouldn't care? shouldn't even know what's going on in the world?" No. What I'm saying is that a true seeker doesn't need to get "involved" in the political monkey circus unless he has made the commitment to the consensus, and if that is the case, then he might as well abandon this path altogether, suckle up to the teat of Society, and become a card-carrying member of The Real World, and therefore also a member in good standing of The Lunatic Majority, which would try to convince you of its righteous goodness by virtue of its numbers and all those celebrities with their perfectly capped white teeth who smile the alluring smile of a phantom and tell you why you should vote for This or That Trending Asshole, when the reality is that you already know right from wrong in your tiny little heart if you have even the slightest glint of awareness somewhere in that confuddled orb sitting on the top of your shoulders.

Within every living creature (and most inorganics) there is a frequency which aligns with what is commonly called silent knowing. Put simply, you already know through your own intuitive awareness who or what to vote for (if you must insist on playing such pedantic games), you already know who and where The One True God resides, and you already know perfectly well that not one bit of this matters in the Great Big Picture Puzzle known as life on the path to freedom, or even back seat activities on the long & winding road trip to immortality.

You can't really be informed, particularly if you think that education is going to come from the media or social justice warriors or the propaganda being shoved up your chute by this or that political party, or this or that guru, or this or that religious icon. If you really stop and examine where your political bent is coming from, you will find (100% of the time) that you have been programmed by someone or something other than Ultimate Truth, for the sad and ugly truth is that there is no truth in the gladiatorial arena which is the milieu of all politicians. Therefore, how can you be informed when everything you hear or see is a Lie? You know this, but you do not want to believe it, because you have been so conditioned to think-you-believe in what is right and good, when you are really only a rusty mouthpiece and conduit for the bullshit that is going up your arse and coming out of your mouth in the form of regurgitated rhetoric and dangerous dogma.

Think. For. Yourself.

If you decide you really must vote, then do so. But do so 1) knowing it will make no difference whatsoever; and 2) from the assemblage point of silent knowing that has nothing to do with what you have heard or read or seen on the righteous flat screen screaming at you from the very pit of the lowest common denominator. Treat it as controlled folly if you must, but it is the kind of folly that tends to have a lot of glue, making it difficult to put aside even when you know it is folly. Best not to try on that mask at all, no?

Believe it or not, if everyone voted from their heart, the world would be a beautiful paradise with trees and flowers and chirping birds and a new car in every garage and free housing and no-cost medical care for all. (And if you believe that, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you cheap-cheap.) It makes no difference. Not really. I've been around long enough to see that several times over, but please don't take my word for it. Sit with your Silence. Ask your ethereal twin which way you should vote - and when he stops howling with laughter at your naivete, maybe you will finally start to *see* that those rare few who succeed on this path do so by avoiding the trappings, cliches and false belief systems which otherwise enslave them to the consensus reality for the duration of their short lives.

Immortality isn't found in political areanas or religious agendas. If you think otherwise, you have already lost the battle.

Darkly, forever,
Mikal Nyght

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I hope you will order Mikal's book, Teachings of the Immortals.

Are Most Hate Crimes Rooted in Religious Dogma?

In the aftermath of the Orlando shootings at the Pulse nightclub, questions have been raised on all levels - political, cultural, emotional, spiritual. Was it an act of terrorism? Was it a hate crime? Was it the work of a religious fanatic? 

When the event first happened, I read all I could, and posted the following to my Facebook page:

Since I'm not known for being politically correct, I'm going to say what I believe rather than what I'm supposta say when some asshat walks into a nightclub and slaughters 50+ people. The bottom line here is that most mass shootings nowadays are carried out by religious nutbags of one ilk or another. I don't care what your particular sect of crazy might be, but you need to understand that you are NOT doing the will of God. For starters, "God" doesn't exist, and even if s/he DID exist, keep in mind that s/he created ALL humans equally (according to myth) - gay, straight, black, white, brown, rainbow sprinkles That being the case, it's not up to YOU to decide who lives and who dies. It's not up to YOU to destroy "God's" creations - for isn't that flying in the face of whatever God you believe in? It's not up to YOU to come into a country that is a "melting pot" and decide that only YOUR beliefs are valid. 

Personally, I think ALL religious nutbags (no matter race, color or creed) should be shipped off to an island in the middle of the North Atlantic and forced to live with one another or die trying. (I'm talking about the real nut cases here - not someone with a "social" belief who goes to church for the cupcakes and camaraderie.) 

Why is it up to us (anyone!) to watch out for your sad little belief systems, lest you pick up an automatic weapon and start shooting because you are offended? Really? What a pathetic "god" you must worship who created you to be so frightened and absurdly arrogant at the same time. I'm glad the police shot you before you could do anymore damage. I hope you suffered. And I hope you rot in whatever hell you have made for yourself. 

Next time you are planning violence, be sure to shoot yourself first - fatally. Only afterward should you take out your petty fanaticism on others.

Most of the comments I received were positive, though a few of them called into question the idea that we all make our choices and must take responsibility for them at one level or another. Hmmm. While I don't disagree with that in the least, I do think it's important to make a distinction between what Carlos Castaneda referred to as "ordinary men" and a warrior or "man of Knowledge."

In his book, A SEPARATE REALITY, Carlos details a conversation with don Juan as follows:

 "All I can say to you," don Juan said, "is that a warrior is never available; never is he standing on the road waiting to be clobbered. Thus he cuts to a minimum his chances of the unforeseen. What you call accidents are, most of the time, very easy to avoid, except for fools who are living helter-skelter." 

"It is not possible to live strategically all the time," I said. "Imagine that someone is waiting for you with a powerful rifle with a telescopic sight; he could spot you accurately five hundred yards away. What would you do?" 

Don Juan looked at me with an air of disbelief and then broke into laughter. 

"What would you do?" I urged him. 

"If someone is waiting for me with a rifle with a telescopic sight?" he said, obviously
mocking me. 

"If someone is hiding out of sight, waiting for you. You won't have a chance. You can't stop a bullet." 

"No. I can't. But I still don't understand your point." 

"My point is that all your strategy cannot be of any help in a situation like that." 

"Oh, but it can. If someone is waiting for me with a powerful rifle with a telescopic sight I simply will not come around."

What needs to be understood here is that don Juan as he is portrayed in the books is a man of Knowledge - a Nagual, an enlightened being, a warrior and, yes, a "sorcerer".  As such, his awareness is far more keenly honed than that of an ordinary man, so while don Juan may be altogether capable of Knowing the sniper is present, the same cannot be said of humans in general. So when someone tries to argue that those present at the nightclub chose to be present there, and so knowingly chose their death, I would argue that those people were largely if not entirely "ordinary men and women" there to have a good time with friends, dance and drink, and maybe go home with a stranger or long-time companion. Not ours to judge, but also not wise from a spiritual perspective to attempt to draw an alignment between their choices as compared to the choices a man or woman of Knowledge might make.  Apples and oranges, people. Humans should be allowed to simply be humans - laughing and dancing and being alive - without having to worry that a crazed fanatic is going to storm the joint and start shooting.

Yes, we all have the potential to be like don Juan - to know when the sniper is present and therefore to choose not to come around - but we also have the potential to realize that don Juan may be a fictional character with super-powers above and beyond those of any ordinary man or woman. I'm not here to debate the veracity of Castaneda. Anyone who follows me knows I have ultimate respect for his works and his teachings, but that doesn't mean I accept them (or any other writings) as Absolute Truth.  And it also means, as my own mentor has pointed out countless times, every practitioner has the responsibility to take the Knowledge one step further than where you found it.

Point being - we all have a sixth sense that warns us of possible danger, but most simply don't listen to it (usually because they don't know how), and those who do may often choose to ignore it out of a sense of self-doubt and the social programming that whispers in our ear, "You're just being paranoid. That snake isn't poisonous and that apple looks yummy, so stop being a wuss and just do it!"  Unfortunately, whatever decision we make, there are consequences - some of them whimsical, others deadly.  But either way, unless someone is already a man or woman of Knowledge - a brujo, sorcerer, seer - those choices occur on a purely subliminal level and seldom at the level of conscious awareness.  So to those who would argue that "these people chose their time to die," I would say this is not only highly unlikely, but also a thinly veiled attempt to blame the victims for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sorry, but I don't buy into the "Your time has come" logic. These people were vital and alive 24 hours ago and now they are dead because some lunatic religious fanatic decided their time was over. It is not the doings of spirit. It is the doings of (crazy) men. The acts of a madman cannot be minimized in favor of some attempt at comforting oneself with the notion that "it was their choice". That's just an attempt to put one's emotional ducks in a row when what we really need to be doing is looking the snake in the eye and *seeing* it for what it is.

What we need to understand is that most "hate crimes" are actually rooted in religious dogma at some level. By nature, we don't hate gay people or green people or smart people just because of what they are. We learn to hate them by the subtle and not-so-subtle programming that is put onto us by the world at large - religion, politics, culture, etc. In that way, religion is still at the root of most hate crimes. While the Bible may be full of messages of love, it is just as full of messages of hate and fear - so it stands to reason that humans will tend to respond at the lowest common denominator (fear and hatred). Examine your programming. Ask yourself not just what you believe, but why you believe it. Only then will you start to *see* that most of your beliefs come from what you've been told to think rather than what you really know about the world and all those gay, green and other assorted "different" people.

Haters aren't born. They are created from fear and false beliefs. They are often created by well-meaning family members, friends and peers - and more often than not through the accumulation of centuries of religious dogma that hangs like an albatross around the world today.

Understanding that is the first step toward a truer and deeper understanding of why things are the way things are.  It is also the first step toward undoing the programs that only limit our unlimited potential.

I can only offer my heart-felt condolences to those who lost loved ones in the Orlando shootings, and my sincere hope that if anything good can come of this, it will be an increased Knowledge that fear, hatred and violence will never solve anything, but only deepen the rift between the self and the infinite. May all who died rest in peace. May the rest of us live with greater awareness and increased empathy for all living things.

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What do you believe and why do you believe it?
To learn more about how programming is created
and how to rid yourself of it, consider this Quantum Shaman workshop
for the solitary practitioner.

Undoing the Programs: Unlocking Your Infinite Potential