Just. One. Thing.

On another forum I frequent, much concern is given to the idea of the new age movement. Anyone wanting additional background on where I'm coming from can check out the link here...

http://sorcery.yuku.com/topic/3972/Narcissism-and-Spiritual-Materialism-The-New-Age-Legacy

My comments below are a result of this discussion, although I think they have relevance as a stand-alone post as well.
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Worrying about the new age movement is no different than worrying about whether a rogue comet is going to hit the earth. There's nothing we can do about it either way, which is why a warrior practices the right way to live - and usually in a solitary fashion, with no concern for what "others" are doing. I personally agree with the general sentiment being expressed here - the "new age movement" is a crock of crap, a load of bullshit served up in a bunch sweetness and light wrappers, with a hefty serving of crystals and candles on the side.

For warriors on a path of spiritual evolution, that kind of thing is *seen* for what it is, dismissed with detachment, and that is simply that. Trying to change it is like trying to stop that rogue comet. The sheeple who think they are going to save their souls or cure their ills with crystals and candles are the same sheeple who have earned the term "bliss ninnies", and they are no more warriors than I'm an astronaut, so why would anyone here really care WHAT they do? Kinda like the Christians who go to church every Sunday and expect a reward in heaven for their efforts. If they believe that kind of nonsense, it's at their own peril - and NOT my obligation to save them from their own idiocy. Ditto with the "new agers".

Where warriors are concerned... there is really only one thing to learn. One. Thing.

If one wants to survive this life and especially if one wants to survive beyond it, the key to doing so is the creation of the double. While in organic form, we experience the double most commonly as gnosis - silent knowing. Beyond the organic form, we can speculate all day long, but the bottom line is that the double becomes the vessel of our awareness beyond the event horizon "Death", or beyond the Eagle's reach (if you prefer Toltec terminology). Everything ELSE a warrior does is leading to that goal. Sure, there are the tools. Lose self-importance. Intent. Will. Stalking. Dreaming. Detachment. Controlled folly. The right way to live... and so on. But ALL of those things are leading to the ONE thing: THE TOTALITY OF ONESELF (which is the combined awareness of the mortal self and inorganic double).

It's really quite simple. We all know HOW it's done, and hopefully we are all do-ing it. It requires no crystals or candles or incense or leather paddles. The problem with "new age" is that it tends to get lost in the tools and the tricksters wielding them. I've met a lot of bliss ninnies who absolutely believe they are going to get "it" through all of these material "tools". That's THEIR problem, not yours or mine.

The warrior creates his double with the tools outlined above, none of which can be purchased at a swank new age emporium. The only thing a warrior MIGHT need are a few good books to aid in stripping away the belief systems that hold her prisoner to the consensus, but even that is questionable. Some of us figured it out first, then read Castaneda (and others) after the fact.

For a warrior, all the Knowledge you will ever need is already inside you - through the place of silent knowing. Part of knowing how to LISTEN is learning how to STOP listening/worrying about new age movements and the like. It really doesn't concern the warrior whatsoever.

Formula for a warrior:

Mortal Awareness + Awareness of the Double = Freedom

The rest is just distraction, provided to you by the foreign installation.
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The Back Door of The Dark Enlightenment

Years ago when I first began pursuing this path, it was my belief that a state of enlightenment or being awakened would result in what amounted to total peace. Heh. So much for false belief systems. A few days ago, corresponding with an old friend, we were comparing inventories with regard to the notions of enlightenment. Not surprisingly, her list and mine were virtually identical in many respects.
With that said, here's some of a list I compiled a couple of years ago. When I dug it out of the mothballs of cyberspace, I was somewhat surprised to find that not much has changed in those 2 years, so... "awakening" does appear to be a state-of-mind/being that, once achieved, doesn't change very much, other than to expand from its own foundation.
1. I walk through life now looking more at the scenery than the inhabitants - i.e., on long drives I am focused on the mountains, the weather, thoughts of the infinite, which leads to...

2. The human world has lost all meaning, if it ever had any.

3. There is nothing I truly long to do with regard to humanform activities. I have no desire to travel (because all destinations are within myself, therefore no real reason to leave home). I have no interest in writing the Great American Novel (so it stands to reason I'm a better writer now than pre-enlightenment, but now I have nothing I want or need to communicate...) The cornerstone of enlightenment is irony.

4. All "causes" have lost all meaning, with the exception of what I do personally & individually. I would rescue a lost kitten if it crossed my path, for example, but I would not go out and join "causes" as I might have done in the past.

5. I used to think I could "get through to people" if only I could explain myself better. This was a demon w/ my MIL in particular, and a few former forum members. LOL. Now, I no longer care if they "get me" or not.

6. There is a sense of isolation even when in the company of those closest to me, particularly as I watch them move further and further from "enlightenment", moving deeper and deeper into "the agreement". I find myself torn between wanting to pull them back onto the path, yet knowing that anything I say might as well be said to ghosts, to an idea, a fictional character. The world at large cannot hear me, for I am the ghost.

7. I marvel at the ignorance of humans. Particularly as it relates to religion. They are content to believe in God(s), but take no interest in matters of their own spirit.

8. Prior to enlightenment, I always "believed" it would result in a state of well-being and a perpetual smile. Not so. I am still the same person, just more disconnected from the hive. No perpetual bliss, no eternal torment. Just... a different manner of looking at the world through the same eyes. Clarity without any great need to "fix" anything.

9. Nothing really matters, but everything is significant.

10. The flaw in the human program is that the program itself is utterly flawed. This especially pertains to mortality - by the time we are old enough or smart enough to receive "enlightenment", we are closer to the end than to the beginning.

11. If life has any meaning, it is the manifestation of spiritual evolution. What does that mean? I *see* it as a permanent shift of consciousness to what might be an inorganic state of infinite awareness. Jury's still out. Ergo, at present, life has no profound meaning other than existence itself.

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I'm sure there are other observations could make, but... see #2 above.





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The Medical (Un)Profession: Wankers & Quacks!

Is it just me, or is the medical profession comprised of the biggest bunch of bozos and wankers ever to come down the sewer pipes? Went to the doc a few weeks ago 'cuz I was having chest pains - probably related to my back, also probably related to the stress (what? me? stress?) that accompanies running one's own business in an economy that has been programmed to decline and continue to decline even when there is (and I quote) "not much logical reason for the continuing deterioration." But no matter... The world is a nuthouse and the lunatics are running the asylum, so... nothing new there.

Chest pains, I say. So the doc stares at me for awhile, doesn't even listen to my heart to see if I'm dead or alive, then starts writing prescriptions for the most expensive drugs on the market without so much as a by-your-leave. "You are a diabetic," he reminds me in his thick accent, as if that should explain so much for so many at a time when it seems to me that "diabetes" is the fad diagnosis of the 21st century in the same way ADHA and MPD were the fad diagnoses of the '90s. Put another way: he is telling me to behave like the label he has stuck to my ass, and gets uppity when I remind him that I am neither a label nor a dis-ease. I am a person with a name and a life partner and a cat and a dog. I am not just a "diabetic" - and with good reason - for once we become labeled by our handlers (doctors, lawyers and charlatans of all walks of life), we become to them nothing more than the label itself. And let's face it, folks. Diabetes is the cash cow of the decade! Walk into any Walmart or Rite-Aid or the like, and you will find not just a small shelf of diabetis supplies, but an entire aisle consisting of a cornucopia of products designed to put a smile on any CEO's face. So keep in mind that when your doctor tells you you're a diabetic, what he's REALLY seeing is not your potential well-being or lack thereof, but a long line of checks in the form of kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies - who KNOWINGLY market products which have more side-effects than potential benefits. Any doubt, do your own research. I did - and I was appalled!

Ask your doctor. Go ahead.

Maybe it stands to reason that when I came out of a store yesterday and glanced at the newspaper racks, there was a glaring headline which read something like, "Diabetes expected to triple by the year 2050 - 1 in 3 will have the disease!" Be afraid! Be very afraid! Run to the priests of the scalpel and ask your doctor about all those yummie drugs that are just as likely to kill you as to cure you. Wear this label! Act out your dis-ease! Be a good patient! Play your role!

Role. You're in a play, you know. We all are. Yes, including your doctor, who probably knows a lot less about your body than you do. A few months ago, one doc tried to schedule me for a prostate exam. ??? That could get interesting.

Here's the thing, folks. And this is NOT the exception to the rule near as I can tell. In 2004, my mother had 2 colonoscopies, both of which returned "normal" results. She died in 2006 of colon cancer, which had been present "for years" according to the medical examiner's final report. In 2008, my ex-husband was diagnosed with scabies (bugs, to the uninformed), and subsequently treated with expensive skin care products. The reality? His gall bladder was enlarged to twice its size, and gall stones had turn up the bile duct - NONE of which showed up on MRIs, blood tests, or the like. By the time he got a correct diagnosis and had the gallbladder removed, he had suffered severe damage of the bile duct, lost over 80 pounds, and was wandering around town in a confused state because of the resulting toxins which had built up in his system. Several years ago, a good friend went to the emergency room complaining of abdominal pain so severe she couldn't stand and could barely breathe. She was told to go home and take a laxative and an enema. She died a week later of peritonitis, caused when her impacted bowels ruptured.

Need I continue?

Why on Earth or any other civilized planet do we trust these clowns, when it is proven time and time again that they kill more people than they cure? Enough already! I go in with chest pains, and the doc gives me a prescription for pain pills and muscle relaxants! About 18 years ago, when I went in with a large lump in my breast, I was told by the first quack, "I'd recommend ignoring it for awhile and see if it goes away." Arugh! What?

The bottom line is that WE give these gonzos the power of life and death over our bodies - and it's high time we stopped just buying into their sweet-scented bullshit. So today as I was sitting in the waiting room of the lab - for over 2 hours, I might add - I found myself looking at the downtrodden, frightened people waiting to be told whether they would live or die, whether they would be asked to play the role of a Diabetic or a Heart Patient or a Cancer Victim.

Maybe it's all just a crap shoot. Society tells ue we will die of something, yet this is the same society that once told us the earth was flat, and at the center of the universe. So maybe it's time we stopped buying into the programs, turn off the idiot box that keeps trying to sell us on this or that drug and encouraing us to "Ask your doctor about mycoxafloppin..." and go back to living the way nature intended:

Eat well.
Run when the lion comes out of the jungle.
Love unconditionally.
Get fucked often (and NOT by the medical profession!)
Take back your power.

All material in this blog (essays, rants, images, poetry, et al) is copyright © by Della Van Hise, and may not be reprinted elsewhere without the prior written permission of the author. Quantum ShamanTM is a trademark of QuantumShaman.ComTM and reserves all rights

Naked in the Dark with Your Death

• A predilection isn't the same thing as a compulsion. I have a predilection to be a moody prick but if I indulge that compulsion then all I am is a moody prick, a slave to the dictates of my biological bent. The main point don Juan wanted to make about predilections is that they exist. Don Juan's predilection was to laugh, so there was no particular harm in indulging that one. But he knew Carlos's predilection was to be maudlin & melancholy, so he was always cautioning Carlos NOT to indulge that predilection because to do so was unhealthy for Carlos and everybody around him. Predilections are to be recognized and accepted, yes, but to indulge them is to admit one isn't strong enough to make a choice that goes against their animal leanings. Indulgence is just another form of slavery no matter how you label it. (Dan)


• It's important to recognize our predilections - to have an awareness. But if we stop there and just live down to our lowest common denominator animal instincts, we have failed our commitment to our own impeccability. Some kids have a predilection to be lazy, but if the parents just accept that and do nothing to change it, then the predilection is enforced and the kid grows up to be a lazy adult. Where's the growth or evolution in that? Some people have a predilection to be angry or cruel or even perverse, but the question is whether we choose to act on our predilections or use our awareness to make a more impeccable choice. To just blindly accept our predilections is to live down to the lowest common denominator of hormones & programming and all the ingredients that make us human. Rising above our predilections is one of the first steps toward becoming other-than-human. (Della)
  

A good friend posted the quotes above from a private chat, but I'm afraid it will fall on deaf ears - as most stuff online tends to do. What I've observed over the past 8 years of hosting forums is that most folks have already pre-determined what they are going to believe, what they are going to do, and whether or not they have any intention of changing (i.e., evolving beyond their base-biological urges). Most are, unfortunately, stuck in habitual patterns of behaviour which are determined either by their gonads, their addictions, or both. Ouch. Ugly truth. I'll get hate mail for that one. They will use their predilections, their gonads, their addictions and their anger-management problems to justify almost any sort of lowest common demoninator thinking and lowest common denominator behaviour. They will tell you things like, "I'm just predisposed to be an asshole, and don Juan said it's okay." The reality, of course, is that don Juan said no such thing, but they would never consider allowing reason to sway them from their beliefs, because those beliefs validate their existing comfort zones and give them a good excuse to go right on being an asshole. *LOL*


It starts to remind me of Bible thumpers - using all manner of "scripture" to back up their belief systems. They might thump on the works of Castaneda or Jed McKenna or their own personal guru to justify whatever it is they want to justify - just as many xtians thump on the Bible and use it to validate their belief that God wants them to hate gays, for example, or that women should be kept barefoot & pregnant. Reason never enters into it. Not for a single moment.

So when I look at the tirades and the scripture thumping that goes on, all I can do is stand aside and be sadly amazed at the utter lack of understanding these folks have about their (so-called) spirituality. Spirituality on ANY level isn't about using your predilections to hammer or hurt someone else. It isn't about pointing the finger at your guru and blaming him for your failure, when the only one who can fail or succeed is the one in your mirror.


There's a big hooplah these days from people who are FINALLY figuring out that their greatest teacher is themselves - but in the meantime, they are quick to blame and demonize their former teachers (who have been telling them from the start that their greatest teacher is themselves). Amazing, frankly. I've had that fickle finger of blame pointed at myself a few times in the past year, and it always comes down to one thing. I can honestly say from my own heart that I have NEVER sought followers - too high maintenance and frankly, what purpose would they serve? And, in fact, when a few have TRIED to attach themselves to me, I have very directly told them I'm no guru, I don't have their answers, and all I can do is share my path with them. If they learn from that, great. If not, they are quite free to go seek their OWN way, which is what I have encouraged them to do from the beginning. I think hearing aids should be standard issue for anyone on a warrior's path, but that's just me exercising my predilection to be sarcastic.


It just seems to me that the blame game is a very efficient way of transferring responsibility from self to someone else. ANYONE else! It's a way of saying, "You were holding me back!" when the blatant and obvious reality is that the only one who can hold you back is YOU! I've said it from the start. I've repeated it... oh... a few thousand times over the years. If you need a guru, if you worship any particular teacher, if you are dependent on "What would Michael or Dick or Jesus do?", then you are sadly attached to comfort zones, and like any addict, will do whatever it takes to go on feeding your addiction. If that means convincing yourself that your former teachers are actually blood-sucking vampires from the 9th level of Hell, that's what you'll do. If it means putting some "new" guru on a pedastal and worshipping his every word, then you have done nothing to break out of your attachments - you have only transferred them from one guru to another, and it is inevitable that you will turn on THAT guru in time as well.

Only when you can stand alone in the dark night of the soul, just you and your Death, will you finally be free. Until then - for as long as attachment to earthly teachers, or the validation of your peers remains of importance to you - you are just one more wayward crusader, rattling your saber for the right to go on being a wayward crusader. Chances are, you dont' even know what you're fighting for! You're just fighting because you've decided that's the way of the warrior, even though a TRUE warrior carries no weapon.

Being a warrior isn't about brandishing your sword at demons you've imagined or created. It isn't about thumping CC's books as some sort of warped validation to what you want to believe. It isn't about convincing yourself that you're already perfect, so therefore your work is finished. Instead, it's about standing alone in the world, in yourself, in the infinite. No one can do it for you. No teacher can take you there. No teacher can stop you from going there. You'll either do it or you won't. It will not make you popular. It will not earn you friends. It may even destroy you...



But that's the rub, isn't it? I've always loved that scene in STAR WARS, where Darth Vader and Obi Wan Kenobi stand face to face, light sabers crossing, after a long battle. When Obi Wan lowers his sword and surrenders to his death, his final words are, "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

So the way I see it is simply this. If we have surrendered to our death, with the Knowledge that we have reached our totality, then the meager strikes of light sabers are insignificant, utterly inconsequential - just the sad battle fought by angry children who still believe there is something to 'win'.