In days now that suggest to me that there is a reason I was given my pitiful life, I am involved with a dialogue at this link
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10213117399882543&id=1620551416
that has unfolded in particular today and I urge you to Avail yourself of it. Much of it is encapsulated eloquently with my correspondent of today, Dave Schwenk , below with an important caveat that I mentioned below his long an eloquent comment.
From Dave just now: This dialogue is confirming the direction of my thoughts and providing me with clear insight into our purpose in this dying world. I believe the final collapse is well under way. Current events show this in apocalyptic visions of fire and ice and nature reducing man's arrogance to rubble. We need a miracle. So I struggled all fall to choose the way forward, considering devoting all my time to fighting pipelines in PA, or building community centers of resistance and sustainable living. I even thought of walking across the country in search of a few kindred souls who would help me lay siege to Washington...all striving, all turning up little that resonated in my heart. I follow James Mcginley closely, for he is one of the few -- two, three? -- that I have met who has devoted himself totally to goodness and justice and walking the talk, or riding the bike as James is doing...all true revolutionaries are wandering refugees and exiles... it is no mystery that I have been led back to dialogue with James. I met him on the Democracy Spring walk in 2016 and later showed up at his modest flat in DC some months later to learn more and share. Among discussions of Gandhi and King, James articulated my disappointment with marches/staged arrests, etc. and my sense of how the left played into the hands of the power elite. I fear so much of the way the "resistance" is structured now does not provide a viable path to transcendence from our miserable state. There is a fundamental flaw that is never addressed -- the moral dilemma of living in our modern world, shackled as we are to products and consumption that perpetuate horrific suffering. Our current predatory system could never exist without our participation. Just look how vicious the oligarchs become when we threaten their flow of money, as the BDS Movement boycotting Israel has shown. Not only have they told us it is illegal to boycott (consider the implications of that for a moment), but they have now banned 20 organizations from Israel, including our dear friends at Codepink. These dear people are the spirit of peace. Why are they such a threat to Israel? Ladies dressed in pink? Because they have advanced an agenda of non-participation, BDS movement, that denies the system of our complicit guilt. Another incident that infuriated the architects of our false reality is when Colin Kaepernik took a knee and challenged the symbols of our empire...when people no longer believe in the bullshit of the flag the whole fucking thing will collapse. And this from a black man! They devote so much energy into the illusion of freedom and democracy -- into the illusion that elections matter and that demonstrations without sacrifice will change the world -- because the continuation of crony capitalism depends on our suspended belief. So back to my point...we must accept the reality of our situation and what it demands of us. We cannot be rebels on the weekend and slaves to our consumer society all week. We are at that critical existential moment of end times where the forces of good and evil are clearly felt to anyone with a heart. It is all or nothing time. No one wants to face that or the implications involved with that. Face it now and build your spiritual strength or perish in the collapse. I was directed to Krishna in October for a reason and the Bhagavad Gita...I turned again to the life of Jesus, which I have studied throughout my life...and James led me to these writings between Gandhi and Tolstoy. And the message is clear: embrace goodness, love, selflessness, service to others. That is the sole mission we must do to be a ray of light in this world. So many of us despair at the suffering we see and our powerlessness to do anything about it -- without realizing that the power is within our hearts, and that once we surrender completely to goodness and love, once we abandon the failed institutions and permanent lies that secure us to the decks of this sinking ship, when we do that, we create the conditions for the miracle to happen. Surely, we need a miracle now. But that is beyond me. I will continue to resist and continue to disrupt pipelines and the pageantry, but I know that the true way forward -- for me -- is renunciation of this sick society, a total severance that can be achieved through exile and simple living and our own self-sustaining communities. This is long and rambling but I wanted to share my experience and how liberating this knowledge is for me -- I have far to go but I know the path. Once I give it all up -- and how painful that can be, the comforts, the illusions, the protests of my ego -- I believe I will find liberation and nothing to fear. I know this in my heart. If you made it this far, thank you.
My crucial comment in caveat:
Dave Schwenk, your words are filled with such truth in this comment above and so beautifully stated that it brings great emotion to me. With one profound exception, please don't take this personally. It can be done, Gandhi did it, but it is not our nature to renounce. I will fight that in what I see as otherwise promising efforts including Within Myself with all of my strength. And this is not a problem, only falling into the Trap as a problem. It is within our nature to greedily go for the optimal experience that we know to go for. We absolutely can have the renunciation that you want, my life is a testament to that and I'd have thought it impossible. But never ever could I have done it through an attempt to renounce. The consequence has been to renounce! What I have attempted to do is greedily understand where Joy comes from, Roy Bean the ultimate human Experience, emotion. It comes from the opposite direction of pleasure. And as best I can now described the north star of causing my body to produce the chemical reaction of joy, it is to fully embody the loving Spirit of goodness in action. I will now post your beautiful words on my blog and Facebook page with this disclaimer. As always if I take Liberties it is never intentional just let me know and I will remove.
