Friday, January 04, 2008

Don't Let your Lamp Grow Dim

I’ll open with an Irish blessing, left anonymously on one of my sites the other day.

“May God grant you many years to live
For sure He must be knowing
The earth has angels all too few
And Heaven's overflowing.”


For those of us caught unwilling in the flesh, life doesn’t have the same attractions that it has for everyone else. That isn’t to say we are immune or not attracted. It’s just that nothing lasts. It’s like the physical orgasm. People pursue this monkey bliss as if somehow it was going to go on a bit longer. It’s already galloping out of your bedroom and into the next apartment from the moment that it hits.

Every one of these little explosions of release drain your most secret bank account with the result that at some point, inevitably, you will be bent over; sucked in from the point where that energy resides and unable to ward off injury and disease. This is a scientific fact, far more definite than hair on one’s palms or fading eyesight... though it might impact on the later. It impacts on most things.

As much as I did descend into the maelstrom of sex for a time I did try to avoid the explosions. Given this sort of discipline it is surprising how you come to feel after awhile. An unfortunate by product is that it tends to keep the desire at a fever pitch. I find that certain drugs give much longer orgasms with much less debilitation and no need for a partner. Then there’s the mating up on higher planes, sans physical contact and sans drugs which can finally come to last forever. This is the bliss of captured starlight. This is what results in stars and what stars are. Explaining that to someone who just wants to push the buttons in the monkey’s cage over and over is not recommended.

It always reminds me of people feeding money into slot machines. I look at this madness and wonder why the reality of the constant flush of resources doesn’t dawn upon the mind of the mad. Well... they are mad, after all. This is seen as much more sane than believing in what cannot be seen or in practicing routines that depart from the usual routines of poisoning oneself with bad food, alcohol, callow entertainments and bobbing for turds in the vast hog lagoon of present day culture.

There are enduring truths that benefit the human condition. These truths are there to be had and are generally ignored. That’s the supreme irony of life. Nearly every priceless thing is free, or the cost- mere effort and yet... it’s all upside down for most people.

One of my continuing enjoyments are the occasional jeers I receive from those presently engaged in doing whatever they damn well please because they know better than you and only count someone an authority who’s got some kind of temporal degree or possesses an excess of money.

It makes me think of Rajneesh disciples and Crowley followers. Both of them got a license for license and they outnumber all of the rest in either of these fields of inquiry.

Rajneesh, despite filling his teachings with a lot of borrowing from Lao Tzu and sundry sources made it possible for his followers to have casual sex without guilt or disturbance of conscience. In it’s hey day you could go to any of the ashrams and see fifty gallon drums set aside for burning the used condoms. Money was good too, especially if you gave it to Roger Nietzsche. So today you find these people running businesses all over the planet and existing in a sub-culture of each other; those who know what’s up as opposed to everyone else. But mostly what you find when you go to their ‘in crowd’ websites is a lot of nasty gossip. Meanwhile they are flooding the guru market with all sorts of dubious representatives of a force they could not possibly comprehend because it doesn’t act that way except when it’s blocked.

With the Crowleyites you’ve got that, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” thing. This can be traced back to Hassan I’Sabbah (the old man of the mountains) who said, “Nothing is real, everything is permitted.” All of these sayings are true, just not the way they are applied. But they are true in the way they are applied in the way they are applied; complete with consequences.

Crowley made it possible for anyone to become an expert on nonsense in much the same way that Gurdjieff loosed all sorts of bullshit on the metaphysical community by playing head games with Ouspensky. You could be a Crowley guy and be all dark and mysterious, full of portentous things and beyond good and evil. All dealings I have had with a Crowley follower has resulted in my being ripped off.

But these two guys are hip and trendy and a lot more people are going to listen to them than to anyone bona fide because they don’t want bona fide because bona fide interferes with them doing things their way. It’s nice when you can find a teacher who says, “Do what you please, it’s all a game.” a joke or whatever variant they come up with. And it is a game and a joke and a dream; just not in the same way. It’s basically showbiz.

It’s like rap music. There is no redeeming artistic value to rap whatsoever. It sucks on every single level except as a backbeat for dancing around. You can dance to a chorus of jackhammers too as long as the beat is there. There’s nothing memorable or lasting about rap. It’s mostly about guns and murder and beating up women before, during or after you are having sex with them and then moving on to their younger sister before you put them both out on the street to earn some money. Yes... I have had one or two good things pointed out to me; made me feel like Lot well short of ten.

These rap artists are celebrated as big stars. They’re celebrated as if there were something there that isn’t there; just like with my other examples. What they are is junk food for the mind. They’re more pernicious than that. The message is that it’s okay to be a psychopathic slime and do whatever you want at everyone else’s expense while they applaud you for abusing them. They’re really just employees of the forces engaged in your enslavement. You become easier to enslave the more you push the monkey buttons and eat swill and present yourself as living proof of ‘garbage in and garbage out.’

It’s the nature of the world. It should come as no surprise that we have come to what we have.

The magic of the magic show is that people watching a trick come to believe it to be real. When you don’t have oil for your lamp it is very difficult to throw light upon the subject of your attention. It is as easy to get lost in the darkness of your mind as it is to get lost in the darkness of the world. Both conditions come about because of a lack of light. A lack of light comes about from a loss of fuel. This is the coin the world is really after, not the other... though it will take that too. This is the true nature of ‘vampire’.

It’s an impressive thing to see... thousands and thousands of aisles and tens of thousands of shelves in hundreds of cities... all filled with crap while the most valuable thing of all is cast aside on a daily basis; tossed into the streets, trampled on, spit on and generally ignored or made fun of... sometimes tortured and mutated but in any case... eventually abandoned and forgotten as if it never were.

Occasionally someone finds it and it puts them at odds with everything else. Then the trick is to pass through ‘Indian Country’ and you do that the same way some savvy souls in the old west achieved it by appearing mad. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks and if you’re after that kind of favor... good luck with the results.

Visible sings: The eponymous Les Visible Music Album♫ All The Things That I Wanted ♫
'All The Things That I Wanted' is track no. 7 of 10 on Visible's eponymous
'Les Visible' Music Album

Lyrics (pops up)

The eponymous Les Visible Music Album

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Man, I needed this one today. Maybe that's been my problem lately....too many 'explosions'. I'm familiar with the practice of restraining this but have never actually attempted to undertake such a feat. Maybe it's time to give it a whirl? Sounds like one hell of a challenge.

Ben

(PS There are a FEW very rare exceptions to your case against rap. Listen to some older Tupac sometime.)

Visible said...

(grin) that post had hardly been up ten minutes when you responded. I'm aware there are probably some good rap tunes around but I won't be listening to anything from that genre again. As soon as I hear it playing I run. It's one of several things that repell me on all levels.

mc said...

Yesterday I was in a workshop picking up some items and they had the radio playing. I don't think it was even rap - just noise. It is funny that noise is marketed as an entertainment product - really funny when you think about it. But there is no awareness of this at all by those who enjoy listening to noise. All truly is vanity eventually. Good post.

annemarie said...

Ha ha, made me smile again.

Thanks You :)
annemarie

Worth repeating:

"There are enduring truths that benefit the human condition. These truths are there to be had and are generally ignored. That’s the supreme irony of life. Nearly every priceless thing is free, or the cost- mere effort and yet… it’s all upside down for most people."

Anonymous said...

Aww, Les is afraid of rap music. Haha. I agree with you though in the case of the majority of mainstream rap, but my skeptiscism has allowed me to witness a lot of talent in that genre from many who are worth taking some time to listen to.
Ive felt the same way about the country genre for the longest time, you made me respect it again. Sorry bout getting off the true topic of your peice.

Compared to others recently, it was decent, but you did bring up a lot of topics of research for me to look into too. And itd be great if you elaborated more on that bit about starlight and what not. So thank you again.

Much love,
Alonelywanderer

Visible said...

I don't think fear enters into it anymore than thunder does. I fear my own capacity for weakness and nothing more. You may rely on that.

Thank you all and to all a good night.

Anonymous said...

Care Frater,

It's always good to read your attempt at Illuminating the masses. I love your bit about those who don't consider anyone worthwhile if they don't have lots of the coin-of-the-realm or a degree...yet most of these are hard-core "Christians"....I wonder how they'd treat the Master Jesus if he were alive today? (yeah, we both know how he'd be treated...same as he ever was.)

I, like you, shall keep on picking up that stone which they keep rejecting and acting like a madman.

In Love and L.V.X.,

You eternally faithful Frater Persistantia

Anonymous said...

Time and again the question has been posed, why do true masters allow false teachers to continue proliferating their false teachings? The reply is that the false teachers serve to absorb the dross who seek what they desire instead of truth. There is a story told in this regard.

A seeker upon the path once arrived at a village and asked where he might find a true master. The villagers tell the seeker to travel to the mountains and look for a very bright light. They say the light is visible for many, many, miles and will be difficult to behold in close proximity; but where the bright light is found, the true master is present.

The seeker travels to the mountains, spending many years searching for the bright light, but finds his search is to no avail. Just as he is about to give up his search, he spies a bright and shinning light many miles away on another mountain range. The seeker travels through distant valleys and across dangerous gorges, enduring much hardship from the cold, thin, air and lack of food.

After many days, the seeker arrives at the light to find he is almost blinded by its brilliance; but upon drawing close and shading his eyes, he finds no master, only countless numbers of moths surround the light. After thoroughly searching the area and finding no other living thing but the moths, the seeker gives up in despair. He begins to travel down the mountain; but during his descent down the mountain path, he spies another light. This time however the light is very, very, dim and it is only with great difficulty he can make out the light through the darkness.

Feeling he now has nothing to loose, the seeker makes his way towards the dim, distant, light. Once again, he travels many days across treacherous cliff-side paths and distant valleys, often loosing sight of the dim light during the journey. This requires the seeker to pause and diligently search the landscape until he once again picks up the faint signal provided by the dim light.

After many days of travel, he arrives at the source to find great sage reading a book by the dim light of a flickering candle. The seeker asks the sage if he is the master he seeks and the sage replies, “Yes I am the master you seek.” The seeker then says, “I was told by the villagers that I would find you under a great light, yet when I found that light you were not there. Now I find you by this dim candle, why was I misled?” The sage replies: “Oh that, I find a bright light keeps the moths away from my study.”

Visible said...

New essay here-

http://zippittydodah.blogspot.com/

Freddamedgjedda said...

I must start by stating, I admire your writing and it is like a "safe haven" for my soul when life gets a bit frustrating. I am glad you exist!!

The rap-genre is like any other genre.. It is a huge difference between U2 and Britney Spears, but they are both pop-stars!! I have personally found great spiritual enlightenment in rap-music thru KRS-ONE (his later works) and Talib Kweli. I have also learned quite a bit from Dead Prez. I fully respect that you don`t listen to it, and I will not try to convince you otherwise. I don`t like country, but I don`t make general assumptions from what little I have heard. I understand that it was just an example but still I had to comment on it, and if you should ever change your mind, you could start with these artists... Or not, your choice...

And a completely different topic... You should read this if you have not already!!!! I have been researching this for a while and it scares the hell out of me!

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=7806

Visible said...

freddame (sorry for leaving the rest off, I'm in a hurry right now)- grin

I know those artists. I know there are some intelligent people working in the field. Like I said in the piece though, it makes me feel like Lot looking for ten righteous men.

I don't know if you were referring to me in the latter part but I'm no country artist. I work primarily in folk and rock. It just so happens I use a lot of country arrangements. But I work in all fields of composition.

I'm not talking about the few exceptions. they exist in every field. I'm talking about the negative in your face crap and I can't stand it, can't bear to be around it.

I seldom mention music in my posts. I try to stay away from talking about it. I wouldn't want to give the impression that I'm intolerant.

Anyway, without even going to that link first I am going to bet that that is the article about Planet X and Norway. I won't even look till later this afternoon cause I'm out the door now.

Be well and thanks for the good words.

Had to delete the first post and write it again due to spelling errors; always happens when I'm in a hurry.





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