Returning From 'Normal People'

The 'Holiday Season' being what it is, there are those standard human cultural practices inevitably forced onto even the most dedicated of hermits such as myself...

We end up at a 'family get-together' or something, where we will hear various things people have to say, usually about the very last things that were on media outlets but in all events certainly no longer than a week ago.

Now either someone like myself steps out of the world altogether, or keeps a foot back in it.

I had steak & kidney pie. It was much better
than the king's silly Christmas Message.
But what can you expect? It's not really a
kingdom anymore and he's not really a king.
He's a functionary of an oligarchy.

And why?

Why not just disappear?

Well because it is a lot of pressure being with the 'upsiders.' Trust me, these guys are not straightforward and while you are down here, instead of 'up there' at least in a way it is easier to play dumb and then not have to confront the stark reality of the sentient Universe which is beyond the passing sentience of human people.

I am telling you this right now because sooner or later you will - if you haven't already done so - have to confront these things.

Bob Dylan outright told the truth about certain essential elements of his own life: he was interviewed and he said that he had absolutely no idea at all how he was able to write things like 'Darkness at the break of noon, Shadows even the silver spoon, The handmade blade, the child's balloon, Eclipses both the sun and moon...'

Wiki calls them a torrent of Apocalyptic images. The Wikipedia critique basically says the whole song is a torrent of Apocalyptic images.

The lyrics end with the statement: 'It's just life and life only.'

I am deliberately posting pics
of cheap and simple things.
Even so, they are pretty good things,
so there is that... 

And Dylan wisely opines that he probably could not ever again write such things, or in fact, not be able to write at all! By which he meant to extend on what he had a moment earlier said, that it was like magic, but not a kind of simple stage magic that you see performers present, but something actually magically that penetrated - that was the word he used.

But what are we to 'confront?'

Well, it is something very serious indeed.

It is in the Letter of James, I think, in which the writer says that 'Elias was a man like unto us...'

So what I'm trying to say here is that none of us need expect from ourselves that we should be 'something special' or 'different.' Bob Dylan is certainly different to me and special - for one thing he is staggeringly talented and I am not at all! Leaving his reluctance to attribute his poetry entirely to himself alone, the fact is that we are not he. He is one of the greatest poets that ever lived.

I don't think he's entirely oblivious though, of the process - of what is really going on.

My problem is that it is not so easy for me to remain in the 'different world.' Oh it's completely fantastic up there, no question - but...

Elias was a man like unto us - but...

He did something and then something happened...

I want to tell you something very terrible.

People think that when they die, either their consciousness just dissipates, or 'disappears' or something, or else - for those who believe in various supernatural, beyond-this-life things - it goes somewhere where it is 'judged' and then maybe, hopefully, it gets to go to some place of happiness.

Not really 'ordinary people' stuff, this...

Well let me tell you what actually happens, for most people: their personal consciousness does not just 'dissipate' or disappear, but they literally go to places like (actual) Lake Nakuru in Kenya, where they find themselves installed inside various birds. And that's very cool to the person, see, because they find that they are able to fly, albeit that this is 'culturally' (that is 'bird society') linked to the flying of the - whatever one particular flock or other similar species - birds.

And but with each flap of their wings, their consciousness shifts ever further literally into the flock itself, until at some point there is no longer any personal ego consciousness and just pure 'flock consciousness.' And from there it's possible that they can be taken to another place of dryness, without water to drink or at least very little of it, and then after a while they are led to a place where there is a great flooding of clean and pure water to drink - which they do drink but of course it has properties designed to make them lose their memory entirely.

And from then it is uncertain what particularly comes to pass with each specific 'unit' of consciousness. Or, I am not permitted to say what, here.

And neither are you, if you know it.

Kinda beautiful.

But this is not your fate. 

Your fate is like that of Elias.

For you are like Elias. Because Holy Scripture says so, and Scripture may not be broken.

And actually, this also means that you can have happen whatever you want.

Did Dylan also write Sacred Scripture?

Might have done.

Personal human consciousness is something which emerges from a lot of other pre-conditions. But then to have it be preserved intact, after death, is determined by the efforts of other people, and not by oneself alone... (That is, not by the person actually doing the dying).

It may be that the gods will preserve someone, but then why would they choose this one and not that one? What makes one deserving and another, not?

It may also be however, that you yourself have determined who will live on, and then who will merely enter the flocks of birds.

Dylan's words go into the fact that so many rulers and politicians and so on carry on seemingly in the firm belief that 'Death' will not fall upon them naturally. Dylan's poetry is instructive.

There is something beyond 'life only.'

The Death of the personal consciousness
is pink.

You cannot afford to think that you are alone in whatever you are doing. You cannot afford to imagine that you are lonely. This is Death.

'Life' can be very low-level 'grouped' consciousness. And that is a kind of Death too, because it cuts out higher relationships and interactions; it is thus 'life only.'

We need to get beyond life only.

My problem is that I find it very challenging out here. I find that I would easily argue with a lot of the people I find around me in these circumstances! That is to say if it were that their mindsets were not altered and that they were left to be who they actually already and genuinely are, fully and completely intact. And so I personally do not argue with them at all.

Which is why you go to the temple
where the gods really are, and
appear as they truly are...

I still like them - flawed as they are.

Which is not to say that I wouldn't shove people around if I wanted to.

I wouldn't shove around the ordinary people who will end up in the flocks. Waste of time.

When you end up getting your way you start to really feel beholden to the gods, though.

There is an ancient Sanskrit mantra to the effect of: 'May we never lose each other's company.'

I hope you know what you just read.

When I say 'returning from the normal people' I mean stepping back from what is in fact, Death, although it is called 'life' by the dead. The dead are forever hiding behind masks. They are inauthentic and transactional the same way vampires are. 

Being in the other place is utterly exquisite, but it is also very challenging. Truly living consciousness is an emergent thing; it emerges from out of a set of elements. Preserving it then, completely intact, is a great objective. Dylan's poetry is instructive but so is his self-awareness and observation about what was going on. Sometimes we think we cannot force the hand of the gods, and that the 'force' is flowing elsewhere and never where we are. But, the Letter of James shows there is a way...