An Angel in Here?

It seems to me that inside here is an angel.  It would certainly explain a lot of the good that I have experienced.

Until now it seemed to be the result of being a caring person, caring of others with whom I have come in contact.  Then when they passed from this life  the saw to it that nothing too awfully bad happened to me.

There may be something to this.  When I reflect on the events of my life, however, I can see in hind-sight that it has been remarkable and often unique to the time and circumstance.  Often I found myself there, not due to foresight or planning, although there was some of course but when I got there, wherever it was, the whole scenario turned golden.

Is this angel inside one who is on an earned vacation, a celestial holiday taken in my lifetime ?  That would explain a lot.

Not for the first moment do I suppose that I, this brain-body, is angelic but the being inside, whom I have called Master, is separate and apart even though he's in here with me.  It is as if I am the horse and he is the rider.

At times the horse has taken the run of things but I always  come back to being obedient to the rider.  The rider, being unselfish, has allowed this horse to have his way from time to time, to the delight and appreciation of the horse.

So, who might this angel be?  (This all sounds so bizarre but it also explains a lot.) This angel has enjoyed some of the finest experiences available, as have I because I am his way of getting around,  and is doing so through my senses and thoughts.

This is a most interesting observation and one that I will, of course, keep to myself.  Unless it behooves my Angelic Master to do otherwise.  (And now, later, I suppose it does.)

In the physical world we have names.  I wonder what the name of my Angelic Master might be?  There are some beautiful names of angles: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael being those of the Archangels.  And then there's Lucifer but we won't go there.  My angel, the one in here, may be "John."

I am excited about this possibility.  It changes my perspective this is for sure; and it explains a lot of what is and has happened to/for me.

Seen a Ghost Lately?

That the spiritual world exists is accepted by almost everyone excluding, perhaps, atheist's.  If you believe in God, by almost any definition, and/or belong to an organized religion, you believe in a spiritual world. Yet that world is an enigma.

We are where the Europeans were before Columbus, where astronomers were before Galileo and Copernicus, where we are today with regard to the Universe.  Before Columbus, the map makers went so far and ended their depiction with the note, "Here the darkness begins."  Before Galileo and Copernicus, the Earth was thought to be the center of the Universe and everything rotated around it.  And now, in spite of our orbiting telescopes, our radio wave receiver antennae, and our math and physics, we are still discovering new, and wonderful, things about our Universe.

So it is with the spiritual world.  The Greeks, and then the Romans, had their Olympian gods and others for almost every situation; they may not have been all that far off.  Catholics today have the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mother, the martyrs and other saints, many of whom have a special function; such as St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, or St. Anthony, the patron saint of things lost. Then there are the books, the Old Testament, New Testament, Koran, and the writings that inspire Buddhists, and those who follow Hinduism, those of the Tibetan monasteries, and probably many others.  The pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas and the American Indians also had their description of a spiritual world as did/do the Polynesians, Aborigines, and Maoris.

The whole shebang is testament to imagination because all of these writings and beliefs are that and only that.  They are sometimes called "inspired" to give greater weight to the words but, in fact, they are the result of  someone, or many, thinking it up and then writing it down or passing it along orally.

Nowhere is there a definitive description of the spiritual world, that is the world that exists outside of the physical realm, that isn't the product of imagination.  And to my point above, even the well observed and the well defined physical world is still full of surprises as to its content and manifestations. We are all the Indian blind men feeling different parts of the elephant and describing the entire animal.  For anyone to tell us otherwise is fraud.

It is also to say that we should keep imagining what is the spiritual world and make it our business to find out more about it, even participate in it.  We, and this is my elephant description, are in the unusual position of having a mind that uses part of a physical brain to imagine the spiritual world.  As long as we don't make this imagination "law" we will continue to progress.

Why? Oh Tell Me Why.

We do things.  Sometimes we know what and why, other times we just do things and then ask, "Why did I do that?"

Five sources/causes have been identified for my actions:
1) In our formative years and until we are fully matured, about age 25 years or whenever that may be, we are under the influence of parents and other people of authority over us and we, more or less, comply.
2) From an early age and to a greater extent until it is almost completely so,  our actions are influenced by our imagination and reasoning.
3) That there is a spiritual world is something I have come to accept and yet the structure and function of it is beyond my understanding.  I believe that we are influenced greatly by entities in that realm.  Although we have the final choice in doing, or not, what is suggested by them.
4) We are in organizations, companies where we work, social groups to which we adhere such as churches, and hobby groups.  These have a big influence on what we do.
5) Then there is Master, the strong yet mute entity at the core of our being; the one continuing the development of his place in the spiritual world during this lifetime as well as those before and after.  We feel his influence when we are acting in ways that are detrimental to his development and we continue to do that at our own risk.

The experience of a lifetime has led me to this conclusion.  It makes sense, at least to me.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Clocks

We watched Sunrise Sunset about the Dalai Llama; a most interesting movie.  In it he talked about time in terms of minutes and seconds.  He misses an important truth.

We are not governed by the clock except that we are constructed such that we need rest and sleep to recover mentally and physically from the rigors of the day.  It just so happens that as the earth turns there's a period of darkness that lends itself, conveniently, to sleeping.

My thoughts are that a human being, or any living organism, has at least three influences that affect him (and I use "him" because it is the convention that, at least until recently, has been used).  One influence comes from the needs of the body, the physical needs of nutrition, relief, and rest.  Then there are the human influences from imagination and reasoning often stimulated by interaction with others.  Finally, there's the influence from the spiritual world that exists beyond our ken.

These influences result in motivation to accomplish something, to take action, or be involved in something; to achieve some sort of result and that desired result is an Aim.  And there are many more than one going on simultaneously.  They can be independent or overlap in a Boolean sort of way.

Working on Aim can be considered as being in the present and it has a duration that is not measured by the clock.  An Aim lasts until it is achieved, satisfied, or abandoned.  Working on Aims requires reasoning and decision.  What do I do right now?

A conscious Aim has the components of a Dream, a Goal, an Objective, and a Task.  We go through life working on Aim, conscious or not, and satisfying the physical needs of the body, which in itself can even be considered an Aim; addiction being an extreme example.

In the background, mute and observing, is Master whose influence is only felt when his Aim is not being advanced.

Crossing the Frozen Lake

I feel like I'm crossing a frozen lake.

Until now, the surface of the lake was frozen to a thickness that was virtually impenetrable.  Now, as I walk along through life, hearing, seeing, feeling, observing, participating, I get the notion that the ice, i.e. the barrier between me and truth, is much thinner.  I understand things from the past, of not only mine but also the lives of people present and past, and accept those impressions, those little bubbles of understanding, without too much argument or analysis.

It seems that a key element of understanding more is to avoid analysis, or over-thinking, and accept the insight as is.  This may be because they are insights and not conclusions.

By the same token, I will not, would not, publicize (with these notable exceptions) my insights because society does not readily accept them as is.  Society requires that any published idea must be attacked and defended until it is "purified" by same and made acceptable.  Most of the time to be upturned by later, better findings.

The make-up of the Universe is a good case in point.  There have been theories since the beginning about it and all of them proven untrue, or at least incomplete.  The only one to remain after all challenges is the existence of the force of attraction between masses, i.e. gravity.

Even this, however, may be modified in the future by something that includes, what is now thought of as, the other component, i.e. energy.  And, who knows, there may be other components that we don't even suspect.

I am not proposing that we do away with proof and accept insights as truth.  I am, however, acknowledging the importance of insights as a possible starting point for finding truth.  I can accept my own as truth, or at least an indication of truth, but I am careful not to promulgate my half-baked theories on others.

I continue my trek across the frozen lake as I hear the barrier ice crack, whine, whistle, and pop under my step.  If it ever gives way, what then.  Would I drown/ perish in the truth, the enormity of it?

Being alive, living as a physical being, protected from the "awful" truth is one thing.  Does death of the physical body allow us to plunge into the depth of truth?  And if we can't accept or acclimate to it, is that the end of our individual existence? Do we reincarnate to try again?

And if we can accept the truth, are we on yet another journey of discovery? Much like our fascination with the Universe, we may find out more and more as we can accept it and sort of understand it.

We are of, and on, this earth and yet our mind, in contrast to our brain, allows us to imagine more than what we can perceive with our senses.  Imagination and reasoning are tools of the mind, they take us beyond the physical limits of our experiences.  There are observations and conclusions, however, that defy mathematics and science.

Dreamland, The Long of It

The movie Meet Me in St. Louis, which I watched recently, caused me to reminisce about the city in which I was born, raised, and where I lived until marrying and moving away almost 60 years ago.  I fed the memories by looking at maps and satellite images of Kensington Avenue, even found the site of the house which was central to the theme of the movie.  It is now a vacant lot, the house having been torn down after it became derelict.

In my browsing of the internet, I came upon properties listed for sale thereabouts and searched the old neighborhood where I lived.  Many of the houses in my old neighborhood were built in the late 20's and early 30's; of brick and stone construction, and built to last forever.

The house at 8572 Oriole Avenue, in which I lived, was built before all of that; probably around 1900.  It is still there and the subject of another blogpost in By John Lina on 10-28-12.  The other, newer houses were appealing to me then and seeing one for sale in the 8600 block of Riverview Boulevard made me realize that I still have a spot in my heart for them.

I searched around the area and saw other places for sale, some of that same character.  It made me think about living there as I recalled the desirability of those houses then, and perhaps even now.  The reverie was fun and, as it turns out, not a complete waste of time.

Later, as I cut our lawn, it dawned on me that the house in which we now live is the fulfillment of that desire.  It is not very far off from the style of those in our neighborhood.  Then it dawned on me!  I am living the dream I had as a youth.  An area with desirable amenities and convenient to shopping; a nice house in a nice neighborhood, a manicured lawn and garden, finished lower level for entertaining and nice big garage to house similar cars for my wife and me.  What a nice state of affairs.

The poem, Dreamland in the blog By: John Lina, is a terse summary of the above and it poses the question: if the dream is realized, is it time to build a new dream, perhaps using this as a starting point?  I wonder what that dream will be.

The Word (s)

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."  The Gospel according to John.

It's a bit of a stretch but it will be made anyway. There are, for me, fifty-five aphorisms that define how I want to live as I go about my daily activities. They are not necessarily goals, nor objectives but simply how I want to be. They are words, nothing more or less, but they have a deeper effect on me than I previously thought.

How these aphorisms are structured is important and seems to have an effect on their incorporation into my behavior.  For example, for some years there was one: Weighing less than two hundred pounds, I am thinner; it was said every day along with the others and there was no evidence that it was having an effect. Then it changed to: Eating only enough to sustain a weight of two hundred pounds, I am thinner.

Well, I have changed it again to say, "Eating only enough to sustain a weight of one-hundred-eighty pounds, I am thinner."  This is because I now weigh 184 pounds and continue to lose weight.  I have stepped the figure down five pounds at a time to get here.  (On 4/1/2020 I was at 180 pounds on my way to an ideal weight of 178 pounds.)

The same is true of other aphorisms and they are continuously examined for better syntax.  Reflecting on my behavior and comparing it to my aphorisms, not surprisingly, it can be seen that things are said and done in accordance with the aphorisms without consciously attempting to do so.

Thus the leap is made from the Gospel to this: the words that we use to guide our thoughts and actions are an important consideration.  The words are in our conscious mind, which is a physical thing, and our sub-conscious mind, which is closely tied to a spiritual world, hears them and behaves accordingly but only if the aphorism is acceptable to what the spiritual side of our being (I have named it Master) wishes.

As long as we are doing that which is conducive to the wishes of Master, that spiritual being inside, there is harmony.  When our behavior is not so, there is discord and all sorts of bad things, physically and mentally,  happen to us including sickness and even death if we don't change and get back in harmony with Master.  Master in this context is synonymous with soul; except that soul is normally thought of as an individual attribute in a body whereas in this context it is supernatural.

We are a physical being, inhabited by an entity, Master, who is evolving towards an existence that is "In Essence" or purely spiritual.  In order to attain this level of existence, Master has to "mature" through in-habitation of physical beings and overcome a variety of impediments to reach the goal.

Ps: In case you are wondering: The definition of aphorism is a terse saying embodying a general truth, or astute observation.