It has been a rewarding and challenging semester here at Cabrillo College in the time of novel coronavirus, spring 2020. As my time here draws to a close, I wanted to extend my best wishes to all of my fellow students as they go forward, and to the instructors who expanded my knowledge, vision, and perspective opening new ‘Doors of Perception’ into the world of journalism.
The Doors of Perception, a book by Aldous Huxley, published in 1954 elaborating on his psychedelic experience under the influence of mescaline in the metaphor used to represent William Blake’s poetical work, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell about mankind’s limited perception of the reality around them. “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite; for man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.” The psychedelic music group known as the Doors took their name from the title of Huxley’s book.
So, in parting, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on perception with you that I hope will be of some value going forward from my book: Every Now and Zen …on the Nature of Being and Becoming in hopes that you not be confused about who you are; as I remember that life is a process of becoming.
Who among sentient beings could not marvel at the wonder of being and the majesty of life itself?
Cause emanates from intention. Intention IS causation. Everything begins with it. Within our interactional world, manifestation derives from INTENTION.
We are We, wholeness and duality; in and out, of and not.
Enlightenment is experiential. Enlightenment is not a final destination. It is a moment to moment experience without permanence. It is a moment to moment journey.
There is no evidence of pure experience. When you are experiencing your experience inside your experience, you are not in your mind. You have in fact ‘lost your mind’, and are in your experience. When you leave your experience and come back into your mind, you recreate what you think happened in your experience; interpreting your experience.
Your mind is not the same as your experience. Experience is the teacher that informs us. The mind tries to understand and parse the lesson and perhaps the question. Insight is experiential.
Everything is an illusion. Nothing is as it appears to be.
Inner space is vast as outer space.
Consciousness is faster than the speed of light.
There is vastly more ‘dark matter’ than there is ‘light matter’. Comparably, the unconscious is vaster than the conscious mind.
You are not who you think you are. Who you are is NOT the voices inside your head. Who you are is the ONE who is the one, who is listening to the conversation in your head and observing without judging.
It’s effortless to do what you choose to do.
Universe is interactive. We create our own reality. Reality is what we believe it is.
You made up the entire story of who you THINK you are. And if you choose, make up a new story.
You chose your Life. Your life is your own. Your life is your choice. Your life is what you choose it to be from this moment on.
When you stop blaming the circumstances of your PAST (effect) and become PRESENT (at cause), you become the author of your life going forward.
In every question, an ANSWER. In every answer, a QUESTION.
In the cycle of Create, Sustain, Destroy, the most difficult by far is to sustain. Sustaining requires commitment.
Completion requires follow-up and follow-through, freeing one from then, creating momentum toward now. Completion frees up energy in the Body/Mind naturally flowing toward next. Now-next, next-now.
Transformation occurs in a moment of now…
Now is here, waiting.
