The Great Pachinko Machine, the Atonement and a Mountain

I haven't been sleeping well the last couple of nights due to miscellaneous bullshit circling in my mind. The spin cycle seems complete this morning which - as it happens - is Yom Kippur, the annual day of Atonement for the Jews.  Now, I don't know exactly what Rabbis have to say about the meaning of Yom Kippur, but I do know that it's the day of Atonement, of forgiveness and becoming One with God.

I have issues with God, as He is known in nearly every organized monotheistic religion I've ever heard about,  because he's the Grandpa in the Sky everyone references as justification for The Patriarchy which in turn, justifies Colonialism, War, Corporatism, Dominionism and other concepts held dear to Democrats and Republicans alike.  Held dear to Patriarchal Dickwads before anyone ever heard of Democrats and Republicans.  But that doesn't mean I don't have my own concept of God which has developed largely from two books - The Hitchhikers Guide the the Galaxy and Cat's Cradle.  Neither of these books attempts to explain what God is.  Cat's Cradle illustrates beautifully how Religion and Government work hand in hand to bamboozle The People.  The Holy Man Bokonon says that everything you hear coming from either quarter is nothing but foma, lies.  Hitchhiker's Guide simply explains that the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is 42.  So since high school, we can say that my world view, or the fundamental cosmology and/or theology in the Triciasphere has been Existential Absurdity.  Frankly, I don't see how anyone can take a long look around this world and come to any other conclusion.

The thing is that this world, from a Buddhist perspective I think - but I get this stuff wrong all the time because Yoga overlaps with Buddhism, Hinduism is thrown in there and so is the Tao but anyway . . . The World is supposed to be an Illusion, and behind the veil of Illusion shines the healing, peaceful, loving divine light of the Universe.  All you have to do is look behind the veil, remove the scales from your eyes, and you can finally fucking relax because all is peaceful and well.

I've been working on achieving this state of inner peace for several months now with A Course in Miracles.  Essentially the Course - which is narrated by a voice that I've come to know as Trippin' Jesus - says that you can walk around forgiving people all day and all year, but when you're doing it with an attitude of Holier than Thou condescension, you're still stuck in the ways of this World, which has nothing to do with God at all whatsoever.  The goal of the Course, which is a self-guided, step by step, practical way to shift your perspective from Fear (way of the world) to Love (way of God), or in secular terms - free yourself from Ego domination and live joyfully within Spirit which connects us all.

Let me say here to all my atheist friends who would say:  God is all in your head -- Trippin' Jesus will say - Of course He is.  Where else would He be?  Ultimately, all you have to do is  make the choice to be at peace with yourself, and start doing the work to remove the obstacles to Peace.  You may still not have a job, or any other fucked up things that happen in this world, but that's all because of the way people in this world act toward each other - namely,  a string of Attacks that are based in Fear. People hoard stuff to themselves in fear that if anyone else gets even the smallest piece of the pie, they won't have enough for themselves.  Look at anyone supporting Romney, or any Teabagger, or the Israeli Government for that matter - and you can easily see this MO in action.  Those people don't know shit about God, or shit about themselves.  They are trapped in their own personal Hells, or the world of Illusion.  Namaste, Motherfuckers.

It's hard to accept all this stuff as Illusion, though, when it's smacking you in the face.  Drones, for example, don't seem like an illusion to the children of Pakistan.  While it's fairly simple to divide events into categories like the fear-based ways of the world and the Loving energy of the Universe flowing through each of us as individuals, and hopefully, one day collectively as the people of the planet - it's not so easy to see beyond Illusion to The Light, particularly when you yourself have suffered an injustice.

Enter Notta Goodman.

The last few days, I've been thinking of him as a worldly fellow because he's all about the Ways of the World.  He's grown up with Colonialism and Patriarchy like the rest of us, and as a financially successful, accomplished African-American man, Notta Goodman has had to deal with his share of shit.  Trippin' Jesus says that everything any of us ever does is either Love or a Cry for Love.  That includes Richard Nixon - one fucked up individual crying out for love at every turn.  It's easy to forgive Notta Goodman for being a self-absorbed, manipulative power-player who uses other people for his own convenience, advancement and/or pleasure, who quakes in his boots and plays possum to avoid confrontation when somebody calls him on his bullshit then retaliates by being dismissive, defiant and defensive. That's just a lonely, isolated spirit crying out for Love.

It's not so easy to forgive myself for being a vulnerable, naive sap, capable at this advanced age of falling for that bullshit.  It's not so easy to see this scenario as Illusion either.  But it easy very easy to see everything around the situation with Notta Goodman as Bullshit.  Those Drones are Bullshit too.  And the Corporate Uniparty that has sold this country into war and ecocide is Bullshit too - Lies, Illusion, Foma.

When Bokonists say, "As it happens . . ." they know things have happened as they are supposed to happen – not because God has some ineffable plan but simply because of of the laws of Cause and Effect in the great pachinko machine of life.

I knew when I was writing that yesterday’s post that I was defending my logic about calling Notta Goodman as disrespectful to women as a date rapist because on some level I felt Bad for mouthing off.  I worried that I had been judgmental and attacking, and that he was right to say my logic was off base.  I wanted a higher authority to say my assessment and analogy was correct.  And on a deeper level, I wanted a higher authority to say that I was not a stupid whore for getting into a car with a manipulative, abusive lecherous, lying, predatory cheater (since he was one of those married guys from the Ashley Madison experiment).  I may have been isolated in my own despair, crying out for love – but hell, so is practically everyone.

None of this stuff was clear in my head, though, until I woke up in the night and noticed that Dr. Monkey VonMonkerstein, one of this life’s great Philosopher Kings had left a comment on Quantum Heap saying he was sorry about those slimy assholes.  My immediate thought was that while I appreciated the sentiment, I was more concerned that my logic was sound.  From that momentary connection of consciousness between Dr. Monkey and me  – or in that Holy Instant, as Trippin’ Jesus says in the Course -- I recognized that I my message in a bottle was a plea to be forgiven for simply being human.  It’s like Dr. Monkey handed me the antidote for Notta Goodman, for various abusive assholes who have shaped my trajectory and for the biggest abuser of all, my grandfather – but that’s another story.

 

Dr. Monkey may not look much like Glinda the Good in The Wizard of Oz, but he sure delivered the same message:  You’ve had the power inside yourself all along. As I’m clicking my heels together three times this morning, “There’s no place like home,” echoing in my head, I’m finally able to turn away from the Bullshit and walk into the Light.  Just like Dorothy discovered when she Awoke – from the Dream, the foma, the bullshit, the illusion – I’m surrounded by Love.  That love lives inside us all and, when we choose, we can embrace it and extend it to everyone we touch.

So today, one of the most vocal atheists I know has functioned as a Teacher of God, which is just about as funny as Vonnegut and his pals from the Council for Secular Humanism saying, “He’s in Heaven now,” when they’re delivering eulogies for each other.  And today, once and for all, I accept the Atonement for myself.  If Trippin’ Jesus is right, and almost every metaphysician I know of says exactly the same thing as Trippin’ Jesus, when one consciousness shifts, others necessarily follow.  It’s that great Pachinko Machine of Life again, illustrating the simplicity of cause and effect.

In Hitchhiker’s Guide, right before the Earth is smashed to bits during the construction of an intergalactic highway, the dolphins make a timely escape and cheerfully say to the clueless humans, “So long and thanks for all the fish.”  Peter Pan shouts out the directions to Neverland, "Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning."  And me, I've got a song stuck in my head again

With deep gratitude and appreciation to my friend and mentor through A Course In Miracles, Max Ryan, who I fondly call Max the Psychic Life Coach, for showing me that it's not delusional to sprinkle a little fairy dust around. It's how we find the magic in life.