Evolve Or God Will Try Again

When our kids were young, we used to tell them that, “You should be proud of themselves,” instead of, “We’re proud of you.” We switched that around. Our intention was to have them look to themselves for self-esteem rather than from their environment. It is after all “self” esteem. In their development of their own identity, we wanted them to look to themselves for validation and not from others.
We learn earlier lessons and that prepares us for the next challenges in our development. If we look to others for our identity, it becomes more difficult when we face the challenges from sexuality and intimacy. It makes us vulnerable to the latest social contagion. When we get to self-actualization we again look to others for “self”-actualization. Self-actualization can take the rest of our lives. We look for our place in the world and make assessments as to if we have achieved the best we can be. Did we achieve what we wanted, or did we achieve a goal that was not ours. I also add in that self-actualization includes a resolution of death. A task that is made easier as we approach the twilight of our lives. We face the biggest challenge of our lives as we look into the loss of our biggest commitment. Hopefully we can look back over our lives and be comforted that we are happy with the energy we put back into the world. If not, hopefully we have enough time to change.

I am so weird. I get stuck on things, and I procrastinate. I was trying to force myself to write at least 1 hour per day. It got me so freaked out that so much I wrote nothing for two weeks. I lowered my number to 30 minutes, and I only procrastinated for 1 week. I figured I better take the pressure off and just try to write. I have a bad habit of trying to write it all in my head before putting it to paper. I want it to be perfect on the first draft. I am thinking about the hole in the consciousness thought my friend put in my head. I been trying to figure out what that means to me. I was almost ready a couple times, but I procrastinated. I’ve been trying to force myself but I’m realizing that I'm too stubborn to be pushed even if it’s by myself.
I am a believer in fate. I believe that life takes us on a journey like a leaf in the stream. Sometimes the stream’s currents take you into little eddies and you encounter people or things that aide you on your journey. You learn what you need to, and the current takes you away down the stream. If you are lucky, like me, you find another leaf to share your journey with you. I found my leaf and the journey has made my life. We made a couple more leaves and we traveled the stream of life together as a family. Then the young leaves grow up and start their own journey down the stream. Then again, it’s just the two of us. We got lucky and have raised a couple good humans. We watch them and they drift away into their own little eddies along their journeys.
Sometimes I don’t figure out the lesson I need to learn from the eddies I find myself. This last little eddy found me binge watching Star Trek (amazing the concepts they were dealing with back then,) Star Trek Next Generation, Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek Enterprise, Lucifer, Wednesday, How to Change Your Mind, and the latest, Good Witch. I turned on Netflix and the first show to pop up was the Good Witch and Netflix told me that from my previous selections this was a 98% match. I started watching it. Characters are a little over the top, but the main theme was small town America with the star having extraordinary powers to know what the townspeople need. I’m not sure what this lead will provide but I feel compelled to watch it. It has something to do with getting the small town feeling about the whole world where you care for everyone in your community.

When I first started on my quest, I thought that religion and science had to come together to describe God. I took a class called, Altered States of Consciousness and found how many cultures attained this state through rituals and lifestyle. I was looking for an explanation of my psychedelic experiences. Instead, I found that many cultures attained this altered state through natural means and that drugs were only a temporary study guide. I read Carlos Castaneda and I felt a tingle that told me that I needed to understand. I was intrigued by a story I heard about the military experimenting with L*D in the 60’s and when they gave it to Buddhist monks it had no effect on them. I also saw a documentary on Netflix called, How To Change Your Mind and it posed that the tech revolution could have resulted from the influx of L*D in the Bay area. Johns Hopkins did research into Psylocibin and found it was useful in the treatment of depression, anxiety, PTSD, and end of life treatment.
A few of my friends wanted to experience psylocibin and I accommodated them. I tried to explain the experience to them beforehand, but it truly is an experience beyond words. I made a safe environment for them and used music to help guide their experience. They experienced a world beyond their normal perception, a world of Joy. The experience was dreamlike and in the morning the dream faded telling me I was nowhere close to understanding that Joy.
I saw many cultures described God, or the ultimate consciousness, in their own experience and language. People fought over the words, but their descriptions were similar. I knew that a holographic approach might be better. Taking different perspectives of an experience and finding similarities instead of differences. If earlier people didn’t have the science to explain their experience, they described the experience in whatever words they had. I started reading the Bible looking at the symbolism of the stories and found similarities in Judeo-Christian faith and the Enlightenment and universal consciousness of Buddhism. I didn’t have the science to explain the Joy I felt in the experience, but I knew that I must. The responsibilities of family took me away from the journey and I learned about life through the eyes of my children. When the kids went off on their own, I got back to the task of understanding consciousness and altered states.
I thought that evolution was trying to attain a goal and humans were, so far, the epitome of evolution. Where was evolution taking us and were we going to make it? Many civilizations reached the top but then destroyed itself. If we don’t understand history, we will repeat the mistakes.
I started to feel I was special, and my experiences uniquely situated me to figure out what I knew was my goal. Well, I found out that I was not special but one of millions trying to figure this out. Many didn’t even realize what the question was, but I felt their interpretations in many things whether it was art, music, literature, movies, and life. I felt a tingle when I would experience these things and I tried to figure out how it fit into the puzzle.
I became infatuated with the Bible. The Garden of Eden was full of symbolism. I felt it was describing our consciousness and how we were once part of the ultimate consciousness but got kicked out when we developed our individual consciousness or when we ate from the tree of knowledge of right and wrong. To get back to the garden we had to reach the Tree of Life which was guarded by a flaming sword. I equated it with birth which was the beginning of our development of our individual consciousness and the flaming sword was the trauma of birth which kept us from the Universal Consciousness we experienced in the womb. I felt that the New Testament was the best description of God, or the Joy of Universal Consciousness in that God is Love. I liked the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus knew what was in store for him and asked God if this was what he had to do. Then he drank from the cup of man’s sin and for a moment lost his connection to God.
Recently a friend of mine inquired about Psilocybin. He had seen the research from John’s Hopkins University on Psilocybin and treatment for depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and end of life acceptance. I agreed to take him on that journey. I was always anxious before guiding another person in the experience, even though I have never had a bad experience. That anxiety faded when my friend said, “There is such beauty all around us and we can’t see it.” I introduced him to a few friends I met along the way, The Moody Blues, Alan Parsons, Isoa Tomita, John Mclaughlin, and Frank Zappa. My friend and I had many conversations about the experience. He downloaded the playlist that John’s Hopkins developed for their Psylocibin studies. It was hauntingly beautiful and provided for another great trip. In one of our conversations, he mentioned a hole in our consciousness that religion tried to fill. It provided fuel for thought but that is another story.

When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed.
Ayn Rand