Chapter 14- Reaching for the Stars: Contraindicated, Part 2

The Playing of Jazz Music is listed here to characterise those activities (such also as Waxing Lyrical) which go on and on to no particular end. Such activities invite both mind and being into stupefaction, simply because no real finale (or desire to end) is sensed.

In conversation – in either language or music – we intuitively comprehend much before it is presented or acknowledged consciously. It is not difficult to second-guess most repartees – as such is our participation, on many levels unspoken and ‘unheard’, yet known by us completely.

However, there is much confusion when there is no conclusion! And, without much ado, thus ends this subject!

Habitual Actions fraught with Compulsion and Impossibility:

There is a pretence amongst some folk that they can achieve certain things by their own actions, which are in fact, an impossibility. This pretence can take many guises and amongst all of us there are countless instances which can be cited upon review. If you are prepared to be candid about your own behaviours in this, you will be surprised throughout the course of a week the number that you shall come across: ranging from the meagre misconception about one’s own self-worth and capability, through to the extreme of illusory pride imagining oneself to be King of the World.

Accompanying such pretences shall be habitual compulsions which beg their reaffirmation. In other words, not only will we exaggerate our own value with something, but do so repeatedly, and to a point of obsession.

There are a few reasons why this is so, but the relevant one here belongs to the transverse properties of Star-Reaching when we believe that we have arrived at a hoped-for destination before we have actually got there. Holding a positive projection about who we are and how effective we can be in the world is extremely useful – however, it becomes a hindering vanity when future improvements are dismissed because we are believing our projections before the actuality. This is one of the difficulties of having faith in a destination we do not know of. Quite possibly many pilgrims have asked “are we there yet?” when they haven’t already left their compounds.

Added to this there are such impossibilities which no one can overcome. Quite often this may involve some of our deepest wants. For a bereaved individual there may be the impossible “if onlys”, for the healer, and the evangelist there are also a set of ‘if onlys’ – and these conditions make for yet more insecurity in both mind and soul because in truth they cannot and therefore will not materialise into the envisioned eventuality.

Dishonesty renders the soul derelict. Self-compromise pits and pores the egoic shell. Perpetuating dishonest realities impinges upon all who are concerned, holding each and every one within a confused disarray, inhibited from beginning upon their individual destiny.

And so, in this we are saying that if one is given to promoting a dishonest view, even when it comes to self-worth, they will be ineffectual in that which they are trying to be part of, whereas if they can obtain the candid outlook, reality will be far more pliable to their hopes and envisionings.

The futures cannot respond to the unreasonable or to the vain. This is of course contrary to what many may have originally believed: i.e. that the futures are welcomed by the ‘dreamers’ and the non-sensical … when in reality they are as but lost seeds to the wind, if not grounded. (Luke 8:15:  But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.)

And so, it is asked about the severity of statement – whereupon we view dishonesty in terms of those who might simply exaggerate their hopes, or conceal something protectively: What of these dishonesties? What of the positive thinker, and the grafting on of virtue? A man with ideals may become qualified because of them, yet he is still obliged during the time of development to admit to that which he is and that which he is not. This is both for the sake of himself as well as for others. Truity is best - what we are to be known by, regardless of the faults we may confess for the very sake and saving of that honesty about our selves.

False prophets and other such showmen (most of the time) set out to please people. In point of fact, their winningness comes from such a talent, a talent which compromises the truth in its very cunning. False hopes and false promises eventually prove themselves, leaving the disappointed to recover what they can and begin again.

However, such promise-givers do live within our own psyche also … eager to make happy, eager to entertain – introducing an entire repertoire for the song-and-dance of forthcoming “if only’s”.

“If only I was a wealthy man, then I would surely be happy”, and “if only I did such and such, so and so, then I too could be rich like him” and so it goes. All of the ‘happy’ lines within our own minds, the vaudeville patter which, in the long run, is characterised by only the absurd. God save us from these ‘venerable’ vulnerables, we pray.

To have authority – authorship – is to be the originator of that in which you wield the enforceable sovereignty … whilst to be with an authoritarian demeanour is to pretend to such authorship, yet not hold the signature keys for that claim to be rightly so.

There are two prospects within the realm of spiritual teaching which are good. One is that of the man or woman, who through their marvels and findings can go on to share inspirations that they have firsthand explored; with generosity and natural learning being keenly sensed by those around them. The other is far more contrived and deliberate on behalf of the teacher, one who has the authority to make certain presentations because he knowingly bears also the karma for that which he delivers. For the latter to be such a teacher there needs be an immediate perception which tells the individual comprehensively of the very nature of they who are being taught, and exactly what resounds within them as a consequence of further experience and information. This then weighs against more of the same.

Knowledge carries with it a life essence and is fundamentally a living material which evolves within the beings who seek to contain it. When it is passed on from one to another, there is a relationship of signatures which also transpires, an influence of consciousness in the exchange, and a developing relationship of that knowledge as it draws to it associated wisdoms in consequence. So to claim to have full authority within the realms of thinking in this world, it is essential that there is a commensurate faculty of perception which livingly tracks the processes and origins, finding the beneficial, the remedial and also the progressive elements amongst the sloth.

We mention this therefore to caution the would-be teacher, who understands not the differences between that of their own talents and of those who do bear a qualified authority. The latter variety is a condition which will come after much discerning (and also when the very physical condition complies); whilst the former sharings are not to be denied their worth, or thought the less of, just because the perspective is now the more defined.