Trapped Inside the Oval Office, Part 7

Trey Smith

U.S. Executive Branch foreign and military policy is characterized above all by two fatal flaws. In the 1960s Senator William Fulbright criticized the Executive’s "arrogance of power", and this arrogance - combined with ignorance about the countries they attack - has continued until today. U.S. officials regularly try to force local leaders to behave as the Executive wishes, even when these leaders believe it is against their national interests. And the Executive ignores the local public opinion that is increasing the power of anti-U.S. groupings throughout the Third World.

Its second flaw is conducting a short-term, tactics-oriented foreign and military policy at the expense of long-term strategic U.S. interests. For nearly a decade, for example, U.S. Executive military and political leaders were so obsessed with achieving short-term military successes in Afghanistan that they endangered far more important long-term U.S. strategic interests in nuclear-armed Pakistan.

In actual practice U.S. Executive foreign and military policy is above all driven by ambitious politicians, military and intelligence officials looking to further their careers in the short-term, as when David Petraeus managed to become the head of the CIA after totally mismanaging U.S. policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan; bureaucracies fighting vicious turf wars in an attempt to increase their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year; and U.S. corporations seeking to boost next quarter's profits.

Both arrogance and short-term thinking are in dramatic evidence today in what is the U.S. Executive's single greatest strategic error since Vietnam: its waging an expanding war in the 1.8 billion strong, nuclear-armed and oil-rich Muslim world. Its policies are turning hundreds of millions of Muslims against the U.S., including countless potential suicide bombers, as it creates far more enemies than it kills. If Executive actions were protecting the U.S., the numbers of U.S. foes would be decreasing. Instead they are exponentially increasing, and spreading to an increasing number of nations.
~ from America's Most Anti-Democratic Institution: How the Imperial Presidency Threatens U.S. National Security, by Fred Branfman ~

I will address the issue of arrogance tomorrow via a snippet from an excellent column by Conor Friedersdorf. (Hint: He notes that Dick Cheney and Barack Obama share something in common!) What I will focus on right now is the overarching capitalistic principle of ignoring the long-term to focus on the short-term.

In capitalist America, the ONLY thing that matters is the maximization of short-term profits. At first glance, this would seem short-sighted, but the elites have crafted a mechanism to get around this deficiency: They control the government. Since they exercise this kind of control, it means that they can take dangerous risks -- the kind prone to blow up in one's face -- without worry. If anything might happen to go awry, they simply instruct their political "employees" to bail them out financially and/or retroactively insure they are immune from charges of criminality.

Since this gambit has proven so successful within our borders, they have foisted the same arrangement on the rest of the world! This allows US elites to act with impunity wherever they want to. Laws, treaties, agreements or general societal expectations be damned. They do what they want because they can and they do it often because they think no one can stop them.  (It seems they are right in this regard.)

~

Barack Obama is part of this system and he is a prisoner of it as well. He doesn't want to change the status quo and, even if he did, he certainly couldn't do it unilaterally. But, if he genuinely wanted to slow it down or constrain it to a degree, he HAS the bully pulpit under his feet. The very fact that he could stand on this pulpit, but steadfastly refuses to do so, should tell you all you need to know.

He isn't interested in leading toward the change we can believe in!

This is the conclusion of a miniseries.  Here are the previous entries: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6.

Trapped Inside the Oval Office, Part 6

Trey Smith

As important as it is to understand the U.S. Executive's institutional evil, lawlessness and authoritarianism, however, there is one question that must be addressed first: its claim to be protecting "national security."

For this claim is the foundational rationale of all Executive action. American democracy has become so debased that most Americans passively accept the fact that the public servants whose salaries they pay routinely lie to them; wage losing and murderous wars that waste trillions of dollars that they need at home to make a living and support their families; send their sons and daughters off to be senselessly killed; and routinely break the domestic and international laws in which all Americans claim to believe, and upon which Executive officials base their right to rule.

They accept these Executive Branch violations of the most basic principles upon which their country was founded for one basic reason: they believe Executive Branch leaders are protecting them, that even clearly illegitimate activities are legitimate because they protect U.S. "national security."

So deep is the unconscious need to be protected that the words "national security" have acquired a near-mystical power that overwhelms the undeniable factual evidence that U.S. Executive Branch leaders are endangering not protecting Americans, as they lose U.S. influence around the world.
~ from America's Most Anti-Democratic Institution: How the Imperial Presidency Threatens U.S. National Security, by Fred Branfman ~

The problem with the term "national security" is that it means one thing for the unwashed masses and something altogether different for the elite. For the former, it means protection from all the bogeymen -- real and imagined -- out there in the big bad world. National Security means that our borders are protected and that terrorists -- real or imagined -- won't attack and harm us.

But this is NOT what the term means for elites. For them, it is ALL about economics. Nothing else factors into it. Not human rights. Not national sovereignty. Not environmental stewardship. Not the democratic process. And most definitely NOT the economic security of the 99 percent!

No, for the powers that be, national security means they are afforded the opportunity to exploit whomever they want whenever they want without any fetters or obstacles placed in their way.

Do you have oil? They want it. Do you have other valuable natural resources? They want that too. Do you have cheap labor for them to exploit? Hand it over. Will you let them pollute your land like there is no tomorrow? You're their best friend!

If they have to kill to get what they want, so be it. Nothing can stand in their way. They won't allow it.

This post is part of a miniseries: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.

Trapped Inside the Oval Office, Part 5

Trey Smith

In seeking to understand the U.S. Executive Branch, and its evil, lawlessness and authoritarianism, it is important to note that we are not delving here into "conspiracy theory". On the contrary. U.S. Executive Branch policy is determined not by conspiracy by a few but rather out of the interaction of hundreds of semi-independent power centers within the bureaucracies and corporate world, the huge agglomeration that Eisenhower termed the "military-industrial complex." Policy emerges as a result of countless meetings, lobbying sessions, phone calls, meals, negotiations, promises of future jobs in the private sector in return for government contracts, forming and breaking alliances, promoting and demoting individuals.

It is also important to note that when we speak of "evil", we are not speaking of evil individuals as normally understood. The term is conventionally applied to the clearly demonic monsters who periodically pop up in world history, most notably of course Hitler and other Nazi leaders, i.e. the standard humanist understanding of what most people call evil.

By contrast, most U.S. Executive Branch leaders tend to be rather conventional types before they join the Executive. Like Mr. Obama most have some feeling for their mates, children and/or dogs, give to charity, and hold accepted beliefs about democracy and the rule of law. They do not lie as a matter of course to family and friends, or commit face-to-face violence against those with whom they disagree.

But in the postwar Executive world one need not be classically evil to do evil. It is institutional evil, e.g., mass murder, conducted by normal individuals which poses the greatest threat to human life, decency, democracy and the rule of law in our time. Top Executive Branch leaders are not motivated by grand theories of “purifying the race” or “thousand year Reichs”, but rather simply succeeding in their jobs, advancing in their careers, making more money, being promoted, and gaining more power. Henry Kissinger obviously did not devastate Indochina because he cared about the wellbeing of the 6 million people he helped kill, wound or make homeless; nor did he wish to promote democracy when supporting a savage police-state in South Vietnam which held more political prisoners than the rest of the world combined. Those who know him best say he was motivated by simple careerism – a desire not to be blamed for the fall of Indochina while in office, and to be admired - and rewarded for - being seen as a “statesman” after leaving it.
~ from America's Most Anti-Democratic Institution: How the Imperial Presidency Threatens U.S. National Security, by Fred Branfman ~

Branfman is making an argument much like that of Joel Bakan in his book, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power. Bakan contends that corporations are, by their very nature, amoral and anyone who enters the corporate system is forced to act amorally in order to survive. Put another way, we shouldn't focus so much attention on the individual actors in Corporate America; the system itself is structured to be anything but fair, just and humanitarian.

This is what Branfman says about the Executive Branch.  He contends that decent people enter into its web and, once entrapped, they act, think and behave indecently.

In Branfman's view, Barack Obama is one of these decent souls who has come to find himself trapped inside the Oval Office.  When Obama came into the White House, he really wanted to instill hope and change, but the nature of the institution itself plus the intransigence of conservative Republicans  thwarted his efforts. Obama is now a prisoner who can't move in the directions he genuinely wants to go.

While I will grant there is some truth to this analysis, I submit that Branfman is giving Obama far more credit than he deserves!  In my view, Barack Obama is Machiavellian and I don't write this as a Monday morning quarterback either.  Back in November 2008, I wrote,

So, I’m girding myself for the new age of Obamapology. Each time our new president does something that no bona fide progressive would approve of — like starting a new war in Pakistan or re-engaging Afghanistan or turning the federal mint over to the insurance industry — the Obamapologists will swing into action to inform us that President Barack had no other choice and how much worse it would have been under President John. The Obamapologists will urge us to turn a blind eye because the grand O is really about hope and change.

You see, I never bought into his "hope and change" gambit. Like many others on the Left, his presidency has gone much the way I expected, though in several areas, it is even worse than I ever imagined!

While I certainly agree that the institutional structure of the Executive Branch is unethical, undemocratic and immoral, my chief complaint is that too few of the "decent" people who enter into or work closely with it are willing to stand up for their supposed professed beliefs.  As soon as they see how difficult the fight will be, they cave in and just go with the nefarious flow.

For me, this is why the Obama administration viciously has gone after federal whistleblowers like Thomas Drake, Bradley Manning and now Edward Snowden.  These ARE decent people who decided to stand up to fight against the institution.  Their resolve in exposing the rampant criminality of the Executive Branch is an ever present reminder to Barack Obama that he surrendered with little more than a whimper.  These brave men are a constant reminder to the President how morally weak he actually is!

This post is part of a miniseries: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Trapped Inside the Oval Office, Part 4

Trey Smith

The U.S. mass media, dependent upon the Executive for their information and careers, and run by corporate interests benefiting from Executive largesse, predominately convey Executive Branch perspectives on an hourly basis to the American people. Even on the relatively few occasions when they publish information the Executive wishes to keep secret, it has little impact on Executive policies while maintaining the illusion that the U.S. has a "free press". The U.S. Executive is essentially free to conduct its activities as it wishes.
~ from America's Most Anti-Democratic Institution: How the Imperial Presidency Threatens U.S. National Security, by Fred Branfman ~

Again, as in the previous post of this miniseries, it basically boils down to economics. The mainstream media can't survive without advertisers or mainstream backing. If you challenge the powers that be too consistently and/or too forcefully, the money dries up and you're out of business. So, you play along by the "rules" and, if you are fortunate, the money keeps flowing.

Besides, the corporations who now own the vast majority of the mainstream media are members of the elite anyway. They certainly don't want to support anything that will hinder their ability to ride the gravy train. This is why you rarely see their reporters ask tough questions of the government or other elites. They only want us to know what THEY want us to know.

Every now and then, a major story or scandal blows past their pre-designed boundaries (like the current NSA brouhaha). In these situations, circumstances force them to do something they really don't want to do: report on the underbelly of the beast. They tend to do so in a manner that seeks to minimize the damage as much as possible in the hope that it will blow over quickly which will allow them to move it off the front page or to train their cameras on some meaningless spectacle.

This post is part of a miniseries: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Trapped Inside the Oval Office, Part 3

Trey Smith

The U.S. Executive Branch agencies that conduct U.S. foreign military and domestic police operations - the White House, National Security Council, Pentagon, CIA, Departments of State, Defense and Homeland Security, National Security Agency and FBI - have an overall budget of well over $1 trillion, employ 3-4 million people, and spend more money on the military than the next 10 nations combined. Its enormous power has allowed it to operate unilaterally since the end of WWII, with little meaningful oversight or even the knowledge of Congress and the American people.

The Executive has had one overriding purpose since it emerged from the ashes of World War II: to keep foreign governments deemed "pro-U.S." in power, and to weaken or overthrow those considered "anti-U.S." The first key feature of a "pro-U.S." government is that it permits U.S. corporations and Wall Street investors access to its natural resources and cheap labor. As former Federal Reserve Board Chair Alan Greenspan stated, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." The second is that it allows the U.S. military and spy agencies to operate freely in its territory, including building military bases and conducting clandestine operations.

While convincing its own people that its policies are meant to support “freedom” and “democracy” around the world, its practice has often been exactly the opposite. It has installed and/or supported dozens of brutal, police-state regimes and paramilitary forces in every corner of the globe which are the very antithesis of democracy – including the Somoza family (1936-79) and then Contras in Nicaragua (1980s); death squads in El Salvador (1980s); vicious military regimes in Chile, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil in Latin America from WWII until the 1990s; the Mobutu (1965-97) and South African apartheid regimes (until 1990) in Africa; police-state and military governments in South Vietnam (1956-75), Cambodia (1970-5) and Indonesia (1967 until the present); and the despotic regimes of Mubarak in Egypt (1981-2011), Ben Ali in Tunisia (1987-2011), the Shah of Iran (1952-79), Saudi Arabia (1945-present), and Bahraini (1971-present) in the Middle East. It has also supported the Israeli government’s mistreatment of the Palestinians and refusal to negotiate a settlement based on countless U.N. resolutions.

In general the U.S. Executive prefers to achieve its goals without overt violence. As President Bill Clinton himself later acknowledged with regard to Haiti, for example, his Administration's "free trade" policies featuring NAFTA and the World Trade Organization impoverished hundreds of millions of poor rural and slum dwellers around the world by giving U.S. corporations unprecedented access to Third World markets and labor, and extending loans that enriched local elites while forcing the population as a whole to repay them by cutting health, education and other social services.

But when such nonviolent means have not sufficed to fulfill Executive Branch aims, it has ruthlessly used massive violence to achieve its goals - from dropping 6.7 million tons of bombs on Indochina and invading it with 550,000 troops; imposing and supporting brutal police-state regimes around the world; and, more recently, relying on drone and ground assassination.
~ from America's Most Anti-Democratic Institution: How the Imperial Presidency Threatens U.S. National Security, by Fred Branfman ~

As I have pointed out again and again to readers, if you want to know WHY government does anything these days, you simply need to follow the money. This may sound simplistic, but economics generally explains the chief motivation. In this case, as Branfman notes, we're talking about a staggering amount of taxpayer dollars per year: over $1,000,000,000,000.

If you happen to be on the receiving end of a portion of this largess, wouldn't you be willing to do or say just about a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g to insure that the spigot is not turn off or even decreased by a smidge? The perception of threat is like having a hen that lays golden eggs! The more threat you can conjure up, the more eggs the hen lays.

And that is why this whole situation is so pernicious. It is not about security. It is not about safety. It is not about freedom. It certainly isn't about democracy. No, the driving force behind all this death, destruction, intimidation and the evisceration of human and civil rights is about GREED. It is about a very small cadre of individuals who lust after more wealth, more power and more control.

I'm serious. If you boil everything down, the rationale is as old as the hills. The rich and powerful want to become richer and more powerful. Anything and anyone who they perceive to be standing in their way is expendable. 

This post is part of a miniseries: Part 1 & Part 2.

Trapped Inside the Oval Office, Part 2

Trey Smith

Famed Watergate reporter Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars reporting on Mr. Obama's Afghanistan Policy Review in the fall of 2009 provides an instructive case-study of just how limited a President's options are when faced with institutional opposition from within the Executive Branch.

Woodward reported that after Mr. Obama had acceded to the military demand for an addition 21,000 troops shortly after taking office, he asked them to produce a set of options that would include a reduced U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. The Pentagon refused to do so and instead began publicly lobbying for an additional 40,000 troops. Joint Chief of Staff head Admiral Mike Mullen first pushed for a troop increase at a September 15 Senate Armed Services hearing. White House aides Rahm Emanuel and Tom Donilon were, Woodward reports, "furious. The president is being screwed by the senior uniformed military, they (said). The generals and admirals are systematically playing him, boxing him in." Mullen apologized and said it wouldn't happen again.

But then two weeks later, on October 1, 2009, U.S. Afghan military commander Stanley McChrystal committed an act of insubordination far more serious than the later Rolling Stone interviews which got him fired. He again publicly lobbied for more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in a major speech in London. Woodward reports that "McChrystal's comments marked a seminal moment for the White House staff. What better proof that the military was on a search-and-destroy mission aimed at the president? (National Security Advisor) James Jones said that McChrystal's speech was either “insubordination or stupid. It read like a direct challenge to the president. 'It is a firing offense, but McChrystal won't be fired because we need him.'" Woodward also reported that "Obama felt disrespected and trapped. The White House saw the speech as a scheme on the part of McChrystal, Mullen and Petraeus."

And Mr. Obama was indeed trapped, far more controlled by the military than its actual "Commander-in-Chief". As CIA chief Leon Panetta summed up the situation: "no Democratic president can go against military advice, especially if he asked for it. So just do it. Do what they say." Mr. Obama was thus forced to accede to the Pentagon's harebrained scheme for a "surge" that increased U.S. troops in Afghanistan by 30,000 (with an additional 10,000 from NATO allies) that achieved little and continued to weaken U.S. national security by worsening conditions in neighboring, and far more important, Pakistan.

The logic behind Panetta's "give them what they want" mentality is obvious. A President might conceivably survive another 9/11 or losing in Afghanistan - but not if military sources continually leaked information to the media and Congress blaming it on his or her failure to support the military. And, for the same reason, a President is often "trapped" by the NSA, CIA or any other major Executive agency.
~ from America's Most Anti-Democratic Institution: How the Imperial Presidency Threatens U.S. National Security, by Fred Branfman ~

I am often amazed that so many of my fellow Americans don't recognize that the military (or spy agencies) -- just like any other business or organization -- wants to grow. It wants more money, more power and more influence. This is why the military brass aren't interested in the concept of peace. A lack of real, perceived or imaginary enemies is a direct threat to their preeminence. As long as they can convince us that there are bogeymen around every corner, too many Americans will give them a free hand to keep us "safe."

How is it that for years our number one priority to stem the flow of terrorism was to get Osama bin Laden and yet, once we got him, we were told that the threat was as great as ever! Each time we kill another "important" leader in the terrorist network and we're told how this death will hamper the command structure, nothing actually changes. One would think that, since we've killed or arrested so many terrorist cogs, the threat would recede, but we are told the precise opposite! The threat is as great now as it was before we took out x, y and z.

It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that it doesn't matter how many terrorist higher ups we kill. We could slaughter thousands at a time and we would still be told that we weren't safe enough yet, that now is not the time to let down our guard.

The institution of the military craves perpetual war because this kind of war insures that the military will be THE prime focus of government. They actively are pursuing a strategy that guarantees to produce tens or hundreds of thousands of people who want nothing more than to avenge the death and destruction we routinely visit upon them. By relentlessly pursuing this strategy, the military-industrial complex guarantees that it will create far more "terrorists" than it can ever kill which means it willfully generates the threat that it says it must protect us from!

This post is part of a miniseries.  If you missed Part 1, go here. 

Trapped Inside the Oval Office, Part 1

Trey Smith

This post and the next 6 (spread over 2 days) will focus on excerpts from a long and penetrating article, America's Most Anti-Democratic Institution: How the Imperial Presidency Threatens U.S. National Security, by Fred Branfman.

Under Mr. Obama, America is still far from being a classic police-state of course. But no President has done more to create the infrastructure for a possible future police-state. This infrastructure will clearly pose a serious danger to democratic ideals should there be more 9/11s, and/or increased domestic unrest due to economic decline and growing inequality, and/or massive global disruption due to climate change, and/or a President with even less scruples than Mr. Obama.

What gives? How could a fellow who spoke so eloquently of the need for the rule of law when running for President now be presiding over a lawless "industrial-sized killing machine" abroad and a massive threat to civil liberties at home? Why has Mr. Obama made the U.S. even more hated in the Muslim world than when he took office - even though his stated goal in 2009 was to reshape U.S. policy in the region? How is it that both he and Mitt Romney both ran on essentially the same foreign policy, despite significant differences between them on domestic policy?

Much of the answer to such questions lies in something that we rarely do in this nation - seeing the U.S. Executive Branch Mr. Obama nominally heads for what it really is: the most powerful institution in the history of the world, one that has killed, wounded or made homeless well over 20 million human beings ("Dollars and Deaths," Cong. Record, 5-14-75, p. 14262), mostly civilians, since 1962 - far more than any other government in the world.

Nothing demonstrates this institution's power more than Mr. Obama himself. The fact that he has so violated his own values and belief system as Commander-in-Chief is not merely a matter of personal hypocrisy; it is a dramatic illustration of how the Executive's institutional violence, secrecy and deceit overwhelm even Presidents who begin their terms with relatively good intentions.

...Americans have been conditioned to focus on the personality of the President, and to see the giant Executive Branch as a mere servant of its "Commander-in-Chief." Countless books and newspaper stories have been written about the differences between the "Reagan", "Carter" or "Clinton" foreign policies. There are of course significant differences between Administrations, though often due as much to differing objective conditions as Presidential desires. But the simple fact is that these differences have been far outweighed by a remarkable consistency in U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II. And a President is far more limited in his options than popular folklore suggests. It is only when one understands the Executive Branch as an institution that one can make sense, not only of Mr. Obama, but much of both America's postwar history and frightening future.

Whether you think Barack Obama is a great president or a horrible one, the thing that should worry you is that he is establishing precedents that will be built upon and expanded under future presidents. If you are concerned about the huge reach of Big Brother today, imagine how much further and deeper that reach will become in the future.

As it stands right now, metadata is being collected on our phone calls and content is being seized and stored in relation to our internet communications. The FBI recently admitted that domestic drones currently are being utilized for surveillance of Americans. If this remains the baseline going forward, what new invasions of privacy are in store for us?

Though I believe that Branfman is giving Obama a lot more credit than he deserves in terms of "his own values and belief system," I do agree that he is a bit of a prisoner of the institutional nature of the Executive Branch. I'll have more to say on this aspect in a later post.

Journey To The Center Of Our Ego, Part 8

Shawn Tedrow

I was thus steeped in the marvelous ecstasy which all high summits develop in the mind; and now without giddiness, for I was beginning to be accustomed to these sublime aspects of nature.

My dazzled eyes were bathed in the bright flood of the solar rays. I was forgetting where and who I was, to live the life of elves and sylphs, the fanciful creation of Scandinavian superstitions. I felt intoxicated with the sublime pleasure of lofty elevations without thinking of the profound abysses into which I was shortly to be plunged”……………Axel

~ from A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne ~

Wow! It looks like our boy Axel finally achieved that summit experience, called enlightenment.

Reading into this, he experienced marvelous ecstasy, revelations of sublime aspects of nature, a glance at no-self, as he forgot who he was. He had realizations of the transient play act of our egoic dream characters, and he even forgot about his fear of death. He was definitely on a roll, as he was getting accustomed to this state of mind, without giddiness. Yep, that sure sounds like enlightenment.

I suppose Axel should now start working on spelling a new name for himself. He could begin his own website and call it, “The Axle of Life”, conduct satsang meetings, and maybe even write a few books on enlightenment.

You would think that this Satori-like experience that Axel had encountered was the result from going to the center of the earth and returning back, but he hadn’t made one step into the decent of the volcano of his subconscious. Very few dare to take that step. Alchemy had not taken place yet in Alex’s life. When this euphoric experience occurred, he was standing on the summit of Sneafellsjokull, prior to him down climbing to the center of the earth.

Oh how our ego likes to co-op with spiritual experiences! This is when ego’s historical identification is still in full control of our life, and we get a glance at enlightenment. I call this claim to fame, “the enlightened ego”.

This is a common condition today in the New Age spiritual marketplace. It is when the overwhelming experience of bliss gets latched onto by our ego, and it then precipitately claims the finality of its spiritual journey. I call this state of mind, “premature cosmic ejaculation”. It is when our ego gets a little overexcited while experiencing a glimpse of ecstasy.

Many Zen teachers had a method of dealing with students who would start claiming ultimate enlightenment after experiencing partial enlightenment experiences. They would take a stick and beat the crap out of you. After a few beatings, you would finally get over yourself.

Luckily for Axel, soberness was realized through just the presence of spiritual companionship.
After Axel experienced this heavenly bliss, he then says;

But I was brought back to the realities of things by the arrival of Hans and the Professor, who joined me on the summit.

Again, I can’t emphasize enough that on this quest of mystery, it is so important to become deeply connected with other spiritually-minded people. Even the stubborn-headed professor knew that he needed the help of a guide when he hired Hans for this trek. Without intimate interaction with others, the subtle inclinations of ego are unconsciously in the driver seat.

You can check out Shawn's other musings here.

Journey To The Center Of Our Ego, Part 7

Shawn Tedrow

I felt that it would be worthwhile that we revisit in more detail, Axel’s reaction to the challenging revelation he encountered, and squeeze-out glimpses of human nature, that we all participate with.

After Axel understood what the coded ancient runic manuscript was saying, he then said:

Stupefaction! Terror! I sat overwhelmed as if with a sudden deadly blow. What! That which I read had actually, really been done! A mortal man had had the audacity to penetrate!....

Ah!" I cried, springing up. "But no! no! My uncle shall never know it. He would insist upon doing it too. He would want to know all about it. Ropes could not hold him, such a determined geologist as he is! He would start, he would, in spite of everything and everybody, and he would take me with him, and we should never get back. No, never! never!"

My over-excitement was beyond all description.

"No! no! it shall not be," I declared energetically; "and as it is in my power to prevent the knowledge of it coming into the mind of my tyrant, I will do it. By dint of turning this document round and round, he too might discover the key. I will destroy it."

There was a little fire left on the hearth. I seized not only the paper but Saknussemm's parchment; with a feverish hand I was about to fling it all upon the coals and utterly destroy and abolish this dangerous secret.

Then the study door opened, and my uncle appeared.

As you can see, the voice of the call to alchemy is not a welcome moment. Do you know what is interesting? We in fear, spend most of our life's efforts in defense from a spiritual transformational experience happening to us. We have our guards out in full force, and ward off ecstasy, in defense of our psychological egocentric-self until the end. Like Axel, we try to destroy and abolish its presence and its revolutionary effect on our life. That is the nature of our ego.

Why is the voice of the call to alchemy so unwelcomed into our life? Transpersonal transformation involves one life descending into death to give way to another life rising. It is the daunting sense of our life falling into oblivion, why the voice of alchemy is not welcomed. Axel said, “he would take me with him, and we would never get back”. It is the fear of death that Axel is wrestling with. The fear of once he steps into the cocoon of the volcano, “he will never come back”.

This is why we resist change and alchemy in our life. We want to hold onto our “self”, (no matter how dysfunctional it is) from never coming back and going into oblivion. We misunderstand life’s volcanic cocoon of darkness that is coming our way and do not trust its mysterious process of metamorphism, that when the ego gets crushed, unification with Tao rises.

Axel then calls his uncle a tyrant. This represents the view of looking through the eye of our ego at alchemy. Life looks like a tyrant in relationship to its movement on our life towards transformation. A definition of a tyrant is: A usurper and absolute ruler who governs without restrictions. That is how our ego-identity views Tao. We do not want to surrender our will to The Way because it would mean that we will lose complete control of our self to the tyrant of life. Ego does not want to lose control that it thinks it has. Again, this viewpoint is through the eyes of our ego.

Ego and The Way are in opposite polarities. It is like trying to put together a north and south magnet together. It can’t happen. The ego cannot surrender to Tao. Ego must undergo a spiritual regeneration of its constructed constitution to return to compatibility and union with the Source from which it came.

Realignment with Tao is not done by accepting and affirming ego, and going with its flow. Its flow is dysfunctional in relationship to Tao. This caterpillar, called the ego, cannot fly in tandem on the wings of Tao until it goes through a Metamorphosis change.

When Axel was about to throw and destroy the text into the fire, it says; “Then the study door opened, and my uncle appeared.” This represents our need for spiritual companionship and fellowship that keeps us accountable and marching forward toward alchemy. Without it, we tend to only listen to the inclinations of our ego and repel transformational change.

You can check out Shawn's other musings here.

Journey To The Center Of Our Ego, Part 6

Shawn Tedrow

Axel discovers the answer while fanning himself with the text. Afraid of what the Professor might do with this knowledge, he decides to keep the secret hidden from Professor Lidenbrock.

After two days without food he cannot stand the hunger anymore and reveals the secret to his uncle. (Remember, the Professor had locked everyone in the house to go without food until they cracked the code).

Professor Lidenbrock is a man of astonishing impatience, and departs for Iceland immediately, taking his reluctant nephew with him. Axel, who, in comparison, is cowardly and anti-adventurous, repeatedly tries to reason with him, explaining his fears of descending into a volcano and putting forward various scientific theories as to why the journey is impossible, but Professor Lidenbrock repeatedly keeps himself blinded against Axel's point of view.
~ from A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne ~

What I will be sharing here is a sensitive subject to tread on, and very difficult to articulate. It is regarding our subconscious inner motivations to why we believe what we believe.

Principles to this understanding can be found by looking deeper, underneath the words, of Axel’s scientific theories and beliefs on why he thought they shouldn’t attempt to journey to the center of the earth.

To begin, let’s start off by imagining we are with Axel listening to him explaining his scientific ideology to the Professor. Let’s call these statements of scientific assertions by Axel, beliefs and philosophies. Axel is giving his philosophical reasons to determine why and how they should proceed in life, or in this case, why they shouldn’t proceed. But is this proclaimed formulation of doctrine from Axel just innocent reasoning of objective theory or were these reasons prompted by the undermining manipulations of Axel’s subconscious? What gave birth to the true motivation and genesis of Axel’s belief?

If we look closer into this story, we can observe that Axel kept this secret knowledge that he realized hidden from the professor because he was afraid of what it meant to his uncle and what it possibly would lead to. You can clearly see that Axel’s crafty tactfulness to hide this from his uncle was motivated out of fear. The state of his emotional demeanor, being fear-based, was dictating what he thought, said, and how he acted.

It then says that Axel couldn’t stand the pain of hunger any longer and because of that pain, he decides to come forward, face the truth of the situation, and let the professor know what he has discovered. This symbolizes how sometimes the pain and suffering of life becomes more painful than facing the implied consequences of the truth. Sometimes life's situations pressure and force us into becoming truthful with ourselves. It becomes less painful to face the truth than to deal with the pain of continuing to live a lie.

Unfortunately, many of us humans figure out how to live with our pain of living a lie, and do not transcend and evolve in life. We might even circumvent these “teaching moments” that Life brings into play, by applying philosophical Tao-Novocain on our pain, and numbingly convince ourselves that “All is well”.

It goes on to say that Axel is cowardly and anti-adventurous. Who knows exactly why Alex’s ego-identity consisted of these psychological attributes, but they did. If we knew more about Axel’s life history, we might be able to understand why this is, and even feel love and sympathy towards him.

It is from this state of mind of Axel’s emotional characteristics that gives birth to his philosophical reasoning. His philosophy is not objective, but is tainted and influenced by his subconscious. Even though he might be explaining to the Professor scientific facts, he is using these truths to sustain and preserve his ego-identity in a status quo condition.

He doesn’t want to experience and venture out into anything that will challenge and disrupt his character and possibly create change. He lives a life that is a destination; it is tethered and controlled by shielding himself through philosophy and scientific theories.

Axel doesn’t want to have anything to do with transformation and alchemy, and attempts to hold that experience at bay through his philosophy. He surely does not want to face his fears and go through a process of metamorphism.

We must remember that the journey to the center of the earth represents a journey through our unconscious, with discovery of deeper and deeper archetypes. This includes our deep-seated emotions. Axel did not want to go there within himself and see his subconscious behavior. It is by entering into the volcano of “little self”, how we transform and integrate into unity with Big-Self (Tao).

Our philosophy and behavior are direct byproducts of our subconscious. We must allow our words and actions to be penetrated with the light of consciousness, all the way to its roots. It is through allowing the center and root of our ego to be exposed, when we experience the freedom from its dream’s claims and chains. When you see it, it will then be slain.

I was once told by a Zen teacher that psychology precedes philosophy. He looked right through my philosophies and urged me to see what I was hiding behind. I was taken aback by this because, without consciously being aware, I thought that my philosophical knowledge was the proof that showed how spiritual I was. But he was suggesting that my proclamation of what light and spirituality are was loaded with personal baggage.

That was a tough message for me to swallow because, to be honest with you, I found identity in myself through my spiritually-obtained knowledge. It was who I am, I thought, and I felt that image of myself being threatened.

But what he was saying to me went even deeper than that. Could it be that my thinking that we each have our own paths was initiated and motivated by the fact that I didn’t want anyone to question the path that I was on? Could it be that my philosophical thinking -- that there is no such thing or way to know objective truth and reality -- was really just a cover for me to not allow the truth and reality of consciousness to penetrate into my self’s core-center and create real change?

This questioning of myself and my philosophy continually battered me around, as I was trying to find some kind of footing of solid ground to stand on, but it wasn’t to be found. All of my philosophical thinking could be trailed to craftily hidden, defensive tactics that was protecting my ego-identity from real change taking place.

This truly was a pivotal moment to my spiritual walk in life. I had not a clue that I was using philosophies to justify and sustain my egoic state of being. I am so thankful for this “teaching moment” that came my way.

We unconsciously have built a garrison around ego-self to ward off alchemy. We each need -- with gut wrenching sincerity -- to face our philosophical garrison head-on and remove its defensive mask of “self”-preservation, through “self”-deception.

This is a part of the metamorphic process of spiritual transformation. This is an essential staging-moment of self-discovery and journey to the center of our ego. As Carl Jung once said, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”

You can check out Shawn's other musings here.

Journey To The Center Of Our Ego, Part 5

Shawn Tedrow

In the previous posts, I laid an arching overview and foundation of my musings about the book, A Journey to the Center of the Earth. The following posts will consist of a few small nuggets that I am finding while dredging through this book. Who knows, maybe this is just fool’s gold that I am panning.

The story begins on May 24, 1863, with Professor Lidenbrock rushing home to begin examining his recent purchase of an original runic manuscript.

While skimming through this ancient writing, Lidenbrock and his nephew, Axel, discover a coded note, written in runic script. They translate it into Latin letters revealing a hidden message written in a bazaar code. Lidenbrock tries to decipher the code but he is met with meaningless puzzling words.

Professor Lidenbrock decides to lock everyone in the house and force himself and the others (Axel, and the maid, Martha) to go without food until he cracks the code.

Axel eventually discovers the answer while fanning himself with the text.

This is a wonderful picture of the two essential energies, human egoic effort, and grace, meeting together with unexpected synergies, which give rise to realization. Here we witness a principal law of spiritual-physics at work, with the action of doing, working in unison, with the inactiveness of non-doing.

Professor Lidenbrock represents the act of doing. He exhibits the spiritual commitment and the passion it takes to get results. He ambitiously decides to lock everyone in the room and go without food until realization is experienced. He said, “I will neither sleep nor eat until I have found it out”. That is real commitment! We all need that type of passionate drive in our spiritual life. It is no surprise that the title of the second chapter is, “A Mystery to be Solved at Any Cost.”

Axel represents the practice of non-doing. He effortlessly, cracks the code while laid-back relaxing, fanning himself with the text. Axel’s words describing his experience were:

I wanted air. Unconsciously I fanned myself with the bit of paper, the back and front of which successively came before my eyes. What was my surprise when, in one of those rapid revolutions, at the moment when the back was turned to me I thought I caught sight of the Latin words "craterem," "terrestre," and others. A sudden light burst in upon me; these hints alone gave me the first glimpse of the truth; I had discovered the key to the cipher.

One might conclude: why put forth the effort into what the Professor was doing, when realization took place through the no-efforts of Alex?

The answer is; Alex would have never been in the room fanning himself, without the determination and craze of the Professor being expressed through locking themselves in that room. The two diametrical opposite energies were working in concert with each other.

Many teachings try and eliminate spiritual hard work as if any effort at all, is THE problem, right from the get go. In other words, non-doing should be the first and only steps you should ever take. The moment you get involved with any doing, you are walking in egoic darkness!

I contend that this spiritual concept is a misunderstanding of the many collective ancient teachings. It is putting the cart before the horses. It is putting the Buddha under the Bodhi tree and circumventing all the needed experiential journeys that the Buddha went through to arrive at a state of alchemic receptibility. I call this thinking, New-Age lazy Tao teaching.

You would think that Alex would have embraced this New-Age lazy Tao teaching considering his personal experience, but he witnessed firsthand the benefits reaped from the fiery unrestrained efforts, that the Professor had sewn.

Later on in this story Alex says this:

My uncle's rage knew no bounds. Heaven never sends unmixed grief, and for Professor Lidenbrock, there was a satisfaction in store proportioned to his desperate anxieties.

In other words, the Professor was rewarded proportionally to his passionate efforts that he put into it.

The life of non-doing is realized through the efforts of doing. One might think, why not just jump straight into the passivity of non-doing, and bypass doing, but unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.

It is through the chopping block of doing, where the doer eventually loses self’s efforts, and then the non-doing of Tao- nature, spontaneously arises.

Only Tao is authentic spontaneous non-doing. Our short-cut efforts of non-doing are from the ego. It is the ego artificially “acting” like the non-doing Tao.

You have heard it said, “practice non-doing”, but I say, “practice doing”, then the non-doing-Tao-expression, from the effortless fanning of Alex, will appear. When this occurs, you are sitting under the Bodhi tree with the Buddha.

You can check out Shawn's other musings here.

Journey To The Center Of Our Ego, Part 4

Shawn Tedrow

Oops! I forgot. Before we turn one page, wait a minute; anyone that dare takes this journey, do so at your own risk and expense. There is a qualifying cost to this endeavor.

We must engage ourselves in spiritual enantiodromia that Henri Ellenberger spoke of. Enantiodromia was coined by Carl Jung, meaning the superabundance of any force inevitably produces its opposite. The quality of this enantiodromia-force is an overabundance that is more than what is appropriate. Professor Lidenbrock, the main character in A Journey to the Center of the Earth, had this enantiodromia running through his body, soul, and spirit. Look to him, in the book, as an example of this required cost.

This takes a real gutsy, crazy-like commitment. Some may accuse you of chasing your own tail, and engaging in insensible non-Taoish behavior. Would I dare to suggest that we need to put assiduous courageous effort into our spiritual walk in order to realize results? Tao forbid!

This enantiodromia-effort that is required of us will inevitably produce its opposite. It is equivalent to the principal of equilibrium in the natural world, in that any extreme is opposed by the system in order to restore balance. Enantiodromia often foreshadows a rebirth of the personality.

Towards the end of this book, after enduring a life threatening raging ocean storm, then being thrown and cast up on a shore to safety, Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel, realized their compass was behaving strangely. They realized that the needle of the compass was pointing the wrong way after being struck by an electric fireball that nearly destroyed the wooden raft.

The author, Michael Washburn, speaks about a condition in which the two poles of the psyche finally become a true two-in-one. It is a condition in which ego functions and nonegoic potentials, at last function harmoniously (from the book, The Ego and the Dynamic Ground). This is when the ego’s deep rooted psychological chains, and its self constructed independence, deconstructs, and integrates into accord with Tao.

Some call this ego-death. I am not in that campground of thinking. I personally believe that the ego doesn’t die, but continues on and mysteriously merges into harmony with the magnificent wonders of the Tao. I am not saying that it doesn’t seem like the ego has died. Verne’s story explains that the electric fireball “nearly destroyed” the wooden raft. In other words, the raft still existed after the storm.

I call this raging ocean storm of adversity that the Professor and Axel went through, “the dark night of the ego”. This is when the ego is stretched to its limits, and its terrifying emptiness is woefully seen.

Thomas Merton, the famous author, Trappist monk, mystic, and teacher of Taoism, spoke about the mental and emotional undercurrent that develops in such a storm, when he said, “Dread means that we cannot any longer hope in ourselves, in our wisdom, our virtue, and our fidelity. We see too clearly that all that is ‘ours’ is nothing and can completely fail us.”

This is when the mind is hanging onto very shaky ground and experiencing extreme vulnerability. It is at this horrific time when we become a conduit of receptivity.

This dread that Thomas Merton speaks of is when the ego submerges into darkness, like the sun setting into the horizon of a torrential storm, and then within time, it miraculously ascends to the dawning of a new day.

Please note; the electric fireball that struck their raft, or ball lightening, as it is scientifically termed, is an unexplained atmospheric electrical phenomenon. Scientific data on natural ball lightning are scarce owing to its infrequency and unpredictability. Given inconsistencies and the lack of reliable data, the true nature of ball lightning is still unknown presumption as its existence is based only on reported public sighting.

Besides being passionate about the subject of radical spiritual metamorphism, I also can’t help but emphatically sense, that there is a law of physics, mirrored in the realm of the spirit. I call this “The Law of the Spirit of Life”. Please don’t misconstrue the word law here. It is not meant to be a law in the sense of a command. It is meant to convey that there is a consistent nature to the energy of Tao, similar to the laws of physics.

Now that I let all of that out of the closet, let’s continue on exploring into just the beginning of this book, and check out a few snippets of thoughts, as we continue on with “The Journey to the Center of Our Ego”.

See you in about one week, again......

You can check out Shawn's other musings here.

Journey To The Center Of Our Ego, Part 3

Shawn Tedrow

“Descend, bold traveler, into the crater of Sneafellsjokull, which the shadow of Scartaris touches before the Kalends of July, you will attain the centre of the earth, which I have done. Arne Saknussemm.”

Some of you might have picked up on, that the above writing is from the famous novel, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, written by Jules Verne.

Reading further into the background of this challenging call to descend into the center of the earth, it is no coincidence to find that Jules Verne mentions that Arne Saknussemm was an alchemist. Not only does he mention this, he goes out of his way to give kudos to the alchemists.

After Professor Lidenbrock realized Saknussemm wrote this, he said, "Arne Saknussemm! Why that is the name of another Icelander, a savant of the sixteenth century, a celebrated alchemist. Those alchemists, Avicenna, Bacon, Lully, Paracelsus, were the real and only savants of their time. They made discoveries at which we are astonished”.

No, this wasn’t just trivial, inconsequential, without intent writing, when Jules Verne went out of his way to pencil-in, with such enthusiastic homage, that Arne Saknussemm was an alchemist. He was giving a hint to the hidden meaning of what the story, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, was really about, underneath the surface of the outer expression of this novel.

It is no secret regarding Jules Verne’s love for cryptology. Cryptology is derived from the Greek word “krptos logos”, meaning “hidden word”. This whole novel is echoing hidden messages and analogies pointing in the direction of alchemy.

The alchemists have a long history throughout time, way too much for me to get into right now. I would like to though, extract and identify something that is in-common with the many perennial alchemist movements. A definition of alchemy is an inexplicable or mysterious transmuting from one thing to another.

This interest and desire of alchemy is embedded in the nature of each human being. How we humans respond to this instinctive unconscious driving force within, is perplexing. This aspiration for alchemy is most of the time circumvented, by trying to meet its ingrained longing, through misguided ideas and misconceptions. The list is many.

Some philosophies even try to subdue and suppress this innate spiritual evolutionary movement within us, by writing-off its energy, as being an egoic duality cosmic joke. I mean, why desire transformational change? According to new age Advaita School of extreme-thought, you are what you seek. All else is an illusion. Just accept this reality and experience “instant enlightenment”. Aren’t we all so enlightened by this wisdom?

I wouldn’t consider myself an alchemist in the traditional sense, but I am passionate about the subject of radical spiritual transformation, an experience, or multiple experiences, which leads to an internal alchemy of extraordinary change.

Such amazing spiritual metaphors can be discovered throughout this epic story written by Jules Verne. Recently, while doing a little research on this novel related to writing this post, I discovered that I am not the first to realize that this famous story has hidden meanings and spiritual application.

Henri Ellenberger (1905-1993) once mentioned, “The book could be interpreted in all its details as a journey through the unconscious, with discovery of deeper and deeper archetypes, until the encounter of a fireball sets about the enantiodromia that is the reversal of regression, and the return to the common world”.

Wow! I can’t agree more with Henri Ellenberger that this book can be interpreted in all its details, as man's journey into himself, probing deeper and deeper, until it leads to alchemy.

I wish I could have found more about what Henri Ellenberger saw into this book besides this one statement, but if I did, I would maybe miss out on my own discoveries, as I read and ponder on my own.

In fact, I am one that thinks that veiled revelations of spiritual passageways can be discovered in many secular writings. These spiritual sign post and accesses to portals of illumination, found in numerous non-spiritual books are so apparent, that many times I find myself scratching my head in complete amazement and awe, with joy overflowing in my heart, because of sensing such alive, esoteric wonder.

The spiritual path is not a walk on pavement that is composed of dead and dried up bones. There is liveliness to the path. It breathes, has pulse, and speaks. The path’s journey is rich with hidden treasures waiting to uncover. We each have an opportunity to open up and interact with life’s unseen vastness of vivacious mystery. Just like how William Morales discovered the Che Chem Ha Cave, we need to push aside the bush of doubt, and marvel at the wonders that were always there.

The one thing I like about discovering spiritual metaphors in secular writings is that it is the reader that is doing the active-unveiling of spiritual application, instead of the reader/student being hand-feed spiritual truths that are absorbed into the linear left side of the brain.

I know a teacher that had a student whom had been involved with Taoism and Zen for over thirty years but was found wanting. She had read and studied countless spiritual books and understood every spiritual concept that you could imagine, but came to realize that she was really just spinning her wheels.

This teacher asked her to give up what she was doing, and just watch movies, go to plays, read non-spiritual books, and develop her own authentic spiritual discoveries. What’s real sad is that she knew he was right, but couldn’t do that simple instruction he had offered her. She kept on doing what she was doing. I think Einstein called that insanity.

When a student begins to break through to the other side from intellectual spiritual knowledge, and develop their own spiritual life of discovery, a gushing well of flowing water that never ends has been discovered.

Let’s do a little rock-uncovering, of this well underneath our feet, into some of the details found in just the beginning chapters of this famous novel, and continue our exploration of self-discovery into a, “Journey to the Center of Our Ego”.

You can check out Shawn's other musings here.

Journey To The Center Of Our Ego, Part 2

Shawn Tedrow

On the last day of our vacation, Jenny and I winged it, and decided to take a different route than the typical traditional tourist attraction. We decided to explore an ancient Mayan cave that was off the beaten track, called Che Chem Ha Cave.

This cave was discovered in 1989 by a sixteen year old boy by the name of William Morales. One day William was on his family farm harvesting bay leaf palms, used in thatched roofing, when his dog began chasing a rodent, called a gibnut, and suddenly disappeared into a hillside covered by bushes. William went to where his dog had vanished, pushed aside the bushes, and discovered a cave. After shouting to his dog, and getting him to return, he went back to his house and told his parents what he discovered.

The next day he went back with flashlights and entered into the cave. Within fifteen meters of entering into this narrow passageway, it opened up wide and high, and he discovered a cave system containing precious pottery relics left behind by Mayan ancestors.

Years of exploration ended up place in this cavern with the support of many archeologists from universities and organizations. The cave had nine levels to it and went about 240 meters deep, with numerous sacred Mayan ceremonial sites being discovered. Having nine naturally created levels exhibited significant wonders to this cave, as the number nine had deep religious meaning to the ancient Mayans. Hundreds of years of Mayan history were discovered as they explored deeper and deeper into this cave.

Because this was found on private land, the cave remained the property of William Morales' family. William's life was completely changed because of his dog’s passionate zeal to catch that gibnut. He dedicated his life to studying the Mayan culture and became a tour guide to many historical places for about ten years. He eventually ended up coming back home where he now does private guides at this cave that he and his dog found on his family's farm.

The way William Morales found this cave reminded me how Alice in Wonderland stumbled across her life changing adventure, following a rabbit that lead to a hole she fell in. Yes, William Morales’ life was completely transformed because of this finding.

When we arrived at the Morales family farm, we were greeted by William, with a big grin on his face. We were an hour early but he asked, with such enthusiasm, "Are you ready to go?" He then grabbed his machete, and hats, with flashlights mounted on them, and off we were, on an uphill trek along a jungle trail that was cluttered with roots and rocks, that were quite slippery from the humidity. After about forty-five minutes of huffing and puffing up this jungle trail, we finally arrived at the cave.

With a pause for about a ten minute rest, we then commenced going into this cave, what the Mayans called the underworld. This underworld is where the Mayans communed with their ancestors and gods. All of the ancient sacramental pottery that we observed in the cave was not touched or moved from their original positioning when found in 1989. This Chechem Ha Cave adventure was surely the highlight of our entire vacation.

After about thirty minutes of going through different levels of the cavern, and viewing many sacred Mayan sites, we finally reached the end of the cave, at the ninth level. There at the floor was a large four foot high ceremonial stone with rocks circling it. There was a crude carved etching of a woman on the cave wall just behind this sacred stone alter. To the right of this carving of the woman, about eight feet up the wall, was a concaved ledge. William explained to us that the Mayans used to have a torch and incense burning at this ledge during their religious ceremonies.

William then told us all to turn off our flashlights, and it became heart-throbbing pitch black. He then reached up towards the ledge, where the Mayans used to have a torch burning, and lit a flame there. This small flame that William lit flooded illuminating light throughout the chamber of the cavern we were in. William then pointed to the wall on the left side of the etched woman, the opposite side from the ledge where he was holding the flame, and behold, there was a shadow cast from the carved woman on the wall. This shadow though, had magnificently transformed from the original carved image of the woman, into a completely different figure of another woman. The etched woman looked earthly crude, and unfinished, while its shadow appeared as a female spirit-god. It was crystal clear to me then, that this transformation from one woman’s image to another was what the Mayans use to observe and meditate on during their sacrificial ceremonies at this ninth level in the cave.

It is very difficult to explain what happened to me at that very moment. While sensing how dauntingly deep we were into the guts of this mountainside, and observing this awe mystifying transformation taking place, eerie quivers of resonating thoughts went up and down my spine that were vibrating back and forth off the two images of these women, and the title of the famous novel and post that had been in the back of my mind. I don’t believe in a personal God, but damn, this whole Che Chem Ha Cave random excursion we went on sure felt like a setup related to this emerging post I was trying to ignore.

Sometimes I feel like I need a coconut to fall on my head in order for me to realize that I am under a coconut tree.

I was finally persuaded that I should take a chance, and start writing. Sometimes I just need to cave into the situation, so to speak, and go with the flow, even though I don’t know what the hell I am doing.

Okay, I guess I’ll have to get to work and continue on writing this new RT post that just wouldn’t leave me alone.

I’ll see you in about one week

You can check out Shawn's other musings here.

Journey To The Center Of Our Ego, Part 1

Shawn Tedrow

I recently went on a vacation to Belize and Guatemala. A couple days before Jenny and I left the USA on this excursion, a title for a new RT post came to my mind that paralleled and interfaced with a famous novel. I wasn't in the mood to write though, as my personal agenda for this vacation was to let go of doing anything related to spiritual content.

I was planning on doing a mental fast to get a fresh new perspective on life. I didn’t want to write. I desired to posture my inner heart into being a good listener of life, with my ears being uncluttered from my inclined conceptions. I figured if I got into writing an essay, I wouldn’t be in a suitable listening mode. I wonder though, if sometimes while transcribing thoughts into words, that we actually are engaging ourselves in being an active listener?

This new post wouldn't leave me alone. Besides not leaving me alone, this emerging observation looked like it was going to be a lot of work for me. That was the opposite of what I wanted. I basically had the story of a novel, a title for the post, and involuntary disjointed thoughts flying in every direction.

This unintended sprouting thesis had many deep subject matters, and it was in need of me to toil in earnest thinking, in order for it to be organized and structured to make any sense. This was going to be a very difficult task for me, and without having a clue what to write, I resisted and fought getting into it. It kept rising to my mind though. These uninvited streams of thoughts just wouldn’t leave me alone.

In one sense, these rising thoughts were rather obnoxious, as I just wasn’t in the mood for it. In another sense, I felt like I was being enticed by a luring potion, to go into a mysterious dream-like portal of a river of imaginative inspiration. It was as if I was unconsciously hearing subliminal music, and I would find myself moving to its rhythmic pulse, in the form of ascending thoughts that were dancing to its drumbeat.

Writing can be an interesting journey, where it can feel like you are not the one initiating it, but some kind of inspirational wind is blowing on the sails of thought, navigating you to a place that was not planned.

This gentle, but relentless, seducing-like sensation, to start writing this post, seemed borderline crazy, as if I might be losing my mind. I didn’t tell Jenny about what I was going through because it might appear that I was going nuts.

The chance that this was indeed madness became a little bit of a challenge for me. If I surrendered into this enchantment, and nothing came of it, I would be very concerned for myself that I might be at the beginning stages of auditory hallucinations. I wasn’t given any comfort concerning this apprehension of mine, as it felt like taking a chance was the cost that was required of me to go into this mysterious gateway. It was as if I was being asked let go of myself, by relinquishing my guards, from completely going off the deep end, by trusting that engaging in these mysterious formation of thoughts didn’t mean I was flirting with insanity. But it might!

I continued on to barricade myself from this continual bombardment of thoughts until the very last day of our vacation. On that day, something very unusual took place.

To be continued……

You can check out Shawn's other musings here.

A Box of Egos: Goodbye

Scott Bradley

"I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye," mourned cleaning lady Jenny, who asked her last name be withheld. It was Jenny who, while doing her nightly cleaning of the facility where the now celebrated box of egos is housed, found the box empty. "I always peeked in to say 'Hi'," says Jenny, "they seemed to like it."

The loss of these egos has caused a great deal of consternation and debate among the attending scientists. "Why and how they lingered as disembodied entities was what we had hoped to determine," said one neurologist. "That they would suddenly disappear shouldn't surprise us; the surprise was that they lingered at all."

"But where did they go?" asked another scientist. "They became nothing and went nowhere," answered another. "We don't know that!" exclaimed another. "Perhaps we should have brought in a chaplain after all," opined yet another. "In the end, we are faced with life's most fundamental question — one that science cannot solve."

Whether solvable or not, there are no end to opinions about the fate of the egos, though they can be lumped into two basic camps. "Some believe they continue to exist in some form or another," said a psychologist, "others believe that they are now altogether extinct. But the key word here is 'believe'; this is something we shall never know, at least in this life."

There are some, however, who think they do know. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) declared at a rapidly organized news conference, "As God-fearing people we know these egos still exist; the question is: Where? If they have escaped into the community at large, our nation may be at extreme risk. Once again the Obama Administration has proven itself incapable of protecting the American people. I and my colleagues are about to introduce emergency legislation which will greatly strengthen the ability of our military and intelligence authorities to gather information from, detain and, if necessary, execute American citizens suspected of posing a threat to American freedoms."

Asked whether this did not infringe on those same freedoms, McCain replied, "Sometimes you have to destroy freedom to save it." "Just like this 'hero' bombed villages in Vietnam to save them," quipped an attending reporter.

In any event, this reporter will greatly miss these egos and the controversies they spawned. Goodbye! And good luck!

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

A Box of Egos: Are They All the Same?

Scott Bradley

Though media interest has relegated the further study of the box of disembodied egos to the back pages of most newspapers and out of the daily news cycle altogether, still this reporter continues to follow their study through various scientific journals, thinking this audience will continue to have a keen interest in developments.

One exciting line of inquiry being pursued is the question of whether all these egos are essentially the same or are there some which have a greater expression of 'egocity' than others. "Although we have been unable to determine to everyone's satisfaction whether these egos are inherently 'evil', or even 'real' for that matter, they do in fact possess observable attributes which we are now hopeful of measuring," said one scientist earlier this month. "We are especially interested to know if there are various degrees of 'egocity' among them or if all egos are fundamentally the same," he added.

The first challenge was to determine what attributes could be successfully measured. "The two most outstanding attributes of these egos are their 'repulsivity' — their automatic exclusion of every other ego — and their 'absorptivity' — their ability to use identification with other egos as a means of further confirming their exclusivity," explained the project leader.

The next great challenge was to figure out how to empirically measure these attributes, and for this a team from MIT was brought in. "It's all well and good to come up with theories," said the team leader, "but it takes nuts-and-bolts engineering to prove them. That's where we come in. And I think I can confidently say that we have built two such devices."

Preliminary results seem to indicate that all egos equally participate in these qualities, though they express them in different ways. "Egos are egos," wrote one psychologist, "and thus we see how ludicrous it is for one ego to criticize another or to suggest that one ego is 'worse' or 'better' than another."

Concerning the apparently contradictory ability of egos to both exclude and yet make use of each other, one biologist has expressed wonder: "Nowhere else in Nature do we see an organism which is both simultaneously parasitic and symbiotic," he writes. "These egos exist for themselves alone and by a mechanism whereby they negate every other ego, and yet they are somehow able to amass in such a way as to further confirm their mutual negation. Their parasitic character is re-enforced symbiotically. They are truly a wonder of Nature."

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

A Box of Egos: Are They Real?

Scott Bradley

This reporter admits to having avoided some of the more difficult questions which have arisen since the discovery of this now celebrated box of disembodied egos. This is because the character of the discussion is way over his own head and, he has presumed, the heads of his audience. Nevertheless, the time has come when we must at least attempt an outline of existential problems their apparent existence implies.

"Our most fundamental assumption with respect to these egos," wrote one physicist, "is that they can both be and not be; and this is no easy thing for a physicist to accept. Frankly, I sometimes wish for a metaphysician to give us a hand."

Metaphysicians have, in fact, been interviewed by the consortium leadership in the hopes of bringing one or more onto the investigative team. "We have spoken with many," said a spokesman for the consortium, "but we have thus far found no one who we feel can harmonize with our efforts." When pressed as to why this was the case, he replied, "They all seem to have preconceived and fixed ideas regarding the nature of the egos in question. As scientists, we would prefer to learn from the study of the phenomena themselves. We require scientists, not chaplains."

Some quantum physicists, on the other hand, seem not to be in the least bit phased by the challenge of understanding these egos. "Things which both are and are not are our bread and butter," declared one. "We start where the particle physicists beg off." A nearby particle physicist harrumphed and said, "What my colleague is saying is that we leave the vain speculations to them."

Beyond the politics of the matter, what does seem to be the general consensus of the investigative team is that these egos, though they have a phenomenological dimension and demonstrate qualities, do not have true existence as we know it. "They have as much reality as an attitude," says one psychologist. "We say that an attitude 'exists', but we are unable to discover one in isolation. What these egos appear to be is 'attitude packets', the concrescence of many attitudes in a single locus without any transcending of the essential non-existence of the parts."

When asked how the apparent non-existence of these egos might impact our understanding of ourselves, this reporter found the scientists' answers less than helpful. "Until you are yourself disembodied, I wouldn't worry about it; just give yourself a pinch once in awhile," suggested one. "Find yourself a chaplain," suggested another. "Or a guru," said another.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

A Box of Egos: Are They Evil?

Scott Bradley

Just as the Free the Egos movement has begun to gather momentum, a conservative ground swell calling for their permanent incarceration or even destruction has emerged. At a recent rally, one woman with teabags hanging from her hat began the chant, "Not in my backyard!" "Send them to that Gantanamo place — back in the Middle East where they belong," said a man wearing a "Ban the Bums" tee-shirt.

At the center of this increasingly vociferous debate is the box of disembodied egos recently found in New York City. The public seems generally convinced that these egos are evil. Scientists seem not to agree. "Although they certainly exhibit self- and other-destructive tendencies," said a sociologist who is studying them, "I do not see how we can call them inherently evil. They are, after all, natural phenomena." "These people seem to have forgotten that there are presently 7 billion egos in the world, including their own," added a psychologist.

It would seem, however, that it is their disembodied state which has people most upset. "It just isn't natural", said one protester. When asked if this meant they were supernatural, he only re-affirmed, "They ain't natural!"

"Because the egos are disembodied," opined a psychiatrist, "people are able to project their own self-hatred upon them without the guilt of actually hating someone. It is a classic example of the scape-goat syndrome." "Admittedly," he added, "they already probably hate embodied egos, but at least these disembodied egos deflect some of their ill-feelings away from actual people. If for no other reason, this may be a good reason to keep them safely incarcerated."

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has taken a hands-off, wait-and-see approach. "Let's allow the scientists to finish their investigations before we decide on a final solution to the ego-problem," said a spokeswoman for the president.

The Republican presidential hopefuls have not been so non-committal. "The American taxpayers should not be made to foot the bill for their incarceration; let's at least put them to work as janitors in our schools," said front-runner Newt Gingrich. "Send them to Texas," said Rick Perry, "we'll figure a way to execute them." A spokesman for Mitt Romney said they were waiting for the latest opinion polls before commenting. Someone on the sidelines was heard to mumble, “I have no recollection of ever having sexually harassed a disembodied ego.”

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.