Sensibles and Visibles and the Moment

"The Word is that by which we live, namely, Jesus himself; and his words represent, in part, in shadow, in suggestion, himself. Any utterance worthy of being called a truth, is human food: how much more The Word, presenting no abstract laws of our being, but the vital relation of soul and body, heart and will, strength and rejoicing, beauty and light, to Him who first gave birth to them all!"

--George MacDonald - Unspoken Sermons

In reflective consciousness, the self-conscious ego is anchored in the events and perceptions through the five senses and the thoughts, feelings, and desires make up the soul world. If the five senses and thoughts, feelings, desire can no longer the self-conscious ego, consciousness is lost. With dissolution of the body (death), the senses stop functioning along with the brain so that in reflective consciousness the self-conscious ego can no longer "see" or experience itself in the mirrors of perception and the emotional and thought world.

Many people seek and experience a foothold in existent wherein the self-conscious ego sustains itself; outside of the need for the reflective function of the body and the world.  The experience of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Inner Light, the Guide, the Watcher, The Observer, the Moment, the Present, The Presence, The Inner Christ, The Word, etc; is testimony to the self-conscious ego free from dependency on the mirrors of the body and the world to "Be." The self-conscious ego takes hold of essential Being through direct experience. It knows, through experience, consciousness without mirrors.  Consciousness (the inner light) does not dim and extinguish with the dissolution of the body.

Jacob Boehme in "The Supersensual Life" speaks of  "leaving" the "Visibles and Sensibles, by which either the Imagination or sensitive Appetite in Men are delighted." This shedding of the Visibles and Sensibles as the anchor of the self-conscious ego and in-stead anchoring the self-conscious ego in the vital being through which the visible and sensible mirrors manifest is alignment with that Presence that is ever there behind the Visibles and Sensibles. Who is seeing those hands typing on the laptop. Who is seeing that beautiful valley? Who is seeing the Syrian people fighting amongst themselves? Who is seeing that person that collapsed in the parking lot? That Presence that is there in all the individual does, thinks, and feels is there in each and ever other individual being we encounter in each and every moment if we only show up. That Presence, Eternity, can be experienced and know in this life and in this world and in this moment, when people take their gaze and focus from the Visibles and Sensibles and re-cognize and then recognize vital being ... spiritual consciousness.

The glory and power of Being present is showing up in the Visibles and Sensibles so that we experience them fresh as if a child experiencing the things of the world for the first time. In the Present there is no nostalgia; re-flecting on past experience. And there is no yearning for a perceived future. In the present ... there is life and direct experience unconditioned by the past or future. In the eternal present, we are awake to the beauty of the Sensibles and Visibles; they no longer captivate or darken the eternal Present, they enhance the wonder and beauty of the moment.

The past week was trying for me and my family as my doctor expressed concern I may have a blood clot in my lung. Care and concern approached on the horizon of being and threatened to darken the Light. Throughout the process of medical tests and family expressions of concern, there were moments when fear and anxiety won over and the light faded. At other times, eternity was upon with great power and peace was upon me as I settled into the Present and acknowledged to anxiety and fear. I touched these emotions and did not resist. When a doctor suggests you may have a blood clot that could cause the insist dissolution of the body, I learned inner strength was severely tested. I also experienced the self-conscious ego, anchored eternal Being, is graced with the wonderment of eternal security in the Present in unto the death of the body.

My CT scan came back negative. No blood clot. Other tests showed diminished lung capacity, perhaps due to life-long allergies.

May each of you show-up in each moment ... I'll meet you there.

An outcome of the Present or the personal experience of the Holy Spirit.

An outcome of the Present or the personal experience of the Holy Spirit.

Once intention and concentration give way to consciousness free from the need for the mirrors of worldly consciousness, a detachment happens;  a space is created between our ideas and emotions and essential being. Thoughts and emotions no longer have an enchanting hold on us. Our identity is no longer bound to concepts and emotions so that they approach us as external happenings in the same way that, say, we relate to a weather event. When it is storming outside, we do not say, I am storming. We say, "It is storming." In the Present, we no longer relate to the emotion of angry as subjective. We do not say; "I am anger." We say; "Anger is happening." This acknowledges the event of anger but also acknowledges anger is not me, it is an event happening to me. I am not anger. In the Present we are observers, no longer identified we emotions. Thoughts are the same way. They are no longer the foundation of personal identity. They are objects we acknowledge as realities presented to us, however, we know they are not our foothold for identity. 

The inner quiet gained from Being that is ever present, even amidst onslaught of random thoughts and emotions, is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

This experience is not just about quiet and peace when grappling with thoughts and emotions you don't particularly like; but also with those you embrace. Using the weather example; happiness happens, it is no longer a part of who we are. We no longer say; "I am happy." We say; "Happiness is happening to me. Again, this acknowledges happiness as an event that play out before is.

Imagine, the subjective/objective dichotomy is shattered. Thoughts and emotions are the idols of modern men and women as the stone images were in the past. Thoughts and images are the icons that modern men and woman must smash. That is, that modern men and women must break free from as the foundation of personal identity. That freedom is found in living in the moment ... the eternal presence ... the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Peace, love, tolerance, sacrifice, etc. are not concepts we seek to project. They are happenings we acknowledge in the Present just as we acknowledge anxiety, hate, intolerance, selfishness. In Eternity, abstract values are not forced on the world through external institutions or political activism, they are the result of sustained experience of and focus in the Present through each individual.

Firm in the Quiet

Firm in the Quiet, abstractions cannot distract.

Firm in the Quiet, identity in Being.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Carnal and Spiritual ... The Tension Dynamic

Here on the south coast of Oregon, there is a person seeking to develop a golf course on property that is currently in public trust and set aside as a natural area. He wishes to enter into a land swap agreement with the Oregon State Parks. I've been part of the group opposing the land swap. In my opposition, it often happens, that indignation and frustration becomes so strong I turn my gaze from the Inner Presence. What I mean is I become so enchanted by the indignation and frustration, intention and watchfulness is overwhelmed and life in the eternal moment is lost to ego consciousness. Forcing my ideas and feelings on others and imploring state government officials to enforce my will over that of others; that is ego consciousness. It is consciousness/identity based on the workings of the body and the world. I become enchanted by and identified with a set of abstract ideological constructs and emotives so that I am is no longer ... I am becomes a projection reflected in abstract ideas, emotions, desires, and terrestrial circumstances ... idolatry.

A couple years ago, in Michigan, a person came up to me and and asked me what I was doing with that backpack sprayer in a natural area. I told him I was part of a group working to eradicate a non-native plant, common buckthorn, so that a rare native orchid could thrive again. He expressed his indignation over "tree huggers" and his agitation increase. His companion came up behind me and pushed me into a guard rail along the roadside and the large bolts dug into my side and I lost my breath. They kicked me a few times and left laughing. I became so angry, indignant, and frustrated, that I resolved to bring a baseball bat with me the next day hoping to dish out some retribution ... now losing my breath spiritually. I am was no longer .... I became a projection reflected in abstract ideas, emotions, desires, and terrestrial circumstances ... I became lost ... ego consciousness was in control; spiritual conscious was pushed aside.

There are so many examples of turning my gaze from the eternal present and losing to abstraction or worldly identity. It is a blessing that the Present is ever present; it ever calls me back into the flow of eternity, washing over me in a cleansing way, so that the darkness of mirrored consciousness is illuminated and transformed again and again and there happens alignment with eternal consciousness. Consciousness that experiences Being no longer dependent on the things of this world and the carnal sensual working of the body ... Christ consciousness ... the new self ... the present. Then ... I see ... the eternity in those with whom I may disagree or in those who would cause me pain and there is love and forgiveness.

Let things unfold naturally ...

"... realize that the secret to happiness and freedom is not about control or revenge, but in letting things unfold naturally ..."

What does it mean to let things unfold naturally?

It is suggested letting things unfold naturally is not applying a process or proscription. Letting things unfold naturally is a way of being. It is attuning to the Present while acknowledging the unfolding things or events so that identity or awareness is not bound to the things or events. The unfolding things are not resisted or embraced through a process; they are acknowledged in the Present. This is living freedom, intuition, imagination, inspiration ... this is the Presence of the Holy.

Human Being Unleased

A Testimony to Spirituality, the Inner Light, True Self, the New Self, Spiritual Man, the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, God, Spiritual Being, Eternal Life, and Salvation ... in other words.

Normally, modern day individual consciousness (self awareness) happens when people come in contact with external material objects through the body's five senses. Self awareness is the result of bumping up against external objects. Self-awareness also results from connection with thoughts, feelings, desires. This is sometimes called mirrored consciousness. In mirrored consciousness external objects, thoughts, feeling, desires, become mirrors through which the individual becomes aware of himself or herself. To take away these mirrors is to lose consciousness. Mirrored consciousness can also be called bodily consciousness.

If the five senses and brain activity no longer function, what is left? When the body no longer functions, that is, when the individual can longer no see things, taste things, touch things, smell things, hear things, think about things, feel emotions, etc. will consciousness sustain or will the light go out? To mirrored consciousness this is death. The fear of death is the fear of losing consciousness ... awareness ... connection.

Mirrored consciousness is leased to the body. Without the body, mirrored consciousness goes dark.

The body itself is an external object we bump up against. Normally we are completely identified with our bodies. However, our bodies are perceptions in the same way as a tree. We can ask; "Who is perceiving these hands, these fingers, these legs, etc.? We can also ask, "Who is it that these thoughts and emotions approach?" Normally, we completely identify with thoughts and emotions. We say; "I am angry" or "I am happy." Who is it the anger happens to? Who is it that happiness happens to?

It can happen that the individual comes through to an experience of the Presence that has always existed in every abstract perception or thought or emotion. That Presence is who perceives the body and who is hidden behind each sensation and perception of the mirrored consciousness. It is the being or essence of each person. Thoughts, emotions, perceptions, sensations, happen in the Present. The Present encompasses  the material and the emotional. I've read somewhere the observation that weather happens in the sky ... weather is not the sky. In the same way, the Present is the canvas upon which perceptions, sensations, and emotions manifest. The canvas encompasses all that is painted on it.

Becoming aware in the Present is consciousness no longer dependent on the mirrors of the material, conceptual, and emotional world. It is to be free from the enchantment of abstraction. The Present is sufficient and essential being. In the Present ,consciousness is awakened to identity with no predication ... I am.  In the Present, there is no Jew or Greek, no conservative or liberal, no believer or unbeliever, and not because diversity and fragmentation doesn't happen in the world but because diversity and fragmentation in temporal world is acknowledged and tolerated because, in each of us, shared unity is the Present. Identity exists in the unrefracted light even as we acknowledge the beauty of refracted light through the prism of the world and bodily being.

Spirituality, the Inner Light, True Self, the New Self, Spiritual Man, the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, God, Spiritual Being, Eternal Life, Salvation and ... The Present ... are each testimonies to consciousness sustained upon the death of the body.

A Testimony of Being Present

George MacDonald in his  A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul (1880) writes:

Therefore I make provision, ere I begin
To do the thing thou givest me to do,
Praying,—Lord, wake me oftener, lest I sin.
Amidst my work, open thine eyes on me,
That I may wake and laugh, and know and see
Then with healed heart afresh catch up the clue,
And singing drop into my work anew.


The sentiment, couched in religious terms, speaks to a particular experience of knowing life or consciousness that sustains beyond the death of the body and the abstractions of ego consciousness; "to wake and laugh and know and see" so that his or her heart sings and rejoices even in the tasks and worries of the day. Freedom from life trapped in circumstance because we know our essence is not bound to those events, thoughts, feelings, emotions, reflected in the world.


To be Present is to live between the numbers on a number line. It is not to think of the numbers but to live in the activity that manifests the numbers. This is freedom from abstract points and life in the eternity behind them ... the Present.

Yesterday, I "made provision, ere I began", my work on a Tabitha Bag to work in the Present; to awaken in the process of creating. The outcome was not the focus. I made provision to not fall asleep by focusing on the outcome but to balance abstract material creation (which is selfishness) with the Present - inner light within - and I sang as each particular moment of creation faded into another moment of creation bathed in the flow of the eternal Present.

If I should slow diverge, and listless stray
Into some thought, feeling, or dream unright,
O Watcher, my backsliding soul affray;
Let me not perish of the ghastly blight.
Be thou, O Life eternal, in me light;
Then merest approach of selfish or impure
Shall start me up alive, awake, secure.

A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul (1880)
George MacDonals

Awake ... Showing Up

Some days awareness and concentration is so strong; identity with the eternal present pierces and illuminates even the most mundane of activities ... like grocery shopping. In the moment, every activity is new and fresh. Being identified with the activity instead of the materiality of the activities is to enter the flow of life that is behind everything ... the ever present Being that each of us shares. To show up in the living stream of life is to know and embrace unity and diversity in all things and in all terrestrial relations.

Shattering identity abstraction ... to reality

A recent article entitled "Niall Ferguson, Ted Cruz, and the Politics of Masculinity" highlights with disapproval "a philosophy in which a certain construction of masculinity is, in style and substance, superior to the that of their opponents, whom they see as somehow soft, feminized, and lacking in legitimacy." Elements of this philosophy manifest as pro-gun, distrust of government, individualism (selfishness). While, on the surface, this article is about the politics of masculinity, between the lines, it promotes the politics of femininity.

This sort of one-sided intellectual  abstraction (on both sides) is a reason why so many people are unable transcend abstraction or separation.  In reality no person fits the abstract intellectual mold the writer artificially constructs. In the abstract, however, identity politics (ego consciousness) is all modern men and woman have in the political arena. Our concepts are too much with us. This article further promotes a deep seated trust in humanity's ability to bring peace and understanding if we only fashion and impose the right intellectual, conceptual framework ... the correct intellectual sheathing over human relations. Who we are as individuals is bigger than the abstractions. Who we truly are is always present between the threads of the abstract intellectual webs we fashion as the foothold for the ego. True identity and eternal consciousness is found not in the words and concepts but in the active Presence behind the solidification of mere word and abstract concepts. That Presence, who we are, is that which we share with every person.

President Obama and the Constitution

President Obama reacting to those people who are concerned he is acting unconstitutionally, for example, when he delayed the employer mandate in the health care law: 

“ ... I’m not concerned about their opinions — very few of them, by the way, are lawyers, much less constitutional lawyers."

According to the president, a person's opinion concerning the constitutionality of his actions are valid only if he or she is a constitutional lawyer; being a lawyer in general isn't even good enough.

His words are pharisaic. Like the pharisees who looked down on Jesus in the temple.

For the president to make the statement quoted above, he must relate to the Constitution as abstract or external document in the same way as a scientist relates to a tree. Surely, scholarly study of the document and the history behind it is compelling and helpful to understand context. However, as with the Bible, the Constitution is a spiritual document reflecting freedom and liberty in the world. The spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is intuitive/experiential ... it is individual. The president's words have no heart, there is no insides. If you must be a trained constitutional lawyer to carry valid opinions concerning it, then the spirit of the Constitution - reflecting the self-evident truths and unalienable rights of the Declaration of Independence - is a hollow document. If the Constituion is understandable only to those few who are trained in an esoteric knowledge of intellectual abstraction, it is dead. It turns the Constitution into an idol only understandable to a few who then bind everyone else to an abstract knowledge fed to them externally.

Jesus is quoted in Mark 7:6-8 as saying this to the Pharisees:

Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, 
This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. 
You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

The pharisees trusted in the external words of the bible but did not experience the truth within ... in their hearts. The President honors the Constitution with his lips but denied the spirit and power that animates it when he denied that anyone, but those trained as he is trained in constitutional law, can question his actions with validity.


The American Revolution was (and still is) fought because many individuals rejected the tyranny of the King and centralized governance. The American Revolution is not merely a rejection of centralized governmental power, it is a rejection of centralized religion. Freedom is not poured into the world institutionally. It is experienced and known intuitively ... individually ... and manifested through individuals. Freedom is not a noun ... it is a verb. It is a way of being. Intuitive experience of freedom is the power behind the Constitution. We need no external authority (even the President of the United States) to know freedom. President Obama, reflecting the pharisees of old, would have us turn our gaze from the freedom within us and bind our understanding to his intellectual abstractions ... this is akin to asking us to pull out our hearts and attach ourselves to an external artificial heart ... leaving us with no insides and controlled by external forces.

I stand with those spiritual people at the time of the Revolution who experienced the inner light within and rejected external/abstract political and religious external authority to dictate his or her path both socially and religiously.

But, ultimately, I’m not concerned about their opinions--very few of them, by the way, are lawyers, much less constitutional lawyers,” - See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-suggests-only-lawyers-understand-constitution#sthash.UyNOhNeC.dpuf