The dream

When we are not feeling love we are wandering aimlessly in a meaningless dream.

While it may be entertaining, mundane, or at times filled with terror and anguish, without feeling love, it does not mean anything at all.

"It's not a dream" you say. "Certainly I am more than nothing! Clearly, my actions make a difference."

"Prove it" I kindly reply, pointing to the inescapable relativity of all things and thoughts and the impermanence of every structure.

You respond, "Life has unspeakable cruelty and insufferable pain."

Bouncing a crying baby on my knee I suggest, "So does a nightmare"

So here we are thinking about ethics, poverty, compassion, war, and nonviolent action, while stuck with tools made from frothy relativistic dreamstuff.

Is there an ethical framework that works here, there, and everywhere, even in dreams, even in nightmares?

Please don't be afraid

The salvation argument presumes there is something that needs to be saved. There are several problem with that view. First, of course, it requires that something needs to be broken. That "something" happens to be you, me, and everybody else. Using a standard monotheistic definition of God as Creator, we might ask, would God create something that was broken or susceptible to breakdown? I suggest a good answer is "no." God is not a clumsy oaf and nobody around here is broken.

The second problem with worries about salvation is the presumption of the existence of a "plan." Unless somebody is using some sort of special "secret" dictionary, "plan" means a series of staged actions over time, or a scheme, or a map or diagram, or an intention that has not been fully executed. Is time God's master? Would God wait to act? Does God need to write things down or tie a string to an anthropomorphic finger? Again, I think not. Just as bandits "don't need no stinking badges" God does not need a plan. Also, I respectfully direct your attention to the preceding paragraph, which points out that nothing is broken, so nothing needs fixing.

Third, there are often worries about whether the "plan" will "work." Will "the plan" really move someone from a state of being broken, to a state of being unbroken, over time? That's the heart of the worry. After all, some structures are lovingly built with the best of intentions but they fall down like the famous Tacoma Narrows Bridge or the World Trade Center. Here again, the fear collapses into anthropomorphic nonsense. After all, there is nothing to fix, no plan to fix it, and no new action needs to be taken.

So, if asked the question, "Have you done enough to be saved?" I would have to respond as did Marisa Tomei's character in My Cousin Vinnie:

"Answer: It's a bullshit question."

A good way to work through those kinds of "you may be going to Hell" questions is to take them apart and see the limits placed upon God. Throw out the limits you know are goofy and smile at the limits your version of reality demands of you today.

Another good way to respond to just about any version of the "is everything okay? worry, is to direct the question to a baby, who will give that straw man all the consideration it is due while she fills up a diaper and reaches for a hug.

So informed, I have a few more questions . . .

Whence the Light?

When the tree branches wave in our dreams, we would do well to remember there is no wind inside our skulls. We create and animate every detail for our own amusement, enlightenment, or terror.

Likewise, when the light shines it comes from you, not to you.

"Opaque curtains, translucent veils, clear windows, open doors, bright mirrors, brilliant lamps, windowless and doorless barriers that open mysteriously, bridges of radiance over precipices and oceans, broad highways of sunlight, narrow paths of moonlight. beams of radiance emanating from the breast of holy beings on moonless nights, lightning flashes prolonged in ecstasy, angels of Light, ladders of Light. and stairways of Light--these are the landscape of the mystic way. Spiritual travelers encounter these forms of Light. which take form temporarily and change form instantly, as they traverse the infinite dimensions of the unified field of Light in bodies of Light drawn to the single goal of Light."

-Lex Hixon, Atom from the Sun of Knowledge at 162, Pir Publications (1993).

"There was never a time when I did not exist, nor you - nor will there be any future in which we shall cease to be."

-Sri Krishna, the Bhagavad-Gita


We may wish to consider the implications of that quotation given a chance that it may happen to be accurate. If this is eternity, is it hell for heaven to you? Would you like to see everything rattle and hum along like this forever?

Do we have choices about our perceptions and experiences in the universe's longest-running road show? If so, what are they and how do we put them into action?