9. Beyond All Destruction

19. If any man thinks he slays, and if another thinks he is slain, neither know the ways of truth. The Eternal in man cannot kill: the Eternal in man cannot die.
20.He is never born, and he never dies. He is in Eternity: he is for evermore. Never-born and eternal, beyond times gone or to come, he does not die when the body dies.
21. When a man knows him as never-born, everlasting, never-changing, beyond all destruction, how can that man kill a man, or cause another to kill?
22. As a man leaves an old garment and puts on one that is new, the Spirit leaves his mortal body and then puts on one that is new.
23. Weapons cannot hurt the Spirit and fire can never burn him. Untouched is he by drenching waters, untouched is he by parching winds.
24. Beyond the power of sword and fire, beyond the power of waters and winds, the Spirit is everlasting, omnipresent, never-changing, never-moving, ever One. -- Chapter 2, verses 19-24, The Bhagavad Gita (Tr. Juan Mascaro)

We are embodyings of the lifeforce, of Spirit. We are the Spirit clothed in flesh. We forget this as we sink into the stupor of our subjective personalities. Then we become Spirit clothed in flesh dreaming s/he is a certain person in a certain time -- a person who is simultaneously magnificent and horrifying. We live out our adventures of pain and loss, of joy and suffering, which are real, all too real, unless we awaken to the one who breathes us. We are that one.

Verse 19 is no justification for killing (which has no justification). Only humans caught in the stupor of a dream state kill. The Eternal never kills and never dies. When we identify with the Eternal, when we open to our Source, when we know that we are the Source sourcing, we do not kill and we know we do not die.

Jesus called this "laying up treasures in heaven" where moths and rust do not corrupt nor thieves break through and steal. He also said that where our treasure is, there our heart will be.

When our heart is in our subjective personality, this fictional story we create and cling to, our narrative and resume' of who we are and what we have done and what we are going to do, our demands that others recognize our quirkiness as genius, that is where we have placed our treasure, and that place is mothy and thievish.

This series of Gita verses points to the true bank, a bank that is wide open and needs no guarding. Weapons, fire, water, and wind cannot touch it.

When we are no longer arrogant penitents, protoplasmic blobs shaking our fists at an unheeding sky or falling on our knees in wretched despair, when we open to the lifeforce that energizes us and calls us into being, then we know we are "beyond all destruction."

yippee!

Excellent Zing Tao! gathering last night. We practiced Centering and Opening, Hands Attaching, Flowers Blooming in Footsteps, Weight Underside, Small Bowl of Water, Attention Directs Energy, and talked about our situations.

first-generation students

My buddy Clarence (Hindu) Ewing sent this interview to me (part of an excellent series of interviews with first-generation students of Sensei Tatsuo Shimabuku, founder of Isshinryu Karate. I have always been a rogue, even a rogue to this bunch of rogues, so never merged with the stateside Isshinryu organization. I went off teaching on my own, adding other styles, especially Jujutsu and Ki exercises. Though everyone is now a Grandmaster, back then we were just a bunch of Marines working out with a fierce and good man.

I am the friend Clarence refers to when visiting a local blacksmith and having sai's made.

'sword

Words read either pound the heart, rile the bile, bolster the guts, excite the bite or slide past the eyes with limpid greasy ease.

weasel

Most all of us have developed a self image over the years. Deliberate fabrication, haphazard amalgamation, the self image is a bubble we maintain. The social contract is that I shalt not disturb your self image as you do not disturb mine. True friends (and enemies) will not oblige. Pop goes that weasel!

Arena

8. Real Yourself In

The unreal never is: the Real never is not. This truth indeed has been seen by those who can see the true.
Interwoven in his creation, the Spirit is beyond destruction. No one can bring to an end the Spirit which is everlasting.
For beyond time he dwells in these bodies, though these bodies have an end in their time; but he remains immeasurable, immortal. Therefore, great warrior, carry on thy fight. -- Chapter 2, verses 16-18, The Bhagavad Gita (Tr. Juan Mascaro)

The lifeforce of our Source who calls us into being goes on forever. The formless becomes form, takes shape. The form, like waves in the ocean, arises and disappears as the formless takes new form.

We are the formless forming. We are generally way too busy, too pre-occupied to notice or even care. We are proud of our form and prance around. We weary of our form and fall way down.

We do not avail ourselves of the vast energy of the formless that is forming us. The formless has no room because we are pre-occupied with figments of our imagination.

When we identify with the Spirit (lifeforce) of the Real, we are "laying up our treasures in heaven" as Jesus put it. Now we have the energy to carry on our fight. We may not know it, but the "fight" is already won. When we live in the Real, the fight is over. All that is here is endless transformation.