"Cat on Red" by Sandy Jones

Celestial Song

Excerpt from The Awareness of Self-Discovery

by William Samuel

WHERE THE AUTHORITY IS

God, the reality being this single and only AWARENESS I AM, is the authority that blooms the bud, scatters the seed and flashes its Cosmic Light around the universe. This authority has never been vested in a human organization, be it a body with organs, a scientific institution, a financial institution, a marriage institution or a smother church. Furthermore, none of us has ever been unfaithful to this Divine Authority being Identity, nor "lapsed from the faith." How, in God's allness, can Identity lapse from Itself?

Undoubtedly, organizations (even as the body) perform legitimate, worthwhile services, but those services are abrogated to whatever extent we give the the organization power to enslave its members or to whatever extent we claim a position of superiority or inferiority for our own appearances of organization or views of Reality.

Isness, not people, is the genuine authority for individual action. The consciousness that reads these words stands as its own self-evident proof of being, Deity's awareness of existence. Its relationship to Being is not governed by the man-made laws of any intermediary, no matter how correctly (Divinely) authorized it is or professes to be. The communion between Reality and this consciousness-we-are is not now, and has never been, routed through any external church, philosophy, system, leader, ritual, institution or book—to include the Bible. Intercourse with Reality is direct, as direct as Allness is ever its own sameness. Enlightenment, the "mysterious agreement," is between IS and AM, the single ONE, Self-evident to and as this Awareness-I-am. My proof of this fact is the Light I live as, and see enlightening my Experience.

When this is understood, we find our Light appearing on the scene via books, institutions, friends and strangers at every turn of the road—and we know when that appearing is our own Within disclosing Itself to us in the language of the moment.

The "authority of the organization," whatever its appearing, reside in That being THIS consciousness. That which presents itself as intermediary—pope, church, institution, society, bible or canon of ancient law—exists powerlessly in "us" (Me) as images of this awareness-I-am.

"SO WHAT DO I DO ABOUT MEMBERSHIP IN MY COLLEGE (OR CHURCH OR BUSINESS OR WORLD)?"

The Golden Thread of the Absolute exists. We know because we have found it. We feel, know and see the Fact of Singleness—evidence of Gods' ALLNESS. We who discern the Thread are come as the savior of our own appearing, the Christ to the Experience we are.

As I see it now, it makes no difference whether we are inside an organization or outside it, provided we do not feel a sense of restriction. Even then, cutting ourselves away does not mean we will find the restriction gone. It is the sense of being an identity capable of being restricted that appears to me as a "me" bound by an ailing body, oppressive organization or flat pocketbook. The axe at the root has to do with this one's position, not the "Church's." Identity is a matter of SELF determination and in the end, no organization, not even the body, can prevent the discovery.

Therefore, I do not presume to tell anyone whether he should join an organization or leave one. We each follow what seems the Heart-directed course of action. For myself, I once thought the wisteria vine was the most beautiful of all the flowers in the garden. As a gardener, I worked with my wisteria to the exclusion of all else and awakened one day entangled, no longer free to follow the sunlight outside the shadows. For me (though not necessarily for thee) it seemed wise to come out and be separate from that clinging vine because I could neither speak nor write of my own self-unfoldments without violating rules to which I had willingly agreed. So I cut myself away from the organizational rules and found the more distant purview of the wisteria lovelier than ever! More: I found the beauty of the orchid! I found the larkspur, the rose, the dandelion, the sassafras root and the wild woodland outside the regulated boundary of the garden!

Every flower in the garden is ME and I take my nectar from any book or blossom I see I be at the moment. Only those organizations that permit such freedom can survive.

In all fairness I must point out again that my entanglement with the wisteria of old theology was not the wisteria's fault. A vine is a vine—neither good, bad, right nor wrong-but who can make wisteria into heather or a dandelion into a rose? If there isn't enough shade beneath the pine, we sit under an oak, but we don't cut down the pine nor strip it of its limbs. Its shade may be quite enough for the tufted titmouse, the bushy-tailed squirrel or the mercenary who thinks that tree is the only tree capable of dropping an "apple" in his lap.

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Which is easier: to play the role of a great crusading contender doing impossible (and miserable) battle with society and its organizations, or to stop playing that role and rest in the happy Already? For myself, I prefer to let pine trees be pine trees and wisteria vines be wisteria vines. If, in blaming the vine for my own entanglement, I should succeed in pulling it up by the roots, what will I have to show for it except a hernia, a sore back and the sight of a wretched society ripped apart by excessive zealousness?

God's Phoenix of ALREADY does not have to rise from the ruins of a shattered society. It will appear to, of course, but those who know the forthright way of the middle ground—of the already Infinite—will not be troubled as the dream's last soliloquy is sounded, as the curtain falls with a crash and the mortal arc lights give way to the Light of the Eternal, sunshine of the Real.

CHAPTER 23

Ecclesiasticism And Identity

The old nature of us has been built up over a long period. It has developed thousands of supports, props, crutches. A real or imaginary attack against any of these supports produces an ego shock accompanied by a protective reflex as instinctive and natural as batting an eye or brushing away a stinging wasp. The ego lashes out at the merest hint of a threat to any of its crutches and will whale the daylights out of an imaginary affront that doesn't even exist yet. Such is the nature of the world's vaunted "self-esteem."

This ego is natural for all of us, however, and exists in its season as the self hood's contradistinction whereby the Real is known in more than theory. Does not the tangible appearing of infinite Wisdom require a knowledge of the "is nots"? "Life is not finite! Life is not bound to a body! Life is not limited."

The crutches are, every one, ultimately removed. They must be and will be seen to support an unreal identity. It is for this reason that every action of mankind appears self-destructive.

He perishes like the grass, having only endured a season.

"Awakening" and all that word implies, is our arrival at a knowledge of the real Identity as opposed to the contradistinctive-ego, that miserable bag of bones, tissue, pumps and water, of few days and full of trouble. We are driven to this awakening by the collapse of ego props—if not in this time, in another—until such time as the old man hasn't a leg to stand on, the deterioration of his body or affairs opening his eyes to a grander dimension, considerably wider and more beautiful than the narrow world his instinctive ego-protective reflexes allow him to see.

Statements of metaphysicial Truth come to call attention to the Primal Selfhood which exists in mathematical terms as diametrically "equal and opposite" (contradistinctive) to our world-educated view of Identity come as crutch removers to the misidentification even while that one is busily acquainting himself with the cause and effect aspect of metaphysics attempting to turn it into a new crutch, a new hope and a way to solve human problems. The ego clutches the asp of its own destruction. It drinks the hemlock of its own demise.

Misstatements of the Absolute may be twisted into popular theologies and philosophies ("The power of your mind," "How to visualize and create wealth," "How to use the truth to do this or that"), but the Absolute cannot possibly be intellectually popular. Yet neither can the Heart-real of mankind be prevented from eventually hearing and recognizing the real Self.

This is why the clearly delineated Truth of Being is not relished by our human view of mankind and why he has developed such a sense of blindness toward all he instinctively knows will do him in. This is why his organizations build mystical shells around the Primal Identity whose Light eliminates the shadow of its inversion—the ego and its organizations to which it yields itself a servant to obey. But even this is the only way it can appear "in the world." contradistinctions of the Infinite present themselves finitely, hence tangibly, and since they are finite, they are bound to sequence and its time.

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The questions arise: What is the present "role" of the Absolute? Why should we study something that is so obviously ego-destructive? Why rush things if the ego sense will vanish anyway, since its supports are ultimately found to be false supports of an introverted sense of Self?

"Time" will disclose just how important the single answer to these questions is. The answer is simple even though the words and illustrations to make it intellectually acceptable are virtually impossible at this time. This much has been clearly shown: when the "reasons" for the tangible contradistinction becomes apparent, the "need" for the contradistinction has ended—the suffering goes out of it and our fear is ended forever. An unshakable Tranquillity discloses itself, which, among other things is the basis for "healing" in the world. More, it is the Light of Identity humanity is searching for. We can say, as Jesus did, "I am the Light of the world" and "I have overcome the world."

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And you, reader? You have the same mission, the same grand task, the same holy heritage to awaken and find yourself the seeing of God, the Awareness of Reality. Then, this seen, it is to act as the seeing directs.

FREEDOM

During the final day already in progress the dissolution of all that stands between ourselves and a full knowledge of the Truth will come. The Light is already here. New ideas are coming into common focus and old landmarks are being taken away. Cherished notions, oft the pillars of society, are crumbling with the shifting sand they stand on.

Everything that appears to hold mankind in bondage will finally give way. Freedom will out. The New Light is irresistible because it is already the only real fact.

As usual, many of the institutions whose first purpose was to tend the New Vine of Life as it broke forth into the Garden are now busily trying to confine that infinite vine to their narrow plots, pruning every new shoot and burning every seed the vine produces. Even as in days of yore, intellectual pomposity would attempt to regulate and administer the Light rather than be the Light—and like dogs in the manger, neither eat the oats nor let the oxen eat. Often the minister, the practitioner or the simple honest student who would labor for love of the Vine, rather than for the plot within which it appears to grow, finds himself alienated by the body of laws developed through the years to regulate the conduct of the gardeners—the Vine itself having long been lost sight of by the caretakers of the plot and their walls of human regulations. However, as appearances go, those walls are coming down too, being cracked asunder by the same infinite and eternal Vine which cannot be pruned. Neither can it be held to an old position.

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There is the story of a palatial institution whose many members were constantly giving their poor gardener the devil. Half the members objected when the gardener turned the water sprinkler on and the other half objected when he turned it off. Furthermore, those who wanted him to turn it on objected to the way he did it and those who did not want him to turn it on objected to the way he did not do it.

All the while, the honest and faithful gardener (minister, reader, practitioner, student or janitor) went on enjoying the flowers until he or she was harassed into quitting, thence to run to that infinite Garden out along the edge of the woodland where no walls have ever been built and none will ever be seen tumbling down.

The Garden is the very consciousness that reads these words. Who or what can hold it in bondage?

If you would like further guidance in understanding any of William Samuel's work based on Self discovery - you are welcome to contact me, Sandy Jones -- samuelandfriends@gmail.com - Ojai, California -