William Samuel

William Samuel
William Samuel

Sunday, June 2, 2019

Letter About Love


Artwork "Wild Flowers" by Sandy Jones 
woodsongjournals.com 


Letter about Love From William Samuel to Sandy Jones  - 
Written 1986  

This letter, along with many other personal letters sent to me from William Samuel, can be found in my book "Barefoot at Heart-The Alchemy of Love and the Power of Light" - I joyfully share it here with all of you. It's quite special and brimming with liberating brilliance. Certainly written to the heart of each and all of us.   -   Sandy Jones 



Dear Sandy, 

There are many new things to write, Sandy. They all have to do with life and love, enthusiasm and childlikeness. They have to do with simplicity and tenderness, gentleness and the fact of Already.  The new words have nothing to do with problems, or paradoxes, intellectualism or personality. 

Furthermore, they are difficult to write, they are difficult to say, because the old nature of us misconstrues, distorts and attempts to turn them into something ugly. So, I hesitate. 

The day is coming when these things will be listened to without so much askance  and without such violent reaction. The fact is Reality is real, Reality is perfect, Reality is all. Transcendent Reality being all there is to the consciousness presently reading these words.

One may say that at this moment consciousness seems to be filled with problems. But the believing that this is so merely gives authority to the seeming. We do not deny the seeming, we leave it, we let it alone and the power goes out of it.   If the bird appears to eat a cricket, so what? Isness still Is, Perfection is still Perfect, All is still All, this Identity being us is still God’s Self Identification and nothing we say or believe, or do not say, or fail to understand, can alter this Fact one iota.  

Strange as it may seem, there is a violent reaction within us when we finally get down to Reality Itself.  You see, the old nature struggles vehemently to maintain its position. For most of us it requires a good stiff kick to alter our old opinions. But new light comes from the altered view, never from the old position.

Sandy, you are a monumental and perfect you. Because perfection Itself is being all you are.  There are many wonders in store for you and yours, as you go about the happy business of just being.

Now, you are an artist, and you will know the wisdom of running off with uninhibited, unbound feeling you see as Love. Now, it is tempered by the intellect, but Love is the leader. Hidden at the center of this feeling and barely noticed, is a sense of peace, tranquillity, serenity, a very gentle joy. It is the absence of elation the absence of discomfort. Oh but it is the transcendent presence of that which is being all sensation, all feeling.  Now when you find this center, you will be delighted, for you will know that you have found another aspect of the Infinite Identity you are.

This is the happiness that nothing can take from us.  This is the Peace that does not ebb and flow between serenity and sadness.

When next you ride up the valley where your special place is, rest for a time under one of your oaks, sit loose and feel whatever comes to be felt.  Listen, listen to the heart and you will hear it and you will be refreshed.  

Who ever you think of at that time, think of love and feel the love you feel for that love is real and it is unbound and understands all things.  God the Simple Truth is Love. 

Love is not fickle, love does not blow warm one day and cold the next, love is consistently Its Self.  Love, love looks and Lives.   Love understands because love is understanding, love doesn’t condemn itself or anyone else.   Love is not guilty, love is not restrictive, it’s not bound, it’s not confined or contained, love is not beholden to any institution.  All institutions exist by virtue of the fact that love Is, if indeed they exist at all. Love is not bound by the institution of marriage at all.  Its silly for any of us, whether we appear to be in that institution or out of it, or a part of it or not a part of it, it is silly to believe  that that institution is capable of providing us happiness or depriving us of happiness  -- It simply can’t do it, not really, not when we see that Love, this Identity I am has the dominion.

Love, there is only one Love, Love is love, it has no opposite.  All Love is love, human love, personal love, sexual love, are all an aspect of infinite love which cannot be bound, cannot be circumscribed, cannot be confined, love, just simple love, whether we spell it with a capital letter or not, we mean the same Love, the very same Love, the very nature of being, the one that God is -- the God that is Love, the Love that is Identity, here as I, as all. 

Singleness reveals the gentle Simplicity of singleness, the mysteries answered.

I know what leads you, Sandy, and I trust you, you are important to us all. Love, Bill  

William Samuel  (1986)
If you would like further guidance in understanding any of William Samuel's work based on Self discover you are welcome to contact me, Sandy Jones - samuelandfriends@gmail.com - Ojai, California -   
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Monday, May 27, 2019

A Soldier's Story


A photograph of William Samuel in full military uniform (holding the pointer) accompanied just to his left by his interpreter, the Taoist monk Mr. Shieh, training Chinese troops. The photo is an integral part and prominently displayed in the CMH Publication 72-38 titled China Defensive. The Center Of Military History (CMH), responsible for the production of the publication as well as the inclusion of the photograph, reports directly to the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army --- a U.S. Government agency --- any contents of publications by CMH therein fall into the public domain. The following photograph, so alluded to, is located - on page 11 of the CMH publication China Defensive.




Excerpt from The Child Within Us Lives! 
by William Samuel 

Show me a revelation and I'll show you a traumatic event from which that Light emerged. Show me a true vision of heaven and I'll show you a descent into the anguish of hell wherein that vision was tried, tested and found faithful. " "Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord....” “Put all things to the test,” Paul echoed.

BOOK ONE




CHAPTER ONE

MANKIND'S SEARCH FOR TRUTH

Da Shan, Mythical Mountain of Seeking and Finding


THE INFANTRY SOLDIER OVERTONE

  In the book A Guide to Awareness and Tranquillity, I wrote briefly of my time in warfare and one of the grand lessons about judgmentalism it afforded me. Over the years people have said how much that story meant to them, perhaps more than all the stories I have written. To the Western set of mind there is a certain incongruity about an old soldier being one to whom a measure of Light has been revealed. I can understand that.

  Many singular events that I have never written about occurred during those days. I was, after all, a captain of infantry in two long wars. I lived with Chinese infantry troops in the field for nearly three years—subsisting with them, nearly starving with them. The few American soldiers in China had very little support from the United States during World War II. We were at the end of the world's longest supply line, and anything that reached us from home had been flown over Japanese occupied countries, over the great Himalayan mountains into Kunming, thence to be trucked and packed in by animals to us, wherever we might be. I didn't live very well during those years. My last year in China, as the great war came to an end, I joined Chinese troops who were actively engaged against the Japanese and fought in the battles that recaptured Ishan, Liuchow and Kwelin.

  In Korea, less than ten years later I commanded King Company, 279th Infantry Regiment, 15th Division, during the final months of that awful war. I also commanded Heavy Mortar Company, 279th Infantry Regiment. Things were much harder for me in Korea's combat than in the long, strange war in China. Being older didn't help me in Korea, nor did I have wise old Mr. Shieh at Korea's great Sandbag Castle or at Vulture's Roost on the 38th Parallel.

  It is interesting that I've never written about those days, even though I've told of the learning events to seekers who have come to visit here in Alabama. I especially relished telling such tales to the metaphysical "absolutists" or to the young zealot idealists who arrived expecting only gentle words of peace from a Godly teacher. Since stories of strife, warfare and suffering are the last thing those people expect to hear from a "metaphysician," that's often what they got. Show me a revelation and I'll show you a traumatic event from which that Light emerged. Show me a true vision of heaven and I'll show you a descent into the anguish of hell wherein that vision was tried, tested and found faithful. " "Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord....” “Put all things to the test,” Paul echoed.
  
And now, having written nearly everything necessary for the final book, I sit me down on yet another memorial Day to remember my soldiers who fought with me in many battles. Let me write a Glimpse or two from those days.

*******************

  First, harking hack to China, Mr. Shieh and I, with five American teammates, were being pursued by a Japanese combat patrol. We were "retrograding;" bringing up the rear of our little patrol, trying to get back to the safety of friendly lines. We were close to being captured. In those days, neither the Japanese nor Chinese "gave quarter." That is, we took no prisoners. I knew that if I were taken by the pursuing Japanese, it meant certain death. On the other, hand, Mr. Shieh might successfully pass himself off as a Chinese peasant.

  Oh, I cannot write this story! At this minute it is enough to remember Mr. Shieh seeing and pointing out the beauty of those purple blooms on the distant mountain we had yet to climb. I marveled at a man who could see beauty under such oppressive circumstances. I marvel more that he helped me learn to do it.

*******************

  During the Korean War, an artillery round burst among my men on the left flank. Several bodies were hurled about and I ran to see the extent of the damage and whether the platoon leader was still effective. Sick to my stomach at the sight, I sat down among three of the bodies sprawled along the slope. I became aware of a visual "Presence" hovering beside them. A misty, blue-white light of sorts. A different kind of light, primal, persuasive and powerful. I could not explain what I saw then, nor can I now, but with the sight, and because of the sight, I was absolutely certain within myself I was being shown evidence of the deathlessness of Life—the survival of the Child, the Soul of men. I felt a marvelous sense of relief, almost gratitude, concerning those men and everything happening that day.

  Within a few minutes of that incident, my regiment, and my part of the line in particular, was hit by an enormous wave of shell fire and oncoming Chinese troops. Hell erupted in a manner that no one can sufficiently describe or picture for another. One simply must experience something like that to fully understand.

  But, to the ongoing Glimpse I'd like to write here if I can. In the early moments of that terrible onslaught wherein everything that moved was slaughtered ten times over—advancing troops, men, women, children, dogs and chickens and every moving creature caught at that place at that time—I was suddenly unable to hear. My world went silent and I was enveloped in an immeasurable calm. In the midst of that horrendous din of exploding bodies and shells, I could hear nothing but my own voice. In some marvelous way, I was caught up in a quiet, tranquil dimension, separate, but attached to the carnage at hand, I had not been wounded. I felt as well as one could be expected to feel under such circumstances. I could hear my own voice and even my breathing quite clearly, I went from gun position to gun position and heard myself giving calm encouragement to my troops. I could see their mouths move in reply and gratitude—and terror—but I couldn't hear them. I heard myself but couldn't hear the shells bursting in my face. I was beset with a wonderful enwrapping calm that let me move fearlessly to do whatever the moment asked me to do, as hideous as those moments were.

  Perhaps a man can so detest a situation that his body produces the chemicals which, in turn, erect a barricade between himself and the galling situation. But as this was happening for me on that long day in Korea, there was a clear perception that a superlative Reality stood just behind the events: that there is another Scene just above this one, surrounding it; that Reality was bursting through that corridor of chaos into my own conscious recognition. I walked with a detached courage, as if the mortal body couldn't be and wouldn't be hurt. I ran from soldier to soldier, gun to gun. I was knocked down, spun around and stung with rocks and earth, feeling nothing but a calm, clear sense of Life's dominion over the sights and sounds of the world; as though, with the Presence I had sensed and seen moments earlier among the first bodies felled, I was SEEING and FEELING Life, eternal Nature, even in the face of death. Perhaps this was the beneficent calm Mr.had felt those years earlier when he saw the blossoms on the distant mountain.
  
That particular hellfire and damnation in Korea lasted four nights and three days without sleep for my troops and me. I have never forgotten the different time frame and the enwrapping inner peace nor how I was held and supported during that time—or non-time. More significant, that Peace has not forsaken me since those days, at least not when I was mindful of It nor when the chips were down and I called for It. How do I call for It? I bring forth the Child of Me.

  Why I write this now after all these years, I really don't know, but on this Memorial Day when I feel everything necessary for the book has been written, I sit me down and write something that might tell others, like Janice and Bill, that there are times when the anguish of the lesson is absolutely necessary—that leaving the anguish may not be the answer. Now, with absolute assurance, I can tell people, old and young, their lessons can be learned under the most difficult and trying circumstances. Better that we leave our nets after we've learned their lessons. Better that we call on the Child because the Child knows what to do. The Child and the Presence are the same one Presence and It is right here where we are, transcending this world's time and space.

  The final tone in this Overtone: The day I moved King Company onto line in Korea, I was given the Order of Battle of the "enemy" opposing me just across the valley on the next mountain. Facing my regiment, and me in particular, was the Chinese 60th Army, the same troops I had lived with and trained for two wars in China. We met again, eight years later, in a terrible and senseless slaughter.
  In the apparent world, our friends and enemies are the same—and, sometimes, needlessly, insanely, we try to destroy one another, thence to find that Life is eternal. Like Arjuna, in awful combat, I was instructed in certain of the Mysteries and learned the sense of senselessness.


Memorial Day, 1985
If you would like further guidance in understanding any of William Samuel's work based on Self discover you are welcome to contact me, Sandy Jones - samuelandfriends@gmail.com - Ojai, California -   

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Tuesday, April 23, 2019

The Child




Artwork "Floral in Blue" by Sandy Jones

Excerpt from 
The Awareness of Self-Discovery   
by William Samuel 


THE CHILD

I would tell those who have found the Child within, that pure pristine, holy Child you are, to maintain your simple credulousness and sensitivity by living your Child likeness and Simplicity. Hold this grand awareness close to the Heart because, in Truth, it is the Heart. Love this love you have found yourself to be. See it in everyone and everything, because the everyone and everything are but mirrored images of your Self. Do not worry about Identity being raw and sensitive in the face of the world. Its defenselessness is its strength. Who would harm a child? Those who have the courage to remain the newly revealed Child find that this is so.

————————


And to be the child does not mean forsaking a job or an organization necessarily, because the Child's view of those activities is sharp and perceptive. The Child we are cannot be fooled. We see and enjoy the real, leaving the rest alone. 

Ego shed is Identity discovered.

And this is so!

————————


It is inevitable that there will appear to be the dissolution of all that stands between ourselves and a full knowledge of the Truth. Inasmuch as the world appears to reside within the awareness-we-are, the dissolution that began within appears outwardly as the world's search for freedom and the upheaval it brings. Our inner turmoil never ends until we reckon Identity as already arrived and then end our attempt to lift an incorrect self-concept up to the real.

If we are to see the world scene disclose the underlying, overlying Harmony "that is even now spread over the whole face of the land," we must make this re-identification in fact and end the nonsense of acting out from the position of a sponge trying to soak up wisdom. To do what? To steadfastly reckon Self from the standpoint of Perfection. No other view will bring Peace so quickly to the human scene.

LIGHT IS LOVE

The "final days" (and this is all that is significantly meant by those ominous words) is the arrival of the world's final enlightenment. These days are in progress already. The light is dawning because it is already here. New ideas are coming into focus and old landmarks are passing away. Cherished notions, some of them the very pillars of society, are being shaken to the roots. We are finding most of them built on foundations of sand. Many institutions charged with the revelation of God, Truth, Reality, are found not to be giving freedom to their charges but withholding it; not dispensing Light, but darkness; not unbinding men, but shackling them; not seeking out the new Rays of Light and investigating them impartially, but, for conscious or unconscious reasons of self-preservation, doing everything in their power to keep new Light from being seen—for fear, say they, their present Light will be adulterated. As if the Truth need protecting! 

Oh, but let it be understood, these very institutions are a blessing and they are serving a most necessary purpose. How would we know that Identity is Omniscience itself without first attempting to place that omniscience "out there" in a bible or institution or philosophy? How would we learn beyond all doubt that Light itself is being our Identity without first living the futility and impossibility of a weary traveler trying to reach the Light?

————————


So now, to make this statement from still another direction: We come to see the Light which reveals that we are the Light. I have found that acting this Identity "on faith" first helped disclose the Light-I-am that removes every doubt. and this Light of Self-discovery blooms in illumination and insight—fragile, fragrant, a flowery display of beauty and love divine. Sparks!  Enthusiasm!  Zest!  Strength and youth flooding back!  The bloom of Light divine—the simple Love that is Identity, revealed.
If you would like further guidance in understanding any of William Samuel's work based on Self discover you are welcome to contact me, Sandy Jones - samuelandfriends@gmail.com - Ojai, California -   
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