Getting ready to teach another to fly....

This is a picture of me during the short bus ride to the plane on Sunday January 27, 2008. Since breaking my back a few months ago, over the past few weeks I have done five or six hop and pops from 6000 feet with 5 second delays and several AFF (accelerated freefall) working jumps and one freefly (combination head-down and sit-fly) jump...Just call me the come-back kid...or the come-back old man would be more like it. Yee ha!

Flying Again...

This is me flying on the far side of my AFF Level I student...Wow, it's nice to be flying again...and landing softly too.

The Natural State of Spirituality

The Natural State of Spirituality
By Super Whuffo

What is the natural state of the human being? What does it mean to become spiritual? Is it to endlessly search for some illusion that has been created by thought? The one thing that is clear in all the illusions created and invented by thought is that self is a product of conditioning, of heritage and tradition. We are a product of genetic, biological, and environmental conditioning. Any movement of thought or any effort in any direction to achieve a result in the realm of spirituality only builds the self. Once this is realized, the trick is to be finished with any movement of thought to achieve a result in some attempt to become something other than simply what you are. Then thought has its proper place to be used to accomplish a particular task or to operate in its natural capacity of creativity and intelligence, and this operation goes beyond self and is not burdened by the neurosis of self with its many illusions and desires. You cannot change what you are by self will, because the thought that is used to attempt to bring about this change through effort only builds the self and adds flame to the fire of self deception and neurosis.

What is it that binds us together? It is not our wants and ambitions. It is not our attachment to the past. Neither is it commerce and great industries, nor the banks and financial institutions, nor the churches; these are just ideas and the result of ideas. Ideas do not bind us together. We may come together out of convenience, or through necessity, danger, hate, or worship, or through group therapy or some self help program, but none of these things holds us together. They must all fall away from us, so that we are alone. In this aloneness there is love, and it is love that holds us together.

A preoccupied mind is never a free mind, whether is it preoccupied with the sublime or with the trivial.

We should consider the simple truth about our conditioning and how so many of us have belonged to different churches and religious organizations or some other type of group, and how none of them has given us any satisfaction; but one never stops seeking. We may not take life seriously or we may think that we are serious, but one of the difficulties is this idea of becoming something different than what we are. One aspect may be envy. Most of us are driven by ambition, greed, or envy. Or we are caught in the continuous struggle to maintain our position in life at all cost. These are relentless enemies of man, and yet one cannot seem to live without them. We may try to build various types of resistance against envy or the desire to possess, but in spite of all of our efforts we get caught up in it again and again; it’s like the pollution contaminating the environment, and before we know it we are more envious and more deceptive than ever.

The answer to this is so simple, yet it eludes us again and again because of our conditioned minds and our inability to see through our own self-created illusions. Conditioning, heritage, tradition, are very powerful processes, and, in fact, so powerful that most of us will never be capable of seeing through these illusions, no matter what. When it was leaned that the earth was round and not flat, back in the early 1400’s, it took nearly 300 years for the masses to accept this fact, and those that accepted that our planet was round early on were ridiculed, jailed, tormented, tortured, and even killed for accepting this simple fact. This is only one simple example of the insanity and violence that has been perpetuated in the name of conditioning, most of it through the illusions of religious beliefs.

You must have found that with the desire not to be envious or not to be something that you don’t want to be, there comes the conflict of the opposites. You may have noticed that in your desire for you ambition or your desire to keep your position you avoid the truth about some wrongdoing, because to do so may jeopardize your position, your ambition. So you become part of the deception, yet, at the same time, you try to present yourself as being honest and ethical, and you carry this image of being honest and ethical because you are afraid to face what you are. The desire or the will not to be this, but to be that, makes for conflict. This is so simple and obvious to many, but most of us generally consider this conflict to be a natural process of life; but is it? This everlasting struggle between what you are and what you desire to be is considered noble, idealistic; but the desire and the attempt to be non-envious is the same movement of desire, and this effort to be something other that what you are is creating more conflict and more contradiction. If you really understand this, then there is no battle between the opposites and the conflict of duality ceases. This is not a matter to be thought about and acted on at some later date; it is a fact to be seen immediately, and this perception is the important thing, not how to bring about change.

You may ask, “Isn’t change necessary?”

Can there be change through an act of will? Is not will concentrated desire? Having bred envy, desire now seeks a state in which there is no envy; both states are the product of desire. Desire cannot bring about this simple and fundamental change.

Now some of you might ask, “Then what will?”

Perceiving the truth of what is. As long as you desire to change from this to that, without coming to a full stop and looking at what you are, all actions are superficial and trivial. As long as you cling to your beliefs and to your illusions based on your conditioning, this conditioning and these belief systems will prevent you from ever coming to this effortless state of what you are. The full significance of this must be felt and understood, and only then is it possible for a transformation to take place. As long as you are rooted in some thought created superstition with a mind that is always comparing, judging, seeking a result or locked into some thought created illusion, there is no possibility for change, but only a series of unending struggles which society calls living.

Your conditioned minds pose as much of a threat to the future of mankind as the nuclear weapons. We have evolved tremendously in terms of technology, but our violent actions are no different that the caveman that used the jawbone of an ass to kill his neighbor. Now we have the conditioned forces of these bizarre belief systems called religion, and now civilized man is doing what the caveman did but you do it for the “good of mankind.” Those who hold that their beliefs system is the only true system and that hold that right is all on their side and the belief that their eternal good will burn away the evil of others are the real enemies of mankind and the enemy of all the marvelous creatures on this incredible place we call earth.

We have so many people telling us what we need to do to come to the truth. The Pope tells us his bullshit, or rather he reads what the Vatican tells him to say, and so many of us believe this idiot. We have Martin Luther King and his nonsense, and we put this womanizer and power seeker up on a pedestal, even moreso because he was assassinated. Everyone is telling us how to live and we follow the one that fits our fancy at the moment and then move on to some other fancy that gives us hope. The Christians with their beliefs in some wretched book that they have not even read in its entirety, tell us that we are all hopeless evil creatures and that it is only by accepting this bizarre belief system that we will reach the mansion with streets of gold floating around up there some place in space, which they call heaven. Of course the variety of beliefs from this one religion are enumerable, just as they are from the other major religions and the many bibles that represent them. But I say that the body and its actions are already in unison and that any action of will to change only brings about further conflict, and any actions of will to change or mold the body or its actions only create more disorder and are pure and simple violence. The psyche, or self, or mind, has no existence other that this demand to bring about change in either the material or in itself and the human self-consciousness is matter that is characterized by perpetual malcontent and a self-centered insistence on its own importance and survival. That is all that the self can do, with one illusion replaced by another illusion and one teacher replaced by another teacher. We are all so quick to quote what someone else has said when we should learn to speak from our own hearts. The moment we repeat what someone else has said instead of speaking for ourselves, we begin to follow someone else. If you understand what is said here and want to share it with others, then if you understand, it is now yours so speak it from your own heart as yours, you do not have to give me credit for anything.

We have come to accept religion for one reason, and that is because of our conditioned minds. People accept religion as a premise of culture to find solutions to ease their everyday real problems or for solutions to fabricated problems, namely, the search for spirituality and enlightenment. This drive by the cultural environment, which demands conformity of the individuals, and places in them the desire to be special, but only if this desire meets the conformity of the accepted religion. Consequently, it is this need that is exploited by the preachers or spiritual teachers, or gurus, and all the sellers of such nonsense, who pretend to offer the only way to reach that goal but never deliver, because the goal is itself unreachable.

Now we have this non-sense called meditation, where we sit in a room or lay down for 15 minutes or two hours and meditate and then go out and be the same self-centered person again. There is a story about a man who’s father meditated in a specific room for two hours a day, and one day a child began to cry during his meditation and this man came down a beat the tar out of the little kid until he turned blue. All actions to dissolve the self can only build the self. All self-less ambitions lead to the same old self-centered behavior. It’s like the kid that dreams of being president of the humane society because of his love for animals, and then after 30 years of struggle and pursuit he attains his goal and everyone is so proud of him, and then one day he comes home from the office and his dog jumps up on his bran new $500.00 suit and he kicks the crap out of him!

I have had a difficult life, but on April 12, 1992 something happened to me and I turned my life around and began to live a life that would have been a product of this art of living, but it has been virtually destroyed by church going, bible believing people that called themselves Christians. Ultimately, these people that call themselves Christians killed my mother, who was a woman that lived her faith. I lost a half million dollar home on a virtual paradise at the corner of Lake Allatoona and the Etowah River that I personally designed and built and I would have lived on the street, alone and penniless, had it not been for a shed that I converted to a little cabin in order to survive and to fight my battle against the corruption and crimes the State waged against me, but still there were times that I was penniless and had to depend on the charity of others for survival. Having been the victim of a violent crime and falsely arrested as the perpetrator, and then felony crimes committed by the government in their many attempts to manufacture my guilt, I have been confronted by government corruption and by the actions of a corrupted detective and a corrupted system, most all of whom beat to the drum of organized religion. I won the battle by facing them head on and without fear. This is the power of dying to self and not escaping from anything and facing everything head on. But now how few even care and those that should stand up for the truth of what was done to me are hiding in their ambitions and self-centered world, so as not to be disturbed. I live in a town called Canton, Georgia, here in Cherokee County, and this town throbs to the beat of corruption and its deception of the people is astounding, especially through the local paper called the Cherokee Tribune, and all in the name of Organized Christianity. The papers are famous for showing pictures of the politicians here holding their hand on a bible, as their wive's hold it, and they are sworn to uphold an Oath of Office that they will soon abandon. We have the Ten Commandments posted in the courthouse along with a description from Hammurabi’s Code, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” I wonder what they would think if someone used the Holy Koran to be sworn in or one of the other many bibles from any of the other major religions? We have a government that supports this bizarre religion with laws that give credence to it, and now a new law requires the State Board of Education to teach bible classes in schools.

Our entire system of learning and teaching has its foundation in this culture of tradition based on these conditioning processes and is, therefore, for the most part, a destructive process. We learn about history, but only from the perspective of those that have manipulated it to fit their slanted views. We must conform to their belief systems, and, God forbid, that we should be individuals. It’s a game of one-upmanship. All learning, all teachings are within the framework of our culture and our heritage. It’s all about ambition; it all about winning, and the ethics side of it has gotten so clouded that you can’t see it because of the thick fog.

Charity has become one of the biggest scandals of this country, next to government and politics. Every time a charity is investigated it turns out to be just another American scam. First they con people into giving, and then they run their scams to make the biggest profits, then they use the policeman and the government to protect them. Charities are created to prevent the have-nots from rebelling against them. It also makes them feel less guilty. All of this charity is nothing more than another way to make lots of money and all the so-called do-gooders feel so special when they do good. I remember back in 1992 when I had finally gotten clean and sober and I had rented a room in a house. I needed a couch so I went to the Goodwill store in hopes of finding one. They had this old couch, it must have been worth all of $50.00, if that, and they were asking $275.00 for this piece of crap and they could not budge from the price. And did you realize that these charities only have to convert 2 cents on the dollar toward their cause?

I’m not out to change anybody and I accept everyone as perfect just the way they are, as long as they bring no harm to others and are good, honest people. I’m not out to liberate you. You have to liberate yourself, and you are obviously unable to do that. What I have to say will not do it. I’m only interested in describing this state, in clearing away the illusions and mystification and all the nonsense in which those people in the “holy business” have shrouded in everything they do. Maybe I can convince you not to waste a lot of time and energy looking for a state that does not exist except in your imagination. God only knows how much of my time and energy has been wasted. To be an individual and to be yourself you don’t have to do a thing, yet our culture demands that you should be something other than what you are. What a tremendous amount of energy, the will, the effort, we waste trying to become that or to achieve this! And look at all the energy involved in the discussions and dialogs, and sometimes arguments, in dealing with religion—it’s such a waste of energy. If that energy is released, what is it that we couldn’t do? How simple it would be for every one of us to live in this world! And so many wars would have never been fought and so much violence would have never taken place! And we would live as a community and care about nature and our environment, and the streams and rivers and oceans.

I’m not perfect, but I realize that and I can observe my own neurotic behavior, and this alone brings about an absolute goodness that refuses to be associated with any form of corruption or wrongdoing. I’m not seeking to be put up on a pedestal and I don’t want you to look up to me. I don’t put myself above or below any man or woman. The only message I have for mankind is to say that all holy systems for obtaining enlightenment are utter nonsense and that all this jibber and all this quoting of scriptures to bring about a psychological mutation through awareness is nothing but a bunch of bull. Psychological mutation cannot be achieved by an act of will or by any act on your part; it is impossible. The natural state can happen only through biological mutation and it starts now, but just don’t attempt to hold on to it. It is in this silence that this energy behind all life can be touched and in this silence the mind is part of that energy that is eternal. But this silence cannot be cultivated, achieved. There can be no silence as long as there is a seeker. There is this silence only when the desire to become something other than what you are is no longer in operation. Without replying, put this question to yourself: Can the whole of your being be silent? Can the totality of the mind, the conscious as well and the unconscious, be still?