CORRESPONDENT:
“It sounds as though you have reached a plateau of tranquility where life’s many vagaries are neatly pigeonholed away. Well done you!
“For myself I am still riding life’s dodgems but enjoying the experience very greatly.”
COMMENT:
“Life’s many vagaries” have not been “pigeonholed away”. There is nothing to pigeon hole as any thoughtful examination of one’s personal attachments will attest.
Human vagaries are artificial, mind stuff, unreal, harmless unless taken seriously like Nazism was, for instance, by the young men mostly in their twenties, mostly educated and professionals, who managed Nazi atrocities from Himmler’s headquarters in Albrecht Strasse for instance.
Anyway, history shows human empires only last 250 years before slumping into material, moral and religious decadence if Sir John Glubb is to be believed in his essay, THE FATE OF EMPIRES and SEARCH FOR SURVIVAL.
But the Reality of the mystical experience of Reality is known even from human records to be at least 12,000 years old. According to the Reality of the mystic experience of Reality (MER), Reality created everything, everything known and unknown. Reality created history. Accordingly, Reality is far more reliable, trustworthy, and loving than anything human by comparison.
Mind stuff is easily dismissed personally (not so easily socially!). It is seen to be non existent upon close and persistent examination unless one is attached to it.
According to the mystic experience, there is much more to being human than the myths upon which transient human life exists, much more to existence than being merely human.
As for, “I am still riding life’s dodgems but enjoying the experience very greatly” – is that a sad admission of a lost soul’s commitment to a lifetime of nothing but empty pleasure, hedonism?
Mystical Experiences of Reality 
I suppose Keith that “riding life dodgems” is more or less unavoidable for the young. Even if they are not seeking a “lifetime of nothing but empty pleasure, hedonism” they are nonetheless having to survive in a harsh material world.They are having to claw out a living to survive. I have often wondered how a knowledge of reality might help with that task. I suppose the answer may be that once one has realized the absurdity of most (all) human concerns, one does what one can and closes one’s mind to the meaningless of the task.
Of course one could take the ultimate opt out and go off grid. Build a cabin in Alaska and live off the land. Avoid greedy governments and taxes, ignore the internet, live off the land.
If I were to have to start again and suddenly found myself aged 20, I wonder what I would do?
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Excellent point. My two answers to the conundrum of having to earn a liviing failed somewhat. One was to find doing what I liked and being well paid for it. I found it, but it wasn’t well paid so found my niche in a highly paid remunerative and stressful job I hated that finally made me retire in my early 50’s in broken health. The other was keeping things simple. I did to some extent but not enough, whereas my oldest son reduced his life to one of practically nil expenditure and no debts doing what he loves and was earning awards and $300,000 a year before he was 30. He still only spends a fraction of his net income and at 50 is considering acquiring an abandoned sail boat to bring back to life and liveaboard in simple frugality. No word from his professional lady friend on her views, though she seems to share his passion for sailing. In the meantime he works
lucratively from a cottage home with chickens in the woods near the Pacific. So there you are, it does happen when you’re not trying!
Kindest regards,
Keith.
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I am inspired by your son’s story. Everything I would have liked to have achieved myseld. I would greatly like to simplify my life a lot further but of course wives and lady friends have to be taken account of. Our careers sound very similar but I couldn’t take anymore aged 34 and so left it at that. I would not say that I led a simple life after that or that I lived my passion. I did make a little money thank heavens and lived for much of the time in the mountains. Aged 64 now I would love even more simplicity in my life. I am not sure that I would describe stock markets as my passion, but in my more honest moments I would have to admit that aspects of it have beem pleasurable. Particularly the more analytical and research based side. You have been an enormous help to me in clarifying my mind and considering my life; I do not believe I am quite there yet but I am more so that at any time in my life. I am determined to consider life as a game of Poohsticks… Drifting on the river, ignoring most if not all that goes on in the world.
In any event, thank you for your thoughts – I value them greatly.
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Thank you, Anthony. So glad the Seeker in you now seems to be experiencing the start of the veils lifting.
Kindest thoughts,
Keith.
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Incidentally and off topic, I visited Albrecht Strasse a few years back with my son who was then at University studying German. I visited also the Jewish museum and the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Having a fair share of Jewish blood on my father’s side made the trip eerie and poignant.
I found Berlin a deeply haunted City but my son was untouched by the emotions I felt.
An understanding or experience of ultimate reality would no doubt have helped those young people see the terrible error of their ways.
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Humanity is at a very primitive stage of evolution. Some scientists say we’ve not even started! So it’s interesting to see how an interest in mankind’s perennial question of ‘What’s it all about?’ has developed into a near mainstream subject of scientific, academic enquiry since Huxley’s 50’s book,”The Perennial Philosophy” was published. Hundreds of universities are now involved around the world. Thousands of papers are being published. The words, mysticism, and Reality, appear sympathetically in all kinds of enquiring disciplines. So maybe there’s hope yet.
The biggest mystery to me is what the Mystic experience has to do with it. What are mystics to do with humanity, if anything? Am I a new breed of mystic that says contrary to mystics of the past evangelising, mysticism has nothing of significance to do with mankind – mankind is separate, not under it’s own control, and all is well?
Kindest regards,
Keith.
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