Monstaville Book II. Chapter 41

41

 “God does not send us despair in order to kill us; he sends it in order to awaken us to new life.”

- Hermann Hesse.

Committed (written and directed by Lisa Krueger, 2000).

Grampy (the wise old shaman) visits Joline in a mental hospital:

Grampy (Alfonso Arau): It’s time for you to leave this place so catch your breath and let’s go.

Joline (Heather Graham): I can’t. Don’t you know what I did?...Then you know I’m just, I’m too sick to live out there.

Grampy: Maybe you were not sick enough. Maybe you needed a little poison in you to live among the rest of us and not get killed. You have a very rare power. It’s not that you were not powerful before but coming back from the dead will generally increase a person’s power by three times; sometimes even four. I guess you could use it here but it seems kind of limited. It’ll be kind of stingy of you.

(Jo leaves the hospital).

The film begins with Joline being jilted (she was due to be married to Carl) and is herself committed to the venture. Towards the end (in a voice-over), she says:

“I’m still a committed person. I found out I have a knack for it. Some people just do. And if they didn’t take things to certain extremes how would they ever know for sure? How would they ever know what they’re made of...where they stand? How would they know where anybody else stands? It would be a mystery.”

Heather Graham and Goran Visnjic in Committed

Extra note with date:

22 April 2006.

Angel Cards: Courage and Power.

I’ve learned that if they retaliate pathetically or it doesn’t affect you, don’t respond. Make them think they’ve got you so bad you won’t do anything more, just lie down and lose. Wait a day or two, then respond. That way, they may try their new technique for a while. You won’t be affected. Then again, all I did today - my last day off - was hit the punch-bag three times (just one punch) and slammed the pan on the stove. Oh!

“Fear is met and destroyed with courage.” - James F. Bell.

Spring 2008.

Self-mastery: You are noticing that a completed identity and active will (like the Sun) means you have made a solid, permanent agreement, a decision, a stance. No longer accept any assault from others or tolerate aggressive attitudes on any level. You have become dangerous. You don’t have to do anything. People who wish me harm in any way - things happen to them in relation to me. Their antagonism or other negative or deceptive intent backfires. I don’t do anything consciously, but I know why it has occurred and I can show that if I choose. It works in an intimate environment at least. This is a permanent direction, or stance, of conscious will. It is an enduring realisation born of so many conflicts. But, if there is a threat that gets past that barrier, then you have to apply your will actively. Get out of the way and/or defend yourself. Use positive affirmations or send energy, whatever. However, perhaps this is a crude reflection of the masters’ power. That is, they have a permanent state of complete being which includes conscious principles, conclusions and concrete intention. Yet, rather than rejecting people, they positively wish for the person to grow and find lasting happiness and fulfilment. Thus, people are affected by the power of this intention, transformed by their presence, be they friendly or hostile. Things happen because they radiate the power of full self-realisation, complete self-awareness.

“In the arena of human life the honours and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action...I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is the victory over self." - Aristotle.

12 May 2008.

The spirit needs opposition because it is able to express itself through our positive responses. Not taking reactionary action but growing positively in comparison to other people behaving irresponsibly and ridiculously - so clearly confused and lost to illusion that it makes your inner reality appear all the more compelling.

“I have pursued my apprenticeship for sixty-four years. During these years, many, many times I have gone to the mountains alone. Yes, I have endured much suffering during my life. Yet to learn to see, to learn to hear, you must do this - go into the wilderness alone. For it is not I who teach you the ways of the gods. Such things are learned only in solitude.

                If you have the desire to learn the path of the shaman, the Fire will teach you, the Fire, Our Grandfather. You must listen to the Fire, for the Fire speaks, and the Fire teaches. And during the day, you learn from the Sun. The Sun will teach you, the Sun, Our Father. This is always best done with hicuri, peyote. From peyote comes forth Káuyumari, the Little Deer Spirit ally, and he will communicate that which you must learn. Káuyumari emerges like a mirror an shows you what you must do. The Little Deer knows. All the gods communicate with Káuyumari, and he teaches you.”

                - Matsúwa, Huichol shaman, Mesoamerica (Shamanic Voices. A survey of Visionary Narratives by Joan Halifax, Arkana, London, U.K., 1979, p.250).

“Even hope may seem but futile, when with troubles you're beset,
But remember you are facing just what other men have met.”

- Edgar A. Guest (from the poem ‘See It Through’).

Elder's Meditation of the Day - 24 May 2008...

"...in Tunkashila, there is no time. Everything moves in the blink of an eye. It's as fast as thought. So there is no speed there. There is no time in between." - Wallace Black Elk, Lakota.

“There is a relationship between thought and reality. Every thought is alive, and as soon as you think it a result occurs immediately. However, to make something happen it may take a series of 1,000 thoughts before you can actually see it with your eyes. This occurs because the Laws of the Great Spirit act immediately. When you tell a lie, you immediately experience fear. When you tell the truth, you immediately experience freedom. To the Creator, there is no time. For us to experience the meaning of this requires us to act on faith. Faith is belief without evidence...

Great Spirit, today, let me act on my faith...

Looking not back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness...”

(From a MySpace bulletin related to www.whitebison.org).

"Choose to be optimistic, it feels better." - Dalai Lama.

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." - Winston Churchill.

"A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realise his potentialities." - Charles DeGaulle.

Retrospective insert.

‘Nothing is going on, it is all make-believe’ by Saul (channelled through John Smallman, 20 December 2009, www.johnsmallman.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/nothing-is-going-on-it-is-all-make-believe).

Living in your illusory reality is extremely confusing for you as there are so many conflicting rules and beliefs which of course are also illusory. You can choose to attempt to live a totally egoic self-centred life, a life of total service, or a combination of the two, and that too is illusory. Nothing happens, nothing is going on, it is all make-believe. Yes, it is very convincing make-believe as your bodies experience cold and heat, hunger and thirst, pain and suffering, emotional upheaval, attack, betrayal, and finally abandonment into death.

God is infinite all-encompassing unconditional Love, Who’s only Will is your infinite happiness. You believe in Him and you believe the illusion is real. Surely you must be able to understand that that is completely insane? How could your infinitely loving Father create such an unrelentingly hostile environment, deposit you in it, then withdraw, and, from a distance, spend time (also part of the illusion!) observing your suffering, listening to your anguished prayers, and imperiously demanding and accepting sacrifices?

HELLO! God is Love, and He Is All That Exists! The reality that you, as sentient beings in human form, are experiencing cannot possibly be anything other than the most cruel and sadistic nightmare; it is in fact an imaginary concept that you have dreamt into existence for your own diversion or amusement. Even the shortest period spent in rational thought considering your situation must convince you of its unreality, of the total impossibility of such an existence. Many of you have simply turned the logic upside down, and believe the illusion is real but that there is no God. It certainly makes much more sense than believing that the illusion is real and that God demands that you live in it, pay Him obeisance and offer Him sacrifices.

It truly is time for you to wake up and release yourselves from your nonsensical illusion, so that you may once more delight in the wonder of Heaven, your eternal home. In order to awaken you have to detach yourselves from the beliefs, the emotions, and the concepts that anchor you there - that you are unworthy sinners; that you have been unfairly treated; that others deserve punishment and that you deserve recompense - and from the myriad other complaints and judgments to which you are clinging so tenaciously.

God loves each and every one of you because you are His perfect children living with Him in perfect harmony, forever. As long as you see any of your brothers or sisters as unworthy of your love, as unforgivable, or as superior or inferior beings, you are making judgments that are not yours to make. In the illusion your vision is severely clouded by these antagonistic attitudes which prevent you from seeing the perfection and beauty that is your sister or brother, and which is also a reflection of you. God and all that He creates is absolutely perfect, so you, as God’s Creations, must be perfect. The sins, the imperfections that you see in yourselves and others just do not exist except in your tiny and insane imaginations where you focus almost all of your attention.

It is essential that you very consciously intend to see in every sentient being the divine beauty that is eternally present within them. Look for that loving spark within them and expect to find it, and seek it and find it within yourselves where it is always present. Your failure to see it is due to the unnatural and misguided attention you pay to the non-existent but fascinating distractions that you keep imagining you can see in the illusion that you have made. Let them go. Attend to the divine spark in yourselves and others, and prepare to awaken into the Glory that is God.

With so very much love, Saul.

“You know, these are emotionally turbulent times for many of us. We’re being challenged in so many different ways during these times. And sometimes we get really down about things not going our way. One of the excerpts from my book, Miraculii. Song of Ascension, is, ‘It is wise not to despise it. Use the dung to fertilise it. For, life’s greatest connoisseur gets the best crops form the best manure. And, I encourage you to be in the realisation that, when things don’t seem to be going your way, then it really is fertiliser. You know, fertiliser’s basically waste material. It’s dung. And, you can take this waste material and put it on the soil and get the richest crops. You know, not in spite of the waste, but because of the waste. The waste has a way of offering something to the fruitfulness of life. If we can remember that when things are difficult, when things are challenging, then we’ll be able to take that challenging situation and have it become serving unto us rather than master over us.“ - Astarius Miraculii (May 2011, www.astarius.com).

“There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilised as a source of strength.’ No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.” - Dalai Lama.

“As a boy Wdenty used to laugh at the Sioux dancing around the fire, waving tomahawks, singing to banish evil. He used to laugh because they looked funny - they were all too serious. Laughter is a great power, a great healer, a great protection. Humourise. Laugh!” (Note from attending a trance sitting on 1 October 1988 by Wdenty, a Sioux Indian whose last life (birth) was in 1704).