=kit007sa Summary with a Multitude of Unsolicited Witty Quips, sll by sa of PVK KIT 007 -- Dreams, it seems -- ---------------------- Summary of my summary: This is all too deep and subtle for me, I can't summarize it. I have noted some of the highlights of it. However, I am tempted to say that this KIT ain't yet a complete User's Guide on How to Do Dreams. (kit007_0) ------------------------- PVK writs: "Freud's attempt to haul unconscious elements to the surface is not without its drawback. A deep sea fish emerging at the surface would be bloated and could not feature or function any more according to its nature." (PVK KIT 007) and adds: "However, we have a more constructive recourse: dream therapy or, better still, promoting creativity in our dreams as a complement to diagnosis. I am referring to a technique explored and applied in Vedanta and also Sufism. Rather than draw unconscious motivations to the surface of the conscious, one thrusts the light of consciousness into the nebulous unconscious depths."(PVK KIT 007) However, not everything in dreams is worth analyzing, (kit007_1) "One of the many activities of our sleep life is simply digesting or regurgitating the residual impressions of the day. No doubt the unconscious can accomplish most of this work more efficiently than conscious volitional action."(PVK KIT 007) (kit007_2) PVK suggests a state of 'reverie', of semi_sleep, to influence one's dreams. (kit007_3) Apparently he suggests this both before sleep, to influence one's dreams, and after awakening, to remember them. He also speaks of a 'multi_dimensional personality' assumed in sleep, though I can't say I recall that. (kit007_4) PVK remarks: "A new technique teaches people to learn languages while listening to music. The language curriculum is imbedded in the music subliminally so that the pupil is never consciously aware of it; yet when the same words are said aloud, they are recognized. Besides residual impressions of day experience, one may recognize several tiers in the dream world: unconscious or unavowed fears or wishes, features about oneself that the unconscious seems to aim at pointing out or resolutions of problems one failed to see."(PVK KIT 007) I've not heard of that technique for learning language. It sounds great; I'll take anything for free, from vitamin pills to TIME Magazine. But maybe it didn't work out. PVK makes a remark that I'm sure is important and useful, though I can't imagine what it means: "To grasp this eruption of unconscious elements, it is useful to intuit the way the soul sees itself projected in our personality, rather than try to glean something of the nature of the soul as viewed from the vantage point of our personal self-image." (PVK KIT 007) PVK adds: "The secret of effecting this is first in reversing time, then inverting time ... " (PVK KIT 007) Yeah, sure. Just as soon as I learn to use the steam_cooker I bought four months ago to make brown rice. This is some very advanced stuff, and it gets deeper. I'm quoting a few fragments, not because I can explain them, which I can't, but so you'll at least remember they are there. I guess that here PVK is tie_ing Nidra yoga -- the comprehension of dreams -- to what appears in some of his 'late' KITs -- roughly KITS 086 to 093 -- as his analyiss of the upper planes. He remarks: "The parallel between the cryptic psychic activity conducted in sleep and meditation has been painstakingly elucidated in the Mandukya Upanishad and descriptions of visionary experiences left by Sufis viz Shahabuddin Suhrawardhi (maqrul), Avicenna, Najmuddin Kubra, Farid-du-Din Attar, and numerous others. " I have no idea what he's talking about, but I'm sure it's solid and important, so you should know it's there. (kit007_5) PVK takes a jazz group as a paradigm of creativity -- and indeed, an improvisational jazz quartet or sextet or whatever represent the model that he often quotes Bach as having articulated -- tho I think it was Sikander who noted that he could not find that in the published surviving sayings of Bach -- that is, each voice restraining but not suppressing its creativity in the interest of the free creative -- synergistic, really -- harmony of the whole - - PVK always clearly distinguishes creativity, which is the exention of universal values to one's intellecutal social and personal situation, from fantasy, which has no necessary connection nor obligation to universl truth. Though I would only add: Fantasy has its place too, we do need it to keep our feet out of the mood -- I mean mud -- I mean muddy mood, Elmer Fudd. Though you might respond: If it's that good, it must partake of the ambrosia of universality -- that nektar that the genies , even Shakespeare's patched_together little sprites, partake of -- so call it 'creative fantasy'. PVK concludes: "Now, let us see how this would apply to working creatively with the human personality. It would involve one thrusting the searchlight of consciousness into the dark unconscious - like Orpheus - to intercept the tender shoots of qualities still in the formative process before they emerge into the personality as idiosyncrasies. Then reverse the process and apply one's will to auto-suggest to the unconscious will to shape these as one would like to have them, rather as one might cultivate flowers or breed animals by bending the formative process so that they depart from their state in the wild. This is culture: where the human creativity acts as an extension of the divine creativity, carrying it a few steps further in the evolutionary drive." (PVK, KIT 007) And his final words in this KIT are: "In order to effect the first step, one needs to learn how to turn one's consciousness within, as it were - discover an inverted space. " (PVK KIT 007) Well, in subsequent seminars, in the following 20 years, he did spend much time trying to teach his students how to work with that 'inverted space' -- the 'void' that one accesses -- at risk of falling into it, as PVK and many others warn us -- though most who warn us speak of the void only as a pitfall, not as also (if I'm not muddling PVK's carefully delineated categories) 'the realm of all_possiblities' -- by the 'sharghal' practice. However, I am tempted to say that this KIT ain't yet a complete User's Guide on How to Do Dreams. (kit007_0) But you are bound to be frustrated looking for a complete philosophic system in PVK -- -- not that the quest ain't worth pawningg the Crown Jewels for whatever you can bring back -- because PVK, like HIK before him (HIK: "What is needed is not to know, but to be" (Collected Sayings somewhere ) continually insisted that his primary function was not to lecture but to teach others to access the realms of mystic experience that he had found. ================================================================== COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY: However, I am tempted to say that this KIT ain't yet a complete User's Guide on How to Do Dreams. (kit007_0) (kit007_0) Like, I've sat through so many of those shargall practices, faking it if not doing it, that I just about have a shasrgall_stopper built onto my sleep_mas__ear_plugs -- and I don't recall even hearing any suggetion that this was applicable to dream therapy -- to channelling one's dreams for self_improvement. TEXT: However, not everything in dreams is worth analyzing, (kit007_1) COMMENT (sa: (kit007_1) (especially with the high price of low grade Merlot herabouts nowadays says I): (kit007_2) I once asked Carola Demler how to avoid bad dreams. She said, 'Brush your teeth.' #L2 I don't know where she's gone now. She was in Murnau last I knew, in 1998 I think, with a Catering business. If anyone reads this and knows where she is, please tell me. Steve Amdur, Campra, CH-6718 Olivone, Switzerland sa73122@yahoo.com #L3 She built the Zenith Kitchen. Than was 1989, if I recall. She would listen to anyone who needed to talk. She learned to hike in Nepal. She tended an old Indian woman in California, and when she left they give her a piece of green turquoise jewelry. #L4 I once had one, in Arroyo Hondo New Mexico, but not nearly as good. I lost it when the New Buffalo Longhouse burnt down. #L5 That night we held an ordinary meeting, and decided to rebuild the house where it stood. The Indians sent over a drum, etc. , but we didn't need it, we had already decided when it got there. -------------------------------------------- #L1 TEXT: PVK suggests a state of 'reverie', of semi_sleep, to influence one's dreams. (kit007_3) That seems to find support in Jewish tradition. In the prayer before going to sleep -- which is optional, not required -- one finds the line, "Let my thoughts not terrify me, V_AL Y_V_HaLO_Ni R'aYVO_Ni nor evil dreams, V_ChaLOM_OT Ra'i_IM nor evil fancies V_HaDHOR_IM Ra'a_iM and may my bed be perfect before YOU V_T_HA MiSha_Ti ShLeMaH L_PaNeY_Kh #L2 That seems to be taken, by some anyhow, as an inhiition against noctural emission. #L3 One of the things they teach the teenage frat brats in the baal tchuva yeshivas, I suppose. #L4 I don't know how we signed onto this Christian sexual_guilt trip. I suppose it was the socially acceptable thing to do at the time. #L5 It made good enough sense as long as one could assume tjat the world is coming to an end in a few years; but with the apocalypse approximately two millenia behind schedule and counting, they might as well face the fact that we'll all just have to keep on humping along for a little while longer, and try to make the best of it. #L2 It is a prayer for men, of course. #L3 Women are more or less disregarded in Jewish liturgy. Most of the prayers and other ritual obligations are not obligatory upon women, since they are presumably busy taking care of the babies, and can't be expected to put the bawling brats in the bassinnette while they dash off to shul for a spiritual quickie. Saphira Linden once said, to a mixed group, If you have an erotic dream, "allow it to proceed to completion." But I think she had in mind only women. #L4 As a former Jewish_American Princess #L5 (she was B'nai B'rith Woman of the the Year in her youth, although that was in Detroit, where the pinups all wear hubcaps) #L4 she would not have been particularly concerned with men, beyond ensuring that "one of THEM" #L5 (Elaine's sister said that, but you don't want to know any Elaine stories. Trust me, I was once a gentleman, but then I went to Belmont Senior High School) #L4 gets to the Wedding with an acceptable necktie and an adequate after_shave. --------------------------------------------------- #L1 (kit007_4) OK, hold onto your Raw Hambnurger with WorcesterShire Sauce, Boss. This next footnote may be important, but it's rocky sledding till the snow falls in Jericho. I can distinguish between symbolic dreams and regurgitative dreams. Symbolic dreams are very infrequent, I get maybe only one or so a year. They are prophetic, in advance of a crisis. They usually occur when I am more or less helpless, flipped out. But this summer I did have one when I was in good shape. Symbolic dreams are usually quite vivid, and short. The symbol is something that is close to my soul. In my case, it is usually being on some sort of boat. #L2 I don't know my real Sufi name. #L3 PVK gave me one once, but my guess is it was just a business_name. #L4 HIK used to do that all the time -- give a guy a name with which to the job he wanted him to do. Or he was destined to do, whatever. #L3 I think what I wanted was an Atlantean name. #L4 Also, of course, I'm not altogether comfortable with all this Ay_rab jive. (Cf. Bob Dylan, 'Ahab the Ay_rab') #L3 They offered me a change of name at the time I got the one I've got, but that was all done with inner voices, and in such situations I never know who's on the other end of the phone line, as I say below. #L4 (Someone at the Abode -- maybe it was Hallaj the Woodchopper -- once said that -- You can always call on Murshid, and get an answer -- I think he meant, and get an answer -- but you don't know who picked up the telephone. ) #L3 But I must say, on reflection, that is rather odd. There I was, under optimal conditions for hearing inner voices -- I mean, sitting at an Abode Camp , that's about as pure as you can get -- and as safe, too -- and I was not more than a few hundred yards from where PVK was sitting, or had been sitting, with all his angels -- #L4 So anyhow, there I am, somewhere in the more or less slums of Boston, just after I got back from New Buffalo, which is maybe 1974, and PVK is giving a lecture, maybe Saphira still has the tape of it, and he says, You know, are more angels here than people. (I'm quoting from memory; I don't take notes at PVK talks). #L3 and I must have been in pretty good shape, or I would not have dared ask PVK for a name, and still I can't tell who's behind the inner voices I'm hearing -- with PVK or his angels the most likely candidates -- I mean, this I cannot blame on 'blunted affect' , since my affect must have been about as good as it can get, for a metaphysician -- And then another inner voice said, 'Your father is very pleased', so I let it all go. #L3 The problem was -- I've told this story before, but as my Great_Aunt Elsie once said, "Nobody listens" -- at that Camp they said, this would be the last time that PVK gave names. And just after the class ended and I walked down the hill fast to do some transcribing, PVK had said, so they later told me, everyone who wanted a name should come to him after class so he could look at each person and then reflect on what their real name was, before the next day. So when I went up for my name the next day -- #L4 Saphira Linden was there, attending PVK, and should remember this in more detail -- #L3 he said 'I'm sorry, I just don't recall you ' -- and added, apologetically, 'so many people --- ' -- which of course was merely a conventional courtesy -- #L4 I was once told that PVK once said to someone, one of the Great Big Cooks as I recall: 'I'm sure I know you, I never forget a soul' -- #L5 that's a colloquialism for person, in both English and Hebrew -- nefesh -- but here of course PVK, with his fine sense of the ironic use of conventional language, would for'sooth have meant, metaphysically, Soul -- #L3 So anyhow, I bowed and walked back out, and was just standing around, at the end of the line, and my kinswoman, even if she won't admit it, Carol Latifa Amdur, the Natureopath and former Barefoot Doctor -- in Guatamala, if I recall -- is standiing there, at the end of the line, hoping to get initiated into the Healing Order, so of course I let her go ahead of me, and when she comes back she says, as she passes by, Steve, PVK will see you now -- so that's how I got my name, and its ok, and I've tried to make what I can of it, but I don't think it was my real name -- obviously PVK had seen a real layer in my Being, but I don't think it was the deepest layer As I say, something seafaring might have done nicely -- #L4 I was once crossing that trafic_filled street in front of Jaffa Gate, when I got a hit , Zevulon -- they were the seafaring folk, so I see myself on that beach outside Ashkelon, #L5 where I use to go to crash with my sleeping bag when I was a volunteer dishwasher on a military base -- #L4 so there I am, waiting for my longboat I suppose #L5 -- though I seem to be a bit late to join Eric the Red on his trip to Vineland -- #L6 in Cambrige, where I grew up, on the Charles River, there's a little plaque saying in effect, Eric the Red was here, but I don't think he put it there himself -- #L7 But I digress -- #L1 This summer, when everything seemed to be going perfectly well, I dreamt I was on a boat and the waves were extraordinarily high. I wanted to watch them, of course. I usually ride in the bow, but this time I stayed amidships, on an upper deck. I think it was at least an open deck, I think so -- anyhow, I got through it all ok. Shortly thereafter, at Zenith, various people insinuated that I had stolen things. That was my storm. #L2 I pretended not to have noticed the insinuations, answered with the best air of innocence I could put on at an instant's notice that I had not seen the items in question, #L3 So anyhow, there I am up on the edge of the Golan, having walked up there after walking out of HaOn one fine day when they were spraying RoundUp Herbicide and I was afraid it might make me crazy, so I more or less intended to take a mikveh and then catch a boat across the lake and then a bus to Haifa and then a boat via Rodos and on to Piraeus , across to Patra by train then up to Venezia on Minoan lines and catch a quick train to Biasca -- I had my Passports and enough cash in pocket to make at least a good start at it, but everytime I tried to walk up to Kibutz Ein Gev to catch the boat, some psychologic force held me back -- if that was one Balaak's angels, thanks a lot -- So anyhow, up on the Golan this rancher comes out to see what I need, and asks me where I'm from, and I say, HaOn, and he says, I'll take you back, and I say, I don't want to go back, I'm afraid they'll lock me up in a looney bin, and he says, I don't think so, but then why did you tell me where you're from, and I say, I find it very hard to lie, and he says, Yes, so do I. I mean, I more or less gave up stealing and lying when I came to Israel. In the USA it's quite another matter, of course. Survival of the fittest in the thickets, it is. and as for the set of liquor glasses from Honest George's Restorante on my Sideboard, and the Highway Reflectors I wear on my sleeve (in place of my heart, of course), I can explain -- #L2 and the camp ended with no further incident, though my feelings remain a bit bruised, as you may just now have noticed. #L3 Well, all this is tolerably good for autobiography, though it don't have much place in what I'd supposed would be concise intellectual summaries of PVK's KITs. "Waiter, this noodle soup is too sour." "That's onion soup, Sir." "Oh well for onion soup it's quite all right." #L5 (That's from The Jewish Treasury of Folklore, which was quite the cutting_edge guide to Judaism in the USA 1950's. It holds many mystic annecdotes, all of them banalized past recognition, except occasionally by me. Atum O'Kane sometimes tells one or two. #L6 Eek, a Critique. PVK once remarked, a teacher does not criticize another teacher. Again, any remarks I attribute to PVK, with only a few exceptions that I carefully note, are remarks I heard him make during the course of his lectures. Unless a Source is clearly indicated, I quote them from memory. #L1 Another time, when I was struggling with myself to get back to Zenith Camp -- the usual conflict over imagined obligations to strictly religious Judaism -- I dreamed that I was on a large ship -- which is how I would go from Israel too Switzerland -- when, on a calm water, the captain ordered the ship to turn around and reverse direction, which it did. That year I broke down and did not manage to leave Israel to get to Camp. Curiously, my most vivid dreams were when I was flipped out and psychologically incapacited on Rodos. I slept fine, even though it was not in the most secure nor luxurious settings; the dreams were clear and coherent, and I could recall them rather fully upon awakening. Nowadays, when I am leading a rather productive life and functioning with my usual social grace, my dreams are vague and scattered and seem all to be regurgitative, except for the occasional standard anxiety dreams. Last night I dreamt that they had reporedly changed the route of the Highway such that Moshav Mevo Modi'in would be wiped out, and anyhow everyone was fighting with each other, and getting ready to leave, so I could not set down my packs and stay a while, but had to repack and find another place. There was one crash pad that looked as if it might be adequate. I mean, Jungian Archeypes I ain't got. There is one cityscape to which I return so regularly and consistently that I could almost map it. It has an upper and lower level, as befits the astral plane. The upper level is built on a base of Oberlin College, and has an excellent art museum and some very nice buildings. The lower level is built on a base of the old Boston red_light district. I do not attribute any prophetic meaning to those dreams. It may indeed be a metaphor of my personality -- I think Nigel Hamilton, whom I find rather useless, says something to that effect -- but so what; it is merely descriptive of the state of my personality, not prophetic of impending events. And now for something rather different, if my toes don't freeze together. (I am using an Expanded Keyboard (MicroSoft EK-100 , designed primarily for non__touch_typists. Whatever feature you need in a computer system, MicroSoft will modify to be most easily used by hoi polloi, exemplfied by Ms. Josephine Sixpack. ) Any good secret agent must learn to send messages in such a way that they can not be intercepted. I suppose this applies to psychic communication as well. One technique is to embed them in a tune of music. So the would_be interceptor picks up the music but misses the message. #L2 (Curiously, in this KIT PVK refers to just such a technique, albeit used for sleep_learning, not encryption: "A new technique teaches people to learn languages while listening to music. The language curriculum is imbedded in the music subliminally so that the pupil is never consciously aware of it; yet when the same words are said aloud, they are recognized." (PVK KIT 007) #L1 I think that was something I learned in a dream, but maybe it was just in a non_dream flipout state. I'm not convinced it's for real, but it sure sounds plausible. #L2 "We three kings of Orient are trying to smoke a rubber cigar. It was loaded, and exploded, shot from yonder star. "We two kings of Orient are trying to smoke a rubber cigar. It was loaded, and exploded, shot from yonder star. "I the King of Orient are trying to smoke a rubber cigar ... " #L1 Saphira Linden once pointed out to me that there are left_hand and right_hand psychic paths. Right_hand you get to by staying pure amd becoming adept at meditation, it costs a lot of hard work. Left_hand is the path of black magic. You get it for free, but like most things that you get for free, "it's worth what you paid for it" (USA pop expression). The problem with left_hand psychic perception is that you can't tell real telephatic communications from your friends, from fake ones from demons -- (either external demons or your own internal demons; one finds that too almost impossible to distinguish). The key to recognizing telepathic communications from your friends #L2 -- or if not consciously sent by them, maaybe unconsciously sent by them -- #L3 once at New Buffalo I had the opportunity of choosing between two chicks -- I was bedding Juanita at the time, and I dreamt that her friend Nancy said, I'm much different from her.' I told Nancy that dream, and she said, with surprising force -- as if I'd just struck on a truth -- 'Yes, I am.' #L4 But she was Jewish and went to a psychotherapist and might have challenged some of my ideas. Juanaita said little that I felt obliged to think about, so I remained faithful to her, from intertia of course, until she left me. #L1 -- is the feeling_state. You will recognnize who it is, by their vibe -- sort of a signature, but of course intuitively recognizable -- as clear as a good picture. But the problem is, you get to the left_hand path when you're stressed out and flipped out and break down -- blunted affect, in short. And blunted affect means, all your emotions are burnt out. Everybody is perceived as flat, without affect. That means that all your empathy is burnt out, and with it all your sympathy, so you can do quite bad things to people, because you don't feel any of their pain, much less your own. Indeed, all you really want for yourself is to be destroyed, and so you try to manipulate others into doing so. #L2 (I really must go down to town and buy more groceries. This evening's supper of rubbery whole_wheat toast with slightly rancid butter, and of course a dash of unnecessarily peppery tomatoe ketchup to round out a balanced meal -- #L3 -- in the Reagan Administration, ketchup was deemed a vegetable for purposes of feeding the mandatory free school lunch to the poor -- #l2 -- is proving itself a bit difficult to ddigest, #L3 despite the few shots of schnapps I took to warm my toes when I got back from the privy without slipping backass on the ice #L2 And no doubt has inspired these rather dypseptic thoughts on its way down and out. Tomatoe ketchup was not peppery in the good old days. And one was not obliged to chew it on a few residual and/or artificial teeth compounded of various heavy metals, that look like Giacametti sculptures in Wroclaw the day after an artillery attack and bombing raid. #L3 But I digress. #L1 I would say that for the most part, dreams are just one more of the things we pass at night, a mental or psychic discharge, to which we should pay -- and pay we do too -- as little conscous attention as possible. But what of the good dreams. I would say that in general, we should also let them go, rather than try to consciously recall -- and again, the term is apt -- them . For I think that good dreams are psychic motivating forces, and as PVK says, if you bring a deep sea fish, #L2 or a deep_psyche force -- #L3 the word-play is curiously apt here too , perhaps because I've still but half_awake -- #L1 to the surface, it can no longer swim and live and thrive -- #L2 here too the assonance works -- #L1 in its habit. Tht is, we may lose the beneificent motivating force of our dream, if we try to retain it in consciousness. I mean, don't let your dreams into your conscious mind, because for sure you'll find some way to mess them up there, because if you could have handled that motivation with your conscious mind, you would not need to have dreamed it. #L2 The Prophet Muhammed, Peace be unto him, says: The greatest jihad is that which one fights with onself. #L3 Or as Freud would put it - we carry self_destrucitve cathexes from unresolved infant and childhood traumas -- #L4 Gosh, you'd almost think I knew what them big words mean, #L1 And I think that is a theme that you find in many myths and maybe fairy tales. One must not try to hold onto the good fairy, the genie in the lamp, the stranger with whom one wrestled all night long #L2 (Jakab at the Jabbock: V_Y_ShLaCh -- Genesis 32:27 "let me go, for the morning cometh" -- SHaLeCH_Ni KI 'aLaH HaShaChaR "I will not let thee go until thou bless me" LAo, A_ShaLeCH_Kha KI, AiM BeRaK_T_NI --though that puts it rather backwards: the blessing is freely given when you let the spirit go, and withheld only if you hold him -- #L1 The first thing I learned about nidra yoga, and just about the only thing, is that it's dangerous. And I think maybe that is why I could not leave the beach on Rodos for so long, and had such clear dreams. amd recalled them -- for "the snake was the most cunning of creatures" (Genesis 3:1 V_ha_NaChaSh HaYaH 'aRUM Mi_Kol HaYaT Ha_ShaDeH and the serpent was subtle, more than all the beasts of the field (Rashi Chumash, JPS 1954) -- and the snake said, "ye will be as gods" (Genesis 3:5<9 indeed, Snake said -- as Elo(k)im, V_YIT_eM K_ALoHIM which is literally , gods #L2 (dual, not plural, though I don't know what 'dual' is) #L2 The New Jerusalem Bible (Catholic) translates "you will be like gods" The JPS Rashi, the New Revised, and the JW's translate in the singualr #L1 , but in general serves , by the realtively late mythologic stage of Beresshit, Elo(k^)un serves as a term for G_d And so it was, as usual, that in this flipout (Flipout Rodos 1 Jan '00 to November '02) , which I clung to, as usual, for that reason, viz., I seemed to be eating from the Tree of Knowlege -- #L2 (R. Shlomo Carlebach extensively develops the concept of 'The Tree of Knowlege'; you should find much of that in those of the transcriptions of his talks on my Website #1, wwww.geocities.com/sa73122a Briefly, human beings should eat only from the 'Tree of Life' -- and that is the Sufi 'path' -- or 'wissdom' -- ' of the heart' -- bhakti yoga in contradistinction to raja yoga -- #L3 though anyone who eats from the Tree of Knowlege without a laptop at his fingertips might better eat Chateubriande with Sauerkraut 3 times a day, it's cheaper and in in better taste -.- #L2 which is what Hume must have had in mind when he said," G_d, why did you damn me to be a philosopher" -- or Faust too -- for a philosopher who will give anything and amypme fpr Knowlege, fancyimg that thus he is on an Olympian quest -- #L3 as Goethe, who was a great thinker, #L4 being much more than, #L5 or rather, much beside, ie a solid down_to_earth poet, #L6 everything von Hofmansthal prentends to be #L4 must have realized -- #L1 for you see, in remembering all these vivid dreams, I was eating the good spirits who had come to rescue me -- #L2 as I have done before -- #L3 and PVK once said, and more than once: 'everyone knows' -- ie, in Jewish religious tradition, it is of the essence of the definition of 'tchuva', return, #L4 misleadingly translated 'repentance' #L5 for you can take your sackcloth_and_ashes and stuff them in your outhouse, as we say in the USA; becaise 'tchuva' 'return' is joyous, and this is Jesus' parable of the 'the prodigal son', for although he can squandered his (divine) inheritance, his Father welcomed him back with joy as_it_is_said (by Rabia, or was it Rumi) "back, back, whoever you are; this caravan is not of despair, although you have broken your vows a thousand times" #L3 [ PVK has often said: ] if you make a mistake, you may be forgiven, on condition that you vow not to do it again. #L4 And everyone knows:if you break your vows, " then woe betide you" -- #L5 (and those were the first words I heard PVK say, after we jumped off the flatbed truck , riding up from New Buffalo commune to Lama Foundation, arriving some minutes late to hear PVK lecture there on a Sunday, #L6 which was the only day Lama let in hoi polloi, #L7 though New Buffalo was always open to visitors, and would never turn away a single mother with children, shame upon the Abode #L5 and so woe may carry you away from your shore, like an ebbing tide carries away detrius from the beach -- #L4 so if you make the same mistake again, that is very bad -- #L5 PVK uses just about those words, though I don't recall if it is for the second or third mistake -- and PVK does say, if you make the same mistake a third time "then there is very little hope for you" -- #L6 a terrible judgement, so one must hope and pray that it is, or may be made to be, false -- #L7 for that is what prayer is about, not justice, but mercy when one no longer has a claim to justice -- ***YOU ARE NOW ENTERING UPPER GOLETA [ie, START SET 2 of NESTED INDENTS sorry we had to do it on Armageddo Day, Jose ] [ REPEAT PREVIOUS SUBPOINT TOSSED BACK LEFT TO #l2 FOR CLARITY:] #L7 [ THIS IS A REPEAT PREVIOUS SUBPOINT TOSSED BACK LEFT TO #l2 FOR CLARITY:] for that is what prayer is about, not justice, but mercy when one no longer has a claim to justice -- ***YOU ARE NOW ENTERING UPPER GOLETA [ie, START SET 2 of NESTED INDENTS sorry we had to do it on Armageddo Day, Jose ] #L8 and everyone knows, that is what the meaning of G_d is - - #L9 indeed, the rabbis said: the Divine Name Yud_(K)ay-Vav-(K)ay, #L10 revealed for the first time to Moses (Exodus 6:2) #L11 (and the frumies refer to that Name of the Divine only as 'THE NAME', which is awesomely cicumspect of them, but they do it so often that it becomes a sort of quaisi_Name, and so that undoes there whole do, and so I can't read ArtScroll Siddurim and Chamashim, End Story #L10 so that he could go into Pharoh -- #L11 for remember, we were no longer a holy people, though we would again be offered the opportuity to be redeemed -- #L12 -- that is, redeemed, not from slavery in Egypt, YOU ARE NOW ENTERING SUNNY SAUSALITO [ ie, Set 3 of block_indents SO THROW THIS LEFT TO #L2 AND REPEAT IT ] for we were already politically free, but from the spiritual slavery -- #L12 [ REPEAT OF PREVOUS SUB_POINT ] -- that is, redeemed, not from slavery in Egypt, YOU ARE NOW ENTERING SUNNY SAUSALITO [ ie, Set 3 of block_indents ] for we were already politically free, but from the spiritual slavery -- #L13 MORE OR LESS Spinoza makes this point preceisely, in 'Of Human Bondage', the chapter in his 'Ethics' on the 'Passions' #L12 to which man is enslaved, #L13 -- and Buddha said it too, in more detaill I assume-- #L12 and for Spinoza, what man is free_ed into, is the 'symphony of divine emotions' (Spinoza, Ethics, 'The Emotions' (Chapter II of the Ethics, if memory serves) #L13 (and it seems a safe guess that PVK got that phrase from Spinoza's Ethics, which he just have read) #L13 that PVK, as often said, exprerienced on his -- first, maybe -- 40 day retreat -- #L5 OF SET 2 OF BLOCK INDENTS, IE, #12 I THINK [ ** YOU HAVE NOW RETURNED TO SUNNY SAUSLITO -- I REPEAT THE POINT TO WHICH WHAT FOLLOWS IS APPENDED, Mended_Pedeant ] #L5 OF SET 2 OF BLOCK INDENTS, IE, #12 I THINK and PVK does say, if you make the same mistake a third time "then there is very little hope for you" -- [ That was the REPEAT, Now "On with the show" (USA pop tune, 20th century, "Thre's no business like Show Business") #L13 OK ok, have yourself a half_shot of gin and/or 3 deep breaths of fresh air, if you've got any, and meet me back here in 5 minutes -- apologies for the clutter ] L'chaim. So one we go, Moe: #L12 (and so to PVK's judgement, I respond with a saying from the rabbi's: -- 'A hundred times the righteous fall, yet rise again -- and Reb Nachman says: 'The rise_and_fall -- #L13 I think his term is 'the forward surge and backward pull' -- #L14 that is the movement of waves, breaking on the shore, hopefully on a rising not falling tide -- #L12 is the essence of spiritual prograess -- #L13 and Jefferson Airplane says it too: -- "And if you go -- chasing rabbits -- aand you know, you're bound to fall -- tell them a hookah_smoking caterpillar -- has given you The Call -- #L14 for 'the call' is the Christian's call to his vocation as a minister, #L15 the Christian analog of a priest -- #L18 (Gosh, that was sure an envigorating dash uphill to the privy and only 13 below Centrigrade, with a light wind gusting -- if there was a full moon it would be good night for para_ski_in on the glacier, as soon as they invent para_ski_ing -- OK ok, you wanted dervish, you got dervish, but like I say, most of you SoupySufi's wouldn't know a dervish if you tripped on one -- But I digress.) #L16 for the minister serves the sheep on earth, while the priest serves only Heaven -- #L17 and more fool the Roman Catholics for trying to imitate us -- OK, Now we're even beyond SUNNY SAUSALITO, somewhere up in SHRAGER'S CAVE in Mendonciono -- That's Carl Shrager, who was writing a strong lyric line poetry at Age 18, and popping LSD like Vitamin pills less than a decade later -- Ricky told me, she had lost contact with him, and was sorry for that -- So I hope he's OK -- So I'm throwing this all back to L2, but it's a sub_sub_sub_sub__set_of_points: #102 and PVK said to ZIK, everyone knows, 'do not try to be like me, be yourself' -- #103 and all the rabbis say the same thing, #104 Rebbe Reb Zusha said, when I get to the Pearly Gates -- #105 that's a 1800's Negro slave phrase, I think -- #106 they are amongst are best and the few authentic Christian groups, for they had to be merely to survive -- #L7 none of this Roman 'in hoc signo vinces' bullshit -- for victory is shit -- as the vanquished can tell you -- #L104 Reb Zusha said, As I approach the Pearly Gates #105 ("is there a place in here where a man can find a bed" -- #L6 that's from one of those 1970s hippy songs - "I walked into Natzareth just a_feeling half_past__dead. 'Is there a place in here where a man can find a bed' -- He just smiled and shook my hand and 'No.' was all he said. / "Take a load off Fanny. Take a load for free. Take a load off Fanny. Fanny -- put the load right back on me.' ) #L107 Justin Case used to sing that, at New Buffalo. He worked very hard. Justin Case used to say: If you see someone picking up one end of a board, don't even look to see if someone else if coming, pick up the other end. #L108 I did that once, my first few minutes at the first Abode Camp Setup -- Sikander was running it -- #L109 *** that's Sikander Kopleman, y'all should find him and bring him back - - maybe he's still in Paris -- the first SO National Secretary -- International too, for that matter - - #L108 they were offloading 2_by_4's from a flatbed, I walked over to take one, and the idiot pushing them off didn't even look to see if someone was coming, so I got whaked on the side of the head -- Arif Rechtaffen checked me out and saw there was no concussion, but I had to sleep on my side for a few nights. #L104 REPEAT: Rebbe Reb Zusha said, when I get to the Pearly Gates -- RESUME: there they will challenge me, saying not, Why were you not more like Moses, but rather, saying, Why were you not more like yourself. #L102 Only I bet ZIK gets it all wrong; already what he seems to be following of PVK is PVK's acdieental weaknesses -- the role of an old man, which PVK had to assume because he was becoming an old man - #L103 So anyhow, there I am at Campra, and PVK is doing a Retreat in some invisible location, and then the Seminar starts, and I go to the first class, and I come out, and say to ZR, 'This is the man I was trying to protect? -- I mean, such power, even though he was always much too polite to throw thunderbolts -- #L102 -