Cock o’ the Walk
When you watch nature’s creatures you soon begin to see an extraordinary thing. They don’t get emotional. They don’t have psychological positions to protect from dissolution, because they are not identified with any of it. They simply live their life, doing what they do from moment to moment.
If only people would do the same, but with the knowledge that to cause pain is to receive it, whatever form it takes. And that’s what we do until we wake up to it. I am not special, I know this from my own experience of getting it wrong, of giving pain instead of love.
But waking up is not easy, even, or especially, for the ones who think they are already special. The ‘revolutionary’ fighters of causes, the so-called spiritual ones who love to dress up – inside and out, anyone in fact who is identified with what they demonstrably are not – that is a psychic condition and demonstrably unsustainable.
We, I, am demonstrably the body, inside. Outside is just the appearance of inside. And inside I am the simple sensation, that never lets me down, or I am nothing – an apparent psychological impossibility, but only if you believe that. Anything I think is a Chimera, gone with the next best wind.
I don’t believe, in fact I have spent my life tearing down the belief I was inculcated with by the dysfunctional Catholic church in the form of the Christian Brothers schooling – the most violent people I have ever come across, simply because they used such trickery you didn’t know you were being used and abused – and all in the name of god. God wills it! The cry of hypocrites down through the ages.
God wills nothing of the sort. I say god would have you know love and enjoy the beauty of the earth and rest in knowledge of uncommon truth. People who had taken a vow of celibacy in a vain attempt to emulate a fallacy of the master Jesus being without the love of woman in his life – even though there have since been found scrolls that put Mary Magdalen at his side when the 12 disciples had already abandoned him – bloody cowards, lost in their hopes and fears. And hail Mary, for her undying love. :)
The body won’t be denied, it is a sexual entity, evidence the world population if you need any. And what is suppressed comes up in another place but distorted. Hence the worldwide phenomenon of priests being chased, at last hunted down, for their sexual abuse of children who were in their care. ‘Care’, a euphemism nowadays for neglect, or worse.
The same is true of any organisation that puts ideology over actuality. Ignore the fact for long enough and it will come home to bite you in some other form. The trick to waking up and ending this absurdity called our way of life is to get back home, back to the reality of the body, inside, as the sensation first, and acting from there and not from what the mind conjures out of want and greed, desire and ambition – for position or power, usually over others.
But how to do it, get back home? Well, you can make a start here : Meditate. Or wherever you find what fits you. And just keep at it until you break through the crust of mind that would have you do something else, to fill your inner space.
And the fundamental key to it all? Relax, be easy, let go, inside … And Kick some ass if need be. My 2c. :)
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture to enlarge in a new tab – best in FireFox
*
Nature's Place 
I just found your blog and while I haven’t read much yet, (but have looked at your beautiful photographs), I can sense that you communicate well with your subjects (insects and animals). I love that – I feel emotional responses in all animals – as though they are communicating with me on some level. While I’m not the “horse whisperer,” I do think that humans have, by and large, lost their ability to communicate with nature on a subtle level. I like your words and thoughts.
They are, aren’t they. It is our nature after all. You don’t need to be a mystical whisperer, just give them the time of your attention.
Well said Mark!
Thanks Alex …
i like the pictures of these small creatures so resolute with minds so small they have no imagination and i like the way you relate that we humans like to imagine ourselves larger than others for whatever reason we imagine
How small is a mind? What is a mind? Imagination, the ability to conjure a past and future that binds the present – the earth couldn’t handle another species with that. Well, it’s as it is because it needs to be …
i guess your leaving that part up to my imagination the only extra thing humans have and struggle with as it seems that we humans are slowly evolving the brain
You don’t need to imagine what is in your experience, and if it’s not in your experience imagination will not come close. Slowly evolving the mastery of the brain maybe, where thinking and emotion are hardwired?
it is quite hard to imagine thinking and emotion not being hardwired i still and to imagine it is a step to the rewire
No problem, when the time is right you don’t need to imagine, you do or don’t do. Some reprogramming needs to be done, just to function in the world, but largely it’s a matter of separation so thinking and emotion fall into perspective, eventually.
so your saying thinking and emotion can operate seperatly
No, they are not seperate, as we are. One stimulates or generates the other. The evolution is to master the subject so it no longer runs out of control and ruins the life being lived. Then thinking can be without emotion as long as it is purposeful. Without purpose thinking returns as a momentum and generates emotion and you have what’s called the ‘problem’ of human nature – evidence the violence in the world that comes from your self, your thinking emotional mind in inner space.
Maybe you would read the pages top right and see where I am coming from.
it does make sense i will read them i only recently stumbled across your blog your photos drew me in your words stimulated me staying
Maybe see you again then … :)
I’ve probably missed the point but I think everyone is unique and can have something special to give. I don’t think we should all think we aren’t but believe we are. I like to think it’s important to aim to be someone special and important in the world. If you want to be an insect just trundling along why even be here?
Even the most amazingly good people in the world make mistakes that doesn’t mean they’re not special, that just means they are human. Nobody is perfect but to be special you don’t have to be perfect.
I very much agree with the part about some people using religion and good causes to gain money and power. I also used to be a Christian but protestant not catholic. I loved my little church there was not a bit of gold in sight just a simple wooden contribution bowl that was never pushed in front of your face. I could never stand going in to catholic churches, they just had a weird feel about them. Some how I felt all the gold and expensive material took away from what was most important. I respect religion as I would be a very different person without it but at the same time you are right religions all cause so much trouble.
You are a very SPECIAL writer. I don’t think I fully understand parts of it but its very thought provoking:)
Thank you for your response G. The point I am making is thinking I am special separates me from being ordinary, a form of arrogance that will surely cause me to fall, inside, psychologically. The point is I don’t think it and am content to be the simplicity of the sensation of the body inside, and not the complication of the mind. Sure, everybody is special in that there is nothing out of place in this existence – can you also accept that the reviled one (whoever, and for whatever) is also special? Evolution is not just of the species, but also of intelligence – eventually the intelligence necessary to see the simple truth behind appearances – that sets us/me free, of the psychological chains of religion for instance.
Yes, chains have their time … :)
Thank you I think I understand your point more now:). Depends how you use the word special I use it to mean different in some way not so much extra-ordinary so in my mind each and every person is special because no two people are the same. Therefore everyone has something different to offer. I would say Hitler was special but definitely not in a good way. I guess you meant special as in above every other human being in a good way. Which is arrogant yes if you are ordinary but if you are an extra-ordinary person and there have been some people in history- maybe you are justified.
I still don’t get what you mean by sensation of the body inside and complication of the mind…
I don’t think you need to be particularly intelligent to recognise a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Yes, unique. Everything is unique in itself.
The sensation inside is the tingling you feel in your hands when you close your eyes, for instance. A focus for attention when the mind is running on and you have had enough of that, to slow the mind down and help relax.
Without the experience of a wolf in sheep’s clothing you wouldn’t recognise it, would you. That’s the value of experience, it allows you to know what you don’t want, until you know enough of that and don’t have to go there any more. That’s intelligence evolving through experience, cognition and reflection.
The sensation inside is still confusing me, is that like the inner self ?
To keep one distinguished from the other the sensation inside is the tingling, or the pressure, or pulsing you will feel – especially easy to feel in the hands – when you sit or lie with your eyes closed. Do it and give it a little time to happen, just relax, and you will see exactly what I mean.
The self I would describe as the psychic body, as in psychology, whose base is instinct (or human nature) and in time gathers to itself the emotional impressions and facts of experience that then present as the mind or thinking emotional self that runs on with a momentum and is what eventually needs to be mastered.
The attention we give, to one or the other, is the intelligence that animates or enables either to ascend or retreat in consciousness – the screen of inner space where we see what we see. What you give your attention to, as if it is real, is what determines what you are, or the level of your intelligence. Sensation, self and attention are three different aspects of being a human body.
Being is complex and hierarchical and words are just a way to discriminate the various aspects from each other so understanding can occur. With understanding comes separation, an un-tethering of intelligence from the form (any form) that limits it. When intelligence is dis-identified enough from form realisation occurs and you move on to the next level of need for experience, to evolve in being, until it can be said ‘I Am, or I am free’, until there is no more need for experience. It’s what is often referred to as enlightenment, to which there are many degrees.
And it ain’t over until you hear the dirt hit the lid of your coffin. :) It might help to read the pages over top right.
Thank you for helping me learn something new:) I always thought the tingling was just muscles relaxing. I understand the difference now and I read the pages top right which were helpful too.
I am quite spiritual and I already do different types of relaxation exercises it is an area that interests me. I think I’ll start finding out more about meditation.
Your blog is thought provoking:) and you take beautiful pictures.
:)
Amazing insights Mark! I was one of those whom I thought I was special, Yes, always trying to be good I suppose, gives you a false sense of security and superiority and all the rest of living duality , followed the New Age wagon for a while. When your loved rightly and honestly you soon see the truth of it. Love. All the best!
Well Jenn, you have to know the dark to appreciate the light. And maybe one day we won’t need the dark any more …
Mark, I am a follower and have linked to your blog and wonderful photographs. I have to say you wrote a powerful piece that will really touch many. As always, the most impressive images.
Thanks G. I never see I have an effect. I write in response to a mix of things that occur in my consciousness and out of my experience.
Mark, your words are always enlightening. I agree with you that ‘we’ have plundered our planet and will soon reap what we have sown…in fact, we are already reaping. I’m sending you this YouTube video URL. The video was apparently posted to honor the United States Veterans whose memorial day this is. However, it has a significant message to all earth inhabitants who are not as innocent as the little creatures you share with us. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nGeXdv-uPaw
Thanks Sarzy, it is a wonderful piece of work, especially the woman’s voice crying out her lament in song. It’s ironic it was used as you say, to honour soldiers whose function it is to force others to their will, or the will of someone else – usually the rich and privileged, or kill them …
I don’t usually leave links in comments but I’ll leave that one.
I’m glad you liked it. Thanks for the arm!
(this may be the second time I’ve sent this, but since I can’t find the first one, maybe it didn’t get posted…I’m really not becoming forgetful in my advancing age!)
Ha! It happens, this forgetting. And it’s no big deal except to the world that worships memory as if it is the highest form of intelligence.
Thank You for the Arm. :)
a wonderful writing and top notch shots…
Thanks Luther …
I really enjoyed reading this post. It was really peaceful and soothing. Our rationalizing, thinking minds can truly get us into much trouble, can’t they? Though I’m not sure about your reference to Jesus and Mary… But He was more “in the moment” having nails driven through his hands without judging, accusing or cursing his “enemies.” He demonstrated full acceptance. Full peace. It’s unfortunate the Church deviates from some basic Biblical truths and confuses people. Christ is the standard… not people if you’re choosing Christian belief. People are very confusing! I like your insects, they don’t seem so confused. haha
No, no confusion in the insects. :)
Jesus was a man of truth who professed love as a teaching. My reference is to that fact and that it is entirely ignored or misrepresented by the Catholic church as a love of something other than a love of man for woman, which is the first love, without which there could not be any other love. So the church has it arse about, but that’s what priests do, twist things to their own ends. And as can be seen in the world those twisted ends are catching up to them. Mary was Jesus lover and was there when he died, because she loved her man as only a woman can, while the supposed apostles were in hiding, in fear for their lives – that wasn’t the masters teaching. Then the priests saw a good thing in Jesus teaching and made of it an abomination to enslave the minds of ‘men’ for centuries. That’s over now.
And Jesus was no saint, any more than a thousand masters since him. He’s not special. He screamed in pain having nails driven through his hands, who wouldn’t, why not? There is no standard Christ, that is an invention of priests devised to judge by comparison to the impossible – just another form of exploitation. There is only the man who realised god and taught the best he could for his times, and was crucified for it – one way or another, as all true masters are, if only by their own suffering that brings them to realisation – the freedom from suffering, but not from pain. Because every man is a body first, and a body that feels no pain is a dead body.
Woman is what holds this terrible world of man together. Without her love man would fall to murder at the drop of a hat and the race would be finished sooner than later. But it’s too late now anyway, man has built a world with a momentum of its own and we are heading for the cliff without the benefit of brakes. But it’s all right now. Now being another time than the one where man suffers. And the new world will be ‘now’, without the need of priests of any kind. Hallelujah! :)
i love how your posts delve into looking inward while questioning what is accepted because that’s what we grew up with.
yes, meditation allows the mind to grow quiet so that we can connect with our essence.
z
Yes Z, It’s so simple we can’t see it within the movement of mind.
nice said -and pictures, You know, like always… ;-)
Like always … :) Thanks O.
Your pictures nourish my senses, and yours enlighten my mind! Warmest Greetings from Germany this time, Susi
Hello Susi from Germany. ‘Tis good you are lighter by it …
On the money, once again!
G’day Lauri.