The Zoo Fence - A Commentary on The Spiritual Life

Why The Zoo Fence? One night in 1974, in a fishing camp on the windward side of Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands, we had a dream about publishing a journal called The Zoo Fence. The name probably originated from the practice of the Honolulu Zoo to allow artists to display their artwork on the zoo fence along Monsarrat Avenue in Waikiki. More than two decades later, when The Laughing Cat decided to issue a newsletter which evolved into this website, the choice of a name seemed already to have been made.

One day in Eden, Adam sees Eve for the first time.
“I am Adam,” he says to her.
“Yes, I know,” Eve replies, “so am I.”
In The Beginning Chapter 4

Go Directly To …
· THE SIMPLE WAY ·
and
My spiritual practice …
and
· THE I THOUGHT ·
· GOD: A NAME, A NOUN, A VERB ·
· PORTRAIT OF A LANDSCAPE ·

God saith, “I was a hidden treasure.
I would fain be known.
So I created man.”
The Sayings of Muhammad

· The Gazebo ·
is where the mind wonders

· Sufism: Love as Practice ·

· Is thought carbon-based? ·

Consider These
assorted thoughts

· The Sacred Riddle ·
If I Am Infinite, who are you?

· Open Forum ·
the forum is closed for repair

· Ampers&nd ·
in the words of …

A Commentary on The Spiritual Life

This I command you, love one another.
John 13:34 and others
(Please notice: it’s not suggest, recommend, urge. It’s command.)

Love your neighbor as yourself.
Leviticus 19:18

Spread peace, and love each other.
Hadith on Faith

Kindness, Compassion, Delight in others' joy.
Metta Koruna Mudita

Be kinder than necessary.
James Matthew Barrie
creator of Peter Pan

A continuing conversation with myself …
Question: What is the purpose of our existence, of my life, of everyone's life?
Answer: The purpose of existence, of everyone's existence, is to discover the purpose of existence, of everyone's existence.
Question: Cute. What about all the other stuff — having babies, walking the dog, watching TV, making money, fighting wars, building cities, traveling to the moon, mowing the lawn, surfing at Waikiki, writing a website?
Answer: God is aware of all that stuff, and is with us, and loves us, but …
Question: But? But what! What about those who are doing God's Work? What about that!
Answer: Yea, well, as you know, my sense is that God would prefer that we leave God's Work to God, and focus instead on doing God's Will.
Question: Which is?
Answer: How many Prophets, how many Teachers, how many scriptures, in how many languages, how many times, over how many centuries, has that question been asked and answered: This I command you, love one another.
Question: Why is that such a big deal?
Answer: Loving one another — truly honestly sincerely devotedly consistently nonjudgmentally — even trying to do that — awakens and excites and empowers the Divine within us. God wants us to recognize and accept and embrace and enable just that, for it is our naturtal state and inevitable inheritance. It brings God to Earth, into our lives. It reveals the many as one, the One.
Question: Why is it so difficult for us to get that, to do that, to obey that?
Answer: We do not pay attention. Not to God, not to ourselves. We have eyes, but we make no effort to see. We have ears, but we do not listen. Minds, but do not think. Hearts, but we do not try. In a word, we can do this, we are created to do this, but we don't. Let's face it, we're idiots; not by design, but by choice.

(See also here.)

Identify yourself not with the body
which is finite.
Identify instead with the soul
which is infinite & eternal,
and inhabits a body
only for a while.
suggested by a Ram Dass video

By Nancy, rediscovered in a long since forgotten folder:
     All I am is a file of concepts composed of memories stored, events remembered, anticipated, and emotions attached, originally probably arbitrarily, but now, when repeated, based in the file called memory
     Fear is generated by those concepts (not an individual, though those concepts do make up that individuality), when they are threatened by change of any kind, loss, deletion, or newness.
     This body is solely a gross material representation of the instrument that records all of this. The brain is its memory bank, literally a material representation of all the experiences of that instrument.
     So who am ‘I’? Of course, all I can be is the energy, the consciousness, the awareness, the generating source of all of this manifestation. Unlimited in source, but limited within the instrument.

· we are not we ·

· Chicago Fools ·
‘This is she’

Sitting Angel by Nancy Nadzo

· ·
· ·
· Nancy’s Page ·
· The Case for and Against Celibacy ·
· Coincidence or Grace? ·
· and many more·

A simple practice
(easy to perform, easy to forget)
Be present, consciously aware —
… walking through a door
… when a telephone rings
… speaking the word “I”
… or choose some other
Be present how? Try this:
Whisper to yourself a few words,
your own mantra, like “Here I Am”
Don’t let it become spooky.
God will hear, but say it to yourself.
“Living Pesence” & TZF

   One evening, an elderly Cherokee Brave told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
   He said, “My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, envy, jealously, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
   The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, faith, and forgiveness.”
   The boy thought about what his grandfather had said, and then asked him, “Which wolf wins?”
   The old man replied, “The one you feed.”

The Nanticoke Indian Tribe

This is not stuff we learn and then know.
This is stuff we ingest and become.

· In The Beginning ·
deciphering the why of life

· Take Off Your Shoes ·
the quest for spiritual awareness

· A Course in Miracles ·

God is Love is the nature of the universe in which we live. It is the frequency of life, an aspect, a determining factor, of everything we do, every breath we take, every bite we swallow, every word we speak.

click here

And such a word is this word ‘God’ or this word ‘Love’.
The Cloud of Unknowing

It is inconceivable that God should exist,
and inconceivable that He should not exist.
Blaise Pascal

Lord teach us to pray. Luke 11.1
Call upon Me, and I will answer you. Qur’an 40:60
Show me your ways, teach me your paths. Psalm 25
Om Mani Padme Hum—the jewel in the lotus

The Zoo Fence

Guide us to the Straight Path.
Qur'an 1:6

· The Fall: Catastrophe or Conspiracy? ·
Let’s play a children’s game:
What’s wrong with this picture?
In Eden, Adam-and-Eve was one word.
The so-called Fall removed those dashes,
and liberated the word and —
Adam and Eve, you and me,
what each of us calls “my life.”
Was that a fall, or was it a plan, the Plan?

The Zoo Fence

· If we could ask one question of God ·
“Who am I?”

· Call No Man Father ·

How is it that there is God,
but there is not a God.

· Remember ME! ·
Nothing is what it seems

In the beginning, we create, and then throughout our lives we sustain, our sense of self by perceiving ourselves as separate and apart from others. That is, we create the appearance of a separate self, which each of us calls “me” and “my life,” by establishing artificial personal boundaries beyond which everything else is perceived as “not me.” This process of personal identification, which we might call the human condition, is a product of the “I-Thought,” the ego, also known as the mind, by which we define ourselves for ourselves by the statements, ”I am me, not you. I am this and not that.” The first cousin of the I-Thought is the my-thought, which informs us “This is mine, not yours.”

The I Thought

As I understand it, the mind is not a thing. It is the ego, which is an accumulation of stuff — ideas, thoughts, memories, preferences, biases, dispositions, intentions — that manifest or embody or appear (word?) physically as Stefan and, in your case, as your name, and generate or awaken our sense that I am me, and will continue to manifest as me and as you in or as other bodies in other times and other circumstances (reincarnation?) — until Self Realization. It is Self Realization that, as I suggest here, erases or eliminates or transcends the mind (and the ego). And absent the mind, I (you) Recognize (Remember?) Who and What and Where I AM In Truth … and have always been, however unaware. Mind you, that I AM is not Stefan; it is the absence of Stefan. It is the I AM of Exodus.

Never mind

”Eastern Sky”
“Eastern Sky” by Nancy Russell Nadzo

The year was 1974, Peter K. Wensleydale and Ambassador Quenton Adkins were meeting alone in the Ambassador’s office on the third floor of the American Embassy in Gazinga. “What’s this supposed to be?” the Ambassador asked, as he read from the sheet of paper Peter had just handed him. “It’s a letter of resignation, sir,” Peter said, adding, as gingerly as if he were handling a stick of dynamite, “mine.”

A Continuing Fiction

After which Peter and Anna Wensleydale swapped their life as diplomats for a homestead in Cranberry County Maine, where they built their own home themselves, bottom to top, and where their friends include, among other species, a dog, cats, a rooster, and a neighbor’s sheep, all of whom speak to them and one another, and where their continuing experiences include the death of Peter’s life-teacher who is a horse named Montauk, the marriage of two chickens, Cantachiaro and Joy Pristine, and a happy surprise contrived by their dog Tancredi and Beatrice Marlowe the school teacher.

The Cranberry Tales
A Children’s Story for Adults, Too

· The Crucifixion ·
why didn’t he run

· The Last Supper ·
what you are going to do, do quickly

Have no fear! I am with you,
hearing and seeing.
Qur’an 20:46

·Why Do BAD Things Happen? ·

· Ditto HERE ·

· Forgive You Forgive Me ·
be who we are

· God Rethinks Creation ·

· I Am I ·
· It’s Not Your Karma ·

· The Very Stones ·

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.

William Black The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Can I, can you, prove the existence of God?

A Teacher might reply:

Suppose you are asleep in your bed, and I were to enter the room. Would you be aware of my presence? Obviously not. But would there be any doubt of my presence there? Again, obviously not. Even so, what proof could convince you? Obviously none, for no matter how brilliant my argument, however crystal clear its formulation, as long as you remained asleep, it would fall on deaf ears.

Now suppose you awaken, and perceive me standing there. Would you become aware of my presence? Obviously so. What proof would you need then? Obviously none, for your experience itself, the experience of your own awareness, would be proof enough.

Just so, the spiritual awakening process.

Guest Book

What we believe about the nature of reality (what we think to be real) depends very largely on the image we have about the existence and nature of a Creator. Even the apparent absence of such an image is reflected in our outlook on the world around us. We cannot separate our impressions of Creation from those we have of its Creator; indeed, if they are not the same thing, certainly they are two sides of the same thought. In a very real sense, we can say that our reality, or our sense of it, stems from or is directly related to the image we have of God … again, even the absense of such an image.

Take Off Your Shoes

Human life is very deep, and our dominant modern lifestyle is not.
Bo Lozoff

The gentle shall inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5

Kindness is a mark of faith.
Muhammad

Creation & Evolution
The stories of life

Memory & Loss

· Healing Mistakes ·

· Forgive The Day ·

· Off Balance ·

· Our Bookshelf ·

· A Hundred Prayers ·
· Here's A Thought ·

· Where Evil Dwells ·
· The Silence Rule ·

Maharajji was in a car. They came to a bridge.
Coming the other way were sugar carts pulled by oxen,
blocking the way. The driver slowed the car.
Maharajji asked, “Why are you slowing?”
The driver replied, “We can’t get through.”
Maharajji told him, “Go!”
The driver protested.
Maharajji said, “Close your eyes, and go!”
The driver closed his eyes, and pressed on the gas pedal.
When he opened his eyes,
they were on the other side of the bridge.
Miracle of Love
Stories about Neem Karoli Baba

When the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden‘s green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mud;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till theDevil whispered behind the leaves: “It‘s pretty, but is it Art?”
Rudyard Kipling
The Conundrum of the Workshops

There is a family of red foxes that lives in the woods near our home. Some while ago, our neighbor saw one of the kits calmly trotting into her barn. The next morning, she found the fox in an empty horse stall, curled up against one wall, as if asleep. But the fox was not asleep; the fox was dead. There was a wound on one leg that may have been the cause of death. The game warden said it is not unusual for foxes to select a barn as a place to die.

But here’s the thing. The evidence at the scene suggests this fox died calmly and easily, as if it considered death as natural a process of life as hunting field mice, feasting on wild blueberries, or prancing down a country road. There are no signs of frantic digging, scratching, wall climbing, or other desperate behavior. This fox was not trying to escape its fate, and it did not struggle against it. Instead, it seems that this fox realized somewhere within that it was about to die, and so it found an appropriate site, and, without any fanfare, it simply did so.

What is the difference between us and the fox? Is it that we perceive death as the opposite of life, and so we struggle against it; and the fox recognizes death is the opposite of birth, and so takes it in stride.

Editor’s Desktop

“Schoodic Point II” by Nancy Russell Nadzo
The cartoon that was here is here

Imagine a production of William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. On the stage, a great drama unfolds, shaped by prejudice, youthful beauty, romance, joy, delight, love, , anger, despair, faith, death — the stuff of all our lives. But none of it is real. None of the characters is real, none of the emotions is real, none of the action actually occurs.There is no such person as “Romeo”, there is no such person as “Juliet”. They were never born, they never loved, they never died. It is all an illusion. The only reality in that context consists of Shakespeare as author, the actors as players, and ourselves as audience. All of those know the play is an illusion, and that all that is real is themselves. But still, the play is performed again and again, and again and again we laugh and we cry. As if it were real. Likewise, what you and I each call “my life” is thoroughly an illusion. Here, we do not truly know what is Real because each of us has taken on the identity of “me”, the principal character in “my life”. And just as neither “Romeo” nor “Juliet” can know Shakespeare, neither can the separate, separative (“I am me, and you aren't”) self of our lives know our Reality. For that, we must transcend the character, and recognize and resume our True Identity in and as and with (choose a preposition) the Author, the Source, the Supreme, the One, Brahman, Yahweh, God (choose a label). That is the spiritual process, transforming our current sense of identity bit by bit until finally it is transcended altogether, and we “Remember I Am”. Then, we Realize we never were the character, that we have never been born and cannot die, and that What Is always was and always will be. In a word, Reality destroys illusion.

If you give your life to God,
then it is no longer yours.

· Selections, Sources, and References ·

Editor’s Desktop

In the beginning there was nothing.
God said, “Let there be light!” And there was light.
There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.
Ellen DeGeneres & Genesis 1:3

Credo — how I got here …

For those who wonder, credo is a Latin (and Italian) word meaning I believe, making whatever follows it personal.

Okay. All of the above said, here’s the way I see it. (Alternatively, jump ahead to a confession.)

Adam-and-Eve’s banishment from Eden is, in story form, the Creation of the mind, the ego or egosense: “I am me, and you aren’t.” The human condition: the One perceived as many. (For what I suggest the Creator may have intended by their creation, please see here.)

And that is where I am today, as Stefan not you. Ditto you, perceived by you as you not me. Again, many, not one, One.

The Eden event is just a story, a fanciful true story about the real, the Real.

As I suggest in “In The Beginning,” the Real cannot be told in words. It is too, uh, unearthly to fit into words.

Some spiritual traditions call it a dream. In effect, Adam-and-Eve aren’t banished, “they” are put to sleep. And are dreaming. Their dream is us and our lives.

Stefan and Stefan’s life is Adam-and-Eve’s dream. Stefan is a dream character. You and your life too.

But again, it is a story, a teaching device.

The “spiritual” process is a path to awakening from the dream. Mind you, awakening the dreamer, awakening Adam-and-Eve, not awakening the dream character, Stefan. Or you. You and I are characters in the dream.

Fas you. are not dreaming, so on awakening, they do not awaken. Dreamers are dreaming, so on awakening, it is they who awaken. And on awakening of the dreamer, the dream and the dream characters … POOF! Gone.

Presumably.

Or maybe not. It’s complicated. Consider this. Let’s say last night each of us dreamed of riding a horse across a field into a woods up to a clearing in which were a few people, men and women, some beautiful some less so, some eating a meal, who urge us to dismount, and then speak to us, observations, warnings, promises, in a foreign language we do not know but are able to understand. A dream. (Just for fun, I used some images I know dream analysts would enjoy, but any scenario would do here.) And then we awake. Where is all that stuff? Gone, right?

All gone. Or is it? While in train, it’s unmistakably there. In my experience, I have never dreamed that I was dreaming, that the persons, things, events were not “real”. I have never even considered the real-ness of a dream while dreaming it. While dreaming, the dream is real.. Even all there is.

It is my belief, my sense of what is, my credo that what you and I each call “me and my life,” is like that. In some mysterious way, me and my life, you and your life, is both real and unreal, simultaneously. Actually occurring, but somehow not really. The dream is, let’s say, a Dream, meaning it has some connection to Reality.

Actually, I am certain of that, sufficiently certain to say (cautiously) “I know it.” I mean, it makes sense, and needs to be true.

There is more to it, of course. But this is a piece of it.

The details are still unknown … to me. Who — or is it what? — is having the dream, doing the dreaming. Dream-wise, who and what is me the character and me the dreamer?

And, what‘s the purpose? Is there a purpose? In “In The Beginning” I suggest that it might be God‘s way to experience being stuff, separate and individual things, an experience denied to an infinite being that is by definition all there is all at once. God, who knows creation, discovering what it’s like to be created. Or is it evolution? Charles Darwin messing with our lives? We begin as drops of water in a swamp and evolve from there to enlightenment. Or it’s something altogether else. Dunno.

So who or what precisely will I be when the dreamer awakens? If not Stefan, who? what? where? And if Stefan, how?

A guess: It will be the same but different … in unexpected ways (whatever that means).

Just a guess.

What I do know is what I have been told and what I have read by the Teachers, , and I am convinced it is the Truth. Well, actually, Stefan, a dream character, knows what he has read and been told in the dream, he is convinced that it is True. Even wondrous.

It is convincing to me (I believe it) because I have experienced, I continue to experience, moments, series of moments, Seeing It, Being It, precisely as the Teachers describe It. They last just moments, sometimes minutes, sometimes a few minutes. Not long. And yet, the Truth of those moments is evident and believable, persuasively True. They are beyond the dream. It is not that they just seem to be beyond; they are unmistakably so. I cannot explain it in words except to say it is, they are, a happening above and beyond in every sense of the words. Like a movie in black-and-white that becomes suddenly, inexplicably in full technicolor. A veil removed. A shaded window abruptly opened to full sunlight. A fourth dimension appearing in our three dimensional environment. Not that, but like that. And, yes, just a moment … so far. But these moments are a clear, certain, convincing piercing of the dream by the Real.

A self-generated, uninterrupted, causeless, purposeless, boundaryless, joy-filled, silent “Oh my.” Like that.

Blissful.

Is that what life, Life, Real Life, is, beyond the dream? Dunno.

But I suspect so.

Okay, that’s it. Except this: One of the things common to all of these moments (so far) is an absence of time. I am unable to put this into words precisely except to say during each of these few brief moments I am aware that I am beyond time. Not in some weird other world way, just that there is no sense whatsoever of a clock ticking, of I wonder what time it is or How long has this been. So when I say, as I did above, They last just moments … that is not something I felt during those moments, that is what I determined by looking at my watch after those moments.

And now, for a discussion of my spiritual practice and some related stuff, keep reading here. To jump back to the beginning of this statement (a few paragraphs ago), click here. To return to the top of this page, click here.

But first: From here to the end of this Credo, links are not underlined. Why? It seems to me the following does not want distracting underlines. So, if you come to a word or item you think ought to be linked to something, drag your mouse over it, and if you and I agree about that, which is likely, it will lighten up.

A confession: About my spiritual practice: I keep the spiritual, my being a seeker, in mind as constantly and consistently as I am able, from awakening in the morning to sleep at night. “Fix your mind on Me” (Krishna). In Kabir Helminski's book Living Presence, he associates this with the Islamic term ZHIKR (sometimes DHIKR) as “the state of being consciously aware of the Divine Presence through the heart.” I call it constant meditation, sometimes constant awareness … an awareness of the sacred. Helminski describes it as “presence without absence” … present with himself and present with God. Is it constant? For some, undoubtedly so. But it’s the ideal. Perhaps the inevitable ultimate. It is my life, not a part of my life. I consider the entirety of my life, life itself, to be a whole, ultimately an infinite whole. I look for it in every moment, every event, every thing, and every one I encounter, in whatever shape or form or manner. I seek to see it all as one, undivided, boundary-less. A single one. There is no thou shalt or thou shalt not. No this is approved, that is forbidden. No dogma, no doctrine. Just use your head, Stefan, call on your heart. If God is Infinite, then God is All There Is, and All There Is is God. Which makes eveyone and everything one, however considered. The One. “I never see a thing without seeing God before it” (Abu Bakr, companion of Muhammad).
        Nothing about my daily life announces this to an observer. There is nothing about me to see or hear. This stuff is simply who I am, what I have become. Life — Nancy’s and my life — has become simple. Nothing special. Old stuff and useless habits allowed to drift away. “No thought for the morrow” (Matthew 6:34). Together we lean on the weight-lifting words of Jalaluddin Rumi: “I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.” See also here. Consider also here.

As I see it, there is, there exists, only one life, Life. It is forever; it never was not and it will never not be. What I am living, what each of us is living, is a part or a chunk or a page of that. What I perceive as my life, you your life, is a piece of Life, of the one infinite forever thing which has been alive forever and will be alive forever. Stefan is an element of it; your name too. I suspect we live these individual named lives in order to learn how to be, to Be Life. I mean, read any newspaper: it's full of stories about the mess we make of our lives. Who among us would entrust something like Life Itself to such as we? There is no question we need teaching.
        In between these one-after-another lives, from physical birth to physical death, we go to, let's call it heaven; we relax, recuperate, regenerate, attend class. How did I start? How did you begin? I have no idea. Maybe as a grain of sand, from there to a cloud, a rock, a tree, a frog, and now a human. On and on. Kabir Helminski: There really is no end to the refinement that is possible. What's next? I don't know. As I say somewhere on TZF, I am inclined toward reincarnation because one life, especially a short-lived life, does not seem enough time to learn and realize What Is. And so, in effect it is a waste of time, and to me that doesn't make sense. On the other hand, does it have to make sense? To whom? To what mind, Mind?

And this: To those new to the spiritual process and so to whom some stuff here seems a little weird, consider this: In the Christian tradition it is taught that the Teacher Jesus/Issa insisted to his disciples and all whom he taught (and by extension all of humanity) “This I command you: Love one another.” John 13:34 All the traditions I have come across demand the same. I take it to mean whoever and whatever we encounter in life, we are to address her, him, it, wisely, maturely, sensibly, and with love. Surely when those words were first spoken to Peter and Mary Magdalene and the others, one of them must have whined (if they dared!), “Are you nuts? Have you read the lead story in today‘s newspaper? Rape, child molestation, spouse beating! And that’s just the first paragraph.” To that, I suspect he reminded them, as do all the Teachers, no one said learning to walk the spiritual path would be easy. (A personal observation: Some texts seem to consider the command “Love one another” (Matthew 22, John 13 et al) to have been directed by Jesus/Issa solely to his disciples, like “Knock it off, you guys!” I suppose there was some of that, but as I see him, his focus was far beyond the twelve, and he means this commandment, however hard, to be heard — and obeyed — by all of us.)

This too: What each of us perceives as “me” and “my world“ is in truth, in Truth, the Infinite Indivisible Undescribable Unknowable Omnipresent Self being this. Our task, the task of each of us individually (this is an individual undertaking not a group activity), is to awaken and be aware — open our eyes (again, each of us individually, open our own eyes) and see this in every corner of our life, in every experience, in every thought. Here it is in Vasistha’s Yoga: From the time the Lord Siva instructed me, I have been performing the worship of the Infinite Self. By the Grace of such worship, though I am constantly engaged in various activities, I am free from sorrow. I perform the worship of the Self, Who is undivided though apparently divided, with the flowers of whatever comes to me naturally and whatever actions are natural to me. He says he is constantly engaged in various activities. Me too. You too. Who among us isn’t! Various activities is a pretty good definition of life. Free from sorrow? No, not altogether free from sorrow. At least, not me. But when it arises, it is different. I am aware that it is the mind's play. For example, as I have written elsewhere, when Nancy and I put down (what an expression!) our beloved dog, I noticed that I missed her, that I was sorrowful (by which I mean full of sorrow — we loved that dog!), only when I thought about her, when I entertained (word?) the memory. When I forced myself to stop thinking about her, remember her, the sorrow lifted. For more, see here. Infinite Self? By definition, infinite means, includes, you and me, my life and your life, every other person, thing; whoever, whatever, wherever, whenever, however. What Is. So, here I take it to mean, as I sit in my room now, you wherever you are now, considering this stuff, we are, it is, our shared existence is, somehow the Infinite Self doing so, being that. Which is to say, in a way that I am, you are, unable to perceive yet, this is, we are, the Infinite Self. Worship how? My guess, initially simply by being aware, reminding ourselves, repeatedly and constantly, of the apparent instruction to perceive what is many as one, even while we may not understand it. Flowers? My guess, initially simply being present, or failing that, trying to be present by repeatedly reminding ourselves to be present. That effort, that commitment, is — at least initially — flowers enough. Ask any school teacher.

And again: All the while, just for fun, suppose God takes a nap (yes, of course, it’s ridiculous), and dreams of being born a person, multiple persons, in a world composed of persons and places and things and stuff. And in this dream, each person has a life lived among all the other persons. And each of these individual lives is separate from all the other individual lives, but all of them, being elements of the same dream, are intimately related. Each of the dreamed individuals has a name. Among those names are Stefan and your name. And in this cosmic dream there is a sequence in which those two named dream characters meet, not physically but notionally — writing and reading and considering these very words — and they wonder, they each wonder, who am I, where am I, what am I. And that wondering — in effect, the two of them together, as one — contributes to a developing escape path out of the dream into Awakened Reality. Observing that phenomenon, sensing that happening within Himself, within Herself, God remarks, “How cool is that!” And, embracing that thought, again together as one, you and I experience a wonderful thing, dubbed in Latin miraculum. “Where two or three gather in my name, I am there with them” (Matthew 18:20). A personal observation: I am convinced (by which I mean I have convinced myself) that the expression two or three in that verse is a typo, or whatever is the palaeographic word for that. Think about it. Are we to believe that God's position is, If there aren't at least two gathered together, who cares? One person alone? I'd have to be all over the place all the time! And a crowd of more than three? Please! I think what She is telling us there is She likes it when we unite ourselves among others precisely because union, Union, is what She is all about; but She is there with us whatever the number, whenever, wherever, whyever, however. Why? Because That's Who I Am.

One more time: All the Teachers talk about our perceving as many what God sees as One.   God — Teachers — see life as one, the One, Life, when we see it as many: me, you, my car, your house, America, Iran, peace, war, clouds, rain drops, trees, acorns, squirrels, planets, galaxies …. This morning, struggling with this, trying to see me, my chair, a cat, a handkerchief, a window, the room, a copy of Vasistha’s Yoga in my hands, all as one, the One, not as the many they so clearly seem to me, so obviously are, the word “dream” popped into my mind. A dream, last night’s dream, any night’s dream, could easily be composed of all those items, and to the dreamer (me, you) the dream characters and the dream events seem — they are — many. But think about it. Actually, in fact, they are all one. A dream is not a bunch of independent stuff; it is a single thing, a single, entire, self-contained, wholly separate-less phenomenon. From its beginning to its end, a dream is one thing, itself. The apparent separation, the separate and separated “characters” are just that, apparently separate. Like in a painting. Think of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa — a woman, a smile, a country road, a pond, trees. All separate items, but actually not separate, not separated one from another. All the separate-ness on the canvas is apparent. The painting is a single, undivided, separate-less whole. All the separating — the woman, the pond, the trees — is assumed, perceived, by us, the viewer. That painting, any painting, is just a collection of painter’s oil. Different colors, different textures, mixed and applied — yes, Leonardo, sometimes brilliantly, but still it’s all just oil. One substance. No separate this, no separate that. Just oil … even just consciousness? Perceived as separate items by the viewer, by you, by me — your mind, my mind, seeing a bunch of painter’s oil (a helping of consciousness?), turns it into a scene. A separate, separating, separative scene full of separate stuff. Does that define our separate lives, what each of us is doing all day, every day? As I understand the Teachers, the answer to that question is yes. Stuff seems outer, occurring in a room, on a field, across the street, but it is actually all inner, in the mind, in my mind and your mind. There is no outer, no such thing. The mind performs the separating and the projecting.
        This too. Vasistha’s Yoga, as I read it, tells us to worship the Self, God, by worshipping every moment of our life. Here it is again: “From the time the Lord instructed me, I have been performing the worship of the Infinite Self. By the Grace of such worship, though I am constantly engaged in various activities, I am free from sorrow. … ” To me that is about recognizing, acknowleging, behaving, as if God being Infinite means God is all there is, and all there is is God, which in turn means God is my life, God is your life, every moment of my life and your life. Not in my life, is my life. So, yes, of course, attend church, mosque, synagogue. But worship not just there. Worship on the way there, to and from there. Worship the traffic light, the cop on the corner, the street itself, the trees along the sidewalk, the woman pushing a baby carriage, the clouds in the sky, the garbage in the gutter, the horror on the radio news. And not just one day a week, every day of every week of every year. Full time Zen. That, all of that, is my life, your life, and all the Teachers say it, repeatedly, forcefully, convincingly: “I Am Here.” Everywhere. Always. To me, that has to mean, I am your life. No, not only that, of course infinitely more; but nonetheless, all of that. And we don’t have to like it, but we are urged, commanded, to remember it … and, yes, love it.

I Say Again: Here again is the piece at page 387 in my 1993 SUNY copy of Vasistha’s Yoga. “From the time the Lord instructed me … ”. I read that often, put the book down, gaze at the room and its contents, and consider “This appears to be many — chairs, table, book, windows, ceiling, a cat — created by my mind, and known to me as me, my life, and my world. But in Truth it is one, One, the One.” I sit there, still, silent, doing nothing, not trying to do or accomplish anything. Just sit, and digest. Finally, when I feel myself having to force myself to continue sitting still, I thank the Teacher, and attend to the day’s “various activities”. Every day, in varying fashion, several times every day. In other words, just a few minutes set aside to remind myself to remember why I am here.
       Now, about my use of the word Teacher, please see here. Nancy and I have had, continue to have, a powerful relationship with Teacher(s) and Guru(s), in flesh and in books and in dreams. For me they are, each of them individually and all of them together, a manifestation perceived in my mind of the One Teacher, One Guru, God, Who Is Constantly Present and Than Whom There Is No Other. In the Hindu & Buddhist traditions, Sat-Chit-Ananda, Brahman. If you think you do not have a Teacher or Guru, if you wish you had a Teacher or Guru, know this: You do. You may not be aware of it, but your Teacher/Guru is aware of you. Every moment. What I did, what I do (I am not an expert) is act and behave and converse with myself in my mind as if I have a Teacher/Guru (because, again, yes, I do, and yes, so do you). When the time is right for each of us, the already constantly present Teacher/Guru will become evident to us, individually. All the while. I take confidence, and I urge you to do the same, in the words of one of the first Teachers we encountered, Ramakrishna: “God alone is the Guru.” And here too, I consider my relationship is between me and my Guru/Teacher. It is private; no one else has a need to know about it. Then why am I talking to you about my experience in all of this? Because I am genetically obliged to accord with the apparently fundamental truth of the human race: Never take your own advice. Hence the expression, Do as I say, not as I do.

Finally, again: Presumably some of you reading this website, and perhaps particularly these paragraphs, are wondering, is this writer a Buddhist? A Christian? A Jew? A Muslim? Or what? Fair quetion. The answer is yes and no. I mean no disrespect by that, but the fact is, as I perceive my spirituality, I belong to nothing but God, and I listen to every voice God speaks (or writes) from whatever mouth God chooses. And — for myself — I am convinced that every path, every scripture, every seeker’s instinct leads to God because, God being Infinite, there is nowhere else. And, as I see it, every seeker must find, will find, the path that is specifically intended, even purposely and personally designed by the Infinite God for her or him. Is that an outrageous statement? Is such a path likely, even possible? To me, this Being an Infinite God-ly Universe, the question answers Itself.
That said, let me be clear. This is not advice, not even suggestion. This is just a personal answer to a presumed question. As I have said before, and will likely say again, as I see it there is nothing more personal and private than the spiritual path each of us will undertake sooner or later.

Yea, well, this too: Does God exist? Sometimes, a question arises about belief in the existence of God. As I see it, no, I do not believe God exists. I KNOW God exists. For me, God’s existence is not about belief … or faith.

Which generates the question, “How can you possibly know that? ” To which my response is, “I know that God exists in the same way I know that I exist.”

Think about that. How do we know that we exist? Is it because we can see ourselves in a mirror. “Look, that’s me, proof that I exist.” Or is it because we can feel our pulse? Or is it that a friend whom we trust affirms, “Yes, I can vouch for your existence.”

It’s none of those, is it? The fact is I know I exist, we each know that we exist, for no other reason than that I know it, we know it. We don’t need proof. Why? Because whether or not I exist or you exist is not in question. Again, we each know it to be true not for any particular reason, not because we can prove it, but simply because there is no doubt about it. I know it. You know it. Period.

“Do I exist? Of course I exist. What a silly question!”

For me, that’s the way it is with God. I know that God exists in the same way, simply because I know it. Again, it's not belief (religious or otherwise), it’s not faith; it’s knowledge. I know it. In recent years, I would add (I am adding) that I know God exists because I see God in all that there is … in the same way that I am aware of myself every day, every moment of every day.

Nonsense, some (many?) will say. I do not argue with that. My situation (my problem?) is that, as far back as I can remember, I have felt this way about God, sensing, knowing, God’s presence. My perception of God — who, what, how — has changed (matured?) over the decades, but never has it wavered: God is here, at hand, in my life — permanently, indisputably, perceptibly. I do not know, I have never known, what God is (precisely), but I do know, and I have always known (with certainty), that God is.

Just now, writing these words, “atmosphere” came to my mind as a metaphor for my “situation.” Atmosphere is here and everywhere, now and always — invisible, indistinct, untouchable, silent. Wherever we go, whatever we are doing, however we feel, atmosphere is here, always, everywhere, certainly. A given, a constant. To me, God is like that … but more than that. How more? Well, a meteorologist might argue, but to me the atmosphere is not, uh, alive in the same way that God is alive. A Living Presence. Sensed Existence. Yes, capital letters. Maybe that’s the difference.

That said, let me be clear. I am not a God freak. I do not make noise about this, and so there are few on the planet who know this about me — other than Nancy and now you. And that’s as it should be. Which brings us back to this.

Finally, here’s a Brother Theophyle cartoon: Theo questions Rabbit, “How come you’re so sure God exists?” Rabbit says, “That’s easy. I created Him.” Theo suggests, “Don’t you mean He created you?” Rabbit replies, “That’s what I said. He created me to create Him.”

Self-Realization: I address Self-Realization on TZF’s definitions page, but I am inclined to share a few thoughts about it here. As I see it, Self-Realization is the ultimate and inevitable acme of the spiritual process (to which I should add, as far as I can imagine now, by which I mean I am unable even to guess what is beyond forever) … irrespective of religion, tradition, path, or any other choices (seemingly) made by a seeker.
       I think Self-Realization is not a reference to my self or your self. It is the One and Only Self That Is All of Creation and Beyond (whatever that is). In other words, the Self in the term Self-Realization is not Stefan or your name. It is the One. Self-Realization is not even Stefan's or your name's Realization of the Self. It is the Self itself Realizing Itself. So, at Self-Realization, the identity Stefan and your name are erased, graduated out of, transcended beyond (word?), and the Life that they are (and have always been) recognizes, realizes, Its True Being as the One and Only Self That Is All of Creation and Beyond. And at that place (word?) there is no other, no you, no not I. Whatever there is there is I Am That I Am (Exodus 3:14), the one and only I. It is the removal of the Veil, and Realization that the One and Only Self is All There Is (and ever truly has been), and It is I, I Am It.
       Self-Realization is awakening by the lower case self — “I am me, and you aren’t” — to the True Nature of What Is, which is, in a word, Stefan is not and has never truly been, and neither is nor has been your name. The ego, that which tells me I am Stefan and tells you that you are your name, is an isolated fragment of the mind, my mind and your mind, and it is, in effect, misinforming us, and in doing so it has created, is creating, my life and your life. It — the ego — is like a speck (chunk) of dust that blocks the light of the sun. A curtain. Dark glasses. A beach umbrella. Like that, only more so. We are not aware of it — we do not know what is beyond the curtain, we are not even aware of the curtain — because Knowledge of What Is is part of (is principally) what the ego blocks.
       At Self-Realization, it is not that Stefan or your name becomes Self Realized. It is that the self you and I think we are (Stefan and your name) dies — not bodily but actually, in Truth. Thus, Sufis say, “die before you die”. That is, the I that I think I am and that you think you are will not, cannot, be Self-Realized. Think of (and this is a weak, even inaccurate, analogy, but it is the best I can come up with) a caterpillar and a butterfly. In biology (I did not do well in high school bio, so …), in order for a butterfly to appear and fly, a caterpillar must die, but a butterfly could not appear and fly without there having been a caterpillar. To me, Self-Realization is like that. (An afterthought a few days later: Is it that a caterpillar does not die? It transforms, or it is transformed, to or into a butterfly. Form changes, Life is constant.)
       And how is Self-Realization different from where or what I am, we are, now? Today, when you and I say and think “I” we mean the body we seem to ourselves to be inhabiting … and all it’s stuff. At Self-Realization, I means, is, What Is — the entirety, literally. In God's words to Moses: I Am That I Am (Exodus 3:14).
       Notice, God does not say in Exodus, I Am Self-Realized. And neither do Teachers. That is so because at that level, at that place, it is enough, it is more than enough, it is all there is, to say, I AM. And there, it is not an individual person who is speaking about herself or himself (however much it may seem so to us who cannot but perceive a Self-Realized Teacher as other than a person), it is Being affirming as and for Itself: I Am The One That is All There Is. (Again an afterthought: A Teacher is not a person who has graduated to Self-Realization. A Teacher is a seeker who is transformed to Self-Realization. Unlike a caterpillar/butterfly that changes appearance on transformation, a Self-Realized Teacher looks the same to us as she did as a seeker, but looks is all that is the same.)
       Try this: Jesus — actually Issa — is the person born to Joseph and Mary; Christ is What Is, the One. Issa perceives the body as himself, Christ (Issa after Matthew 3:16) knows the Entirety, Life Itself, All There Is, to be I. Ditto every Teacher. Prior to Self-Realization, a person among persons, a being among beings, a thing among things; at Self-Realization, I — One and Only. That is what is Realized, that there is only One Thing, One Being, and it is the Self which is, which am, ALL THERE IS. Realization of that Truth is Self-Realization. Mind you, mind me, not believing it, not knowing it, but Knowing It. Being There. BEING HERE.
       Without any authority whatsoever, I think of Self-Realization as removal of training wheels from a child's bicycle. Sort of.
   But it is not that simple, not to mention not that easy. Of course, all the practices (meditation, dieting — even fasting, chanting, et cetera) are probably, even certainly necessary, but what's needed, what I suspect God wants, is cleansing, laundering. Drop into a washing machine all our conceptions, intentions, expectations, preparations, anticipations, self-perceptions, regrets, angers, and, yes, memories. Set it to hard wash, toss in detergent, and turn it ON.
   That said, unfortunately there is no washing machine (as far as I know). Self-Realization requires hand washing (mind-washing) all that stuff, every thought and every memory that begins with I like or I don't like or I wish or I regret or I want or I don't want or I believe or I distrust or I despise — like that. As God sees it, all That is Her Stuff. To Her our busyness is a nuisance. She wants us naked. Actually, if you can do it, a good start is surrender. That is, render unto God all that you have, all that you know, all that you believe, all that you want, all that you hate, all that you are. Come to God as a child. Even an infant. Simple, but again not easy. But it can be done. And you can do it. Get serious, display intention, and She will Help. Ultimately, it is She Who does it — for you, for me, as you, as me.

Just for fun:

You and I are an embodiment of God … in infancy.
Our I (ego) is God's I (I AM THAT I AM) … in infancy.
You and I define our self as me, my body, my life.
At Self-Realization that finite I (ego)
transcends into the One and Only Infinite I
That Is All There Is,
ever was, ever will be.
But until then, you and I are fully loved
in God's Kindergarten.

Read also this.

Silence your thoughts,
Discard your memories,
Release your expectations.
What remains is indefinable, intangible, and unspeakable:
Your very Self.
Seek it tirelessly.

   On the subject of fasting, consider this. Towards the end of a long fast, it came to my mind (it was put into my mind?) that fasting as a spiritual practice is not about what I put in my stomach; fasting is about what I allow into my mind and my heart. Compared to not fussing, and not worrying, and not regretting, and not anticipating, and not judging, not eating is a piece of cake.

Finally once again: Why? What is the purpose of life (lower case l)? Why are we here as finite bodies on this finite planet living finite lives when all around us are Teachers telling us that it — we and our lives — is an illusion? Why didn’t — doesn’t — God simply erase the illusion and reveal the Universe, Reality, composed solely and totally and entirely of Self-Realized stuff? Dunno. But let’s have some fun. As I understand the word infinite, as I am using it here at TZF, infinite (actually Infinite) means limitless, including or enclosing or consisting of (word?) all there is anywhere anyhow anytime. That is, there is no one and no thing, however defined, that is not included in, or that is in any manner outside of, an infinite thing. To me that means — again, just for fun — there is no way that an Infinite Being can enjoy a cold beer, fly a kite, ride a horse, share a cup of tea. Experiencing those delights or anything like them demands there being finite people and finite stuff in a finite world. If you are an infinite being creating that stuff, and you want to experience it, feel it, taste it, enjoy it, you need to ensure that the stuff you have created (you and me) does not know it is the infinite you being it. Thus, the veil. It works. God gets to order a pizza to go, drive to a friend’s house, eat it together, swap jokes, and experience what it feels like to do that. To be you and me. And why not? Is that what you and I are? God consciously (but covertly) enjoying being stuff. It’s nonsence of course, but for more about it, consider this.

For non-English speakers: dunno is (lazy) slang for “I do not know”
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And do good; indeed, Allah loves the doers of good.
Qur'an 2:195

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.
Leonardo da Vinci

●   I Wonder  ●
… with all your heart and soul and mind
-most recent-

The Universe is a Portrait of God
perceived by us as a landscape
composed of you, me, places, events,
planets, stars, galaxies, dreams,
latitudes, longitudes,
past present future,
genders, races, groups, associations,
religions, nationalities, philosophies,
thoughts, beliefs, expectations,
decisions, intentions, regrets, and
other unimaginable unspeakable infinite stuff,
all of which to us,
who confuse appearance for Reality,
is many, and to God is One.

Don't try to learn this stuff. Nothing here is like a classroom course with facts to memorize. It is reality, Reality. Ingest it. It will do what is natural and necessary. On its own. It will become you. Think of the spiritual process as God invites you to dinner. Eat what She puts before you. The rest will follow.

God’s Gender

A friend's death …

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DISCLAIMER:
Inevitably and rightly, there is a lot on The Zoo Fence about scriptures considered sacred by various traditions. As you read those comments and observations, please understand that nothing written here is, or is intended to be, an academic consideration. I am not a theologian, biblical scholar, or historian. I am not an expert. In the context of this website, my interest in sacred writings is solely as a spiritual seeker who has undertaken a personal inner journey for the Truth of who and what and where I am. I know that many of my statements, and perhaps even all of my conclusions, will not reflect, and perhaps may even contradict, current orthodoxy, theology, and history. I mean no disrespect by that, but it does not concern me, for again I am not an academic, and this is not an academic undertaking. For me, the scriptures of the world’s spiritual traditions are a guide and a tool and a vehicle which can facilitate and accelerate my own personal passage along the spiritual path only if I understand their message to me. Therefore, I take it to be my duty, even my sacred responsibility, to discover and understand their meaning to me personally, to decipher what the Universal Teacher intends for me to see in them and to do by them. Here, on The Zoo Fence, I share that with you, and I ask that you read it in that spirit.

The SmPrint
This version of The Zoo Fence
has been updated most recently on April 26, 2025.
The Zoo Fence was first published in hard copy in January 1996.
It has been on the internet since February, 1997,
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and now from 3/2011 at InMotion.

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· A Commentary on The Spiritual Life ·

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