7. September 2010 by admin.

I’ve just published The Psychic Experimentalist as a free ebook, available for immediate download at http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com .  Also, I got a new blog up on Lifeforce Tarot, a way of reading Tarot with lifeforce energy focused through the stillness of Now.  Find it at http://lifeforcetarot.blogspot.com/  .  I hope you enjoy these resources and find them useful!

Posted in Tarot, Resources, Reiki, Healing, All That Is | Print | No Comments »

4. September 2010 by admin.

It’s simple: notice a current big problem.  Then notice what politicians are doing to solve it.  You might want to remember such things when they try to play on hopes and fears in speeches and ads asking you to vote for them.

Real problem:  There are still enough nuclear warheads, armed, aimed and ready, to destroy every living thing on Earth, with enough missles left over to keep the rubble bouncing until it’s powder.  The deployment plans for these missles are still in place, as are the missles in the silos, making this a major threat to life on this planet.

Government’s solution:  Uh-huh… maybe we ought to look at that someday.

***

Real problem:  Major traffic jams on urban freeways.

Government’s solution:  Close off one lane during rush hour.  Give it a fancy name… like, maybe, “Diamond Lane”.

***

Real problem:  Jails and prisons are overcrowded with non-violent drug “offenders”.  This makes it difficult to figure out what to do with violent criminals.

Government’s solution:  Some of those drugs make people feel good.  Can’t have people going around feeling good.  Keep locking them up.  Release some of the violent ones early. 

***

Real problem:  Drug addictions can destroy lives and homes.  These addictions are serious medical problems.

Government’s solution:  Make it a criminal problem.  What do doctors know, anyway?

***

Real problem:  Military personnel are coming back from war zones with severely crippling injuries, physical and emotional.

Government’s solution:  Cut veterens’ “benefits”.  They knew what they were getting into.  Start another war.  Our sponsors have weapons to sell.

***

Real problem:  High unemployment, while jobs are going overseas to countries where the corporations pay workers just a few pennies per day.

Government’s solution:  Tell everyone to take whatever money they have left to go shop for some of that stuff made over there.  That’ll help our economy, okay?  Trust us.

***

Real problem:  Housing crisis.  People can’t afford homes.

Government’s solution:  Give a few billion more dollars to the financial institutions that facilitated this mess.  Surely they can be trusted with taxpayer money.  They contributed heavily to our campaigns, that shows they have good judgement.  This will fix the housing problem.  Someday.  Be patient.

***

Real problem:  Legislation and policy are often determined by the corporations that pay the most money to the politicians in charge.  Only clever legal sophistry keeps this from being considered bribery.

Government’s solution:  Make sure the corporate checks clear.  Problem?  What problem? 

***

This is too easy… so easy, it’s a wonder this nonsense isn’t obvious to the people in charge, the ones getting all that corporate money… oh.  Never mind.

http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com

Copyright 2010 by Dennis George Rudolph.  All rights reserved.

Posted in Government | Print | No Comments »

3. September 2010 by admin.

There are real problems out there.  Good thing the politicians in charge are on top of things.  Here are just a few examples…

Real problem:  Kids aren’t learning much in schools, as shown by poor test scores.

Government’s solution:  Test them some more.  Longer tests.  Then take away funding from the schools that serve kids that have a hard time with those tests.  That’ll teach ‘em.

***

Real problem:  Lots of people can’t afford health insurance, because it’s too expensive, and people need that money for food and shelter.

Government’s solution:  Force them to pay that money to the insurance companies anyway.

***

Real problem:  The people responsible for the 9/11 attacks may be out there planning something similar for an encore.

Government’s solution:  Find some little country with a weak army, and oil, and bomb them to kingdom come.  Then take over and tell the survivors they’ve been “liberated.”  Give them little flags to wave when the cameramen come.  Keep funding the inevitable chaos that follows.  Deposit the checks from the war contractors.

***

Real problem:  The economy’s in the toilet, because the financial institutions made a bunch of bad decisions while rewarding their top executives handsomely.

Government’s solution:  Give those same institutions a bunch of taxpayer’s money.  Surely they’ll do what’s right with it, won’t they?  Then give them some more.  Then some more… continue until the problem’s solved.

***

Real problem:  So much government paperwork that mammoth bureauocracies are required just to keep it filed.

Government’s solution:  The “Paperwork Reduction Act.”  Requires an extra page to be filed with each bunch of papers, explaining why more papers are needed.

***

Real problem:  Taxes are burdensome to ordinary people, and so complicated it often takes a professional to figure them out.

Government’s solution:  Tax cuts for the rich.  Then tell the ordinary people to be happy with it because, hey, it’s tax cuts for someone, right?

***

Real problem:  Violent crimes.

Government’s solution:  Have the police officers hide and point radar guns at oncoming traffic.  That way they can penalize people for speed infractions so tiny, it takes an expensive electronic device to detect them at all.  That’s the best use of police funds and manpower.

***

Yep, good thing those politicians are on the job.  That’s why people keep voting for them.

http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com

Copyright 2010 by Dennis George Rudolph.  All rights reserved.

Posted in Government | Print | No Comments »

30. August 2010 by admin.

Why did I/You/All That Is become human, incarnate?  Why this story?

Feel it.  It’s Now, yes, but it’s the story also.  All That Is includes the story, with all it’s fears, pains, loves, happiness, loss, sorrow, pleasure– intense!– all of it.  As the Psychedelic Furs said, “Angels fall like rain.”  We’re here at the crossroads of Time and Eternity.  That moment is now.  Now!  It’s all you have, but it creates the story, too.  So we’re here, One and the same, you and I, but living different stories.

There is only One of us here, and there is only Now.  That’s not doctrine, not something to believe, not at all… yet, here we are, some of us lost so totally in the story that none of this makes sense unless we pull some belief into it.  Even then it doesn’t truly make sense, with all of the pain and the conflict.  The richness of life includes loss, pain, fear, sometimes even goddamn depression.  Yet it also includes sex, love, joy, thrills, relief, fun, pleasure, contentment, connection, depth, intensity, intoxication, and so much more.

If you were to consider the polarities of life as we experience it, you find Now, Inner Stillness, Being, and then you find the story, the dream, what we experience as this lifetime.  In the Tarot these are found in the two branches of the Celtic Cross, horizontal and vertical, time and Now.  Life isn’t just this story, this adventure from birth to death… but it isn’t just Divine Selfishness, the Eternal Now, either.  It’s the story, and it’s the All.  It’s time, and it’s the ever present Now.  It’s You, it’s Me, we’re One and the same on a level that’s deeper than any of the religious diatribes we’ve ever heard can conceive.  It’s beyond all concept, while at the same time it’s all the stuff you and I felt while trying so hard to figure it out.

Story and time… One and Now.  Horizontal and vertical, the polarities we live… it’s not one or the other, it’s both and.  It’s All That Is, on all levels, the fulness of life.  You are God, All, Is, Nothingness, Divine.  You are who you are… You are Me.  I am You.  And, my God, this life is so amazing, and I’m grateful to all of you I have shared it with, and continue to.  Everyone reading this, I feel tremendous gratitude, appreciation to.  In you I see myself, but not as another egoic “me”.  I see my Divine Self, incarnate as you, as me.  I feel myself, my True Self, in you… not your egoic mind, the thoughts that pretend to be who you ultimately are, but the True Self you are, I am, we are. 

This is not theology or a traditional philosophical discourse, to be parsed and analysed; it’s more of a rant… expressing a feeling.  When I wrote the first draft of this, tears were pouring because I feel it, deeply.  And, this is also meant to be one more pointer to That which is at the end of all honest quests, that which really never needed to be sought, since It was always right here and now… and just in case you’re still “searching”, shh… It’s in you, now.   Happy finding.

http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com

Copyright 2010 by Dennis George Rudolph.  All rights reserved.

Posted in Tarot, All That Is | Print | No Comments »

26. August 2010 by admin.

 A few more quotations I like… naturally I don’t ultimately believe any of it.  Sun Son would, of course, as he said… “On some level, it’s all true.”  From my perspective none of it is true… it’s all just words which, at best, can point toward something beyond the words.  In practice, Sun Son is pointing to the same Reality in his apparent “belief” that I do in my lack of belief.  So enjoy the words here, contradictory as they sometimes are, and if they inspire a twinge of something beyond just the words, in you…

Enjoy it.

 “When the map you’re following is of some imaginary land instead of where you really are, of course you’ll be mystified by what you see around you.”
-Waves Forest

“Whenever two people think exactly alike, one of them isn’t thinking.”
-Walter Martin

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
-Anonymous

“A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.”
-William Blake

“Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.”
-Eckhart Tolle

“We live; we entertain pompous illusions about ourselves; we die.  Too bad.”
-Blanche Barton

“Most Vampires are quite aware of their mortality, for while it’s great fun to assume a Vampire persona and play at being immortal with friends on a Sunday night, the realities of having to go back to your job at K-Mart in the morning are all too present.”
-Voltaire

“There is nothing to seek and nothing to find.  You are already enlightened, and all the words in the world will not give you what you already have.”
-Dick Sutphen

“Enlightenment is the realization of the Oneness of all and everything, of the eternity and timelessness of all creation.  It is the knowing that you always were and always will be, that there is nothing to become because you already are, and that you are present everywhere.”
-William Welton

“The human race will begin solving it’s problems on the day it ceases taking itself so seriously.”
-Principia Discordia

“I have given up anarchy.  Too many rules– hating the government and all that stuff.”
-G.H. Hill

“Among Zen Buddhists it is said, ‘When you meet another bodhisattva on the road, greet him with neither words nor silence.’  That leaves you with a vast selection of barnyard noises from which to choose.”
-Kerry Thornley

“You do not create your own reality.  You create your own appearances.  Big difference!”
-Messiah’s Handbook

“To meditate successfully, the idea that you’re doing a ‘meditation’ can be quite an obstacle.”
-Eckhart Tolle

“Consciousness is a singular for which there is no plural.”
-Erwin Schrödinger

“We’re all posers.”
-Allan Aguirre

“All sadness is a tantrum.”
-Byron Katie

“Nothing is unexplainable.  Everything is a mystery.”
-Ram Tzu

“All there is is Consciousness.”
-Wayne Liquorman

“Ever drifting down the stream–
Lingering in the golden gleam–
Life, what is it but a dream?”
-Lewis Carrol

“It’s true, it’s true
We made it all up and it’s true!”
-Unofficial motto of the New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn

“Ultimately, it’s not what happens ‘out there’ that upsets you, it’s what happens in your mind.”
-Eckhart Tolle

“Dance like only a few people are watching and they have paid good money to see it and also you really need the money.”
-Dave Hill

“Come on, people, WTF?!”
-Donna Diasio

http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com

Copyright 2010 by Dennis George Rudolph.  All rights reserved.

Posted in Zen, Neurolinguistics, Meditation, All That Is | Print | 2 Comments »

18. August 2010 by admin.

“There’s a seeker born every minute.”
-$wami Barnum

In the 1950s author Theodore Sturgeon commented that, in the science fiction field, “Ninety percent of everything is crud.”  This has since been refered to as Sturgeon’s Law, usually stated thus:

“90% of Everything is Crap.”

Isaac Bonewits, in the 1989 revision of his book Real Magic, commented that this “law” applies in the spiritual/occult fields as well, what some now call metaphysical or New Age… except that the percentage had best be upped  to about 95%.  Actually, Isaac said this applies when you go to “New Age” or “Whole Life” types of fairs or expos, but it seems to apply to most books in the “metaphysical” sections at bookstores as well.  And in the “health” section, too, including “alternative health”.  And in “religion”… “self-help”… the list could go on…  It seems you need hip-waders just to get through the (metaphorical) manure that prevades!

Yet, buried under all that metaphysical crud, that useless waste that passes for helpful information or even timeless and eternal wisdom, sometimes can be found bits, chunks, or occasionally even entire tomes of worthwhile information, ideas, and even the rare pointer toward reality…or even, occasionally, (capital-R) Reality.  Sometimes a particular author, book, teaching, or system will say something that truly helps.   Sometimes a spiritual technique, or system, pretty much works as advertised.  Sometimes.

But what keeps the crap game going is a ready marketplace of sincere seekers who are searching for something real to grasp.  All too often an ego-stroking fantasy is provided instead, to make the seekers feel special while emptying their wallets. Self proclaimed “sceptics”, who are often absolute believers in their own disbelief, use examples of this to bolster their fundamentalist type of materialist faith.

Why do seekers so rarely become finders?  Part of the reason is that seeking implies that you might find the answer you seek in the future… and it’s never there.  It’s always here and now.  Another part of the reason is the traps that hucksters lay for the unwary.  There are legitimate teachings out there, genuine pointers toward Reality, and they usually present themselves more humbly than the scams do.

Here we focus on what I’ve found to be worthwhile, real, pointers toward deeper reality and even (capital-R) Reality… and this sharing is intended to help you find your deeper Self, who You truly are, not as a belief, but as an experience, now. I don’t want people accepting even what I say just because I said it… my intent is to point to a place behind your eyes, deep inside you, where the Ultmate Ground of Being, who You really are, can be found.  Searching the world of things, which includes ideas and teachings, only leads to finding more “things”.  The search only ends when you turn the searchlight… your awareness… on itself.

http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com

Copyright 2010 by Dennis George Rudolph.  All rights reserved.
 

Posted in All That Is | Print | No Comments »

16. August 2010 by admin.

A bunch of years ago I read a book called No Way: for the Spiritually “Advanced” by Ram Tzu, a short work by a fairly astute wise guy who seemed to have been through the New Age ringer and come out the other side fairly aware.  (”…seemed to… “  His background is more interesting than that.)  I only ever saw one copy of this book until two days ago… while visiting Santa Barbara, we stopped by a place called Yoga Soup.  Not only did they have yoga classes and a remarkably cool selection of books for sale, among those books was No Way… the first time I’ve ever seen another copy of it… and they had several.

Once back home I pulled my copy off the shelf and began rereading it.  It holds up, still great… written like a sutra of 97 caustically funny passages or verses, with smart-ass illustrations, this is yet another finger pointing toward the moon in an entertainingly unique way.  So I looked up Ram Tzu on the ‘net… lo and behold, he lives in Hermosa Beach (where I spent my weekends with my grandmother as a kid), and has a website at http://www.advaita.org/ . 

When No Way was first published back in 1990, it was written under the name Ram Tzu because, he said at the time, “I don’t want a bunch of miserable seekers cluttering up my living room.”  Since then he has outed himself; his conventional name is Wayne Liqourman and he now has people cluttering up his living room several times a week.

The website is a cool resource, well worth checking out.  Among the treasures there are a couple of free ebooks (.pdf) by Nisargadatta Maharaj (available from the Nisargadatta Maharaj page), and a two minute animated video called Consciousness graphically illustrating “movement in Consciousness from the Unmanifest to the Manifest to Enlightenment”, on the Seeker’s Corner page.  Wayne also has some books and DVDs for sale.  The only one I’ve read is No Way, and I recommend it highly.  Prepare to have some conceptual bubbles burst.

http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com

Copyright 2010 by Dennis George Rudolph.  All rights reserved.
 

Posted in Resources, All That Is | Print | No Comments »

12. August 2010 by admin.

The following is ripped off from the Principia Discordia, used by permission:

 With our concept making apparatus called “mind” we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us.  The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled “reality” and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see “reality” differently.  It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ.  Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper than is the level of concept.

We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts).  Different philosophies use different grids.  A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids.  Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it.  The ORDER is in the GRID…

Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True.  This is illusory…  Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other…

The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely.  Pick a grid,, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered.  Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.

Reality is the original Rorschach.

http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com

Posted in All That Is | Print | No Comments »

6. August 2010 by admin.

These are a few quotations I like for various reasons.  I put them here rather than use them as quotweets or “dharma tweets”.  There is no particular order to this listing, and just because a quotation is listed here doesn’t necessarily mean I “agree” with it (but maybe I do!)… only that I like it or appreciate it for some reason…

“I have no time for lies or fantasy and neither should you.  Enjoy or die.”
-John Lydon (Johnny Rotten)

“Ultimately, of course, there is no other, and you are always meeting yourself.”
-Eckhart Tolle

“Angels fall like rain…”
-The Psychedelic Furs

“The self is not a thing but a relationship between conscious experience and the immediate physical environment.”
-Amit Goswami

“On some level, it’s all true.”
-Sun Son

“Idolatry is not the use of images, but confusing them with what they represent, and in this respect mental images and lofty abstractions can be more insidious than bronze idols.”
-Alan Watts

“You are timeless awareness dreaming itself to be a person in time.  Far out!”
-Timothy Freke

“The self of self-reference and the consciousness of the original consciousness, together, make what we call self-consciousness.”
-Amit Goswami

“All Cretans are liars.”
-Epimenides the Cretan

“Religion without sex is a rattling skeleton, and sex without religion is a mass of mush.”
-Alan Watts

“We don’t need more techniques or rules. Learning a new technique like a 33-second manifestation ritual or visualizing sympathetic orbs of energy really only benefit the teacher you pay for this ‘new improved’ information. Get over it. There is no key you are missing, no secret out there, no undiscovered element. You are it. Deal with it - Now.”
-William Welton

“Being the best in a field makes you disproportionately impressive to the outside world.  This effect holds even if the field is not crowded, competitive, or well-known.”
-Calvin Newport

“Life is too important to be taken seriously.”
-Oscar Wilde

“War is stupid.”
-Theodore W. Rudolph

“I think anybody who wants to rule anybody else must be sick.”
-Doreen Valiente

“Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.”
-Anonymous

“Life is but a dream.”
-Traditional

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
-Phillip K. Dick

 http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com

Copyright 2010 by Dennis George Rudolph.  All rights reserved.

Posted in All That Is | Print | No Comments »

2. August 2010 by admin.

You’ve got the Now Reiki Manual, and the Meditations CD… Now, what’s the best way of going about learning this healing modality?

It’s whatever way you like to learn best.  If you want to begin at the beginning and go straight through it, that’s fine.  If you want to skip around, that’s okay, too.  Not much in the way of rules here.  What is important is to do it.  In Now Reiki you truly learn by doing.  Rita, my first Reiki teacher, once told me, “The energy teaches you.”  This really does seem to be the case, as I still find new ways of focusing lifeforce energy continuously.

If you just got the Now Reiki Manual, you may want to simply read it through once, like reading a novel, to get an overview.  This way you’ll have an idea of what to expect as you go… although nothing can really quite prepare you for the charge that comes with seeing real results. (Like when you focus energy on someone’s pain and find the pain goes away, or doing the taste test from page 72 and noticing the results… that one can actually be quite startling.)

Once you’ve got the overview, you can settle down to doing the meditations and exercises however you like, whatever way works best for you.  You get to be in charge of your own learning.  Either way, whether you do the meditations and practice the exercises in the order they come in the book, or you skip around, it is important to really do the stuff.

If you come across someone with some kind of pain while you’re learning this, great!  It gives you an opportunity to practice “in the field”… you can tell the person you are learning a form of energy healing, and ask if you can focus some energy on them.  You can practice on your family members, your friends, co-workers, pets, whoever… just be sure to ask how they feel afterward, if you can.  Well, you might not get a verbal answer from a pet, but ask the humans.

Robert Anton Wilson formulated a “law” for getting results that works for some people when practicing new skills, doing magick, or meditating.  If you like it, applying it can work wonders.  He called it Wilson’s 23rd Law, and it goes like this:  “Do It Every Day.”  I would add a corollary… if you skip a day every so often, that’s okay.  As you practice Now Reiki you may find it seems to practically flow on it’s own very quickly, so no days will truly be “skipped.”

If you find that you couldn’t do it as often as you wanted to, or you forgot about it for a time and want to get back to it, that’s okay,too… like the I Ching says, “No blame.”  Just begin again at whatever point you feel best doing so. 

At what point are you ready to download that Now Reiki Master certificate?  Whenever you truly feel you’re ready.  Here again, you are in charge… you know best when to do that.  As in other situations, the energy itself may seem to prompt your inner knowing.  Let it; get that certificate, and enjoy the satisfaction of what you’ve accomplished.  In you, the Ultimate Ground of Being has done something pretty cool.

It would be hard to go on a serious ego trip about being a Now Reiki Master; I’ve already written about that in another post on this blog.  Downloading that certificate is an initiation.  It’s a simple ritual marking a transition.  It’s a transition from “just learning” to living it.  It’s both a graduation and a beginning… the original idea of initiation.

Of course, the energy and ways of using Now Reiki seem unlimited… at least no one’s reached a limit on it all yet.  Now Reiki is definitely not boring or dreary, and learning it truly is fun… so have fun with it!

By the way, if you don’t yet have the Now Reiki course, I have it available at the events mentioned on the home page at http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com .  If you’re not in the LA area, you can also order it through the Now Reiki website, http://nowreiki.com/ .

http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com

Copyright 2010 by Dennis George Rudolph.  All rights reserved.

Posted in Meditation, Resources, Reiki, Healing, All That Is | Print | No Comments »