The Falcon and the Falconer

Mar 31

If the greatest dilemma of the mind is that it lives in a state of separation, then a very important question would be: separated from what?

Well, it’s pretty easy to say, separated from God. But then, what does that mean? So, let’s start from scratch and see what we can do.

Before birth, before you come into the world as an individual, you belong to the whole. The vast. The illimitable. The Godhead. The All That Is. Spirit. Truth-Consciousness. But when the being, you, comes into physical form, the being is individualized, separate, different from others, sees all others from its point of view, regards its individual version of reality as truth and disregards others’ realities, seeing itself as the center of the world in which it is operating.

Now, for example, in the past when you have crossed paths with someone who you did not have a very favorable opinion of, you may have said something like, “He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” to yourself. And so, what is it the other person doesn’t know? This is a good place to start for all of us.

So, let me ask you…do you know what you’re doing?

And if you’re honest with yourself, you might have noticed a little hesitation before you answered. And if you can allow yourself to be even a little vulnerable, just privately, just for a moment while you’re listening to this, and can state that you don’t know what you doing, then what is it you would need to know to be someone who “knows that they’re doing?” You will notice that I do not discuss specific people, personalities, and I do everything I can not to articulate any form of dogma or belief system. At least I try. I’m not sure I can even open my mouth without expressing the thought system behind the thought but the least thing I can do is try.

As you can see all around the world, traditional systems are collapsing. The old world appears to be dying and this shouldn’t really alarm anyone because birth always follows death, just as the leaves on the tree. But there’s a lot of other stuff happening that isn’t about politics, corruption and greed.

This information comes from a March 5, 2020, article, Concerning Jump in Dementia Diagnoses in Younger Americans, written by Megan Brooks in MedScape.

· The number of commercially insured Americans aged 30 to 64 years who were diagnosed with early-onset dementia or Alzheimer disease (AD) jumped 200% from 2013 to 2017, from 4.2 to 12.6 per 10,000, according to a new report from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA).

· Dementia diagnosis rates increased 373% among adults aged 30 to 44 (from 0.9 to 4.4 per 10,000) and 311% among those aged 45 to 54 years (from 2.7 to 10.9 per 10,000).

· The average age of a person in the commercially insured population who is living with early-onset dementia or AD is 49 years. Women make up 58% of those diagnosed with dementia or AD, the report states.

· "The increase in early-onset dementia and Alzheimer's diagnoses among a generation who typically would not expect to encounter these conditions for several decades is concerning, particularly since there is no cure for Alzheimer's disease," Vincent Nelson, MD, president of medical affairs and interim chief medical officer of the BCBSA, told Medscape Medical News.

· "Additionally, as early-onset dementia and Alzheimer's disease continue to affect younger people, it is important to understand the impact of both forms of dementia on the health of Americans and their caregivers," said Nelson.

There’s a lot of stuff going on.

According to the American Psychological Association, the increase in the rate of death by suicide in the United States between 2000 and 2016, from 10.4 to 13.5 per 100,000 people has increased 30%, according to a National Center for Health Statistics analysis of data from the National Vital Statistics System. The rate increased by about 1 percent per year from 2000 through 2006 and by about 2 percent per year from 2006 through 2016.

· The increase in suicides among girls and women between 2000 and 2016, from 4 to 6 per 100,000 was a 50% increase.

· The increase in suicides among boys and men between 2000 and 2016, from 17.7 to 21.4 per 100,000 shows a 21% increase.

· Suicide was the 10th-leading cause of death in the United States in 2016. It was the second-leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 34 and the fourth-leading cause among people ages 35 to 54.

There’s a lot of stuff going on.

As I was in a bar the other day with a friend, and he made the statement, “I think people are losing their minds.” And when this happens, when the you can only access the very thing that created the barrier in the first place, your mind, then it is not hard to understand that your understanding of what do, how to handle the affairs of your life, become incapacitated and the comfort and peace of your life turns into suffering.

These lines again from Yates’ poem, “The Second Coming”:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The falcon cannot hear the falconer, things fall apart; The Center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. People from all walks of life and professions have applied the lines to pretty much anything that resembles chaos and disintegration. I guess I’ll jump on the bandwagon, too, for it is a perfect description for the individual when there comes a point in time when the center cannot hold.

And what I am suggesting, here, at the source of the problem, you see that the cause of the problem, the problem of your life, at core, is the lack of knowledge, the lack of consciousness of how to live your life.

In fact, it is the essential and only problem your mind has. It doesn’t know and what it thinks it knows hasn’t worked in the past so it is unlikely that it will in the future. Separated from this knowledge, the mind parents a limitless number of illusions and irrational thoughts. That’s about all it can do until the mind is consciously willing to seek out a greater knowledge and subordinate itself to that knowledge. A limitation of knowledge which every one of us deals with, will manifest itself in an increase of confusion, powerlessness, hopelessness, depression or whatever your most addicted negative emotional is and result in a decrease of joy, endurance, peace, and desire to be here. From the enclosed mind of the individual, the mind sees that it must produce the solution to the problem…but of course, that’s impossible. It’s the one that created the problem.

The real creative power and source of that power is the knowledge that makes up your existence. The problem is not your outer world but your inner world. The outer is a physical manifestation of the inner.

This is where the yoga must begin, where the work starts. And the first step is allowing yourself to acknowledge that there could be something more than the physical, to allow yourself to appreciate the possibility that there could be another world beyond the sensory world.

“Why camest thou to this dumb deathbound earth?"
This ignorant life beneath indifferent skies
Tied like a sacrifice on the alter of Time,
O spirit, O immortal energy,
If 'twas to nurse grief in a helpless heart
Or with hard tearless eyes await thy doom?
Arise, O soul, and vanquish Time and Death."

I had several days last week when I didn't just feel tied down, but tortured in dealing with a family situation, I let my mind get the best of me, I ignored everything that I know to do with such events, and I hardly slept at all for several days. I can be so insane.

I think Terry would agree that I try not to involve others in my craziness but will seek time to be alone and crazy all by myself. Generally, I do everything I can to avoid projecting my craziness onto others but that doesn't diminish the level of "doom" I experience. After a couple of days of self-torment and forcing myself into morning and nightly meditation, I calmed down. And in the middle of one of the meditations, I remembered the first line. "Why camest thou to this dumb deathbound earth?"

The world in which we live is plagued with difficulty. The entire world is ingrained with conflict. There are planetary difficulties but there are individual difficulties in which each you bear the unique framework of your own suffering, your own path. But make no mistake about it. All paths, rich or poor, will reflect the individual struggle. But is this the reason you "camest?"

No, that cannot possibly be the reason. If it were, why would anyone want to be here? Did you come here to live an "ignorant life?" Of course not. But let's be real. When I am involved in self-torture, in allowing my mind to become trapped in a repetitive cycle of self-defeating thoughts, I am living an ignorant life. And when you're in your crazy stuff, you are living an ignorant life, too.

"Arise, O soul, and vanquish Time and Death."

The statement contains the confirmation that transcending time and death is available, that rising above our individual difficulties is not only real but is available. If it is, then how do I do that?

The last line and the first line are inextricably interwoven. If you know the answer to the first line, you know the answer to the last line.

But if you don't know the answer to the first line (basically, why are you here?) then you cannot execute the last line which reveals the way out of the suffering. So, what is the answer to the question: "Why camest thou to this dumb deathbound earth?"

And when you know, you will arise. Little by little. Day by day. Even moment by moment. Sometimes, in difficult events, breath by breath. But you will arise. And the transformation of your, and the entire, "dumb deathbound earth" will begin.

Vanquishing time and death must begin with vanquishing depression, fear, hopelessness, powerlessness, uncertainty, purposelessness. It is vital for you to begin developing the skills at a small level to be able to operate at the grander levels.

All learning involves attention and study at some level. And enough quantitative learning does produce real qualitative changes. But strengthening your motivation for change is a prerequisite for beginning your work and your path. “Arise, O soul, and vanquish Time and Death."

Be still and feel the inner movement. Let everything go and don’t let any thought hold you to the past. Just be still and feel the words, “Arise, O Soul, and vanquish time and death.” Now, what do you see? What does the inner movement tell you to be? What does the inner movement reveal to you? Move to center and express no reaction to the widening grye. Just observe. Watching the unfolding, all of the craziness around you, by being at center, unmoved, unthreatenable, unoffended.