Monday, February 25, 2013

69. BUDDHA: Less is more

Short, sweet, and TRUE.

69. BUDDHA: Less is more

Sunday, February 24, 2013

On Logic and Mysticism

One of the things I want to use this blog for is to express my intellectual / philosophical / ethical / spiritual views, because I feel they are at the very least different. But I do not want this place to be a kind of soapbox where I just talk about whatever I want, either. I encourage anyone and everyone to comment!

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

When I imagine someone close-minded hearing about a belief that riles them up, they act like little kids, plugging there ears and going "LALALALALA". Aristotle tells us that we should be able to hold, or grasp, those thoughts that we do not agree with, or perhaps better still, to carefully extract from them what we consider to be true and leave out the rest. Taking the diamond out of the rock, as it were.

Doubt envelops everything just as smoke envelops fire. 
It is very important to think critically. Let us consider that there are certain questions that are key to the human condition, questions that are intrinsic and that everyone is born having. Society gives us pre-packaged answers to these questions. We assume that we agree with them because we are told to, but we find that if we tilt the investigative lens inside ourselves we find that we may actually not. Forming our own opinions about things is how we avoid getting swept up in the current.

When we start to think critically, we realize that doubt envelops everything just like smoke envelops fire. However, just as there is a fire shining through all that smoke, there is still a truth. The thing about the Truth is that the truth is the truth everywhere. Gravity is just as much gravity here as it is in Africa. So, universalities about the human experience are also true no matter what part of the earth you stand on.

In other words, 2+2=4 is true no matter where or who you are. Other truths, much deeper ones than that, are similarly universal. 

Some of the ideas that are a part of the "wave" nowadays that we will discuss are: only believing material things to be real, liking the materialistic worldview, the belief of Matter over Mind, and denying, or hating outright, anything or anyone that would claim that there is a higher reality. These are also beliefs that I used to  uphold.

All of those beliefs are the mainstream today, even though the people who prescribe to them like to imagine themselves as the only sane men in a planet-wide asylum. But, nonetheless, if you ask the average man on the street about things like, "Who or what is God?" he will either shrug or tell you He does not exist. If ask people "What do you think Deja-Vu is for? What do you think Synchronicities  are for?" they will reveal that they have not given those ideas much consideration. If you ask them, "What about Lucid Dreams, and Astral Projections? What about Near-Death-Experiences? What about Healing Energy? What about The Flower of Life?", they will run away. They don't want to be guided out of Plato's Cave.

But, luckily, when I myself looked at these things, and in a lot of cases experienced them directly, it rocked my world. 



Bertrand Russel, wrote an essay "On The Value of Skepticism", which has a lot of valuable thoughts and points out flaws in the way that ordinary people think. How phenomenal if his belief could be adopted by everyone (what a pipe dream!). 

But I do not agree everything Bertrand Russel says. It is important to question even the most learned intellectual. Probably my favorite idea of his is the "Middle Way of Reason", which consists of three principles: 
1)That when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot held to be certain;
2)That when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert 
3)That when they all hold that no sufficient ground for a positive opinion exists, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgement.

If you read in Bertrand's essay, he uses these principles to deconstruct (among other things!) religion. This is what we will hone in on for this article.

Who qualifies as an "expert?". Bertrand does not define for us what an expert means and leaves it to the reader, assuming that it must be obvious. Certainly he could not mean the so-called "expert"(s) that are supposedly quoted in newspapers and magazines. "According to "experts", 70% of statistics are biased, made-up on the spot, done under controlled circumstances, or just plain wrong!" Ha!

I, personally, would say that an expert is someone who obviously knows a lot about certain topics, has had a lot of first-hand experience on that topic, and also cares about it enough to want to learn more and more about it. Now, there are degrees of expertise and varieties of experts. One cannot be an expert on every topic under the sun, and expect to be an expert at all of them equally. 

So for example, if I wanted to know about Engineering I could ask someone who read lots of books on engineering (knowing a lot about your topic). Or, even better, I could ask someone who actually fixed or built things (first-hand experience on your topic). How much better if the man loves being an engineer! 

However, you would have to agree with me that if I wanted to ask him about, say, Underwater Exploring, he might not know a whole lot about it. He might have some general knowledge, but I think you would agree that if you excel at certain things you do it at the expense of other things that you are not excelling at. 

So then, when people look to ask questions about God, why do they ask Scientists? They are not "experts" on God. They probably haven't done a lot of thinking about it, since they're mind belongs to the outer world and not the inner world. I probably wouldn't ask a Mystic about Geophysics, either. So there is no reason why spirituality falls out of line with Bertrand's first principle. 

The "experts" on the topic of God are agreed about a lot of things. Every religion believes in grand and beautiful ideals like sexual purity and universal compassion. Every religion believes in punishment for sin and reward for virtue. The "esoteric" aspect of each religion believes in the direct, personal, here-and-now experience and contact of God through spiritual effort, and not just after death. So there is no reason why spirituality falls out of line with Bertrand's second principle. 

Of course, when people like Bertrand Russel are citing "experts" on the topic of God, they would only ever mention people like certain wicked popes, or bigots. It is foolish to list everyone who believes in God under the umbrella of "bigot", don't you think? 

Here is a thought: When asking about experts on God, why not consult Paramahansa Yogananda? Or Swami Vivekananda, and Ramakrishna? Or St. Padre Pio? Or St. Therese Neumann? All these people lived within the last 100 years. 

So, in other words: God, Mysticism, and experiences of the Otherworldly do not contradict Bertrand Russel's "Middle Way of Reason" despite the fact that he begins his article with making a direct insult to those ideas.


Scientist and Mystic
Isaac Newton, one of the the most brilliant minds to ever grace the earth, was a great scientist and a deeply religious man. It was not at all a surprise to the earliest physicists to discover that we live in a universe governed by laws. After all, one of the most important aspects of God, has always been a law giver. They also did not consider there to be a contradiction in religious belief and worship. Natural Philosophy supported theology because discovering the wonders of the universe increased our appreciation for the wonders of God. Isaac Newton, and several others, considered science as a means of worship for the inquiring mind.

A great website for this type of belief system, which used to be very popular before the rise of Fundamentalism (which led to people who adopted spiritual/religious ideas being painted with the same brush, sadly) can be found here: www.enlighteningscience.sussex.ac.uk.

From that site, some information on what Newton believed: (and other Natural Philosophers, by extension):
Newton can be placed firmly in the tradition of natural theology in which God's being was obvious from the order of nature (..) he condemned atheistic accounts which claimed that the order and beauty in the world arose by chance.
Pythagoras, another man who contributed greatly to our understanding of the natural world and to mathematics, believed in reincarnation (he called it, "The Transmigration of Souls") and emphasized the distinction between Mind and Body. Pythagoras also had the idea that the universe was explainable in geometrical principles, an idea greatly elaborated upon by modern-day sacred geometry.

This belief was adopted by Freemasons. The "G" on the Masonic symbol stands for both God and Geometry, because God Geo-metricizes. 


But perhaps no one demonstrates the co-existence of Logic and Mysticism better than Albert Einstein, who said:
 “Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a Spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe – a Spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.” (Einstein 1936, as cited in Dukas and Hoffmann, Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Princeton University Press, 1979, 33).
Another quote from Einstein, who was alive at a time when the supposedly "old" ideas of the Metaphysical where being thrown out the window in the light of atheism, materialism, and physicalism. I find this following quote to be extremely powerful because it is exactly how I felt when I first experienced the feelings from beyond.
 “The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior Reasoning Power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God.” (Einstein, as cited in Libby Anfinsen 1995).



But finally, my ultimate point for elaborating how God still has a place in our modern understanding is that there is absolutely nothing rational about rejecting something on the grounds of it being irrational, because irrational things happen all the time.

But it isn't enough to read about it, or to believe in it. After all: 
Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe
-John 4:48
How one can see the unseen, something many have done before and something all can do, will be the topic of a different blog post. 

OM-SADCHIDANANDA-OM











Tuesday, February 19, 2013

"The Two and The One": A Poem


Keep on seeking, until the Two become One. 
Life is a Duality: 
Man and Woman,
Day and Night,
Hot and Cold, 
Pleasure and Pain,
Growth and Decay,
Heaven and Earth,
Good and Evil, 
Birth and Death, 
Past and Future, 
Mind and Body, 
Order and Chaos,
Positive and Negative.
Everything and Nothing, 
Me and You. 
Keep on striving, until the Two become One. 
The nature of Duality, 
is Temporality,
The nature of Temporality,
is Unsatisfactoriness.
The nature of Unsatisfactoriness,
is Suffering. 
Suffering is as intrinsic to life as wetness is to water. 
Keep on sacrificing, until the Two become One. 
Does a clock stop when it reaches the end of its cycle, my dear?
No, it just keeps going on & on & on. Just like all of us, you hear?
There’ll always be more words to tell
some more things to buy and sell,
another morning woken up by a bell,
forever spent in this saccharine Hell.  
Oh God! You gotta get me out of here!!
Keep on singing, until the Two become One. 
Nosce Te Ipsum:
Just as water takes the shape of a bottle when it is in a bottle, but is not itself the bottle,
So too is the Self only inside the shape of a Human, but is itself not the Human. 
Just as a droplet of water is a microcosm of the Ocean, 
so too is the Self  a microcosm of the Universe. 
Just as a droplet of water, when merging in the Ocean, becomes indistinguishable from the Ocean, 
So too does the Self, when merging in the Universe, become indistinguishable from the Universe. 
Keep on shining, until the Two become One. 



Saturday, February 9, 2013

"THE WANDERER" : A poem

Here is another poem, inspired by being raised off of video games and T.V. shows like Kung-Fu (starring David Carradine)


THE WANDERER
You ride your mighty stallion across the plain
with crimson blade in hand, your foes it has slain. 

Your body is lean, your wit is sharp, scars are upon your brow. 
Your past and future are mysteries, but to you there is only now.

A young lad once asked you, “why are you going so far?” 
You replied, “Why, I’m only chasing after the north star”.

You have seen many faces - they know you by deed, not by name.
But with nowhere to rest and a price on your head, who can blame?

Nameless towns of cutthroats and thieves,
Untamed wilds of beasts and evergreen leaves,

Mountains ancient, molten, and icy
filled with dungeons old and dicey.

Endless deserts of bitter heat, 
and maidens whose game is deceit.

Is there a place you haven’t been?
A danger you haven’t seen? 

You passed away on an ordinary, silent evening
There lived a man who learned by living, not by reading.

There lived a man whose adventure was his passion
Somehow he must still live on, though his face is ashen. 

There lived a man who, in the infinite horizon, found his home. 
The man with no attachments feels no sorrows when he dies alone. 


"DESIRE": A poem.

Another free verse poem. It is called "DESIRE" and I will not say much about it other than that. 

"DESIRE"
Pleasing to your senses, 
abhorrent to your soul. 
Reason is abandoned, 
when your sight meets it.

The sound lures you nearer,
to the sweet aroma, 
Its touch electrifies you,
tempting you to taste it. 

Who can resist the pull, 
of a forbidden thing?
Purity is too hard, 
and evil, too easy!

When reason returns, 
and the sensations pass, 
now you know Desire.

You know this.
Still, when would you dare forsake,
those Heavens that lead you back to these Hells?


By Dylan Grant

"ODE TO THE IMAGINATION": A Poem

I have many ideas for blog posts, but for this week I will upload a poem instead, because I also want this blog to show case my creative writing. This is an amateur free verse poem about the imagination. I have changed it perhaps 10,000 times. 

ODE TO THE IMAGINATION
Get up, go to bed, 
Stand up, sit down, 
Get an education, get a job, marry, reproduce, die. 

That's just the way life is, they tell me!
I don't remember agreeing to that! 
Is it any wonder that I try to escape?

This world may be dull, but, if I try, Middle-Earth is not too far away, ready for danger.
The world may be gray, but, if I try, Wonderland is not too far away, ready for zaniness. 
The world may be dead, but, if I try, Narnia is not too far away, ready for excitement. 

You think you can see me?
Ha! I'm not there, I'm in my own little world,
And I know this, but it's O.K., they know me here.
Everyone that you know, and everyone you'll ever meet,
has worlds upon worlds inside of them.
A whole universe behind your eyes, between your ears. 

No matter how far the astronomer will ever see, 
The depth and beauty of the universe is utterly incomparable,
To the depth and beauty of the imagination,
the tool with which each person can paint the colors of their spirit. 

How lucky we are to have eyes that see poetry in simplicity, 
How lucky we are to have ears that hear melodies in cacophonies, 
How lucky we are to have hands that transform garbage into art!

Every mad or inspiring ideal.
every drive for glory, every work of art 
is born here, in the womb of the imagination.

My Fantasy world is exciting, beautiful, and ever-living, 
but ungraspable. That is the tragedy.

I am going to return now,
to the loving arms of my own little world, 
and I hope you do too! 










Tuesday, February 5, 2013

102. TIMOTHY LEARY: You aren’t like them

Another brilliant comic from Zen Pencils. Check them out! This one really resonates with me in particular.

"Find the others"

102. TIMOTHY LEARY: You aren’t like them

Thoughts, Words, and Me (Introduction)

Hello, world!

I don't know how or why you've stumbled upon this humble little blog of mine, but I hope you are here to stay. Like many people I have always wanted to start writing a blog, but never got around to it. So what finally made me jump the fence and give it a go?

Well, I have a lot, a lot, of mental energy that I need to expel, and this will help me to do that.  My mind is a  speedboat (or a jet-plane!) with plenty of fuel but with no direction to go or space to move. One of the most tragic themes in my life is that I have all of this terrific energy but nothing to direct it towards. Its not enough to have plenty of energy; we also need self-discipline. So, writing in this blog at least once a week will help me to achieve that aim.

At some point in my life it dawned on me that all of those precious thoughts and monologues that are always swirling around in this noggin' of mine have been forgotten. Oh, how many sleepless nights spent pondering life and all of the topics that entails! How many times have I spaced out, and then thought to myself "That was actually quite a good combination of words, there, Dylan. You should definitely write that down" only to have it not written down, and to have those words disappear into the black void of forgetfulness? No more of that!

Thinking is one of my greatest pleasures. Delights like food and drink are expensive, but thinking is free. If there is no entertainment I can find out there, there is an infinite and entirely original library of entertainment always forming in the screen behind my eyes, between my ears. I hope to share these thoughts of mine with you, to provoke and inspire those same thoughts in you, to create discussion about them, etcetera! 

So, why is this blog named "The Adventures of Dylan Grant"? Well, the word "Adventure" really resonates with me. You could say that that word is a big theme in the perpetually unfinished story book of my life. When I was a kid, my tiny world consisting of my backyard and home would come alive as a fantastic environment. Its nothing special, every kid does it. 

Me on the right, with cape and sword in hand. On the left is my wonderful Dad.


But another reason why I gave that name to my blog is that, despite the fact that I have rarely spent more than a month of my so far 17-years of life outside of this island, I cannot help but feel that I have always been travelling. Why? Though the outer world is limited, the inner world is immeasurably vast, and when one is travelling from Book to Book or from Dogma to Dogma, you cannot help but feel you are going somewhere, meeting people, and changing as you do so. Its nothing special, every reader knows it. 

Of course, the real essence behind the word "Adventure" isn't just traveling, be it outer or inner. What is really in that word is the romanticism behind it. If someone is on an Adventure, you would say that the person going on that adventure (especially if it is of their own volition), was daring, possessed a zest for life, and a hunger for new experiences, and you would say they are definitely very enthusiastic. I like to think these are traits I possess. If they are not, I strive to! 

So, now that you know the cause of this blog, and a little bit about the person writing it, here is what you can expect from it:

  • Details about my adventures in the world of Theater, because acting is something I simply love to do. I have acted in several productions this year and intend to do so for the rest of my life, as much as I can! I have also acted in video projects of my own. To show you an example, here is me performing a soliloquy from Macbeth:
  • Chronicles of my adventures in the world of writing and reading. I love to write! Short stories, novellas, playwriting, and especially poetry. I've done it all! (...to varying qualities, I admit). You can expect so see a lot of that on here, too! I really do have a love affair going on with words: reading them, writing them, speaking them...
  • Records of my adventures in the world of the education system. I'm halfway through Grade 11. Gasp!
  • As you've no doubt already guessed from the starry meditating man above, and the sacred geometrical symbol in the background, you can expect plenty from my adventures in the World of the Metaphysical. That includes philosophy, religion, meditation, astrology, and energy. My views on those things are enough to warrant an article on their own. They are not at all what you would expect. I do not have stereotypical "New Age" views. A lot of the links to the left lead to sites where you can gather some of my views from. 
Me, meditating to a guided meditation CD. This one was from Drunvalo Melchizedek. As it happens,
I no longer believe in the correctness of Drunvalo's philosophy or any of the people who resonate with him. 
  •  I have been keeping a dream journal since I was 14, and I have written down all of my astral projections (or as they are sometimes called, Out-of-Body experiences or OBE's) and Lucid Dreams. So you can expect to read plenty from my adventures in the World of Dreaming!
But most of all, you can expect to read 100% original content.

I hope I have gathered enough of your interest for you to read another blog post by me before the end of the week. After all, attention is a valuable commodity these days, gotta be careful what you spend it on! :)