Lead me from dreaming to waking.
Lead me from opacity to clarity.
Lead me from the complicated to the simple.
Lead me from the obscure to the obvious.
Lead me from intention to attention.
Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am.
Lead me from confrontation to wide openness.
Lead me to the place I never left,
Where there is peace, and peace
- The Upanishads *note* a friend like Benny is hard to find..yet..is right there,inside of you.. Behold You think you are alone But the marvelous eternal friend Is in you I am you I am we When the wisdom muscle arrives at your window Remember the ONE The essence inside you Manifesting at your window As a friend,a bird,or just a breeze A leap of faith I took Just to kiss you And remind you That You are beautiful and immortal And always was..but you didn't know it It took a mahayogi to tell you that..but now you know. Kisses:) -added by danny-
...............
"To us all towns are one, all men our kin. Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill. Man's pains and pains' relief are from within. Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !." - Tamil Poem-
Lead me from dreaming to waking.
Lead me from opacity to clarity.
Lead me from the complicated to the simple.
Lead me from the obscure to the obvious.
Lead me from intention to attention.
Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am.
Lead me from confrontation to wide openness.
Lead me to the place I never left,
Where there is peace, and peace
- The Upanishads
*note* lovely explaining from Brother Elias(former christian monk,then adidam(aka Bubba John) follower,then whom knows whom..in any case he is the best Jung(Carl Gustav) explaining I ever met on the net.He even surpasses Carl Gustav,from my point of view.
This guy knows the manifestation of the truth,I'm telling you. One mind Is all there is In it's pristine,clear awareness Of the projections you call the universe Or karma The one mind is ONE The Manifestations are like waves On the lake Below is the wisdom muscle Ready to pop up Uniting this with that Behold the wonder of wonders.. Neti Neti,yet still acting Tao is realized Today,is a good day to die Says the mahayogi And he's been saying that For the whole eternity While the gods rejoice In shadow projections. -added by danny- ..................... (Brother Elias explains now) Notice, for instance, how you don’t dislike all people who seem to display negative or regressed behavior. Some of them you feel positively compassionate towards, even perceiving directly how you can help them to develop self-awareness. But others will excite emotions of disgust, fear, hatred, and even total anathema. These are the ones you must give most attention to, for without a doubt they are reflections of aspects of your own undeveloped psyche. These are the people who will, through relationship and honest self-inspection, bring you into the totality of your personality. And through that totality, you begin to access the deeper mind and the Self – the “rainbow body” of the Shadow.
A correspondent writes –
You say that people who “excite emotions of disgust, fear, hatred, and even total anathema…are the ones you must give most attention to, for without a doubt they are reflections of aspects of your own undeveloped psyche.” I am not sure what you mean. Are you saying that when I judge people as undeveloped I am undeveloped in the same way? Or do you mean I am unconscious of some quality in myself and am rejecting it in others? It seems to me that I dislike certain people for the very reason that I have consciously chosen not to be like that.
This is an excellent question and gets to the heart of the problem of the Shadow…and its resolution by bringing to light and integrating that which is unconscious in ourselves.
How, after all, can the thing we despise and reject in others be an aspect of our own makeup?! This question is in some respects answered in Part 2 of “Notes on the Shadow". But it is worth looking at it in greater detail.
First of all, in order to “integrate the shadow” one has to catch hold of the idea that a shadow self exists at all!
If you start from the assumption that everything to be known about yourself is already contained in the conscious mind, then it is highly unlikely you will be interested in the view that you have an unconscious “dark side” which needs to be raised to awareness.
In fact, you may be a person who has lost his shadow. Like Peter Pan, you have become so innocent and heroic in your own eyes that no taint of darkness can be found…except in the villainous Captain Hook!
Still, you have to deal with that situation – “Captain Hook” (nice Jungian connection to the name) exists and he’s your mortal enemy and he’s nothing but trouble for you. In fact, you dislike him enormously! And, whether it is a comic figure like storybook Captain Hook or some “idiot” at work or the obnoxious “loud-mouth” down the street, you do, as you say judge these people according tothe rigors of your choice “not to be like that".
Your judgment may be faulty, of course. There may be good qualities in these people which you ignore or can’t see. On the other hand, it is quite possible your judgment is spot on – these unlikeable people may well be of low moral fibre, sneaky, liars, mean and abusive, or even criminals and outsiders who are cast out by polite society.
“Thank God I am not like him.” So the Biblical saying goes. [see Luke 18:10-14]
But I am telling you, oh Pharisee, you are like him, and you need to become aware of how that is so. I am telling you that you can take the measure of your similarity to your opposite by the intensity of your aversion to him. The greater your sense of superiority, or your spite, the more likely you will find that this man dwells inside you, embedded in your unconscious. His very face may have become the face of your shadow, and your dark side may speak with his voice. The “man outside” is the perfect hook for the projection of your unconscious. (Note that I say your unconscious…not his unconscious. His unconscious is his own business. Yours belongs to you, even though it wears his face.)
Jung demonstrated over and over how the process of shadow-projecton works, but it is up to each of us to see for ourselves how our least admirable qualities take form as those upon whom we cast aspersions. That is the beginning of self-knowledge, you know – to no longer think you have it all figured out, and to become cognizant that there is a whole universe from which you are separated by your righteous self-esteem.
It is a difficult leap of consciousness, but you can get into it by a simple test. Start with some thing you know about yourself but don’t like to admit. For instance, suppose you have a craven streak you are ashamed of. Time and again you catch yourself playing the “yes-man” before people at your job who have the authority to fire you. You hate it that you are a “kiss-up", and you wish you had the courage to talk back to the boss, but you just don’t. Now, look around you for somebody else who does the very same thing. How do you feel about this person? Have you ever ridiculed that person to others for being a sycophant or “butt-kisser"?
Do you see what I am getting at? You can do the same exercise with any less-than-admirable aspect of yourself of which you have some cognizance – something you are ashamed to admit, some dishonorable behavior that you can’t seem to get rid of. It could be streak of cruelty, or a need to find a weaker person to dominate. It could be something as primal as jealousy.
Cast about among your acquaintances and find one who embodies that same quality. What is your reaction to that person when they are dramatizing this inferior side of their personality?
Equanimity? …O.K., that’s cool.
Disgust or anger? Voilà – shadow projection.
Elias
(in this last video me me me is the false ego trying to push the shadow away..these are the worst people,those whom refuse to understand their make-up..and refuse to integrate their lost souls..you recognize them from how much they hate anything..a person,an object,,or an opinnion ..just watch them,so you may know yourself.Because you can't know unless you experience it yourself..the rest are only words,and shadow projections..."To us all towns are one, all men our kin. Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill. Man's pains and pains' relief are from within. Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !." - Tamil Poem-added by danny)
Lead me from dreaming to waking.
Lead me from opacity to clarity.
Lead me from the complicated to the simple.
Lead me from the obscure to the obvious.
Lead me from intention to attention.
Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am.
Lead me from confrontation to wide openness.
Lead me to the place I never left,
Where there is peace, and peace
- The Upanishads
*note* come to my window........kisses
A poem I wrote long ago
From http://kriptodanny.blogspot.com/2008/08/my-poems.html -The loving vampire-
Lights are off,it's time to go Out the window I crawl slow Wait till neighbors go to sleep On the maidens then I creep I'm the one they mostly fear In their hearts they hold me dear I'm the one they fear most But for them I'm holy ghost I'm the one whom they forsake I want them to be awake I'm the one they never speak In their hearts for me they seek Just for me the windows close But I brake them with my nose I'm the one they try to flee Never knowing what I see I'm the one they try to purge But for me they feel the urge I make inner fears burst And for me they feel the thirst So,as long I won't retire I'm one happy,loved vampire!!! _added by danny_
.........
Just to reach you,grasshoppers....imagine that!!!!!!..kisses:)Sometimes I wonder why I am not just sitting on my samadhi powers..and forget you all. I am you all..grasshoppers. Kisses:) I am everyone..the good,the bad and the ugly..and the beautiful...the beautiful mahayogi.
JUST WAKE up..,GRASSHOPPERS...kisses;)I might break your window with my nose..but my nose is immortal,while you are still messed up in illusion..WAKE UP and find your true nature!!..It is pure bliss and fun!..Immortality waits for you if you come to my window!!..my grasshoppers!!! Thus spokenth the Mahayogi to the bewildered grasshoppers ..behold..you are all gods in making!,,find the source within you..! Come to my window..
"To us all towns are one, all men our kin. Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill. Man's pains and pains' relief are from within. Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !." - Tamil Poem-
Lead me from dreaming to waking.
Lead me from opacity to clarity.
Lead me from the complicated to the simple.
Lead me from the obscure to the obvious.
Lead me from intention to attention.
Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am.
Lead me from confrontation to wide openness.
Lead me to the place I never left,
Where there is peace, and peace
- The Upanishads *note* amazing ballad..but I promise to wait for my beloveds..and love them forever. Time does not exist Space does not exist What exists is something Beyond ..it's a ray A wisdom muscle It penetrates the illusion It becomes one with it The beloved appears in it's glory Behold..I am ONE.. And I love you..I always did.. Because what you love Also loves you back What you look at Always looks back at you Thru the lens of eternity And sending you the kiss Of immortality The kriptodanny kiss:) Might be sweet or sour You decide in the end Because the only power you have To resonate Is you attention .. May all beings be free of suffering And enjoy the beauty of their true nature And the bliss of their manifestation.. Thus Spokenth the mahayogi to the grasshoppers.. Kisses:)
-added by danny-
Performer - Deanna Durbin
Lyrics - Frederick Weatherly
The famous ballad "Danny Boy", ironically, was written by a man who never set foot in Ireland. Weatherly, an English barrister who was also a prolific poet, had originally set "Danny Boy" to music he had composed. The song was not successful. When he heard the "Londonderry Air", he realized that "Danny Boy" would fit nicely to that tune. Over 100 songs have been set to "Londonderry Air", but "Danny Boy" is the most famous. Band and orchestral musicians will also recognize the tune as Grainger's "Irish Tune from County Derry".
Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling,
From glen to glen and down the mountain side;
The summer's gone, and all the roses falling;
It's you, it's you must go, and I must abide.
But come you back when summer's in the meadow,
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow;
I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow;
Danny boy, Oh Danny boy, I love you so.
But if you come and all the flowers are dying,
If I am dead, as dead I well may be.
You'll come and find the place where I am lying,
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.
And I will know, 'though soft you tread around me,
And then my grave shall richer sweeter be,
Then you'll bend down and tell me that you love me,
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.
"To us all towns are one, all men our kin. Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill. Man's pains and pains' relief are from within. Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !." - Tamil Poem-
Lead me from dreaming to waking.
Lead me from opacity to clarity.
Lead me from the complicated to the simple.
Lead me from the obscure to the obvious.
Lead me from intention to attention.
Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am.
Lead me from confrontation to wide openness.
Lead me to the place I never left,
Where there is peace, and peace
- The Upanishads
*note* lovely secrets of life from brother Elias(a former christian monk)
What he means (or he discovered) is very important.
He discovered there were no negativities,no devils,other then his OWN not-resolved soul experiences.
In other words..the devil is in you,not out there.
In truth(or absolute truth) there is no devil other then your NOT resolved(integrated sub-personalities..and remember that even those are NOT the real you..but those make up your personality,as it splits,and becomes many...your job is not to reject those,but KNOW that was necessary..for otherwise you could not become an individual)
YOU MUST accept your individuality,and the collectivity,and the ONE.(3 in one)
The ONE knows..but if you stop blaming the devil,and start looking within..the ONE will readjust your reality,and miracles will happen.
quote from Elias,," May I recognize whatever appears as being my own mind-forms. May I fear not the bands of the Peaceful and the Wrathful, who are my own mind-forms. ~ from The Tibetan Book of the Dead
"
Thus spokenth the mahayogi,to the bewildered grasshoppers.
-added by danny-
................ VISION. One afternoon I was taking a nap after dinner, dreams and jazz music were sluicing through my brain. Suddenly a voice spoke very loudly next to my ear: “NOW THE SECRET OF LIFE WILL BE REVEALED.”
A hole opened up under me and I fell into it. It was a square dark hole, which got progressively lighter the deeper I fell.
I fell quickly at first, then more slowly as the light thickened. Soon I was floating in the loving embrace of the Light, an intense rapture flooding my senses. The words “I need you!” echoed in me and around me.
There was progressive dissolution of form and quality as the light thickened. Images dissolved into light, dream dissolved into light, I dissolved into light, and this light was Consciousness itself.
That is the secret of life.
Such experiences would “dissolve” me, and for a few days I would walk around transported. The other brothers would notice and I would receive lots of smiles and nods.
Then my mind would resolidify, new crystalline structures would form, and new dreams of conflict would emerge. _________________________
VISION. I am walking on a road that leads into the forest. Suddenly a circular chasm opens next to the road.
Cautiously I approach the edge of the pit and peer over. I am gazing into a fathomless dark deep, and I am thinking of all my ecstatic falling dreams.
At that moment I hear the clatter of hoofbeats coming along the road out of the forest. I raise my eyes and see a spectral being on a black horse galloping toward me. He is moving with the speed of the wind, and his aura is of stupendous and irresistible power. I know at once that nothing in the universe can impede or resist this onrushing power. As the horse thunders by, its flank brushes me lightly, and I am knocked head over heels into the abyss. I wake up quaking with fright.
What’s so different about this descensus from my other glorified tumbles? Why was there no hint of luminous supporting depths waiting to receive me? For a long time I thought this dream meant that I was going to undergo physical death at an early age. I took this horseman to be the Lord of Death himself, on his daily journey around the world. _________________________
When you take a breath of air, are you possessed by the air? When you take a drink of water, are you possessed by the water? When you eat a meal…and so forth.
You cannot live without air, water, and food. All of these material dependencies are metaphors for your dependency on the Spirit. (Actually, they are metaphysical manifestations of your dependency on the Spirit, but that’s a discussion for another day.)
In order to consciously awaken to Spirit, you will have to fall into that aspect of consciousness we call “subtle awareness". Subtle awareness is the intuitive faculty which allows us to know things directly, without the intermediary of the verbal mind. Some of you have that already, so you know what I am talking about. Others may think I am telling a fairy tale or a myth. More’s the pity.
But the fact is you do have this subtle awareness. You already have it. You are born with it. In your case it may be sleeping in a dark cave, or atrophied or suppressed, but it is a living part of your totality. Unless you revive it, you will never walk out of your current imprisonment in the mind. No amount of money will liberate you from your half-alive state, this condition of atrophied subtle awareness.
Know though, that subtle awareness is a vast expanse of experience that, like an ocean, can be either shallow or profound. Hopefully you will make your way from the shallow shores towards the unspeakable depths.
The subtle realm is nurture. It is education. It is also danger, a universe in which archetypes roam like carnivorous fish, making a meal of the weak and the naive. (These “dangerous entities” in the deep psyche include people who developed subtle awareness only to use it as a tool for possessing others and placing them in bondage.)
I am saying you don’t need to fear such intelligences as long as you keep faith with your own heart, and with the underlying truth of subtle experience:
May I recognize whatever appears as being my own mindforms. May I fear not the bands of the Peaceful and the Wrathful, who are my own mindforms. ~ from The Tibetan Book of the Dead
______________________
The important thing to remember is that the realm of subtle experience responds instantly to how it is seen. Yes, it contains everything that is unknown to you, but it is also instantaneously responsive to the act of perception itself. (Or should I say the art of perception?)
How can that be? Please remember, it is not an other that is awakening but your very “I” – the Self that is the root of your being. That’s why we say, “May I recognize whatever appears as being my own mindforms.”
This Self is looking for you, and will, if you allow it, educate and awaken you. It will test your “art of perception". When it knocks at your door, and when you open to it, it begins at once to transform your perspective – your way of seeing. It is the Liberator of your seeing – not all at once, but bit by bit.
Yes, in the realm of subtle awareness there will be moments of vision and great revelation, private glimpses of the “beyond-beyond” state of the Self. But the essence of the Self’s initiation is work – a new kind of work in which the soul collaborates with the Spirit in the real tasks of real liberation.
The work has been succinctly described as “self-inquiry". Sadly, this simple phrase has been wildly misunderstood to mean a kind of rote practice in which one asks the question, over and over, “who am I?".
Presumably this mantra-like recitation will help one to peel away the layers of illusion, false-self, and ego-persona to arrive at direct realization of the “I” of the Self. I say presumably, because no one has been shown to have achieved Self-realization using this formulaic practice.
Even Maharshi, who is supposed to have simplified his own awakening into this formula that he could hand out, like prasad, to the thousands who came to see him, did not achieve Self-realization by asking “who am I?” Rather, he allowed his i-sense to confront the inescapable reality of death. And that’s what you should do as well. When death becomes so real to you that you see the futility of the hopes and dreams of the little “i", then the great “I” will come to you and shake you awake.
And that’s important to know: the Self comes to you, and takes an active role in your education and awakening. It is another terrible mistake that seekers make, to believe they can do this “practice” in isolation from the tremendum of God. Again, as I have suggested before, they have made “non-dualism” into a ritualized form of Spirit-denial. The ego actually believes it can do the whole job of “becoming enlightened” by reciting a simple prescription handed-down by an authentic sage. And they sit for hours and hours in their “communion halls", repeating the phrase inwardly, waiting for sudden and total illumination. Good luck with that, boys.
Personally I have preferred to take the dynamic and inter-active route, of responding to the spontaneous intrusion of God into my life. I know I am not alone in this, having known others of similar disposition.
And in taking this path, I have allowed myself to be educated by that Tremendum which was Unconscious to me. I have accepted the tasks the Spirit set for me, of unraveling and inspecting the knots and complexes of the psyche.
This is true self-inquiry, you know. This is the self-inquiry that the Spirit wants you to practice: to know the personal psyche inside and out, and to explore those deep parts of the mind which Jung called “the archetypal".
Don’t worry about this legendary “God Realization” you seek. To turn around Jack Kornfield’s famous phrase, forget the ecstasy – first do the laundry.
Elias *note* I will post his ,,monk experience,, -added by danny- ............. ~ posted by Elias ~
During the summer months of 1965 I wrestled with my "religious problem" while hiking in the mountains of Pennsylvania and spending long days holed up in a cabin I'd been permitted to use. I saw almost no one. It was obvious to me I had to make a clean break with the world. My visions were pulling me toward greater intimacy with God. For some reason I saw my artistic career as being opposed to that movement. I decided my writing was "egotistical" and "non-sacrificial" -- in spite of everything I'd learned about how the power of Grace opens creativity. So one August afternoon I burned all my manuscripts -- a three-foot pile of material I had accumulated since 1961. The same day I made the decision to return to Vermont and enter a monastery. My parents were happy to see me -- it had been almost two years since I'd been home -- and they were suitably impressed when I told them my decision to return to the Catholic Church and enter a religious order. There were at least three monasteries in our vicinity -- Carthusian, Benedictine, and Camaldolese. I planned to approach them all, one by one, and offer my life into the service of God. After a few weeks of hanging around the house, helping my father catch up on repairs and yardwork, I steeled my nerves for a visit to the Carthusian hermits of Mt. Equinox, in Manchester, Vermont. I didn't write or call ahead, I simply showed up at the gatehouse. The two old monks who saw me were the most spiritual men I'd met up to that time. They radiated an immense peace and great depth of intuition. I thought they'd probably see at once that I was favored with holy visions --something about my face would tell them. Then they would joyfully welcome me into the sacred precinct, and that would be the end of it -- goodbye cruel world. Instead they gave me the once-over, asked a few skillful questions, and sent me away. "You ought to get married and open a grocery store," one of them told me, munching a carrot, like Bugs Bunny in his cosmic trickster mode. I fared better with the Benedictines. Their youthful prior listened attentively to my tale of re-conversion (I instinctively left out the visionary part). He agreed that I might be admitted to postulancy in their order after a suitable period of testing --probably about a year. A year! I didn't want to wait a year! I wanted to put on those holy robes right now! Well, it might take less than a year, but in any case I'd have to get a job and work off some debts I owed. That in itself would take about six months. As it turned out it only took three months. I found work on a rock-drilling crew, as a bit changer. This was the most physically demanding work I'd ever done. Day after day, as the air compressors roared in my head, I thought how fortunate I was to find such uncomfortable work. Surely my sins were vanishing like dirty snow on an April afternoon! While waiting to be admitted to the Benedictines, I went through the formalities of rejoining the Church. I began attending mass as often as possible, and I made my first confession in about six years. One happy Sunday I took the Lord on my tongue and felt again that meditative satisfaction that most Catholics feel when they realize that God Himself has entered their body as spiritual food. I had several auspicious dreams at this time. In one, old St. Benedict himself placed the cowl of profession over my shoulders, while thousands of monks looked on. On Christmas Eve, 1965, I dreamt I was sleeping in the palm of a giant hand. As the hand lifted me slowly and dreamily into the sky, power flowed into my body, and I dissolved in bliss and exaltation. As I awoke, a Biblical phrase passed through my mind: "No harm can come to those you protect with your hand." Was this the same hand that crushed me mercilessly a few months before? Undoubtedly! In early January, 1966, taking the name "Brother Robert," I was admitted to the company of the holy monks of St. Benedict. The monastery was a small farm in the hills of Vermont, with a chapel and dormitory and about fifteen men in residence. They were a cloistered, meditational group, with vows of silence -- a return to the ways of earlier centuries. Our chief physical occupations were farming and craft work. Our only exposure to the public was on Sunday, when large numbers of people would come for mass and afterwards mingle briefly with "the brothers." LIFE IN THE CLOISTER A bell wakened us every morning at 4 A.M. A few minutes later we congregated in the chapel (which was breezy and cold in winter) and began chanting the psalms of matins. This was the longest "office" of the day, sometimes lasting an hour or more. When I first arrived it was sung in Latin, with the ancient Gregorian melodies. Later we changed to English, and our choir-master improvised new melodies from the old forms. The effect was less beautiful -- Gregorian chant is amongst the most inspired music on earth --but at least we could understand what we were singing! After another hour or so of meditation and lectio -- meditative reading --we returned to the chapel for more chanting, and then went to breakfast. Breakfast consisted of coffee, last week's donuts (compliments of a local bakery), toast with peanut butter, and fruit. During cold weather there would be hot cereal and sometimes eggs or french toast -- which we would bathe in syrup from our own maple trees. Breakfast was followed by more lectio and personal duties such as shaving, making beds, and so forth. A few of us used this time to catch up on our sleep, although this was strictly forbidden. During my entire two years as a Benedictine I never adapted to the official seven hour nights. Many people would consider seven hours a generous vacation from the toils of day. A few of the brothers never slept more than four. But I had always been a nine-hour man. In a pinch I could get by on eight, but seven was impossible. I seemed to need a lot of time for dreaming. The mornings consisted of an hour or two of instruction -- mostly theology -- followed by an hour or two of work. Then came daily mass, at around 11:30. This was definitely the high point of the day for everybody. All a monk's suppressed libido is channeled into his participation in "the sacrifice of the mass." With heartfelt attention he relives the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and when he turns to embrace his brother during "the kiss of peace," the room is humming with charitable feeling. The cup is passed around, and large chunks of consecrated bread. (We used loaves of homemade bread, a practice which at that time was frowned upon by Rome, which still preferred "wafers".) God is imbibed and chewed and swallowed, and in the ensuing silence the affirmation of divine love is very strong, and almost childlike. In spite of this ritual of love, some of the brothers still managed to dislike each other. Petty differences can loom very large in a human incubator. Unconscious complexes and neuroses -- even latent psychoses --take on an eerie intensity that is like physical sickness. If one or two men are going through a crisis, everybody goes through it with them. By the same token, if one man makes a breakthrough in consciousness, it sends waves through the entire group. Everyone picks up on it, and even the animals seem to feel it. Fortunately, this positive "participation mystique" (a Jungian term, derived from anthropology, for collective identification) tends to predominate over the negative kind. Except in a few "difficult" cases, the neurotic complexes seemed to burn off as "heat." After lunch there was a short "siesta." This was my favorite time of day, but not for the reason you might think. The fact was I tended to have some of my strongest visionary experiences during these midday naps. Just below the edge of sleep, when the ears could still hear the sounds in the room, the flux of images would often burst into that dimension of pure healing which is always present alongside the shape of our thoughts. Night dreams tended to be more informational, more structured. Nap dreams were like swimming in the blue Caribbean. Siesta was followed by another interlude of chant, and then the major work period of the day began -- about five hours of uninterrupted physical labor. This could encompass a great variety of tasks, anything from baling hay and weeding vegetables to fixing the roof or going into town for supplies. Some of the older brothers worked at pottery and woodworking, but most of us did "chores." Since I was an experienced mechanic, I spent a good part of the time nursing the large number of machines that shared our reclusive existence. That and carpentry, at which I became fairly proficient. During these silent work periods I became aware of a most extraordinary kind of cause and effect. Every time that I entertained a vindictive or angry thought, without exception, I would bang my head against something! On a few occasions it was as if an invisible hand grabbed me by the hair and pulled me off balance, so that my head struck an object as much as two feet away! At 5:30 P.M. we showered, dressed, and gathered in the chapel for another lengthy session of chanting the songs of David. Then came dinner, dishwashing, and a half hour of "recreation" which consisted of sitting around talking and laughing in very boisterous fashion. After a few more psalms and a hymn to Mary, we were ready for bed. And that's the way it went, with very little variation, every day for two years of my life. That was my gift to the Blessed Virgin for giving me a glimpse of her ecstatic majesty. BIG DREAMS IN THE MONASTERY The first dream that I can recall from my monastic period seemed to be a comment on religion. I include it here in full: I am at home with my family. It is night. Suddenly the sky lights up. We run up to the roof to see a glowing cross stretching from horizon to horizon, and the words THE END OF THE WORLD written in blazing letters across the stars. The image of the crucified Christ appears on the cross, and the cross comes zooming down toward the earth. The stars begin to wink out, meteors flame across the heavens, and an amazing display of celestial phenomena sends the populations of earth into hysteria. My father goes back into the house to save his possessions. I recall the words of the gospel: "When that time comes the man on his housetop must not go down into his house to fetch anything." (Matt. 24:17)
Then mobs of people are roaming the streets, lost and afraid. "Where's Jesus?" they cry. "Has he come to take us with him? We saw him in the sky!" "He's in here!" others answer. "He's holding a meeting in town!" So my mother and brothers and I go to the meeting hall where Jesus and his apostles are speaking to the crowds. Jesus walks in and begins shaking hands. But something is amiss --when my turn comes to shake his hand I look directly into his eyes and realize at once that this is an imposter! I shout, "Hey, you're not Jesus!" Hissing and obscenities erupt from the mouths of Jesus and the apostles, their masks fall off, and they are revealed as Satan and his fallen angels! I wake up realizing the whole "end of the world" display was a satanic trick. Everyone was fooled because they knew only the religious cliches and literary images, but not the spirit.
("If anyone tells you at the time, 'Look, here is Christ,' or 'Look, there he is,' don't believe it! For false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders, to deceive, if possible, even God's chosen men!" -- Matthew 24:23) For me, the message of the dream was this: The historical symbols and the written record of what was made manifest -- even the ceremonies and sacraments handed down by tradition -- all lend themselves to fraudulent use. None of the images are Christ, (who is only truly known in the Spirit). Nor can you be excused from real work in consciousness by performing the religious ceremonies and daily obeisances of a holy monk. That's a nice movie, and it can serve your transformation, but it's still a movie. Looking back from today, I see that this dream which came at the beginning of my monastic career was already pointing to that time when I would again sever my relationship with formal religion. But on another level the dream was a scenario generated by a central dichotomy in my psyche -- the archetypal opposition between Christ and Satan, Light and Shadow. In 1966 the traditional Christian soul epic was still moving powerfully in me: DREAM. A stairway winds up to heaven. The stone steps are worn as if by a great many feet. On either side is an abyss from which smoke and sulphurous fumes issue. The cries of the damned can be heard below us, as we climb the long stair. "Many have slipped who tried to pass this way," says a voice. In the dream I know that I too might easily slip into the abyss and never reach the Eternal Kingdom.What a dream -- many have ascended to heaven, but many more have descended into the sulphurous darkness! Christianity divides the human race into the "saved" and the "damned," and this mythology is imprinted in us right down to the place where dreams emerge. Why this eternal opposition? Why this cosmic conflict between good and evil? Why this roaring black fire of hell that snuffs out the light of God's infinite love? It was going to take me many years to realize that the answer to these questions lay in myself, for these dreams were a dramatic reflection of a war that existed entirely within my body and my psyche...but not in my innermost Spirit. However, to find (and become) that inmost Self, one had to pass directly through the mythology of the opposites: DREAM. I am standing in the choir singing with the other monks. There is a flash of light to my right. I turn and see a huge cross planted in the floor of the chapel. Jesus himself is nailed to this cross, bleeding and suffering incredibly, looking at me with eyes of greatest sorrow. My mind says, in the dream: do you see how it is, even now the Lord of Eternity suffers at the hands of man. The crucifixion is a reality which will continue to the end of time!The crucifixion is a symbol whose meaning is not exhausted by the shame that Christians feel for the murder of the Godman. Psychologically, crucifixion means coming to wholeness by taking the war of opposites (the four directions of the cross) upon oneself. As a symbol of conscious transformation through conscious death (sacrifice), crucifixion is surely a reality that must continue to the end of time. But each of us resists our own crucifixion...and our real awakening beyond the opposites. A few nights later I had a dream that God was pushing into my heart, and I was resisting. I heard myself say, over and over, "I hate you! I hate you!" By being made aware I still harbored deep reluctance, I began to surrender: VISION. A surge of light and music above me and to the left. I am dragged up out of my body into the divine effulgence so familiar from previous visions. Then the vision arcs in intensity until it bursts out of "vision" into unearthly reality. I am lying in a pool of light, and all around me invisible presences are laughing and talking to me -- "Elias! Hi, Elias! We're with you, Elias! See you soon, Elias!" Then another voice: "Have you ever seen an angel, Elias?!" An angel starts to appear, I feel greater energy and light surging into my body, too much for me to contain without dying, I snap completely awake, unable to breathe.About this time I read a book about Padre Pio, the Italian stigmatic. Padre Pio used to see the devil as a red-eyed dog who would snarl at him from outside his window! The good Padre was part of a venerable tradition of saints and martyrs who have lived the mythology of good vs. evil through concrete projections. The book provoked a dream: DREAM. My little female cat is being attacked by an enormous red-eyed wolf. As I approach, the cat leaps safely into my arms, and the wolf backs off snarling. I wake up with a feeling of power.The dark aspects of the psyche need to be handled carefully. As long as we identify with the unconscious mythology of light and darkness, there is real danger. It wasn't until years later, after exhaustively sifting the mindforms that surfaced in dreams, that I could truly know this vision of a red-eyed wolf as an "unconscious complex"...a psychic structure that with proper distillation would release its energy to consciousness. As the Hindus say, "the snake becomes a rope...was it ever anything but a rope?" Over time powerful scenarios of light and darkness must inevitably transmute into direct cognition of a spiritual wholeness beyond the opposites. "Was it ever anything but a rope?" Even then, while immersed in religious mythology, the great underlying Truth would, from time to time present itself -- (usually during the mid-day "siesta"): VISION. One afternoon I was taking a nap after dinner, dreams and jazz music were sluicing through my brain. Suddenly a voice spoke very loudly next to my ear: "NOW THE SECRET OF LIFE WILL BE REVEALED." A hole opened up under me and I fell into it. It was a square dark hole, which got progressively lighter the deeper I fell. I fell quickly at first, then more slowly as the light thickened. Soon I was floating in the loving embrace of the Light, an intense rapture flooding my senses. The words "I need you!" echoed in me and around me.
There was progressive dissolution of form and quality as the light thickened. Images dissolved into light, dream dissolved into light, I dissolved into light, and this light was Consciousness itself. That is the secret of life. We dwell in sketchy modulations of form and color. We live in the rind of being. And all of this is permeable to the Light, because it is solidified out of the Light, and all of this is fated to be dissolved in the Light. In the beginning and in the end we are nothing but Light, and that Light is Consciousness, the Light of Life Itself. That Light is being and life, and the fullness of Life Itself. That Light is our eternal samadhi (a Hindu word for divine absorption, or ecstatic communion with God). All images and all dramas of the opposites, both in dreams and daily living, express a single unconditional "substance" which is consciousness itself. Thus Consciousness, as Light, transcends the mind of "light and darkness". Such experiences would "dissolve" me, and for a few days I would walk around transported. The other brothers would notice and I would receive lots of smiles and nods. Then my mind would resolidify, and new crystalline structures would form, new dreams of conflict would emerge: DREAM. New York is destroyed by atomic bombs. Standing on our hilltop we can see the mushroom cloud rising above the southern horizon. The light becomes very intense. The other monks and I hide behind pillars, and the pink light blasts by us, vaporizing everything it touches (except the pillars, fortunately).
VISION. I am walking on a road that leads into the forest. Suddenly a circular chasm opens next to the road. Cautiously I approach the edge of the pit and peer over. I am gazing into a fathomless dark deep, and I am thinking of all my ecstatic falling dreams. I recall Rilke's words: "to love is not to rise but to fall!" At that moment I hear the clatter of hoofbeats coming along the road out of the forest. I raise my eyes and see a spectral being on a black horse galloping toward me. He is moving with the speed of the wind, and his aura is of stupendous and irresistible power. I know at once that nothing in the universe can impede or resist this onrushing power. As the horse thunders by, its flank brushes me lightly, and I fall head over heels into the abyss. I wake up quaking with fright.What's so different about this descensus from all my other glorified tumbles? Why was there no hint of luminous supporting depths waiting to receive me? For a long time I thought this dream meant that I was going to undergo physical death at a young age. I took this horseman to be the Lord of Death himself, on his daily journey around the world. MY SECOND GREAT TEACHER A monastery is a utopian community that works because it is founded on the law of sacrifice, selflessness, and surrender to God. Furthermore, all hope is invested in an elsewhere, a dream of another world, a heaven beyond the wall of death where Christ is king and where beatitude and exaltation are the soul's eternal state. Repelled by the Shadow of man -- his lust, greed, murderousness and lying --the monk joins a social agreement which makes a great nothingness of the world and focuses all attention on prayerful and meditative communion the perfection of Christ. Unfortunately this act of abnegation doesn't really free the monk from sharing in the darkness of humanity. His blood and flesh are still woven into the psycho-physical being of the whole human race. He may dissociate his mind from the complexes and compulsions that rule the world, but all of these shadowy and regressive forces are still at play in him. I know -- for two years I lived in the company of saints, and in those two years I saw a group of basically ordinary men behave much as ordinary men do everywhere. There was ego, there was jealousy, there was deception, at times there was even hatred. There was power-tripping, arrogance, and once in a great while there was violence. In short, all of the benign qualities which monks put on like a uniform were fully complemented in their behavior by devilish opposites. The worst of it was that no one knew quite how to deal with this situation. One could suppress a moment of rage or repress a lustful thought, but sure as hell it would rear its head again later with renewed strength. One could confess one's sins to a father-priest and then, heart filled with forgiveness, take the body and blood of the Lord into one's entrails. These symbolic activities seemed to keep everything under control, but by no means did they resolve the war between Christ and the devil. If anything, they accentuated it. The whole monastic enterprise, as I now see it, was based on a misconception, a faulty view of reality. For one thing, the Church and her ministers have never had a handle on consciousness itself as the primary reality. Churchmen have, over the centuries, taken the various dramatic manifestations of psychic energy as real in themselves -- and therefore opposable, destructible, and subject to legislation. Christians have, for instance, never fully understood that Christ and the devil are two aspects of a unified field, "two sons of one Father," the right hand and left hand of God. Christian saints, therefore, have seldom acknowledged the fact that the devil is an unconscious aspect of themselves, a free body of psychic energy whose autonomy is granted and perpetuated by our false idea of what we are. Empirically, we remain victims of the mythology of opposites because our narrowly circumscribed ego puts 98% of reality into the "unconscious." The situation in the Christian churches and monasteries is aggravated at present by an undercurrent of suspicion of all things mystical. It is more or less explicitly denied that the spirit of God can, in these days, fill man with revelation and Divine Light. The prophets and saints are legendary (therefore unreal). Our communication with the Spirit must be indirect, mediated by the body politic, the sacraments, and the priesthood. When men who try to describe holy dreams and visions are dismissed as deluded, one can only suppose that the institutional church has a deep doubt about its own relationship to God, and a profound absence of the knowledge available for millennia in the East. In spite of all the fashionable talk about "Pentecostal Catholicism," the embarrassed laugh and the impolite dismissal were the only acknowledgements I ever received when I dared to tell my superiors of my visions. Early on in my monastic career I ventured to tell a spiritual dream I had had the night before to the prior of the monastery (who was also my confessor). He laughed and said straight out, "What do you think, that you have a direct pipeline to God?" After that, I kept my experiences to myself. Fortunately there was one other monk who shared my encounters with "private revelation." He was Hugh McKiernan, an older man, a former Trappist Abbot who had learned, even as a Trappist, to keep his mouth shut about his inner life. I am not sure how we discovered our mutuality, but soon after he arrived as the monastery, Hugh and I opened our hearts to each other. He was a powerful influence on me, reinforcing my faith in spiritual intuition, and reinforcing my disrespect for ecclesiastical authority. After Jung, this man was my second true teacher. He taught me that mystical knowledge is free and sufficient unto itself. It has no need to prove itself to the ignorant. It has no need to seek rapprochement with its mockers or presumed "authorities". My friendship with Hugh transformed the dullness of monastic life into an experience of a very high order. If circumstances had not conspired to draw both of us back into the world, we would probably still be there today, sharing our secret love and knowledge of God. I remember many occasions when we would walk together to lonely places in the forest, and sit on rocks or fallen logs and share our most recent visions. At these times Hugh would be overcome with waves of Divine Love as he recounted his most precious secrets to me...and then we would sit in silence, enveloped by a peace that was like the descent of Heaven. Hugh seemed to look forward to death...even long for it. He was fifty-seven when I first met him, in 1965. After we both left monastic life we stayed in touch for a number of years. I haven't seen him since 1976, although from time to time we still meet in dreams. Surely he rests with God today, for if he were still alive he would be over ninety-years-old. [Hugh McKiernan did pass away, in the 1990s. There used to be a tribute site to him on the internet, but now the only references I find are to his correspondence with his fellow Trappist Thomas Merton, whom he knew as a friend.] SAN FRANCISCO In the summer of 1967 one of my uncles who lived in New York fell ill. My father was planning to visit him, and in an extraordinary gesture from my superiors, I was allowed to go along. This uncle was a World War II veteran who had lived on a disability pension ever since the war. Life for him consisted of sitting in front of a television eating junk food and drinking endless bottles of Coca Cola. After twenty years of this he collapsed and began to die. We stayed in New York for a week, speaking sadly with the other relatives. And I managed to do a turn around the Lower East Side, dropping in on my friends who were still madly tapping their typewriters and storming the walls of success. I met my old girlfriend there too, the one who had lived with the guitar maker who had killed somebody in a bar fight. By chance she was in town for a few days, visiting from San Francisco, where she was now going to school. A meeting between us in Tompkins Square Park was a deciding factor in my decision to abandon the Rule of Saint Benedict. I remember the incident clearly, we were sitting on a bench on the east side of the park, facing west. I kept looking in her eyes and wondering how they could be so lifeless, so dull and pinched. She told me she had been taking a lot of LSD, and it had left her feeling confused, although she had enjoyed the "trips." That seemed to explain the dark eyes. There was nothing at all of the communion we had shared two years before. I felt terribly sorry for her, wondering if there was any way I could help her. She behaved as if I was a priest-confessor, and told me some of her experiences with men since last we'd met. They sounded mindless and degrading. I thought to myself, well, it's good enough that I left all this behind, the world is going straight to hell. LSD and sexual promiscuity are not the way to God. We stood up and walked through the park. It was time for her to catch a bus to the airport and the flight back to San Francisco. As we were about to part, we turned and embraced and then kissed. I looked into her eyes one last time. At that moment the top of my head dissolved and I was the whole spiritual realm peering down through the body and eyes of Elias into the soul of this lost young woman. Every ounce of samadhi I'd ever felt was right there, I was it, I was boundless consciousness stretching out in all directions and focused through the body of a twenty-six year old man. She must have felt it too, in her own way, for when I returned to the monastery, we began corresponding, and they were the kind of letters that draw two people into a love relationship. My mind had returned to "normal," but now the promise of the dream I'd had years before, in which our marriage had released an influx of divine power, dangled before me as a very real possibility. That among numerous other signs and portents (including strongly directive dreams) made me quickly opt for a return to the world. One very interesting experience I recall: It was our custom to have one of the brothers read aloud to the others during meals. On this day it was my turn, and as I recall, I was reading from a book of stories and sayings of the "Desert Fathers", the early Christian hermits. As I read I raised my eyes, and off to the side I got a momentary glimpse of an old man standing watching me. He was dark skinned, long-haired, and wore the white garments of an Indian holy man. I looked back at the book and read the next sentence of the story: "You must leave this place, my son, for I have other work for you to do." If I had any remaining doubts about whether to leave the monastery, in that moment my destiny was sealed. So at the end of 1967, like a lonely migratory bird, I left my holy brothers in the wilds of Vermont and returned to my poet brothers in the jungles of New York City. There I found work in a restaurant and began to accumulate money for my journey to San Francisco. There I unpacked my typewriter and laid the foundations of a new three-foot pile of manuscripts. During my two years of silence and reflection, the world had become a giddy place. LSD and marijuana were now the staple recreation of youth, and a wild new culture had burst into bloom. I let my hair grow, bought a 1958 Dodge, overhauled its transmission, and headed West.
"To us all towns are one, all men our kin. Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill. Man's pains and pains' relief are from within. Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !." - Tamil Poem-
Lead me from dreaming to waking.
Lead me from opacity to clarity.
Lead me from the complicated to the simple.
Lead me from the obscure to the obvious.
Lead me from intention to attention.
Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am.
Lead me from confrontation to wide openness.
Lead me to the place I never left,
Where there is peace, and peace
- The Upanishads
*note* Nothing compares to you,grasshopper..if you know that.If you don't know that,then everything is dual..yet,inside,nothing compares to you.The real you,I mean.And at that point,nothing compares to you,because everything is you,and there is nothing else..PONDER!..this is the reason nothing compares to you,not because you got wise,and think you are special...even though you are special. THE MASTERY OF YOUR ATTENTION WILL COME WHEN YOU WILL START SEEING THAT IT IS ALL A MYTH THAT UPSETS YOU.JUST THROW IT AWAY..AND UNDERSTAND THAT YOU ARE THE ETERNAL LIFE.ONLY THEN YOU WILL FULLY ENJOY YOURSELF BECAUSE YOUR ATTENTION WOULD BE COMPLETELY DRENCHED IN THE BLISS OF YOUR TRUE SELF.-SHRI MATAJI NIRMALA DEVI-
-added by danny-
(Song Lyrics)
It's been seven hours and fifteen days
since you took your love away
I go out every night and sleep all day
since you took your love away
since you've been gone I can do whatever I want
I can see whomever I choose
I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant
but nothing
I said nothing can take away these blues,
'cause nothing compares
nothing compares to you
It's been so lonely without you here
like a bird without a song
nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling
tell me baby where did I go wrong?
I could put my arms round every boy I see
but they'd only remind me of you
I went to the doctor guess what he told me
guess what he told me
he said girl you better try to have fun
no matter what you do
but he's a fool
'cause nothing compares
nothing compares to you
All the flowers that you planted mother
in the backyard
all died when you went away
I know that living with you, baby, was sometimes hard
but I'm willing to give it another try
nothing compares
nothing compares to you..
......... "To us all towns are one, all men our kin. Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill. Man's pains and pains' relief are from within. Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !." - Tamil Poem-
Lead me from dreaming to waking.
Lead me from opacity to clarity.
Lead me from the complicated to the simple.
Lead me from the obscure to the obvious.
Lead me from intention to attention.
Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am.
Lead me from confrontation to wide openness.
Lead me to the place I never left,
Where there is peace, and peace
- The Upanishads
*note* nice candid talking from Jim Carrey ..lovely!!
Actor Jim Carrey is best known for his wacky comedies, which have made him one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars.
He's one of a handful of actors who commands $25 million a picture. He's been called "aggressively infantile," "gleefully uninhibited," and he's been called the greatest physical comedian of the past century. He makes fun of ego and insecurity, altruism and selfishness, macho bravado and feminine sensitivity. And you can find a little bit of all those things in his personality.
In a rare one-on-one interview with Correspondent Steve Kroft, Carrey speaks frankly about his life, his bouts with depression and his spirituality.
60 Minutes met with Carrey one Sunday afternoon last month at Fox Studios in Hollywood, with no idea of what to expect.
"When I got in the car, I thought, 'I wonder what the song is gonna be when I roll up on Steve,'" says Carrey. "And it was, 'All You Need Is Love,' man. How good is that?"
Carrey is one of the last of the great clowns, a foil to disrupt and divert attention from the ringmaster. He wears costumes and behaves in a strange or silly manner. It’s visual, physical humor with leaps and pratfalls, with a face so pliable, there is no need for grease paint or a rubber nose.
Carrey can play a villain or a sad and wistful buffoon. But that's not all there is to Carrey. By the time Kroft sat down for an interview at his home in Los Angeles, Carrey had already spent a lot of time thinking about what he had to say.
"I was up until 3 a.m., I got very little sleep because I wasn't just gonna flail helplessly in front of the camera, you know? I wanted to focus on what I believe because I want to give the world the real thing," says Carrey.
What began simply enough with a tour of the private screening room, decorated with costumes from his movies, ended four hours later, with Carrey revealing a serious, complicated, introspective artist, constantly searching for answers about himself and the world.
Carrey tells Kroft that he is interested in "basically boiling it down to what's important." And he explains his philosophy on life is to "just be in the moment. And live now. Because this is all there is. And enjoy now like a child. And be your authentic self."
Being in the moment is an essential part of Carrey's comedy. 60 Minutes visited Carrey on the set of "Lemony Snicket – A Series of Unfortunate Events," a film produced by Paramount which is owned by the same company that owns CBS. The movie is based on a series of children’s stories.
Carrey, in full costume, wiled away his down time by mastering his latest toy, a personal motorized vehicle he had just bought for himself. But when it came time to perform, Carrey did the same scene, five different times, five different ways.
"If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret," says Carrey. And he's had plenty of all that. As one writer put it, "Comedy is the mask in Jim Carrey’s Hollywood wardrobe. But the face that shines through is still a desperate kid from Canada."
Where did his incredible talent for physical comedy come from? "Desperation," says Carrey. "I had a sick mom, man. I wanted to make her feel better. Basically, I think she laid in bed and took a lot of pain pills. And I wanted to make her feel better. And I used to go in there and do impressions of praying mantises, and weird things, and whatever. I'd bounce off the walls and throw myself down the stairs to make her feel better."
Carrey was the youngest of four children. His father was a saxophone player, who became an accountant to pay the bills. But when he lost that job at age 51, it changed everything for the family. The day Carrey turned 16, he dropped out of school.
"My family kinda hit the skids. We were experiencing poverty at that point. We all got a job, where the whole family had to work as security guards and janitors. And I just got angry," says Carrey. "I was angry at the world for doing that to my father. I wanted to bash somebody's head in, basically."
Is the anger and the anxiety that Carrey has had to battle all these years a source for his comedy?
"Yeah. Absolutely. People need motivation to do anything. I don't think human beings learn anything without desperation," says Carrey. "Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interesting."
Carrey understands desperation. At 17, he was struggling to support his parents, working comedy clubs in Toronto. And at 21, he'd already made his first appearance on "The Tonight Show," doing impersonations. The act was hugely successful, but he didn’t want to become famous imitating other people.
"I can get 2,000 people down and I will still be saying to the world that those people are more interesting than me. And that’s just not true, you know," says Carrey.
When he decided to throw his old act out, his friends thought he was crazy. But Carrey went back to comedy clubs and started doing improv, vowing at one point to do an entirely different act every night.
"Some nights it was a melee, literally, where I’d be standing trying to defend myself for what I was doing. People would be screaming at me to do my old act, and getting actually violent and angry at me," recalls Carrey.
"And there were a couple of nights when I was literally on the tables with a broken bottle ... fighting people off and stuff. It was a crazy experiment. But it was so good because it made me comfortable with the creative process -- with being on a limb, you know? And I've been there ever since."
Carrey also started taking acting classes, and now, after 28 films and a billion dollars in box office, he can pick his roles and name his price. He says he wants to make films that people will like and are interesting to him.
About half the time now, those are dramatic roles, not comedies. And Carrey has already proven himself an accomplished actor. He won the first of two Golden Globe Awards for "The Truman Show."
"I ran into a lot of criticism …'Be the comedian. Like why is he trying to do that? They're all trying to do that,' kind of thing. And, I believe in that side of myself, absolutely," says Carrey. "So, I'm willing to lose everything to express that side of myself. I'm willing to give it all up."
This year, he’s getting Academy Award consideration for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," a low-budget, art-house film about love lost — a subject he has some experience with, and used in preparing for the role.
"I was trying to speak to my ex, and all this stuff, and say these things, and I mean, artistically you do that, you know," says Carrey.
Which ex? "I don't want to say. There are many," says Carrey, laughing. "There are many that I've felt that way about, you know?"
His first marriage to Melissa Womer lasted seven years and produced a daughter, Jane, who is now 17, and the only female in her father's life. Carrey's second marriage was to actress Lauren Holly. It lasted barely eight months. And his last serious relationship, with actress Renee Zellweger, ended four years ago.
There have also been other personal struggles, including depression.
"I was on Prozac for a long time. It may have helped me out of a jam for a little bit, but people stay on it forever. I had to get off at a certain point because I realized that, you know, everything's just OK," says Carrey.
"There are peaks, there are valleys. But they're all kind of carved and smoothed out, and it feels like a low level of despair you live in. Where you're not getting any answers, but you're living OK. And you can smile at the office. You know? But it's a low level of despair. You know?"
Instead, he says he doesn’t take anything. "I rarely drink coffee. I'm very serious about no alcohol, no drugs. Life is too beautiful."
Now, he draws his strength from the spiritual side of his life. And despite a rare Los Angeles downpour, he insisted on taking Kroft to his secret spot where he goes to shut out the rest of the world. It took a five-minute climb up a trail on his property to reach his destination.
"This is my spot. This is the center of the universe," says Carrey. "This is where I hang out with Buddha and Krishna and you know, all those guys."
Is he a Buddhist? "Jesus. I'm a Buddhist, I'm a Muslim, I'm a Christian. I'm whatever you want me to be," says Carrey. "It all comes down to the same thing. … You are either in a loving place, or you are in an unloving place. If you are with me right now, you cannot be unhappy. It’s not possible, just try."
"Would you be offended if I said I'd like to be a little drier," says Kroft, laughing.
Carrey's faith is both personal and mystical. He believes that miracles will come true, if you believe in them, and he has his life and his career to prove it. But he also thinks that people who express strong feelings about spirituality run the risk of being labeled "a kook."
"You know, what the hell? What the hell? You know, whatever. I just want to be myself. You know," says Carrey. "And if that, what if I lose a few fringe people who can't go with the fact that there's other forces in the world, that's OK with me."
"I get the sense you are a big bundle of conflicting emotions," Kroft tells Carrey. "It's all very close to the surface."
Carrey agrees: "Yeah, I'm emotional," he says. "I've decided to be there. I only act in the movies."
But acting is still the biggest part of his life - the thing that defines him. His talent and need to perform.
"I want to be the greatest actor that ever lived, frankly. I'd love that. But I don't need to be. I just want to be here. That's it," says Carrey. "When the opportunity arises, and I'm on the set. And I'll be there tomorrow. I'm not going to live it until I get there, and when I get there, I'm going to have a great time. I'm going to walk into the set and I'm going to go, 'Hey humans. How are you doing? Let's have fun. Let's play in the sandbox.'"
-added by danny-
...............
"To us all towns are one, all men our kin. Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill. Man's pains and pains' relief are from within. Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !." - Tamil Poem-
Lead me from dreaming to waking.
Lead me from opacity to clarity.
Lead me from the complicated to the simple.
Lead me from the obscure to the obvious.
Lead me from intention to attention.
Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am.
Lead me from confrontation to wide openness.
Lead me to the place I never left,
Where there is peace, and peace
- The Upanishads
*note* nice song...from Bliss band...quote"With musicians from Denmark, Sweden, and Guinea-Bissau, Bliss is an international chill out pop music band based in Denmark"
In any case,the beginning of this song starts with an African language and the singer is "Tchando"...the rest of the singing is done by Alexandra Hamnede(from the same Bliss band as the,,Tchando,,) so...wish you were here,grasshopper man and woman...for I will die soon...kisses:) Thus spokenth the mahayogi:) Like the air that I breath , you`ll always be there The winds that I need , when I wanna fly Now I drift to you , I dream of a river All waters are blue , Wish I could live in , Wish you were here ...
Like waves to the shore , part of the ocean The stars high above , part of the sky Now I drift to you , I dream of a river All waters are blue , Wish I could live in , Wish you were here ...
(For I'll always be with you,in spirit...and you'll know it when I tickle your beautiful ear-lobes..in Nirvana.
-added by danny-)
..............
Like the air that I breath , you`ll always be there The winds that I need , when I wanna fly Now I drift to you , I dream of a river All waters are blue , Wish I could live in , Wish you were here ...
Like waves to the shore , part of the ocean The stars high above , part of the sky Now I drift to you , I dream of a river All waters are blue , Wish I could live in , Wish you were here .....
(For I'll always be with you,in spirit...and you'll know it when I tickle your beautiful ear-lobes...in Nirvana.
-added by danny-)
"To us all towns are one, all men our kin. Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill. Man's pains and pains' relief are from within. Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !." - Tamil Poem-
(sorry..I have to respect the 3 times rule..too many videos went off,so I always post 3 so I have a chance to listen..hope you understand my superior wisdom muscle..kisses:))..if these 3 videos go away...then I shall consider the 5 videos rule...so far I stick with the 3 times rule..and I have a secret 10 videos rule ready to implement if they go nuts on youtube and block the videos..trust me..THUS SPOKENTH THE MAHAYOGI TO The salivating grasshoppers waiting for my new posts like the coyotes for a cheese pizza ..THE TRUE POWER IS IN YOURSELF!!..FIND IT!!.. What is the matter with you?..the same power in me is in you,but YOU must find it,GRASSHOPPER man and woman!..be brave,don't think for a second your abilities are worthless..LOOK WITHIN you,my beloveds...then..right there...hidden inside..you'll see my wisdom muscle..kisses:))
THE MASTERY
OF YOUR ATTENTION WILL COME
WHEN YOU WILL START SEEING the truth..
