With the typically limited perspective of the individual, it is very easy to feel isolated, alone, vulnerable, and insignificant. Surprisingly, perhaps, this sense of aloneness may be alleviated by significant expansion of awareness; expansion of one's individual consciousness.

By expanding the context in which one sees oneself - "one" being a person, a nation, a race, or a planet - one begins to perceive the "larger picture" of which one is a part.

Of course, when one commences this process, and begins to perceive one's "neighbors," as for instance, a young child becoming aware for the first time that he or she must actually share the world with "others," there may be certain, shall we say "uncomfortable adjustments" to be made in response to the enlarged view.

One may get along better with one's "yellow" neighbor, for example, or sibling, than with one's "magenta" neighbor. This may be taken as highly symbolic, and applies alike to children, as to tribes, nations, or other entities.

As one's view continues to expand, the picture becomes more complex. Not only does one find oneself surrounded by "neighbors," one's neighbors have neighbors as well; each, like oneself, with concerns, desires, objectives, agendas - not all of which seem to be consistent or in harmony with one another. In some instances, "colors clash," and it is difficult to see any positive outcome in the midst of these apparently chaotically jostling entities.

One may persist in this process of "consciousness expansion," yet despair of making sense of the evidently senseless, chaotic patterns one is able to encompass in one's expanding view.

Some have referred to this experience as "the dark night of the soul," wherein nothing seems to make sense, to go together, or to be capable of producing a satisfactory result for practically anyone - particularly for the one doing the "consciousness expansion."

Yet if one persists, and the process is allowed to unfold, one may have a glimpse, an impressionistic intimation, that perhaps there may be some hidden meaning in the evident chaos; there may be "method to the madness," if only one could enlarge the view, sharpen the focus just a little bit more.

If nothing else, this "fleeting glimpse" may provide some motivation for further effort toward expansion of consciousness....

Yes! There definitely seems to be some kind of pattern here - and "I" am somehow a part of it! See? Right there in the middle of it all: that little "reddish patch," where "my" journey "began."

Yet it is difficult to say at first exactly what the pattern is, or what its purpose may be. Still, there is the sense of some sort of "intelligent design" taking shape in the expanding view....

Or could this simply be a trick of my own expectations, earnest desire, or self-delusion? Could I be fooling myself? Is there a pattern here? Or isn't there?

"Perseverance furthers." Sure enough, there is definitely a pattern, miraculously emerging from the chaos. We are part of a purposeful design, after all. It only takes expanding the local view to "see" it. Aware, or unaware, we live surrounded by miracles....

Yet, we must enlarge our view, sharpen our focus still further, before we can quite make out "what it all means."

Nevertheless, our course is set. Our interest is engaged. There is a fascination and excitement to life which we were never able to perceive before, in our close-confining, self-centered local "event horizon."

The pattern comes clearer now, with each advance outward of our questing spirit. Even though "my" part in this huge and incomprehensible "whatever-it-is" seems diminished by comparison, yet I feel somehow profoundly enobled to see that I have a part in such an astonishing pattern at all, in such a magnificent and vast world and universe.

Behold! The larger my view, the more astounding becomes the world, universe, cosmos, in which I wonderingly find myself.

Somehow, incomprehensibly, I am here, embraced in a rich tapestry apparently without end. How came all this? And how came I to be in the midst of it? Both these questions elude my comprehension, yet link me with the Infinite. With the Infinite!

What might this mean - "the Infinite?"

I do not know; yet the expansion of my awareness continues....

Each succeeding frame doubles our "field of view"¹ of the symbolic panorama of which our expanding consciousness is becoming incrementally aware. As we step back from the canvass we had been observing from the "highly magnified" view of our local, personal perspective, we are able to observe a widening sweep of the ever enlarging context in which our "local view" had been placed.

And so, "my" significance (whoever "I" may be, or imagine "myself" to be), and the significance of the world "I" inhabit, change and clarify, from moment to moment.

It matters not what these images "signify." Depending upon how you or I imagine them, they may represent quantum fields, or galactic clusters, or anything between or beyond. They are symbolic, and they intuitively convey qualities anyone may observe and experience at any scale in the "real world."

That, anyway, is the intent of this metaphorical journey....

As I gaze back, as if from a great distance at my "point of departure," I am reminded of a quote from The Gaelic Manuscript:

"I would have you take a broad view for the once of what you might call the state of the world. A pessimist is a man who takes a narrow view of things, and if things are dark there is always the sure remedy of extending the horizon. If the extension be sufficient, you will inevitably come upon clear skies."²

Is this not so? How much of the "universe" we inhabit do you or I know and fully comprehend? We stand poised somewhere between the unimaginably minute and the unimaginably vast, and we have no comprehension of where the "limits," if any, may be in either of these "directions." Who are we, then, to become passionately absorbed, or elated or depressed, by what we imagine to be "causes" and "effects" in a context that quickly disappears over our local "event horizon," any direction we turn?

Here is another quote from Gaelic worthy of repetition:

"What you call disharmony," Gaelic said, "is merely partial achievement. Partial achievement is due, naturally, to deficiency in the instrument. For harmony itself is beautiful and complete. The creation of disharmony ... can result in the creation of nothing eternal for the reason that it is merely incompletion; and incompletion cannot exist for a longer time than it takes for some other creative intelligence to tune in upon, and bring to manifestation, the complementing vibration, the added proportion that will round out and complete the mold left by the other."

Gaelic continues:

"This is true of what you might even be tempted to call malevolent and evil creations. They are extreme examples of incompleteness. But they are, nevertheless, fragments of a harmonious entirety. They are ugly because they are partial. They will endure because they are truly products of creative intelligence, but they will not endure in their present form. Completed, they will be seen as the lesser curves of a beautiful whole. They will be completed only by the fuller contribution of more advanced and more able creative imaginations."³

Completed, even "evil," "ugliness," "darkness," and "despair" will be recognized "as the lesser curves of a beautiful whole. They will be completed only by the fuller contribution of more advanced and more able creative imaginations." In other words, by those with expanded consciousness, who are able to grasp the "larger picture," and appreciate how even "evil" and "ugliness" are actually "the lesser curves of a beautiful whole."

Remember "the dark night of the soul" earlier on, in which we were able to make no sense of the apparently chaotic hodge-podge of "clashing colors" and arbitrary juxtipositions? Where are they now, in the lofty view we have so far attained?

I would like to indulge here in yet another quote; this one attributed to First Source, or That Which Creates "All That Is."

"Imagine the furthest point in space - beneath a black portal, cast in some distant galaxy, and then multiply this distance by the highest numeric value you know. Congratulations, you have measured an atom of my body."

First Source continues:

"Do you realize how I am unfathomable? I am not what you can know, or see, or understand. I am outside comprehension. My vastness makes me invisible and unavoidable. There is nowhere you can be without me. My absence does not exist. It is this very nature that makes me unique. I am First Cause and Last Effect connected in an undivided chain."⁴

"There is nowhere you can be without me. My absence does not exist."

This is the One of which "you," and "I," whoever, wherever we may be, are "fragments," or "swirls" in the "undivided chain" that connects "First Cause and Last Effect." It is this "undivided chain" that links "me," and "you," and "he," and "she," and "them," and "us" with the Infinite. It is what binds us All together as One. I Am That. Thou Art That. One. Indivisible. Forever.

This is the "arch heresy" we have all been taught to deny by those who would control our lives. For those who fully comprehend their Oneness with "All That Is," and with That Which Creates, can be "governed" by no one but themselves. We are Cosmically Sovereign, and our Sovereignty is vouchsafed by That Which Creates us, and all else besides. "You shall know the Truth," declared the Nazarine, "and the Truth shall set you free."

With this realization, it becomes abundantly clear that "All That Is" is undeniably the commonwealth of all resident beings. Cosmos - "All That Is" - is to be shared among all that dwell therein, and is the "exclusive property" of none.

Of course, as one begins to examine and explore this realization (as for instance, a young child becoming aware for the first time that he or she must actually share the world with "others"), there may be certain "uncomfortable adjustments" to be made in response to the enlarged view.

All entities being Cosmically Sovereign, each is entitled to make his, her, or its choices, within the scope by Nature allotted to each; and for those with limited vision, or circumscribed awareness, some choices may include trespass upon the Sovereignty of one's peers. Persisting in such choices creates a condition of war, which is invariably destructive to the tapestry of Life, which in turn thrives only under conditions of peace.

In reality, "sharing the commonwealth" presses hardship upon no one, for the commonwealth is Infinite. There is no end to the sea of infinite abundance in which each Cosmic Resident floats, and by which each is saturated. We are constantly bathed in limitless potentiality; and as we step into the enlarged awareness our expanding consciousness brings into view, each of us learns how to bring into "local manifestation" our every desire, in peace and harmony with the desires of all our peers, and with "All That Is."

This is The Secret of Life, until recently almost entirely unknown among the human residents of an obscure planet named "Earth."

It's easy. There is, after all, only One here, notwithstanding the infinite variety of "faces" we present to "each other." We are here because each of us relishes the experience of Life, in its infinitely rich variety of color, texture, and form.

Our experience can be of "Heaven" or "Hell," depending simply upon our ability to "share the commonwealth" in peace and harmony with all our "other selves," our infinitely variable alternative manifestations of the indivisible One. "Sharing the commonwealth" is difficult only for those whose limited awareness fails to grasp the infinite abundance effortlessly available to all.

"Effortlessly available to all?" Well, in a manner of speaking. Nothing or very little arrives without some kind of "effort" by someone. Yet what is more joyful than making the creative effort to bring into manifestation something we truly value and desire? We are, after all, Creators. It is what we do; it is the source of our joy and abundance. It is what we Are: "Creators of Heaven and Earth." For, aware of it or not, we are One with That Which Creates. There is nothing else for us to be; nowhere else for us to "go."

The commonwealth consists of "all matter," "all energy," and "all creativity" within the precincts of "All That Is." It also includes anything "else" that may have been overlooked in this specification. It is, in a single word, "Everything." When we, human residents of the "obscure" planet Earth, learn to share it, freely, generously, abundantly, "no strings attached," we shall have "Heaven on Earth," without blemish or qualification. Simple.

"Well yes," someone might say, "simple, in concept. But how do we actually get there, from here?"

The "problem," or the "objection" that may occur to many may be put along the lines of, "How the heck do we get all those 'other' people - especially the ones who're trying (with apparently considerable success) to hog all the 'good stuff' for themselves, leaving only 'scraps' for the rest of us?" And it is evidently so that something around 99% of the "material wealth" on this planet is "owned" and/or "controlled" by 1% or less of the resident population. Or so it seems.

However: if you believe "their" wealth and power has anything to do with the condition of "your" life, then you still don't "get it" that the abundance directly available to you, at all times and places, is Infinite.

"We" don't have to take it away from "them" in order to have what we want. That's the pattern "we" and "they" have been playing out on this planet for uncounted thousands of years. Keep on doing what we've been doing, and we'll keep on getting what we've gotten. How do you like it so far? Want to do it some more?

No. The time has come for a different approach. It isn't "them;" it's "us;" it's "me," that needs to set a different course, if "I" want to arrive at a different destination. Each of us is Sovereign, and so bears responsibility, each for our own choices. No one can "do it" for anyone else. No one can choose for another.

All are One, and we share the commonwealth. This may involve releasing "ownership" of many things we've taken for granted as "right and properly ours" for generations on end: "other people," for instance, such as "wives," "husbands," "our own children," "employees;" material and immaterial things, such as land, so-called "intellectual property," ...many, many things....

Are these things we "should" release, say for the "common good?" No. Each of us is Sovereign. You decide what you "should" and "should not" do. However, your every decision, your every choice, is attatched to the consequences that follow from it - for "you," and for "All That Is." The two are the same, not different, not separate.

Any choice that appears to give "you" an "advantage" at the cost of a "disadvantage" for "someone else" is illusory. There is no one "else." Such choices damage "you" as well as the "other," for they damage the fabric of All Life; and this result holds no advantages for "you," or "me," or for anyone.

These truths have not been understood on this planet throughout the course of human history here. Had they been, we would have arranged our affairs far differently than we have done. When they are widely understood, and applied in practice, our planet will be unrecognizably transformed. Meanwhile, remember: "Do what you did; get what you got."

You may already have heard the story about the young man who sought out a "Guru," a "Master," and begged him for the secret to "enlightenment." Without a word, the Master beckoned his new disciple to follow him, and the two waded out to the middle of a nearby stream.

Abbruptly, the Master turned and seized his disciple by the neck and thrust his head beneath the water, and held it there.

The disciple struggled desperately to escape his Master's grip, and finally, purple-faced and soaking wet, broke free, gasping for breath.

Placidly, the Master asked his disciple, "What was the uppermost thought in your mind, your most urgent desire, just now?"

"To get to the surface and have a breath of air, of course!" gasped the disciple.

"When you desire enlightenment as urgently as you desired air just now," observed the Master, "you will not need to ask anyone to teach it to you."

What do you desire, dear Reader, as urgently as the disciple desired air? Do you desire Peace? Truth? Liberty? Love? Enlightenment? Or do you prefer undisturbed slumber?

Do you watch television? If so, does it bring you any of these things? Do you obediently buy all that you can afford of the alluring products you see advertised? Do you obey the commands and directives of your "leaders?" If so, does doing so bring you closer to fulfilling your desires, your dreams?

Do you have children? If so, do you send them to school? If so, do they return home to you enriched with Peace? Truth? Liberty? Love? Enlightenment?

There are no "right" or "wrong" answers to any of these questions, or to any number of others like them. They are not addressed, from "me" to "you." They are "none of my business," or for that matter, anyone else's. Only you are qualified to ask them of yourself, if you so choose, or to answer them.

Nevertheless, it still remains so: "Do what you did; get what you got."

Right now, as I write these words, what we've got, so it seems, is an undeclared, preemptive war, unilaterally waged by an unelected "leader," for dubious "reasons," in pursuance of unclear, ill-defined objectives, in flagrant disregard of the loudly stated dissent of overwhelming numbers of individual humans all over the Earth.

I say "so it seems," because this is what we are told through sources that deliberately lie, decieve, and withhold key information. So the alleged "War on Iraq" could be as fictitious as was Orson Welles's War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938; just as the events that occurred 11 September 2001 may be as bogus as was the Reichstag fire, engineered by Adolf Hitler in 1933.

In any case, what we've got is a product of what we've done, and whatever its "ill-defined objectives" may turn out to be in detail, it is clear enough that they have to do with perpetuating and expanding a system of proprietary claims upon the commonwealth by a self-appointed "elite aristocracy" of bloodthirsty pirates.

Very well. What we've done, in the past, is to "buy into" this system which "fences off" large sections of the commonwialth for the exclusive proprietary use of some, and in exclusion of others. This is what "nations" are, and "borders," and "ports of entry," and "customs inspections." It also includes, but is by no means limited to "real estate" and "private land."

Every one of these "venerable institutions" is a product, ultimately, of war, for no one puts up a fence, or maintains a "national frontier," without an army at his back, one way or another, regardless how "peaceful" the scene may appear. The rogue regime wrecking havoc upon Iraq is only pursuing the same policy on a grander, more violent scale now than usual; yet even this has abundant precedent. It is simply "business as usual" among humankind.

These "unpalatable truths" could hardly be thought, let alone spoken, only a few days or weeks ago. Yet today the entire human race stand in dismay before a horror that could quickly engulf the entire planet. We are like the submerged disciple, struggling for air.

Or are we?

The question of the hour is, "How desperate are we, humans on planet Earth, for Peace? For Truth? For Liberty? For Love? For Enlightenment?" Are we desperate enough to share the commonwealth? I mean, really share it? Tear down our fences? Dismantle our borders? Reforge our swords into plowshares?

How much is enough of "business as usual?"

Myself, I'd had enough of it in 1989, when I deserted a comfortable and prosperous career in exchange for an entirely uncertain future "off the grid." It hasn't been an easy course, I haven't always made the wisest decisions, and my future is no more certain today than it was 13 years ago. At least I've enjoyed the luxury of being able to sever my ties with "business as usual" in a leisurely, unhurried fashion; although I have frequently been fooled by the habitual judgment that measures "success" against one's paycheck. In my more lucid moments, however, it is clear to me that many who earn far more than I do, or ever have, are far less successful than I am at spending their time as they themselves, not others, desire and intend.

This is not to brag about my own accomplishments. However I can state "authoritatively" that it is possible, and indeed easier than most people might suppose, to walk entirely away from "business as usual," into an uncertain future, and "prosper" - particularly if you don't attach a "dollar amount" to the word, "prosper."

What is the "dollar value" of being able to spend your time creating what is in your heart and soul, and sharing it freely, like a flower in a mountain meadow, mindless of whether anyone else "appreciates" it, or "buys" it, or even sees it, or not? That is what I do. It is how I share the commonwealth of my own creativity: as a flower does, in a mountain meadow.

These are my choices, and have at most only tangential relevance to the choices of anyone else. I do what I do for reasons that are meaningful to me. Everyone is entitled to the same prerogative, and it is not for me, or anyone, to say what the choices of another "should" be. I share these personal details only to illustrate from experience that it is possible to disengage from "business as usual," should it be anyone's choice or desire to do so. There are alternatives.

Now we shall see whether humanity at large is desperate enough for Peace, Truth, Liberty, Love, and Enlightenment to turn our backs upon war, lies, slavery, hatred, and ignorance. "Do what you did; get what you got."

The astute Reader will doubtless long before this have recognized the accompanying illustrations as explorations of a minute fraction of the Mandelbrot Set, discovered by Benoit Mandelbrot at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Westchester County, New York.

The Mandelbrot Set is a mathematical geometric shape of virtually unimaginable complexity. It is "real," in the sense that it may be reproduced and explored by anyone with computational access to the "complex plane," and as such it provides apt symbolic imagery which in some ways mimics the complexity and richness to be found in the "real world."

By way of closing the circle on this discussion, and bringing it to some sort of a "tidy conclusion," imagine, if you will, the Mandelbrot Set as symbolically representing "All That Is;" or if you prefer, "First Source," or "God," or "the sum of creation and creativity in all imaginable and unimaginable universes." It represents (if you imagine it so) both the Source and Substance of "All Things." Nothing that exists is excluded from its totality; everything that is is to be found somewhere within its precincts.

We are here invoking a symbol for Divine and "Meta-Cosmic" Unity, embodying "All Things." There is only One of That, Which Is without peer or parallel (although, as you may have noticed in passing, the figure is repeated in mineature countless times within itself).

By definition, everything that "ever has, does now, or will ever" exist, is somehow embodied within That which we are here imagining the Mandelbrot Set as representing in symbolic form. In That, as we have repeatedly observed, "All are One." That is the One with which, aware or unaware, I Am, and You Are also One; for nothing, including "me," or "you," can possibly be excluded from That.

Psychologist Carl Jung had inscribed in marble over the front door of his home in Basil, Switzerland, "VOCATUS ATQVE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT," "Bidden or unbidden, God is present." Or in other words, "There is nowhere you can be without me. My absence does not exist."

Now, if you will, imagine yourself being That, experiencing That. "Thou Art That" already; yet your experience, is it not? is of being "just you," the human individual. Imagine instead, having the experience of being the Totality.

Represented symbolically as the Mandelbrot Set, you experience the full length of every tributary, every spiral, star, and convoluted curve in the entire figure. As That, you have the experience of every being that "ever has, does now, or ever will" exist, anywhere. Nothing ever happens that you do not know about, and experience fully and directly. There is nothing you do not know or comprehend fully and completely. There is no place without you. Your absence does not exist.

Under such circumstances, what would you do? There is nowhere for you to go, for you are already there; no questions to ask, for you already know all the answers; no one new to meet, for you have already met everyone; you already are everyone.

Do you think you might like to "get away for a little adventure somewhere?" How would you go about it? Where would you go? What would you do?

What if you were to make yourself very, very "small," and deliberately "forget" almost everything you know - including in particular, your real identity as That - and animate the biological body of a newborn infant?

You would then have the experience of being born into a family, and raised in accordance with your "parents'" beliefs about their world. You would experience the challenge of attempting, if you so choose, and possibly even succeding, in making sense of it all, and, eventurally, of rediscovering your identity as That.

That would be an adventure worthy of your creative ingenuity, don't you think so? Can you be sure this, or something very like it, isn't exactly what you have in fact done? Isn't in fact what You do all the time? Interesting thought, yes? "Thou Art That."

With the limited perspective of a single individual, it might be very easy for you to feel isolated, alone, vulnerable, and insignificant. You might discover, however, that this sense of aloneness may be alleviated by significant expansion of your local awareness; of your individual consciousness.

By expanding the context in which you see yourself you may begin to perceive the "larger picture" of which you are a part.

Of course, when you commence this process, and as a young child become aware for the first time that you must actually share the world with "others," there may be certain, shall we say "uncomfortable adjustments" to be made in your response to your enlarged view.

You may find you get along better with your "yellow" neighbor, for example, or sibling, than with your "magenta" neighbor. This is highly symbolic, of course, but you get the idea....

And so it goes... "As above, so below. As below, so above."

This time through, You may make the choice of doing it differently; and experiencing a different kind of world, a different kind of life, than has been common until now, on an obscure planet named "Earth." Perhaps this time, You will choose to Share the Commonwealth.