This is from The Word of One, ed. Sharpe & Cooke, Tarnhelm Press, Lakemont, GA 1975. This is what I call the revelation of the nameless one, for the source of these ouija readings (1962-63, Carmel, John Cooke, Rosalind Sharpe and others) never identified itself except as a silver dollar, which is literally true, since they used a homemade ouija, redrawn for each session, with a symbol in the middle. They used a silver dollar for the planchette.
There is ONE only, and you are it! And so am I, and so is every thing that has consciousness, including the soul of the rocks, trees and storms. Somehow the ONE gave rise to separate islands of consciousness, which we call souls. Somehow the ONE gave rise to mind and matter, and set the drama of the universe into motion. Mind, in turn gave rise to apparitional realities of the astral planes. But these are secondary realities, which will not exist forever. A spirit (mind+soul) may exist through countless incarnations, perhaps for millions of years, but it is not forever. The universe may last for billions of years, but someday it will come to an end, how I do not know. The only true and eternal reality is ONE. From it we came, and to it we will return.
This is a radical idea for modern Western scientific humankind. So how do we know it is true? I believe it because I have found so much else that is true in the Revelation of the Nameless One. It contains the new ecological ethics, saying "Thou shalt walk away from the pile of bones and return to the garden of Eden, where all animals are tame." In the Book of the Deliverer, it perfectly describes the Illumination of Fire and the path to it. This is worth explaining a little bit, because the path of meditation which I followed, and which is depicted in the Deliverer, is quite different from those schools of meditation which we have inherited from the ancient and decrepit cultures of the East. You will never reach the Illumination of Fire following the path of Buddhism or Hinduism as they exist today. So that is another radical idea, rejecting everything that is chic in today's New Age culture.
"The Deliverer is the name of the Book-Strength. Its meaning is: that which is to come to each...She is not the Deliverer---nor is he. The flame is." In the book of the Deliverer, a man stands in the flames and consumes a cup of flames, which inflames him from the inside. And, indeed, during the Illumination of Fire, I felt filled and surrounded by the orange light of fire, and I wondered for a moment if the building were on fire.
The illumination of fire is the supreme initiation, and in symbolism, initiation is indicated by serpents. There are serpents of fire forming the infinity sign overhead, and a large, golden, serpent with blue forked tongue faces the figures on stage right, emerging from a black box. The tongue is the main sense organ for serpents, and blue means renewal.
Let me give you more details of this book. A lion stands behind a seated woman facing us, in the nude. The lion's forepaws rest on her shoulders. She warms her hands at a cauldron of fire. A nude man, stage left from their point of view, holds a cup of fire with both hands and drinks, burning the grass around his feet, and lighting his center. The figures are serene and attractive. In the background is the ocean.
The ocean and the golden serpent represent other mystical states which one must find before one is ready for the Illumination of Fire. Thus, there is a path, in that some steps must be taken before others are possible. The golden serpent with the blue tongue represents nature mysticism, which opens and renews our inner senses, opening us to other mystical states. "Bathing in the waters" is another mystical state, an immersion in the collective unconscious of mankind. This is the root of genius. I was a natural mystic, like Richard Bucke. I followed this path because I enjoyed it, because it came natural, not because I was seeking mystical experience, or had even heard of such a thing.
The essence of this path is many years of solitude in nature, with work or some activity (it can be no more than walking) to keep the body occupied. The mind is then free to wander where it will. It is only when one has no worries, no problems to occupy the mind, and some monotonous task which can be done without attention--it is only then that the mind is free. And that is the essence of this path of meditation -- to free the mind to roam happily where it will, immersing itself in a trance-like state. I was fortunate in that no one ever squelched my day-dreaming. I could not get enough of it. Farm chores provided lots of it. I always preferred the most monotonous tasks, like plowing (with a tractor) or herding cows. But I wanted more, so I rode my bike around and round the farm yard, for hours in the summer heat. But no one stopped me. No one said "that's weird." For that I thank my parents, parents I chose for this and other reasons. I have heard this path called "carrying wood and water," as in the saying "before Enlightenment, carry wood and water; after Enlightenment, carry wood and water." Remember, this is the absolute opposite of all the popular forms of meditation imported from the East, all of which require concentrating on an image, or a mantra, or ones navel. The state of wood-and-water meditation is the very opposite of concentration. Don't forget that! This is all important.
Now suppose one wished to consciously follow this path to the Illumination of Fire, which reveals a pattern running through all things, the meaning of life, the Divine Purpose. Well, you have to seek solitude in nature, and lots of monotonous activities to keep the body occupied. Grinding corn for instance, to make flour for tortillas. Unfortunately, the kind of primitive farm I grew up on no longer exists, not even in the Third World.
One problem: how can you afford to leave the world behind, and live for years in the deserts or mountains without a job? It can be done, if one chooses to live on a sufficiently primitive level. Simplicity of life is not ascetism; it is merely the way we can buy our freedom from the economic and social system, and leave the world behind. That has always been the goal of the seeker. In what follows, I describe such a life of simplicity in a fictional format. And it naturally creates many meditation opportunities.
The leader speaks to the acolyte: "There are other Seekers about a mile up this spur. We'll let them know you are here. Someone should be down to visit you in a few days. You are set for a year."
The group soon departs. The acolyte is left alone. He begins to make an inventory of his meager possessions. 500 gallons of water, and one small dry cave. A solar stove, in sections. Two cotton robes, and two woolen robes, one pair of homemade boots, and one pair of homemade clogs (wooden soles and rope straps), plus materials to repair them. Plus the set of conventional backpacking clothes worn in, which he (or she) will wash and carefully pack away until the year is up. His food for a year consists in six bushels of corn, one of red beans, a bushel of soy beans, and a peck of mung beans. There is also a two gallon can of black strap molasses, a very long winding string of chilis, a five pound brick of tea, a one-gallon container of dried non-dairy creamer (his only source of fat), a pound of salt and a large jar of powdered snuff. There is one sack of limes and another of cabbages. These last two items will be occasionally replenished by visitors. It is considered polite to bring a sack of each when you visit a Seeker in the wilderness. Total cost for food, fifty dollars in Twentieth Century equivalents, more or less.
Inside the cave, hollowed out of rock, are a large stone metate with a smooth grinding stone, and a large stone mortar and pestle. Nestled together are a large stack of small plastic buckets, and another stack of nested lightweight steel pans. There are also empty five gallon buckets that were once grease buckets. They contain a roll of small trash sacks with twisties and rolls of toilet paper. The metal buckets have metal lids which can be dogged down. There are also a few empty one gallon plastic milk jugs with lids. His or her personal backpack contains all personal items, such as books and paper. Also a string hammock and a sleeping bag.
The day is early still, so he begins work on food preparation, though his own pack contains ready-to-eat food for several days. A Seeker spends much of his day on food preparation. It is good work-meditation. The Seeker takes two plastic buckets and pumps them full of water from one of the underground storage containers. From now on he is on water rationing, and he must monitor his usage carefully. It rains on average but once a year in the desert and it is September, so he cannot count on rain again for a year.
He first sets up his mung bean sprouter. Chinese bean sprouts are sprouted mung beans, and it will take several days to get his first crop. These are his principal source of C and B vitamins, once his limes and cabbages run out. He grinds up a small piece of limestone rock on the metate and adds it to water and a large double handful of corn in one of the plastic buckets. Corn is the staple food of the Seeker. In another bucket he puts a handful of red beans to soak. In another bucket, a handful of soy beans. The soy will be used to make tofu, and the red beans will be boiled and refried. It will be the following day before any of this will be ready. One of his plastic containers is oblong and shallow. He fills this with loose soil and plants his packet of Swiss Chard. This will be his only fresh vegetables for a year. This one time only he uses some of his precious fresh water on his "garden." Later on, the garden will get all waste water, after it has been used for as many purposes as possible.
Metal nuts have been inserted into the rocks outside, though you would have to look closely to see them. To these he screws hooks, which will support his hammock. For much of the year, he can sleep out-of-doors, though in winter it can get quite cold in the desert. He also unpacks his solar stove. This is a double parabola, with a black tube at the focus. The solar stove is a long trough-like apparatus, with a table-like extension to the black tube at one end. Once heated up, molten sodium flows through the apparatus, heating the cooking surface. He puts on a teakettle. There should be just enough sunlight left to make a pot of tea.
After a few days, his routine is something like this. He gets up at dawn, goes to the toilet (nothing more than an area of sand some distance away, where everything is carefully buried), and makes a cold breakfast of tofu, corn mash grits, bean sprouts and lime juice. He will probably also have some cold polenta with molasses. He dips his bean sprouts, which he will do several times a day, takes his corn out of soak and mashes it into grits in the mortar. He then spreads it out to dry. Some of it he adds to his sour mash, his chief source of vitamin B-12 (also occasionally of small amounts of grain alcohol, used to preserve various desert medicinals). Then he goes for a long walk.
An hour or so later, when the sun is high enough, he will make some tea, and begin to make tofu. The soaked soy beans are mashed up and boiled. The resulting soy milk is then curdled with lime juice and allowed to set. The red beans are put on the solar stove to boil and he begins to grind corn flour on the metate. After several hours work, he has ground a prodigious pile of fine corn flour, some of which is used to make tortillas. It is now about noon, time for the principal meal. He first cooks up an enormous pile of tortillas, then mashes and refries the red beans. He soaks one of the chilis in hot water, and mashes it up to make a fiery hot sauce. Now dinner is served. Some might find it monotonous. It mostly consists in many bean-mash and bean sprout enchiladas, flavored with hot sauce. The corn and beans complement one another in their amino acids to provide complete protein, complex carbohydrates and very little fat. Perhaps he will also have some cubes of tofu lightly fried. And perhaps he will have a bowl of corn meal mush with creamer. A few minutes cooking of corn meal and salt is sufficient to make the make the mush. A little non-dairy creamer in water produces a rich "milk."
The evening meal will be much the same, except that he will also cook up a large pan of polenta and make some ginger and cabbage soup, as long as he has cabbages and ginger. Once his Swiss chard is producing well he may occasionally have a small salad, flavored with lime juice and herbs from the desert. Or perhaps a small mess of greens.
His mineral requirements are slight. The tofu provides calcium, the molasses provides various trace minerals such as copper and selenium, and cooking on an iron griddle provides traces of iron. A man will lose almost no iron, except from bleeding. In fact, a man can easily develop a toxic buildup of iron if he takes those all-in-one supplements. So he doesn't. Too expensive, anyway. Women Seekers may bring a small bottle of iron supplement pills, taken occasionally. An adult not engaged in heavy manual labor in the hot sun can survive quite well on a pound of solid dry food and a gallon of water a day. He requires no refrigerator or freezer. Dry grain and beans will keep quite well for a year if kept dry and away from rodents and weevils. That is the purpose of the grease cans. Bulk grain and beans also have the virtue of being incredibly cheap if one pays the commodity prices which farmers receive. Indeed, it is this which makes it possible for a Seeker to "live on nothing," without working and without begging. Any American can come up with fifty dollars a year for an indefinite number of years.
The frugal life of the Seeker buys him time and solitude in nature, and freedom from the worries and responsibilities of civilization. It is true that he spends many hours a day in monotonous and repetitious work required by his food preparation. But this is perfect for inducing the meditative state of mind which begins with day-dreaming and ends in oceanic consciousness, one of the ten mystical states. Being alone, away from the rattle and noise of technology and towns, he is free to immerse himself in nature. And nature in the desert is quite fascinating, with a varied plant and animal life and a very clear atmosphere. Far from cities, the night time sky is brilliant.
He also has his exercises designed to develop wizard powers. This is a full time job (but not one that pays well!), so the life of the Seeker buys him the time to practice. There is also study and even conversation. His solitude is not complete. There are caves all through these mountains, and for each there is a small watershed which has been tapped for a 500 gallon water supply. Every mile or so, there may be found Seekers, both men and women. And they do visit one another, and congregate periodically. Seekers are not required to be celibate, nor are they required to abstain from alcohol, tobacco, peyote, jimson weed or magic mushrooms. Not that such use is encouraged. Most Seekers are naturally abstemious and some are even celibate. It all depends on what they are trying to accomplish. The apparent asceticism of their life is merely a consequence of the simple life, not an end in itself. It is the way they buy freedom and time.
Since the desert Seekers never take baths or do laundry, you might imagine that they would smell! Not so, however. They sponge bath with a wash cloth once a day and after performing the necessary ablutions. Seekers alternate robes each day, shaking the other one out and leaving it to air out on a line. With a little caution, one can stay clean without taking baths or doing laundry, which are not forbidden, of course, but merely impractical given the water rationing. Some Seekers begin their period of solitude by cutting off all their hair, so shampoo is not required. Occasional clipping will keep it short. This is simply done to save water.
Some Seekers find power and wisdom, through practice, meditation, and mystical experience. Some return to the world as an accomplished Deliverer. But most love the desert life so much that it is hard for them to leave. In some cases, the power and wisdom of such individuals becomes so great that the world comes to them, rather than vice versa.
There are others who never take up the life of the Seeker full time, but escape to the desert now and then, for a month or so, just to refresh their senses and revitalize their energies. Others find their mission in life to be the pack mules and cave diggers and cistern builders, who make it possible for Seekers to live on nothing.
Once the Seeker experiences the beauty of an absolutely unspoiled landscape and the joy of a rich inner life, he can only pity the poor city dweller and his life of noise and confusion, trapped in the rat-race, surrounded by the mass produced thoughts and entertainments pandered by those of low thought and brutalized spirit.
No one could have predicted such a development in the hi-tech world of the Twentieth Century, but these desert hermits are increasingly regarded as the leading edge of mankind, the most advanced and creative souls on the planet. Odd to think that their freedom from things was once regarded as a perverse sort of self-denial. They have merely learned that possessions possess their possessors. Most people work for their things; the things do not work for them.
Now the scene shifts. It is night and winter in the city. We enter a large building at the outskirts of town, with a magnificent view towards some distant mountains. It is a building that seems to turn its back on the works of man, with its high stone walls without windows facing the city, and its darkness. For there are no electric lights in or about this building. Inside, in the great hall, a roaring wood fire crackles in a huge fireplace. Around on rugs or crude wooden furniture are many of the inhabitants, laughing and talking. There are tapestries on the walls, and curtains over stairway doors and hallways, to cut down on drafts. It is all very medieval looking, for there are no signs of modern technology, in the building or on the inhabitants, who are all dressed in long and loose woolen cloaks and felt slippers. You are given such attire when you enter the mandalium on a visit or a retreat. The only heat is the single fireplace in the great hall, and charcoal braziers people carry to their cells. Yes, that is how they refer to the rooms given to guests and permanent residents alike. They are small rooms, with hand-hewn wooden furniture, a kerosene lamp, and a hammock. They are not unlike the caves of the Seekers in size and furnishing. The building is set around a courtyard with fountains, trees and gardens. It is a lovely place in summer, but winter is when you can catch the Seekers at home. For this is where they live, in places like this, when they are not up in the hills or out on the desert. And when Seekers travel from city to city, they stay in the local mandalium. Not that a Seeker is forbidden to ride in a vehicle or enjoy modern conveniences if they wish. The austerity of this place is freely chosen, to stay close to nature and its moods. Everything is stone and ceramic tile in this place. The furniture (what little there is of it) is massive and unpadded. It is all built for the ages, and constructed by hand from green wood, patiently carved in the old way out of logs cut by the carver.
Visitors are always welcome. Visitors prepare their own food, and the food is the same that Seekers eat in their caves and desert camps. This is no hotel, but it is a kind of refuge, a quiet and contemplative place, with a rule of silence. The rule is that you do not disturb the reverie of another unless he or she indicates that you may do so. Here is where you come if you are interested in the wisdom or power of the Seekers. While they will never interfere in the evolution of another, and never offer advice or information unasked, they are always willing to share what they have, and help those in need, if they believe that is consistent with the evolution of the one in need.
In the winter there are often "mandala concerts." Seekers and guests alike may create mandala music, dance, poetry, drama, masks and costumes, and mandala painting. This is not done for an audience. All must participate. It is because of the mandala sessions that this place is called a mandalium. It is contrary to new age morality to impose a belief on another, so there is nothing here that quite corresponds to the classes of universities, the services and sermons of religion, or the guru and his flock of disciples. Still, this seems a holy place, full of learning, and visitors leave feeling renewed.
Copyright © Dr.H 2001
Home