Who needs to change? Is it us or them? What if it is us and them will follow suit? Dare we move beyond our intellectualized philosophical arrogance and enter a state of purity..."ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now," Bob Dylan sings.

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"Ah, but I was so much older then,

I'm younger than that now."

-Bob Dylan

I find it interesting in our intellectual, philosophical and religious arrogance how we, including myself, are attached to and will defend an idea of reality. We get into arguments with others and feel we just have to defend our point of view.   This is because we see or believe something and determine it an objective fact.   Meanwhile, we point our high powered radio telescopes into the wider universe and determine it an objective reality.   But, is it really?

I have been in various discussion groups on the internet.   And, I have written several pieces where people get to comment.   This is an enriching experience for it makes me question.   Many times I find myself confronted with my not truly following my deepest Truth, and that is, anything that can be said about reality is false.   This means letting go of attachment to any of the ideas I present.   Yes, there are times when I am wise.   In my Sophia's Web: Reclaiming Wholeness in a Divided World, I literally say to the reader, "don't believe anything I say."

Yet, I don't make that philosophy fundamentally clear all the time.

A few spiritual people of the various faiths often talk of non-attachment.   Non-attachment in this day and age is very difficult.   Indeed, it is often deemed that there is something drastically wrong with someone who is not attached to a philosophy, creed, scientific theory, religious theology, or political ideology.   It is also difficult to write and speak without it sounding as if one is attached to a particular philosophy, creed, theology, belief and so on.   Yet what are these other than hot air emanating from someone's mouth?  

I too am full of hot air.   I sometimes will say that Consciousness is primary, for example, and will wind up in a debate about this issue.   Yet, I also know that this is a fallacy, for Matter also is primary.   Indeed, when Genesis 1:2 of the Bible states, "and the Earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep (female Tehom)," I think of Matter.   This verse then says, "and the Spirit (Ruach) moved out over the face of the Waters (Tehom)."   Sometimes the Spirit is referred to as Wind or Breath and has been linked to Sophia, or Wisdom.   It is after this movement that a Voice (the Word) speaks the infamous "Let there be" lines.   At this time, there occurs a differentiation of matter (i.e., the Waters) beginning with a division of the upper and lower waters (symbolized in the Hebrew Aleph (see below)) and from there divides exponentially into the multiplicity we have today.

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This division mirrors the actions of a fertilized egg first dividing into two and then becoming multiple cells that ultimately become a human being.

So is matter primary and consciousness secondary?   Or are they not two, like water and wetness?   What drives the sperm towards the egg?   Is he like salmon swimming upstream to spawn, returning, as it were, to his source of origin?   Is this forever locked in his memory?   Is our beginning also known in our gazing into the starry night remembering the home we have always inhabited and will always be part of?   Can we continue to divide consciousness and matter?

Perhaps there is no answer for how can you say consciousness is primary to the presentation of matter.   If you have no consciousness, you are presumably dead.   Yet, your body at death has a programmed way of deteriorating and becoming compost for the soil (given you don't put yourself in a box, i.e., coffin).   Death is a living and intelligent process existing in relationship to everything else.   Furthermore, decaying matter, such as feces, works very well on gardens as do decaying plants.   Likewise, the decay of animals in the wild does wonders for the ecosystems.   Death is a living process that is intelligent if you define intelligent as being for the sake of the whole.   Just as Christ is said to die for the sake of all, so do you and so does the decaying tree in the forest.   This is why He, i.e., manifest life, is eaten and drank during communion.

But, even if you get past the notion of being matter, on a very deep atomic level, it is a no brainer to one who meditates that you are 99.999% empty space.   The relationship of your atoms to space is the same as stars to space that you see on clear nights above your head.   You truly are a living nothingness.  

So, to see yourself as eternal in this cosmos you don't have to follow any religious creed that places you into a heaven of some sort.   Just contemplate the heavens above and the earth below while getting past the conditioned repulsion of your disintegrating into the soils.   "Ashes to ashes and dust to dust" is a way of saying you are forever alive.   It doesn't diminish you.   It just means you are an integral part of the planet and the universe upon which you reside.   So, let go of yourself and embrace all.  

As much as you die to the Earth, I would also say you should die to theologies, theories, philosophies and points of view. As Lao Tzu says in the Tao Te Ching, "Be newborn, be free of yourself." Let go of your philosophies, dogmas, theories, and political orientations.   As Bob Dylan so beautifully sings in his "My Back Pages", "ah, I was so much older then, I "m younger than that now."   Become younger and enjoy the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4UcaLHaabY

Another one you may wish to ponder during this Holiday Season has much to do regarding the "Judge not lest ye be judged" commandment.   Dylan mimics this idea in "My Back Pages" when he sings, "fearing not I become my enemy in the instant that I preached."   Thus, as you contemplate becoming younger while regarding the 99% and the 1%, it may be wise to also view the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VqtmI16h8I&feature=gupl&context=G21ddf7dAUAAAAAAAAAA

To reinforce the message, point the finger at the screen and call me a name.   Now, look at your hand.   You have one finger pointed at the screen and three coming back at yourself.   Is this an accident of design?   You decide.   As you pit yourself up against anybody it may be wise for you to perform this exercise for if you don't, real change will never happen.

While we may look for change externally, it is best to change internally first.     

Authors Bio:
Burl Hall is a retired counselor who is living in a Senior Citizen Housing apartment. Burl has one book to his credit, titled "Sophia's Web: A Passionate Call to Heal our Wounded Nature." For more information, search the book on Amazon.

Burl's philosophy entails the idea that "everything effects and causes everything thing else." His spirituality of Sophia i.e., Wisdom is universal as well as within each of us. He also sees the idea of Chaos as not being "all over the place" but as infinite relationships.

The question I present in my articles speak not so much towards the politicians, but how WE the people can empower ourselves within a planet that is healthy, wealthy and wise.