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The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers,
which was available to all those who subscribed to the
printed magazine, International Viewpoints.
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World without end
by Phil Spickler
15 Jan 1999

The following does not reflect the views of anyone in particular, nor
should it constitute any sense of endorsement by the issuing
authority.

A strangled greeting to any and all who have picked up this feeble
message at the low end of their single-sideband sets -- must have
taken one hell of a bounce off the ionosphere.  (Please ignore --just
the ramblings of a former radio-telephone operator, license long
expired.)  But let's get down to business.

First off, having unexpectedly surfaced through the many green-black
layers of the tarn whose bottom constitutes my winter home, what to
my dim eyes should appear but a vast ray of brilliant light, none
other than Frank Gordon himself, and at his very, very best. What
Frank had to say about things in general, including some marvelous
commentary regarding the single submission to the Unpopular Contest,
completely summed up and rendered succinctly, in one simple question,
"Are you aberrated enough to have a full and rich life?", the very
essence of everything I have ever hoped to say about anything.  24
hours later my poor body is still being wracked with waves of
laughter, in fact it has reached the point where each of the billions
of individual cells in the body are laughing as if they were each an
individual consciousness (talk about a composite!).  This humor has
reached the point where I fear it could unbalance the ratio of misery
to happiness that is so necessary for life here on our marvelous
little dirtball.  Anyhow, thank you, Frank --- thank you very much!
Things will never be the same, thank goodness. If the contest hadn't
been cancelled, Frank surely would have won two prizes: first, the
most unpopular, and second, expanding the contest into two parts, the
most popular -- and to think that he did it with so few words.  Ah
well, as someone once said, real wisdom is simple.

And now, on to a few other ramblings and rumblings, between
belly-cracking bouts of laughter.  This should be entitled "Dead men
tell no tales, or, Nature abhors a Clear."

For about the last 2500 years, ever since someone is reputed to have
seen the morning star, after which and sometime later others referred
to this chap as "Buddha," (this last will probably cause my dear
buddy, Max Sandor, to take me to task, but since he knows it's all in
fun, he may only slice me up gently) -- anyway, as the centuries have
gone by, it has been noticed over and over again that something seems
to be possible for human beings that, when it occurs, they no longer
seem to be human beings.  Oh yes, there's still a body and stuff like
that, but they don't really look like or sound like or talk like or
act like regular human beings, and this state may last anywheres from
a few moments to -- well, I don't know for sure just what the record
is, but it could be quite awhile, maybe even as long as the remaining
life of the body -- I just don't know.  Anyhow, mention of this state
has been found in all kinds of past and present practices; some
people even seem to run into it when they're not practicing, say just
walking down the road or playing bridge or hearing a symphony or
seeing an incredible sunset, or scratching one's navel.

My own perceptions and experiences regarding this state, which goes
by many different names, depending on just where in the world you are
and what particular vehicle you may be using to get there, are that
said state has a profound effect upon what a person has been calling
"I" just before this thing happens.  At the time this thing happens,
that "I," for all intents and purposes, ceases to exist.  In fact, if
you want to get a bit rustic in your speech, you could say it's dead,
or it died, and something else that perhaps has been dead is reborn.
And as the song goes, the glow of its being outshines every star.

Now here's the rub: if you wish to continue this state, you will be
outside the game of Life and all its survival concerns, which will
have most of the people that knew you before this rebirth, as well as
other dynamics that you're connected to, feeling as though they have
lost you and all the agreements and plans and purposes you've been
sharing in.  Some of them, in fact, might get really bent out of
shape and feel betrayed, as people often feel when the folks they've
been counting on suddenly die.  On the other hand, if you make the
mistake of thinking that you can go back into the game with all the
survival necessities and the time track and at the same time maintain
the state of perfect clarity, you will sooner or later find out that
being Clear and aberrated at the same time are mutually exclusive.
And if you haven't listened to the earlier admonishments of older
wisdom schools, you'll probably wake up one day and decide that
something's terribly wrong, and that you had better get to the
nearest repair center as soon as possible in an effort to
rehabilitate or recover this wonderful state.           Just what is
the admonishment of the earlier and wiser heads concerning states
with names like "satori," "samadhi," "Clear," "grace,"
"illumination," etc., etc., etc.?  Let's take a note from Zen, just
for example: "Very, very good!  Now get out there and hoe those
beans!"  Or "If you see the Buddha, kill him."  In other words, if
you reach one of these states without having been pre-programmed by
some individual or organization to believe that you're always
supposed to be that way from now on, no effort is made to become
attached to that or any other state of mind, and therefore one really
is free and is not always running around looking into the mirror to
see if they're Clear or OT or something each day, and then if they
don't meet somebody's standard for the way they're supposed to be,
they go out the bottom and become victims of the further marketing of
the repair stations.

So tear up those OT certificates and throw your Clear bracelet away
and extrovert out of that nonsense and remain unattached and
unattracted to any of it.  You'll probably find all kinds of
marvelous highs along the way that can be thoroughly enjoyed, but
never possessed.  Now we're talking about real freedom -- no name, no
title.

As those last words slipped from my rotting brain and poured out
through my diseased mouth and polluted the airwaves, my body once
again executed an imperfect three-and-a-half off the 10-meter
platform, with an entry vertical enough to take me once again to the
bottom of the tarn and my deep, dark sleep. -- The Stillness