08/12/97 8:27 PM Interesting listening to the music ecology themes in some of the more recent Dan Fogelberg music

songs played before but hadnt taken any notice of the lyrics what of the ecology movement? here I am in the middle of it yet unlike Dennis Neuhaus I am not here with the expressed purpose of healing or saving the planet I do not think it can be done to either sicken or heal to either threaten or save I believe nothing and I believe very passionately in nothing excuse me I know nothing and I very passionately know nothing I used to believe but I gave it up not very willingly it was a necessity sort of no choice about the matter Gave it up belief for knowledge knowledge that I know nothing or very little I came here for peace and quietness for freedom from distraction Lao Tsu is the one who wrote long ago that he does not think that we can improve the Universe that its perfect as it is that must mean that the current ecological crisis is within that perfection Ive always understood this statement of Lao Tsus to be the epitome of the teaching of non-interference the teaching of the Tao Te Ching seems to me to be centered on letting things be as they are yet we know that in the course of daily life we interfere by the shelters we build and the food we cultivate and eat and I dont think that the message of Taoism is at all a suicidal message it is in fact a life affirming teaching live and let live by minimizing our impact in essence it means moderation not suicide but balanced consumption thats in tune or does it actually set the tune of the current dangerous age? There seems to me to be a growing recognition that ecological damage (ecocide) is directly related to indulgence of physical

desire or over-consumption and its not just consumption of food if we over-consume food we get fat and it shows for all to see there are other types of over-indulgence energy is one thats not so obvious unless we know how to look up the energy accounts and its not just energy consumed at home for hot water for interior heating and cooling its also energy consumed for transportation how many miles do we drive why do we drive what do we drive being in tune with nature at a time like this means living sensitively there is every suggestion that we are in transition to a political and religious future based upon a system of ecological ethics bogus for the most part it appears to me to be recognized by the power hungry as a popular theme that can be used for political purposes to gain power and with that power accumulate wealth and over-consume those who feel it internally have no attraction to political power and no attraction to over-consumption only freedom attracts them and material well being is an aspect of the foundation on which freedom is experienced over-consumption enslaves I hear it in some of the music warnings about danger intimating an ecological collapse and that may well be on the horizon but it reminds me of the scare tactics of the Red Peril and the Yellow Peril and Nuclear Apocalypse which were manipulated for political purposes and have been proven by time to be nothing but lies even if there IS now a disaster about to happen My experience tells me that the Universe is in the process of awakening and always has been I beg to humbly differ from the distinguished and very wise Thomas Berry at least from what I perceive to be his understanding of the state of the Universe just beginning to awaken in the form of human consciousness This is true in a relative sense a relative sense in which the Universe is viewed within a thin time slice of its wholeness viewed in its wholeness the Universe is timeless a timeless process in which future past and present co-exist

simultaneously and that this state in which awakened consciousness is aware of timelessness and the simultaneity of past present and future is precisely what the Universe story is all about awakening from the finite state to the infinite and I have to credit Father Berry with having given to us the idea of the contributions of modern science to our new cosmology yet he has little to say in The Dream of The Earth -1988 ( a title with an amazing resemblance to Theodore Roszaks The Voice of the Earth, -1993/2/4? which itself is strikingly similar to my own Voice of Planet Earth which I envisoned in 1983/84 as the title of a daily column or a newspaper or some type of publication) about the most significant of the scientific truths of modern times and these are those of Einstein on relativity, simultaneity, energy-matter identity. So whats the point? The point is that in the evolution of consciousness there may occur an experience in which there is a direct and personal awakening from a finite state in time to an infinite state in which words begin to be less meaningful but not meaningless a timeless state a simultaneous state in which conscious future past and present is whole complete and co-existent so it seems to me that the view that the age of the twentieth and fast approaching twenty first century is an age in which the purpose of the Universe is being witnessed and born out in the emergence of an ecological consciousness is only a part of what we are It is what WE are that attracts our beings much more powerfully than a vision of the planet and its evolution or even the Universe and its twenty billion year evolution consciousness is actually even more vast than the physical universe we know this from direct experience we know that the region of consciousness which we associate with sensory perception is less than the whole of our perception

all this means is that we do perceive beyond sensory perception dreams hopes love need we go any further we are able to awaken our consciousness of a sixteen billion year process of material evolution and a four billion year process of Planet Earth Evolution Reading Thomas Berry awakens a consciousness of this awareness that is more vast than the physical Universe It is the nature of consciousness to awaken to its real nature original nature cosmic nature it happens by itself and needs no interference How beautiful Is it any wonder that the teachings of Buddhism relate to us a realm of consciousness that is entirely discontinuous with the consciousness of daily life - finite consciousness What is also amazing is that in the Buddhist tradition for more than two thousand years there has been a knowledge that the original nature is timeless and that our everyday finite consciousness is relative How did that fucker Einstein know