THE HEART – DOORWAY TO THE MYSTICAL

WHO AM I?

“Some say the heart is just like a wheel, if you bend it, you just can’t mend it.” Some say the heart is just like the sun, brightly raying and enthusiastic. Some say the heart is just like a young girl doing cartwheels across the lawn on a spring evening. Some say the heart is just like a fist, clenched tight, pounding on the chest, ready to strike. Some say the heart is like an infant ready to be born, tender, vulnerable, open to the future. Some say the heart is like a prisoner in lock-down, in seclusion shouting all night. Some say the heart is two halves, two palms outstretched to receive, open like an empty skull.

 

WHY IS THE HEART HERE?

Some say the heart is here to be a mechanical pump. Some say it is here to break and ache in youthful rawness. Some say the heart is the foot-warmer of the gods, to create naive enthusiasm for the cold, cold heavens. Some say the heart is to warm others with generosity. Some say the heart is here to touch and be touched with tenderness. Some say the heart is here to create joy, to hold the delicate place where all creativity begins.

Some say the heart is the place which knows rather than thinks. Some say the heart is predatory, cold, hard and lusting – the home of broken promises. Some say the heart bears our sorrows. Some say the heart is the place where our blood runs cold with fear and dread. The place of anger, rage, blame and retribution. The heart shows no mercy to the eyes.

 

WHAT DOES THE HEART WANT?

The heart wants to rhythmically give and take in what is called loving mutuality. The heart sends you on journeys which your brain never could have imagined. The heart weaves a web of mutuality to others including your enemies. The heart wants the pride of ownership of your share of the world but, once possessed the heart seeks humility and, wants you to guard against lust and vanity. In this way, the heart wants you to sacrifice yourself for yourself and for your brothers and sisters ruthlessly.

The heart wants you to experience the eternal moment between systole and diastole which is the doorway to the mystical.

 

© Copyright 2014, Jean W. Yeager

All Rights Reserved

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WHY DO WE TOLERATE THE PUBLIC LIE?

WHO AM I?

   Who understands the source of their beliefs? Do the people who are supporting the different candidates know the source of their own beliefs? If so, are they willing to say that the candidates who utter the Public Lie are saying things they themselves stand for. If not, then why do we tolerate the Public Lie? 

   When lying with impunity or ad hominem becomes the status quo for those who would become President of our United States, then this leads to the situation where there are various “camps of believers” who support candidates and their Lies. Or, perhaps worse, people support candidates without knowing why they are supporting them. These then become hierarchies which influence the candidates. These camps of believers remain separate and quite distinct from one another. In the end, is our country no longer sustaining the ideal of being a “melting pot”? Has this also become a Public Lie? Are we now armed camps which rail against each other and even seek to promote their group's safety with gated communities, militia or guards to protect ourselves from ourselves?

    Young black men in inner cities arm themselves in order to protect themselves. Where are the Peace Keepers?

    Is our country now a Lie? This was the case in Ancient Greece where the family (okios) was the prime force. Today, we can see that our citizens are strongly in favor of families. In this election we have the Clintons, the Bushes. Coincidence? Family’s represent one motive force within our nation which feels good, safe, protected by families. Have we simply become tolerant of these old forces and have come to tolerate them because we are too lazy or too busy for any alternative? But, it is a Public Lie. Our country was created as a revolution against monarchy or the family rule.

    We once rebelled against monarchy, family, okios. The family of the monarch was considered to be an extension of the gods. These families were ordering their societies, were elites, had way more money and properties, possessions, castles and towers named after themselves. Oh yes, they thus kept citizens from shooting one another by keeping soldiers under their family command (before ”law enforcement”). 

What replaced okios rule was rule of law. Law was above families - "under law". The idea was once that each person was equal before the law and the laws were enforced on all equally.  Black Lives Matter, all lives matter, under rule of law and not families, each person is equal before the law. Not corporations. Corporations were not people. The Public Lie today is that there are forces working against the rule of law and the individual. We have seen many recent killings of black people. We have seen corporations killing democracy. Public Lies which now seem to be above the law. We are tolerating this for how long?

WHY AM I HERE?

  I bring you Polis! Polis is the opposing approach to life to okios, corporatism and oligarchy.  In ancient Greece, the Polis came to be seen as the opposing philosophical construct to okios – family, monarchy, centralized wealth. Laws were thought to be transcendent ideals which were above all families, gangs, corporations or countries. Humans gained access to laws through groupings such as representatives which were truly representative of people – human beings-  rather than being rather than corporations (okinos groups) technologically groups or economically “bought” – financial okinos groups.

   Vaclav Havel, a revolutionary in Czechoslovakia during that country’s recent Soviet/totalitarian era, wrote an essay during the time of the totalitarian state entitled “Power To The Powerless”. We should read that. In that essay Havel, who after being released from prison after the “Velvet Revolution” became President, described a parallel polis during the time of totalitarianism. One polis was the State which was based on wealth and power. The parallel polis was based on powerless human-to-human relationships. We have a parallel polis in our country, too.

It seems that today we have an interesting   mirror image of the totalitarian state of Havel’s time where we have an uber-Capitalistic, greedy 10% dominating 90%. In his lecture. Havel actually describes this capitalist / totalitarian mirroring. Each has a different form of Public Lie. Totalitarian states today continue to tolerate leaders lying with impunity, and so perhaps, our current experience is preparing us for a time when honesty is no longer a requirement for governance.

If the state becomes a Lie, then are Liars the best to govern?

WHAT DO I WANT?

   The shadow side of the polis is also something with which we are experiencing. It is a different version of the Public Lie. It is when the leader is leading a public which no longer feels it can do anything if the leader is lying. The leader can then freely speak the Lie. There is no notice. There is a mass psychosis.  Here’s how it is done: “Truth” is now created with forceful argument rather than reasoned argument. Those with great wealth appear to be the ones who are “believed” – even when they speak blatant untruths.

    One of the most memorable examples of this was Donald Rumsfeld who said (regarding the lack of evidence of WMDs in Iraq): 

"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.” 

    Such circular statements should begin to test the inner strength of citizens. The game was rigged.  We allowed those in power to continue to rule. The world has become a worse place, tens of thousands of Iraqis suffered and died and U.S. troops died because of the Public Lie. It is a Public Lie some would like us to repeat if given the power and feel they can repeat.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character give him power. ~Abraham Lincoln

The situation today seems to beg us to become “judgmental”. We do not need citizens being judgmental and driven by power and emotion.  What we need is to form judgments, seek Truth outside of our silos. The first step is to know that you don’t know. That we have come to live in silos. That leaders have tried to isolate us from one another as they sought to prove their families are experienced and know what to do. However, their solutions to all problems are to let them lead again.

Here’s what the poet Rilke said:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart 
and try to love the questions themselves
Like locked rooms and like books 
that are written in a very foreign tongue. 
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you 
because you would not be able to live them. 
And the point is, to live everything. 
Live the questions now. 
Perhaps gradually, without noticing it, 
you will live along some distant day into the answer. 
~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

(c)Copyright 2015, Jean W. Yeager
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REMIX - “FACING KARMA” BY RUDOLF STEINER

A remix of wisdom from the past and the present – contemporary lyrics adding a dimension to the through-line message of Steiner’s lecture.

EXCERPTS FROM “FACING KARMA” A LECTURE BY RUDOLF STEINER

LYRICS BY: Paul Simon, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, The Band, Eric Clapton (“Cream”),  The Beatles, The Wallflowers. Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Petty.

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THE BOY IN THE BUBBLE – PAUL SIMON

http://www.paulsimon.com/us/music/paul-simons-concert-park-august-15-1991/boy-bubble

“The Boy In The Bubble”

It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shopwindows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long-distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry.

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RUDOLF STEINER: 
Why do we need comfort, consolation in life? Because we may be sad about a number of events, or because we suffer as a result of pains that afflict us. It is natural that, at first, man reacts to pain as though he is rebelling inwardly against it. He wonders why he has to stand pain. “Why am I afflicted by this pain? Why is life not arranged for me in such a way that I don't suffer pain, that I am content?” These questions can only be answered satisfactorily on the basis of true knowledge concerning the nature of human karma, of human destiny. Why do we suffer in the world? We refer here to outer as well as to inner sufferings that arise in our psychic organization and leave us unfulfilled. Why are we met by such experiences that leave us unsatisfied? (6)

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REDEMPTION SONG – BOB MARLEY

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bobmarley/redemptionsong.html

"Redemption Song"

Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

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RUDOLF STEINER:

By far the greater part of our pain and suffering is sought by imperfections that we have brought over from previous incarnations. Since we have these imperfections within ourselves, there is a wiser man in us than we ourselves are who chooses the road to pain and suffering. (9)

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GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY – BOB DYLAN

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bobdylan/gottaservesomebody.htm

"Gotta Serve Somebody"

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

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RUDOLF STEINER:

It is, indeed, one of the golden rules of life that we all carry in us a wiser man than we ourselves are, a much wiser man. The one to whom we say, “I,” in ordinary life is less wise. If it was left to this less wise person in us to make a choice between pain and joy, he would undoubtedly choose the road toward joy. But the wiser man is the one who reigns in the depth of our unconscious and who remains inaccessible to ordinary consciousness. (9A)

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THE WEIGHT – THE BAND

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/band/theweight.html

"The Weight"

I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead
I just need some place where I can lay my head
"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"
He just grinned and shook my hand, "no" was all he said
Take a load off, Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off, Fanny
And (and) (and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

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RUDOLF STEINER:

He directs our gaze away from easy enjoyment and kindles in us a magic power that seeks the road of pain without our really knowing it. But what is meant by the words: Without really knowing it? They mean that the wiser man in us prevails over the less wise one. He always acts in such a way that our shortcomings are guided to our pains and he makes us suffer because with every inner and outer suffering we eliminate one of our faults and become transformed into something better. (9b)

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CROSSROADS – ERIC CLAPTON /. CREAM

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/cream/crossroads.html

"Crossroads"

I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.
Down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.
Asked the Lord above for mercy, "Save me if you please."
I went down to the crossroads, tried to flag a ride.
Down to the crossroads, tried to flag a ride.
Nobody seemed to know me, everybody passed me by.

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RUDOLF STEINER:

Little is accomplished if one tries to understand these words theoretically. Much more can be gained when one creates sacred moments in life during which one is willing to use all one's energy in an effort to fill one's soul with the living content of such words. Ordinary life, with all its work, pressure, commotion and duties provides little chance to do so. In this setting, it is not always possible to silence the less wise man in us. But when we create a sacred moment in life, short as it may be, then we can say, “I will put aside the transitory effects of life; I will view my sufferings in such a way that I feel how the wise man in me has been attracted by them with a magic power. (10)

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YESTERDAY – THE BEATLES

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/yesterday.html

"Yesterday"

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be
There's a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, I yesterday came suddenly
Why she had to go I don't know she wouldn't say
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday

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RUDOLF STEINER:

We may now move on to another step in our experience. The anthroposophist should be determined to take this other step only after he has comforted himself many times with regard to his sufferings in the way just described. The experience that may now be added consists of looking at one's joys and at everything that has occurred in life in the way of happiness. He who can face destiny without bias and as though he had himself wanted his sufferings, will find himself confronted by a strange reaction when he looks at his joy and happiness. He cannot face them in the same way that he faced his sufferings. It is easy to see how one can find comfort in suffering. He who does not believe this only has to expose himself to the experience.  (11)

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ONE HEADLIGHT – THE WALLFLOWERS

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/wallflowers/oneheadlight.html

"One Headlight"

So long ago, I don't remember when
That's when they say I lost my only friend
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery trees
I seen the sun comin' up at the funeral at dawn
The long broken arm of human law
Now it always seemed such a waste
She always had a pretty face
So I wondered how she hung around this place
[сhorus:]
Hey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There's got to be something better than
In the middle
But me & Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight

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RUDOLF STEINER:

While our pain and suffering lead us to ourselves and make us more genuinely ourselves, we develop through joy and happiness, provided that we consider them as grace, a feeling that one can only describe as being blissfully embedded in the divine forces and powers of the world. Here the only justified attitude toward happiness and joy is one of gratitude. Nobody will understand joy and happiness in the intimate hours of self-knowledge when he ascribes them to his karma. If he involves karma, he commits an error that is liable to weaken and paralyze the spiritual in him. Every thought to the effect that joy and happiness are deserved actually weakens and paralyzes us. This may be a hard fact to understand because everyone who admits that his pain is inflicted upon himself by his own individuality would obviously expect to be his own master also with regard to joy and happiness. But a simple look at life can teach us that joy and happiness have an extinguishing power. Nowhere is this extinguishing effect of joy and happiness better described than in Goethe's Faust in the words, “And thus I stagger from desire to pleasure. And in pleasure I am parched with desire.” Simple reflection upon the influence of personal enjoyment shows that inherent in it is something that makes us stagger and blots out our true being.  (13)

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GLORY DAYS – BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/brucespringsteen/glorydays.html

"Glory Days"

I had a friend was a big baseball player
back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in, he was walking out
We went back inside sat down had a few drinks
but all he kept talking about was
[Chorus:]
Glory days well they'll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye
Glory days, glory days 

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RUDOLF STEINER:

But inasmuch as we experience pain and suffering, we must recognize what man has made of the world during its evolution, which originally was a good world, and what he must contribute toward its betterment by educating himself to bear pain with purpose and energy.

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WON’T BACK DOWN – TOM PETTY

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/tompettyandtheheartbreakers/iwontbackdown.html

"I Won't Back Down"

Well I won't back down, no I won't back down
You could stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won't back down
Gonna stand my ground, won't be turned around
And I'll keep this world from draggin' me down
Gonna stand my ground and I won't back down
[Chorus:]
Hey baby, there ain't no easy way out
Hey I will stand my ground
And I won't back down

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EPILOGUE:

Clearly, this is a “generational” version. If you have interest in creating another version, let me know at 3simplequestions@gmail.com and I will see if we can get it posted.  – Jean Yeager

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NOTES:

“FACING KARMA”,  by Rudolf Steiner, Vienna, February 8, 1912, GA 130

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/FacKar_index.html

The specific paragraph quoted is numbered at the end of the segment.

REMIX FACING KARMA

© Copyright 2014, Jean W. Yeager

All Rights Reserved

All Lyric excerpts © Copyright the authors.

“Facing Karma”, Copyright Rudolf Steiner Archive

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THREE ARABS IN A PONTIAC

This year is 30 years since the incident described below happened. This post is in honor of everyone who has a genuine spiritual experience, like a question in a dream actually going into you.  If something like this has never happened to you? Keep hitchhiking! -- Jean

WHO AM I?

  In 1988 I moved my family from Dallas, Texas to Sussex, England so my wife and I could shift gears in our careers and also to help my 3 children become “citizens of the world” in addition to being Texans by birth. My wife studied artistic therapy based on Rudolf Steiner’s color and therapeutic insights while I studied Rudolf Steiner’s Social Development insights and human phase development theory (Biography).

     During this year I studied with 30 other individuals from around the world: Germans, Dutch, Icelanders, Norwegians, Fins, Canadian, Spanish, Brits, Danes, Israeli, Serbs.

     The curricula was lecture and small-group intensives, art and social artistic exercises. For one year of powerful exploration of who I was. The second year I interned with staff, helped write a Total Quality Management (TQM) and worked as an Organizational Development consultant with non-profits and UK Governmental agencies. Third years was much of the same.

     In the middle of the first year, when I had turned my life upside down, and my diet radically changed (no Tex-Mex), and I was deep in self exploration, I had a remarkable dream – which is not an uncommon experience when you are on a path of total transformation. Here is my dream about Three Arabs In A Pontiac.

WHY AM I HERE?

     I am hitchhiking on a deserted roadway. There are no remarkable features besides flat. It could have been west Texas, I don’t know. I am by myself walking and thumbing.

     A gold 1974 Pontiac begins approaching. I know it is a 1974 Pontiac because it is exactly like the car I bought from my wife’s very elderly grandfather so that the family could get Mr. Fisher to stop driving. The one I had was a “lemon” but this one appeared to be radiant. The gold shimmered in the heat off the roadway.

     I have my thumb out and they stop. It’s a 2-door. I can see there are three people in the car – the driver and two passengers in the back. I bend and ask for a ride. The driver nods affirmatively. I open the door and get in. I smile at the passengers – but I never get a good look at the passenger directly behind my seat.

     We start down the road. I angle myself on the seat to see the driver and the passenger in the back, the one I can see. They are all in white robes and white keffiyehs or gutras tied with black camel hair cords. They all wear dark sunglasses so I  cannot see their eyes. The driver is a short and stocky man who resembles the Hollywood actor, Eli Wallach.

     I tell my story. From the U.S., moved my family, studying at the Centre for Social Development at Emerson College...

     I’m nervous about the guy behind me. I never see him.

     Finally the driver looks at me intently and says, “What in the HELL are you doing?!”

WHAT DO I WANT?

   Here it was, the ultimate question for us all. At that moment, his question goes INTO me. I see him speak it, it comes out of his mouth and I watch it enter into my chest. As I am lying in my bed asleep, I actually FEEL the question enter my chest. I wake up. And, I feel the question inside me. I’m horrified. It is moving. It is as if my nice, neat, well ordered thoughts and feelings were carefully placed within me to support my being confident enough to move my entire family thousands of miles across the world to pursue MY dreams of self-transformation, of studying of new ideas, lofty ideals, virtues, capacities to work with social and organizational psychology.

     For the next two weeks, the Arab’s question pushed hard on my neatly ordered inner thoughts and feelings and decisions and made sure they all became disordered.  My initial horror transformed into “dis-ease” but not illness. I physically could feel that question living within me – actually living. What the hell WAS I doing? The dream speeded up the process of change as a challenge frequently does. The question questioned everything, right down to my inner self.

     Clearly the symbolism of the dream is something that I have “gnawed on” (a phrase I have stolen from Nancy T.) over the years. But, I won’t even think about it as I don’t want to change it. It dream came and changed me. Who WERE these guys in the Pontiac? Were they Angelic agents? And, who was the one I never could see? Is he the future?
     It would have been wonderful if there was an answer for the question, but there really isn't. What the HELL AM I doing? Still. It’s still an active question. Not dead yet.
     And, as for the guy behind me, who I never see? Well, I think this a mystery, but one which brings the question into a quite different spiritual dimension.

© Copyright 2015, Jean W. Yeager

All Rights Reserved
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