Sacred Cactus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDK9YCplcCY

good sir, may we go in to it further?  may we discuss the mechanics of thought as it pertains to establishing the neurological framework for objectivity.  to the speaker, this is of great cultural significance.  and there is good reason the speaker is looking to discuss this matter with you...  when you are ready sir. 

perhaps we can finish our conversation soon inyan. 

we don't have to call it a thought if you don't like inyan.  words come with their own images, and if we find ours misalign we can look instead to the meaning and not so much the terms.

thought, to me, is not thought to you.  that is, you see thought, ideas, relative to, say, feeling, and when you consider feeling, you consider it relative to another element of thought, like ideas.  otherwise, you could not differentiate the two.  to the speaker, feeling and thought are one, in that, they are two components of the same underlying physiological capacity.  i call this capacity 'thought.'  and to me, it includes also action, emotion, perception as these things all mechanically interrelate to produce the machinery of consciousness.  so when you are looking at thought - ideas, you are looking at it relative to feeling, or another one of (what i would call) thought's components, otherwise you cannot look at it.  i hope this makes sense how i have put it. to be, is to be related. 

now, to the speaker, thought has multiple components, the conscious exploratory awareness, memory, the compulsive impetus is ideals, beliefs, tradition, physiology, patterns, and then there is physical sensation.  and through the mechanical interrelation of these things there is consciousness.  so when i say thought, i use it as an umbrella term for this underlying physiological capacity.  but perhaps should i have termed it differently?  sir, what should we call this underlying physiological capacity?     

inyan, it seems to the speaker that feeling is a subcategory of thought.  we like to pretend it is separate i think, but the experience of an emotion is threaded from the same fibres as a thought.  that is, they both etch themselves into the canvas of awareness.  so feelings are an element of thought just as is perception and action.  they all occur within the field of awareness.  thought. 

now, not all feeling are easily articulated, but all feelings, when understood can certainly be described.  when there is happiness, you can often trace it back to some acquisition, whether of virtue or property - but the happiness is always the fruit of an idea.  as in the case of sadness.  that is, when there is sadness, it too can be articulated, described.  there is loss etc.  again, sadness is the fruit of an idea.  same with anger, frustration, jealously, and so on.  they all are threaded in idea. 

now the formation of idea and response is mechanical and relative.  that is, first, there is the image of what should be.  then, there is the unfolding of 'what is'.  then there is response, anger, frustration, happiness and the rest of it.  so we see that feeling is idea relative to reality, it is preconception relative to 'what is'.  if we become aware of what these feelings are, we become free of their impetus. 

to be free of impetus is to find heaven sir.  that is, heaven, as an idea, creates conflict/impetus.  but when i become aware of this whole thing, that idea begets impetus, then i shift my point of reference to the third party perceiver.  and so i am free of it.  i am free to think, act, perceive, feel, outside of its restriction. 

if you and the speaker meet one another with preconceived ideas of what is true, if we identify with these preconceptions, we cannot communally find truth.  but if we see that we are limited by our ideas, then we can find truth together, then we can find heaven communally.  but if we instead look to define a particular heaven, if we create a whole ideology around it, if we worship the idea, then we beget conflict with he who worships a conflicting idea. 

now if one discerns that they are indeed limited by their ideas, that they are confined to think within the realm of what they believe, and then they take peyote, or another psychedelic drug, and consider deeply the significance of this, there comes a fundamental change, not a change that is the fruit of an idea, but a change that is the fruit of negation.  then we, you, the speaker, and the rest of them, can find communion.  not a commune, but communion.  truth.  fact.  nature.  is this not it sir? 

yes that's it!  indeed!  a blind man too can hold, in his mind, a picture of heaven!  an image!  that's it!  we are reaching communion on this matter sir! 

now the fact that heaven can indeed exist as an image does not take away from your image or mine or anyone else's.  so please sir, don't assume that the good speaker is challenging your beliefs.  i am not.  the speaker is not suggesting that heaven is or isn't real.  the speaker is not challenging your beliefs.  no, no.  that is another matter altogether.  that is a matter to be left for the religious leaders and the politicians, but the speaker will tell no man what he should or shouldn't believe.  that is authority, and authority destroys reality.  so we cannot find communion in this way.  we cannot find communion forcing an ideology.  we must arrive there together.     

but that does not limit us from discussing belief abstractly.  that is, belief, not in the context of the yours or the mine, just belief as an integral mechanism.  belief, as it relates to things.  that is what i wish to discuss with you sir.  i am not questioning your beliefs, not imposing mine.  just discussing belief, the abstract concept. 

now i would like to discuss belief as the abstract concept as a means of leading us to communion, to agreement.  but to find agreement, there cannot be the yours or mind ideologically.  there can only be the facts we share.  if we move together along a subject by skipping along the facts, and not our personal opinions, then we can find the integral mechanism of things.  but if we hold tightly to our own images, then we cannot communicate fact, we can only defend an image. 

now, you did touch on this earlier, but we were sidetracked; i think there is an important distinction to make between feeling and thought?  inyan, what divides feeling from thought?  if we can make this distinction i think we can find communion on this matter.  feeling and thought inyan, what divides them?  are they one?  or are they divided? 

not figuratively inyan, but actually.  certainly heaven exists, fundamentally, as an idea.  surely we can agree on that much.  and sure, perhaps there is a real place somewhere in space and time that could match with your image or my image.  certainly there could be this place heaven.  but for now, it is only an image, an idea, a belief.  if i have an image of heaven and you have an image of heaven we are conflicted ideologically.  but if we see that heaven exists, fundamentally, as an image, we find heaven actually.  that is, we find communion.  truth.  intelligence.  fact.  harmony and the rest of it.  put differently, if we see that heaven exists as an idea, and that when one identifies with an idea about heaven they are limited to perceive, think, act, through that veil of opinion.  but when one is free from identification with ideas, they are free to find actuality.  they are free to see that heaven exists only as an image.  and it might exist too. 

is that not it sir?     

what is heaven sir?  is it not an image? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKknn4RWAQQ

indeed.  now sir, are you to suggest that it is time which strips man of his arrogance?  that it is time that humbles him?  is that it sir?  if that is it, then perhaps we can discuss the matter of seeking. 

apologies sir, the meaning behind your metaphor still eludes.  would you put it into laymen's terms?  terms so simple, the good speaker can discern its meaning and so reach communion with you sir? 

wait, who's britches are you holding in the air? 

is that two seedlings in one pereskiopsis?  and on a leaf?  by jove sir! 

indeed.  to judge well.  so we see that discernment is something that we approach, not something we can hold conceptually.  put differently, we see that discernment or fact is not something we can capture with an idea, with a thought.  it is quite necessary for us to make this distinction if our dialog is to advance.  and we are getting to it good sir!  oh indeed!     

now, is the observer separate from the observed?  to the speaker, our communal problem, which is conflict - both internally and externally, is a direct result of this effort to separate the observer from the observed.  now, if we can unpack this a little bit, we will see that there is, in fact, no tangible separation between the thought and the thinker, the observer and the observed, and that creating this separation, with the implementation of static images, destroys and skews perception, which is too thought and action. 

so the question is: is there separation between myself and my thoughts?  that is, is there a 'my' that has the thought, or does thought itself create the idea of 'my' through static images?  if we may go into it for a moment then perhaps we will find out if there is, or is not, a 'my' separate from thought. 

so, first there comes a sensory perception.  we see a house.  then, very quickly, there is interpretation.  we begin to define the house relative to other houses, relative to our needs and wants, relative to our expectations and opinions.  the house, fact, does not become a 'relative house', until there is the point of reference which is the 'my.'  so the house becomes ugly or attractive when viewed through the impetus of the self concept.  once the house is painted with opinion, with belief, with impetus, then it becomes 'mine.'  my perception.  my opinion.  my image.

and this is how the self concept is cultivated, obviously.  first there is sensory perception, and then it is coloured relative to my impetus, relative to my beliefs and desires.  and so then it becomes the 'mine.'  it is 'my' image.  and so through this process, there is the refurbishment of the self concept.

so we see that the self concept is thought.  it is the cumulative composition of those things painted by my impetus.  so the 'my' is not fact.  the 'my' is not actuality.  the 'my' is imagery.  and fact exists outside of this.  but, naturally, we are looking to approach it, so our question then becomes, can this imagery, this concept of the 'my' ever be congruous with fact?  or is the 'my' which is a composition of my own impetus, always in conflict with fact? 

so what do you say sir, can the 'my' become congruous with fact?  or is the 'my' always in conflict with fact?   

if we can answer this question, together, you and the speaker, then perhaps the pejuta experience will itself take on a whole new meaning.  perhaps, there will come a fundamental shift in perception - and not merely the replacement of one ideology with another.   

if we may sir, before we move forward, first make a distinction: discernment, to the speaker, is to receive fact.  fact, is 'what is.'  actuality.  truth.  we can approach fact, but never capture it.  if we may go into this matter for a moment:

fact is unfolding.  always moving.  but we try to capture it with ideas.  we look to nature and what happens?  we begin to define it.  we create an image of it.    it becomes this or that, something to be acquired and so on.  all created relative to the impetus of the self concept, which is of belief.  but that image is not nature.  nature is moving.  never static.  never definable. 

that undefinable is discernment.  we can approach it.  but never completely reach it.  and if we become profoundly aware of this limitation, that we can never reach fact completely, that we can only approach it- then there is the birth of intelligence.  then, one navigates with earnestness and kindliness.  then they see the nature of their own compulsions and are not urged to define them.  they just look at it plainly.  dispassionately.  it is the understanding of this limitation that can bring about a fundamental change in the mind.  all other changes are merely the replacement of one set of compulsions for another.  it is this concept, this state of negation, that i have combined with the cactus to yield some astonishing results.  if one thinks of this fact sir, that these false images limit perception, if we consider the full significance of this, while on peyote, there comes a fundamental change.  one approaches discernment sir.  one approaches the undefinable.  one becomes unlimited. 

now i would like to share this.  rather, i feel it is our responsibility, as discerners, to communicate the facts we discern.  because we can only approach it, and it is much more difficult to approach it alone.  to approach truth we need more that one angle of perception.  we need your angle, my angle, his angle.  we need to consider all of these angles and then we can see the problem on all sides.  the same is true for reality.  to approach reality we must meet one another earnestly, dispassionately, without images.  and that is why, to me, this conversation is significant. 

in fact, it is our relationship here that is a window into my own impetus.  when we relate, out come the images.  and so there they are to be perceived.  so it is through relationship that we approach discernment, fact.  which is undefinable.  i wonder if have we reached communion on this distinction.

now i am not saying i am free from belief.  that is impossible.  you couldn't get through one day.  belief is necessary.  images are necessary.  so it is not that we should avoid or move away from belief.  but we should understand it.  understand that it is limiting.  because when it is understood, its impetus recedes.  and there is receptivity.  what i am suggesting is that considering this fundamental fact while on peyote advances one perceptually towards the 'what is.' 

so i am not suggesting someone go and take peyote all willy nilly with no guidance or pattern to follow.  i am suggesting that using peyote while considering the concept, the fact, that was just discussed, leads to a permanent structural change to the brain that allows for a new type of perception altogether.  and i attest to you sir, that what i am presenting here, is worthy of your deepest consideration.  i attest to you, that your very consideration of this concept will bring the collective mind closer to the undefinable intelligence, the undefinable 'what is.'  and through that, we approach the end of conflict, both in the form of violence and in the form of conflicting images.  and so we approach intelligence.  discernment.  fact. 

does this make clear the matter of what is discernment to the speaker? 

i wonder how did your poem come about?