My father's gentle ghost...

But what does it mean, 'let us be fishers of men?'  What does the image, of nets, fish caught in them, pulled from the water, what does it mean?

It means being taken to a new level of consciousness, a new understanding of what it is to be conscious and how that works in the world, how that works as far as the reality we create out of it, how we perceive the dream our senses tell us.

There is something active about it.  Through deep meditation we begin to see that the world is a projection of the collective subconscious.  What we think, if we could go down to that deeper level below what is normal conscious thought, effects the way the world is.  Mother Theresa, perhaps, was one of those deeper thinkers as far as consciousness goes.  What do we see, how do we see, if we are in tune with such a vision, and how does that effect action, how does that effect the world, how does that effect the way we see the world...

If you were in tune with the deeper, arriving at it through, let's say, meditation, or Buddhist or Hindu thought, you'd see the world as a vehicle for your own hospitality toward other beings.  You'd see the world as a place to be kind.  There would be a certain passive quality about you, because you were busy taken with the thoughts and understandings of true nature.

People of conventional thought, people not in touch with the possibilities of their own consciousness, they can be so tedious, so in-it-for-themselves...  They think they have bright ideas and want to push such things over on all our souls.  They might be good at the body politic, but how frequently do such people ever come up with something that is useful rather than detrimental to the whole.  A wiser person might try to bring some shred of good into the world of politics, but the men of conventional conscious thought will beat even that shred into insignificance.  (What deeply good thing ever seems practical?) Purely selfish and self-serving.  And to them, of course, there's perfect logic.   "We need all the drinking water we can so we can run our mining operation and make money and 'create jobs.'  Then, once we've mined all the stuff that makes us money, the pit we've created will be a vast toxic lifeless thing until our own saddened little planet melts into a weary sun."  Great.

It's quite difficult to explain.  How is it possible that our thoughts could shape the world we live in...  Isn't thinking the most passive and useless of all our activities...  Conventionally viewed.  What good will sitting in lotus position and meditating do the world?

Even Jesus Christ the great guru does not attempt it directly, and probably nor would he, given his deep understandings of all things.  So he comes up with this perfect image, the net, the silvery fish all swimming around, pulled out of the normal existence of water and survival as such.  To me, or to another who meditates, the image presents a picture of the mind.   How you have to still all those thoughts up there in the net of the conscious mind, all saying this and that, all those voices, to go into a state of presence, in touch with the body, in touch with nature, in touch with the vibrant chakras.

I think "render unto Caesar" smacks of that.  The trivial nature of the world of created empires and big egos, how petty in contrast to the power of our own consciousness if we stopped to realize and began to explore it.  The same thing is being said when he looks at nature, the birds, the plant life...

No wonder they crucified him, this man of such incredible hospitality and kindness.  Their little pea minds just couldn't get, they didn't have eyes to see.  And the act of killing him is perfectly emblematic of what they were doing with their whole entire lives, which is to kill out any aspect of the deeper consciousness, that which may be even beyond the collective subconscious.  The murder of a perfectly natural harmonious-with-who-we-are sort of a thing...  Deeper spiritual consciousness of the kind that in turn, once tuned into, goes back out and shapes the world?  No, they didn't want anything to do with that, happy selling chickens in the temple.  It's all a cosmic drama, the story.  It can be depressing if you don't look at it the right way, I would imagine.


What would we say to a higher-minded being, a Jesus, today, in the present?  Would we say, oh, I'm sorry, sad life you got, Mister.  Here's a Banana Republic catalog so maybe you can buy some nice clothing and be in style and that way you'll have a better chance meeting chicks...  That would just make him sadder.  Why not make him happier.  By saying, oh yes, we can do that do.  We can fish for men too.


(He would have gotten a chuckle out of the Great Inquisitor scene.)



This year, I've burned a lot of incense, drank hot water with lemon to start the day, marketers and politics having taken over my personal email in-box and hardly ever something personal except for Facebook, listened to meditation music from YouTube like "Indian background flute music," did a good amount of yoga, meditated, saw a therapist on Mondays a bit too early in the day but still worth it.  Looking for a better direction in life, tired of the ego persona my professional life labeled me with.  Life took me through equal parts hopelessness and vision.

I watched TV shows about restaurants in New York that didn't quite get the fundamentals of hospitality to varying degrees as they attempted to build their empires when I came home after a long shift, people in my hair a large part of the night.