New Rules for Radicals: 10 Ways To Spark Change in a Post-Occupy World
2:Bodies without a body 
1: The Vision of the Great Illumination 
Amrut Laya Commentary Introduction 
Daily Gripe: Big Pharma Yo 
2:Bodies without a body
A Saint went to visit a Lord.
He visited the Lord while alive, but not in his physical body.
His travel was said to be bodiless.
1: The Vision of the Great Illumination
Introduction
The term “God” in our homage to Siddharameshwar’s Amrut Laya, refers to existence prior to any fragmentation of itself, and includes existence we are not aware of; in other words, all this is present and not present. There is no anthropomorphic suggestion by the word. This suggests a direct awareness of a limitless totality existing throughout – and actively manifesting without opposition – all that we can possibly experience.
The Vision of the Great Illumination
God is absolutely pre-established.
There is no power or capacity that exists as a cause to God.
(If there could be a cause to God, that cause would then be God).
What was previously considered to be God, will be understood as fragmentary, biased, and not-God.
God can also be expressed as light or illumination.
Nothing else shines on this light; it shines on everything.
We do not gaze on this light from afar.
To experience it, we realize the emanation of this light is merged with our own self-existence.
A person who has befriended their own nature, is self-aware and self-illuminated.
He or she will have no cause they can point to for their peace of mind (except for the primordial cause).
They have retired from the battle zones of the ego.
Their development prioritized appreciating their illumination totally.
This required a life’s work of understanding confusion, regrets, and self-deception.
All that was understood, was also abandoned.
What remains is a steadiness, wherein the world appears to pass.
Amrut Laya Commentary Introduction
This commentary is in the form of a homage to a collection of talks by Siddharameshwar Maharaj.
Daily Gripe: Big Pharma Yo
Bottom line is, any hopes of healing in America have denigrated to this: Pharmaceutical salesman visits the General Practitioner’s Practice, which is by now mostly a group managed by some corporate management firm; Doctors are distributed samples; samples are dispensed to some patients; prescriptions are written and the deal is done. Doctor is able to check off a treatment, Big Pharma gets the profit. Rinse and repeat.
Supported by ads on TV, patients request specific meds; Doctors, who are paid by the hour to go patient to patient, have awareness of products, need a quick solution, prescribe med, voila, the deal is done. Rinse and repeat, billions are made for big Pharma, Doc gets through the day, shareholders are pleased.
Are we healed? Can we do better? Unknown — but intuition tells me we have to be able to do better.
The Daily Gripe: Big Pharma in Your Life, Yo!
I’ve had so many trips to the Doctor that amounted — in essence — to “try this pill”, I want to get this off my chest. This is based entirely on my own observations and conclusions.
On-the-ground solutions for healing in America have denigrated in essence, to a singular process: a Pharmaceutical salesman visits the General Practitioner’s Practice (which is by now usually a group of Doctors managed by a corporate management firm); the general practitioner physicians are distributed samples by the Big Pharma sales person; the free samples are dispensed to a few patients; and prescriptions are written. This immensely repeatable (and profitable to the Pharmaceutical companies) transaction is a prototype machined to be reproduced.
If anyone doubts this process, and thinks Docs live in an ivory tower, they are living in the 1950s. I’ve seen the sales people, if you haven’t — they are quite bold, and will even intrude on a procedure to make a sale. Does your favorite Doctor resist this intrusion into their office?
From what I’ve seen, no. The benefits to physicians are, the Doctor is able to effortlessly assign a treatment based on a readily available medication, and does not have to (during patient-heavy schedules) research medications. They can then proceed to the next patient, and do what they do, which is bill by the hour — but Big Pharmaceutical gets the real profit. Rinse and repeat, profits increase, hugely. Repeat this scenario in doctors offices across America, every patient, every town, every hour. Ca-ching, ca-ching, ca-ching, for the drug companies.
Supported by ads on TV, patients request specific medications; Doctors, who are paid by the hour to go patient to patient, have some vague awareness of products as “fits-the-bill-solutions” — entirely informed by the Big Pharma sales team — then Doc prescribes the med, and voila, the deal-by-the-hour is done.
Billions are made for big Pharma, and the Doc gets what? He/she gets through another patient-filled busy day. The shareholders however, are pleased. Actually they are more than pleased — they are ecstatic.
What about the patients? What do they get? Oh yeah, them — I mean, us, the average Jack and Jane. We end up with a bottle of pills — one with, if you read the labels, an agonizing number of side effects, side effects that very often contradict, or are even worse, than the original ailment (suicidal tendencies as a side effect of a pill for depression, for example).
Are we healed? Or did we, and our insurance, pay for a Pharmaceutical band-aid? Is our Doctor’s treatment for our health, actually a solution for shareholders? Is this just the best we can do for the human family, in a world owned by corporations? Must we see the world through a lens that perceives humanity as a world of middle-class-slipping-into-lower-class consumers?
The answer is unknown — but intuition tells me we could do a heck of a lot better.
Crossing 45th Street
I am in my car on Avenue B waiting to cross 45th Street. I see cars coming from the distance towards Ave. B with headlights on, even though it’s still early. This is a wet and gray 3D world. My car window on the passenger side has grime and drops on it — a transparent plane perpendicular to the traffic traveling towards me on the depth axis. As I wait for the break, thoughts add another level to this simple experience. Beneath these data waves is an interior detachment or disinterest. The lack-of-concern experience underlies the receiving of visual news and the on-going generation of interior images, conversation, and emotions. When the traffic breaks I cross 45th and head towards home.
Not Even
9,000 things are happening at once!
Sometimes, I try to do something about it all, &
There’s a grunting, grinding movement forward.
Other times, I am pushing against an unmovable wall;
Futile!
Now I am pulsing like any other organic life,
I forgot my questions and doubt.
Any word I use to express myself is
Sighing into an empty hole.
Calculating my future experience,
A sparrow darting into the canyon.
Looking ahead, my quarters are
Spinning into dimes.
Watch it all fade away; watch.
No, not watching; turning.
Turning, I briefly see through my
Shadow’s window.
9,000 things are happening at once.
Something (that I want you to have)
There is some sort of desire in me to give you something, but I’m having a hard time defining it in my mind. I decided to stop trying to define it, and just begin.
I don’t want to make anything specific … which makes it difficult … or maybe, easy.
I don’t want to make efforts and plan, move furniture around, or saw wood into pieces.
I don’t want to spend money on this, or research on the Internet.
I don’t want to practice for 10 years, and then give it to you.
I don’t want to find an agent, go to school, or consult an expert.
Saying all these things I don’t want to do, gets me a lot closer to what I want to give.
Can you sense it at all yet?
