I recently had a brief exchange with a friend via text, while I was busy working in my garden. I realize I didn’t express myself clearly at the time about “the virus.” So this is an attempt to make that more clear, and “set the record straight” as they say (though it will never be straight or clear to the mind…). 

(Note: Please don’t read this and interpret it – just read it simply, like entertainment, without mind filters as much as possible, and use the mind mechanism only as instrument. See what it is pointing towards. Try is as an experiment…).

I find it puzzling, curious, or funny that people spend so much time focusing on “the pandemic” or whatever you want to call it. Some spend a lot of time watching the news or talking to friends or family who are also caught up in the thinking, the negative zeitgeist. Humans enjoy it, to be honest. One gets a certain thrill from being scared, seeing the drama, and the sport of conflict. I occasionally dip into the news, see if there’s anything useful or entertaining, and then when I start to feel dirtied from the swamp, pull the feet out and walk away. Then it’s forgotten.

I’m somewhat interested by people’s reactions when I read Nextdoor.com (entertaining or practical ideas) or go out, but not seriously in the sense of it bringing me down – I see reactions and know it’s basis: it’s fear. This whole show is about FEAR, fear of death specifically. It’s from the mind of humanity, not from facts. Facts of the world are secondary, created in a mutual play of consciousness-as-thought-agreement, and only of a practical nature, operating in the world as a body. Of the programmed reactions, some are useful, such as breathing and the pumping of blood, but many are not. What’s useful is common sense.

So that’s why I said to my friend (quoting a wise friend) that it is useful “to distinguish caution from fear.”

Caution Is Different Than Fear

Caution means doing sensible things, like adding oil to your car when it’s getting low, or not going through red lights, or washing your hands when you get home (which is something I’ve always done). It is not emotional, it’s common sense, based in what are reasonable ideas from one’s understanding of phenomena, and what rational risks to take or not, and doing things like maintaining the operation of a car, house, body, business, and so forth. It’s a positive attitude of, “gee I love my car, my body, enjoy running my business, let’s do this thing to keep this nice, fun stuff going” … simple, and then it’s done, and dropped, forgotten, on to the next thing No thinking about the future or past required. It is not from automatic reactions or the charge of emotions like fear or desire. There is no brooding or dwelling on things and imagining scary scenarios, or thinking “people are such idiots” or how “bad things are.”

The fact is, this planet by nature is always full of beings ignoring reality, truth, who are immature spiritually, and is by nature a world of duality. Every up implies by nature a down: we could not have cycles and the dance of nature without the concept of “day” and “night”. Every concept implies it’s opposite. The concept of “civilizations” is evidenced by them coming and going, no matter how “great” or un-great they are or were. Suns (stars) vary in their output, sometimes making solar flares. What is, is beyond good and bad, opinions, judgements, beliefs. It is impersonal. The world spins around the sun and flies in silence of infinite space through the galaxy with no regard for anyone’s opinions. Peaches swell and ripen on trees without anyone making it happen or without the tree worrying or judging the fruit. It does not own it’s fruit, and we don’t own our bodies. Life does it all effortlessly. In dualistic terms, God runs the universe quite well without my or your thinking, opinions or feelings about what’s good or bad, separate or whole. Wolves eat deer, fish eat hapless insects, locusts shear the leaves from countless trees and grasses, and viruses reduce populations in herds, animals and humans. Is it “terrible”? It depends on your point of view. It depends on your choice of thinking, of deciding. What’s important? What’s of greater interest to you?

If survival is honestly of more importance than happiness (harmony, peace, love, truth) it reflects an idea that one is a separate thing, and is threatened by disappearance. Are you that thing, or what is aware of that thing? Can awareness disappear? That is worth exploring to the greatest depth possible.

Fear—the one I’m contrasting with caution—is personal. But it’s useful to make a distinction between immediate, instinctual fear, and psychological fear. If I step into the street, and suddenly a car comes zooming around the corner, and the body instinctually steps back to avoid getting hit, that’s useful, instinctual reaction. But if I hear someone making a comment like “he’s going to die from that disease…”, and it triggers a chain of images and thoughts and an underlying feeling, or a memory arises of images of a relative in a hospital that died, and it triggers an old reactive sense of dread, then that comes from the mistaken sense of separation, of being a body, a person. If I’m standing in a line and a thought comes that someone is “standing too close” and that thought triggers off a chain of fear, judgement, anger and so forth, that is a non-useful, counter-adaptive, psychological reaction. It’s a mistaken, programmed sense of self and opinions and judgements that are counter to happiness and survival. The reactions are not wrong, it just is what it is. I am not judging, but simply saying, why not see it for what it is, have a laugh, and move on (which you may already be doing…).

Yes, ironically, the psychological sense of survival works against our survival. Look at the man who is always angry and self-righteous for example (to name an extreme): he is eventually going to run up against sharp objects, in the form of others who are angry or enforcing rules, and things will get difficult and painful, or even life-threatening. “Live by the sword, die by the sword” as they say. The inner sense of conflict driven by “ego”—I prefer the words Sense of Separate Self (or “SSS”), which is more accurate—will be reflected in one’s experience. Likewise, a lack of inner conflict, an inner peace, will be reflected in the world of one’s experiences.

The world is very flexible, is not a fixed external thing of solid fixed concrete blocks of stuff, believe it or not. In fact, don’t believe me, rather please experiment with the reality you experience, and see how your feeling state, your thinking and beliefs are reflected back in experience. It’s simply we live with the wrong model – most people live in a fantasy world, not with facts. Reality in fact is not that presented by the senses, the perceptions or thinking. It is invisible, intelligent, universal, and alive. That it what is “solid.”

What is solid is what never changes. So ask yourself that: what in your experience never changes? What were you before you were born?

Non-existence is not possible. It is simply an idea, a theory.

But I realize “common sense” means different things to different people. What it means to me is a peaceful, clear seeing of facts, and simply acting on what is seen as impersonally true in the moment, in a given situation. It has a sense of being quiet and easy, with no psychological complications. No friction, fight or flight. Just being and acting from seeing, as best one can, in the Now.

No human, including this bodymind, is perfect. (If we were perfect, we wouldn’t be here, exploring how to transcend being a seeming body-mind-world!). There are no general rules, no judgements, merely discernment appropriate to Now. What other people do is none of my business.

“Don’t think past your nose.
~ Robert Adams

Be helpful, considerate, loving and kind. Make jokes, smile, love. Be happy. It’s infectious.

If for interest of entertainment or practical reasons I read the news for a few minutes about the “pandemic” or what a president said in reaction, or the news outlets say in reaction, promoting fear and conflict – the media and social media amplifying divisiveness, how they are feeding off that – I may then do some research until I see there are two sides to everything in the world of opinions. I can dig into the scientific investigations and data and do my best to ascertain facts of the world, beyond opinions. … if I keep digging to try and get to the ultimate truth of “the virus”, down the rabbit hole, I see then I’ll never “figure it out” or get to the bottom of it, because “it” has no real bottom! The mind is as deep and complicated as you want to make it. It always comes back to mySelf: it is “my world”, not personally, but as mind-projection of all of us universally (intersubjective agreement). What is real?

I will then sometimes, (a bit of the freedom-loving rebel or artist, the irascible philosopher in me perhaps), when a friend mentions something about it, present the alternate scenario (depending on what they say), such as if it sounds like they were influenced by the mainstream news and left-leaning ideas (conscious or unconscious programming) I’ll say, for example, it looks like more cases because there’s more testing, or that there’s a political bias in the reporting because of an upcoming election agenda, or whatever – not because any of this really matters to me, but because I’m challenging their beliefs (rightly or wrongly – there are times when I shouldn’t do this obviously). I’m not agreeing nor totally disagreeing.

In other words, would it be loving to “go along” with a thought? No. Would it be loving to be weak and agree, or not challenge a thought, in order to be seen as “compassionate” or to “get” love (which is an impossibility) or approval, be part of the pack (even if my bodymind wants to be “loved” or part of the pack). No it would not be strength or freedom or love to “go along” with a thought or a feeling created by a thought that is questionable.

Perhaps see it as art in the service of wanting to be free, of not wanting to get caught on one side of a polarity, a conflict, the worldly game (God was bored I guess… or Consciousness, in the form of society, is freeing itself from fear of death) and I would love it if others were also fearless. It’s much more fun and funny and happy.

I may be seen as taking sides, when the fact is I have no interest in politics. I have an interest in philosophy, psychology, non-duality, and seeing through the mind games going on. But I don’t always express myself perfectly in the pressure of the moment of oral exchange or text messaging (my main mode of casual communication many days). But I do my best … much of the time it seems to be misinterpreted… or maybe all of the time, I don’t know…

I’m just not that interested in this/that – details of worries about seeming things out there, who is right and wrong – unless it is about facts, scientific or spiritual* (and the big flaw I see now in the current president of the country this bodymind is currently in, called “the US”, while a great action-man character in boisterously, with an loud courageous “honest” fighting ego, help to shake up the entrenched status quo and and promote a certain kind of freedom, has the flaw that he can’t admit when he’s wrong). I’m interested in health, happiness, peace, love … that’s where my energy goes – and feel compassion and amusement (and when judgmental thoughts come in I see them and poof they dissolve, at varying rates, faster and faster).

I completely forget about the “situation” until the body is moving to go out and I see the mask in the car and then I remember, “oh, haha, there’s the stupid ‘pandemic’ thing going on.” I remember it’s how it’s seen in the world right now – these are very quiet thoughts, at some distance… and when I get to the store I remember again, and pick up the mask, am considerate to other apparent people, because I don’t want to scare them and I like harmony and being alone (alOne), connecting naturally to others, and not through fear. I like to “do the right thing” as far as perceptions, do the precautions for my and other’s health. Why not cover all bases: the seeming physical, the mental, and the spiritual?

I know that at bottom it’s about what concepts you hold to be true, ultimately, and with good mental attitude and physical habits, the immune system of this author is now relatively strong (haven’t been sick except for a mild ear thing for 2 years), and am not worried or interested in the body, “the body” (another concept) being a changing appearance to this awareness (it even disappears during sleep)…

So I do the wearing-a-mask act, wipe a couple things down to err on the side of caution when I get back in the car from the store, and wash my hands when I get home, and may even wash the produce – but I never once have any concern about anyone getting too close for example, either because they never did, or it wasn’t “too close” to the mind reactions here: it never entered my mind, so it never happened – it simply is not part of my “world”.

When people say “Yeah but this is what I feel, I feel that…” and they keep saying “I feel that XYZ is what’s true for me.” you have to ask, is that based in a belief? An emotion? Rarely is it based in impersonal truth, nor on scientific reasoning based in the weighing of evidence, nor critical thinking about what is heard. Rather they are talking about beliefs (which are thoughts not reflecting truth but held onto for security, regardless) or emotions (temporary charged energy, not reflecting reality), or ideology (systems of belief), all of which which are mental programming: dead knowledge, learned reaction of the unconscious human machine.

*Everything is spiritual, or nothing is: take your pick. You can’t have it both ways.