PHOTONIC MANIFESTO

A work in progress

by Yeshe Dorje

© Copyright, Yeshe Dorje, March 17, 2003

VII

Tony Peru and the left wing

I’m beginning to miss San Francisco. There’s a possibility I’ll be directing a new play by Dave Eggars, this could be my big break. Barrio Hollywood, Elaine’s play, is really quite good but the actors are amateurs and this has its unique set of frustrations. This is the name of neighborhood here and so many people from that part of town have come to see the play. This is one of the reasons I like Tucson, and the weather’s been amazing, warm and sunny every day and its still March. I hadn’t seen Tony Peru for a few days, I was beginning to wonder if he’d found a job, and then he came into the Epic Café this morning. He’s all excited by some interesting coincidental lightning strikes and he tells me all about it. A few weeks ago, Jeb Bush's plane was struck by lightning, putting a hole right through the left wing. The space shuttle Columbia had a major problem with the left wing before it disintegrated. Now this:

"Kent, the plane carrying Tony Blair to a meeting with President Bush was struck by lightning as it approached the United States on Wednesday."

"Was this the mainstream media Tony, or one of those fringe websites you visit?"

"No man it was in the paper, I think the source was Britain's Press Association, you know like the AP, they said Blair's 777 was struck by a lightning bolt as it approached Andrews Air Force Base, a reporter traveling with Blair said that the bolt hit the jet's left wing. Its amazing because I’ve been thinking about the left wing and how there isn’t enough opposition or an effective opposition to what’s going on."

"You mean opposition to Perle and those guys…" I decide to encourage him, I want to see where he’s going to take this.

"Well it’s broader than that… I mean I’ve been thinking about what we need to do you know? What do we do in the face of all this greed and the failings of capitalism, what’s the role of the individual in the face of such a huge problem. Perle knows what his role is man, he couldn't have been clearer about what the telecom company would be buying with its fat fee, Perle knew that as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, he has a unique perspective on and intimate knowledge of the national defense and security issues likely to be raised by the governmental review of the sale. In other words he was saying to Global crossing that I've got Rumsfeld's ear and access to all sorts of super-top secret information that none of these other jokers on your payroll do. I know more. I can do more. This is an incredible time in history, so I wrote a chapter about it."

"Great Tony, let me see it" I say, kind of surprised at my increasing interest. I just watched Marcel Ophuls’ documentary on the Occupation of France, ‘The Sorrow and the Pity’. The question of when to stand by and watch and when to act is a central theme of his film, and the choices made by so many in France during those times are disquieting. So what does Tony Peru have to say about it?

The Role of the Individual

"Here I stand, I can do no other." - Martin Luther

In October 2002, during one of the most intense solar storms in recorded history, specifically ‘off the charts’ as you see below, I was 40,000 feet over the North Atlantic flying from London to Phoenix on my way back from a business trip and the Kalachakra for World Peace in Graz Austria. As good a place as any to catch a solar wave, and the sun was incredibly active all month as many great teachers congregated to make peace and magic mandalas. These are the days of radical action and these are the invisible notes received from my father as I made this journey.

The Truth presents itself unexpectedly and asks us here in the ancient city surrounded by examples to consider what we will do to change the course of history. The desert presents the vast tale of the planet in random patterns left by energy transforming rock, where here in London man creates patterns in stone to tell the tales of great men and fabulous women so that the vastness of history is made manageable by monuments. Even in this immense marble chamber, we feel history close in, as we breathe it drips in rainy London and we stand before the first Queen Elizabeth eternally resting in Westminster Abbey – and if I am to honest I am disappointed they gave her such a crude crown on her sarcophagus all those four hundred years ago. After all, she was responsible for creating the conditions for the Photonic Revolution as it was her reign that established the world of Order that opposes the world of Disorder. Here in this Abbey so small and so vast a City is named for it this is the temple of the western world, the world of Order with graves for the notable like Darwin who systematically ordered the chaos of nature and as this is a story about evolution and it is here they buried him, it is here I bury his ideas.

Benjamin Britten is buried in the Abbey and last night in Sadler’s Wells I listened to his string quartet as Barishnikov and his White Oak project reminded me to keep loose and not hang on to the roots reaching out into this river. Same message I got at the Royal Academy’s Derain to Kandinsky exhibit with its Oskar Kokoschka dream of Florence from the hill and the fantastic invisible planes of Max Ernst’s village farm, to see the Truth we need to keep our mind supple, not too tight, fresh, pristine, just so which is some of the quality of beauty in great art.

Here in Westminster Abbey I am standing on Charles Darwin’s grave longing to revelate the truth of these times better than he did for Her Majesty Victoria. A manifesto that is closer in heart to the Truth beyond thought, closer to the masters of color, and so I search for the secrets of truth that might be buried here in the Abbey and overhear a guide explain how special requests are made of the Library in the Cloisters. Quickly I leave the Nave and walk the old stones to the passageway of dark oak doors and find the one with the small nameplate beside the buzzer. I press and a voice comes through the small speaker:

"Yes?"

"I’d like entrance to the Cloisters to ask questions about my family."

"What is it you want to know?"

"I’m seeking a family connection to the Court of Elizabeth the First."

There is anachronistic electric buzzing and I open the door onto a narrow stairway and enter, glancing back at some tourists wondering where I am going, and watch as the door is moving in slow motion, shutting and creating darkness between us. I walk up a few stone steps into a hazy dusty light and the smell of old, very old, which is of course kept fresh each day by all these ideas held in paper and leather on beautiful sturdy bookshelves rising from the floor up the undulating white walls, broken here and there by richly colored tapestries and stained glass. The walls are dotted with the ancient escutcheons of England’s nobility. There is my family, Wood, and I am here to seek Percival Wood, for some reason this comes to me, had no forethought or plan to come into this library. There is no one else in the main room of the Library, and as I look around I notice the circular wooden stairway and move to it with alacrity, feeling excited that some of my seeking might end in this hall of wisdom. Racing up the steps now I pause for a moment and look down into the Library marveling at how perfect it is. Somehow guided by voices I am able to make this rare visit to the Library of the Cloisters in Westminster Abbey to learn that the custodian answers most questions by email. But I have come all this way, so he shares some secret wisdom with me.

I enter a small cluttered office and a reedy older man in modern uniform of the church looks at me for a long while. I tell him I am looking for a family connection to the Court of Elizabeth. Of course I know this is pointless and a waste of his time. He looks at some books reading and finally responds with a genial smile as he points back to the staircase.

"You are here to overcome the doubt of your guidance, and what you might think you seek is of no consequence."

I leave with a confused sense of excitement, as if I am following clues that will eventually lead me to the truth of something. What is it I seek, why do I keep searching? I catch the ‘Biopartnering Europe’ conference bus to the British Natural History Museum to attend the gala reception with the intention of meeting people and speaking about biotechnology, perhaps Genomics which interests me greatly.

I walk up a grand stone stairway through a light evening rain and enter into the Museum’s Great Room, truly cavernous, dramatically lit and smoky from dry ice. Immediately I notice a huge dinosaur skeleton rising in the middle of the reception above all the suits and haircuts. As I move into the space, through clutches of chatting scientists and corporate executives, I watch the beautiful hip London youth come towards me with champagne flutes and hors d’oeuvers and begin inhaling until I’m slightly delirious – I’m looking a images of ancient and present juxtaposed in these surroundings so its not difficult to feel like I am in a dream. Soon I see an attractive woman standing beneath the dinosaur drinking alone at a small table. She’s an Irishwoman working as a research scientist for a big pharmaceutical company in Switzerland, and she has mischievous icy green eyes that keep me captivated between each visit of the charming London women with golden libations and their tender morsels of cold Thai duck.

I feel the warmth of flirtation stirring in the haze between us and notice her breathing, the sheen of her flesh just below her neck and just as I feel loose as the dancers last night and enjoy the moment of her interest in my thoughts, we begin discussing vaccines and I feel the space begin to constrict around us. I feel it as an awkward moment of impending truth, a treasure is about to be revealed between the planes of our perception and I won’t realize it until she’s gone.

"You know I’m really nervous about the Bush administration’s plans for smallpox vaccine." I say this because it’s true but immediately wish I hadn’t.

"What is there to possibly be nervous about?"

Her eyes become much colder, distant with skepticism and she furrows her brow. I am enfeebled by doubt, but continue because I feel strongly about what the evil does and fear what it intends.

"Well you know, there are certain risks to people who get the vaccine."

"That’s only if their immune system is compromised, vaccines protect people from harm they don’t cause it…"

She has the weight of science and speaks with it and I have only my doubt and convictions…

"With Dick Cheney wanting to force the vaccination of all people living in the United States I get very uncomfortable, and surely you don’t understand the implications to civil liberties this represents… I don’t think anyone should be forced to get a vaccination."

I search her face for empathy and see that she is totally mystified as to why I don’t like these vaccines and she does work for a company selling vaccines as do most of the people in here in the Natural History Museum tonight and I feel that I’m losing this opportunity as she says:

"You sound anti-evolutionary!"

"It has nothing to do with evolution" I am quick to say and sputter "It has everything to do with a fascist state!!"

What had been a warm discussion verging on the blossoming of an assignation quickly dwindled with the now infrequent visits of our servers to replenish the energy for this struggle. And so she gave up after an extended nervous silence saying:

"I’m going to see if I can find a better table. They’re not bringing enough food to this one."

She seeks man’s confidence in the face of adversity and all I offered was fear. But fear of evolution? I failed as a man, couldn’t provide enough food, and so she moved on. This was my lesson of evolution.

I left slightly drunk soon thereafter, and walked to a bookstore near Oxford Circus and bought a Mikhail Bulgakov novel: "The Master and Margarita". On the way back to the hotel waiting in the Tube I saw the horny red-cheeked schoolgirl lust with her boyfriend’s knee firmly pressed against her, there at Notting Hill Gate for everyone to see, and so I looked away to see a rat scurry over the oily gravel and Battle of Britain dust wondering how the rat avoided being fried on the third rail. Today I stood upon Darwin’s grave and then got into an argument about whether I was anti-evolutionary, finally to fall asleep in the tub writing these words… ‘she had no confidence in a man’s ability to secure a safe place amidst the confusion, just like my wife and her mother before her…’.

 

The tradition of the dead generations…

October 15, ten days before I will unwittingly conceive my child, I am sitting in Columbia Bar on the Strand, waiting to meet a Marxist professor who taught me about Plekhanov and the role of the individual in history fifteen years ago. I’m reading an essay entitled ‘Political Action, Determinism and Contingency’ by Ralph Miliband and find this from Marx’s ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon’:

I think of the great white empire and how it poisons the people and I have always believed Marx provided the best tools of analysis, perhaps misguided political structures were created in his name, but he was right in making this central contribution to the critique of political economy:

I’m not sure that this has anything to do with the clues of evolution but this morning I am looking for them everywhere and this will be the theme of my life in fact from this day forward. And I feel the strongest need to write all of these words to you my brothers and strangers, I am about to discover the notion of this manifesto and it comes from contemplating Plekhanov and the basic premise of Marxist historical determinism – that men and women organized in classes are the collective actors of history but the play itself is very largely shaped by forces which are not greatly affected by any single will or by the will of small groups of people.

I scribble into my road notebook – ‘continue to be a link in a radical chain of individuals subverting the dominant paradigm – be an accelerator of the events that are undoubtedly waiting to be released into the world – you are a strange attractor of seemingly unrelated people, places and portent’ – and I then walk over to the School’s ‘Old Building’ and meet with John Kelly. Sidney and Beatrice Webb established the School to create a conscience next to the City’s pursuit of wealth, so if you look up from the Thames the business district of the City is on the right and the School is on the Left. John Kelly was my Marxist professor in Thatcher’s England as the unions were being dismantled and the struggle was being fought in the mines. Once we were a few pints into a long night in a pub and I began asking my teacher what could be done, what is it the individual can do faced with seemingly insurmountable odds? These were the days when the ‘free traders’ were transforming the geopolitical landscape that would eventually lead to globalization and the final battle between the world of Order and the world of Disorder. We could see the evil and the suffering it was causing all around us and I was telling him about my work as a volunteer with the Student Socialist Worker’s Party for the upcoming national election.

"I had this incredible thing happen when I was canvassing Sunday. I knocked on this door in Finsbury Park and this guy opened the door and he was shirtless you know? When I looked at him I realized he was covered by all of these small cuts, he was bleeding and covered by these small incisions from a razor blade or knife or something…"

"Bloody hell Tony!"

"And of course, I didn’t know what to say… I was kind of freaked out and so I gave him an SWP pamphlet on the election and he just started screaming at me…"

"Poor bloke."

"So I left and it made me think about how you get people like this involved or how do you communicate past the madness with all of these people displaced by the economic changes the Tories are making… I mean they’re disenfranchised and the loss of work is making so many of them give up and they seem to be just peripheral to the larger scheme of things. How do you bring these people in so they become actors instead of the castoffs Thatcher and Reagan could care less about? I’ve been reading some of the Marxist game theory and prisoner’s dilemma stuff and its really grabbing me you know?"

John Kelly has a short black shock of hair and is a small man frail with wire glasses and intense dark eyes set in his face from a lifetime of study and thought on the conditions of the working classes. He takes a long pull on his ale and looks at me warmly.

"You know the East Germans have been working on this problem with interesting models and research, trying to solve the problem of how do you affect the minds of the people so that they will act collectively and unfortunately they haven’t met with much success."

I have a serious problem with the Euro-commies and so angrily I spit some beer with my words:

"Look I don’t see much good coming from this Euro-Communist lot, couldn’t give a fuck about all of the writing and the bullshit at Congresses, they haven’t changed anything in seventy years and missed the boat in ’68…"

My teacher looked at me and could see my frustration, I imagine now that he related to it and he got a strangely sinister smile, most likely it was the ale talking…

"Right, well all you’ve got left is armed struggle then don’t you? We are not so far removed from the call to arms as you think. There are IRA in your class, did you know that?"

When I left the School this evening we spent together became my one best bright and shining moment, the revolutionary lesson learned. We must each make a choice when faced with the Lie. We choose to fight for the Truth.

Now here in 2002, fifteen years later, we’re sitting in the Shaw Library, so named from a donation by George Bernard Shaw. The relatively small reading room is perched atop the Old Building and hasn’t changed much in almost seventy years, dominated as it is by a portrait of the Webbs above the fireplace, and opened somewhat by a glass dome above us. The walls are a dull gray green, with dark bookcases enclosed by glass doors. The quiet has the rhythm of sad rain percussing the dome and the occasional shifting of students in easy chairs and at tables reading silently all around us. I look over at the bookshelf next to our table and see ‘The Cruel Sea’ by Monsarrat sitting beside ‘Iron in the Soul’ by Sartre.

John Kelly stopped teaching for two years after 1989. He struggled with the relevance of everything he had believed in and as a servant of the Truth he questioned his desire to continue teaching Marxism to the new generations. Now it was ten years after the deluge and it is clear to us both that Marx is still relevant. I have come to make the parallel between the Marxist search for the causes of inequality, the exposure of the inherent contradictions within capitalism, and how the Buddha’s teachings identify the causes of suffering and in his life he observed with great compassion the inherent contradictions in this beautiful world that is Samsara.

There is the same compassion underlying the teachings of both of the Buddha and Karl Marx, and I say so.

"Tony, that really has the makings of an interesting PhD in philosophy, I’d never have thought of it and I’m certain I haven’t seen anything quite like it. You should write it up."

I’m pleased he’s interested, wondering if he’s just being polite, and feeling the old pride of wanting to please my teacher.

"Thanks… although I’m not that clear about it, I just see interesting connections, always kind of sensed them really as I was learning about Buddhism. It has become very important to me and I got kind of disillusioned about my ability to create any kind of positive social change. What would you say about Marx’s relevance today?"

"Marx’s relevance?" He arches an eyebrow and warms to the subject. "Well its become quite clear to me now, more so than ever before, his political economy is still the best tool, it is an analytical tool for understanding capitalism – and I think you’ll agree that while we’ve moved into a new stage of things it is still dominated by capitalism…"

"Yes of course, as never before…"

"Quite! Obviously Marx was never much good at politics and political systems, but it is still a fundamental truth that for everyone who benefits under capitalism there is always a group that suffers through exploitation."

"It’s the exploitation of the worst kind really, and so well organized…" I’m thinking of the connections… all of the connections being made in my mind right now between evolution, my desire to see the end of oligarchy, to expose the imperialists in the sinister movement for an American 21st century. I feel my heart opening.

"I’m preoccupied by my spiritual journey now, and I find that Buddhism gives me confidence that there is a means to overcoming suffering, Buddhism is a map really, and yet because of my time with you the radical ideas of the Marxists seem relevant to what I am uhh…" (I pause, because I wonder what it is I see… how do I see it?) "…perceiving is a spiritual revolution going on right now, and the problems for this time are the same as those for any revolution."

John Kelly looks perplexed, intrigued and he leans forward towards me.

"A spiritual revolution? How so?"

"How do you get people to see the cause of their suffering, to rise up out of the suffering and to act to create their freedom?"

"Ahh yes this has always been a problem hasn’t it, but Tony, why do you feel so strongly about it, quite frankly you do seem quite intense about this, why do you feel that people have to act in a spiritual sense when spirituality, especially Buddhism as far as I understand it, is such a solitary personal experience?"

I am not sure how much I can tell him, how much I can tell anyone about this. My longing for a new paradigm is so great that my desire and earnestness get confused. I decide to speak my truth.

"Well I’ve gotten rather extraordinary ideas lately I’m afraid, and I have come to this place after sitting and meditating quite a bit over the past few years, and not acting… but sitting and becoming an observer of my thoughts… and in the last while I’ve realized, or sensed I guess, that there is a great transition underway within the minds of people everywhere on the planet, this incredible shift in consciousness, and we have a choice to make about how we want to live and this choice is not unlike that offered by the radicals to the masses in every revolution throughout history. I see it as the choice of recognizing we have no choice if you will, if one is for freedom and truth then one must make the choice of feeling an urgent necessity to act, and one becomes a radical link in the radical chains of inevitable transformation of mind and the planet, for if you identify with the Truth there can be no other choice. I think it’s this incredible opportunity to leave behind capitalism and exploitation by recognizing shared interests, a new weltanschauung, as really we’re beginning to remember as a species that we have shared consciousness and so harm to one is harm to all and if there is exploitation anywhere it must be opposed. Its an opportunity to seek the truth which is what Marx sort of shines a light on in a different way at a different point in time you know?"

John Kelly looks at me and frowns because this is the vexing problem never quite solved by socialists.

"But the premise of socialism is that change is achieved through collective action…"

His statement has so many implications and it preoccupies my thoughts for months to come.

"Yes yes, I know…" I say and continue even more energetically, "I guess that’s why I’ve been thinking about Plekhanov and the role of the individual in history recently for some reason…"

John Kelly corrects my pronunciation and continues:

"…Plekhanov… Have you been reading Plekhanov? Really?" He says this incredulously, but I came upon him by some kind of providence just before our meeting and assure him that I have. He seems pleased, which please me and so he continues.

" For Socialists, if change is to be successful… it requires collaboration, and the active will of the proletariat… and I think Plekhanov was discussing dialectical materialism and its relationship to individuals and something about the different spheres of the individual mind wasn’t he? And this was about whether the individual could accomplish anything when the forces of capitalism are so much more powerful than the human mind, wasn’t he saying this? And in certain periods of history groups acted together believing it to be their fate to do so, he gives the example of the spread of Islam, which interestingly is quite relevant to the current turmoil in the world I suppose."

We both notice this synchronicity agreeably. "Exactly!" I say, and now I’m feeling warm and excited, can’t help it and so I tell him my heart’s desire, and out of the consideration of the role of the individual begins to come the idea for a spiritual manifesto.

"I’ve been thinking that if there was a means to communicate directly to the minds of all those people opening to their own experience of spirit, like a kind of radical spiritual manifesto, the purpose of which is to raise people’s consciousness, make them aware somehow of their own ability to overcome perceived limitations… I think this could make the mind more powerful than capital… at least this is the germ of the idea I’ve been getting lately as a result of my spiritual practice and the teachings I’ve been getting from the Tibetan monks. I think Plekhanov was arguing that everything depends on whether one’s actions create a link in a chain of inevitable events, and I see that we have a choice right now to act and become part of a new way of life… as Plekhanov says ‘freedom is merely necessity transformed into mind’, and I see the greatest need to act now, to make a choice, as its a necessity for survival! And by accepting this, I create a sense of freedom for myself within my mind."

My teacher looks pleased but isn’t buying it. He cocks his head and opens his arms and hands to his sides, his body becoming a question.

"But we live in an age of complacency and the West has more materialist modes of distraction than ever! So who is it you think you’re speaking to in the end? How will they see this necessity to seek the truth when they are distracted beyond the realm of their senses and have the telly, and football and so on?"

Of course, he’s right, and I know it. But I feel so compelled to pursue this, to believe that it is the times we live in… it is the influence of the dance of the luminaries and the power of the Sun that transforms us without our being aware it is happening. I am simply a messenger trying to point all of this out to whomever will listen, but how do I say this to my beloved professor?

"I’m not sure…" Saying this makes me feel like a weasel, not right, closing of my throat chakra. "… I shouldn’t say that… I am sure really, I struggle with doubt sometimes but… but I know there are people out there who are waiting for the words and they have the will to read them. I think we’ve reached another period in history when there’s a kind of psychological or conscious basis for transforming the way we live that is being felt more and more as some kind of visceral necessity by a large number of people around the planet. It could be people seeing the ravaged environment and the climate changes, or all those organizing against globalization and the threat posed by the U.S. military industrial complex, or… and this is what interests me most… it could be something much more subtle and it is another stage in human evolution where we’re evolving as spiritual beings with changes happening on a DNA level. The current revolution in medicine with the genome and the new ideas coming from physics are merely a reflection of this."

There it is again, evolution… what is it Darwin wants to tell me from the other side of that marble stone in Westminster?

"I’m not sure I follow…" John Kelly is perplexed as well.

"I think what I’m trying to say here is that I am observing a revolution within my own mind, that this is a reflection of the macrocosm… in that everything is changing at a faster and faster rate and the sciences are feebly attempting to keep up… witness the pace of scientific ‘discoveries’ of the past decade. I suppose I am saying that I have chosen this path, where it is my responsibility to work and practice to clear away ignorance and obscurations from the true nature of who I am. This is what took me back to Plekhanov I suppose, freedom is always freedom from something, and what is the role of the individual in accomplishing the steps towards human freedom? And in this case, it is freedom from what I call the Great Lie, or as Emma Goldman thought of it: the Moloch of Capital, and I believe that through the transformation of one’s mind one, can ultimately experience freedom despite the hegemony of capital."

I think he is pleased with this, I like his smile and he looks me in the eye with a new fascination.

"Well Plekhanov does say that men make history and therefore the activities of individuals cannot help but be important in history and I think he critiques Bismarck who said something like ‘we cannot make history, we have to wait while its being made’ as history is made by ‘great’ men."

"Well that is the question isn’t it and the citizens of the U.S. have this blind faith in their leaders, especially in times of war, but why don’t they see that as they wait, history is being bought by Bechtel? The best part of Plekhanov’s essay talks about this and its what inspired me really. I found it extraordinary to find how compassionate he is when he says that ‘the events of history are open to everyone who has eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to love their neighbors’ and in the end what he says is that ‘every man is great who lays down his life for his friend.’"

"Yes that’s quite amazing isn’t it! So what you’re saying, if I understand you rightly, is that by transforming your mind you become an actor in the revolution… even if this is not readily observable… and you are in effect creating the revolution on an individual scale, is that right?"

"Yeah, something like that but that sounds both simplistic and too complex, I think there is a strong sense of compassion and a willingness to truly lay your life on the line for all of your brothers and sisters. And of course the planet, the planet can no longer sustain the rate of development required by the means of production, and so I see that we need to very rapidly transform the institutions and economic conditions that destroy our world. I think for spiritual individuals, the transformation is much more subtle and complex, and has to do with the fact that we are all connected by a fabric of energy and consciousness and karma, this ineffable web that holds us together as the family of humanity. And there is a good chance the revolution is happening whether we want it to or not, we simply have a choice to become it, we can’t really understand it. But I see the Buddha as essentially a revolutionary who exposed Samsara, the worlds of suffering, for what they are and he found the path out of suffering and I think this revolution I’m feeling is part of this path…"

"But this is an essentially non-violent revolution in the face of the greatest militarized empire in history."

"Yes but they represent the Lie, and I have faith that the Truth will prevail."

"Well there are a good many dead revolutionaries behind you with the same thought aren’t there?"

We laugh, and my hero of the revolution John Kelly gets up to go back to his classes and we leave each other glad to have reconnected after all these years. I decide to walk up Fleet Street to St. Paul’s and visit the Crypt.

 

 

The Crypts of London

I spend an hour sitting beside the grave of William Blake gazing into the stone inscribed "Artist – Poet - Mystic To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour."

The next night I’m roadwriting in another crypt, the basement of the Oesteria Basilico near Portobello Road, within this chic crypt full of London’s young chattering class and smart shining women as I attempt Italian with the wait staff and fare no better than my attempts at genome-speak with the scientists I met this afternoon at the Wellcome Research Institute at Oxford. I’m deciding once and for all that I want to include more artist and poet in this life as the mystic bit’s been covered quite well for the last while and the business thing is all an act, part of the lie that has to die. I have been struggling with depression and thoughts of loss as the marriage has dissolved and I think I’m not wanting to lose something that was never there to begin with, not wanting to lose something that was already gone. I noticed the same karmic patterns coming out of the relationship and the same ones coming out and am I any the wiser or further ahead for having done so?

Here I am in the midst of another exciting adventure and my mind continues to generate thoughts of loneliness and loss, the suffering of grasping and attachment I recognize this but still suffer here in this Oesteria moment with carrot soup and vino rosso and three very cute young women… did I mention desire? At the table across from mine they are here to distract me and it’s working. And of course all of the company I could choose in this noisy solitude I have here in this notebook with you my sisters and brothers, my faithful and courageous readers.

So many opportunities to transform suffering into wisdom, so many opportunities to change the chemistry – to evolve – wasn’t this the message of the Natural History Museum after all? And here I am visiting the graves of Darwin, Britten and Blake and there was Elizabeth one woman creating an entire world and Nelson one man who changed the course of history and Europe’s evolution and thus the world is changed in a prayer before battle – the role of the individual in history is to show up. As I write this the woman at the other table just smiled at me, she must be flirting, I am flirted.

But I am not any testo-fest conquistador this evening, I am the mystic knight coming out of solitude to fascinate the luminaries who watch over me and who ask me to abandon the drinking of thinking and attachment and still in the most unlikely ways I refuse.

Who wrote the manifesto ‘J’Accuse’? It was Emile Zola, outraged at the treatment of the reviled Jew Dreyfus, and so Zola spoke out on behalf of Truth against the Lie, and Zola published his manifesto to free the Truth from Devil’s Island. Despite my shortcomings and failures to be true to myself something within me burns through the fears as a call to a higher consciousness – a call to evolve – a scream to reject the evil of the Lie. It makes me think of another manifesto I admired "Le Refus Global" from the automatist movement in art during the early 1950’s. Paul-Emile Borduas, a fellow Canadian who was most certainly a great man of history who painted visions that transformed Quebec. What is it I am looking for, is it a manifesto? Bush is taking the cover off the real war that simmers within the Moloch and so I accuse the great white empire of the Great Lie and I purify my being to create the peace that defeats the lie and quenches the fires of war.

As I watch another couple come down and join us in this clamoring crypt of tout London I remember my loneliness and suggest gently that it is best that I have solitude to create this manifesto, it is best that I give myself over to you who read these words, surrender on behalf of you, and in this way I have created a game we play with solitude as it is truly solitary to read, and yet here we are together in your mind right now entertaining radical thoughts of transformation and thus I enter the portals of many potential futures.

I know that many of you would have enjoyed being with me at the Borderline nightclub last night, listening to Josh Rouse singing about a peace and love kind of feeling, we all were singing along in fact. But never forget the message I have for you that in the midst of all this splendor and distraction wandering in the Abbey and Oxford, St. Paul’s and here in subterranean London – I wander in the darkness as well as the Light.

I think it has become this great willingness to explore the darkness and find the great truths that I have been rewarded with so much light, or it could just be the wine inside this American frontier roadbook but I am on my way to Austria – the city of Graz and the Kalachakra for World Peace. All I know is that I want to do the best work possible – make it art poetry and mysticism - and tear the head off heartless capitalism and shit in its neck whilst singing to the shining ones you all can be. There is so much more to reveal of the fabric of evolution in this Photonic Age.

So shouldn’t I be writing something called the Photonic Manifesto? And if I am, wouldn’t you really want to read it? I know I would. So all I have to do now is show up right? All of the people around me, the beings who guide from other dimensions, the Shining Ones, it is they who ask me to receive the wisdom of the light and put it into writing. I long to begin with J’Accuse, as I feel we are at a similar turning point in history one century later and I exist to expose the Lie. So let it be said that all great art consists of the truth and raises the sword to vanquish the dragons what breathe the lies. What breathe the Lie!! I say, and call out all the dragons living to make your death short and painful, for we each live a lifetime of small deaths, which is after all the defining characteristic of Samsara, each breath takes us closer to death. This is the main feature of all living things on the planet, as everything in Samsara is impermanent.

Even as we raise our faces to the sun and seek the light we so often find ourselves faced with the diseases of the mind and body – and after all each cell that is sloughed off was so temporary - and cancer is a form of evolution at speed – the majority of the beings on the planet live in conflict, disease, poverty and degradation, - and our hate? Witness the Hutu and Tutsi, Muslim and Jew – compassion enfolds the heart thinking of the child without even water to drink and the mother witnessing her child’s prolonged death - the failure of your lover to remember why she ever loved you - the death of your father - the evil conviction of the suicide bomber - the greed of the fat man in suits - the grasping of the thin man in rags - the family watching their sister waste away with confusion from the most basic of human functions: eating. Such is our misery.

 

Slay the dragon I say! Seek it our in its lair and slay it before it is roused, for it is in your mind and all that is needed is love of self to dissolve the thoughts that cause suffering. Dissolve the dragon with the love we have of all life, all the light that shines within every thing.

J’Accuse!

I accuse all of the darkness of refusing to shine.

I accuse all of the agents of darkness.

I accuse the ignorance in the heart of darkness.

I accuse the traitors in their deception.

I accuse all that conspire to perpetuate the Lie.

I accuse the purveyors of deception.

I accuse all those who choose to remain ignorant when they are aware of the Truth.

I accuse all those who aspire to leadership

and allow themselves to be corrupted by the Lie.

I accuse all those who choose the Lie of greed.

I accuse all those who choose the Lie of hatred.

I accuse all those who enslave, who conspire to keep the Earth from turning for it is they who keep the innocents in darkness.

I accuse all evil of envy of Light.

I pray that all light may be released from all that binds it.

I pray that this freedom creates the Photonic Age.

We are racing through the Photon Belt after all and isn’t this the promise of the flood of Aquarius? A flood of light…

H. E. Garchen Rinpoche taught me that everything which is good in this life has been accomplished by Bodhicitta. In this life we have one thing to protect, this is Bodhicitta, it is the source of all benefit. Perhaps the dance of the luminaries and our passage through the Photon Belt is creating a rain of light, a love storm, a compassionate gale that awakens the love within us all and assists in our evolution as spirits.

They say in so many songs and poems and plays that love comes at a price. I say it is the price of attachment and walk up the stairs out of the Oesteria into a cab back to the hotel. There’s a big soccer game tonight between England and Macedonia.

"What was the score?" I ask the cabbie.

"It was 2-2 mate…"

I had read in the paper that the English team was having trouble up front on the left side, no scoring power there, and because I like to engage cabbies with sports talk I say:

"They haven’t got anything going on the left…" to which the cabbie sighs in a sad resignation:

"I give up on England…" and he goes on to talk about the latest controversy in all the tabloids about the English coach and an affair with a former lover – the price of love – there it is again and then he complains about the troubles created by money and how it interferes with his favorite team and so I say:

"That’s the trouble with England these days, you’ve got nothing going on on the left…"

email notes from Kent Stuart:

--- Kent Stuart <kstuart@vif.com> wrote:

> bookmark the last page you send me so i

> don't get a second copy of anything;

> it took me quite a while, flipping ahead and then

> back, to get to my new starting point...

I have started new chapters now so you got a bit of an overlap but I had changed it anyway. Thanks for your perseverance, I was watching the DVD of Reservoir Dogs last night and there was a feature interview with an old con who plays one of the characters in the film, and he says that after his difficult life and observing many people (it occurs to me this is voice from prison again), he believes the best human quality is perseverance, and I have to agree.

>

> I suppose freedom is always freedom from something

> and that something has two possible sources;

> the external and the internal

> the external being other beings, propaganda like sex

> spam, the state, and so on;

> the other, less obvious ones are internal;

> addictions, obscurations, fears, ignorance;

I like this bit will give it consideration, but essentially the message is that we seek freedom from Samsara.

> Tony, who was it who said that freedom consists in

> understanding necessity?

I think I am trying to say this, after reading Plekhanov, as the necessity is that we perceive Samsara and the thoughts that keep us here as a myriad of interconnected needs. Also the fact that we experience necessity, that it is one of the permutations of attachment, the experience of necessity is suffering and thus in a conscious mind truly understanding the nature of necessity leads to a desire to be free from all necessity.

> Nelson one man who changed the course of history

> the great man theory of history is so much crap

The whole message of this chapter is exactly this, and if this is not clear there's a problem, I was giving the story some London juice as I stood before Nelson's tomb in the in the Crypt and thought about the prayer he said before the battle of Waterloo, the text of the prayer is inscribed on his tomb, and I had the thought that it was this prayer that changed history, not the man.

>

> dissolve the dragon with the love we have of all

> life

> so good to hear you speak of the love we all could

> share-

> how shall we find it?

By choosing not to refuse the dream. I know this phrase comes across as stilted but this is the message I received, as much of what you read is received let's not use the ‘c’ word, and the message will be repeated throughout that we make our way with non-attachment by choice and the choice is to allow the dream to flow not grasp at the roots hanging out in the water

> Tony, they say ... that love comes at a price

> but they don't know

> they think the price is being pussy-whipped

> they think the price is having to compromise

> they think it is loss of self

> they don't know.

> it is growth

> it is a benefit, which some call growing up

> they are still 'unwilling to pay the price',

> still fighting tooth and nail to recover the rule of

> thumb,

> nostalgic* for the days when your own children were

> your own private sexual property

> they don't know what love is

>

> i have been wanting to learn how to play that song

> (from the '80's?)

> whose chorus goes

> 'what is love anyway?

> does anybody love anybody anyway?'

>

> my favourite aphorism from all of this so far is

> 'there is no other;'

> i have always believed that

> none of us is free as long as one of us is in chains

>

> i am currently free of love,

> seeking real freedom

>

> love,

> kent

> * yes, nostalgia can be for the present, for the

> change in this sphere is glacial

Continued