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Notes From Woodsong (1973) By William Samuel

About Shortages, Catastrophes, Floods, Crime, Grits
And A World Generally Going Mad

If we expect the end of human problems, global problems, problems in nature or from cosmic reaches, the end begins here and now with the Awareness viewing these words. One does not arrive at the end of catastrophes, shortages, wars-personal or global-while waiting for others to discover the truth with us. No! If we wait for others to discover and live the truth with us, we wait in vain past the midnight hour. ALONE, all alone, we begin right here and do the job for our world ourself! As Awareness, we do this ourself.

The Millennial Peace begins with YOU reader. The heralded Era lies in you hands of comprehension-not a government's, not in many working in organizational concert. The onus is yours to act on here and now! So, we get at it!……not we, but I. "I" get busy and return to the beginning. I return to the primal Christ light that observes and understands the perfection before it. I do. Not my others. Others see this example perhaps and as an added thing may go and do likewise. But, the perception of others perceiving and beginning to live the Truth comes as intellectual confirmation and really isn't important, for even when we see the world still destroying beliefs and dreams of misplaced value, we understand THAT appearance too-and understand why it is good. Not bad-good!


The tangible Millennium yet to be seen in space-time awaits ones UNDERSTANDING what is before the eyes. There is no need to change Anything but there is the divine command to UNDERSTAND everything.

Were does that start if not HERE as I-awareness? With others? No. With I. We, as the wisdom and comprehension of God, look for the perfect reason undergirding every appearance. "EVERY appearance? Aren't some of them illusion and dream?" EVERY APPEARANCE. The dream has its reason for appearing too, else how would one know gentle dreamlessness?

There are those who come to us asking. What do we tell them? That THIS Awareness reading these words is the Christ life, finally come to set all things straight.

"Even the affairs of the world?"

ESPECIALLY the affairs of the world!

"How?"

By understanding appearances within Awareness and the perfect reason for their existence. We end the fixation with personal affairs to tend the world scene, the WHOLE scene! The grand librarian LaoTse wrote, "Understand the All, the Whole, and that alone…Be the stream of the UNIVERSE--- the sage takes care of ALL men and abandons no one. He takes care of ALL things and abandons NOTHING." "This," he said, "is called 'Following the Light.'"


Again, that keeper of words who wrote so few, said, "Understand Virtue (perfection) in yourself and Virtue will be real…comprehend virtue in the universe and virtue will be everywhere!" Who is to do this if not this one whom you call I? Someone else? There is no one else. Someone out there? There are none out there. ALL are within This Awareness being I.


"The world is a perfect vessel that cannot be improved."

Yes, yes-but how this flouts the scientific, judgmental opinion that sees everything going straight to hell! How many times LaoTse must have been asked, "If all is perfect, master, then what are we to DO?" His answer again and again, "Non-action is All-action."


That "inscrutable answer" can be comprehended now. Listen softly. The attempt to balance, heal, secure or correct the world scene is shadow play-sheer foolishness that has become so futile a child can see its headlong plunge into chaos, carnage. BUT TO COMPREHEND WHY THE SCENE BEFORE THE EYES IS PERFECT JUST AS IT IS is to BEHOLD the scene healed, balanced, righted and secure. Immediately! NOW! Without wait and without effort; without the horrendous human struggle that avails nothing but disquiet.

We comprehend, we understand, we know. This is the non-action that is ALL action. This is the wisdom that appears to the eye as the healing of the nations. We want the Millennial Peace that brings the end of sin, sickness, disease and death? Then we BE it! Nothing less will do. We BE it consciously! We gird up our loins and BE it-then DO what that being demands! These words are just such a doing.

The attempt to heal a situation, personal or worldwide, is primarily the old sense of self at work. Ah, but to UNDERSTAND old-self at work is Self at work, Self's comprehension of Self. To UNDERSTAND personal or worldwide inequities is Self's comprehension of Self. Self's comprehension of Self perceives the reasons for, thence the END of, self and its inequities, individual or worldwide. This is the 'way' of enlightenment. "This is called 'Following the Light.'" This is the healing of the nations.

REFRESHING WATER CLOSE BY

If people give me smiles because I smile at them, I suspect there are some who can give a cool drink of water too, should I need it. Just as the tree along the river bank, I receive from within; I receive from without-inside and outside the same.

I remember my first journey across a desert. When things began to seem hopeless, when the first hints of anguish began to appear, someone always appeared with water-cool, refreshing water-respite from thirst and discouragement.

So it is, there is always an oasis near us-within/without us-being all there is TO us. Sometimes that refreshing aspect of Selfhood appears an inner glimmer along the pathway of inner search. But as often as not, its confirmation comes as someone who, while appearing 'out there,' is PLAINLY another view of the Selfhood-I-Am, capable of showing us the tangible water we thirst for-clear water, clean water, undistorted and healing water.

QUESTIONS, ANSWERS AND FRAGMENTS
Words purporting to speak of the Absolute must be as honest as words can be. If they are well done, they contain both the precision that satisfies the intellect of us and the love that lets the Heart know they have been LIVED as well as written. This requires a dedication and intensity "the world" simply doesn't understand.

At least to this point in history, metaphysical writing is a veritable miracle of obfuscation and intellectual hogwash that says nothing in plain, simple words. The "metaphysics of the Absolute" is fast becoming the world's new mysticism which allows one to read whatever he likes into its interpretation. That sort of stuff doesn't "wake the dreamer." It only makes the dream more comfortable.
So, how to say what the Absolute discloses without the mystifying, muddling mess of metaphysical language? That is what has me so long at Woodsong. How to write what can't be written with words alone? That's what has me wandering the back trails and fields. Not searching for the Real but for ways to tell of it-for words that sing to the Heart and say there is noting BUT the Real-either to be seen or do the seeing.

Where are the ways to say such things? It is easier to count the stars in the night sky than find them. But they exist-and there are many of us with pen in hand.
"Bill, are you still prattling about a 'perfect world' now that it is falling around our feet" Do you still maintain that 'God is all' in the face of governments near collapse, crashing markets and economic systems, warfare and greed, murder and madness everywhere? Do you still insist there is nothing but GOOD going on even as we are haunted by the specter of shortage at every turn?…Do you still say there is no devil, discord, disease or death?…If you do, you are as mad as a hatter."


Yes, Jack. Yes! I'm still singing the same song and my hat fits! I'm still telling about a perfect universe for which you and I are the AWARENESS. And I'm not stating personal opinions or beliefs I simply wish were true. I'm telling of a perfection I KNOW about-a perfection that stands tall and straight right in the middle of the world's frustrations. Everyday more and more are finding It. I know. There are hundreds of letters here telling me so.


"If one sees nothing but a perfect world, why DO or WRITE anything at all?"
I don't write because I have an answer but because there's a song in my Heart disclosing that I (you) AM the Answer.

I don't write to heal someone or some thing, nor to make the world over. I write because there's a song in the Heart disclosing I AM the world and all that's in it-even as "you" are.

We don't write to DO anything, but, like a child full of gladness, we write to let the inside out and sing-to make the unsounded Symphony HEARD.
By whom? Myself alone.

It isn't an "I" that sees perfection, but God who, as this Awareness I-Identity am, sees naught but that God is. Everything. And it IS, by God JUST AS IT IS, perfect!

"Some teach that the Absolute is not material, therefore not finite in any sense of the word. I see material things all day long. Is there any reality in them at all?"
Is there any arithmetic in the number? Is there any Symphony in the printed note? Is there any tree in its shadow? We look for the Principle behind the number. We listen for the Symphony being the note. We look up from the shadows and find the Tree. What ever the "thing" we see, it is ISNESS being made plain. We don't throw the thing out a mental widow calling it "unreal" or "just a part of the dream." We learn to acknowledge that Light which is being the sight, sound or experience. We stop giving undue importance to the thing and acknowledge the Ineffable Symphony for which things are either chords or discords making the Symphony clear. But listen, listen: The Symphony, and the notes, that make it known, are ONE Symphony!


"A well known woman practitioner-writer-teacher- has told me countless times I had better 'get busy and know the Truth.' That's what I thought I had been doing but evidentially not. After all these years in the practice I'm not certain of anything anymore and am feeling quite guilty about it. Precisely what IS the primary difference between 'enlightened thinking' (knowing the Truth) and the ordinary thinking one is engaged in during the day?"

The "ordinary" thinking of the world begins its calculations from the position of a humanity with a problem, sinful and struggling, attempting to achieve a degree of wisdom. It begins from the position of an ignorant mortal, born in sin, attempting via an uncounted number of pathways to arrive at a "unitive knowledge of Reality."


On the other hand, the "philosophy of the Absolute" when correctly stated and understood aright begins its statement from the position that Reality, God, is All-absolutely all in All and All is well. The Absolute "begins" with a real Perfection very much PRESENT-then, from that position EXPLAINS THE SCENE AT HAND, allowing the Heart to tell us what to DO about it.
The difference between "enlightened thinking" and the ordinary sort is precisely WHICH starting point gives rise to our thoughts. Is God really ALL? Is Allness, God, actually omnipotent or is there another power outside Allness struggling to get back in? Is God really the omniscient, all and only Mind, or is there another mind, sinful and ignorant, struggling, striving and straining to educate itself? Is God really omnipresent or is there another place OUTSIDE Allness and Onlyness with in which Omnipresence is absent and sin, sickness and death present? Ordinary thinking (frequently called "mortal mind") begins at the bottom with the multiplicity of sense data before it and from here struggles to climb up to God. Enlightened thinking begins at the top AS God, AS Singleness, AS Allness, AS Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence, and from THERE looks roundabout at ITSELF with gladness and signing and twinkle in its Eye!!


Now, listen carefully; listen softly: Both positions view the same Scene! The same mighty mountains and snow flowers are present to both views-the same children are tumbling in the same green fields and examining the same crawly things-the same events appear to happen "but only God can understand God," as the bibles of the world so elegantly confirm, and "no man can understand the ways of God."


As the top position, one looks, understands and knows. FROM the bottom, one looks into the face of a proliferating multiplicity to be smothered by it and ultimately forced to change perspective. AS the ALL and ONLY, one looks, and understands, is troubled for a time, then marvels and reigns! From the bottom, one casts his lot with the leaves and shadows of a far country.
Ah, but-as the TOP, even the leaves and shadows and mistakes are UNDERSTOOD for the grand purpose they serve. From the top, our choosing first one position, then the other, is understood. We are without GUILT and it is all "good"-even the husks and tares; even the Hatter's madness.

"What does the Absolute have to say about the present energy crisis?"


There is no ENERGY crisis HERE. All that is ever "here" for anyone is AWARENESS, LIFE-and awareness is the functioning, the activity, the energy of MIND. Isn't it?! Mind, God, is All. Consequently, the awareness that reads these words is the only Energy around and It isn't in short supply. Is it?!

"I understand awareness to be the energy of Mind but what is the short supply of oil, electricity and gasoline for my home and business all about?"


Oil, electricity, atomic power and all the forms of energy are the "out there" appearances that make the "in here" Energy that AWARENESS is apparent-just as the notes of the Symphony make the Symphony apparent. Just as the colors of the spectrum make white light apparent. Colors are subservient to Light. The images of energy are subservient to the Awareness that comprehends them and whose Energy they make plain. Oil is the EVIDENCE of energy, not Energy ITSELF. It is the shadow, not the Tree it points to. One doesn't hit the panic button when the Tree's shadow grows weak. He knows the Tree is still there, untouched and unaffected by the shadow's wanderings. But, if one has been worshiping the shadow, glorifying the shadow, buying and selling the shadow as though SHADOW were the Value rather than Tree, then the shadow's shortage is certain to become one's necessary concern.
Why necessary? Comfortable as the shadow, the Tree-I-am remains unseen and unlived. Discomfort FORCES and end to the shadow's reign and the false values we've given it.


For a moment, consider the world's love of the sundry shadows that fall across its face. Does it contain a thought of the Tree at all? All the years of weighing and measuring, the shadows, buying and selling the shadows, possessing, struggling for and lusting after the shadows hasn't allowed the world even to understand the SHADOWS, much less find the Tree. What do the sciences of the world know of this very world they measure? Only that less and less is certain, and every "answer" turns into a dozen new questions yet to be answered. The shadow-study institutions move ever deeper into their own maze of multiplicity, birthing more shadow studies to ask still more question, to measure the reach of tectonic plates, ponder the problems of polarity and search for Black Holes in the sky already dark with night. Ever, the measure of shadows rises no higher than the ground they fall on.


Finally, humanity has arrived at the "point in time" when its shadow-study and shadow-worshiping confusions have it allocating, rationing, fighting over and finally destroying the very sand foundation on which the sciences or mortal thinking stand.


Where does it go from here? One day soon, soon, to GIVE UP in its self-imposed agony for the split second of reflection and REST-the Sabbatical rest that lets one say, as God, "Behold, everything is good!" And, by dang, here is the Tree that has been here since all Eternity! Yes, yes. Identity is "Tree," not a shadow-limb trembling before a shortage of shadow-leaves.

Consider again. From the position of shadow-as-most-important, the human sciences can go no higher than themselves, whether they are political, religious, economic or whatever. Oh, but from the standpoint of TREE ACKNOWLEDGED, the shadow can finally be understood in its entirety! THEN mankind will discover things about the sticks and stones, flowers and bones, of nature never dreamt before-and will know the difference between shadow-fact and non-fact. Identified as Tree, one can tell the wheat from the tare.

Be assured: Both the present shortage of shadows and the abundance of shadows labeled "shortage" lead STRAIGHTWAY to the Tree of Identity called LIFE. Life is where the action is. Life is what the "energy" is.

The days ahead are certain to contain a mighty storm that casts new shadow atop the old, from strange directions, as the lightening rages roundabout. We will see many shadows come and go, human values change, human ideals altered, icons smashed. BUT IT WILL ALL BE HAPPENING "OUT THERE" WITH THE SHADOW-VALUES. We choose to hang in here as the Tree of Light and Life, letting the shadows take care of themselves.

Lo, once the Tree is found, there is hardly a concern for the shadows that led us there-except to thank them.

Metaphysicians are not surprised by the strange and foreboding events happening in the world today. The present international drama, as well as every individual experience, is Truth appearing-and every bit of it is good, whether it seems so or not.

One is prone to view his own personal experience in one light and the events happening in the world in another. Only the metaphysical (solipsistic) outlook recognizes how closely related the personal scene and world scene actually are. Only the metaphysical outlook discloses (to the thinking, rational mind) the wonders that are ours with the realization that both scenes live and move and have their being within the awareness that takes note of them. Within this realization, the personal scene and world scene are seen to be ONE scene-the Scene new-seen! Furthermore, the top-down metaphysical view makes a logical explanation to both the heart and intellect of us as to how and why this is so. In rare moments it even explains how everything happening is Good-beyond-human-good, no mater how awful it seems to the old nature of us.

The paradox so difficult for most to understand and believe is this: Circumstances, personal and global, will continue as persistently, forcefully, and sometimes chaotically as is necessary to disclose the perfect scene already at hand. Events, however they seem to us, individually as a personal experience or collectively as international affairs, are the intellectual appearing of the irrepressible All-rightness which has been here all the while.

Notes From Woodsong William Samuel