Woodsong Notes

By William Samuel (1973)

QUESTIONS, ANSWER 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 under-stand.

At least to this point in history, metaphysical writing is a veritable miracle of obfuscation and intellectual hogwash that say 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, middling 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 nothing 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.  Every day 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, not 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.  Whatever the "thing" we see, it is ISNESS being made plain.  We don't throw the thing out a mental window 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 know, 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 evidently 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 All?  Is Allness, God, actually omnipotent, 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 within 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 beings at the top AS God, AS Singleness, As Allness, AS Omnipotence, Omnniscience, Omnipresence, and from THERE looks roundabout at ITSELF with gladness and singing 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 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, 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 wandering  But, if one has been worshipping 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 an 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- "answer" turns into a dozen new questions to be answered.  The shadow study institutions move ever deeper into their own maze of multiplicity, birthing more shadow studies to ask still more questions, 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-worshipping 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, 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, "Beyond, 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 ACKNOW-LEDGED, 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 dreampt 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 labelled "shortage" lead STRAIGHTAWAY 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 there 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 very 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.   With 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 matter 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.