Tricky the Demon -- Itching's Alt Consciousness

Previous "Itching" links:
Itching = Alt Consciousness Portals?
Secret Journal -- Scratching an Itch (or Not)
This Infernal Itching -- A Thorn in My Flesh
 
I feel a little guilty, but I'm overcoming it more and more. The short answer to guilt is obviously I wasn't cut out to be an ascetic. Whether not-scratching actually does you any good, it's looks like it can. But there must be some evolutionary reason why we scratch. It was probably those who didn't scratch who were overrun with bacteria and died. It explains why we have fingernails, and it's not just to give nail salons something to do.

I did my best with the idea. I had the idea suddenly one day that if I didn't scratch that might mean I'd be transported into other realms of consciousness. I'm always getting ideas like that, when I should just sit quietly after one comes and ask myself, Is it really likely that every stupid stray thought is a revelation? Or pick an idea and stick with it. If it succeeds, great. If it fails, at least I stuck with it. They used to advertise cars going 0 to 60 in 8 seconds. That's how fast I act on impulse.

Still, even as I think of it now, it makes a certain amount of sense. Portals to alt consciousness exist, and are likely round, and you can easily picture a round space encompassing every itch point. Even with my lack of discipline I'm smart enough to know that. But everything's changed now -- for the better, I hope -- and I'm back to scratching.

You'd be amazed at the heroic measures I took over the last couple weeks. I didn't shower for a week, thinking the more clogged my pores got, the more I'd itch, and the faster I'd attain the alt realms. I was half right. I had five times as many itches, but the commensurate realms were few. Until! I did have one, but at first I didn't think of it as alt consciousness. By and large, as my discomfort rose, I had only discomfort. It felt like things were crawling on me. Honestly, I had to look a few times, and I believed I saw something darting behind me when I was near a mirror.

So that was the alt realm! Which confused me, because it didn't seem like a reward for not scratching, because it had more to do with tempting me to scratch. Weird, huh? But that was it! I did the ascetic thing and the alt realm came disguised as sin. Which I hesitated over but gave into. Now I see, it was the reward, the payoff. Like I said, at my lowest point, I thought I saw something darting behind me, and finally I caught a glimpse in the window. There was a being ducking and hiding. I called out to it, and the name Tricky the Demon came to my mind.

Who, it turns out, was only ducking and hiding because he wanted to see me really squirm, I mean, really really squirm. Maybe for my own good, but still ... sadistic little bastard. I'll skip over the preliminaries. He told me he was here so I could go back to scratching. I resisted with all my might! I shall not scratch! But he was persuasive, saying he had the injunction to come up and assist me.

His voice was like honey, sweet to the ears, seductive like a beautiful woman, although his form, reddish, deformed, and obviously demonic was much less of a turn-on. He said in words so soft and sweet how gooooood it'd feeeeeel to let myself gooooo, etc, with very drawn out seductive language, like maybe he was selling Calgon. I said I felt bad about scratching and he had an answer for that. Which turned out to be a Magic Butler, materialized here for the job of scratching me!

So I went out for the day, trailed by Tricky the Demon and my Magic Butler. Every word of this is true, by the way. Maybe I started off confused, but this was the only alt portal I was going to get, and it was a fantastic one. In addition to scratching me, the Magic Butler is doing all the things that regular butlers do, more or less by the wave of his hand. And Tricky the Demon and I have been luxuriating on the couch, binge-watching old movies and eating free Whitman Samplers that he's teleporting in from somewhere.

I love it. All the luxury I'm getting, Tricky isn't making it, it's teleported in. Anything I want, I haven't paid for a thing. And apparently it's all untraceable. I'd guess the warehouses would have video cameras. But all they'd pick up would be the thing vanishing. Heck of a way to live, I know, but I don't see a downside. Tricky really is the Prince of Tempters, and so far I'm not noticing any ill effects. It's all great.

Anyway, I've changed my opinion 100%. Itching is out; full, free, and purposeful scratching is in. It really is true, you barely see anything when you fail to scratch. But when you're scratching -- I mean going at it with the full force of gusto, just short of drawing blood, all of life is open to you and the possibilities are endless. This is the greatest thing I've ever experienced. And that covers a number of things, of which the less said the better.

The good news, I'm back to scratching. The Magic Butler's scratching me, and himself once in a while. The places I can't reach, or don't want to because I'd have to wash my hands, I'm letting him get. Everything in front, above the waist and in plain sight, I'm going for. Tricky lies on the couch and looks at me, a playful smile. His eyes scrunch up when he smiles. He's truly delighted to see a guy in comfort.

So this is my thing now! It all worked out and it all makes sense. Alt consciousness comes from scratching and the grace of Tricky and the Magic Butler coming at my lowest point. I'm like Martin Luther King, Jr. -- I went down the mountain, I came back up, or however that goes. I imagined I saw it from afar, then I lived to arrive there, and now my children -- which I'm going to need a woman to get some of -- will someday play with children of the opposite color and be judged by their character, which will likely be very much like mine, beyond reproach.

I'm very blessed. I got alt consciousness from itching and scratching. Which maybe, like Dorothy said, I had all the time. But like her in Oz and waking up, maybe the Magic Butler and Tricky the Demon are just guys in the hood, the mailman and one of my cousins. With a bunch of old Whitman Samplers. They seem real enough. Life's still full of mysteries, like a box of chocolates, teleported in from somewhere. Over the rainbow?

Masturbananda -- The Need For Seed

You've got seed and you've got need.

The need is a personal, discernible need, often with personal motives. But the need is also part and parcel of nature's drive, there of course being no clear division between the two needs except what we see as true because of our sense of a personal consciousness.

Where the seed comes from and the compulsion behind it, these things obviously arise from beyond our individual personal consciousness and choice. They are a given in nature to the nature we are. The nature has one path leading toward regular replication. It also takes an evolutionary path, going toward higher expressions of nature. Then, ultimately, there is union with the Divine at the heart of it all. You can probably tell I'm thinking of concepts that come from a mix of Sri Aurobindo and Ken Wilber's teachings, as well as the teachings of Sri Masturbananda.

Of the masters who deal with seed and the various needs of seed, Masturbananda is no doubt the preeminent authority. This is right at the heart of his teachings, and in light of that, we find him to be very practical. Because this is at the center of every man's life. (We're excluding eunuchs and possibly the Pope. Note to women: You're going to have to look elsewhere. We know there is some psycho-physical corollary in your experience, but what it is and how it works is a complete mystery to us. We basically know where the off/on switch is, but how the apparatus behind it should most accurately be described is so far unknown.)

Sri Masturbananda's teaching is in agreement with the mainstream of science as to the properties and "needs" of seed, while going beyond them in terms of the hidden potentialities of the same for man's union with the Divine. He bases his teaching not on speculation or doctrine handed down but on personal experimentation and discovery. And so he passes it on, that his chelas (students) may discover it for themselves. He's not asking them to take anything simply by belief or trust, but calls on them to test the teachings and see.

As I've written before, Masturbananda teaches that real glimpses of the Divine are given to us through our best devotions. And he shows the way. How many times I can remember the Master retiring to one of the ashram's outhouses! Everything is as normal. Then there's an obvious fervency at work and we can tell there is something of greatness in our midst. An intensity that you can just feel is building in the atmosphere.

Suddenly all of your senses hone in on the outhouse! The sounds are greater and greater, even becoming ethereal and less distinguishable as mere sounds and become a feeling, like a shroud of intuition covering you! The eyes behold a glow covering the facility! Everything is working itself up in a wild crescendo. And then, we duck for the cover, the roof is blown clean off, and a jet stream of the purest light arises from the earth and meets another beam coming from somewhere beyond!

That's leadership. That's showing the way. I say it like that because the Master is always in unity with the Divine; he doesn't need to do this, but he takes part in the grosser forms of devotion to be our example. And you got to love him for it! It certainly inspires us, and how much greater then is our own fervency upon retiring to our chambers in the light of the Master's blessed condescension. The big difference, of course, is that none of us has yet caused real roof damage; perhaps some ceiling spotting, some of the bigger guys, but that's about it.

The more I concentrate on his blessed teaching, the more inspired I am, and that's the way it is for all of us. Because this isn't just something that arises from us, but is part of the Divine plan. Once you see it, you can't see it any other way. These potentialities are with us, but clearly they are from beyond us, speaking from an egoic perspective. That the Divine wills for union with us, and finds equal or exceeding joy in that, is all the added inspiration we need to be faithful to our devotions!

I'm One Pebble In A Vast Ocean

I guess I'm happy enough with reality. And if I'm not, it doesn't look like it matters. So I may as well be happy enough with it, even if I have to fake it.

But I'm not faking it, now that I think about it. I'm OK being one pebble in a vast ocean. That's the apparent reality, but according to what I'm also thinking, I'm also the vast ocean looking at the pebble.

There's no need to say, "So and so said that," because you can't improve on truth, so it's as much mine as it is his. Can openers, you can improve on. Garage door openers. The taste of dog food. Insulating houses. Making longer and better extension cords. Have at it, go for it.

But getting away from being the vastness ... that's all well and good ... there's still the daily realizations that you're a pebble in a vast ocean. I've got the four walls I've got and they're different than yours. Just looking around the room. Someone mass produced this keyboard but I've got the one I have. Others are plinking on their own but I'm plinking on this one. Others are writing their version of hogwash but -- modesty prevents me from saying what I'm writing.

I go could out in the back yard and see if the stars are out. They probably are, unless someone put them away. The sky's like a bunch of scattered toys that some tired kid forgot to put away, so if I trip over a star in the middle of the night, I'll burn my foot. Looking up and knowing that you can't really see them any clearer with a telescope gives you a humble thought. Except you are looking, and that should count for something.

A Dizzying Hiatus

Where does the human spirit goes when it's tired of the same old same old? That's a question that has occurred to every person at some point, except maybe newborns, who are probably already there, until they get diaper rash and then they suddenly awaken to normal life.

We're all into alternative consciousness, when conceived as something beyond the sense that daily life is a bore. (It's not, of course, but to discern this is itself alternative consciousness.)

I know all this because of course I'm an expert. I'm on hiatus, giving me all kinds of time to explore the regions way up there, then the regions way down there. I have no real responsibilities in life except to devote myself to experiencing, relinquishing experience, ascending, descending, cutting weeds, feeding the dog, taking care of Grandma, and the like. I wear many hats but they're all set on the same brilliant head.

What's so brilliant about my head? Well, first, it appears to be the only one I have. So I treasure it. I keep my collection of thoughts in it. And I'm very busy, even with all my downtime, in running around with a butterfly net capturing new thoughts and adding them. That's why you have holes in your head, so your thoughts can get fresh air.

But getting back to alternative consciousness. I don't mean alternative in the sense of something foreign or different. I simply mean aspects of your consciousness that are already and always there but you're just not always aware of. And to tell the truth, I don't want to be always aware of them, because I want there to be many more surprises down the line. The thing about awareness is not to discover, conquer, and colonize anyway. Because all this stuff is very easily spooked, like Garrett Al that night the police showed up; you never saw anyone so innocent! Right, now zip up your pants and maybe they'll believe you! LOL!

I remember we loved this consciousness when we were kids, like when a flashbulb went off and we were running around trying to catch the spot in our eyes. Or when we were spinning till we got so dizzy we fell down. The sun and the sky are spinning around. You feel the lightness in your head. The blur of the trees is like a green smear. Other kids spinning around you have already fallen. A few of them can't stand it at all and one gets sick. And there's some very interesting consciousness when you get sick.

Today is the day to get dizzy! This is National Get Dizzy Day at the Slump half acre. I'm going to burn some of my hiatus time getting dizzy. I'm going to go out in the half acre and spin till I fall down!

Eight-Track Consciousness

I've been thinking about life and all its peculiarities and particularities. That there's a certain trajectory to life, going, it appears, from one moment to the next. This of course seems self-evident to us in the West, just guessing, but there have been those (are those?) who have seen it as more cyclical, or, maybe even in some more inscrutable way, like cyclical/linear/quarkish all at the same time. I suppose you could call our linearity similar to a phonograph record, the cyclical people's similar to a CD, and that last bunch similar to an 8-track tape.

If you think of each one as preserving something, yet having its own little world (ethos), this makes an apt illustration of my point. What the phonograph record and CD suggest is pretty obvious. But the 8-track tape is a real adventure, if you remember them, a wild, easily disordered affair, a mushy, undependable interface point, planned and unplanned program jumping, sometimes unexpected repetitions, bleeding tracks, continued songs, space-age wavering, slowing down, speeding up; they really could be used in consciousness experiments, if not transcedence / transconsciousness triggers. The artist intended the music of this world, the delivery gave a door beyond.

And to think I used to see them along the road, broken, run-over, the tape unspooling, flapping about in the wind, being tangled in weeds and pecked at by red-winged blackbirds. I should have collected them and pieced them together. Who knows what I might have discovered, say, if I would've run them upside down, backwards, through, say, two players simultaneously, or whatever? It might've been an eye-opener!


Original article ["Feeling Sorry for Myself"] fragments, now abandoned:

Anyway, as I said at the outset, I've been thinking of life, in particular, my pathetic life here. Grandma Slump in the other room snoring. She's a real survivor. She survived another day of life, as did I. Why do I say "pathetic?" Not for any big huge monstrous reason, really, but I guess I'm tired, and just feeling sorry for myself. I'm sitting here, aging right along, definitely linear (it's obvious), and I know other guys my age are out there, partying with wives, having martinis with business associates, helping their kids get through college, driving big Hummers, the works.

But the way it was for me -- the peculiarities and particularities coming out of my choices -- was that I stayed with Grandma. Taking care of her, I can chalk that up to my credit. And I do help out around here. I guess I should be a little proud. My clothes aren't your expensive brands. But, hey...

Yet, looking at these four walls everyday of my life, sleeping on the same bed I slept on when I was 12, and watching time tick on toward the time when I join Grandma in Heaven. There's something less than satisfying about that.