Loneliness versus Being Alone

Being alone and being lonely to me are two different things. I was never as lonely as I was in one of my marriages, and on the other hand I have lived alone and not been lonely. To me loneliness is a state of mind.

If happiness depends on your being with another person you are wide open to being controlled by that person because they can leave at any time and take away your happiness.

To be happy while being alone is complete freedom because no one can take that from you.

I’ll paint the picture

I’ll paint the picture
With no clouds of gray,
I’ll paint bright tomorrows
No regrets for today.
I’ll paint over sad memories
So they won’t show through
I’ll paint the picture
And I’ll leave out the blue.

From the novel Prodigal Child by E, David Moulton.

Just what we need; a new religion

I learned on CNN News this morning about Universism a new religion. I checked out their website and while I agree with many of their views I was left with the question; do we really need another religion?

Their main stand is that this is a religion without faith; without any rules for the individual to follow. If there are no rules or guidelines why do you need to belong to an organization? Surely an individual can figure things out for themselves, there are countless books out there and information on the Internet.

This is an organization and the very word implies something that it is organized. If it has no rules it is not an organization it is chaos. I see nowhere on their website where they ask for a donation of money and I applaud that, but when you start to organize meetings etcetera there are certain expenses and the money has to come from somewhere. Before too long this becomes a business.

My question is; why do we have to belong to something? Why do we need a label for our beliefs? The leader of this group is all of 30 years old; it took me at least 50 years to realize I had problems that I needed to address. Twenty years later I have figured out a lot of things, but I still have issues I need to deal with. The late, great Sri Nisaragadatta said “No one can help anyone until they are beyond needing help themselves.”

I will always help someone if the occasion arises, but it is not my place to go seek out people to help, and not my place to force my opinions on others. I live my life by two simple rules:
1. I try not to harm anyone; in thought, word or deed.
2. I take responsibility for my own happiness.
Think about it, if everyone on this planet did just that it would be the end of all our problems. God would say, “My experiment worked. Game, set, match.” And the Universe would self destruct.

Why Write?

I have been an artist most of my life; I have painted pictures and created functional art in the form of racing bicycle frames. I get high on creativity, high on the feeling of euphoria when I step back and look at what I have created. And like a junkie there came a time when the art I created no longer gave me that high. I needed a better fix, so I turned to writing and songwriting.

It is one thing to apply paint to canvas and create a picture, or to assemble pieces of metal together and make a solid object. But to assemble words on paper or even in your head, to me is the ultimate form of creativity. It is truly creating something out of nothing, pulling something out of the air, so to speak.

Songwriting takes this a step further because you are pulling musical notes out of the air and adding to the words. Paul McCartney was once asked if he got a thrill from hearing his music performed by other artists. He replied that the biggest thrill he got was from walking down the street and hearing someone singing or whistling one of his songs.

Most of us will never see the work of Michael Angelo or an original Picasso if we do it will only be for a moment. But the written word or recorded music can be shared by anyone, even for free. No one will charge you a fee to sing a Beatles song in your shower.

Language is the greatest gift given to human kind; it is what sets us apart from the animals. Animals have feelings; they feel happiness, grief, and anger but cannot express those feelings to others. I can assemble words, and if I do it right, can make others laugh or cry, or bring out other emotions, just by hearing or reading those words.

I can paint pictures with words. Pictures more vivid and real than I could ever paint on canvas. And the picture I paint will be different for each individual. I remember as a child listening to plays on the radio. The scenes I saw in my mind were real because they took place in my house and my neighborhood. I was in the scene, not on the outside looking in as I would be viewing film or television.

Through my writing I can re-live my life; I can do the things I wish I’d done and say the things I wish I’d said. Writing is wonderful therapy and the question I always ask myself as I finish something, is "Am I a better person for having written this?" If the answer is "yes" then this is reward in itself; but if someone else could become a better person for having read my work, then this would be the ultimate reason I write.

Universal Intelligence

I believe there is a Universal Intelligence at work in the Universe. You only have to watch one of those nature documentaries on TV about the rain forest to see this Intelligence at work. A colony of soldier ants moves through the jungle and they come to an obstacle, some of the ants will link their legs together to form a living bridge for the rest of the ants to cross over.

How do they do it? The scientists ask. How do they communicate? To me the answer is simple they are guided by Intelligence in the same way the swallow and the salmon find their way back to the place of their birth. The same way every organ and cell in my body functions without any conscious thought from me. You may as well ask how my heart communicates with my kidney, or my stomach with my liver.

I also believe that this same Intelligence is my intelligence. It is not in my brain, my brain is simply the receiver. This accounts for reason you can be thinking of someone and the phone rings and it is that person. Or you can be talking to a friend about a third person and that person will show up. This is such a common occurrence that we have a saying for it. We say, “Speak of the Devil.”

The Universal Intelligence knows everything; the answer to any problem is out there. Whenever I misplace some thing, I quietly tell myself “The Universal Mind knows where this item is.” I go on quietly looking and always find the item. This will only work if I believe it will, which is where faith comes in. The slightest doubt and it will not work.

I believe this Universal Intelligence is what some people refer to as God; only I don’t need to belong to some religion or other to connect with It. Human kind is the only species that requires that we belong to a religion. All other species seem to survive without it. Of course animals can’t go to Heaven, but to me Heaven and Hell are what we create for ourselves here on Earth. We all know people whose lives are filled with trouble and turmoil. A living Hell brought on by their negative thinking.

Let me ask this; if human kind disappeared from the face of this planet, what would happen? Nothing really; the Earth would keep turning, the sun would still rise in the east and set in the west. Rain would still fall; water would run into rivers and flow back to the ocean; plants and animals would flourish. In time cities man had built would crumble and decay; forest would revert back to forest, and desert back to desert. The same Intelligence that runs the whole show now would continue to run things.

This Intelligence is my God; the one within myself. I don’t need to go the Tibet or India to find Him, It is where ever I am. I don’t pray to Him; I just try to keep good positive thoughts, because after all what is a prayer but a positive thought? And as for praising God, what’s that all about? God has an ego that we need to praise Him? I find it doesn’t hurt to thank God once in a while. By doing so I acknowledge the existence of the Universal Intelligence and I am re-enforcing my own belief.

The Apple Tree

Some go in search of the truth and in doing so find themselves; others look for themselves and then discover the truth. The two are connected and you cannot find one without the other. Like looking for an apple tree and on finding it you discover the fruit; or you go in search of the apple and then discover the tree it grows on.

Look after your body

Take care of your body; otherwise where are you going to live?

Prodigal Child

I used to lie in the long grass
And watch the world go by,
As a child my world was happy
Only people made me cry.
And if the sun had never set
I wouldn’t have gone home,
The moments I remember
Were the times I spent alone.

I owned castles in the sky
And horses that could fly,
They’d take me there on golden wings
To a place where no one cried.
I go back there for a while
And always know that I’ll
Be welcome there,
A Prodigal Child.

When I grew up they told me
There were no castles in the sky,
And I should not imagine things,
It was wrong to tell a lie.
If I worked and studied hard,
Climbed the ladder of success,
Then money and its power
Would ensure my happiness.

So busy counting what I’d made
I didn’t count the cost,
And things I thought I needed
Weren’t missed when they were lost.
With all the knowledge I had gained,
After all the things I did,
I realized I had it all
When I was just a kid.

I owned castles in the sky
And horses that could fly,
They’d take me there on golden wings
To a place where no one cried.
I go back there for a while
And always know that I’ll
Be welcome there,
A Prodigal Child.

This is the only novel with a title song, as far as I know