Life As Seen Through The Third Eye

Ever since I read about the Eastern concept of the Third Eye I fell in love it. And after a lifetime of argument, debate, reasoning, and synthesis it is the view that makes most sense to me.

Why man gravitates to a dualistic world view is maddening. Things are either right or wrong, good or bad, love and hate, Heaven or Hell, up or down, left or right. But wait, there is a Limbo, a place between Heaven and Hell, according to us Catholics, though not much is ever said about it these days.

Yet, so much of human experience is a blend or combination of the two extremes. The view that all experience is amoral, and that it is we humans who declare its morality is also tempting.

"No hay mal, que por bien no venga" (There is nothing bad, that in the end, does not turn out for good) my mother-in-law was fond of saying.

Yeah, ok but how long does one have to wait for the good to show up? Like Eternity, maybe? But yeah, some nasty things that happened to us in the past, did turn out for the best (sometimes) and things we thought were "good" turned out being our demise.

You just can't win.

So right turns out to have a smattering of wrong in it, and wrong, we discover in the end, had a teaspoon of good in it, sometimes discovered too late! There's been a rise in the dip of home sales, did you hear? And a rise in decrease of murders? What goes up must come down.

The Third Eye helps us to see this. It is nothing more than Siddhartha's epiphany that a string that is tuned to tightly, or too loosely never plays the right note. But one perfectly stretched, not too tight, or too loose, gives birth to melody.

Jesus said it perfectly when speaking of giving,"Let not your right hand know what your left hand is doing."

If A Tree Falls In The Forest....?

I remember this mind bender from a philosophy course I took in college and how I spent days, even years contemplating the question: "If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?

And now at 70+, I am ready to pronounce the answer. Are you ready? Yes! It sure the hell does! This week my son Miguel took my wife and I to Silver Lake, an old haunt nestled at about 8500 feet elevation in the heart of California's Sierra Nevada mountains.

Across the lake, stubborn snow patches still dotted the granite monoliths, the last of this year's snowfall.  The one's at the top melted into temporary channels, which then poured into their brothers beneath them, which melted into more rivulets running down to those at the bottom which finally melted into large streams emptying into the lake.

Varieties of ants rushed aimlessly (or purposely) about, some black ones almost an inch in length! But they didn't really bother us. Clouds of mosquitoes hovered over us, agreeing among themselves, not to bite. Or was it the insect repellent? Two lizards did combat over a prime location on a bare rock in the sun. Why, when there were plenty of other rocks all over the place? Is there a story here?

As I lay on a rock looking up at the cotton tufts of cumulus clouds drifting by overhead, it occurred to me that all things do everything they're supposed to do whether we see, feel or hear them. The trees in a forest, if they wanted to could just fake growing and dying and no one would ever notice. Most could be replaced by photographic props, backdrops, and cheap visual tricks and most of us could care less.

Yet, each living thing goes through its prescribed ritual when it could take shortcuts, condense, delete or add things. Why? Every passing cloud formed, connected with larger clumps, devoured its neighbors, and deformed exactly as it was supposed to do without cheating. Every wisp, and shadow was perfectly in place. Cause and effect.

So I too went through the prescribed ritual of my species of drinking beer, lighting up my pipe, and eating salami and cheese sandwiches. What choice did I have? I didn't want to make a fool of myself.

Thus, the question really ought to be "if a man opens a can of beer in the forest, does it still make a sound?" Don't ask me, ask the squirrels!