The Freedom of the Form-less

I don't give my respect lightly, folks have to earn it. I know we're facing a dire situation simply from the amount of ignorance and greed in the world, even good, clever, kind people don't know how their actions are profoundly out of touch with the reality that is their consequences.

Often the 'poor' people of the planet are more harmless in their lifestyles than all of us with our laptops and nuclear power..., their effect on this planet is like a feather falling from the sky and often they're more creative of resilience than any urbanite, they grow things, they collect their water directly where they can, whereas our effect - you just have to look around at the deserts.

Area 51 - Between 1951 and 1992, there were a total of 928 announced nuclear tests at Nevada Test Site. A 104-kiloton bomb was buried at a depth of 635 feet, and its detonation produced a crater 1,280 feet wide and 320 feet deep, moving 12 million tons of radioactive dirt in an instant and creating a hole that can be seen from space

Our 'mother' is mad at the moment... our 'mother'; the system of industries and governments that 'provide' for us has 'lost it', I don't think they ever had it. Choosing harmlessness now, is against the 'law', choosing 'freedom', choosing 'human rights' are all conspired against by the monopolizing of business. The business model is not flexible enough to become ethical and ecological. So much needs changing.. But the biggest thing we can do is to operate in realtime, to grow real things, that have real effects on our environments, real positive changes...

I'm not interested in bringing down the 'system'. Only in what I can do. I can control my choices and live more directly with my home. I can make my home resilient, I can learn to 'clean' the radiation from my environments. I can put my efforts towards finding ways to 'show' the radiation using magnetic tracer elements that attach to radioactive particles and enable them to be collected from the land and atmosphere and put it back in the uranium and plutonium mines. I can 'clean' soil using zeolytes, bicarbonate of soda, using funghi which degrades radiation significantly faster. And I can solve the root causes too... I can bring 'down' the system, by bringing 'up' the future, the sustainable, the harmless. I need 'we'. We can focus and put our collective efforts on co-operatively healing and repairing the planet. Not by trying to 'change' that which refuses to change, but simply by creating new ways of sustaining ourselves that are harmless and choosing to adhere to them instead. A group pf people responsible for cleaning the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Garbage Gyre, Fukishima and everywhere that has been contaminated. That's a great 'we', not waiting for others to do it for us.

We can use energy responsibly and withdraw from the old damaging irresponsible ways. We don't need so much but what we do need is each other, to make a concerted effort together, in contrast to our governments and industries, who in the words of a CEO aren't able to change overnight, their 'changes' take decades to implement. Which is why they're not changing or helping us change - they think in economic terms, in 'cheapest' rates and so on. Those rates are costing our future.

I believe I live on a planet that is more than the physical, I believe we are creative, genius creatures that have the capacity to turn this around. I don't think it's an 'us' and 'them' situation. It's the same equation it's always been, between the aware and the ignorant, and in the same way you would try and intervene with a suicidal person stood on a bridge, here there are crowds unwittingly stood at the edge. So many people who have put their fates in others hands. We simply have to take our fates in our own hands and stop giving it away.

I had a realization recently of the many ways I 'give away' my power... Through the many forms of paperwork and documents that tell me what I can and cannot do, who I am, what my rights are. Even if we don't throw them away in reality, we should 'cast them out' from within us. We are free human beings, free to travel where we want, when we want, without any intervention, free to live and do what and how we wish.

Anything we believe is contrary to that is simply an 'idea', a way of 'controlling'. But how can they control thousands of people who stand up and choose to belong to none but this earth and this universe. Who choose to 'go beyond borders' literally and forever. Who choose to adhere, not to nationalism or anything divisionary, but to the wider humanity.

I have found trying to live within this system; tiring, wasteful, weakening, distracting, exhausting, stressful, unhealthy, and life shortening. I've also found it a waste of time, destructive, divisionary, prejudiced and all of it unnecessary. It has never once served me or anyone I know. We are quite capable of helping each other and providing for our needs without it. I am not my national insurance number, you cannot compare me to GDP, I am not my citizenship, I am not my 'job'. What purpose do I serve? Freedom... everyones.

Obama asked the 'terrorists' to 'renounce violence' and 'respect the constitution' - you can't ask someone else to do that unless you do it yourself. I think if we unite not with individual countries, 'China', 'France', the European Union, NATO... but instead with the people who live in China, the people who live in France, the people who live on this planet... If we look beyond all the dividing lines, where division is used for the purposes of control.

If we become free ourselves, live harmlessly, live sustainably, help each other, provide freely... at least in terms of or basic needs, this world will change rapidly.

I'm not from another country or a nation, different from you and yours. We both live in the same blue home.

We don't need a 'system', we need to live in a way that is enlivening, focused, energising, calming, healthy, strengthening, life lengthening, respectful of time, constructive, creative, unifying and without prejudice. Without pre-judgement of each other. We need to value each other, now as we are, with all our ignorance and awareness.

My heart is quite tired of the old world and it's clutches. I don't think I 'can' live in it any longer. I'm all out of anything to 'give' to that old system - it 'takes' so much without giving anything in return.

I am struck by a perception of freedom that always catches me when I 'drop out', 'run away', 'leave', 'quit', remain silent when under attack by the ignorant who cannot possibly hear my words; when I'm looking elsewhere, to the future, to the life that exists, somewhere that isn't where I am trying to fulfil these 'duties' that aren't real, with their pretend pricetags.

Freedom is fundamentally anarchic, everyone that has ever become free ceases to adhere to anything, especially something negative or destructive. Freedom implies the ability to move freely; 'dom' is from the root meaning house -Dominion, in common with demesne, domain, dominant, dominate, domineer, dominie, domino, and don, and indeed danger and dungeon, comes ultimately from Latin dominus ‘lord, master’. This was a derivative of Latin domus ‘house’ (source of English dome) and, like the parallel Greek formation despótēs (source of English despot), originally meant ‘master of the house’. -The prehistoric ancestor of 'free' was a term of affection uniting the members of a family in a common bond, and implicitly excluding their servants or slaves – those who were not ‘free’. It comes ultimately from Indo-European *prijos, whose signification ‘dear, beloved’ is revealed in such collateral descendants as Sanskrit priyás ‘dear’, Russian prijatel’ ‘friend’, and indeed English friend. Its Germanic offspring, *frijaz, displays the shift from ‘affection’ to ‘liberty’, as shown in German frei, Dutch vrij, Swedish and Danish fri, and English free. Welsh rhydd ‘free’ comes from the same Indo-European source.-

So this implies that if we are to be free we should unite in a common bond as dear friends. And when I say my 'free' friends I'm declaring my affection, for my ''dear and beloved'. And those who are enslaved perhaps are those who still adhere to the old system, the ways that do not serve the whole family, but only the master, while destroying life whether it be in subtle ways; insidious daily leeching from our vital force, or from taking the air we breathe and turning it bad. Even the air from the highest mountain is now no longer impure, tainted with particles that would erode our bodies. Even our bodies, as dependent as they are on certain conditions, limit us.

We can with the minds and spirits we have been given go beyond even our bodies in terms of freedom and potential, our minds and hearts have such power, such abilities; not only for physical creation but for spiritual, for relationship with the space in between things from which everything comes. There is a great 'freedom' there, that lies in the origin of all things, and every moment. It is even beyond the effects of atomic particles, of free radicals. And as humans we have this possibility of finding this precious gift, within our lifetimes.

Don't limit yourself to the garden; to the seed and the soil, but question where does that seed and soil come from, what prompts the flower to grow and become itself... There is no paperwork that can grasp that or measure it. Potential is truly our secret weapon, and love likewise... When a person expects the tip of a knife to hurt and yet through the blade courses only compassion, healing and life... using such a knife we can cut away the old bonds.

With those bonds, we limit ourselves to the bureaucracy, to the urbane, to the passing of time, to the strictures of expectations, to the roles, and the defining words. To live in this country I needed Form N166, in the old country I needed to pay National Insurance, in this country a social security number, in the old country I was fastened to another number.

I couldn't keep up with the number. I fell behind, I slipped off the edge of the forms... P45, P46 Employment contracts, 'Sickness benefit', P60 'End of year earnings', Self Declaration of Yearly Earnings; Council Tax Declaration Category A,B,C,D, Car Tax, Passport Forms, Pension Forms, Refuse Collection Rates, Utility Bills for water, electricity, communication, maintenance... Car insurance, House, Health, Holiday, House, Contents, Land, Pets, Personal Injury, (Insurance against death 'Life Assurance'!)... Marriage Contract, Prenuptial Guarantees, Commercial Insurance, Public Liability Insurance, Employers Liability, Premises Security Guarantee, Child Benefit Allowances, Housing Benefits, Declarations of In-Validity benefits, Carers Support Forms, Income Support; (If your employee doesn't pay the rates the employer has to do the paperwork to pay the court fines from their employees salary). Association paperwork, the law society, Protection Against Malpractise, School Registration, Teacher's association, Trade unions forms, Doctor's forms, Bank forms, Loan and credit, debit and mortgage forms, College forms, Criminal record forms...

Is it any wonder I'm finding it difficult to con-form. I have this wish to never sign any form every again. It's fiery and fierce in my heart. I want to shake all of it off like dust. All of the trappings. to wander freely like the yogis once wandered across Asia.

In Tibetan Buddhism there is a practise called 'taking the essence'. The master has gained so much mastery over his mind and body that he can even control the elements of his body. He takes 'essence pills' full of minerals, and flower essences, practises controlling the breath and the energies within the body. There are side effects; the ability to control the temperature of the body, telepathy, control of the dreams, bliss...

One day he can absorb the light of the sun and the various elements and it is enough, he needs nothing else to sustain him. And later on he can dissolve his body into it's elements at death, it's called the 'rainbow light body' or he can choose to inhabit an eternal 'vajra' body, his light body, capable of appearing and disapearing at will, travelling vast distances, multiplying, restoring life, entering another body or consciousness.

It appears to us as magic, and yet it is science. It can only be approached with three qualities; the altruistic intention, true insight into reality and the wish for freedom. And of these, altruistic intention or compassion, is the most necessary, you can reach this potential with compassion alone and yet of the other two qualities both require compassion as well.

It begs the question what are our basic needs? Well even the buddha needed a bowl of rice milk for strength to continue in his practise. In Asia back then it was possibly for him to wander. He did not have to stop his meditation to fill our any forms. Can you imagine if upon taking his seat beneath the bodhi tree, someone had approached him, the owner, and said 'You can't sit here, it's private property...' I'm sure the owner would have stood no chance. The most powerful mind can win all the battles.

Here, not having the right paperwork can limit your rights. Now you do not have human rights, because you don't have the right paperwork. All of this paperwork is supposed to be providing us with freedom, with more rights and yet it actively oppresses and prevents us pursuing our intrinsic freedom. We have to tick all the boxes to belong. Except I don't fit any boxes. I slipped off the edge of the forms...

By signing these forms I give power for people to manufacture and drop bombs in my name, to further limit my freedoms by forcing me to choose 'medicine' created in a laboratory and not the natural herbs I would prefer, forcing me to assist corporations monopolising and corrupting the foodsupply and making it unhealthy and inedible, forcing me to protect the interests of people intent on mining, manufacturing, warring, controlling and destroying, forcing me to assist those would take the rights from others through slavery, crime and corruption.

I am intent on restoring, re-storying, changing my story. I may have to rewrite all the rules, because the rules no longer serve us. It's no longer a matter of civil disobedience, it's uncivil. Because the constraints society forces us to adhere to are uncivil, inherently prejudiced, marginalising, undemocratic, capitalistic and ballistic.

I cannot live harmlessly if my only choice for energy is nuclear power. I cannot live harmlessly if you won't let me use natural gas made from compost and waste as by far the most harmless alternative available everywhere right now.

I can't live harmlessly providing for my basic needs if I have to drive three hours to find and fill out your paperwork, using petrol and chemicals which are changing our climate and polluting our land and oceans. It's killing birds and animals and people.

I can't live harmlessly if my water supply is through pipes ripped from the earth.

I can't live harmlessly if my food is brought from thousands of miles and through intensive processing using masses of chemicals that kill and enslave.

People are worried about being unemployed. Why? You have so much to do. We don't cease to exist without a job or house... We need to work together, we need to produce food wherever we are. So much land has NOTHING in it! (Well it does but not ENOUGH). People have land that is empty when it could be stacked with food using vertical growng, aquacultures, permaculture, magic gardening and fuel supplies using the Jean Pain Composting method... Offering a home for animals, birds and bees struggling to find habitats.

We could be abundant. Not just one crop but multiple crops all in the same few metres. We need to create food right up to the canopy layer. We NEED a protective canopy layer. The green skin of the earth is what creates our weather protects our soils, mediates the radiation from space AND our atmosphere.

We need to turn our backs on the money and the form requirements - We CAN grow! We need to focus on what we CAN do together. GROW GROW GROW and create your freedom. It's not that nothing is possible. It's not that there are walls that are too high to climb - they're just idea walls they aren't real. You can tell what is real and what is not by asking a simple question 'If I die tomorrow what will remain because of me?' Everything that falls away is unimportant, everything that remains is...

It's not that you're in debt - what for? For travelling freely, for building a home? Did the first tribes need to pay off debts when they crossed the oceans and climbed the mountains? Were they yoked to mortages? Are we any different to them...? NO!

Without a job, without a home, without money; you are still standing. We have each other. We have where we are and where we go and what we choose to focus on. We can gather seeds and plant them. We have places that remain free.. We have places without forms.

I am becoming formless. I am becoming free. And the first step is to see where you 'think' you are not free, and shake it off like the dust that it is. We are incredible creators. As much as we bear witness to the destruction on this planet we will bear witness to our ability to create ways out of it; ways even where there are none. We don't have to change the unchangeable, we don't have to convert the unyielding, we don't have to squander all our energy on trying to make the 'blind with ignorance', see.

We only have to take steps to turn around and put our foot forward 'The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life, it's so easy to make it complex.The solution maybe for a lot of the world's problems is to turn around and take a forward step, you can't just keep trying to make a flawed system work.' (From Chris Malloy's film 180 Degrees South)

So make connections, network, create co-operatives, housing co-ops, work co-ops, with the aims of repairing, growing, creating, solving, strengthening, calming, healing, enlivening, focused, energising, healthy, strengthening, life lengthening, respectful of time, constructive, creative, unifying and without prejudice, valueing... And if you're doing any of those things you're on the right track. But if what you're doing is tiring, weakening, distracting, exhausting, stressful, unhealthy, life shortening, a waste of time, wasteful, destructive, divisionary, prejudiced, and unnecessary.

There is a simple lesson you learn as a survival instructor. It's the energy equation. So often survival is about energy; calories over time. How much energy you need to expend to survive and the corresponding energy necessary to consume to be able to do that. The best survivor is someone who consumes energy the most efficiently. I hazard a guess that our future survival as much as our past hinges upon this simple equation. Of course we could master this energy equation, we could get incredibly good at transforming energy, at creating and optimising our adaptivee capacity, that is our ability to create the resources we need to survive, to adapt to our changing situations and environment. We can change our environments, we can recognise how everything interacts, how energy morphs from one form physically manifested to another.

What's crazy, what's really mad, is that we have, with the supercomputers of our minds and bodies; the ability to manipulate space, not just with our hands, but with our minds, with our thoughts and feelings. You want to see magic, well there it is, right there. We've barely begun to grasp this as a race. A precious few have figured this out.

When I talk about magic gardening, I'm not talking about growing a few spuds...I'm talking about mastering the energy equation. Mastering your thoughts, your environment, the elements of your body, you love quotient - that is your ability to experience and create bliss. Because the bliss quota is what everyone's missing. It's our true nature. It's what we're made of, actually it's our common bond with the entire universe. When science captures that element and puts it in a petri dish, then we'll be able to travel beyond the speed of light and time. But we already have a petri dish... ourselves. We're the laboratory, we're in the lab of our own making. We're the eyes of the world. Space is not something that exists out there, beyond the confines of our atmosphere. It's right here in our bloodstream. So you see formlessness can indeed be interpreted in some interesting ways. Formlessness is what we're made of as taught in the Heart Sutra:

Form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form ;

emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form,

the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness.

all truths are marked with emptiness ;

they are not produced or stopped, not defiled or immaculate, not deficient or complete.

in emptiness there is no form nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness ;

No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind ; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind ; No sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to :

No mind-consciousness element ; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to : There is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path.

There is no cognition, no attainment and no non-attainment.

It is because of his non-attainmentness that a Bodhisattva ( a being who dedicates all their lives to liberating others from suffering), through having relied on the Perfection of Wisdom, dwells without thought-coverings. In the absence of thought-coverings he has not been made to tremble,

he has overcome what can upset, and in the end he attains to Nirvana (and beyond)

All those who appear as Buddhas (awakened ones) in the three periods of time (past, present and future) fully awake to the utmost, right and perfect Enlightenment because they have relied on the Perfection of Wisdom.

Therefore one should know the Prajnaparamita - Hridayam (the Perfection of Wisdom and Hridayam means of the 'heart') as the great spell, the spell of great knowledge, the utmost spell, the unequalled spell, allayer of all suffering, in truth -- for what could go wrong ? By the prajnaparamita has this spell been delivered. It runs like this :

'Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, all-hail ! -- or gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha'

(Bodhi means one who is free of greed, hate and delusion, or has achieved enlightenment. And Svaha means 'so be it' or hail, it's a form both of honouring and manifesting.)

This completes the Heart of Perfect Wisdom as told Sariputra by Avalokita the Holy Lord and Bodhisattva who moving in the deep course of the Wisdom which has gone beyond, looked down from on high, He beheld but five heaps, and He saw that in their own-being they were empty.

Lead me from the untruth to the truth. Non-existence to existence. Non-reality to Reality.

Lead me from darkness to light.

Lead me from death to immortality

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti (Peace Peace Peace)

(From the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad)

-'This is true prayer—the seeker’s admission of his sense of limitedness and his heartfelt cry for assistance in transcendence. It is not a prayer for the things of the world. It is not a pray for food, shelter, health, partnership, riches, success, fame, glory or even for heaven1. One who recites these three mantras has realized that such things are full of holes, soaked in pain and, even in abundance, will forever leave him wanting. It is in this full understanding that one turns to this prayer. The essence of each of these three mantras is the same: "O, teacher help me free myself from my sundry misunderstandings regarding myself, the universe and God and bless me with true knowledge.'

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