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The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers,
which is available to all those who subscribe to the
printed magazine, International Viewpoints. 
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World without end
by Phil Spickler
15 Jan 1999

The following does not reflect the views of anyone in particular, nor 
should it constitute any sense of endorsement by the issuing 
authority.

A strangled greeting to any and all who have picked up this feeble 
message at the low end of their single-sideband sets -- must have 
taken one hell of a bounce off the ionosphere.  (Please ignore --just 
the ramblings of a former radio-telephone operator, license long 
expired.)  But let's get down to business.

First off, having unexpectedly surfaced through the many green-black 
layers of the tarn whose bottom constitutes my winter home, what to 
my dim eyes should appear but a vast ray of brilliant light, none 
other than Frank Gordon himself, and at his very, very best. What 
Frank had to say about things in general, including some marvelous 
commentary regarding the single submission to the Unpopular Contest, 
completely summed up and rendered succinctly, in one simple question, 
"Are you aberrated enough to have a full and rich life?", the very 
essence of everything I have ever hoped to say about anything.  24 
hours later my poor body is still being wracked with waves of 
laughter, in fact it has reached the point where each of the billions 
of individual cells in the body are laughing as if they were each an 
individual consciousness (talk about a composite!).  This humor has 
reached the point where I fear it could unbalance the ratio of misery 
to happiness that is so necessary for life here on our marvelous 
little dirtball.  Anyhow, thank you, Frank --- thank you very much! 
Things will never be the same, thank goodness. If the contest hadn't 
been cancelled, Frank surely would have won two prizes: first, the 
most unpopular, and second, expanding the contest into two parts, the 
most popular -- and to think that he did it with so few words.  Ah 
well, as someone once said, real wisdom is simple.

And now, on to a few other ramblings and rumblings, between 
belly-cracking bouts of laughter.  This should be entitled "Dead men 
tell no tales, or, Nature abhors a Clear."

For about the last 2500 years, ever since someone is reputed to have 
seen the morning star, after which and sometime later others referred 
to this chap as "Buddha," (this last will probably cause my dear 
buddy, Max Sandor, to take me to task, but since he knows it's all in 
fun, he may only slice me up gently) -- anyway, as the centuries have 
gone by, it has been noticed over and over again that something seems 
to be possible for human beings that, when it occurs, they no longer 
seem to be human beings.  Oh yes, there's still a body and stuff like 
that, but they don't really look like or sound like or talk like or 
act like regular human beings, and this state may last anywheres from 
a few moments to -- well, I don't know for sure just what the record 
is, but it could be quite awhile, maybe even as long as the remaining 
life of the body -- I just don't know.  Anyhow, mention of this state 
has been found in all kinds of past and present practices; some 
people even seem to run into it when they're not practicing, say just 
walking down the road or playing bridge or hearing a symphony or 
seeing an incredible sunset, or scratching one's navel.

My own perceptions and experiences regarding this state, which goes 
by many different names, depending on just where in the world you are 
and what particular vehicle you may be using to get there, are that 
said state has a profound effect upon what a person has been calling 
"I" just before this thing happens.  At the time this thing happens, 
that "I," for all intents and purposes, ceases to exist.  In fact, if 
you want to get a bit rustic in your speech, you could say it's dead, 
or it died, and something else that perhaps has been dead is reborn. 
And as the song goes, the glow of its being outshines every star.

Now here's the rub: if you wish to continue this state, you will be 
outside the game of Life and all its survival concerns, which will 
have most of the people that knew you before this rebirth, as well as 
other dynamics that you're connected to, feeling as though they have 
lost you and all the agreements and plans and purposes you've been 
sharing in.  Some of them, in fact, might get really bent out of 
shape and feel betrayed, as people often feel when the folks they've 
been counting on suddenly die.  On the other hand, if you make the 
mistake of thinking that you can go back into the game with all the 
survival necessities and the time track and at the same time maintain 
the state of perfect clarity, you will sooner or later find out that 
being Clear and aberrated at the same time are mutually exclusive. 
And if you haven't listened to the earlier admonishments of older 
wisdom schools, you'll probably wake up one day and decide that 
something's terribly wrong, and that you had better get to the 
nearest repair center as soon as possible in an effort to 
rehabilitate or recover this wonderful state.           Just what is 
the admonishment of the earlier and wiser heads concerning states 
with names like "satori," "samadhi," "Clear," "grace," 
"illumination," etc., etc., etc.?  Let's take a note from Zen, just 
for example: "Very, very good!  Now get out there and hoe those 
beans!"  Or "If you see the Buddha, kill him."  In other words, if 
you reach one of these states without having been pre-programmed by 
some individual or organization to believe that you're always 
supposed to be that way from now on, no effort is made to become 
attached to that or any other state of mind, and therefore one really 
is free and is not always running around looking into the mirror to 
see if they're Clear or OT or something each day, and then if they 
don't meet somebody's standard for the way they're supposed to be, 
they go out the bottom and become victims of the further marketing of 
the repair stations.

So tear up those OT certificates and throw your Clear bracelet away 
and extrovert out of that nonsense and remain unattached and 
unattracted to any of it.  You'll probably find all kinds of 
marvelous highs along the way that can be thoroughly enjoyed, but 
never possessed.  Now we're talking about real freedom -- no name, no 
title.

As those last words slipped from my rotting brain and poured out 
through my diseased mouth and polluted the airwaves, my body once 
again executed an imperfect three-and-a-half off the 10-meter 
platform, with an entry vertical enough to take me once again to the 
bottom of the tarn and my deep, dark sleep. -- The Stillness