The Kepler space probe is scanning the heavens looking over a multitude of stars for another earth. If it finds one, technology would not be able to confirm that discovery, at least not until the James Webb space probe is complete and can test the data. Those scientists, entranced with their venture, are ecstatic. It would be the greatest discovery ever made by the human race, so they say. Later they will send a space probe into the heart of the sun. Our sun is the source of physical life on earth. It would be sending a probe into the heart of the Creator, but it still would not be the Creator, only a manifestation, crucial as that manifestation is.

To find another earth someplace in the distant skies of the Milky Way would be the discovery of a lifetime. What would man do if that happened, and space travel were possible? How long would it take to destroy this "new earth"? As long as it has taken us to destroy ourselves on this earth? To paraphrase one scientist, it is in the DNA of man to satisfy the driving curiosity for this interstellar search and find a mission. It seems to be in man's DNA to keep looking outward and ever outward, as if an inner world did not exist in every one of the six billion human beings on earth. At the current time, most are in the greatest imaginable pain, physical and mental. Not being an astrophysicist, I do not see that finding another earth would be the greatest discovery ever made by man. I think of the magnitude of physical deprivation, the disease, the hunger, the fear experienced by ever-increasing populations. It seems the greatest discovery would be how to ensure peace in all the world, enough food and shelter for all the world, enough medical care for all the world, enough security for all the world; for all the world to cooperate in building a global society devoid of prejudice, truly recognizing the brotherhood of mankind. We have discovered the big bang, the development of the universe. We have discovered the history of man. We have never discovered peace anywhere for very long.

People are driven to investigate the domains of their interests. However, there are also people who are driven to investigate the worlds within. Along that line of investigation there are always the questions, who am I, and why am I here? In these investigations, external and internal, there is always a frame. Concerning this frame, I hypothesize that the Creator is the origin of it all, the skies above and all they contain, and the earth below and all it contains. When we say sky and earth we have framed the investigation, and in so doing have put a limit on it. But it is also true that the Creator is responsible for the unlimited, and concepts like eternity come to mind.

Eternity is something we as humans have never really understood, for it is infinite and we are very finite. It seems like an unequal struggle, man pitting himself against the limited and the unlimited; I think that men have a drive, an urge toward uncovering all the mysteries of these two universes. Without doubting the importance of physical phenomena with respect to the origin of the universe and its development, we must also be interested in and drawn to the mysteries of man's pain on earth. And the answer here is not that God wills it. All the pain, all the suffering in the world as we know it, is made by man according to the law of cause and effect, and it must be the further and deeper investigation of this law that will bring rewards to us all.

PATIENT HISTORY

The patient is a man of elder years, born in a Midwestern city. He has had a successful career over many decades. Now he is old and plagued by physical problems which, while not life threatening, are exceedingly annoying and about which he complains endlessly. You were introduced to this patient in my previous essays, “Venice Beach,” “The Old Man Again,” and “The Prescience of Old Age.”

SESSION

The old man came in and sat down, silent for a long time. He said, "You know how I spend my time?"

Dr. Bail: How?

Patient: I spend a lot of time alone. I walk the boards at the beach. I have come to love that stretch of beach. It's garish, scammy, honky-tonk, all the adjectives you can think of, and I know these areas exist everywhere. People love the color and the noise, the flimflam, the funny hats, tee shirts, the gimmicky jewelry and even the fortune-tellers. I love it because I think there is where humanity lives. I can see such places in every medieval city in Europe, except they brought their crops, their skins, and their fleece. Same people, same spirit of life, noise, color and spectacle. Same mountebanks and snake oil salesmen.

They have little or nothing to do with politics or politicians. They have long been wise, knowing no politician has the slightest concern for them. They repay the compliment.

Dr. B: That's a very long introduction.

Patient: I'm not finished. Don't rush me. I pay you to listen and to later tell me what I am really talking about. I walk the water’s edge, my trousers rolled, I think. Mostly I walk and I don't think. I spend my time further north. I do the same. I go to Malibu or to Zuma Beach. Every beach is different but I do the same. I even make Santa Barbara. Different crowds but still people. Sometimes I sit on a knoll, no people around, and listen to the waves. It is a different experience. It quiets me. I think I like that experience best, uncontaminated by people. Especially uncontaminated by the politicians who ought to go and sit by the ocean silently. It might make them afraid. They should be afraid.

Dr. B: What do you mean?

Patient: They may have to be alone with their terrible lies even to see how dreadful it feels to know you have a lousy, flimsy lie to protect you. You might begin to fear the ocean. I won't be dramatic about the grains of sand and time. I really hate them.

Dr. B: If you know them, why hate them?

Patient: Lots of reasons. The one I am thinking of now....over two thousand years of history of mankind climbing out of the swamp, no one knows exactly when, and then all the great contributors to civilization up to Shakespeare. You know he died in 1616? Shakespeare was the maker and master of the English language. These bastards have destroyed the clarity and the beauty that Shakespeare fashioned. Their lies have done that. The confusion they have sown into people's minds is just something awful. What am I talking about? Look at the Tea Partiers and the Birthers and those crazy people at the Mosque. Bin Laden must be laughing up his sleeve. How could they do it?

Don't people recall this country was founded on the principle of religious freedom? It's like barbarians breaking up the statue of David or leveling the Parthenon. All words have become meaningless. I can't talk. I don't know how to talk in a meaningful way.

Dr. B: You seem to be doing OK.

Patient: Cut the crap! You know what I mean. Everything has been degraded. Everything has been made meaningless by the media, by the newspapers. They are all interested in keeping people down and dumb and taking away anything they have earned over the years. They are blatantly doing that, these guys. They are saying to the middle class, "We are going to impoverish you," and to the poor, "We don't give a shit about you and never did."

Dr. B: So what do we do or what do you want to do?

Patient: I want to tell you my dreams. There must be some answer in these dreams. You always seem to find one.

DREAM

There was a big airplane hovering in the sky. A man appeared in the door of the plane and a cloth, which looked like white silk, flowed from the doorway down to earth. It looked like those safety shoots. This guy comes out. He's got a radio in his arms close to his chest and he slides down to the ground and as he was doing that I could see the ocean and there were a lot of young girls there. They looked like teenagers and they were bathing nude in the ocean. The next thing I knew I was in an auditorium. It was really a planetarium. I could see the constellations and the important stars. I didn't know what was happening although I could see it all.

Silence......

Patient: I know airplanes are more your stuff. It would indicate that there is some difficulty, a lot of difficulty, if a man has to slide out via a shoot. I know from your book that you prefer bailing out. Lots of luck.

Dr. B: So what else?

Patient: Well, for some reason I keep playing over a list of all the terrible things happening in the world: the wars, the floods in Pakistan, the rapes and killing in Somalia, the joblessness growing in America. No one seems big enough to put their arms around it, to put their arms around anything. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Dr. B: What about the planetarium?

Patient: Well, I have been to one or two in my life. You know they take you when you are in school and show you the wonders of the heavens. It is pretty mysterious to a kid as to how all that is up there. In fact it is downright awesome, awesome that men have been able to make out what they have. But all that doesn't seem to be any answer to what's happening here on earth. I keep thinking why doesn't Obama end the war. What in hell is he doing sending more soldiers to Afghanistan. More will die and more will come back with posttraumatic stress syndrome. Why doesn't he stop the war, bring all the soldiers home and renew the programs of FDR? He has a blueprint left by FDR. Put all the soldiers in the CCC and start another WPA to get people working and doing something and pay them.

Dr. B: What about the man sliding down the shoot with a radio?

Patient: I didn't recognize him and, thinking about it now, no one came before him and no one came after him. I had a stray thought but I am reluctant to say it. You know sometimes I'm an atheist and sometimes I believe in all the gods, just to be sure. I want to hedge my bets.

Dr. B: So what is this stray thought that you don't want to tell me?

Patient: I thought it was Jesus Christ. If I were God looking around at what men have done and where mankind is currently I would say, "Well, they snafued this one again. Let's send our boy down again. Maybe this time they will get the message." That would be the radio.

Dr. B: It seems odd. You keep denying the existence of God. You keep denying that anything like a single Source could exist, and yet time after time you have dreams like these that say something very different. It seems that you and your mind are walking two different tracks.

Patient: Not at all. Not at all. Sometimes I believe. I believe in nature and you would say nature is God.

Dr. B: What about the girls swimming in the ocean?

Patient: Well, if I am to go along with what you are saying, and frankly I don't know any other way that I can maneuver, I would say those girls must represent what you call the feminine unconscious and the wave of the feminine paradigm, young because they have just come here.

Dr. B: Well, that is not a bad interpretation of your dream and it seems to be in accord with what you are feeling.

Patient: Let me tell you another dream.

DREAM

I was invited to this very gentile home. The hosts were parents of my friend. It was immediately uncomfortable for me. The hatred of Jews was palpable. I took a shower with two of the men. I was apprehensive but it passed without incident. When I dried myself, I decided to go. Some people had already left. The grandfather was there and he was looking because I said I needed my raincoat. He found it and I said goodbye. I could see a friend of mine was already outside by his car.

The patient was silent.....

Patient: I really don't know where that dream came from but being a Jew, an old Jew, I am very sensitive to anti-Semites. You know those guys don't seem to get it. We didn't kill Christ and, when they hate us, they seem to forget that those who go to church, whatever church, get on their knees or bow their heads to a Jew. They talk about being Christians, Christ-like, and ask God to bless their war. Are they screwed up or are they screwed up? Don't they know Christ preached only love? That was his only platform. This Jew hatred it like hating African-Americans. It is like that crazy hatred. It is like this crazy thing in Arizona with the Mexicans. It makes me feel afraid. I sometimes think, did Hitler win after all? There are so many American Nazis.

Dr. B: What were you afraid of?

Patient: Have you forgotten that the Jews were sent to take a shower?

Dr. B: But in the dream you were with two gentiles. Of course the difference would have been plain to see. The way the dream plays it is unlikely that they were taking a shower in order to kill you because they were there themselves.

Patient: Maybe I am being told that all of us have to take a shower, everybody.

Dr. B: Maybe the point of the dream is that we take as a premise that the Creator created everything in the universe, in the world, as it exists. It is scientifically accepted that the first men were in Africa and they were black. They spread all over the globe to become brown, red, yellow, and white. He must be sending us a message. You know like we are all God's children. Mankind is too young to really comprehend what that means. You have those unscrupulous men you talked about, willing to exploit a difference, to whip it up into a frenzy and make money out of it. Notice too that the grandfather was looking to find your raincoat which symbolically is something to protect you. That may be taking it out of the realm of this particular Jew hating family and maybe the grandfather is the Grandfather.

Patient: I have one more dream.

DREAM

There were two young men who were "madcaps." They or I look to see if the four corners were firmly fastened. I see white or pearl there. Would that be enough to contain the central explosion, the big white-out that would occur? The answer comes back to me, yes it would. I believe I did see the great white-out and I am thinking, as I see only white, those two men were idiots. I felt they had blown up the world. Then I see a huge crinkled skin. This surface is so big that I feel I only see a small part of it. I wonder is this then the surface of the earth and where am I? I must be above the earth looking down at it.

Patient: Well, this dream was really something. This scared the hell out of me and I suppose when I talk about the four corners, I guess it is like people talking about the four corners of the earth, like the Buddhists who talk about the four corners. Of course if there are four corners it would provide a frame and if you have a frame you have some kind of containment and maybe that was what I was worried about. Could there be containment? And someplace in my mind the answer came back—yes.

Dr. B: What about the last fragment of the dream?

Patient: Well, what do you think, Doc? Was I hovering above the earth?

Dr. B: I think you were. I think what you see on the skin as crinkled is the crinkle that goes right through to a description of mankind at the current time. Man's mind at this time seems to be crinkled and crinkled minds only produce crinkled thoughts and actions and likewise the crinkled societies we have produced everywhere. Crinkled minds make for crinkled results. I do understand your frustration and your anger, but I think what your dream is revealing is there will be this great white-out. I don't know what that really means but there is a correction fluid called Wite-out. What is Wite-out used for? You paint it over your mistakes and it blots out your mistakes. According to your dream a lot of mistakes are going to be blotted out. I get the impression, from how you described that dream, that we have another big bang coming.

You say, "madcaps"?

Patient: Yeah, "madcaps" are people like the Marx brothers who poked fun at the foolishness of man, at their pomposity, at their false beliefs, their cherished opinions right or wrong. It is humor at a very high level performing a wonderful function of cleansing the mass mind, or trying to, of that falseness. I am sure every country has its "madcaps." Perhaps in early times it goes back to the king's jester.

Dr. B: Then you say the "idiot" at the end of this dream.

Patient: Yeah, it's as if they really got out of hand. The "madcaps" have become the leaders of the countries, and when I say "idiots," I mean those people who have capriciously led our people to the precipice albeit maintaining seriousness of speech and high purpose—all rationalizations to a fear-ridden populace. It is inexcusable.

I know why young people say the "f" word. It is the perfect word for frustration and despair. Every other word with these young people is that, and no wonder. They know in their guts these policy leaders in our country and in every other country are the same. They are all pretentious and none can see their hands before their eyes. They are pretending they can see an unworkable policy they put into effect as workable. Can you imagine putting two hundred years of American history, a polyglot one at that, against a Muslim culture over one thousand years old, like Afghanistan? Who is profiting from this folly and who will pay the price? We already know. I am ready for the big white-out if it wipes out these arrogant liars and profiteers. I think, Dr. Bail, you are convincing me of your position.

Dr. B: You must know the questions you raise, the dreams you have are really not about you and me. They are about the greater, wider, global picture.

COMMENTARY

In the madcap reality of humanity you have to check the four corners to make sure the foundation of Source is still remaining. The explosion of light in the dream is the explosion into the new world, an explosion into new states of consciousness. From the explosion comes the new language, the new insights. Mankind is receiving it unknowingly. That which is called the irritation and agitation of humanity is currently occurring. We are just about ready for the new big bang. If Source is the Creator of the finite and the infinite, the fact that we know it may be the path to attain true awareness of both states. In our finite state, life, we are so beggared and burdened by our own births and crushed by the debris of our lives that we are far from being able to experience the infinite. That state is usually meant for life after death. However, I think it might be viewed as life into the soul, which we probably experience when we depart from this finite life. Our chance of having both is to be found in making this existence on earth as close as we can to that parallel universe.

Sometime after this session, while I was doing some mindless task, Keats's theory of negative capability came to mind as an apt description of the state the world currently endures.

"Several things dovetailed in my mind, and at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean NEGATIVE CAPABILITY, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—" John Keats

I think that Keats is the one poet who was able to capture glimpses of the infinite and we can read such an instance in his poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn."

August 2010