Under great duress was Consciousness born again and again, always with the hope He’d, one day, overthrow the evil reign of Instinct. Despite all the attempts on His life, down through the ages, Consciousness grew in strength under the nurturing care of the heart, for she knew this child alone was her only hope for salvation. Not till He came of age, with the birth of Christ, did He attempt to take on this Goliath, face to face, in a fight to death.

During the early rounds of this god-awful fight, Consciousness had gained the upper hand over Instinct. Then, in a sudden blow to the head, He suffered a right cross that sent Him reeling. Stumbling over His own words, He fell to the earth, where He died in the arms of His Mother.

Having apparently lost the fight with Instinct, was He laid to rest in a tomb within the earth. For unbeknownst to us, He had returned to the womb of His Mother so that we might understand the meaning of His words to Nicodemus—that one must be born of the Spirit to enter the Kingdom. While Wisdom labored for three dark days to give birth to a newborn Son, Consciousness finally realized His goal, the creation of the first human being ever made in His own likeness.

In spite of all the scrutiny of the history of Consciousness, that has taken place down through the ages, we have yet to see through the devilish trick Instinct played on us. Like Adam ’n’ Eve, we find it difficult to wake up from the Big Sleep—to walk through our dreams and visions, the very myths we live by, with the understanding and awareness of Consciousness. In our choice to sleepwalk through life, we remain oblivious to the myths that have driven us since time immemorial. Even when we are awakened to our dreams, we find ourselves incapable of penetrating Wisdom’s images, to free the seeds of truth, Consciousness deposited there, long ago, in safekeeping for us.

We see Consciousness as the enemy. As we enlist in the struggle to protect the life of our old mentor, turned traitor, we give up our lives for a mere shadow of what is. We seek the death of God instead of enlightenment. In our relentless persecution of the truth, we fool our selves into believing we have killed Consciousness, for in our blindness, we fail to see the death of Instinct in the crucifixion of Consciousness.

No longer free to pluck the truth from the images of Wisdom, like an apple from a tree, we’ve been cursed to toil by the sweat of our brows, to unearth the truth from the ground of our beings. From among thorns ’n’ thistles, the lies and misconceptions that surround the truth, must we now struggle to raise our level of consciousness. Like Nicodemus, must we learn to make the incestuous return to the womb of the mother of all images. So too must we learn to leave the body in spirit if, like Jesus, we want to enter the realm of the imagination to free the seeds of truth being held captive yet, by Instinct. Only, we must leave Instinct behind, to suffer and die on the cross, alone.

Fearing that this new drive for consciousness might lead to his own destruction, Instinct decided to seize it for himself, for he now longed to see the naked beauty of Wisdom with the all-seeing eye of the Creator. Since the man and the woman had just ripened to full sexual maturity, he filled their bodies with desire. As he conjured up the usual imagery for this right of passage, he learned they had received instructions, from higher up, not to indulge such fantasies. Using their one weakness, the separation of the head from the heart, he captured the heart and hid her from the head in a cloud of images. With the heart now emotionally bound to an image out there in Nature, Instinct proceeded to capture the attention of the head with a plausible explanation of the events about to unfold. Thus did Instinct convince the head to encounter the image of this woman out there in Nature rather than within himself as God had instructed. With the fall of the head, Instinct easily took control of their bodies, the ultimate source of consciousness.

In his unwillingness to set Truth free from Her bondage to the images of the material world, Instinct unwittingly participated in the conception of consciousness. Fortunately, he never realized that Wisdom can be freed from Her imprisonment in Nature, whether we act upon Her images in body or in spirit. He failed to recognize the inexplicable bond between the head and the heart, that the head must not only penetrate the heart to free Wisdom, but also give himself up completely to her in order to free consciousness from the clutches of Instinct.

He took advantage of the heart’s desire for unity with the head by filling the head with his own insatiable desire for unconscious unity with Wisdom. Having filled the head with images of the truth, he drove the head to make an unwise choice, one lacking feeling. After convincing the head he could have Wisdom if only he’d penetrate Her image, Instinct tricked the heart into believing she could have Consciousness if only she’d allow His image to fill her with what she thought she lacked, the seeds of truth. Thus did he drive the heart to make an unreasonable choice, one lacking thought. Instinct’d played upon the head’s desire for wisdom, and the heart’s, for enlightenment, to keep them from conceiving consciousness. Only he failed.

With the conception of consciousness was Instinct fired from his post as guide supreme. For his transgression was he banished from Paradise to assume the lowest form of life in all creation. Thus did he create hell on earth, enmity between himself and the heart.

“A broken egg!“ replied my shadow in jest.

“Aw, shut up,“ I yelled out, in my anger over having received such a stupid response. “I ain’t no goddamn egg.“

“What you say is what you are,“ retorted my shadow, “cause two negatives always make a positive.“

“You’re the egghead,“ I shouted back, “not me.“

“You’re the one who penetrated her womb and sowed the seeds of consciousness,“ he enigmatically proclaimed.

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?“ I demanded to know.

“What Michael is trying to tell you, if you’d just shut up and listen,“ exclaimed my soul, “is that I am with child.“

“O, I get it now,“ I sarcastically exclaimed. “What you’re tryin’ to tell me is that I, a mere mortal, got you, a spirit, pregnant. Yeah, right! Why don’t you tell me another one of your goddamn lies.“

“I do not lie,“ she strongly asserted, “for lying ’n’ deception belong not to me, but rather to the evil magician.“

Deep down, I knew she was telling the truth.

“You’ve been penetrating my womb for some time,“ she exclaimed, “and with little regard for the outcome. Don’t you see—it was bound to happen sooner or later.“

“So what does this mean?“ I asked out of my own bewilderment.

“It means that, in three or four months,“ replied my mentor, “you’ll be giving birth to some new aspect of yourself.“

“But why must I wait so long?“ I asked.

“It takes a long time for an idea to gain flesh,“ he responded. “And as you can see, there’s a lot that needs to be done yet, in preparation for the birth of this work of art.“

“Are we all eggmen?“ I asked.

“Yes,“ replied my shadow, “just as I am you and you are me, you are Humpty Dumpty.“

Looking ahead, I saw a doctor who reminded me of Dr. Jekyll, though he looked like Uncle Sam, standing over a young man whose battered body lay wrapped in a bloody sheet on the table before him. To the left of the young man’s body, in the shadow of Uncle Sam, stood another nefarious surgeon general, I immediately recognized as Hyde, though he looked a lot like Ho Chi Minh. As they stood there bickering over the fate of the young man’s life, I realized that neither of them could ever gain control, either in life or in death, of the spirit of the young man while it remained free.

Forced back into my body, I sat straight up on the table, looking a bit like the risen Christ, for I wasn’t about to let these two thugs take control of my life. I had to take the helm if I didn’t want to end up hanging from the cross of one or the other of these two thieves, who had already taken so much from the world, in the name of their respective ism, there was little else left for them to take, but life itself. Since I was neither an unrepentant god nor an apologetic beast, I wanted no part in the killing of other human beings. Nor did I care to lose my life participating in such a dead-end affair. Although I sympathized with the plight of the apologetic beast, I knew that his way of life left as much to be desired as that of the moral right or unrepentant god, for hidden within the desire to destroy the terrible images they saw in each other, lay the hope of one day unearthing the missing link, a way of being that seeks to live out the best of both worlds instead of the worst.

Only I couldn’t imagine what the missing link looked like, much less how it would act in my situation. While I sincerely believed that Jesus would never have participated in the killing of another human being, I didn’t know what to do about my own participation in such an act, now that I was in the position to take another’s life. After all, I wasn’t Christ. Nor was I even Christlike. Yet I knew the missing link was, in spite of its apelike appearance, more like Christ then I could ever hope to be, for this gentle humanoid was ultimately tied to its maker by the limits of its imagination, of which I was just now becoming aware.

“To you,“ stated my mentor, “has been given the secret of the kingdom, but for those outside, everything comes in images.“ Mk. 3:11.

“Only I do not know this secret of which you speak,“ I insisted.

“When an animal looks,“ replied my mentor, “it does not perceive. Nor does it understand what it hears when it listens, for it lacks imagination. And so it is with all who have never learned to enter, a second time, the womb of the imagination, for I tell you, unless your shipmates become like children, they will never enter the kingdom. Bound by the images of Instinct, they will instead be left standing outside to wail and gnash their teeth, like animals seeking entry to their master’s house.

“Pay attention,“ admonished my mentor, “to what you hear rather than to what you see. ’For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light.’ Mk. 4:22.

“Now that you know,“ he concluded, “wherein the kingdom doeth lie—having seen the face of God there, with your own eyes—take care, lest you lose sight of this vital link to Who You Really Are, or what consciousness has been given you, will be taken away.“

“Ya know, Marty,“ I exclaimed, as I looked out over the bay to grasp hold of a thought before it disappeared, “we’re just as stupid as the Spanish were.“

“How’s that?“ he asked.

“Just as the Spaniards, who had colonized these islands, fell for the fallacy of the phallus, so have we,“ I responded. “We haven’t learned a thing from the last two hundred years of the history of man’s mistakes.“

“What d’ya mean?“ he asked again.

“We still believe in using brute force to get what we want,“ I replied, “whether it’s ours to have or not. Like a bunch of wild animals, do we allow ourselves to get all puffed up and bent out of shape at the slightest provocation of our egos. In our inability to make soul without forcing ourselves upon her, we lose our heads instead of using them.“

“I pity the poor bloke who takes a poke at me,“ interjected Marty, “cause I’ll kick the motherf—-r’s face in.“

“Ya see, Marty,“ I exclaimed, “that’s exactly what I mean. Instead of relying on the force of truth, we immediately turn to brute force. We respond instinctively to the differences which rise up between us, for the sake of consciousness, to protect from death that part of us which needs to die, in the first place. In our stubborn refusal to evolve into full human beings, we hold onto a dead way of life and protect it with the old instinctive responses of our animal ancestors.“

“There ain’t no motherf—-r, I’d ever let push me around,“ insisted Marty, “I’d die fightin’, fore I’d let that happen.“

“Don’t ya see, Marty,“ I persisted, “that’s the fallacy—you’d die fightin’ for the wrong cause, to protect a way of life that shoulda died out long ago, for the dinosaur’s way of life, we’re currently leading, was doomed long before you were ever a consideration.

“And even though you ’n’ I don’t always see things, eye to eye,“ I proclaimed, “we’re more alike than either one of us is willing to admit. Why else would we’ve become such good friends, if I were not in you, as you are in me. We’ve been tossed together, like the flip sides of the same coin, that we might learn from each other how much better it is to use our heads than our tails to get across the same point.

“In our disagreement with each other,“ I concluded, “we coulda duked it out. You, being the stronger, coulda decked me, kicked me in the face, and left me lyin’ there half-dead. But you didn’t. Nor did I raise a hand to strike you. Why? Don’t ya see, Marty, it’s because we’re sayin’ the same damn thing, only in a different language. While you were pounding my head into the ground with expressions of brute force, I wriggled free of a like response, only to sneak up behind ya with a verbal assault that has sent ya into a tailspin. Havin’ taken the wind out of your sails, I have mentally accomplished what you had set out to physically impose upon me. I’ve defeated the real enemy, who uses the language of the body to confuse us, in our inability to translate into words what we’re truly feeling.“

“Nor did the Buddha or Christ,“ responded my mentor. “It took Christ thirty years to come to a fuller understanding of Who He Really Is. Like the Buddha, it may take you longer to find out Who You Really Are.“

“Why?“ I asked.

“You have so much more of the evolution of man to work through, than did Christ,“ he replied.

“What d’ya mean?“ I inquired further.

“For Christ,“ he began, “Wisdom had been extracted from her imprisonment in nature, in the form of Mary, his mother. Through the union of her image with its likeness in heaven, had she conceived the first fully human being, for man’d finally evolved into its prototype, God. In other words, with the birth of Christ, had God created the first image of man ever made in His own likeness.“

“But I thought Adam was the first man,“ I exclaimed.

“Adam was man’s first conception of his own masculine self,“ responded my mentor, “just as Eve was his first conceptualization of the soul or feminine side of himself. Because these concepts split the Original Being into two seemingly opposite entities, that is, into the image and likeness of God, the concept of Who Man Really Is was flawed from the beginning. Thus began the long struggle, that culminated in the birth of Christ, to conceive of man’s true identity, one made in both the image and likeness of God, rather than in one form or the other.“

“Jesus wasn’t hermaphroditic, was he?“ I asked with incredulity.

“All who have evolved into human form are latent hermaphrodites,“ answered my mentor. “Is not your body housed by an apparently masculine self and a soul that is, by all appearances, feminine? And is not such a union with your soul what you really fear?“

Until I received affirmation from my feelings, I wasn’t too sure what I believed. And though I sensed the presence of truth in his words, I still found them hard to swallow, for I had always been taught that God’s our Father.

“The Original Being’s also your Mother,“ insisted my mentor, after having read my thoughts.

“But how can that be?“ I begged to know. “Did not Jesus always refer to God as our Father who art in heaven?“

“Was not Mary, his mother, filled with the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Wisdom?“ he asked in response. “Do you not see Mary as the incarnation of his heavenly mother, Wisdom? Why else do you think Christ would have spent thirty years of his life with this woman if she were not the embodiment of Wisdom? Do you not see the correspondence between Mary and his heavenly mother?

“You see, my son,“ concluded my mentor, “without Wisdom, there would be no stories to tell, for devoid of all meaning, life would simply not exist. Above all else, seek her while yet she may be found, for she is the only mistress who can satisfy you. Turn to her, that you may find the way, for she must be obeyed, one way or the other, as the man she wants you to become or as the beast she wants you to so badly overcome, so that she might, one day, be freed from the image of Nature in which she has remained imprisoned ever since her alter ego, Eve, gave into an instinctive desire to create consciousness.“

“Trust,“ he pleaded with heartfelt sincerity. “I make offer, no can refuse—no take American money, to end of day. What say?“

While we weren’t sure what to believe after our last experience, Greg and I both agreed that we had nothing to lose since we did not have to pay him until the end of the day.

“Trust,“ he reiterated with a nod, this time.

“Okay,“ Greg finally agreed.

With a grin that extended from ear to ear, he rushed to open the door of his cab, and bade us to have a seat. Only after he, himself, had gotten into the cab, did he ask us where we wanted to go.

As we struggled to communicate to our cabby, the desire we both shared to purchase a nice gift for that special someone back home, he pointed to the ring on his finger. “Eh?“ inquired our cabby.

“Jewelry!“ I exclaimed, in answer to the charade our hearts had played on us.

“Yes!“ rejoined Greg. “What an excellent idea!“

So did our cabby, with the unanimous approval of his fare, take off for parts unknown.

Suddenly, it struck me how much Life is like a game of charades, in which we’re forced to find the Word hidden within Her images, both real and imaginary, to avoid giving flesh to His nemesis, Instinct. In our inability to interpret the language of the body, are we driven to act instinctively, to live out what we see rather than what we hear. For we’ve never been taught how to listen to ourselves or seek the counsel of our own faculties. Lured by the attractiveness of Life’s images, we let the multitude, rather than the One Voice, interpret them for us, preferring to live as our animal ancestors have always lived, under the tyranny of Instinct. In our failure to realize that She must be obeyed, one way or the other, are we forced to live out the charade instead of the truth.

As I refocused my attention onto a more visible band of the spectrum of consciousness, I found my self getting out of the cab, with Greg, in front of a small jewelry store. Inside, I quickly honed in on a gold ring upon which was mounted a star sapphire. Trying it on my baby finger, I just knew it would fit Mary. When I asked the shopkeeper how much it cost, I balked at first.

“Twenty dollars,“ he finally said, “no lower.“

“That’s a bargain,“ piped up Greg. “You could never buy the same ring at that price, back in the States.“

“You think not?“ I asked, hesitatingly.

“I know,“ added Greg, “for gold’s much higher back in the States.“

“All right,“ I muttered as I reached into my pocket for the money. “I’ll take it.“

“I sure wish I could be there,“ I rambled on, “to see the expression on her face when she tears into this package and feasts her eyes on a ring—it’ll blow her mind.“

Greg just smiled, as if to say he agreed. Having selected a beautiful gold necklace for his wife, he proceeded to pay for it.

“They’re extremely complex thought forms,“ he responded, “which tend to develop around those parts of your personality that remain too far from consciousness, to exercise any control over them. They represent all of the raw, pent-up emotional energy in you which has not the foggiest notion of what its true purpose in life is. As images of those parts of you which still defy consciousness, they provide the antagonism needed to spur you onto bringing these hidden traits to light, that you might live like a human being rather than some brute.“

“I’d rather die first,“ I insisted, “than live like Hyde.“

“Then die you shall—or at least that part of you whose time has come,“ he forewarned me, “for you’re the only one who can penetrate the dark storm which has been brewing at my gate since first we met. To get to the heart of this dark swirl, you must leave this conversation and enter the world of experience,“ whereupon he loomed up over me, larger than life, to facilitate my entry into the void.

Once again did I encounter the spirits of what my parents had, long ago, condemned to a fate worse than hell. As the vile spirits swarmed and slithered about me, like venomous snakes, I realized they represented the thoughts ’n’ feelings my inner mother had condemned down through the years. Numbed by the pain of it all, did I stand by and watch as my stepfather attempted to strangle them, in the image of my brother, Scott, but failed. As the hair stood up on the back of my neck, I grew larger than life. Only this time was I transformed into a great gray wolf instead of Hyde. Sniffing the air, I quickly picked up the scent of the old witch as she lurked about in darkness, to escape the fury that’d been unleashed upon her. With saliva streaming from my mouth in torrents, I lunged for her throat. Grasping hold of her neck with my powerful jaws, I shook her until she resisted no more. Letting out a howl of remorse, I stooped to lick her face clean of the mask that’d enveloped her true beauty. On her last dying breath, I heard my mother say, “I’m sorry, my son, for having offended thee.“ As I wept bitter tears, I washed her body clean of any sign of ever having been a witch. Just then, I felt a hand brush past my ear as its fingers ran through my hair. Opening my eyes, I beheld my soul lying there at my side.

“I don’t understand,“ I exclaimed, for I too had been transformed back into my regular old self.

“It’s all over,“ she replied. “You’ve finally overcome this terrible image of your mother. All that matters now, is that you have me.“

As our eyes welled up with tears, we embraced each other and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Come now, my lad!“ exclaimed my shadow. “You must get hold of yourself, for all is not as bad as it seems. Why you’ve been given a great gift in the ability to see your demons, or that part of your animal nature which still has you in its grip. While you may now see this knowledge as more of a burden than a boon, you’ll one day be called upon to share it with the rest of the world, for like Jonah, you’ve been confined to this instinctive existence, to force you to find the way out.“

“If you know the way, why don’t you show me?“ I beseeched him.

“I know no more than what the Council has deciphered from the images you’ve been shown thus far,“ he replied.

“Well I guess that leaves us all in the dark,“ I quipped.

“Not quite,“ he rebutted, “for we’re continually being fed images that shed light on the way you must go. Until recently, I’ve not been at liberty to discuss with you our latest translation—into thought—of some of the material we’d received from your senses awhile back. If you’re up to it, I’d like to share with you those thoughts that speak to the qualms you are having with your participation in the war in Vietnam.“

“Are you game?“ he asked.

“Sure! Why not!“ I exclaimed. “Like any true glutton for punishment, I want more, as long as it’s not too painful. Though, I’m not sure I could handle coughing up any more demons,“ whereupon he readily assured me that was not what he had in mind.

“If you don’t know it yet,“ he began, “you’ll soon find out that war is hell. Unless you deal with me on a personal level, that is, integrate me into your life, you will be forced to fight me on a transpersonal level, in the faces of the Viet Cong, for the Beast has been unleashed.“

“What beast?“ I asked out of the alarm he’d just sounded to alert me to the very real dangers that lay ahead.

“Why that part of Nature which still defies Consciousness,“ he answered rather matter-of-factly.

“I don’t understand,“ I exclaimed.

“You see,“ he unequivocally replied, “each human being is given, at birth, a little piece of the dark side of Nature, or hell as you-all call it, from which to free the truth he’ll need to get back into paradise. Till he frees the truth yet hidden within the animal side of his nature, it’ll haunt him like a specter. For this worthiest of opponents will act as a thorn in his side, and thwart his every effort to live out any other truth than the one meant for him. And he’ll be unable to resist such behavior because the laws of Nature must be obeyed one way or the other, as either an unconscious animal or a conscious human being.

“Like the fissile material in a nuclear reactor, the energy to live out this truth lies dormant in you till you reach the age of puberty, at which time the One Who Rules Over All releases control of it to you through your rod. If you lose control of this rod, by using your libidinal energy for any other purpose than that intended, you run the risk of releasing this creative energy in the form of that beast which had best expressed this truth, no matter how crudely, before you came along. And if enough of your countrymen lose control of this energy, so that critical mass is reached, a chain reaction of great destructive power is set in motion, above which only the individual can rise, until those who’ve contributed to this war regain their senses and banish the beast back to the wildest parts of their imaginations, from whence it came.