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.

“But somethin’ deep inside, Elrie, is tellin’ me this whole way of life is wrong—that I shouldn’t even be here, in the first place,“ I continued. “It’s been pushin’ me to resist this animalistic way of life, with everything I’ve got, for only recently has it captured enough of my imagination to win over my body as well. And so has my conscience been gettin’ me into trouble with the Navy.

“I feel like I just woke up to the meaning of my life, after havin’ been asleep for years,“ I concluded. “For I’ve stumbled on a great treasure, Elrie, the wisdom of my own being.“

“What’s the matter?“ I asked in response to the terribly wretched look that’d overtaken his face. “Did I say somethin’ wrong?“

“I came over here,“ he confessed, “to see if you’d like to go into Olongapo, to have a few drinks for old time’s sake, before gettin’ laid,“ whereupon my face fell to the floor under the weight of my sudden disappointment in him. “Now I see you really aren’t interested in such mundane affairs,“ he continued with great difficulty as I struggled to remove the knife he had just run clean through my heart. “With this bein’ my home port, I couldn’t resist the lure of all those beautiful women callin’ out to me…“

“…Like the Sirens of Greek mythology,“ I muttered.

“Yeah, like the Sirens,“ he reiterated. “Then ya understand…“

“…That you had no one to tie ya down to the mast while you listened to their enchanting song,“ I interjected. “I’m sorry I couldna been there for ya.“

“Who knows. Maybe I’ll run into ya again, somewhere down the road, hopefully under better circumstances,“ he tried to reassure me, as he searched for a way to leave without inflicting any more pain than our differences already had.

“Yeah sure, Elrie!“ I exclaimed halfheartedly, for I knew I’d never see him again.

“Well, I gotta go now,“ he hastily added. “You take care of yourself now. Ya hear?“

“Yeah Elrie, you do the same,“ I muttered as he disappeared down the side of the ship.

Though I felt like crying, I couldn’t because I hurt so badly. Shaken by the fall of Elrie, I fell even deeper into the pit of despair in which I’d been wallowing now, for days.

“Where I come from, Dury,“ he replied, with a little too much glee in my estimation, “ya hit the other guy first, with everything ya got, to disable the motherf—er so he can’t strike back.“

“How does it feel,“ I entreated, “knowing you’ve maimed another human being, possibly for life?“

“He’s a f—in’ animal,“ insisted Marty. “You saw how the motherf—er acted.“

“I also saw how you behaved,“ I rejoined. “Does that make you an animal too? No. Even though he acted like an animal, the other night, it doesn’t make him one either. You’ve dehumanized him, to justify your own cruelty towards animals. But I daresay you’d never consider treating an animal the way you treated that guy. Am I not right?“

“Get off my back, Dury,“ barked Marty. “You’ve been ridin’ my ass ever since I saved yours, the other night at the exchange.“

“Saved my ass!“ I exclaimed. “How d’ya think you saved my ass?“

“Seein’ how ya feel about strikin’ another person,“ Marty replied, “I knew you wouldna hit that guy back if he’da jumped ya. I couldna stood by ’n’ watched that happen, without doin’ somethin’ about it. So I stepped in to keep ya from gettin’ your ass kicked.“

Touched by his brand of chivalry, I didn’t quite know what to say. “Well I guess that about evens the score,“ I finally said.

“How’s that?“ he asked rather good-naturedly.

“After you saved my ass,“ I replied, “I saved yours from gettin’ thrown into the brig.“

And with that, we both laughed.

“Hey Dury,“ exclaimed Marty with the Mexican accent of Poncho.

“Hey Marty,“ I came back like Cisco the Kid.

As we laughed again, before parting, I was overcome by the warmest feelings of affection for him, for he was more than a good friend. He was that part of me for which I was still struggling to find a more conscious form of expression. In fact, he had so helped to put me back in touch with my animal roots, where lies true wisdom, that without the horse’s ass, I’d have probably gotten lost somewhere in the back pages of my mind.

“What’s the meaning of this?“ I asked as I woke up.

“You have heard that it was said,“ he went on to say, “’An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.“ Mt. 5:38–42. And with that, he disappeared.

That night I encountered the inclination within man to quarrel with another—whether real or imagined—over matters which, if allowed to grow weary of begging to be heard, will antagonize the hell out of him. In turning to the instinct to survive, had I taken a nip from the cup of my body’s supply of adrenaline. In my intoxication with the powerful effects of this drug on my body, as it rushed to my head, urging me to use brute force, I was instantaneously transformed into a beast. In the swipe of a paw, however, was I awakened to a wisdom infinitely greater than that of taking “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth“. And so did I, in my refusal to add insult to injury, turn the other cheek towards my attacker. Why I even offered him my coat which, after one sniff, he flat out refused, for he merely wanted me to walk that extra mile with him in his shoes. Thus did I learn how to bring out the humanity of an animal in attack mode—the truth yet hidden within the natural man.

When I shared the meaning of the dream with Marty, later that day, he couldn’t let go of the old myth—of what had been tried by him and found to be true—long enough to feel what effect, if any, the new myth had had on him. Like many of our contemporaries, he distrusted what he had not yet experientially come to know. Nor did he put much stock in his own dreams in their refusal to yield to such a meager investment. For Marty wanted only what’d ultimately get him through his indenture to the government of the United States, with the least amount of pain. He couldn’t see that we only hurt others when we ourselves’ve been hurt as had that sailor back at the exchange.

Had he associated me with all the angry young men on the outside, who had grown mustaches, beards ’n’ long hair in their refusal to serve in the very military he unquestionably supported? For he had definitely sensed that I stood for something, so contrary to what he believed, that it brought out the beast in him, the very image in which lay hidden yet the truth that threatened the beast with extinction.

“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.“

“You have heard it said, ’You shall love your countryman and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers ’n’ sisters, what more are you doing than everyone else? Do not the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.“ Mt. 5:43–48.

The real kicker came when I realized I didn’t love my own countrymen, for I saw them, rather than the Viet Cong, as the real enemy.

“Do not be alarmed by such sentiments,“ responded my mentor, “for they are the beginning of true wisdom.“

“The real enemy,“ proclaimed my shadow ’n’ guardian angel, Michael, “is found within, not without the realm of one’s being.“

“You feel enmity towards your countrymen,“ insisted my soul, Jinny, “because you are still in the process of becoming aware of how the enemy manifests itself within our being.“

“For the speck you see in the eyes of your persecutors,“ reiterated Michael, “is but a reflection of the beam in your own.“

“You see, my son,“ concluded my mentor, “in condemning the actions of your countrymen, you condemn those parts of yourself, of which you are unaware, to living out their existence in the only way left them, in some beastly fashion. And so does it behoove you to embrace your countrymen in a more charitable light—to enter into a more reflective dialogue with the darker aspects of yourself, in much the same way a child engages his detractors in imaginative play.

“For you really have no way of knowing what form enlightenment will take,“ he continued, “until it comes raining down upon you. If you embrace only that which is known, what reward do you have? Do not those, whose behavior sorely taxes your abilities to deal with them, do the same? And if you accept only that with which you are already familiar, what more are you doing than your countrymen? Do not they do the same? Therefore, must you faithfully reproduce the man God intended you to become.“

The sooner we realize that T. Rex is dead ’n’ gone forever, the better off we’ll be. If we are to survive as a species, we must overcome the temptation to gobble up everything that stands in the way of our gaining complete ego control of our destiny—behavior which is so destructive, it causes the mind to lose control of the body, the right hand, control of the left, like a schizophrenic whose ability to reason has been lost to instinct. Stripped of all that is human, the left strikes back, in the only way possible when reason gives way to terror, with the ferocity of a cornered animal. Naturally, the right sees such actions as barbaric, and rightfully so, for what remains unconscious is bound to act like a beast if the human aspect of the behavior is denied expression on the physical plane. The more the right represses the left, the more barbaric become the actions of the left. In the deadly game of tit for tat that invariably follows, neither side ever comes to the realization that it is Wisdom the two must obey, one way or the other, in truth or in beastly fashion. Either we embrace the truth that transcends our differences or we condemn ourselves to living out a hellish existence in which we prey upon each other, like dinosaurs, until nigh a one of us is left.

“What is this tunnel of vision of which you speak?“ I asked.

“It’s the path you took,“ he replied, “when you walked through the black hole or pupil in the looking glass or eye of your being, to seek the viewpoint of the Council, that point of truth upon which its four seemingly disparate members converge, like the faces of a pyramid. While Pure Thought struggles to give rational form to the mass of confusing sensations which rise up to challenge you, soul uses his ideas as a springboard for leaping off into this unknown cloud to feel her way around in the dark, on the hunch she will find, lurking about my form, the insight we’ve all been struggling to raise to a conscious level.“

“How can you get someone, like C…, to remove the speck from his own eye?“ I begged to know.

“You can never point out a man’s demons to him“ he warned me, “for they’ll only gang up on you and outwit you. Rather you must reveal to him the myth that has him under its spell, and stretch his imagination back through the tunnel of vision, to give him the opportunity to see the truth for himself, if he so chooses. However, you must first remove this splinter from your own eye, to acquire the myth or antidote with which he’ll need to be inoculated, if he wishes to be healed of his affliction. While this myth contains tremendous power to heal, you’ll also find it to be a great stumbling block to the truth, as many’ll choose to hold onto its affliction rather than let go of its appeal.“

Fearing the exposure of my demons, I left off asking him any more questions and hoped like hell he had nothing more to say to me. Since there seemed to be a limit to the amount of truth I could handle at any one time, I could stand to be around my mentor for only so long before I needed to get away from him for awhile. Besides, I found it hard being around someone, even if he was imaginary, who had the answers, whether I liked them or not, to all my questions. And yet, I found myself continually being drawn back to him for the insight into my life I still so desperately needed.

While I valued these encounters for the truth they revealed, I was concerned about spending so much of my time playing with imaginary friends in imaginary places. Having tapped into an inexhaustible supply of energy for making consciousness, I generally left these encounters feeling renewed by them. Nonetheless, I was having a difficult time letting go of a fantasy life that offered me so much more than the meaningless existence I was being forced to lead on the outside.

As the experience opens, I find my self at odds again with my body. Driven by some asinine instinct to look beyond the dry, uninspiring and lifeless mode of existence my head has chosen to pursue, I trudge off, one day, with the curiosity of my youth, to explore the farthest reaches of my imagination. Looking back, I realize I’ve gotten mired down in an unsuitable way of life due primarily to a stubborn refusal on my part to trust any other aspect of myself but my head.

At wit’s end, I’m forced to delve ever more deeply into my imagination for inspiration. Because I have such a great fear of losing control, I’m willing to go only so far, to keep from getting too carried away by my imagination. Naturally, I only succeed in getting caught up in circular thinking. After all, how can I put my trust in an instinct that’s so often led me astray. And yet, I’m forced to rely on this same instinct, or inner urge to play with my self, if ever I wish to find a way out of reliving the fate of my fathers. In the struggle to let go of my self, I finally give my imagination free rein.

As I lose my self in play, I panic. In my inability to let go of the urge to play with my self, I race off after this instinct, only to fall flat on my face when my imagination fails me. Having exhausted every effort on my part to make something happen, I finally let go of my conscious self, long enough to fall into the dreadful darkness that still clouds my mind, where I lay until I catch wind of a new awareness stirring about.

Once I engage my imagination, I catch sight of some vague notion fluttering about my head, which, at first, seems so preposterous I simply dismiss it. As I come to my senses, I think, “there’s no way this crazy notion can be true,“ whereupon my feelings quickly let me know that what I’m about to see is the truth.

As I come to this new awareness, I suddenly find myself deeply engaged with the concept that consciousness and the material world are one and the same. Stirred by the very breath of life within me, I come to the realization that I live in this Spirit, just as it lives in me. I come to understand Jesus’ words: “On that day you’ll know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you,“ (Jn. 14:20) for “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.“ (Jn. 8:12) “Is it not written in your law, ’I have said you are gods’?“ (Jn. 10:34) Again, “I say, ’you are gods, children of the Most High, all of you’.“ (Ps. 82:6) Made in the image and likeness of God, in my ecstasy, I come to the realization that, like Jesus, I Am Who Am.

As I struggle to see through the matter that envelopes all consciousness, I am drawn to the tree of life, an image of God in which the hidden feminine side of the Original Being suddenly stands out like never before. At first, I’m so completely captivated by the exquisite beauty of Nature, that I cannot yet see her real identity, the feminine side of my nature. Taking a closer look at this image, I see Wisdom, her whom the Creator “poured out upon all his works, upon all the living according to his gift.“ (Sir. 1:9–10) Cloaked in the simple language of her images, I find Christ’s words: “You will live in my love, if you keep my commandments, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and live in his love.“ (Jn. 15:10–11) For true wisdom is the ability to apply what one has acquired mentally to the conduct of his own affairs.

Once I realize the significance of the stone tablet, I find a way back to my heart where I am reminded of the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ’Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord.“ (Jer. 31:33–34)

And I find that the way to my heart is through the door opened by those things in the world which contain a hint of what I do not yet know about myself. As soon as something in the material world strikes a chord in my heart, I am reunited with that part of my soul, which remains locked up, out there in nature, far from consciousness. Struck by an arrow of Eros, or some feeling for the thing, am I driven to take possession of whatever it is that eludes my grasp. In my lust, or need for instant gratification, I may fall for the very thing itself, if it remains too far from consciousness. Or if I am patient, I may stumble upon the naked truth of Wisdom herself as I play with her images, for it is in going to her as a lover of truth that she whispers their meaning in my ear.