Merry Christmas to all of you two-legged, four-legged, and six-legged friends!  🙂

Santa is real…  real love and giving!   Anyone can be the Santa of others.

[Interesting how Santa, when we were very young, was something to get excited about and cherish.  Then, as we get older, many see Santa as being something rather spurious and unreal.  This has connotations that spill over into spirituality and religion.  Many people do not (really) feel that anything truly mysterious and magical (as a sacred phenomenon) can exist.  Deep inquiry, in this regard, is often considered to be a waste of time by many.   Disbelief can be as blinding as mindless belief; insight goes beyond these.]

Happy Holidays!

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To function only as mere secondary after-effects… what is that?  Most of us always function as responses to stimuli… one response (or set of responses) after another.  Thinking about things involves responses to stimuli.  Recognizing things constitutes responses to stimuli.  These responses are reactions.  They are much like the reaction when the leg jerks after the knee is tapped with a soft mallet.  Most of us are conditioned responses in a cause/effect continuum.  Conditioned responses (as effects), occurring in (and “as”) a sequence, is time.  Thinking is time; thinking and time are not two separate things.

Can consciousness function without merely always being one series of reactions (in sequence) after another?  Can the mind be aware without merely reacting, recognizing, labeling, and without merely seeing from an image of self?  Can a wise mind exist without constantly being a myriad of effects due to a myriad of causes?  To answer these questions adequately, what will one do?  Will one answer them by way of reaction?

Can thought, when it is not needed — and, oftentimes, it is not necessary — not habitually function in (and “as”) the mind?  If it is thought that merely answers the aforementioned question, is the question being intelligently answered?  Does love go beyond mere thought and time?  

 If one’s love is a mere reaction — formulated to get something in return, contrived to get some kind of result for one’s personal self — is it partial and, therefore, not profound and not very substantial at all?  Love exists when the image of self is not.  It takes time and thought to concoct an image of self (with all the associated desires and fears).  Profound love is timeless.

Six-legged Santa! (1) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2016

Six-legged Santa! (2) Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2016