(The Preface from The Fly in My Eye poetry collection)

Impunity is defined as freedom from unpleasant consequences. If that is truly the case, then we all must live lives of unconscious impunity. By that I mean although we continually experience the consequences of the material life, we do so without being aware of the source of many of those consequences. We are then left to our own devices to try to understand the true causes of seemingly random effects. This is the proverbial blind spot inherent within the narrow confines of the human perceptual experience.

We seem to be at the mercy of the world and all of its myriad and random occurrences: An earthquake includes us and we are its victim due to its seeming enormity and invincibility. A friend turns on us for no apparent reason and we are left to choose between blaming and rationalization. And although we spend an inordinate amount of time trying to control our lives and those in our care, we all know in the recesses of our mind that control is simply not possible in such a world, and it scares the crap out of us! Yet we cling to this vast uncertainty and continue to expect it to improve. But we know it won’t. It hasn’t for centuries and the same old uncertainty continues to rule the world. So we turn our hope to fantasies in an attempt to live better in that delusion, even though we know that eventually it will turn on us as well, one day fatally.

 It is quite incongruous that we spend so much time indulging in fantasy (TV, video games, movies, pornography, nocturnal dreams, obsessions, wishes, etc.) but we are unable to accept the notion that the one remaining layer of our “reality” may be fantasy as well. If we are 90% immersed in dreams and fantasy, could we not be just as easily 100% immersed? The main tool of recognition in the material world is perception and it always represents as a subjective stance. Each seeming individual perceives the same time, space, object, subject, or situation differently, primarily based on their own perceptual filters culled from a limited knowledge and perspective.

So along comes this old guy who tries to tell you that this entire world may be a dream and you respond with, what the hell is he talking about? What I speak of is the notion that our so-called waking state is simply another level of dreaming and behind that final layer of fantasy lies a reality based on the truth. I, like you, have but two real choices; believe in the validity of this world with all its uncertainty, contradiction, absurdities, violence, and discord or allow my mind to accept the possibility that another, better reality exists. The only better reality I know of is the one conceived of by our divine Creator. Many of us, although the form does vary, believe in a Supreme Being who has done just that, yet we relegate that notion to the backrooms of our mind, residing very closely to our belief in other nice to have things.

One of the attributes of an omnipotent Creator is an all-knowing nature and that implies a single unified Mind. Few would argue that such a Creator would make as big a mess of things as we see in the material world. So if the Creator’s Creation is a better reality and we are all, as Children of God, present in that single, unified Mind, is it not conceivable that the totality of the perceptual world is one big illusion? An illusion, dream, or fantasy made and maintained by the sleeping part of the one Mind? How else do we reconcile our inherent divine nature as children of God with the treatment we receive as humans? Is God vindictive? Cannot He handle the job? Are these questions any less absurd than the notion that this perceptual world is not His, but rather our own limited mental invention?

I realize the enormity of trying to convince anyone of the fallacy of a life whose validity is continually reinforced by a constant barrage of sensory data.  Yet we all know intuitively that life is composed of much more than sensory input. If it were not, we would fail to experience the most precious of life’s gifts; namely love, joy, peace, freedom and completion or fulfillment. So if you deem yourself ready to explore the possibility of a divine reality created by God and further to follow a path of potentialities engendered by that choice, I stand ready to lend a hand. I am a much simplified man, lately ridden of frail beliefs and notions that confine me to only the accepted forms of reality. I have seen, with my own inner connection to that one Mind, many wonderful aspects of the divine world. Yet I cannot convince you by means of sight or sound or feel, but only by the certainty you will experience upon encountering the same truth that has graced my life.

I have come to recognize the fly in my eye; that reflection left by my own projection and perceptual delusion. That picture of me and my world is simply what I have shown myself to be true. A picture painted by a small, sleeping part of my mind, an errant thought if you will, that I allowed to deceive me for want of a “better reality”. Remove the fly from your eye, if you deem it timely, and together we will explore those other, better possibilities.

The Fly in My Eye

What’s gone awry

What’s gone awry

What’s gone awry

I’ve got something in my eye

Don’t move, I’ll get it

It might be a lonely fly

That sits upon my eye

Don’t squish him, we’re buddies

Though of different species we abide

I‘ve grown accustomed to his loneliness

And he, to the fly in my eye

Copyright 2010 J. Michaels

 

J. Michaels
Writer, Storyteller & Poet
Website: www.jmichaelsbooks.biz
Blog: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theovernightpoet/