If There Was No More Time 3: The Secret Journey

18759 Police - Secret Journey Lyrics (28 December 2015). Video Source: Youtube.

We are all familiar with the philosophical question: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Based on observation, I say yes: we live in a world based on corruption, lies, systemic plunder, abuse of citizens. Everything depends on a disconnection between cause and effect, a break between freedom and responsibility. Those who exploit and injure others are rewarded and revered. Perpetrators of large and small crimes are almost never exposed or held to account. And yet, we know in our hearts that there is a lie around us, a secrecy, a dissemblance embedded inside reality.

Image Source: pinterest.

Even though we are socially and politically conditioned not to see the realm of concealed action, most people know that something is wrong and something is there, behind the smoke and mirrors. When the tree falls in the wood, and we do not see it or hear it, we still know something has fallen.

In the personal life, this would be akin to being married, and you know your spouse is having an affair. You have no evidence. But you know you are being lied to, deceived, and betrayed.

How we know about these transgressions is a mystery, but it relates to the language of the heart. In the heart's mystery, there lies a path to freedom and victory against the mind-oriented, materialist technocracy.

To follow the cues of the heart is to embark on an epic spiritual journey. Sting wrote The Police song, Secret Journey (1981), after reading Meetings with Remarkable Men (1963) by George Ivanovich Gurdjieff. It is about a mystical effort to find one's true self and spiritual destiny.

Walk that path, and you begin to wake up and see the truth all around you, not just in yourself. You can read Meetings with Remarkable Men, here, or see all of Gurdjieff's works, here (for a limited time, anyone can borrow virtual editions online, at the National Emergency Library). From Wiki:

"The underlying philosophy, especially as articulated in an appendix, amounts to the assertion that people generally live their lives asleep, are unconscious of themselves and, accordingly, behave like machines subject to outside causes and pressures."

When the outside world becomes unreliable and chaotic, its pressures become less convincing, distracting, and effective. We are more likely to wake up, jarred out of unconsciousness, complacency, and amnesia.

My friend, C., stated this week that we must listen to our hearts first, and then allow mind and thoughts to follow, rather than the other way around. Do not allow the mind to dictate your perception of reality, based on the fears of survival and desires of ego. Listen to your heart and soul, awaken to your own inner truth.

The Police Secret Journey Movie. Video Source: Youtube.

Imagine the secret journey along the heart's path into the soul's awakening as the product of thousands of free will decisions, made every day. Those decisions will take you through a classical labyrinth like the mathematically interlocked spaces conceived by M.C. Escher (1898-1972). Everything is always changing, and things can always get better. But beware, because if you lie to yourself, that journey into the labyrinth goes down, as well as up.

https://talesfromweirdland.tumblr.com/post/185743681367/publicity-still-from-jim-hensons-labyrinth

M.C. Escher Animated (10 December 2009). Video Source: Youtube.

Animation of MC Escher's Relativity. Video Source: Youtube.

INSPIRATIONS from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.



A Note on 'If There Was No More Time' Posts

To follow up on my February 2020 posts, If There Was No More Time and The Coronavirus Consciousness, I am doing a series of posts here with cryptic testimonies to and about particular people and situations. Given the nCov pandemic, there are some things I should say, in case the clock is ticking more quickly than usual. If it isn't, these posts can be taken as some personal statements about themes in my work.

This post provides background to the title poem of my forthcoming poetry collection, DARK PALACE. My pinterest board for the poem, "Dark Palace," is here.

'Secret Journey' by The Police from the LP GHOST IN THE MACHINE (1981) is reproduced here non-commercially under Fair Use © released under the A&M label; UMG (on behalf of Polydor Associated Labels); LatinAutor, EMI Music Publishing, CMRRA, SOLAR Music Rights Management, BMI - Broadcast Music Inc., UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA - UBEM, LatinAutor - SonyATV, and 5 Music Rights Societies.