“Brahman (God) is the only Truth.  The world is unreal.  The individual Soul is truly Brahman (God) and nothing else.”—Shankara.

What else is there to say?

Just before writing this, I climbed up on the roof of the first floor of my house to begrudgingly clean some leaves stuck in the gutter.  But I was to find out there was another purpose to my being sent up there.  When I finished unclogging the gutters I decided (as I invariably do on the rare occasions I am up there) to climb up on the roof of the second floor to take a look around.  What I saw was despairing to say the least.

With the exception of the line of trees immediately southwest of my house, everywhere I looked I saw…

…civilization.

If the roof had been higher, I would have jumped off, ending my life once and for all.  But my chances of surviving a 20 foot drop were pretty good and as far as I am concerned, failure to succeed in such a final act is inexcusable.  You either do it or you don’t.  So I just kept looking around, not even sure why the hell I was doing it.

To the north I saw something that made me want to vomit.  I could see the rooftops of houses 5 streets away.  When I was a boy, you couldn’t see anything in that direction because there was a line of trees that prevented sight of what was going on even in the next street.  I still remember even now that mysterious feeling I had when I was in my single digit years wondering what kind of world existed just a few feet beyond that tree line.  It was a genuine mystery.

And now here I was seeing nearly the entire length of that street and the street beyond with no tree line that caused such an enigma to my young mind.  The trees were long ago cut down by a new neighbor who raised horses that would periodically wake up the entire neighborhood because they would bang their hooves against the barn late at night.  Sometimes they broke out of the barn and ran thru everyone’s yards, the weight on its hooves leaving massively deep holes in everyone’s property which invariably had to be filled by yours truly.  This is civilization?

That neighbor is gone now, having sold his property to a businessman who acts as a middleman supplying offshore boats with old tires and cables and ropes, etc.  The grass of the property is nearly gone, replaced by concrete.  The whole place is now a busy warehouse.  His work crew makes so much noise in the mornings that they usually wake me up once a week or more with the racket.  Once I yelled at them from my open window and my mother came to my room wearing a horrified look on her face asking what was wrong.  Upon explaining my actions she sided with the cacophonous crew outside because they had jobs and were making money.  I guess she conveniently forgot that she complains to her own family about their noise at least 5 times each week.  But money is money, business is business, and “that is the way it is” as far as she is concerned.  This is civilization?

Still on the roof, I look to the east and see the houses of my own street leading up to the Bayou some 500 feet away.  It is called a bayou, but it is not a bayou.  By definition, a bayou is a small channel of flowing water that branches off of a large river and drains part of the river—the water is supposed to drain down to the sea.  “…supposed to…” is the key phrase there.  A bayou should flow.  But no.  Not this one.  This once major tributary of the Mississippi River that once drained an astonishing 12% of that massive river’s flow now drains about 1/10^th of one percent of the flow.  Why?  Because of some goddamned fools who thought it was a damned good idea to build a goddamned dam at the mouth of this once proud tributary, never for once thinking that by building a goddamned dam they were in effect damning the lives of everyone who lived south of the goddamned dam.  This is civilization?

And over 100 years later the goddamned dam is still damning by God the lives of the forever goddamned citizens who are not even aware of the goddamned ecological damage the goddamned dam began causing over a century ago.  The people want the goddamned dam removed, but the goddamned politicians who were responsible for erecting the goddamned dam for God-knows-what goddamned reason are all dead.  And every politician who is alive now is too goddamned stupid to just say the words, “Goddamn this goddamned dam!  Tear the goddamned dam down…goddammit!”  And so the goddamned damnation of the goddamned citizens by a goddamned dam which will never be removed by the goddamned government continues to this goddamned day.

It makes me wonder to myself.  “This is civilization?  Goddammit!”

I look on to the South and see the last remaining trees of my neighborhood, at least the 85% or so that the recent hurricanes haven’t torn down.  And I can just barely see that there is a house deep inside of those trees, inside those wonderful woods where I played so freely as a boy and as a young teen.  But not anymore.  Someone who lived in the next street decided to buy up a portion of the woods and tear it down so they could put up a house.  The happy stomping ground of all of the neighborhood children was partially ruined because someone who thought they were civilized decided that trees were “in the way” of building a house.  And so the trees had to go.  This is civilization?

I sit on the roof and I look to the west.  I see the rest of my neighbors’ houses on down the street with the afternoon sun peeking out from the clouds overhead.  Beyond the homes some half a mile or so, there is a 4 lane road that was built when I was a boy.  What was back there before that?  The woods.  I used to out there too.  But not anymore.  The woods are gone now, replaced by the ever present traffic that flies away at 65 miles per hour.  I can see the cars and large 18 wheelers zooming by from up there.  Hell, I can see the traffic from the window of the upstairs den directly below the roof upon which I sit.

When I was a young, I used to ride dirt bikes and off-road three wheeled ATV’s on the manmade sand dunes that were the foundation of the present road I see in the distance.  I thought nothing of the damage that was already done back then.  How could I?  I was young.  Young people are not supposed to be concerned with the piece of shit world their parents are bequeathing them because parents are not supposed to bequeath a shitty world to their children.  So I enjoyed the woods, damaged as they were, as best I could, oblivious to the destruction that had taken place in the name of progress, for the sake of civilization.

Eventually the construction of the road was completed and I could not ride back there anymore.  And so it is today.  There are more trees torn down now then ever.  There are so few places in nature for my teenaged nephew to go play these days.  He is always amazed at the wild stories his father and I tell him of how it used to be when we were his age, riding our bikes thru the trails we made thru those woods.  Our adventures astonish him, mostly because there is nowhere left for him to ride as we did.  He has been deprived of a natural land to explore and enjoy.  So he spends much of his time playing videogames, which angers his dad to no end.  His father and I had videogames too.  But the trees were even more fun to us.  Now those trees are still being torn down by both the business interests as well as the private citizens who build more and more houses on that extended stretch of highway that was not even there when I was born.  This is civilization?

Still sitting on the roof I lift my gaze to the western sky, to the sun and the clouds slowly dancing their eternal dance of light, colors and shadows, forever unconcerned with the stupidity of humanity below.  I try to wonder what the land looked like to the Native Americans who lived here before all of this so-called civilization below me.  I have trouble trying to tune into it, but with time it comes to me and I can see the past clearly as the scenes from history come to me across time and flash thru my 3^rd Eye, playing like a movie in my imagination.  And I can easily understand how it is that the Indians of America were able to live in relative harmony with the environment for thousands of years.  There was so much beauty in nature, so much wonder, so much abundance of food and resources.  Everything they needed was there on the land provided by the Creator.  It was possible to live a relatively peaceful and happy life.  I see that it was like this for much of the nation.

Who is to say that these ancient people were not already civilized?

But all of that is gone now.  My mind soars across the lands of the planet and I wonder at the wondrous natural world displayed before my rapidly fading imagination.  I do not wonder at the structures of humanity, of civilization.

I see the sun before me now.  I see its rays of light peeking out from behind the distant clouds, shining down to the earth from the sun’s center.  It reminds me of a bas relief I have seen of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaton and his family bathed by the rays of a loving Sun God.

The sun is still bathing all of the Creator’s children with Light…but I see that no one seems to receive it.  They have no need of it.  They are civilized.

No one looks up anymore.   They don’t need to.  They are civilized.

They cannot imagine a 3 Dimensional world even though they live in one because they never look up to the sky anymore.

It is impossible for me to teach 2 Dimensional civilization anything about the Spiritual 4^th Dimensional world when they refuse to even look up to the sky and remember that there are 3 Dimensions surrounding them.

And so I sit on my roof bathing in the Light of the Sun, of God itself.  And I feel God’s Love streaming down from the skies because I am not civilized.  I feel God’s Love flowing thru me because I am not civilized.

Bathed in the peace and serenity of God up on the roof, I understand even more now the Divine Intuitions that God has been giving me for months now, that same message that keeps repeating over and over ad nauseam.  For too long  I have wondered how the message could be accurate.  Even after all this time, I have been wondering.

But I can’t go on denying it.  I am tired of denying it.  I don’t want to deny it anymore.

God has told me countless times already that my work here is done, that I must leave.  It is time to go home.

Sitting on the roof, aloof from the warp and woof of civilization, I sense the clarity of the message that was already clear.  I no longer belong here.  There is nothing to fear.  It is time to move on.  And I sit in perfect silence at the beauty streaming down from above.  It was created, it seems, just for me.  It must be true.  Otherwise there would be another uncivilized Divine Fool sitting on a rooftop somewhere in my extended neighborhood.  But there is me and only me.  Alone.  As usual.  Alone.  Up on the roof.  One who is One with God, elevated above the world gazing at the glory of a tiny fraction of Creation.  And I accept the Truth.  It is time to go Home.

And now it is just a waiting game.  Waiting for the last breath that God will take from my body.  I don’t know exactly when it will happen, except that it will be soon.  And it no longer bothers me anymore like it used to.  So life will be short?  Who cares?

There is an Eternal home waiting for me.  I have seen it in visions.  The Cosmos belongs to those with Cosmic Consciousness.  I received such an infusion of this God-like state of Being 5 years ago in the very room just below my body sitting on the roof now.  And now it promises to be a permanent state of Being…forever.  I fought for it.  I earned it.

Now I wait.  Now I wait.

I descend the roof and write this essay.

And now I wait.

I wait.

“Waiting is.” —- from the novel Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein