Jed McKenna's Notebook: All Bonus Content from The Enlightenment Trilogy by McKenna Jed

Author:McKenna, Jed [McKenna, Jed]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Unknown
Published: 2010-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

Bonus Content from

Spiritual Warfare

* * *

I, Witness

With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We are not wholly involved in Nature. I may be either the driftwood in the stream, or Indra in the sky looking down on it. I may be affected by a theatrical exhibition; on the other hand, I may not be affected by an actual event which appears to concern me much more. I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections; and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.

Henry David Thoreau

It’s early evening , still light. Sheila, my hard-up-for-work local ex-pat slash retired Social Studies teacher slash affordable personal assistant slash humorless Christian lady, has gone off to make her husband some dinner. A couple of other people have come and gone. The place is settling into its evening groove.

Lisa and Maggie appear, as they often do around this time. We all say our hellos and I keep working at my laptop. Lisa relaxes out by the pool and Maggie takes a seat at the table with me. She starts pulling things out of her student’s backpack; water bottle, notebook, pen. She goes to work quietly and no one says anything for half an hour when Maggie asks a question.

“Can I have a technique?”

I look up.

“You don’t like the autolysis?” I ask.

“Yeah, I’m trying to do that. I have an online diary where I try to do spiritual stuff. I don’t think my class will be too thrilled with a diary, though. Got any others?”

“Techniques?”

“Yeah.”

I’ve been waiting for someone to say something so I could take a break. I save my work and sit back. Maggie and I have gotten the hang of each other in the last month. She’s taken several cracks at trying to interview me, but it hasn’t been going well. All her questions manage to do is demonstrate that they don’t really apply to me. That’s interesting for the first few, but when it turns out that the answer to every question isn’t an answer but an explanation of why the question doesn’t apply, it gets tedious for everyone. Other questions would require such long-winded answers and defining of terms as to not be worth the bother. My most common answer is “Try the next one.

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