Man by his expressed self-righteous and intellectual nature and his self-absorbed importance persistently claims to be at the very panicle of his particular field of accomplishment; “I feel I know all there is to know about this....” Or in the case of the good Christian, “There is actually no doubt that I'm right and that you will rot in hell if you don't accept Jesus as your personal savior.”  In all fairness to those other more modest scholars who truly recognize that the more they learn, the more they realize just how little they know; my more optimistic side feels that even the most distant stars of our universe do not define the outer boundaries to mankind’s miraculous and un-limitless future.  I would appreciate it if you would count me among the ranks of the latter as I most affirmatively know that entering this Age of Reality is just the very beginning of tapping into, embracing and discovering mankind's greatest potentialities.  Before any of this progress can be fully realized it will be necessary to remove many of the remaining obstacles that would prevent the free discovery and uncovering of mankind's best qualities of both his inner and outer universe.
          So far, the creation and writing of this text has been accomplished with some degree of ease simply because it was nothing more than the reporting of where we have been, how we got here, the wear and tear of the journey and how all of this has possibly affected our overall well-being as extraordinarily intelligent and spiritual beings.  Perhaps with just a bit more effort, I have given some serious thought and careful attention to how all of this has probably affected us as that broader culture and more specifically as individuals within the context of that culture.  With all of my education, there never was a single course that taught us how to predict the future.  It is easy to speculate that the future will somehow be greater than our present and certainly greater than our past.  I cannot begin to comprehend where we may be in ten years or even beyond when I am long gone and forgotten.  I am so fortunate and privileged to have had the broad range of education that I have had, the unexpected exposure to an unusually astute intellectual and metaphysical world and the wonderful individual mentors that have all contributed to my ability and ease to understand and comprehend this wonderful world of ours, because it is simply something that is, in my own terms, self-evident.  All I had to do was to simply remove the blinders and the narrow focus of a society that is unduly and very possibly unintentionally oppressive, even though it is claimed to being free and open.
          It has only been in the writing of this text that I've come to realize that we will aptly and eventually be delivered into this grand Age of Reality not by some gifted intelligentsia, from the quarters of some overly-righteous religious leadership, our own bureaucratic government but most assuredly by way of the discoveries made and accomplished by of the subtle and emerging man and woman of reality; regular folk who will have come to posses the common sense and simplicity of dealing only with what is obviously and merely self-evident.  I have fortunately already encountered many of these wonderful and uncomplicated individuals who are truly tacit heroes of the future and they have already taken to that higher ground with less effort than might have been expected.  On the other hand, that remaining empowered religious intelligentsias have managed to have entangled themselves so intricately into a tangled web of spiritual fantasy that they have lost any ability to step back and separate themselves from their own inherited and created religious pathologies.
          The world of religion has taken on the repugnant image of a decaying insane asylum where the patients can best be described simply as having so sadly lost their innate ability to remain objective and intact with reality.  The caretakers and staff have been so taken in with this latent spiritual disorder that it is readily difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish them from the patients they so pathetically and desperately serve.  This perceived spiritual asylum is so far removed from what should be perceived as the realistic center of civilization that it has acquired its own separate track of the human evolution leading into a nameless oblivion at the very furthest outreaches of our known universe where they all hope to encounter God.  The most fundamental error is the confusion associated with the true reality that one surely has a belief and whether there is any truth inherent in the belief itself?  “I know that the emotional, intellectual and experiential acts of my believing are a form of reality.”  There is no question that this very stated sentiment is entirely true.  This knowing and feeling of reality that is associated with the act of believing is so affirmative and apparently real to the individual that the individual naturally assumes that, for example, their belief itself in God is equally affirmative and “real.”  Are we talking in circles?  Yes!  And there in lies the true predicament created by the intellectual rationalization and emotional experience of the true believer; confusing reality with reality.  This confusion is imbued with the same sort of psychological dynamics as it is with the “placebo effect” of non-potent medications in medical research.
 

          As ultimately doomed as religion may be, it still reigns supreme in the eyes of the majority, leaving the question far from answered as to just when will the pendulum ever swing in the direction of other more realistic destination?  There is no doubt that these catastrophic changes will eventually be realized.  There is the consideration that perhaps the question does not even need to be answered in terms of the big picture.  Perhaps the answer is as it has always been; one that has only to be answered by the individual.  The most important part of this picture is you and what you might possibly perceive as reality.  It was in Greek mythology that the beginning of all things was perceived as total chaos and what specifically brought order to this world of ours was, love.  It was also in Greek mythology that one was warned not to open Pandora's Box.  In the book of Genesis there was another warning and that was, not to partake of the fruit from that tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  And even later, it was Jesus who had proclaimed that our salvation is found in knowing the truth.  In the Eastern tradition there is the fundamental concept of yin and yang.  The common thread in all of these basic teachings is the knowledge of reality, which in all of the these cases, includes the totality of existence; there is chaos and love, good and evil and in this specific case of, for or against the Age of Reality, the opposite poles are acknowledgment and denial.  I am particularly drawn to the Eastern symbol of yin-yang that is a symbol representing the flow and interaction of the two polar and dynamic energies that encompasses what is considered as the totality of creation.  The spots in the symbol show that each energy at the height of its manifestation contains the very seed of the other, into which it will continually transform.  It is solely within this atmosphere of dynamic change that one is confronted with the opportunity of securing the freedom (salvation) to experience life without the usual constraints.  You might note that none of these scenarios requires the intervention of some external God or universal force in order to be fully realized.  I am particularly taken with the symbolism of the yin and yang and specifically those dots as being the seeds for the opposite force; it was from the very essence of the teachings of Jesus who was made the figurehead of the Christian Church, that I discovered the very essence of the Age of Reality with in and of itself, is the diabolical opposite to the stance Christianity.
          A friend of mine expressed it this way; there are some of us who actually “live” and then there are those who only “exist.”  He went on to explain that those who live are those fortunate individuals who experience the full range of life's varied experiences both good and bad, love and hate, acceptance and denial and those revolving ups and downs of life that keeps us on our toes.  In observing these differences amongst individuals it is not necessary to judge as these are most simply the facts of life.  As one who has bravely opened Pandora's Box and faced the sometimes overwhelming realities found therein, I sometimes envy those who appear to live in that state of “ignorance is bliss.”  As with the warning that went with the opening of Pandora's Box, “Don’t open it because once you do, it can never be closed!”  The mythology of Pandora's Box has the same finality as the warning that was given in the Garden of Eden; “Eat of this fruit and you will be expelled from this place of paradise eternally.”  The authors of these metaphors most certainly possessed a profound insight into the psyche of mankind.  I will remind you once again that the acceptance of this Age of Reality is a totally individual experience and it is each of those individuals’ experiences that will be totally unique unto the individual.  The actual experiences are likely not going to be likened to some slow transformation, though there may be a number of those lesser profound “Au ha’s!” experiences preparing the individual for that final transformation.
 

          That final, big bang, Au ha!, realization experience will truly transmit the individual to a wonderful place that is most simply Not the End.  “Greater things shall ye do” will most likely and naturally become the individual’s most powerful and sacred mantra.  The OM is the highest name of God, the most venerable Hindu symbol of spiritual knowledge.  Many Eastern traditions use this sacred symbol for meditation, and its corresponding syllable as a most powerful mantra.  This OM is also part of the holiest mantra of Tibetan Buddhism, "OM Mani Padme Hum" and as it is in most all cases, that “God” of Eastern tradition is found through meditation, searching ‘within’ one’s self to find that “Path to Enlightenment” and the true “joy” of living.
          Western culture and its irresistible ethnocentricity have so acculturated almost the entire planet to the extent that even in the Eastern traditions of searching within, they too have become mesmerized and been overcome by the ‘external’ materialistic and economic milieu.  This is not at all intended as an indictment of their spiritual weakness; just an expression of their humanness and that potential weakness that any of us may be subject to.  Our world has become so damn complex, especially with the advancement of science, that it is now difficult to imagine a time when the physical labor of a man was absolutely necessary in the absence of technology.  I'm not sure what is to be more feared; the outsourcing of American jobs or our own stateside scientific and industries’ technology that is increasingly replacing man with machinery?
          I am certainly not some doomsday prophet that possesses any notion that mankind will naturally come to some catastrophic end.  I do however, deal with reality and recognize mankind's dreadfully potential innate and almost prophetic ability to destroy this otherwise pristine environment.  We have so sadly set into motion in an industrial, capitalistic and materialistic modus operandi that has the fatal potential of destroying this wonderful Garden of Eden, the Earth.  We have already begun a downward spiral, which if not interrupted in a timely fashion, will likely lead to the tragic demise of one of the most beautiful creations in the universe.  All of this negative energy can be traced to the very core of man's religions as that pivotal source of the moral authority employed by civil governments and those authorities to decimate mankind and his rightfully inherited but stolen legacy as the sole and rightful shared owners of this rich and bountiful landscape.  It is my understanding that if there is to be any claim of ownership of this diverse landscape and the natural resources therein, it must be at least initially shared equally by all citizens of this earth.
          I applaud the efforts to establish private ownership and in the same breath abhor the form of taxation that can potentially deny and revoke that very ownership that should be sacred and protected by one's government.  Neither man’s labor nor his sacred domicile should ever be directly taxed or otherwise threatened in any manner.  We have become so pathetically pacified by a system of deceptive agendas that are repeatedly created in order to subdue any natural assertiveness that might be associated with individuality.  I remind you this covert subjugation all begins with that twelve years of universal education that is generously offered by our government, reportedly with the most sincere desire to ensure that each and every individual has the opportunity to succeed in this socially and economically competitive culture.  What is not even remotely realized by even many of the members of the teaching staffs of this monumental institution is the awesome effect of this splendid system on the otherwise potentially assertive nature of the individual student.
          As I have repeatedly conceptualized, this system which has become nothing more than a morally focused socialization is not the result of some cognitively and contrived conspiracy but merely and in due course the manifested consequence of a spiritually righteous and controlling religion whose only true and routinely practiced mantra was ‘obedience’ from its very inception.  It is the spiritually blind unintentionally leading these spiritually ignorant.  It is, and always has been, the often covert intent of a public education to socialize and mold the individual into an “obedient” and socially and morally compliant citizen.  It’s fortunate that some individuals successfully escape this humanly demeaning form of ‘dog training.’
          This may be a stretch but it has occurred to me that many people who have no sense of true ownership tend to show little or no respect for their physical domicile.  You may wish to inquire as to how I have come to this simple yet possibly astute conclusion; I have been a landlord for more than half of my life.  If you'll give it some serious consideration, it seems to me that the average man has never had any true ownership of any portion of this earth and sadly so little control of his own destiny.  This may provide some insightful explanation of why so many men in particular have such an obsession with owning or possessing their spouse, sports gear, the latest fashion, those big entertainment centers and most importantly that mechanically ‘hot’ vehicle of choice.  In earlier feudal times even the aristocracy that was considered the ‘landed gentry’ often possessed their property at the pleasure of the monarch.  During this same feudal period of Western culture where any ownership at all was denied, it was the Catholic Church that was not only the largest known landowner in all of Europe but also possess a goodly share of the wealth.
          I presently live in New Mexico where some of the recognize land rights or title searches go all the way back to what is called ‘land grants’ dating back to the early Sixteenth Century, by who; the King of Spain.  And would you tell me, where in hell did the King of Spain get the idea that he actually owned any portion of the New World?  The island of Manhattan was acquired from Native Americans as a result of a questionably fair trade for some reported number of trade beads.  This trade of beads for real estate is remembered in terms of a “good deal” made by the Dutch traders.  I think this historic exchange should be more rightly remembered for having been one of the few, if not only, truly legitimate acquisitions in the New World, even at the cost of appearing to be a real estate sham in our favor.  If the truth be known, those Native Americans probably had no concept of ownership and were simply grateful to have received some beads from the white man.  It is sad, but the ownership and acquisition of land from the Native Americans in the Eastern portion of the United States was no more legitimate than the illegitimate confiscation or land acquisitions made by the King of Spain.
          Perhaps the new word on the block ought to be econcentricity; the assumed inherent right of ownership based on some unknown value with the exception of the Judeo-Christians’ innate ethnocentricity and the Biblical concept that they are alone the children of the creator and therefore given dominion over all things and are rightfully and righteously the sole masters of this planet.  It was specifically this cultural attitude that gave political rise to the State of Israel and a perennial conflict that has not been resolved to this very day.  This religiously inspired ethnocentricity is undeniably the very source and reason for the intense hatred of the Palestinian and Islamic people towards the United States.  The Islamic people have the very same historically-based heritage, as they lay claim to being descendent from the very same Biblical Abraham as do the Hebrew people of Israel.  If there is ever any success in resolving this political conflict between the Palestinians and Israel, it may well become a model for the resolution of similar and inevitable conflicts that will surely plague mankind until and if we were to ever learn how to share this planet equally amongst all peoples of all nations; love thy neighbor.  The very concept of the United Nations was just a small step in the direction of World peace.  This too, is Not the End.