In any case, I found out that I have attained a state of enlightenment. Of a Taoist variety; I call it watercourse. I have discussed it with Siddhartha, the original Buddha, and Lao-tzu. Others, as well, and I have asked them what particular brand of enlightenment they had subscribed to. Some of them before I asked only thought there was one type to be had, to be achieved. Two off hand I know of, one being “be not but do, do not but be” (your basic contract for enlightenment), and the one I follow, “be not but love, do not but love”, which derives from the previous. My answer to the koan, “Two hands can be brought together in a clapping sound. What is the sound of one hand?” is simply, “Listen.”

Do you now wonder about faith? How can you wish all the wrongs done you to be redressed, while all the wrongs you do to be overlooked? Yet this is the way people think; I know I have thought in this exact way. What will you believe when you face your Maker on the day of judgement? For we will be naked, of body, mind, soul, and spirit on that Day. Without excuse, will we all be. Do you wish to prepare for such an event? This is wisdom. Forgive, as you want to be forgiven. Learn how to let it go, all the petty things. If they come back, let it go again. Until you are free.

I have thought I saw myself several times in the course of the War, what I looked like on the inside, the machinery of my essence displayed to me. And I have seen other beings, who bore a resemblance to that me I viewed, but were larger — these were apparently angels. And one I saw was like me, but not me — this was (I am told) Philip K. Dick. Now I ponder how so much gets lost, it would seem, as time bears down and only gives you traces of clues as to what has been. There was so much more to think of, thinking of the stuff of which a soul is made, but all I can entertain now is how curious in shape were the apparatus forms of such psyche as we are. Like pink spaghetti, but angular.

One thing to try and make sense of the world: the philosophy is that we do not prefer the wrong to happen (that it should all go rightly is a prime desire), but when things do go wrong, that we make of things after better than if nothing had gone wrong in the first place. It might be something like a reason why God allows bad things to happen. It might be wishful thinking, too, merely. But think about the implications of this philosophy. Worse can be better.

I have followed dreams to their bitter end. I have kept the faith, even as the world collapsed out from under me. I know not exactly who is saved, and who are cast off, except in perhaps the broadest strokes, but I may perchance to guess sometimes. I forget who said it, but once I read that if one is truly of the faith, then he will understand that for the good of the cause, if he were one sacrificed to the flames, if he himself were not saved. It is an extreme position, but I like to think I would hold to that. We are the good guys; everyone should know what that means. We’re better than the bad guys. Because we follow the rules, and we still win.

There was that lifelong search for the ultimate thing, and I remember how more than once I thought I’d found it: true love. The concept comes (mostly) from the movie and book, The Princess Bride. The concept I’m sure existed before that media, but I got that specific term from there. Three times I thought I’d had it. And on the third time, I knew what I had. I found it comes down to a set of three sentences, and their beauty when read in a row… I can compare their beauty to any artwork or artifice in the world: “God is love. Love is to be found. Everywhere.” Where “to be found” “everywhere” is understood in the 3 ways that God is understood: found, from yet undiscovered; found, as no longer lost; and found, always having been there…. More on this mystery to come.

It can be seen thusly, the implements of life: we have been given everything, and only the mistakes are ours. Any talent, skill, strength, or intelligence: gifts from God. Even our will, and our ability to make any kind of effort: gifts. Creativity: gift. If we get a thing right, we are merely following instructions, and if we get something more right than what is called for, of course that is a gift. If we follow God’s plan, we can but say that we are unprofitable servants, that only did as were we told, and nothing more. What shall we boast of, that we did what the Lord said for us to do? But the mistakes, the errors, the sins, the misjudging: of course, God works them into His plan, but they are not of Him. They are of us, who are the imperfect ones. (And we do not boast of these.) By thus indeed we are defined: in what we do wrong, in those errors we commit into the record of the world, which reflect, however faintly, in eternity.

OK, now to get a little technical: induction is what it is called when you make a theory based on enough examples you observe. You drop a rock, it falls. Drop it again, it falls again. At some point, you say that anytime one drops a rock, it will fall, based on the evidence. Now, I pride myself a scientist, but I also have aspirations to being a saint. Some people think that one cannot be rational and also have faith. I disagree. Myself, I have observed evidence after evidence that what I have faith in has truth to it, even if I do not understand it all at once. It came to an “inductive pop”. This is the point where the evidence has accumulated so that you must trust the validity of the theory, based on what you rationally know. At some point, it became irrational not to believe. And I hope to “pop” a few of you out there. And so it goes.

And I remember a man on an island, like alone in a single room, floating through the æthers… seemed to me to be Scottish. I never thought this was such a mystery, until much later down the line. Apparently he thought some rather middle class environs to be like unto “sitting in the lap of luxury.” Once he repeated over and over, “Don’t worry about it!” (in that Scottish accent I mentioned before). Definitely one of the good guys. So here’s something from left field: what if that was Judas?

Along the way from there to here, there was one Philip K. Dick, who was and is my twin. His “light from God” experience happened to him in March of 1974, which coincidentally was about the time I moved to America. I was 5 years old then. My “light from God” experience came when I was 19. In my visions, Phil (or Philip K., I like to call him) he became my best friend. You know, someone you’d die for, that kind of thing. Maybe someone whose place you’d take in Hell. Best friend. I count on him to keep me grounded, like the times I feel like I am a literal superhero. No one you can save that can’t be saved.

You know, I had various theories about the people I met, in my visions. At first, I did not try to explain their presence in my mind’s eye, cartoonish mostly, and they said things to me. Some years later, I was convinced that it all was merely psychosis; merely hallucinations; merely a long, strange trip. When I became a devout Christian, I had the theory that the Lord and the angels were “real”, but the people were just creations by them. Or now, were all of them just the people one meets in dreams? Finally ending as that these were the actual people I thought I was meeting, seen in the afterlife, whenever they reached it, tie having a different meaning that the “now” I normally experienced. The mind may stretch without tearing. Or like muscle, grow stronger anew when it does.

Now to think of from where I came, how down in the pit I had descended. That I still have some difficulty when someone describes me or what I’ve done as “good”, or “excellent”. Where I was, all there was was failure. Whatever drink I carried was bound to spill, whatever valuable thing I handled was most likely that I was to drop it. The Lord said to me, “Work is magic.” And I found how true that proposition was. For I came from shame, which I deserved, but out of the pit I did climb, praise the Lord. And I saw in just the normal functioning of things that how wonderful it was that they did not fail. It was: it was magic. Work is magic. Hopefully you’ll see what I mean, without having to pay as high a cost as I did.