CHAPTER 29

Man has demonized his shadows and made gender wars. The true enemy of man is man. We have denigrated our instincts. We have debased our sexuality. We keep our faces in the mud. Even animals do not have the savagery that man will inflict upon man through words, through technology, through religion, through instruments of torture. Man has become a hellish creature. Until he eats all his shadows and become everything he despises, he will be a hellhound. As man has raped the Earth and her manifestations, man has soiled his divine heritage.

-- Excerpt from "The Underground Letters of a Heretic"

Michael was sitting at the base of a tree talking to an ant that was sitting in the palm of his hand. He noticed the ant when the ant kept coughing to get his attention; and looking around expecting someone to approach he noticed the ant was sitting on a rock looking at him. So they were winding down in their discussion.

"Every time I have a chance to express a feeling it seems I reach a dead end. Then an accusing voice resounds in my ear - you create your own reality - don't let your thoughts victimize you – become a vehicle to understand your true nature. My true nature doesn't comply with the laws of society. Am I supposed to walk on green instead of red, or ignore the little man walking on the stop light? Breaking one rule is like permission to live in a chaotic state. Where is my ground if the land is swampy? If there is no organization or levels to achieve, no guidance, you're one big mess flowing in multitudinous directions."

"So nailing your voice on a cross will give you a stable reality," asked the ant.

"My beliefs whether they are good, bad or indifferent are sustaining me. I'm not killing myself though I wonder if death had better options or a long-term plan with benefits. This is a struggle, a combatant existence. The fittest survive. And the survival rate is declining because of the mentality of only the strong survive. So after we have annihilated our flesh what happens then? Our conscience is still warring with different parts of our selves because it is dressed up in different dramas, and you think, this is the first time you are experiencing pain and you are not totally releasing it because it is an archetypal wound. So many thoughts die on the battlefield. There is no peace treaty. So many parts of my body are war mongers."

"You have allowed others to categorize you. That's one reason you have this sense of separateness. The turmoil is because you don't see how we are all an expression of the One; we are interconnected. Psychology, religion, laws, politicians, judges, society have all labeled you. Then your fragmented selves are placed into a shoe box reality."

"Is God mad? Only man would take simplicity and make it complex."

"Your God is afraid of death as you are."

"See this is why I have to stick my selves on a piece of wood. Riddles answer questions. An answer is a question. You take a long excursion to avoid Truth. There is man's truth and then there is Truth that is not defined by man's perception. Well, at least one of my selves will not burn at the stake this time."