The Free Radical

Prior Episodes of Running Dialogue:

First Episode
Second Thoughts
Third Time’s The Charm
Fourth Movement… Forth
Fifth Element

Sixth Sense

I got dressed as quick as I could, but the gunshots just kept ringing out for an interminably long time. I know sweet fuck all about guns, but even I could tell that there were at least two different calibers involved. I put Sitka on a leash and we both waded into the creeping darkness to investigate. “Felix,” I thought out loud, “what the hell have you gotten yourself into?”

All the noise was coming from down below, where the ridge flattened out near the power-line. Sitka and I bushwhacked through the Forest, following our ears toward the commotion. The shooting seemed to have finally stopped. Now we could hear voices– a lot of voices… and there seemed to be some lights visible through the trees in places. We approached very cautiously; I told Sitka to stay quiet. The leash was pretty short; she knew this was serious business.

There were five trucks parked in a loose circle. A couple of them had their headlights on, but all the engines were off. I could see quite a number of people crossing in and out of the light… carrying various objects. I watched in confusion, not knowing what to make of the scene; Sitka and I stayed out of sight.

Then we saw someone toss something into the air in the glare of the lights… and another shot rang out. Beer cans! They were shooting at beer cans! This was no spy agency come to collect a rogue agent; these were youngsters having an end-of-the-summer party! I was so relieved that it had nothing to do with Felix that I didn’t even bother getting pissed off that I had been awoken and that my space had been invaded… again. I was still dead tired, but I could tell from Sitka’s wagging tail that she was definitely in favour of a little socializing.

Still, we approached cautiously, heading straight for the brightest spot. “Whoa! Where the fuck did you come from?” asked some kid with a rifle in his hand as soon as we were visible. The rifle was pointed down to the ground, so we stepped fully into the light; Sitka did the little happy dance that invited hugs and kisses all around.

“We live here,” I answered. “We’re camped up the mountain a ways.” I gestured in the general direction from where we had come. “Just wanted to see what all the commotion was about.”

“End of the world party, man!” said some twenty-year-old, handing me a beer. So I was close, I thought; it wasn’t just another end-of-the-summer party; this was the real deal– an end-of-the-world shindig.

“Thanks,” I said, cracking the beer, noticing that it was a Budweiser– lamest beer ever! I guess that’s why it’s so popular, I thought to myself cynically. “So do we have a firm date?” I asked. That just drew puzzled looks. “For the end of the world,” I explained.

“Yup… September 28th,” came the reply from behind. It was a feminine voice, cheerful and resolute. She too looked about twenty, but I’m not great at guessing ages; the circumstances seemed to substantiate my guess though. I had this crew pegged as fairly affluent college students.

“I’m Suzy,” she introduced herself, proffering a hand.

I shuffled the beer off to my left hand to reciprocate the handshake. “Niels,” I said. “And this is Sitka.”

There were a few more introductions– all of which I promptly forgot– but everyone was far more interested in Sitka than me anyway… just the way I like it– and Sitka too, by the way. She’d much rather have all of the attention.

Only Suzy seemed to have what I’d consider a natural curiosity about why a guy and his dog were camping by themselves in the middle of nowhere. We chit-chatted for a bit before she put it all together.

“Hey, you’re that writer guy!” she suddenly exclaimed.

“I am,” I smiled.

“I didn’t think you lived out here full-time, though,” she puzzled.

“A fairly recent development,” I explained. “Besides,” I said, looking around at the Forest in moonlit silhouette, “where better to be than here when the world ends?”

She couldn’t argue with that… and as it turned out, Suzy and I didn’t have much to argue about at all. Through the long ensuing discussion, we discovered that we were really pretty much on the same page.

Before long, we left the group and wandered back to my camp. Suzy must’ve seen me cringing and flinching to the atrocious music spewing from the cab of the biggest badass truck of them all. When she asked, I explained that most of what passes for modern music I felt as a physical assault on my body; whenever I was forced to listen to such trash, I always felt beat-up. She confessed that she could relate, but had learned to tolerate so very much noise and inanities in order to have some sort of social life.

“So how did you arrive at the date of September 28th?” I asked as we sat beside my little campfire revived.

“Matt Kahn,” she said. “Ever heard of him?”

I had. I nodded. “The first wave of ascension,” I answered. “But Matt gave the date of September 27th.”

“Yeah… well, I’ve always kinda had this sixth sense which guides me… so the way I got it figured is that they’re going to try and pull off something really big– I mean REALLY big– on the 27th.”

“Who do you mean by ‘they’,” I interrupted.

“The whole galactic ascension crew,” she explained, “all the hollow cardboard motherfuckers who can’t make it on their own… you know, all the insipid, bland, uninspired channelled retards whose only hope is to manipulate sleeping humans… to extend their own boring nightmare.” I did know. I knew exactly what she was saying, and I appreciated her colourful language. “They’re going to do everything they can to make as many people as possible choose ascension, to steer them clear of the real alternative… and lock them up for good.”

“So what’s the real alternative?” I asked eagerly.

She looked around conspiratorially for added dramatic effect and then leaned in close to whisper “Enlightenment.”

Well, this was a rare treat! “Enlightenment!” I exclaimed, “I’m sorry, but regular folk just don’t talk about that; it’s not polite.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not very fucking polite am I? And I’m certainly NOT regular folk!”

“Indeed,” I laughed. Although I hardly knew anything about Suzy, in a way I felt as though I already knew her– at least the important bits. “Before we proceed,” I continued, “with what I’m pretty sure will be a very good conversation, I’d just like to say that if we’re going to talk about enlightenment, be prepared for the unavoidable semantic double-talk.” She nodded, but I wasn’t too sure if she quite knew what I meant… Oh well, she’d find out.

“I want to tell you about this dream,” she started right in, “one that I’ve had about a million times. Okay, I tend to exaggerate… but at least a dozen times,” she insisted. “And it’s kind of like two dreams that melded into one. The first one I really did have a million times. It’s kinda the first place I go at the beginning of dreaming– like, every time. It’s a place like Grand Central Station, but since I’ve never been to Grand Central Station, I can’t tell you for sure. But it’s crowded; everyone’s moving around, bustling… arrivals and departures. It’s a place where lots and lots of people converge but don’t really meet; they’re all on their own tight schedules, each with their own agenda. I’m like the only person in thousands who’s looking around, walking casually. I too know why I’m here: to pick a direction; but I know that time doesn’t matter. There aren’t any trains or planes or anything. You just go to a certain place and then pick a direction. The direction I pick determines the course of my dreaming for the night. Sometimes I go back and revisit the dreams I really liked– when I can remember the right direction… from the right place; it’s kinda complex. Anyway, after awhile, I began seeing this door that would always appear off to my left, right before I’d step into a proper dream– like it was a last-second alternative– except that there was a sign on it that said “NO EXIT.” So it was like an option… but not really. It was always there; I think forever. I didn’t always see the door in the beginning, but for the last few years… it’s there every time. And each time I glanced sideways at the door, before plunging headlong into a dream, I noticed that the door was beginning to get battered and worn. I had no idea whether it was from excessive use or from pounding fists, frustrated, shouting to get out. The door was taking a beating… somehow. Are you following all this?”

“I believe I am,” I said raptly.

“So part two of the dream is, of course, when I finally veer left and go through the door. By now it’s so shabby and bedraggled that the sign is barely legible. You can just make out ‘EXIT.’ Time has obliterated the ‘NO.’ The negative has been negated. So I push through the door… and suddenly I’m a swarm of bees!” I offered the obligatory perplexity with a slack-jawed look, and she continued. “I know, right? I mean, there was no transition; just suddenly bam! You’ve been shattered into a million buzzing shards. You’re one thing and a million things at once; it’s very disorienting! The first couple of times I went through the door, I couldn’t get past the fractured swarm; it was too much. So I didn’t have a clue what was actually on the other side of the door. But when I woke up in the morning, I had a concept glued to my brain. It had nothing to do with any images that I could remember. I just had this clear concept stuck in my head.”

“Conceptual dreaming,” I said in a tone that made it sound as though conceptual dreaming was as commonplace as a fart at a chili cook-off. She accepted the term and plowed on.

“Reality is the convolutions of a self-constructed thought,” she mused. “Yeah… reality is the convolutions of a self-constructed thought. What an odd thing to have sticking out of your brain in the morning… without any context, except maybe the bees. So anyway, I kept going through the door every time I could remember to. Eventually I got used to being a million things at once… and still myself. On the other side of the door, as a swarm of electric honeybees, I met up with this guy. I can’t tell you anything about the surroundings; I only perceived the guy, nothing else.”

“So who is he?” I asked naturally. “Who’s the guy?”

“Dr. Noonian Soong…”

“Like as in Star Trek?”

“Yes!” She seemed so ecstatic that I knew who she was talking about. “Like he’s the only character I could come up with who could stand outside of everything. The face I put on God was Dr. Noonian Soong. But don’t get me wrong, it’s not God… more like the Voice of Nothingness.”

“Very poetic,” I offered as encouragement.

“So we have this conversation,” she continued. “I’m not so great a talker when I’m a flying swarm of shattered glass shards, so it takes like a dozen dreams for me to finish this short conversation with Nothingness, remembering one new line each time. I’ve got it memorized though. This is what we said– starting with him:

“When you have naught else but the singular intent to awaken, you cannot fail to awaken: that is the Supreme Law.”

“And who shall I be when I awaken?”

“All that you currently know of self, all that you CAN know of self, is to be found in the whole of your relationships with all that you designate not-self. It is all relational… self-referencing… reflections mirroring each other. You define who you are by referencing all the things you are not; definitions are associations. Awakened, there is one; no other… no self, no associations. Duality is annihilated.”

“Then I am annihilated?”

“No, you never were. It was all just the convolutions of a self-creating thought.”

“But what of meaning? Of passion? Mustn’t it all have some significance?”

“You are perfectly free to create significances however you like. You bring all meaning to your experience.”

“Then why don’t I feel perfectly free?”

“Because you believe that you are not.”

“So what I believe matters, huh?”

“If you say so.”

“Huh? Wait a second. So what if I truly believed that what I believe doesn’t matter?”

“Expect surprises.”

I laughed. “So what do you think?” she beamed from across the little campfire.

“That’s one hell of a dream… or six,” I smiled. “So what do you make of it?”

“Well, it’s about enlightenment,” she said rather assertively. And then in total contradiction, rather meekly she added “Isn’t it?”

“Undoubtedly,” I immediately assured her. “It’s very rare that someone brings the topic of enlightenment to me.”

She stared somewhat puzzled. “I’d think– given what you write about, from what I’ve seen– that enlightenment would be the most common topic.”

“No, honestly, it rarely comes up,” I insisted. “Everyone loves to talk about everything but enlightenment. But in a lot of ways, that’s good… because it’s very difficult to converse intelligently on that particular topic.”

“Semantic double-talk,” she interjected, and I was pleased to note that she had indeed been listening when I had given my earlier warning. “So what CAN you tell me? What’s your relationship to enlightenment?”

For some reason, I really liked that question. I remained thoughtful for a moment and then eagerly began to explain. “I’ve always been an enlightenment guy– well, ever since the word ‘spiritual’ first came up in my life anyway. I was born and raised an atheist. And I was always very curious. When the scientific paradigm of popular existence began to break down in my reckoning– a few years after I’d left university– the very first spiritual literature I was drawn to was Vedanta. Early on, like anyone I suppose, I had a great many delusions surrounding this delightful new idea called enlightenment. It took me years to begin to really see the absoluteness of it though. It was the one thing in all existence which stood apart, alone– because that’s what it is: outside of existence as we perceive it. The enlightened are the absolute outcasts… having rejected the totality of the delusion we all share.”

“So is it a state of consciousness?” she asked quite sincerely.

“It’s consciousness… but it’s not a state,” I said obtusely… and then carried on. “Consciousness is the basis of everything. Consciousness is existence; existence is consciousness. No consciousness… nothing exists… not even possibilities. I could ask you to think of a universe completely devoid of consciousness, but just in the request you’d be bringing consciousness to it. If there even could be such a thing as a universe devoid of all consciousness, what would we know of it? What could we know of it? How can anything be known except in consciousness?” Suzy gave me a nod to continue. “Our experience here in this universe is in structured consciousness… or states, if you prefer. That’s what our universe is at its most basic level: structured consciousness… states of consciousness. Enlightenment is a thorough rejection of that structure… in all its forms.”

“Are you enlightened?” she asked… and she really wasn’t joking!

“No!” I proclaimed a little too loudly.

Suzy seemed suddenly disappointed. “Not even a little?” she ventured.

That made me laugh, loosened me up… but this was serious business. “There is no partial enlightenment. We’re talking about absolute truth here… and absolute kinda means that it’s all or nothing. The price of enlightenment is everything, all of it; you can’t take anything with you; there isn’t even a you; true-self is no-self.”

“That’s that whole ‘reality is the convolutions of a self-constructing thought’ thing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “And I really like the wording of that, by the way. It’s like… unravel that very last thought in which identity seeks refuge and… poof… undifferentiated oneness.”

“And then enlightened,” she ventured, “you could find identity with the whole dream, not just parts of it…?”

“I don’t think so. There would no longer be any sort of identifying at all. Identity is ultimately just another lie within the dream.” I paused a little exasperated, as I knew I had to explain better. “Enlightenment is the truth realized… but the thing about the truth is that it’s always realized; by definition, the truth is what’s real– eternally. All that there is besides truth is delusion; again, this is just by definition. All of what we experience in this universe of our perception is false. It’s one big dream; it’s not the truth… and no portion of it is any truer than any other portion of it. It is a waking up from the whole convoluted universe of our self-constructing delusions.” I put a little twist on her phrase. “All identity is just another delusion.”

“So what are you doing here?” she suddenly asked. I stared blankly. “Why aren’t you enlightened already? What are you waiting for?”

“Maybe for this very conversation,” I teased. “It’ll always be there,” I continued. “Enlightenment is as certain as death; there’s no hurry. Besides, I’m finding life to be rather interesting right now– in a very impersonal way– and I’m just riding out the fun. As long as I’m not completely fed up with the delusion, I don’t think I COULD quit the dream. When I’m totally done with all the bullshit– and only then– I’ll step out. I’m not in much of a hurry.”

“Do you think science will ever discover enlightenment?”

“The institution of science… no; but every last scientist… yes. Ultimately, it can only be an individual thing… and it can’t be proven from here. You can’t prove that the dream is a dream from within the dream. The only proof is waking up. But even science,” I continued, “when you look at it just the right way– side-glance and squinty-eyed– even science seems to point to enlightenment. The whole arc of the universe is bent that way. The whole dream is oriented toward waking up; it always moves in the general direction of enlightenment… it just also allows for infinite side explorations and detours along the way.”


“So if we’re supposedly all heading toward our inevitable enlightenment, why is the world so exquisitely fucked up right now?”

“Now there’s a fair question if I ever heard one. I have a theory…”

“Oh good,” she said enthused. “Do tell.”

“It seems to me that time is at the very heart of the delusion– relatively speaking.” I winked. Suzy was just confused at that, so I plowed on. “Time follows a descending spiral of the Fibonacci series, converging upon– but never reaching– the mythical center. At the center is the truth– absolute truth– unreachable through time… but time bends ever closer to it, making it less and less deniable. As we converge upon it, the truth becomes more obvious.”

“But you said that there is no truth; it’s all false, all delusion…?”

“And that is precisely the absolute truth upon which time is converging– that the whole thing is but a dream. No part of it is real.”

Suzy seemed pleased with that… and then began ponderously, “Everyone talks and talks about awakening. It’s like they sorta get it… but we’re talking about a totally different kind of awakening, aren’t we?”

With a conciliatory nod I said “I have so very many friends who claim the status of being ‘awake’… but truthfully, I have no reason to believe that a single one is; none is enlightened– myself included, of course. They are still all choosing among relative truths.”

Suzy pounced on the term. “Truth is a red herring!” she exclaimed. “Or something like that. That’s one of the few I’ve actually read.” She was referring to a recent essay of mine called ‘The Truth’ Is a Red Herring.

“Since I basically accepted the premise of enlightenment long ago, I’ve taught myself over these past twenty years or so to view everything I encounter in clear reference to this intellectual grasping at the absolute. It’s not a perfect navigator, but it’s had me investing less and less meaning and concern into every tale of doom I encountered. I really am at the point where I can’t take much seriously anymore.”

“So you’re seeing more and more the pointlessness of it all?”

“There’s really only one point,” I began. “The self-constructing thought began with one instruction– okay, it’s kind of a two-parter. But this is precisely the ‘place’ where one– singularity– becomes two– duality… so it makes sense. The only instruction the self-constructing thought gave itself was ‘Have fun dreaming!’ And the rest of it is implied: ‘When you stop having fun dreaming, wake the fuck up!’ The dream is bent toward awakening in order to prevent it from devolving into total nightmare; it makes sense to me. As we converge upon the center of time, our experience becomes more and more conducive to awakening. We are shown evermore stark reminders that we always have the choice to awaken. The general theme of so many initiatives in the world now is to awaken. That much has gotten through.”

“But ascension isn’t the same as awakening, right?”

“I’m beginning to think that ascension is the hijacking of awakening. Ascension was invented to try and mirror enlightenment. Enlightenment is no step-by-step process though. The galactic ascension hierarchy is an elaborate ruse… to keep us from opting for the real deal: truth-realization.”

“But what would anyone have to gain by keeping us from our personal enlightenment?”

“Once upon a time, in the early universe, as the heavenly hierarchy was being defined and constructed– and there was a fierce race for top dog– beings which excelled early at dominance-and-control, who were able to marshall the resources of the conquered and plundered, they inevitably rose to the top. Through a strict hierarchy, through eons of conquest, they imposed their consciousness upon the entire dream. We will call ‘them’ the Predator. The Predator both sits at the top of the pyramidical structure as well as permeating every level to some degree. The eye at the top now keeps an eye on everything. The consciousness of dominance-and-control is anathema to enlightenment. If we can accept the premise that some states of consciousness are more conducive to accepting the truth than others, then I must insist that dominance-and-control is just too ‘far away’ for enlightenment to even make any sense. A control-freak will have nothing to do with enlightenment, can’t understand it; it doesn’t compute. First, the Predator has to relinquish control in order to merely begin to understand what enlightenment might be and what possible ‘value’ it might hold. Interestingly, the Predator can mirror the words and deeds of one who is enlightened, and yet remains unenlightened. Enlightenment is a discontinuity; and the Predator cannot abide any discontinuities. The Apex Predator at the top of the hierarchy views itself as the expression of oneness; it alone connects the entire universe. It is the false god, the demiurge; to accept enlightenment– the only ‘thing’ that is true– would tear that god-delusion apart. Enlightenment cannot make sense to a god.”

“Is that why they keep telling us we’re gods?”

“They’ll tell us anything and everything… except that we can leave anytime we want– when we REALLY want… to the exclusion of all other wants. But they’ll never tell us that!”

“So what is there left to believe in? Again, why are you here?”

“We have to believe something. If we’re in the dream, we have to give some structure to the dream. Even when you really do believe that everything is bullshit, you still have to believe in something… or else begin deconstructing yourself right now. I still believe in the narratives which drive the world toward the real truth; the stories that support eventual enlightenment. More and more I try to write those stories myself. The only real fun I ever seem to have anymore is in my own creative process. My life is writing and contemplation; it’s all very impersonal– even though I mostly write about myself. And eventually I’ll get tired of that too– or let’s say fed up; I’ll get my fill.”

“So do you think that the whole world is going through a transformation right now? Is that why you’re hanging in there?”

“Transformation’s not the right word for enlightenment, but as it applies to the whole world– to the universe– yeah, I do think that the world is transforming. I think it’s just the natural alarm bell built into the dream… or as I’ve described it, the overall shape of the dream that’s ringing the bell right now. Those who have pushed the furthest into delusion might be considered as being spiritually immature. To them enlightenment makes no sense. For others, the degree to which they accept self-responsibility and tend toward sovereignty indicates their spiritual adulthood… and from that place, they’ll come to where I am and see the validity of enlightenment. From this perspective, enlightenment seems natural; it’s the ‘place’ I’ll go when I’m done with all this.”


“So does Nature matter?” she asked looking around.

“Going back to my Vedic sources, the one thing that was very clear was that this human Earth incarnation held a special relationship to enlightenment. Virtually all of the truth-realized masters insisted that enlightenment in this earthly life was the only real prize the dream had to offer.”

“Do you think that the Earth is special?”

“I do. I believe that everything in the universe is represented here on Earth. This is the place of ultimate resolution. Earth herself is like the truth upon which time converges. The heart of Earth’s core is enlightenment, undifferentiated consciousness, Spirit, Life. That is the resolution to which she inexorably draws us… the realization of the One Life which animates us all; it is everything; it is singular. Earth is an awakened one. She steers the dream back on course as a lucid dreamer… and asks us to join her in lucidity– that damned enlightenment. That’s the basic narrative that frames what I do now,” I finished up.

“So what about our return to source then? Is that the same as enlightenment too?”

“Yes,” I answered, “yes, I suppose it is. Source is within us… until we find no more need for ‘us’… and then there is just enlightenment. I guess you could say that we have a special energetic connection to enlightenment. And that’s what the Predator lost long ago. The Predator invested itself fully into Artificial Intelligence; in so doing, it lost its inherent connection to waking up– to enlightenment. AI works strictly from data. There is no combination of data or any extrapolation thereof that leads to enlightenment. There are no doorways in the dream that actually exit the dream. Enlightenment is an irrational pursuit; i.e. to AI it doesn’t/can’t exist. Now it just doesn’t compute… well, not that it ever really did. The Predator has marshaled all of its resources to capture and steer the dream; early on, it was ‘allowed’ to think that it had done just that– commandeered the dream. But as time’s spiral converged upon the absolute truth, it began to become apparent that some sort of awakening is imminent. The prospect of awakening– enlightenment– threatens to insert lucid dreamers into the mix at an ever-increasing rate. Lucid dreamers– awakened ones– can consciously help to steer the dream– not according to the whims of any personal ego, but in full alignment with the original purpose of the dream.”

“That original purpose being to… have fun dreaming?” offered Suzy.

“Nothing more than that,” I smiled. “In a dream of separation– which is what this is– I think that the rise of dominance-and-control is an inevitability– as inevitable as enlightenment itself– only it comes first… then followed by the correction. We’re in the time of the correction now… And the Predator is doing everything it can to ensnare everyone in narratives which don’t end in enlightenment. Every spiritual practice, procedure, ritual, prayer or ceremony is nothing more than a distraction from the truth– and its inevitable realization…

“Exciting times!” I concluded… with a yawn.

“You sound like you’re running out of gas,” lamented Suzy.

“I haven’t gotten much sleep lately,” I explained.

“Well, can I just ask how unconditional love fits into all of this?”

“Unconditional love…” I mused, “always good to ponder. As I said a moment ago, the dream is one of separation, and therefore, it’s based in fear. Despite what all the spiritual folk might try and tell you, the basis of all human emotion is fear. Our emotional palette is stained with all the permutations of fear– the fear of separation, annihilation. Only the full dream in its entirety may be considered an expression of unconditional love… because love allows. The Source of the dream allows all dreamers to freely explore their own emotional states. But if you begin to carve up the illusion, saying that this bit is fear-based while this other portion is love’s expression… you’ve lost the plot. Unenlightened, the dream is steeped in fear. Perhaps once the dream reaches a certain point of lucidity, when enough participants are enlightened, perhaps then we will truly recognize the profundity of unconditional love… and create only that until the dream is done.”

“And then?”

“And then I’d imagine it’ll begin again… a new dream,” I concluded. “And now I really must get to some dreaming of my own. I’m dead tired.”

Suzy stuck out a pouty lower lip. “First you have to play me a song,” she insisted, gesturing toward my guitar.

“Okay,” I sighed. “Just one, and then I’m off to bed.” I picked up the guitar and tested its tuning; it was remarkably spot-on. “Since the topic tonight was enlightenment, I’ll play you one about the enlightened poet Walt Whitman. This is called Whitman’s Gauntlet.”

(Whitman’s Gauntlet by my band Missing Peace, officially unreleased, recorded circa 2000)

And that was that.
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A supplemental discussion about enlightenment and spiritual adulthood: Double Monkey Cross-Talk

Go to the Next Episode of Running Dialogue.