Panera

Have you been to Panera? It is not another country. The great sea of humanity that passes through Panera is symbolic of all of humanity on the march with a basic need for food, safety, and congeniality. That is what is offered at Panera. The variety of customers, all ages and types, and the attention the employees pay to them is stunning because we have grown used to being ignored or patronized. On top of this human benefit is the quality of the food and fair prices. It is more like a village than a cafeteria. It is a rendezvous for lovers, an office for a laptop , a park bench for old friends, a civilzed, tasteful, happy place to eat with someone or alone. Try it. You will love it!

The Heart IS a Lonely Hunter

The heart is a lonely hunter. Everyone happy or not has an irriversible lonliness that is cosmic and truly proof of the longing of the soul for fulfillment of a trancendent kind. The sad thing is that we mistake emotional attachments for the transcendent,so the love one has for another is a taste of cosmic love if we would just lift our attention to see it. This is not to deny earthbound human love, it is more to enlarge its nature. All of the people I have ever known were seeking this connection and their lives more or less reflected the search for cosmic love in relationships. This is why religion works for so many people. Meditation or Yoga is another way to lift your eyes to cosmic love. To still the mind and body is to approach the higher self. The higher self perceives the cosmic. That is why the heart is a lonely hunter - seeking, seeking, seeking.

Persons of No Consequence

Persons of no consequence.

The man of no consequence is not really present in the present. Nor is he present in the past or future. He is like a bookmark in the lives of people, helping them to come back to where they left off, but no more essential than the postage stamp on a letter. Essential, but of no consequence, very like a doorway and not the room one enters. It begins in childhood. Not being noticed and only dealt with because you are alive. You must be fed and clothed and housed. In later stages it is about feeling unheard, unfelt, unnoticed, left out. People are surprised when they find you present. You are not excluded. You just don't figure into other people's lives.In your school, your home, your work, you must assert yourself, and even then awarness of you passes off to another or something else. One becomes accustomed to it and it insulates you from most of real life. They do not read your blog because they don't know you are there even though you are.